You Don't Have to Be "the Best" to Feel Secure in Love (Patreon)

Good morning cutie,

I hope your Sunday is peaceful. Today, by request, let's talk about uncoupling emotional security from a sense of primacy in love. (Basically, how do we let go of clinging to external signifiers of "success," or of being "the best," and instead root our safety in something deeper?) 

I will include all relevant links in the transcript below.

I hope it serves!

With love,

Morgan

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TRANSCRIPT:

[Preamble that repeats the opening paragraph of this post]

So, what does it mean to separate our sense of safety from a feeling of superiority? In my opinion, it doesn't mean we have to let go of deriving security from partnerships entirely. It doesn't even necessarily mean letting go of hierarchy. But there are some key caveats to those statements. Let's dive in.

Unpacking mononormativity

If it's a newer term to you, mononormativity refers to a society's rituals and laws that center monogamy as the norm, and frame anything else as inherently deviant.

Within a mononormative environment, there will often be social forgiveness for non-monogamists who express shame for their deviance. That's why you'll see people tolerate cheating in a marriage, but view consensual polyamory as the downfall of "western society" (a euphemism for colonized and Christian societies.)

The work of unpacking mononormativity is a long process. It's political work that should (in my opinion) center the voices of people whose ancestors were colonized and enslaved. Colonial expansion deliberately erased polygyny, polyandry, matriarchal polytheism, egalitarian non-monogamy, and other supposedly uncivilized ways of structuring a community. This erasure was, and still is, explicitly white supremacist.

I recommend the work of @antimononormative as well as @marjanilane who explore non-monogamous history while centering BIPOC experiences. A People's History of the United States (Zinn) shares passages from colonizer logs that describe the non-monogamous communities they encountered, as well as their calculated strategy to enforce monogamous Christianity. Jorge Ferrer wrote an academic article called "Mononormativity, Polypride, and the 'Mono-Poly Wars'" which is an example of research that is both critical and validating of non-monogamous perspectives. (I try to seek out resources that embrace nuance and moral relativism, rather than treat monogamy/non-monogamy as two monolithic poles.)

Anyway, that's just a jumping off point for this foundational work. Any resources created by human beings, self included, will have biases and shortcomings. But in general, if a resource comes from the POV of an historically victimized community, there's a better chance of it being helpful in building more just systems.

Unpacking the personal need for primacy

One thing I don’t want to do here is conflate the maladaptive pursuit of primacy with the act of having a hierarchy. I think that’s how a lot of people wind up moralizing hierarchy as inherently harmful. There are plenty of people I know who are happy to be a secondary partner. Plenty of hierarchies have flexibility, open to negotiation if anyone feels harmed.

However, when pursuit of hierarchy is rooted in the unexamined belief that first place = emotional security, that’s when things get shaky to me. Along with that position comes a host of other potentially harmful behaviors (e.g. only welcoming metamours who “know their place”, controlling partners’ relationships out of fear of abandonment, harassing or digitally stalking metas because of jealousy, etc.). Any polyamorous choice made from a place of fear is likely to have unintended consequences and hurt feelings.

Of course, people in non-hierarchies can want a form of primacy, too. It’s often a bit more compartmentalized, e.g. wanting to be the funniest, the sexiest, the only nesting partner, the only one they have kids with, etc. We can want non-hierarchy, and still have a desire to be the best or only ______ partner.

So why is that?

Beyond our broader social conditioning, there may be personal traumas that fuel this desire to be “more important” in order to feel safe. Maybe there was neglect in our families of origin, or competition between siblings for a parent’s time / attention. It’s unfortunately not rare for caregivers to act as if they have a favorite child, or for kids to internalize their parent’s abandonment as a sign they’re not loveable enough. I’m not a psychologist, so I can’t really muse on all the potential origins of these fears. But I do want to validate that this mentality can absolutely be started right at home. If accessible, I encourage people to explore these deeper seated issues with trusted professionals.

It’s also very possible that present-day factors are reinforcing these ideas. Maybe our date feels an urge to compare us to their other partners, as if still choosing between monogamous options. Or maybe they claim non-hierarchy, but are demonstrably prioritizing someone over us. There’s merit in questioning whether a partner’s actions are creating a sense of scarcity, whether consciously or unconsciously.

Unlinking the material expression of care with romantic safety

Sometimes, the material expression of love looks like cohabitation, joint finances, a marriage, etc. These are longer term commitments that can give us a sense of safety in our relationships. As long as we’re building something, they’re not going anywhere, right? Wellllll that attitude, in my opinion, is a capitalist one, conflating acquisition and growth with success. It can be why we overlook red flags or mistreatment, because hey we’re accelerating, which means we’re solid. It can be why our self worth plummets after a break up, because we stopped building together. (That attitude, by the way, ignores the reality that many breakups happen because one or more people need to grow in a different way the dynamic won’t allow). Personal, solo growth is very important, and not more or less valid than growth with a partner.

If I’m mainly feeling secure because I have a document that says legally married, maybe I risk staying in that marriage longer than feels right for me, just because I fear losing that security. Maybe I risk looking down on a metamour as less important, or I talk myself out of jealousy because they clearly “aren’t a threat” to what we built. (In reality , I’d prefer to see people as not threatening because I’m in an emotionally secure relationship with people who wouldn’t make us compete for time or attention.)

It’s not a problem to pursue these things, I just think it’s important to reckon with the fluidity of life. I love my NP, and we also have a path available to not be roommates anymore if that ever feels right. We got married, and talked openly about the terms of divorce if that ever feels right. Anyone who walks into our lives can negotiate a cohabitation or marriage or child rearing with anyone else. And pursuing those things with other partners doesn’t have to mean my current NP and I are less secure in our dynamic.

It’s also completely valid to mourn a changing relationship. When things go counter to our expectations, they can be disappointing at best, devastating at worst. But if possible, I think it’s important to not link our emotional security to these actions or labels or relationship statuses. When we do that, we tie our inner world to external circumstances beyond our control.

I suppose that’s a long way to say: don’t worship escalation as superior, and don’t position deescalation as inferior. Pausing, staying the same for years, or even winding down can also define success. If we struggle with viewing it this way, well that sort of circles back around to unpacking the capitalist, colonial and white supremacist foundations of our current society.

What do we do about it?

Basically, I see the path forward as one that consists of doing our own therapeutic work, our own conflict resolution work in our relationships, and our personal work of unpacking our political and philosophical views of love. There is a dailiness needed for this work, in my experience. I can’t just decide to feel safer, or decide that I’m no longer subscribing to white supremacist ideals. There are layers, there are phases to this. It takes time, and it can move at an incredibly frustrating pace. But every time we engage with this work, we move a little closer to a reality where we can feel secure no matter how our relationships look.

xx