Modern Love: Lindy West and polyamory

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know why so much of the cultural well is this polluted. Why does a prestige organization like the NYT, and not just this instance or only this publication, platform misfits all the time? The socially maladapted, the bizarre, the circus freaks are presented as if they are aspirational, inspirational, and genteel.

This poor woman’s whole story is painful and evocative of pity. The polite thing to do would be to look away, not parade her around. The circus is cruel but at least it never presented itself as something better than it is.

She's a 44-year-old writer with multiple essay collections, including one that got turned into a Netflix show. This is what she does for a living. Publishing a personal essay is not an endorsement of the perspective being presented.

Her being 44 and also having a Netflix show based on essays based on her life makes this all even more embarassing!!!

Hopefully it’s all just clickbait to pay the bills and she actually lives a happy, high self-esteemed life in private. Which would still make it gross to platform this kind of dysfunction, but at least she wouldn’t seem so personally tragic.

She's been making bad choices and writing about them for decades and it's worked out reasonably well for her, certainly better than if everyone refused to publish her because they wanted to protect her from herself. Your embarrassment is your issue and the Times is not obligated to protect you from experiencing it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh, this is red flag city. She has so much self-blame for what amounts to him committing infidelity:

"2019, I find out that someone who knew what Aham looked like had seen him kissing someone at a bar. I went home, and we talked for the rest of the night, and at this point he had sort of come to the conclusion that we couldn’t resolve this, which is why he went ahead and started dating this person. Because I had been gone. I had refused to talk to him about it. And I had technically agreed to be non-monogamous."

God I hate men and what they do to pollute our brains and self esteem

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know why so much of the cultural well is this polluted. Why does a prestige organization like the NYT, and not just this instance or only this publication, platform misfits all the time? The socially maladapted, the bizarre, the circus freaks are presented as if they are aspirational, inspirational, and genteel.

This poor woman’s whole story is painful and evocative of pity. The polite thing to do would be to look away, not parade her around. The circus is cruel but at least it never presented itself as something better than it is.

She's a 44-year-old writer with multiple essay collections, including one that got turned into a Netflix show. This is what she does for a living. Publishing a personal essay is not an endorsement of the perspective being presented.

Her being 44 and also having a Netflix show based on essays based on her life makes this all even more embarassing!!!

Hopefully it’s all just clickbait to pay the bills and she actually lives a happy, high self-esteemed life in private. Which would still make it gross to platform this kind of dysfunction, but at least she wouldn’t seem so personally tragic.

She's been making bad choices and writing about them for decades and it's worked out reasonably well for her, certainly better than if everyone refused to publish her because they wanted to protect her from herself. Your embarrassment is your issue and the Times is not obligated to protect you from experiencing it.

Did I say they are obliged to do anything? The cultural well is polluted with the stories of misfits with anti-aspirational lives. They’re certainly free to cover the essays of a heroin addict that keeps relapsing and making bad choice after bad choice and rationalizing them after the fact, and I’d still find it ugly and unfit of a serious publication. Especially if there were a vocal group of heroin addicts spending all their time advocating how their lifestyle is the solution to many people’s problems, but I digress. Vive la difference!

[Anonymous]

I haven't read it, but I remember reading some other essays in the past where she mentioned the throuple and polyamory and just thinknig oh that's sad.

I know there are plenty of people who will try to convince you this is all perfectly normal and healthy (though I'm surprised none on this thread by page 3), but yeah, I'm with everyone else. I just feel sad for her, I think it is a reflection of her self esteem, and I think her husband is a manipulative loser.

And I bet a significant chunk of her earnings goes to support this arrangement.

But, as others have said, they are all adults and there are no children involved, so, shrug, whatever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder what happens when the manic pixie dream girlfriend gets pregnant. Or gets tired of being outside the marriage and being ineligible for insurance, tax benefits, and all the other stuff. Or finds someone else she wants to date.

+1

Polyamory often relies on the willing participation of people who have low relationship needs, which often means people who are young, have had negative prior relationship experiences, or have avoidant personality issues.

It's exploitative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She basically announced her hate for herself to the whole world.

It's called marketing, ahem! She's trying to sell her life, get some publicity.

That being said, he ain't it. For her to put up with all that, I thought he'd be cuter:

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She basically announced her hate for herself to the whole world.

