#primarysecondary

I absolutely love words and language. The change of a single word in a sentence can change the meaning of the entire sentence. I find it interesting that some languages have so many words for some things that translations often come over poorly because other languages simply don’t have the words to describe something properly.

Because of this, I take words very seriously. When someone describes a partner as primary or secondary for example, that means a lot to me. I know it can mean different things to different people and some people honestly subscribe to that concept whereas other just use the words because people kinda know what they mean when they say them. For my own purposes, I don’t like them. Primary insinuates that one partner is more important than another. In some cases maybe that’s true, but I think that’s fluid. Obviously if I’ve been married to my husband for 5 years and then go out on a single date with someone and someone were to then come to me and ask who was the more important person in my life, my hubby would win hands-down. Now if someone then said I could only be with one of them...what would my answer be? Well, it depends on who’s asking the question and why.

If the scenario above occurred and my husband came to me and tried to veto this new guy I’d want to know why. If he had a reasonable reason then of course, my husband would “win.” If he saw this new guy kick a dog or steal candy from a baby or whatever of course I’d dump him. This however is not a case of my husband winning so much as it is my husband giving me new information and me making a decision based off of that information. Now lets say I’ve been dating the guy for a few weeks or months and a slightly more subjective reason is given...my husband feels that this guy is rude, or maybe feels he’s disrespectful to him or our relationship. What exactly happened? Is this just a personal problem my husband has (sometimes people just don’t get along) or is this really something that justifies dumping him? I look at it kind of like I do with my friends. If one friend doesn’t like another, I might not invite them to the same party but still hang out with them individually. However if one person was actively being rude to the other (as opposed to a general personality clash) I would speak to each of them and determine what was up and potentially cease my friendship if I felt the issue egregious enough. 

It’s fully possible that the guy is a douche but it’s also possible that my husband is jealous for no good reason. In that event I would have to talk to my husband, learn the reason for his jealousy and work on that. If the jealousy has merit, maybe it’s something I work on with the new guy, or maybe it’s grounds for dismissal.  What I’m saying is it’s a case by case basis...it’s fully possible that my husband has no valid reason for what he’s doing at which point I’m not going to default to doing whatever he wants because he’s my “primary” which is what that term insinuates to me. It’s unfair to the other person to just say “sorry, gotta dump you” with no reason and it causes tension between my husband and me for him to be able to tell me who I can or can’t love.

I feel that the whole point of polyamory is that you don’t pit one partner up against another. Each love is unique and independent of the others. Yes you need to consider everyone’s feelings and treat everyone with respect, but that’s part of the problem with primary/secondary is it insinuates to a degree that the primary deserves more respect than the secondary. Even in the event that one relationship is more casual than another, I still don’t like the terms because the same rules still apply. Maybe I only go out with a particular guy once in a blue moon, but I still wouldn’t cancel that date at the behest of my “primary” (without due reason of course) because that would be disrespectful of that person’s feelings. Even if it is a casual relationship, that person is still a human being and is still an important person. to be honest, I don’t want to be in a person who insists on primary status or vetoes without cause because that demonstrates that the person has a lack of respect for other people’s feelings and generally doesn't understand what polyamory means to me.