Of all that I’ve written about Poly’s incredible journey, this is where I find the most common ground. Where Poly is an incredibly brave person around dating apps, screening and hooking up, …I don’t even try anymore. I’m always convinced that it will always end, which means that I must be faulty from the outset so why even bother. The thing is that Poly experiences this exact same dilemma.
But Poly still acts despite this sentiment, even though it is fundamentally connected to this question about where does love fit into all of this. To explain I need to tell you about something which is completely out there from left field.
Far too much has been written about love, but not a lot of it has been written in the context of Consensual Non Monogamy (swinging, open relationships and polyamory). But first, some basics starting with Plato. We could deconstruct love and talk about it’s many forms. Love that a parent has for a child, love for a family member, love without sexual intimacy that we have for friends. And then there is “platonic” love, which to me has always been love for someone you’re attracted to, but where there is no expression of that attraction. And then there is the one we obsess about the most which is intimate sexual love.
Right, So you can have MULTIPLE parents, MULTIPLE grandparents, MULTIPLE children, MULTIPLE siblings and MULTIPLE friends and colleagues…. But you can have only ONE sexual partner.
Hmmm, kind of obvious when you use uppercase?
It seems a bit ridiculous. We’ve just accepted monogamy because this is what has been accepted. It’s a recursive argument that goes something like “it is what it is because it is what it is.” But put in the frame of other types of love, it begs the question why does it have to be like that.
Instead of talking about types of love, it’s better to ask what love actually is. And this is the bit from left field, so hang on.
I have a passing (small) interest in the military, fascinated because it’s such a core component of history. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely identify as a pacifist it’s just that there is a lot to learn about organisations and psychology by looking at it through the lens of the military. In particular I have a fascination with people who can withstand extreme levels of stress and why other people seem to end up damaged from the experience.
Recently there was a documentary that went into some detail about the entry process for the Australian SAS (Special Air Services). Now for those of you who don’t know the SAS is the extreme upper end of professional military, regarded across the world as some of the very best. They go largely unnoticed by most people, and actually their very honest humility is what makes up part of their character.
Anyway in this documentary we see around 100 candidates start out. Already these candidates are supremely fit and competent soldiers in their own right. The entry process was a boot camp for several weeks in which the level of physical exertion was beyond the limits of most people. With the equivalent physical exertion of a marathon every day, we see the candidates gradually whittled down to a select dozen or so that would make it through. Most retire from physical injury, but the really interesting component of the selection process is that it wasn’t just physical. It was also very much a mental selection process, a psychological selection process which meant that it was really an emotional selection process. To me it was clear that the crucial component for entry into the SAS is the emotional stability of the candidate.
In one of the final tasks for the candidates they must hike through isolated wilderness by themselves for an extended period of time. Just imagine the degree of fortitude required to complete that task. There are points along this trek where each candidate needs to check in. It is at these check in points that they are being assessed for their ability to cope. At the end of this documentary, at one of these check-in points, we see one of the candidates talking about his experience. He is asked by the lone camera operator “what gets you through?” The candidate is sitting quietly on a rock and when asked this question, he does not hesitate or equivocate, he simply says “My wife.”
That is love.
At the very edge of your endurance and capability, only those people who would answer this way will be the best of the best.
After the Vietnam War which had compulsory conscription in Australia, there were a lot of returning servicemen who had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and without putting too finer a point on this, it was costing a lot of money. So the accountants in the military started to realise that this was not sustainable and so they went to look at the science behind it and asked the psychologists in the military what was going on.
Around this time, the work of Bowlby and Attachment theory was becoming well established in the academic literature and the psychologists in the military looked to Attachment theory as a way to explain the difference between how people cope with extreme levels of stress.
In Attachment Theory there are two basic types being the “securely attached” individual along with varying forms of what is “insecurely attached” persons. It has to do with our internal sense of confidence and trust that people who leave or are not there will eventually return and ease the discomfort of having left.
The soldier we see in the video said something that denotes a secure attachment style. When pushed to the extreme, it is in these times that we rely upon the schema of understanding that we have about people close to us. Even though they are a long way away, it is this internal resilience tied to close relationships that dictate our ability to cope.
For some time now, I’ve been led to the conclusion that only people who are securely attached are capable of feeling love.
This is an extremely revolutionary concept, but the idea is worth examination. Perhaps all along, with all the stories, songs, and sonnets about love, perhaps this has been a conversation where half the people (the securely attached) are talking about one thing, and the other half (the insecurely attached) have been talking about something else entirely, but we are collectively deluded into thinking it’s the same thing. This is not a new concept in psychology, but it is worth mentioning in the light of secure and insecure attachment styles.
We often think of love as a noun, that is, a feeling or emotional state, but when people ask what me love is, I like to say that love is a verb. Love is a doing word.
For this soldier it may look like we are seeing an emotion, but really he is just drawing on his previous experience that was created between himself and another person (his wife). Over a period of time he has ACTED to build that bond in his everyday response to the needs of the relationship. In a corresponding way his partner has ACTED to cement and reinforce the bond in a reciprocal way. It is the action that denotes how love is formed.
Sex is an act, but it’s not the only part of an intimate love relationship. So is taking out the rubbish, mowing the lawn, picking up the kids from school, cleaning the garage, ironing the shirts, going to work every day to earn money, and if there are children, being a good dad, being a good mum, getting up in the middle of the night and changing the nappies.
Most importantly, love is DOING your internal work and talking openly and honestly about all that messy feeling stuff.
Unfortunately, when I hear Poly say she is “waiting for it to end.” I kinda don’t get the sense that this is not a secure attachment style. Quite the reverse actually, and this is the one thing that Poly and I share.
That’s not to say that it can’t change. Honestly the way to uncover and build love is to do the internal work that builds a more secure attachment style.
For Poly and for myself the internal work must continue. We are both trying to become more securely attached individuals. However, we are doing it in different ways. Luckily (for her at least), she gets to have lots of sex whilst continuing to unwrap these issues of trust and belonging. And I honestly believe that she is doing exactly that.
This new guy in her life will, may hang around, or he may not. They may together explore how to rely on and trust each other whilst not being chained to checkbox of unrelenting monogamy. Or it may come to it’s inevitable end. Ultimately however I think that Poly be just fine.