Loving Kindness

Loving Kindness

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Non-traditional love based romantic relationships, marriages, and lifelong partnerships, Part I





In the movie, Harold and Maude, which first came out in 1971, viewers are presented with a love based and romantic relationship between a free spirited, some might say eccentric, but I wouldn’t, elderly (79 years old) Nazi concentration camp female survivor and a quirky, death-obsessed yet good hearted young and very wealthy man in his early to mid-20s. It is based on a novel by Colin Higgins written the same year. And if it had not occurred before, at least not in cinematic form, the world now had one of its best, beautifully presented, and most enduring examples of a non-traditional, authentic, loved based, and romantic relationship that did not have anything to do with same sex attraction or overwrought insanity on the parts of one or both partners. And if you know anything at all about me you know I find absolutely nothing wrong with same sex attraction nor overwrought insanity. Well, as long as the overwrought insanity doesn’t involve anything it is assumed any believed to be sane person might not also desire in a love based relationship.

I, for one, have been in a number of love based relationships that many fine, upstanding, Christian Americans with a mortgage, two car garage, a pet Maltese, and a pet Siamese cat would probably consider very non-traditional, fake, or even scandalous. In fact, when I think about it, every single one of my romantic relationships probably fit that description and very easily so, including my current one. Because of this, I have thought about the topic of non-traditional love based romantic relationships, marriages, and lifelong partnerships quite a bit over the past many years.

First let’s identify the (false) gold standard of love based relationships, marriages and lifelong partnerships. This is likely changing because of the ever increasing number of countries that are now legally recognizing marriage equality, including the good ole USA—this, BTW, often does not extend to couples where one or both partners are transgender—and, I believe that false gold standard, for many people across the world, still leaves out same sex relationships. So here is what I believe that baseline gold standard is. It is a relationship between one man and one woman where this one man and this one woman do not primarily have a power exchange/BDSM/fetish or “kink” based relationship. It is a relationship where it is believed these two people are “soulmates” or “twin flames” or otherwise are deeply “in love” with each other, and where this “in love-ness” supersedes any and everything else that might possibly also be present in the relationship. And it is necessarily believed that no other person can realistically or even possibly ever threaten the assumed monogamy and eternal in-love nature of the paring. I may be forgetting a point or two. However, I think that’s essentially it in a nutshell. A dazzling Miss Congeniality crown and sash will be given to two person limited, monogamous, gay male or lesbian couples who otherwise meet the rest of that criteria.

So that false gold standard, I believe, leaves a whole lot of present day couples flailing out in the breeze. And it is that massive wind vacuum that I desire to respectfully, lovingly, and beautifully explore and legitimize.

Into that tunnel are love based relationships, marriages, and lifelong partnerships that involve more than two consenting adults in the mix, all of whom have specifically and very consciously in conjunction with one another designed the relationship, marriage, or partnership to include more than two such people. It includes power exchange/BDSM/fetish or “kink” based relationships that have this as the primary or one of the primary glues and shared interests of and in the relationship. It includes relationships where the conventional definition of “being in love” is not present, never has been present, will never be present, and is believed is not needed to be present to substantiate and legitimize the relationship nor its longevity. It includes relationships, marriages, and lifelong partnerships where simply finding an additional parent for the kid or kids was clearly the principal and either the stated or unstated principal reason for the relationship and where a more traditional in-love based element either has or hasn’t developed. It includes relationships, marriages, and lifelong partnerships that do in fact involve a coupling between one man and one woman, where this one man and this one woman do not primarily have a power exchange/BDSM/fetish or “kink” based relationship. It’s where it is a relationship where it is believed these two people are “soulmates” or “twin flames” or are otherwise deeply “in love” with each other, and where this “in-love-ness” supersedes anything else that might possibly also be present in the relationship. And it is where it is necessarily believed no other person can possibly ever threaten the assumed monogamy and eternal in-love nature of the paring—however, it’s also one where the woman is twenty-five or more years older than the man.

This false gold standard does not include relationships where financial security for one of the partners is either the stated or unstated yet absolutely the principal reason for the coupling. It does not include relationships where one partner has been classified as having “average or above average IQ” by the American Psychological Association’s intelligence testing based guidelines and where the other partner has been classified as having “borderline intellectual functioning” or has Down Syndrome or otherwise has been determined as having “significantly below average or lower IQ.” It does not include relationships, marriages and partnerships where both partners have consciously chosen to live in different countries for all but a few weeks of each year and where this arrangement has successfully been in place for decades. It does not include relationships, marriages, and lifelong partnerships where one partner is on death row or is otherwise incarcerated. It does not include relationships, marriages, and lifelong partnerships where one or both partners have taken a traditional vow of celibacy as this applies to Roman Catholic clergy and other Roman Catholic religious personnel guidelines, Orthodox Christian, or other religious group guidelines, etc. I could go on and on. However, I believe you get the picture.

You may have found that some or a lot of judgment and resistance around reading about one or more of these type relationships as being legitimate came up for you as you were reading all of those different relationships types.

Nevertheless, many love based relationships, marriages, and lifelong partnerships do not represent the false gold standard that many cultures have set up around this topic. And many such relationships marriages, and partnerships that believe they in fact represent this illusory gold standard, in point of fact, do not. Boom! Bam! Thank you ma’am!

So, just where do we go from here with all of this? I’ll attempt to grapple with that in part 2.

Photo by devilskey

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