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Several years ago, Thay Hanh implanted a thought in my mind while i was reading one of his books (probably Living Buddha, Living Christ). It is one of those ideas that, once it sinks in and you apply it, can change your life.
In the Buddhist perspective, attachment is the source of sorrow, because when you get attached to things, you cannot easily adjust when things (as they do) change.
Anyway, Thay Hanh, on the ethics of long-term relationships, wrote that in his school of thought people are taught to treat their significant others as if they are honored houseguests.
The notable thing about the way we treat houseguests, is that we do not place any obligations on them, outside of the common obligations we have as human beings to be decent to one another. And not only that, but we give them a place of priority in our lives while at the same time reserving a sense of our own space.
It's such a very different way of viewing relationships from what we are taught in American society that i have had to turn this idea over in my head many times over the years since. More than any other thing i encountered in his writings, this thought stood out and grabbed my attention.
The underlying basis of this teaching is that fundamentally we choose how we treat people. In America (as, i guess, in many cultures) we often try to disguise the less savory things we do to one another by dressing them up in feelings. "I hit you because i got so angry i just couldn't help it." Well, point of fact, you can help it, because there are a lot of people you wouldn't hit no matter how angry you get, and if you can help it then, you can help it when you're around your partner.
I first read Thay Hanh's treatment of this subject at the time my marriage was ending, and it had a profound impact on the way i viewed the whole relationship, and what i wanted to do moving forward.
For one thing, i was profoundly disappointed in the way i had acted over the years. This is a recurring theme in my life, and it is a difficult part of endeavoring to be a better person: facing my missteps, especially where they have harmed people i care about; then finding a way to live with that, which begins with ensuring that i never do it again (whatever the harmful "it" happens to be).
But it also informed the way i felt i wanted to define my relationships moving forward. For one thing, i am not eager to blend my money, my personal space, my identity with another person ever again. My wife and i, for example, have separate bank accounts, separate bedrooms, separate beds, we don't know one another's passwords, and we like it that way.
The people i love are honored guests in my life. That means they are under no obligation to make themselves available for anything: not for sex, not for affection, not for household chores, not for letting me into their personal space, not for keeping things the way they are.
And as i write this, i am smarting from the pain of having to acknowledge how far outside of these ethics my actions have been recently. If i had been living by the full implications of this ethic, i would not have been caught off-guard when the emotional landscape of my life shifted as it did recently. And i write this not by way of apology, but by way of working things through thoroughly enough that i do not ever commit this wrong again.
What i have learned recently is that even if you approach a relationship from this perspective, it applies not only at the outset of the relationship but each and every moment anew. The emotional landscape of one's life is not permanent.
For someone who is polyamorous, that could mean for example when your significant other starts a new relationship, and suddenly is less available than they were before. They do not owe you the difference. Every bit of affection or attention one receives in a relationship is a gift freely offered, which can be withdrawn at any moment free of blame or guilt. In other words, it does not matter the reason why it is withdrawn. If/when a gift of this nature is withdrawn, one's response should be gratitude that it was given in the first place, not frustration that it has been withdrawn. Such a gift cannot be owned or expected, cannot be yoked with obligation - that road leads to abuse and mistreatment.
Note that one cannot avoid this dilemma by being monogamous, because partners can take up new passtimes or make new friends, and, similarly, they do not owe the difference in what energy they make available to their spouse.
In the Buddhist perspective, attachment is the source of sorrow, because when you get attached to things, you cannot easily adjust when things (as they do) change.
Anyway, Thay Hanh, on the ethics of long-term relationships, wrote that in his school of thought people are taught to treat their significant others as if they are honored houseguests.
The notable thing about the way we treat houseguests, is that we do not place any obligations on them, outside of the common obligations we have as human beings to be decent to one another. And not only that, but we give them a place of priority in our lives while at the same time reserving a sense of our own space.
It's such a very different way of viewing relationships from what we are taught in American society that i have had to turn this idea over in my head many times over the years since. More than any other thing i encountered in his writings, this thought stood out and grabbed my attention.
The underlying basis of this teaching is that fundamentally we choose how we treat people. In America (as, i guess, in many cultures) we often try to disguise the less savory things we do to one another by dressing them up in feelings. "I hit you because i got so angry i just couldn't help it." Well, point of fact, you can help it, because there are a lot of people you wouldn't hit no matter how angry you get, and if you can help it then, you can help it when you're around your partner.
I first read Thay Hanh's treatment of this subject at the time my marriage was ending, and it had a profound impact on the way i viewed the whole relationship, and what i wanted to do moving forward.
For one thing, i was profoundly disappointed in the way i had acted over the years. This is a recurring theme in my life, and it is a difficult part of endeavoring to be a better person: facing my missteps, especially where they have harmed people i care about; then finding a way to live with that, which begins with ensuring that i never do it again (whatever the harmful "it" happens to be).
But it also informed the way i felt i wanted to define my relationships moving forward. For one thing, i am not eager to blend my money, my personal space, my identity with another person ever again. My wife and i, for example, have separate bank accounts, separate bedrooms, separate beds, we don't know one another's passwords, and we like it that way.
The people i love are honored guests in my life. That means they are under no obligation to make themselves available for anything: not for sex, not for affection, not for household chores, not for letting me into their personal space, not for keeping things the way they are.
And as i write this, i am smarting from the pain of having to acknowledge how far outside of these ethics my actions have been recently. If i had been living by the full implications of this ethic, i would not have been caught off-guard when the emotional landscape of my life shifted as it did recently. And i write this not by way of apology, but by way of working things through thoroughly enough that i do not ever commit this wrong again.
What i have learned recently is that even if you approach a relationship from this perspective, it applies not only at the outset of the relationship but each and every moment anew. The emotional landscape of one's life is not permanent.
For someone who is polyamorous, that could mean for example when your significant other starts a new relationship, and suddenly is less available than they were before. They do not owe you the difference. Every bit of affection or attention one receives in a relationship is a gift freely offered, which can be withdrawn at any moment free of blame or guilt. In other words, it does not matter the reason why it is withdrawn. If/when a gift of this nature is withdrawn, one's response should be gratitude that it was given in the first place, not frustration that it has been withdrawn. Such a gift cannot be owned or expected, cannot be yoked with obligation - that road leads to abuse and mistreatment.
Note that one cannot avoid this dilemma by being monogamous, because partners can take up new passtimes or make new friends, and, similarly, they do not owe the difference in what energy they make available to their spouse.
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