Traits for Finding a Lifelong Mate

ladylilithdreams — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 17:33:33 GMT

Traits for Finding a Lifelong Mate by Clarissa Pinkola Estes 1. Choose someone as though you were blind. Close your eyes and see what you can FEEL; their kindness, loyalty, insight, devotion, their ability to be concerned with you, their ability to care for themselves as an independent being. 2. Choose a person who has the ability to learn, explore new ways of doing things and perceiving things, who is curious, and who is EVOLVING. 3. Choose someone who is willing to be like you....strong like a tree, but flexible in the wind. Someone who is sensitive and who has the ability to see what is around them......who is AWAKE and alert. 4. Chooses someone who when you hurt them, they are willing to show it; and when they hurt you, they see it and are sorry. Choose someone who can perceive your pain and feel for you about it. 5. Choose someone who has an INNER LIFE that they love, who is on their own journey - and who wants a partner on their own journey. 6. Choose someone who has similar passions as your own. A relationship is for making similar memories together, doing things TOGETHER - this is the GLUE of the relationship during hard times. It can be very simple. 7. Choose someone who has similar VALUES about children, money, marriage, family. This decreases the friction in relationship. These need to be worked out before there is a long-term commitment. When the pragmatics in the relationship are mostly taken care of, it is much more easy to SOAR. 8. Choose someone who is COMPASSIONATE, willing and able to listen, who gives equal time. 9. Choose someone who can LAUGH at themselves, or who can stop an argument in mid-sentence. 10. Be able to overlook certain faults and characteristics. KNOW WHAT YOU CAN LIVE WITH. Anything that takes a person away from their soul life, or not telling the truth, or a person who cannot face you after making a mistake and who tries to cover it over in a dramatic, large way instead....this would be starting a relationship on a swamp ground. 11. Be FRIENDS, not just lovers. Are you willing to do for your partner what you would do for your good friend? 12. ****VERY IMPORTANT*****...When you choose, choose someone who makes your life bigger rather than smaller."

The Benefits of a Polyamorous Relationship

ladylilithdreams — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 21:10:37 GMT

The Benefits of a Polyamorous Relationship Relieving Pressure of Meeting Needs When you allow for more partners, you are able to enjoy the qualities of several people that, together, are able to meet a much greater percentage of your interpersonal needs. This has the advantage of "taking the heat" off of single partner relationships to provide what a partner is not able to provide. No two people are exactly alike, or share the exact same interests. Polyamory allows you to have people that you care about that share different interests and can meet different needs. These needs can be simple interests, or more complex: perhaps one partner wants children, while another does not. Polyamory allows the first partner to have children with another person, so that the desire to be a parent does not interfere with the first loving relationship. On the flip side of having all of your partner's needs met, is of course the comfort of knowing that your own needs will be met as well. Deeper Non-sexual Friendships Have you ever seen a relationship (either your own, or someone else's) where one partner was jealous of a deep, non-sexual friendship that the other partner had? It is not uncommon for a partner in a conventional relationship to be jealous of these deeply emotional friendships. A feeling of insecurity arises at the thought of a partner being so close to another person, and jealousy is often felt over the time spent with that friend. In many conventional relationships, these types of friendship are frowned upon because they are close enough to warrant a sexual relationship, which is a natural human expression of such emotion. However, just because someone has a close emotional relationship with someone, does not mean that they have to have sex, and that is what many "monogamous-minded" people don't always realize. Polyamory does not necessarily mean you have to have sexual relationships, it also allows you to develop these kinds of deep friendships with people without fear of your significant other (S.O.) getting jealous. A polyamorous relationship is not something that everyone can be successful at, but if people could learn to handle a monogamous relationship in such a way as to allow your S.O. to have the deep emotional friendships, and at least have someone to fulfill their NON-sexual needs, monogamy would be much more successful. Keeps the Love Alive How often have you heard someone say that they miss that "in love" feeling? That when their marriage/relationship was new, it was more "alive". People long for the "sparks" that they remember. In poly discussion groups, we call this NRE* (*new relationship energy/excitement). NRE is partially the effort that we make in a new relationship to prove to our partner that we are "special"... that we are "the one". In many relationships, once the relationship becomes settled, we can get lost in familiarity, and caught up in the monotonous schedules of daily life. No matter how much we may love that person, we forget to show how special we are, or to show our partner how much we love them. So how does Polyamory help that? As strange as it may seem to some people, when you are in a new relationship, or your lover is in a new relationship and you discuss it with each other, you are reminded of all the little things you did to romance one another. You remember what it was like to be constantly trying to keep a new lover's attention, the things you did to show your interest and prove you were "the one". When love is involved, you find yourself not only practicing those niceties with your new lover, but with your old as well... and when you discuss it with them, and they remember, they begin to do the same. The new relationship is fun, and manages to bring new life to the old relationship in the process. New and Unusual Friendships One of the best benefits is the opportunity for a new and unusual friendship. Getting to know your partner's new lover, and forming a friendship with them if they are comfortable with that. It is not everyday that you have a friend that you can be truly candid with about aspects of your own relationship. Being in love with the same person consentually and unconditionally forms an unusual bond between two people that is indescribable. *Definitions modified and used from "Loving More" and various informational publications Famous polyamorous people * Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Olga Kosakiewicz * William Wilkie Collins * William Marston, Elizabeth Marston, and Olive Byrne * Percy Shelley * Eric S. Raymond * Amelia Earhart * Robert A. Heinlein * Emma Goldman * Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson

Lady Lilith Dreams' Ramblings

Traits for Finding a Lifelong Mate

The Benefits of a Polyamorous Relationship