EXCLUSIVITY
From RELATIONSHIPS FOR DUMMIES by Dr. Kate M. Wachs, Matchmaker-Psychologist: (from the chapter “When (And Why) to Talk Exclusivity”):
“Really Loving, Not Just Lusting: If you haven’t seen your partner in person three to four times per week for three to four months, the powerfully intense feeling you’re experiencing may be lust or infatuation, not love. Before you make a commitment to your partner, make sure you’re really feeling love for him or her. Make sure you’ve known one another long enough and seen one another often enough that the feeling is reliable and stable – that you can count on it to be there today and for the foreseeable future…Avoiding The Serial Monogamy Trap: I sometimes get letters from people who practice serial monogamy – that is, they date one person at a time until the relationship ends, and then they start over with another person. If they date more than one person at a time, they feel like they’re cheating. If you start with that idea, though, how can you ever figure out who to be with? Dating is the process by which you compare the way you think and feel around one person to how you think and feel around someone else. Only by comparing and noticing the differences can you figure out who is more compatible with you. When you only date one person at a time and try to take that relationship as far as it can go, it’s easy to doubt the relationship in the future. How do you know if he or she is the most compatible person for you – or even one of the most? You may seem compatible, especially during the first three months of infatuation. However, once you begin to find out your partner’s liabilities – and believe me, everyone has some – you may begin to wonder whether you should continue your exclusive relationship. If you think you’ve made a mistake and want to stop being exclusive and start dating around, your mate will probably feel rejected and hurt about his or her change in status. In fact, the two of you will probably break up shortly afterward. Expecting someone to become exclusive with you without first dating you for a considerable period of time is also illogical. When someone is willing to do that, look for the possible reasons. Is he on the rebound? Is there some financial reward? Is she trying to escape something that she doesn’t want to deal with? If you haven’t had time to become special to your partner, why does he or she need to see you as special? How long as it been since she’s had a good relationship? Is that neediness getting in the way of his judgment? Instead of going too fast and then trying to back step, try to move the relationship along in a slower, steadier, more forward-moving direction. Even if you think someone will turn out to be very compatible, it’s usually best to keep dating others until you’ve dated your partner long enough and often enough to know that the two of you really are compatible and in love. Table 8-1 summarizes when and when not to consider commitment and exclusivity in your relationship…(from Table 8-1, When to Consider Commitment and Exclusivity:) When to consider…When you’ve seen your partner in person at least 3 to 4 times a week for at least 3 to 4 months, and you both continue to experience intense pleasurable feelings for each other, when you and your partner are emotionally mature, when you’ve dated enough to know that this person is pretty compatible with you, after you’ve casually dated a number of people and are ready to commit to a longer-term relationship, when you and your partner are in life and relationship stages where commitment is a good idea, when you and your partner share a similar relationship goal, and committing to one another is a step toward that goal, and when you want to have sex only with each other.”
Note – the book acknowledges that people who are dating will appropriately have sex with each other, and it goes on to talk about the timing, sequence and reasons to have sex (as if we need that explained).
The conclusion that I drew is that while it would seem natural to be exclusive in dating, or serially monogamous, the experts caution against it! This blew my mind, as did the timeline for going exclusive. I’m used to being pressured on date 2 to go exclusive, but the bible on the subject mandates 3 to 4 months of dating, through the highs and lows, until both parties are absolutely sure.
The amazing thing about all this is that it would tend to make us believe that we are supposed to be “slutting around” and dating and fucking/sucking multiple people. Life as adults is hectic. We don’t have a lot of time to colonize new relationships. The energy it requires to find someone you lust for and can have decent sex with (or perhaps even better, indecent sex with) is tremendous, and there are other demands on our energy. The serial monogamy concept seems ingrained in the female of the species. To try to do otherwise would seem to doom a blooming relationship. Imagine saying, “I’m falling in love with you, can I see you Saturday, because Friday I’m going out with Olivia?” “Well,” the girl asks, “are you…fucking Olivia???” “Um,” the guy says, “well, yeah.”
What’s on my mind is, could this “extended non-exclusivity policy” be the missing link in our understanding of relationships? I’ve never focused on a significant woman while maintaining dating with others. I’ve never wanted to – I’ve always blasted right in, fallen in love, and pursued the girl. Is that why my relationships fucked up? I don’t know. The above prescription would appear to ensure a relationship never gets off the ground, but since I’ve never tried it, I don’t know!
But under the assumption there was something to this other than an excuse to be a playboy (not an international one, mind you, just of Mercer County!) the concept made me come up with the idea of “FAO” to replace “girlfriend.” FAO means first among others. Sometimes an FAO is so far ahead of the pack that it is not really much of a horserace any more. But the AO of FAO would appear to so upset a woman that the guy would have no more dates with her. So the guy has the following options:
1. Maintain nonexclusivity and tell the truth about that. Result, the FAO candidate, i.e. girlfriend candidate, bolts. At least in almost every case she does.
2. Maintain nonexclusivity and lie about it. Result, a fooled FAO candidate can be romanced without trouble, at least until she finds another woman’s panties in the guy’s bed. Then the choice is either to confess OR to say he’s a cross-dresser. I believe that many cross-dressers aren’t really into women’s clothing at all, they’re just trying to maintain that initial lie!
3. Give up on the idea of seeing multiple girls and give in to the demand for exclusivity. Some guys like this. Others feel like they are enslaved.
I’ve been thinking of something my ex said to me – she read a book called MOTHERLESS DAUGHTERS and found that children of missing or nonfunctional mothers will have problems in their future relationships because they will tend to establish what is called “instant intimacy,” an all-too-easy closeness between two people that builds a faulty foundation for a relationship. My ex thought that she fit that description, but then realized that since she lost her mom when she was 27, she didn’t meet the definition, but I did! My relationship with my mother was always severely troubled. Patti blamed me for our problems by saying I established this instant intimacy with her and went too fast progressing the relationship and that doomed us. She watched my breakup with Alexis and commented that the instant intimacy did me in again. Then Bonnie crashed and burned. Then Lavinia. I can almost hear Patti’s voice saying, “is the girl you’re dating now the next victim of your instant intimacy?”
A word about heartache -- no one seeks heartache, but it is inseparable from true love. Don’t believe it? Then you’re simply wrong, because the best case on this earth is that the heartache is caused by the death of one of the members of the couple. You don’t get something for nothing. You want a romance that is worthy of a movie script? Then you’d better bet – and risk – your very heart and soul.
Does that mean heartache is inevitable? I believe it is. Even when love is strong up front and the relationship slowly dies, as it did in my second marriage, the heartbreak was nearly unbearable. Can true love and heartache ever not inhabit the same reality? I believe love and heartbreak are made of the same thing, they are different surfaces of the same reality.
Does that mean we should avoid true love to keep from having our hearts broken? Only if you are okay with living an empty life. Eventually that emptiness will haunt you and will cause you as much heartbreak as if you had been more brave and risked heartbreak.
Which means all we can do is invest our hearts as wisely as we can. Life is not for pussies, it is not for the faint of heart
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