(1) Two marriages. A son. A daughter. One monogamous relationship after another for more than 25 years. Very few gaps or breaks. Call this serial Romantic Monogamy (RM). For many reasons I am and never (strong word) will be RM again. Why? What then?
(2) A pattern is a solution to a common problem. An anti-pattern is also a pattern, but one that is usually ineffective or destructive. Patterns are an engineering idea. Just as applicable to sociological and psychological domains. RM is an anti-pattern. RM is also typically seen as the only possible pattern. And there are alternatives.
(3) It is not unusual for patterns to constrain us, to define our thinking. Astronomy. Predict the future location of planets and moons in the sky. Ptolemaeus's model is for this. It is the most accurate, most famous geocentric model of the universe. Also arbitrarily complex. Every planet except Earth moves in a circle. Each circle also moves in a circle. Every circle and circle-in-a-circle rotates at a different speed. And Earth is not at the centre of the universe but must be offset slightly from it to make the predictions more accurate (a "near-geocentric" model?). Yet Earth's location is uniquely fixed despite the offset. Even so, even with all these adjustments solely motivated by more accurate predictions, the Ptolemaic prediction is often wrong by 10 degrees or more. Geocentrism is an anti-pattern.
(4) Elsewhere in science also. Newtonian physics is by and large all we need, it's usually not an anti-pattern. It's mathematically much simpler than quantum and relativistic physics. But it doesn't work for very small, very fast or very big things. And without the quantum and relativistic patterns - no lasers, no GPS, no nano-scale integrated circuits and none of the meta-materials that make my mobile phone antenna work.
(5) Patterns are less visible in human relationships. But they are just as applicable to sociological and psychological domains. Popular conception of a romantic relationship is RM. Two people, exclusively interested in each other. The relationship is a success until it ends, at which point it was always a failure.
(6) RM can work. An RM relationship can endure, it can be happy, and it can meet both peoples' needs. These three are not the same thing. Usually it doesn't, and the many weak points are cliched tropes all because they are inevitable structural consequences of monogamy.
(7) RM demands that partners are primary to each other, typically in all aspects. This leads to terrible dysfunction, typically in all aspects. Partners do things together that neither enjoys, but they do it because it is socially expected or "for the relationship". Holidays together. Activities together. Eating together. Living together. Sleeping together. Physical, sexual intimacy. More, and worse, people often also stop doing things they really want to because of their partner. I change what I watch on TV, I listen to different music, I do different recreational activities. Also for them. A binary monopartner-centric model.
(8) There is a balance. Compromise is a good thing. Sacrifices may even be needed. Relationship can have boundaries and limits. Time for selves. This is only healthy. It's not primacy. It's not RM. It's the crack in the dam and begs the question, "What boundaries, what limits, why?" It hints at other patterns.
(9) Worse, RM usually means more than just changing activities. It also means picking some relationships over others. Cishet examples simpler. The woman who must end her life-long platonic male friendship. The man who can't go dancing with his old university dance team partner. Why? Primacy. Primacy, and the fear that is almost the definition of RM. "They're going out with me, they're mine now, I own them, I should control them. I also don't trust them. My partner. My precious." Maybe not in so many words, but it is what is meant.
(10) Monogamy is a central tenet of RM. It is, as they say, in the name. But what is the impact on me if my partner (a partner) kisses someone else? Has sex or is emotionally intimate with someone else? Loves someone else? Coldly, it takes nothing from me that I actually had. At most an incorrect expectation. There's nothing I’ve missed out on, unless I thought I owned my partner and controlled them. Only if I force a choice, me or this other, do I actually stand to lose anything. And it's happening because they need something they're not getting from me. If I’m putting my partner first then their connection with another is a wonderful thing. Monogamy is its own anti-pattern.
(11) We have many friends. We have many family members. Why can we have only one romantic, sexual, and intimate relationship?
(12) It's useful to remember Aurelius: "Choose not to be harmed, and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed, and you won't be harmed." And Seneca, "we suffer more from imagination than from reality." In fact there are very few things in life that actually do harm us, but the RM demands we might put upon ourselves or our partner can cause real loss and real harm.
(13) People change over time. Our interests change. Who we are changes. What we need changes. On marriage, Kahlil Gibran writes, "For the pillars of the temple stand apart. And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each others' shadow." But it's not just where the trees are planted that matters, or that they do not grow in each others' shadow. It's also the specific directions they grow. Together or apart. Sometimes we can shape this, sometimes we can't, but that growth is over time and ultimately defines the connection.
(14) In contrast, an RM relationship is static and either a success or a failure. It is a success while it lasts, no matter the distance between the tree tips, and it is a success in perpetuity if one of the participants dies in it (so long as it was not at the hand of the other). But that trees grow together and apart is an incidental fact. And even if they grow apart then the places where they were close will always be close (but not too close). We do not lose the good because it is in the past, and the present isn't good because of a potential future. RM's definition of a good relationship is wrong.
(15) What is a good relationship? A well cared for garden. A positive feedback loop. Some or all of the overlap of interests, personality, needs, and capacity. Nothing more nothing less. The overlap and connection might grow. They might not. It can be guided, encouraged, never controlled. It gives joy, support, intimacy, kindness, and connection. It does not need to last forever. It can be brief or long, so long as it is positive for both. It might sometimes be work or a sacrifice but it should never be an obligation.
(16) What isn't a good relationship? The opposite. Obligatory: Immutable, eternal, monogamous in spirit, activity, intimacy, physicality or time. Forbidding, controlling, jealous, envious: My partner, intimacy, and activity.
(17) These definitions lead to Ethical Non-Monogamy (ENM). ENM is the romantic analogue of a world in which I can have more than one platonic friend, more than one employee, more than one family member. It's this world. ENM, in short, is motivated by the sort of sensible pragmatism that informs social life more broadly, that will give me and my connections the most joyous, joy-giving life.
(18) ENM is not one pattern. A multiplicity of modus vivendi. I need to connect mind-to-mind, heart-to-heart, and body-to-body. I need to know and trust my connections. I need love. This is Polyamory. But no escalators or expectations, no destination, no need for each relationship to fit the same template. So it's Relationship Anarchy. A synthesis. Polyana. Less about having more, or better, overlap of me with many. More about forbidding less.
(19) Reflecting, mono to poly was easy. I am happy that my partners have others. I am not threatened. The mindful present. Why? Why so easy? Self-love. Self-confidence. Self-appreciation. Self-sustaining. How those foundations? Harder. Not immediately clear. Did it. Reflect and write them another time.
(20) ENM also depends on honest ownership of my own feelings, fears, anxieties and needs. Non-violent communication. The RM fear of loss is a real fear. RM can force it but waving the polyana wand doesn't make it go away. I am happy that polyana demands and enables more honest, genuine, authentic communication. A real sharing of needs and capabilities and wants. Non-violent communication. They help mitigate the fear.
(21) No judgement of those who want different types of ENM, or of the RM idealists who are determined to try again. I know what I need. Everyone is different. I reject monogamy and RM as the necessary template for a relationship, as the only pattern. I choose polyana as a better pattern. For me, for future me, for my connections.
(22) Sources and other analysis: