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I tried to wake up in time to see Jenny Block on Fox this morning. I missed her actual portion, which, apparently, took up the first half of the show. I turned it on just in time to go to commercial with a promise to speak with people for whom polyamory did not work after the break.
AARRRGGGHHHHHH!
The woman who wrote "Survivors Of An Open Marriage" was there to explain why it nearly "destroyed her marriage" because .... (drum roll) eventually her husband fell in love with someone else and refused to stop loving her when his wife asked him to!
I wanted to shake her and scream "You're doing it wrong!"
Yes, yes, I realize there is no One True Way, but dammit, there are Wrong Ways! Trying to "control your emotions" (as the therapist said later) is futile. You don't "control your emotions", you learn from them, you use them, you work with them, and you control your behaviour.
Then, the therapist came on to declare that multiple partnerships are just "too complicated". There is "always" competition and jealousy and that leads to resentment. Always.
*bang bang bang bang* head on desk.
1) No, there isn't ALWAYS that stuff. Those are the products of insecurity, and if you are secure in your relationship, whatever the style, competition, jealousy and resentment are low to nonexistent. If you are insecure, whether you're poly or mono, you will have those.
2) And, if you DO have those feelings, that doesn't automatically spell doom. People who are committed to personal growth and to learning how to make their emotions work for them and to working THROUGH a negative emotion to finding the root cause to eliminate its occurance in the future with the same triggers, THOSE people are not doomed to failulre.
The segment concluded by the female host asking how the state of marriage in our society will survive with these attempts at open marriages. The therapist, who had the last word on the subject, pointed out that the divorce rate is 50% and that's just with two people, so can you imagine how complicated that would be with three people? It's just too complicated to work. Jenny just sat there smiling and being polite, for which she gets kudos, but I really wish she had the opportunity to rebutt that comment. The therapist was asked if it could ever work and she surriptitously looked at Jenny before very hesitantly saying "well, it can work for some people".
Goddamn fucking narrowminded media. Hmm, polyamory didn't work this one time I tried it, therefore the whole industry is flawed. But if monogamy doesn't work the first time we try it, just keep trying until you get it right. Also, it doesn't seem to occur to anyone that the reason therapists see failed relationships is because PEOPLE IN FAILING RELATIONSHIPS SEEK THERAPY! Yes, I know, there are lots of other reasons, I'm not picking on people who see therapists. I'm pointing out that their sample population is skewed.
*grumble grumble grumble*
Please keep in mind that I'm angry, so I may be given to hyperbole or sweeping statements that I know perfectly well have exceptions and moderations and are not concrete absolutes. For instance, I'm not picking on monogamists or people in therapy, nor do I really believe that all monogamous relationships fail, that all polyamorists are good at communication, work on their relationships, or can overcome anything if they just try hard enough. People are people. I shouldn't have to make these disclaimers, but I know someone will say "I control my emotions just fine!" or "I'm in therapy and it's not for my relationship". Please, settle down and let me rant in my journal.
****EDIT**** I sent Mike and Juliet an email. Here's what I said:
I am quite appalled at the way Mike and Juliet handled the episode on open marriages. The format ended on a negative note with no critical thinking applied to "therapist" and no chance for Jenny Block to rebutt her comments. Did it not occur to anyone that the reason a "therapist" thinks open relationships don't work is because she ONLY sees those people who are having problems? That people in successful relationships don't seek therapy? And there are PLENTY of successful relationships out there. I have been successfully polyamorous for over 10 years. I have a friends who has been in the open relationships for 20 or 30 years or more. On and on.
The reason you did not have any of these successful polyamorists on your show is because you requested a type of poly configuration that is very rare and accepted no alternative configurations. Plus, your wording of the request was, frankly, offensive. Most of us knew to stay away from your show simply based on the wording of your request and your show proved our fears true.
Next time, do a little research and learn to be a little lessed biased. You could start with the website http://www.xeromag.com/fvpoly.html and my own website http://www.theinnbetween.net/poly1.html
Your show is getting negative reviews all over the country as word spreads through the blogosphere in the polyamorous community, which, as Jenny said, is much more numerous than you'd think.
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I rejoice in your ranting!
Date: 9/25/08 02:53 pm (UTC)From:I have no failed love relationships. I was, apparently, born to form lasting relationships. Some people are. Some people have a much harder time with this. The reasons are as varied as the people are. There are no simple answers. Repeat that last sentence.
I am replying here to add that in my long experience, POLYAMORY WORKS JUST FINE. IF you will only apply the very same criteria to it that works for successful monogamous relationships. (I don't consider ANY number of years together only agreeing not to communicate "successful," by the way.)
I have been married 27 and 26 years. I can speak with some authority. My parents have been married 52 years and going. Here's the thing - poly cannot fix what you can't make work in monogamy. That seems to be the real trouble. There are no shortcuts, no answer but honesty and compromise and learning to trust and to share and to forgive and to love without restraint and to for heaven's sake work on conquering your own insecurities!
No simple answers. No one answer. Humans are hard to live with. Give up trying to simplify the process of learning how! Work hard for who you want to love more and more. The rewards for that hard work are unquestionable. Yes, even if that relationship doesn't work, you'll have learned stuff you will need. There is no useless learning where relationships are concerned. We are all students here, and all teachers. I learn new stuff all the time! I love it!!!
Re: I rejoice in your ranting!
Date: 9/26/08 12:49 am (UTC)From:I think that's a great phrase. That's sort of the compliment to what I mean when I make much longer statements to the effect of how poly needs X skills just to survive whereas monogamy is enhanced by those skills (communication, honesty, etc.). Your statement is sort of the flip side of that, I think, and much more elegant.
Re: I rejoice in your ranting!
Date: 9/26/08 12:59 am (UTC)From:Terri
ranting with you
Date: 9/25/08 03:27 pm (UTC)From:And can I tell you how much loathing I have for the in-house "experts" on these shows? Ignorant, smarmy, self-righteous pricks, every one of them, it seems. And they *always* structure it so that the "guests" have no time for rebuttal of the most outrageous comments on the part of the "expert." And then their "opposition"--GAH! Like you said "Gee, I'm an arrogant, self-centered jerk, and I think the whole world revolves around me. Because I am a jealous asshole, polyamory didn't work for me, and therefore, it can't work for anyone!" *barf*
Speaking of "experts," I have a personal copy of a bit of media that I know you've been seeking for a while. I was wondering if perhaps I could get your mailing address (offline of course) so that I could "loan" it to you for a little while? ;^)
Re: ranting with you
Date: 9/25/08 04:11 pm (UTC)From:"A married couple where the husband allowed another female into the relationship."
There are just so many things wrong with this statement. I just clicked delete and went on with my day.
Re: ranting with you
Date: 9/25/08 04:18 pm (UTC)From:And they wondered why no one was answering their ads!
Re: ranting with you
Date: 9/25/08 11:58 pm (UTC)From:Re: ranting with you
Date: 9/26/08 12:51 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 9/25/08 04:59 pm (UTC)From:the name of the segment was called I MARRIED A POLYGAMIST. The name of the show is/was called Living the Life. It showed around 9:30am.. It spoke about how all women are brainwashed into poly... and held prisinor.. I hate not having a gf... But I love being Poly. News they always claim they aren't one sided but I've seen otherwise time and time again.!!
I'm not liking it either
Date: 9/25/08 08:13 pm (UTC)From:Re: I'm not liking it either
Date: 9/26/08 12:45 am (UTC)From:Re: I'm not liking it either
Date: 9/26/08 11:35 am (UTC)From:http://polyinthemedia.blogspot.com/2008/09/open-marriages-on-foxs-morning-show.html
Re: I'm not liking it either
Date: 9/26/08 02:57 pm (UTC)From:Re: I'm not liking it either
Date: 9/26/08 08:05 pm (UTC)From:Makes me really glad I didn't know ANYone who fit this particular stereotype.
no subject
Date: 9/25/08 11:29 pm (UTC)From:i don't consider my former marriage a poly failure. i don't consider a relationship ending to be a failure. not all relationships are going to last 'til death do us part'! that doesn't make them failures.
i'm now engaged to be married again. we have dated for the last three years, and we have both had other partners throughout that time. when we decided to commit to marriage, our other relationships had ended for various reasons, and we agreed to be monogamous for an open-ended period of time. we will keep the possibility of polyamory open for discussion, but right now neither of us is interested in having other partners.
no subject
Date: 9/26/08 12:43 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 9/26/08 01:19 am (UTC)From:And his therapist isn't crazy about the idea either, though she's more diplomatic about it. Fortunately, she's also an excellent therapist, from what I can gather, so she doesn't seem to be pushing him into thinking that it MUST be a problem. It probably also helps that he's been in therapy with her since before we became poly, so she can see that he already had plenty of problems before (though not marriage problems), and becoming poly hasn't caused any new problems. Which, of course, is largely due to the fact that our relationship was in great shape before we became poly.
I imagine it's pretty difficult in general for poly people to find a good therapist, whether they need therapy for relationship stuff or for unrelated stuff such as, in my husband's case, clinical depression.
no subject
Date: 9/26/08 02:26 am (UTC)From:There are constant requests on the various online poly communities for good therapists who won't condemn poly or assume it's the poly that's causing the problems. But I hear there are some good ones out there and there is even several websites that list poly-friendly therapists when they are made aware of them. And one researcher has even put together a document called What Every Therapist Should Know About Polyamory and it's quite good. I reference it myself in many of my own lectures/resources about polyamory.
no subject
Date: 9/26/08 02:54 pm (UTC)From:Also, Loving More's Robyn Trask, as well as NCSF's Susan Wright and ITCR's Jim Fleckenstein have already presented several programs on open relationships/polyamory at SSSS and ASECT conventions, and routinely the rooms are packed. Also, ITCR is working on a brochure project and ways to get brochures into the hands of marriage and family therapists to better educate them.
All that said, there's clearly still a lot of work to do in thisi area.
no subject
Date: 9/26/08 07:09 pm (UTC)From:It is a book about unlikable people making glaringly stupid mistakes, and then analyzing those mistakes to come to even worse conclusions.
I'd much rather see books about people who make mistakes and then learn from them, and grow in positive directions.
There is great value in a guide of "what not to do", but in this case the analysis does not offer up any alternatives of ways that things could have gone differently or better. In the author's opinion, open relationships are 100% doomed to fail spectacularly - and of course that must be true because she can't even begin to imagine anyone else making things work any better than she did.
The entire structure of the Survivors book seems to be written to justify the final conclusion of the author - that it is impossible to love multiple people at one time, it is impossible to have a healthy secondary relationship without emotional involvement cropping up and thus threatening the primary, and in the end only monogamy and God can lead you to happiness.
*ugh*
- Chris
no subject
Date: 9/26/08 08:11 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 10/1/08 01:08 am (UTC)From:Think I should?
no subject
Date: 10/1/08 03:28 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 9/27/08 01:15 am (UTC)From: