Multiple Loving

I never was attracted to that great sect
Whose doctrine is, that each one should select
Out of the crowd a mistress or a friend,
And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend
To cold oblivion, though it is in the code
Of modern morals, and the beaten road
Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread,
Who travel to their home among the dead
By the broad highway of the world, and so
With one chained friend, perhaps a jealous foe,
The dreariest and longest journey go. —Shelley

II. PREJUDICES AGAINST MULTIPLE LOVING ....................................93

III. NON-EXCLUSIVENESS: THE HOW OF MULTIPLE LOVING .......97

IV. THE BENEFITS OF MULTIPLE LOVING ...........................................98

A. Mutual Help in Loving Relationships .......................................99

B. The Sharing of Joys ....................................................................100

C. Assurance that our Relationship is Not Based on Need ....100

APPENDIX: MY EXPERIENCE OF MULTIPLE LOVING ......................103

    Loving more than one person deeply and Authentically
is not only eminently possible; it may even be desirable.
Why should we decide to share the deepest aspects of our selves
—our Authentic projects-of-being—with just one other person?
After one Authentic loving relationship has developed,
why should we close ourselves to the possibility of other loves?
New people may come into our lives who are pursuing
Authentic projects-of-being we understand and respect.
Why should we preclude new relationships arising from Authenticity
simply because we already have one Authentic relationship?

    Warning: The multiple loving described in this chapter
works only for self-actualizing persons
—those whose Authenticity has taken them beyond jealousy.
This is not about romantic affairs or multiple sexual partners,
not about 'swinging', mate-swapping, or extra-marital affairs.
Ordinary love is based on pre-existing needs and cultural traditions.
Such relationships are easily threatened by comparison, competition,
and the fear of replacement—the three roots of jealousy.
If we can still feel jealous, we should avoid multiple loving.

    But if we are Authentically organizing our lives
around global projects, re-creating ourselves as unique persons
(thereby becoming irreplaceable and transcending jealousy),
multiple Authentic relationships might be possible for us.
And if we are just beginning to re-design and re-define ourselves
so that jealousy is no longer a threat,
we might find this chapter helpful for thinking about
being open to more than one relationship based in Authenticity.

I. THE PROBLEMS OF EXCLUSIVE LOVING

     The true opposite of multiple loving
is not loving only one person but exclusiveness.
The number of people we love does not matter as much
as whether or not we are open to additional loving relationships.

     Conventional, romantic love is exclusive in the literal sense:
All other relationships are prohibited, all other people excluded.
According to the romantic tradition,
each person must find the "soul mate" who was "meant" for him or her
and then form a permanent alliance with that person.
They become a closed couple, erecting signs saying
"we belong to each other" or "this person occupied".
After establishing an exclusive relationship,
'outside' contacts must be kept superficial
and the deepest sharing must be reserved for one's exclusive partner.
The paradigm of such restrictive, narrow relationships is monogamy,
but possessiveness is also found in other closed relationships.
In fact, many couples living together without a legal contract
are just as secluded in their relationship as most married people.

     Getting married usually means settling down with one person
and eliminating all other personal relationships that might seem to compete.
Soon the new couple loses contact with former friends who are still single
and finds itself associating only with other couples
—a transformation the O'Neills describe
in their best-selling Open Marriage:

     Marriage, by combining the resources of two individuals,
     ought to increase our opportunities for discovering
     the pleasurable companionship of new people,
     but in fact it does just the opposite.
     The closed marriage contract demands
     that all friends be acceptable to both partners.
     This, of course, is a perfectly logical extension
     of the clause that all social functions must be attended jointly
     —the only trouble being that the insistence upon join attendance
     is restrictive and unrealistic in the first place.