On Relationship Agreement Theory
“Yeah we are non-mono. She doesn’t know we are, but…”
I love hearing about people’s relationship models. But when I hear someone describe their relationship as open I have to ask if there’s someone in the vicinity they’d like to take home, and more often than not I get some caveat back saying they’d need to check in with their partner first. When I hear someone describe their relationship as poly I have to ask how many partners they have and if it’s a polycule or polymer, and more often than 70% of the time, I get a confused look back. At this point I enquire if the person is really living the freedoms that they want or if they just have permission, heaven forbid vice versa.
Saying ‘X is monogamous’ can mean that X either is, by a fact of their current dating, exclusive and/or has been told to be exclusive and/or prefers to be exclusive. For ease of assessment and comparison I apply the following labels to the 8 permutations of these 3 boolean distinctions.
Which one are you for the freedoms you can think of?
I still want to do. I still have permission to do. I still currently do
No No No = Refrainer
No No Yes = Unwiller
No Yes No = Follower
Yes No No = Abstainer
No Yes Yes = Reluctor
Yes No Yes = Transgressor
Yes Yes No = Downtimer
Yes Yes Yes = Fulfiller
Relationship terms that might be discussed and put in place (hopefully symmetrically) could be anything that affects the dynamic and time together. Some examples:
Watch adult content
Touch myself
Flirt with people
Get naked with people
Gamble
Drink Alone
Smoke
Go on holiday with partner
etc
Note that whether we ‘still currently do’ a thing in the relationship could mean us or our partner. If we are still masturbating despite permission being removed,
Note the emphasis on ‘still’ being able to do things, because for most things, legal and non-imposing, these are all things that we’d be entitled to do, and there’s nothing more limiting outside of the law that limits our freedoms as much as our desire to be respectful to our partner. Not their triggers, but of how to optimise our behaviour so that time and activities together as a fulfilling as we would like.
One of the rules that is rarely discussed is ‘should we be allowed to fall in love with other people?’ and understandably so since this normally amounts to thought crime and thought marshalling — akin to saying ‘should we be allowed to like Justin Bieber’s music?’. How can you blame me for being swept off my feet? But in modern relationships, this question might non-ironically be asked of itself. However, most people understand that we can only make rules for each other (Later I break apart to what extent we can make rules aka set boundaries for each other with regards to actions, and the actionable item in this case might be ‘don’t spend more than 1 night a month with that person’, ‘or don’t listen to Justin Bieber, even if you’ve never heard it before’.