It's called marketing, ahem! She's trying to sell her life, get some publicity.

That being said, he ain't it. For her to put up with all that, I thought he'd be cuter:

I've noticed that poly/ENM people are rarely conventionally attractive. Usually they're 2s, 3s, 4s.

I'm guessing it's because the person who pushes for polyamory is highly insecure so they need external validation that others will sleep with them, and the monogamous partner tolerates it because they think they won't be able to do any better.

[Anonymous]

Pathetic. Can a person be any more of a desperate doormat?

Although the PP who pointed out that she has done well broadcasting being an idiot has a valid point. Perhaps she has some type of humiliation fetish.

[Anonymous]

I also had the "oh, how sad, she's justifying her own mistreatment" reaction.

Took me a while to remember I have a close relative in a relationship with a polyamorous guy. (He's married. She's the girlfriend and signed on for this when they started dating.) I was pretty skeptical, but they've been together for several years, he makes her happy, and he seems like a generally good guy, so maybe it can work out. It's not a throuple situation where my relative is dating or living with the wife, though, so of course I don't have everyone's perspective on this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Surprised there isn't a thread on this yet. Writer Lindy West did a Modern Love column about accepting polyamory in her marriage after initially wanting to stay monogamous. I listened to the NYT podcast on the piece, which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjVmd-m1LCA (if someone with a NYT subscription wants to share the actual column, please do, I don't have a subscription and hate when people post paywalled articles for discussion).

Summary: She knew he preferred polyamory when they married but he knew she wanted monogamy. He says that he realized polyamory was a superior approach to relationships when his first two marriages resulted in divorce by age 27. He did not tell her that he was starting a relationship outside their marriage -- she found out when a third party informed her that they'd seen him kissing another woman in a bar. After she found out, she spent a year feeling worthless, devastated, and betrayed. Then somehow it is determined that her husband's GF was attracted to Lindy, and Lindy decides she's attracted back, and now they are a happy polyamorous throuple.

Anyway, I see a lot of red flags here and kind of can't believe West is announcing this to the world like "here's how I discovered polyamory was for me!" If she'd just waited another year or two, she could have written a Modern Love column about being bamboozled via shaming and gaslighting into opening her marriage, by a husband who clearly doesn't respect her, and how the experience forced her to confront her lifelong struggles with insecurity and self worth. Hey, she can still write it, I'm sure ML has already penciled it in for like 2028.

Thoughts?

She’s trying very hard to convince herself that her $hit sandwich actually tastes like prime rib. It looks sad and pathetic.

[Anonymous]

Just some things from the interview I want to highlight because I have thoughts specifically about a lot of the language and phrasing. I will say up front that I am biased against polyamory because when I was younger, I had some involvement with a number of polyamorous individuals and couples (I was in a community where poly was very popular) and I have a lot of issues with the way many poly people talk about this lifestyle choice and how it impacts those around them.

Aham was like, “I’ve been divorced twice by age 27, and I feel like possessiveness and jealousy had a lot to do with both of those relationships collapsing. I don’t think that monogamy is healthy for me.”

This is how West describes her husband's choices to be non-monogamous. Notice that it's passive -- we don't know *whose* possessiveness and jealousy was problematic in his prior relationships, nor what might have prompted those emotions. And notice how the marital problems are blamed on the emotions, and not on anyone's actions.

I was like, I understand how this works and why people do this. I don’t personally have the self-esteem to cope with it.

This is how West describes her reaction to Aham's non-monogamy. Again, look at the framing. His choice of non-monogamy is framed as valid by default. But West's clear resistance to it is viewed, even by West, as a personal failing. The implication is that a secure person would embrace non-monogamy. Think of this in tandem with the comment about jealousy. The idea is that secure people don't need monogamy because secure people are not jealous. So if you can just master your jealousy, be secure, then you will also want to be polyamorous, which of course makes sense [no reasons given as to why it makes sense at this point in the conversation].

West: Where we landed was, If we want to be together for the rest of our lives, who knows what’s going to happen in 10 years, 20 years, who we’re going to meet, how we’re going to feel? Once it was reframed as something that we were going to deal with eventually — and I love to procrastinate. I love to put things off.

Martin: You’re kicking the can of this relationship definition?

West: Uh huh. Which is so unfair to him.

