Bad Columnist! No Cookie For You!

[joreth]

So, Psychology Today has an advice columnist who has apparently not updated her ideas about couples counseling since the decade of disco.  Last I checked, it was not yet available on the website, but an image of the page of the magazine it will appear on has made it to the internet.

I'd like to encourage everyone, poly and mono-but-poly-friendly, to flood this magazine with positive examples of "open relationships" that work.  While acknowledging that not *all* relationships work, try to avoid dwelling on the negative aspects and emphasize, instead, the positive aspects of open relationships in your letters.  If you have any psychological background at all, citing references and sources would be fantastic, but mostly, personal anecdotes of relationships that *work* will go a long way to contradict her statement that they "never work".

Here is a link to the Poly In The Media blogspot, which gives a summary of the article and a link to the page's image, in addition to an opinion and a couple of professional psychology-related sources on polyamory, and the links to the magazine's website and the contact-us form to send your letter. (http://polyinthemedia.blogspot.com/2009/03/psychology-today-columnist-lays-egg-of.html)

And here is the first draft of my own letter.  It desperately needs to be edited and cut down - I'm way to wordy for my own good.  Concise, non-confrontational letters are best, but both of those traits are not part of my natural repetoir of conversing, so I have some work to do:

To Ms. Marano and PT editors:

I have trouble understanding how a magazine called Psychology Today could be so behind the times on an issue of human psychology.

I just finished reading the advice column by Hara Estroff Marano regarding the question of an open relationship.  Her advice is at least thirty years out of date.  Since the swingers of the 1970s, there has been actual research into alternative sexualities and into human sexuality in general.  Is she also not aware that homosexuality was removed from the DSM and is no longer considered a mental illness as of 1973?

While it is true that not all open relationships work out in the end, it is also true that not all monogamous relationships work out in the end.  The issues in the relationships stem from the individuals in them, not the relationship style.  With more than 50% of monogamous marriages ending in divorce and an even higher number of monogamous marriages including extramarital affairs, how is it that monogamy is not assumed to be the problem, but when a non-monogamous relationship ends based on personality conflicts, it is assumed that the non-monogamy was the problem?

Open relationships can and do work.  There are plenty of examples of open relationships lasting for decades.  I, personally, know a relationship where one woman has, effectively, two husbands, and has lived happily with them and their children for 26 and 27, years respectively.  I know another group relationship of one man and two women who all live together and raise children for more than a decade.  My own partner maintained an open relationship with his wife for more than 18 years.

Open relationships are not easy because, on top of the usual relationship pressures, people in open relationships also face discrimination and bigotry and close-minded accusations, much like this columnist exhibited here.  When one goes into a relationship under the expectation that it won't work out, that tends to create a self-fulfilling prophecy, regardless of what the relationship style is or why one thinks it won't work out.

I would also like to point out that a clinical therapist is not in the best position to make statements on trends in healthy relationships because a clinical therapist does not *see* healthy relationships.  By the time a therapist, counselor, or advice columnist sees someone in a relationship, that person or group is already experiencing difficulty, thereby skewing the sample population the therapist uses to make his or her judgements.

A *research* psychologist, however, has the opportunity to see the functioning relationships in addition to the relationships that need help.  To that end, I recommend doing a bit of research into open relationships before making such sweeping comments as "never work".

I also take exception to the statement Ms. Marano made that "Soonor or later someone will form an outside attachment".  In addition to wrongly assuming that it is inevitable, this assumes that an "outside attachment" is undesirable and that there is only one way to have an open relationship - a primary dyad with casual or non-emotional outside sexual partners.  Jealousy is not automatically a part of open relationships.  People feel jealousy with different triggers, and, when consciously, openly and honestly approached, an "outside attachment" is not necessarily a trigger for a jealous reaction.  [In addition, monogamy, by itself, does not prevent people from feeling jealous.  Healthy self-esteem and the emotional security of those in the relationship are what prevents people from feeling jealous.]

That statement also assumes that jealousy is insurmountable and a good enough reason to stop whatever action appears to be causing the jealousy.  But people in healthy open relationships, and good therapists, know that the action is not the cause of the jealousy, it's the trigger.  Removing the trigger does not remove the cause, and a more effective way to reduce or eliminate jealousy, and the problems it causes, is to work on the root cause so that it becomes unnecessary to place restrictions around triggers to manage jealousy because those actions no longer trigger jealousy.  

Ms. Marano claims that it is naive to not place restrictions on another person's actions, that it may even be dangerous.  I, and many researchers, therapists, psychologists, other professionals, and people who engage in open relationships, would like to claim that it is naive to believe that anyone *can* place restrictions on another adult's behaviour.  If one's partner loves and cherishes one, he will not wish to harm his partner, making rules unnecessary.  If he does wish to cause harm to his partner, rules will not stop him.

A better strategy for long-term success in any style of relationship is to get into relationships with people we like, who have similar ideas on how their relationship should look, and to build an environment of openness and honesty and compassion where the individuals in the relationship can approach their partner when situations or desires change (because they often do) and the couple or group desires to work with each other to accomodate each other.  Keeping our partners in line and restricting their behaviour when they would rather do something else with rules and threats of punishment for breaking the rules is not a recipe for a healthy relationship, no matter what style we're using.  At best, it's a parent-child relationship where one person believes the other person is not capable of making appropriate decisions for himself and must be monitored and regulated with rules.

Personally, I prefer to be in relationships with adults who are capable of making decisions all on their own and who choose to make decisions with consideration and compassion for me and who behave acceptably because they have similar goals and ethics to me, not because I have dicated that they will behave in the manner I told them to because I said so.  If I wanted a child, I would have one, I do not date them.

I recommend reading http://www.polyamory.org/~joe/polypaper.htm - What Psychology Professionals Should Know by Geri D. Weitzmann and http://www.ejhs.org/volume5/polyoutline.html - Working With Polyamorous Clients In A Professional Setting by Joy Davidson, Ph.D

Sincerely,
Joreth
www.theinnbetween.net/poly1.html