Snakeadelic
12-28-2015, 06:07 PM
As most of us know, the art of the physically and emotionally intimate relationship can be a very tetchy business even when only two people are involved. I've been around many differing family arrangements and would love to hear from anyone else who has (or knows someone with) anxiety challenges while involved in multiple-partner, long-distance, or other "unusual" lifestyles. I don't regard LGBT relationships on their own as unusual. While I was still on the partner market, I dated bisexuals, lesbians, and a couple of lovely trans women. I had the truly heartwarming experience once of finding out that a neighboring couple in one place consisted of a drag king, Lincoln, and his very sweet and charming partner Azura, whose bronze sculpture of an angelic torso still adorns my desk 17 years later, and watching them realize I didn't think they were "weird" or "wrong" or "sick"--they were just PEOPLE to me and always will be. Don't get me wrong; I'm prejudiced just like anyone else might be. It's just that "stupid" doesn't have a skin color, or a country of origin, or a specific religious belief, or a sexual orientation.
The hardest lesson I had to learn about my own lifestyle "choice", which is polyamory, is that poly-groups have all the same relationship troubles as pairs but that each additional partner increases the chance of those troubles exponentially. In another stroke of wildly great luck, I happened to find 2 partners who understand that anxiety disorder is its own serious problem unrelated to any relationship stress. They both know when I say "I need solitary time" it does NOT mean "I don't want to be around you". I've known extremely happy poly-groups numbering up to seven, and some with only 3 involved that made everyone in and around the relationships miserable. Some relationships made me happy in my monogamous days, though the majority did not for varying reasons.
I'd love to hear from anyone who has dealt with anxiety and non-average partnership situations!
The hardest lesson I had to learn about my own lifestyle "choice", which is polyamory, is that poly-groups have all the same relationship troubles as pairs but that each additional partner increases the chance of those troubles exponentially. In another stroke of wildly great luck, I happened to find 2 partners who understand that anxiety disorder is its own serious problem unrelated to any relationship stress. They both know when I say "I need solitary time" it does NOT mean "I don't want to be around you". I've known extremely happy poly-groups numbering up to seven, and some with only 3 involved that made everyone in and around the relationships miserable. Some relationships made me happy in my monogamous days, though the majority did not for varying reasons.
I'd love to hear from anyone who has dealt with anxiety and non-average partnership situations!