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Love & Ownership
Aug. 1st, 2004 03:20 pmAs I described more extensively in a couple of locked posts, my mother is very concerned that my Ex-Husband's SO could replace me as my daughter's Mother because the SO is domestically oriented and is going to be a stay-at-home person while I have a full-time job and am going to graduate school.
I've also been thinking a lot about polyamoury lately, and doing some rather intense discussions about relationship expectations and boundaries with an ex-boyfriend who is back in my life.
And it occurred to me this morning while doing the dishes that so many of our attitudes about the central love relationships of our lives are tied up with expectations about ownership and property. Our social default setting is that we each have one spouse (or lover). One father. One mother.
Even the suggestion of someone else filling any part of those roles is a threat to the integrity of the original relationship. Or a betrayal.
I realize that blended families are changing some of these expectations, but I come from a fairly traditional/conventional background in which the above attitudes are virtually unquestioned. (You'd never know it from my LJ, right?)
When I imagine myself in a romantic-sexual relationship at all anymore, it is one in which neither my partner nor I are the exclusive sexual property of the other.
My family of birth is a small and tightly-defined group: father, mother, sister, me. When my sister and I were married, our husbands were welcomed into that circle, but I at least never lost the sense that they were "newcomers." (I'm not sure how anyone else felt about that.) I certainly was made to feel welcome and loved by my in-laws, but I never really felt part of their family. (All of which may be part of the reason that marriage never fully "took" with me. But I digress. Sort of.)
My mother is frightened by the possibility that the Ex's SO could become more of a mother to my daughter than I am. She does not seem to see the possibility that having a "traditional" mother in the house, a stay-at-home, sit-down-dinner-at-six, here's-the-chore-schedule type of person could be an added blessing for my daughter, not a threat to me. Why not "both/and"? Why not allow my daughter to love both of us and relate to both of us as mothers?
Love is not a finite resource.
None of this to say that what I'm comfortable with should be the standard for everyone. Different people have different needs and comfort zones.
But one of my friends used to be fond of telling me "Embrace the beauty of 'and'." I'd like that to be the model for my family life.
I've also been thinking a lot about polyamoury lately, and doing some rather intense discussions about relationship expectations and boundaries with an ex-boyfriend who is back in my life.
And it occurred to me this morning while doing the dishes that so many of our attitudes about the central love relationships of our lives are tied up with expectations about ownership and property. Our social default setting is that we each have one spouse (or lover). One father. One mother.
Even the suggestion of someone else filling any part of those roles is a threat to the integrity of the original relationship. Or a betrayal.
I realize that blended families are changing some of these expectations, but I come from a fairly traditional/conventional background in which the above attitudes are virtually unquestioned. (You'd never know it from my LJ, right?)
When I imagine myself in a romantic-sexual relationship at all anymore, it is one in which neither my partner nor I are the exclusive sexual property of the other.
My family of birth is a small and tightly-defined group: father, mother, sister, me. When my sister and I were married, our husbands were welcomed into that circle, but I at least never lost the sense that they were "newcomers." (I'm not sure how anyone else felt about that.) I certainly was made to feel welcome and loved by my in-laws, but I never really felt part of their family. (All of which may be part of the reason that marriage never fully "took" with me. But I digress. Sort of.)
My mother is frightened by the possibility that the Ex's SO could become more of a mother to my daughter than I am. She does not seem to see the possibility that having a "traditional" mother in the house, a stay-at-home, sit-down-dinner-at-six, here's-the-chore-schedule type of person could be an added blessing for my daughter, not a threat to me. Why not "both/and"? Why not allow my daughter to love both of us and relate to both of us as mothers?
Love is not a finite resource.
None of this to say that what I'm comfortable with should be the standard for everyone. Different people have different needs and comfort zones.
But one of my friends used to be fond of telling me "Embrace the beauty of 'and'." I'd like that to be the model for my family life.
