It's not me, it's you

One of the most distorted notions we bring to our love relationships is the perception that whatever our loved one does is because of us. Nowhere is this more pervasive than when it comes to our mate’s desire to experience something sexually that does not include us. Most of us cry out in anguish “How could you do this to me?”

Yet, when my wife and I first met, we admitted to one another that we had never been monogamous in any of our previous relationships nor had we ever been truthful about it with our previous lovers. Why did we feel a need to hide our true sexuality from our previous partners? Because we have been systematically and successfully shamed into believing that any expression of our sexuality that does not include our mates is always bad and wrong, and, as a corollary, into believing that we should feel hurt when our mates have non-monogamous desires.

Most married men lie about how they really experience their sexuality then routinely set up a secret compartment within their lives where they hide what they do. In Lust in Translation: A Study of Infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee, Pamela Druckerman concluded,“In America it’s not the cheating, it’s the lying.” I am convinced that the success of our marriage is due in large part to our being radically honest with each other about who we are sexually. Unfortunately, odds are, this was probably a rare meeting of the minds. Let’s face it, our culture does not encourage couples to be open and honest about their non-monogamous sexual desires, but it’s the lying this attitude encourages that causes the real damage.

My wife and I felt we had to hide our desires from our previous partners for fear of hurting them, yet consider what Don Miguel Ruiz said in The Four Agreements: He wrote, “Taking things personally is the maximum expression of self centeredness because it makes the assumption that everything is about ‘me’. Nothing other people do is because of you. It’s because of themselves.”

How many of us can actually give up holding others accountable for how we feel? It’s so much easier to lash out at someone instead of focusing on our own insecurities as the source of our pain. What’s more, we live in a culture where, lately, hardly anyone is willing to look at themselves for the real answers as to why they feel the way they do. We never answer the question “Why does it hurt so much when someone we love wants to be sexual with someone else?” because we’re too scared of asking any questions that might point a finger at ourselves. Will we ever find the courage to hold ourselves accountable for what we feel? If we don’t, we will never give ourselves the chance to heal the insecurities that drive our responses, and they will continue to wreak their unabated havoc on all of our relationships.

Why fuck with a good fantasy?

I recently read a blog post entitled "The Joys of Theoretical Non-Monogamy," at Greta Christina's blog http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2008/05/the-joy-of-theo.html

Here's a key realization she makes:
"When you're monogamous, every single person you're even moderately attracted to seems like Shangri-La, a lost city of infinite erotic promise, with genitals made of divine light and chocolate ice cream that would transform your life if only you could have a taste. (It did for me, anyway.) The allure of the forbidden, and all that. But when you're non-monogamous, you remember that you don't actually want to go to bed with every attractive person who crosses your path."

I couldn't agree more! Sexual fantasies are better than reality. So my attitude is, why spoil a good fantasy with reality? I love my sexual fantasies. So I protect them from reality. I love them because they infuse my everyday life with a jolt of positive energy. So I want them to retain every speck of their power. That way I can rely on them to always have their way with me. I never want to become wise and prudent with them. Indeed, I want to remain their captive? It’s like having my very own individual stimulus package. Am I an addict? Absolutely! Whenever I need a hit I just dial one of my fantasies up into my brain and wham-oh, I’m transported to that little piece of portable euphoria where everyone or everything that I desire sexually is granted. Why would I want to fuck with that by diminishing it with reality?

How do you think the freedom to fantasize affects your relationships?

Interview

I'll be doing an interview with Lucia on LA talk radio's The Art of Love today at 3pm PT/6pm ET. You can listen at www.latalkradio.com. Stay tuned!

Who holds whose self-esteem?

Do men rely more on women as a source of their self-esteem than women rely on men for theirs?

Last week, I was a guest on the Striker Corbin Motivational Program. Striker is a motivational speaker who focuses on helping you create the life you desire by using your thoughts and emotions. He offers a weekly “Empowerment Quote” and this week’s quote was Eleanor Roosevelt who said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

We agreed that both genders often look to their mates to uphold their self-esteem. But I believe men are much more dependent on women as a source of their self-esteem than women are dependent on men for theirs because men are much more externally driven by how they are perceived by others, particularly women. As I say in my book, “many of the ways heterosexual men act, think, and behave are influenced by their desire to gain or retain access to a woman’s love, access to her approval, and access to her body. So while men can go it alone to find food, shelter, and clothing, they have to rely on women to fulfill their other basic needs. Additionally, when men are young boys, they are taught to cut themselves off from how they really feel. Consequently, men are disconnected from their inner-selves as a source of their truth. Throughout their lives, men rely on women (their mothers, teachers, and girlfriends) to tell them what is true about them.

What do you think?