Understand how non-monogamous relationships work

At school we learned from the poet Luís Vaz de Camões to sigh aloud for romantic love and to understand it as a “wanting to be imprisoned by will”. That’s still the case for many people who are content to be paired. However, old Camões, in this inventive 21st century, more and more people complain about exclusivity. Tie too tight. They claim that love can be elastic and porous, without ceasing to be love.

It’s all very new, poet. Not even lovers are sure how far they can go. They grope these alleys with curious hands. They separate the bearable needles from the intolerable ones; identify the practices that provide oxygen to each one’s wants, those that are anchored in honesty and those that, to the greatest surprise, rekindle the flame doped by the predictability of married life.

What’s Behind Non-Monogamy?

Just take a quick tour of social media to feel the temperature of the monogamy versus non-monogamy debate. “Questioning these new forms of relationships loving is to question the very notion of love”, observes the psychoanalyst and writer Ana Suy, author of People Aim at Love and Hit at Loneliness (Paidós), among other titles.

For a long time, marrying for love meant holding on to the part that we are supposedly missing until the end of our days. It will be that, without the monogamous contract, love escapes through the first crack in the window. It turns out that past paper, promise of fidelity and alliance do not guarantee the survival of the desire to remain together. Even more shielded from the breezes blowing outside. Adults know this. As well as that, over the years, we change, we start to want other things, to have other needs, to think other thoughts.

Relationships that want to be free

“The fear of the fluidity of desires and feelings runs through the entire monoculture of affections and sexuality. There is an expectation that only what is static and ‘forever’ is good and true”, identifies Geni Nuñez, Guaraní indigenous activist and Master in Social Psychology. About ten years ago, she recognized herself as non-monogamous and, breaking this path with the support of studies, experiments and exchanges, she noticed how much jealousy, control and possession still haunt relationships that want to be free.

No matter how ready someone feels to break away from the molds, the deconstruction of a system ingrained in us does not happen on impulse, nor is it immune to confrontations with our prejudices and resistance. And there is more to a maturation that, between advances, leaps and setbacks, goes on showing that other ways of experiencing affection are legitimate and reliable. “It is possible to love and be loved in concomitance, in collectivity, in overflow”, defends Geni.

Agreements, rules and experiments

In any case, it would be rash to go around saying that one model is more evolved than the other; that in one there are fewer fights than in the other. Living a love story, whatever format it takes, requires commitment to build something that worth it and malleability to overcome the stony stretches. “Being in an open relationship can bring about as many conflicts as a monogamous relationship”, emphasizes Claudia Petry, an educator specializing in Clinical Sexology and a member of the Brazilian Society of Human Sexuality (SBRASH).

Let’s imagine a monogamous couple who decide to air out their relationship. From there, will you be allowed to stay with several people or just one? How much time will be devoted to the other meetings? What will be shared from these experiences and what will be kept private? Can you fall in love or better walk away if the bond thickens? Precisely because this type of arrangement does not come with a pre-made frame, frank conversation is even more necessary. There are those who choose to establish from the outset what will be accepted or not, while others prefer to “legislate” as situations and their impacts arise.

Non-monogamous relationships are not immutable

“Rules and boundaries should be described, discussed and defined only by the couple involved. Open dialogue, as free as possible from beliefs and prejudices, leads to more assertive decisions. But get ready to see them again and again, because non-monogamous relationships are not immutable”, recommends Claudia. What causes discomfort in one may be negligible for the other, and this will often be a problem. discovery, a revelation of his own audacity to try something new. “A loving relationship presupposes that you experience yourself in what you don’t know about yourself in the relationship with the other”, reiterates Ana Suy.

Chance to work out

Did not like. I was shaken. I crossed my limits. I want to retreat. Or else I’m lighter. I feel that now I can be myself. Our relationship deepened. Viviane Noda, specialist in regenerative businesses, accepted this trail after years of exclusivity, at the suggestion of her partner at the time. Long before the subject was aired on the internet.

“As we accumulated hurts and disappointments, in my view this was the last possibility to work out. And I was also curious to meet other people, since that desire has always existed”, she says, admitting that she threw herself into it without having any idea of ​​what her limits were and how far she would go. “I realized that I was uncomfortable telling him, but he was not. So, we started to understand what the agreements were to build a place of trust and comfort”, she says.

Experience can be enriching

“In any kind of love relationship, when we put all the chips in a single way to make it work, it is the most dangerous way to relate to someone”, warns Ana. Not infrequently, she says, people adhere to these new pacts thinking they will solve their marital problems, since they will enjoy greater freedom to nourish themselves with foreign experiences to that link. But they are often mistaken. On the other hand, Claudia points out, being in a healthy monogamous relationship and choosing to open it can be enriching for the couple who choose to do so. More interesting than being closed off and unhappy in the conventional mold.

For Viviane lived eight years of non-monogamy. During this period, she came to relate to another person in a fixed way, questioned herself about the meaning of that choice, wore out, felt helpless and, finally, realized that free love sounded illusory because everything has limits : us, our emotions, our time, our energy, our money. “I think that a non-monogamous relationship can work, but most people still haven’t discovered what the limit is so as not to make room for disrespect and excessive individualism that prevents us from looking at each other”, she concludes.

Beware of the link

Sticking together hurts. In 2018, Sofia was in an open relationship and her partner Fernando (both fictitious names to preserve the couple’s identity) had not understood that he could not have the same degree of involvement with another woman. It happened. She didn’t like it. The bond ended up dissolving forward. Even so, he does not see himself in a sealed relationship, because he understands that we do not control the other’s desire to diversify his affective experiences.

Furthermore, he would not give up the well-being he found when ridding himself of guilt. But what if one is able to go out more than the other? Wouldn’t that be unfair? “I think it’s important for people not to compete with their partners. Today I choose to do what I think is best in this moment and feel good about myself. It was a big step”, clarifies Sofia.

Does freedom have barriers?

A year ago, she proposed to Fernando that they stay together with the freedom to get involved with other people if they wanted to. This was brand new to him. “It took me months to deconstruct the jealousy issue, reading, reflecting, analyzing”, says Fernando. “I am still in this process, but I understood that the most important thing is how we are cultivating our relationship, regardless of whether we are with other people or not.” Amazed, he also confesses that this bond is, by far, the most pulsating he has experienced to date.

However, even depositing our noblest intentions in free love, happiness cannot be guaranteed. Each step carries the risk of being surprised by the imponderable. Living is jumping with the courage of trapeze artists in search of more life. There are so many nuances in this debate that, at a certain point, it seems that we are groping our way through a labyrinth. In the opinion of psychoanalyst Ana Suy, the greatest difficulty in sustaining a love relationship lies in the fact that love, one way or another, fails.

“What sustains the existence of love as a fantasy that someone will complete me at some point is the realization that this escapes, no matter how much I find someone who crosses and changes me. It has to be like that for me to want it to happen again”, she exposes. After all, reminds Ana, we are helpless beings and we need another. That’s why we invented a thousand ways for love to continue to exist.

Per Rafaela de Campos Mello – rSimple Life magazine

He is a journalist and is fascinated by the ingenuity of Eros to promote love.