This is critical because this is how West describes their decision to stay together (and marry) even after Aham revealed to her that he is non-monogamous and she had to accept that to be in a relationship with him. Again, look how passive it is. West is clearly not actually agreeing to a non-monogamous relationship. She just doesn't want lose him. But then again all the language is self-blaming. It's not that Aham was being selfish and uncompromising. Nor did West even question the fact that he had not mentioned this earlier in relationship, before she was attached. Instead, she's the problem, because she procrastinates. She is being "unfair" to him. Everything is on her and he is blameless. This dynamic is very familiar to me. The polyamorous person takes the position of being more evolved, and thus correct in their actions. The monogamous person is unevolved and thus doing *harm* to the polyamorous person by not agreeing to polyamory faster and more willingly.

This dynamic reminds me of how Scientologists label people who leave their religion, or even people who were never a part of the religion but simply don't buy into it (but might be related to people who are in it), as "Suppressive Persons." The person who is skeptical or asks tough questions about the belief system is deemed defective. The person asserting the belief system though, is assumed to be correct.

I find out that someone who knew what Aham looked like had seen him kissing someone at a bar. I went home, and we talked for the rest of the night, and at this point he had sort of come to the conclusion that we couldn’t resolve this, which is why he went ahead and started dating this person. Because I had been gone. I had refused to talk to him about it. And I had technically agreed to be non-monogamous.

So here, West has actually NOT "technically" agreed to be non-monogamous. The whole point is that she didn't want it, and he knew she didn't, and they have basically an ongoing debate about it. And he gets tired of the debate (because he isn't winning it) so he just starts dating someone. Now, why couldn't he have come to West and said "Look, I've met someone I'm interested in. You know I don't believe in monogamy. But now it's real -- I want to date someone else outside our marriage"? And then force the issue, because it is here. The reason he doesn't do this is because he does not want West to break up with him. He wants both women. He wants West, and also to date other people. Even if that's not what West wants.

Yet she is the one who was being unfair to him? But vocally opposing opening their marriage AND walking the walk by remaining faithful to him?

I could go on, everything in the interview is like this. But I don't want to write a novel. And it's nuts that the interviewer is like "I agree, polyamory totally makes sense and is the right way to have a relationship, but like you, I am limited and insecure and that's why I'm not polyamorous." WTF people. It is not a sign of weakness or insecurity to prefer monogamous relationships. It doesn't make you limited, or lame, or less progressive than the next person. You don't need to apologize for it. If you feel like you do, ask yourself what kind of people you are surrounding yourself with that you feel guilty and bad about simply wanting sexual exclusivity with the person you marry.

[Anonymous]

I just looked at IG, and it looks to me from his account, that he's more into the girlfriend than Lindy.

[Anonymous]

Like likes like. In this case weak likes weak. They are perfect for each other and will be perfectly miserable together with others joining along the way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Like likes like. In this case weak likes weak. They are perfect for each other and will be perfectly miserable together with others joining along the way.

I don't think he's being weak. It sounds like his m.o. is to fail to disclose things until he feels his partner is attached enough to accept them even if it's not what they want. So he didn't disclose his preference for non-monogamy when they started dating, but then told her after she was pretty sure she wanted to marry him so he could later claim she "agreed" since she didn't marry him (while also saying she wanted to be monogamous). And then he started dating someone else, again without telling her (even though usually in polyamory, there are rules around disclosure, but since Lindy had not at that point agreed to open the marriage, there were no rules in place) and then by the time she learns of it, it's a more serious relationship and now Lindy has to decide whether to deal with it or divorce.

He sounds manipulative AF and it sounds like she's convincing herself it's fine because she's afraid of being alone.

It's really sad, but he doesn't sound miserable. Lindy sounds miserable and the GF sound like she will one day be like "wtf am I doing" but is currently high on having been "picked" by a married man AND his famous writer wife.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She basically announced her hate for herself to the whole world.

It's called marketing, ahem! She's trying to sell her life, get some publicity.

That being said, he ain't it. For her to put up with all that, I thought he'd be cuter:

I've noticed that poly/ENM people are rarely conventionally attractive. Usually they're 2s, 3s, 4s.

I'm guessing it's because the person who pushes for polyamory is highly insecure so they need external validation that others will sleep with them, and the monogamous partner tolerates it because they think they won't be able to do any better.

Right - can you visualize these two in a threes$ome ?