Dear Steve,
I just want to say that I don't disagree with people's right to share their bodies with whomever they please. Even in a marriage. People have a right to learn their lessons, their way. I have definitely done my share of that
. After holy-whoring my way around 4 continents (and some islands), I have come to a point where I realized what lessons I had to learn from that phase of existence and am happy to move on. As is common with lesson-learning, you often wish you had got the point sooner.
That said, I do think this recent blog post is covering a heck of a lot of material in one blast. Don't you think, if this is to be a true learning experience, you should handle people's feedback with a little more compassion and seriousness? BOTH the people who agree with you and those who disagree are writing from their truth. It doesn't help if you come out of the gate with a lot of negative views about anyone who disagrees with you, judge them, and just stomp on off down the path you were going to walk anyway. You are not the only smart, high-vibration person around.
A truly strong, courageous and smart person is steady enough to seek the truth even at their own expense. Snark might drive away the people who are challenging you, but it definitely doesn't establish any measure of truth. My request to you would be, take the time to go over the comments you have recieved again. Journal thoughtfully and compassionately about each one - and try to keep in perspective just how little you actually know about all of us (we have read a lot on your life - but you have a lot less information on us). While doing this practice, try to let go of the outcome. That is, seek the truth without being hung up on how it affects your Poly Plan. The better you are at letting go of the outcome, the deeper you will go into truth and healing.
If the way points to Poly at the end of this process, you will be endowed with more serenity as you walk that path. If not, well, what's the big deal? More important than the power to will something into existence is the path. If you have read the book the Neverending Story, you might resonate with the comparison of yourself to Bastian and his wishes. Bastian is given the power to create whatever he wants. The problem is, there are some deeper wants that drive him, that he doesn't even know how to articulate let alone manifest. Like every archetypical Hero, he must go through a period of metaphorical death where his identity and ego are destroyed so that he can be reborn. What does that mean in relation to you and your life? Only you know.
I wrote earlier about my path through puberty and the loss of my true self through identifying with the woman I saw through other peoples' eyes. Men, women, and couples came to me asking for connection to something I had - but thinking that they had to connect with me physically to get it. I would have happily given it to them without any sort of sensual reward system, but that was not in their universe. In a world where everyone lived by the principle that we are all family and we all deserve love and connection without having to do anything but be our true selves, this sort of self-imposed emotional poverty would not exist. (addendum to the poly-family folks out there, I think it's important to have family that you don't have sex with. Thank goddess for Love that I don't have to open my legs for).
I experienced the opposite of what you say about yourself: Getting married and taking sex out of the equation for the majority of my relationships actually promotes my ability to connect deeply and intimately. To be honest, I am constantly astounded that people don't realize how much injury they do each other's spirits with superficial judgements based on a limited, individual view of reality. I experience that often on many levels. For example, people often use me as a screen to project their racial fears or loves on. According to what race they want to see, they assume that I am Mexican, South American, Arab, Native American, Italian, French, Persian, Indian, or Maori, just to name the most common. I am none of those things! The problem with sex as a way of deepening relationships is that empirically it is not the deciding factor of intimacy. If someone wants to believe I'm a Maori, they're going to believe it whether or not we ****. Which leads me to believe that you need sex to partner intimacy because it is too scary for you to have intimacy without sex.
What?? Isn't sex scarier? No. Sex is totally just a bodily function. It happens to also add an element of control and security to relationships through its biochemical function of bonding. The hormone oxytocin is released in both men and women during orgasm. Apparently it is released more in the female brain. It is also released during childbirth and nursing. Oxytocin causes the neurons in the brain to release old connections and form new ones, effectively wiping out past memories and conditioning and forming a new attachment to the present experience. This means that sex causes a chemical dependence on that PARTICULAR partner. If that's not a control mechanism, I don't know what is.
Without an Oxytocin dependency, an intimate person could potentially walk out of your life based on rational choice. And that might be too scary for you, Steve. You wrote about feeling emotionally detached from your children because you didn't know if you would be there with them much longer. How is that for some fear-based decision making? You might as well distance yourself from them because you might have a car accident tomorrow. Those kids need your love no matter where you are on this planet or who you are ****ing. You cannot let the fear and guilt associated with loss stop you from your cosmic responsibility to love them. You have also written about your emotional distance from your birth family. I have that too, and please don't try to tell me that it has not caused you some high levels of distress at some point in your life.
Erin wrote that you told her "you don't know how to love" at the beginning of your relationship. You are a precious, irreplaceable part of the Universe, Steve. I just want you to hear that from me. You matter, irregardless of whether you have sex with the People's Republic of China or never have sex, write, work out, or earn another penny ever again until you die. The Universal Consciousness will always love you and accept you, it will always be there for you, it will always protect you, it will always need you, it will always care what happens to you. You are meant to be here. I don't care what anyone says. Please accept this as the truth.
blessings
Malian