Hi, I'm Kale. Today I wanted to talk about
when relationships transitions into something new.
In traditional relationships, the trajectory
is set - you meet someone new, you date them, move in, you get married,
you have kids. Unless at some point along that
path, you break up. Then meet someone new
and the cycle starts again.
So what happens when you don't exacltly 'date' people?
If your relationships looks like
this Venn diagram, and are involved with people
based around the things that the two of you
want to do together, what happens when that
middle part changes?
When the last person I was living with moved
out, everyone wanted to know 'So, did you guys breakup?'
I didn't really know what to tell them.
Our relationship looked pretty similar to what
it had been when we were living together.
In fact, it looked better because living
together hadn't been working for us.
When we realized that the living together
part of our relationship wasn't working, we
changed it. One we removed the stressors of cohabitating, our relationship transitioned
into something new.
Saying 'We broke up' didn't fit at all. We
weren't breaking anything, we were making
it better. A breakup sounds like a demotion,
but we still cared about each other, were
invested in each other's happiness.
To be honest, I think what people really
wanted to know is 'Did you stop having sex?'.
Because that is how we judge the importance
of a relationship. So many questions really
boil down to this.
Are you dating? Are you just friends? Are
you friends with benefits? Did you stop seeing
him? All of these questions are really asking
'So, tell me about your sex life.'
As a relationship anarchists, I don't value
certain relationships more because I'm having
sex with a person. So at some point, I just
started refusing to answer these questions
 
It's not easy, when people want a specific
answer. When they ask you 'Are you together or not?',
they don't want to hear 'What
do you mean by together?'
'What difference does it make if we're having
sex or not?'
'If we lived together but stopped having sex,
is that breaking up?'
'What do you mean by dating, exactly?'
People can't immediately categorize someone if
they don't know if they are dating. They
can't fit them into this space in their brain
that says You go here. And people love
categorizing things. In some ways, it's been really hard for me. Once I started living alone, people saw
that relationship as over, or less important.
Our families certainly did, now when they
come to town, there's no more invites to come along for dinner.
It felt like they were saying, 'Okay, on to
the next person. Who can we meet now?'
It's hard to say 'Well, this person is still
a bid deal to me, we just don't live together
anymore'. Or try saying 'Well, there is this other person that's
been around for years, we've just made a decision
not to cohabitate'.
Either way, unless you have a 
family that is very open to meeting everyone that you
are involved with, (in which case, awesome!),
you're probably going to bump into this.
It's something that poly people have had to
deal with for ages. It's just a little different
for relationship anarchists, because on top
of having multiple simultaneous relationships,
we might have ones that are always
in flux, and hard to define.
Back to the question of if RAs can have breakups. While I think the word break up might not necessarily
apply, of course there are still reasons
to cut ties with someone completely.
If they are abusive, or the relationship has
become toxic and is beyond repair. In those
cases, it makes sense to step away
and make a conscious decision to step away and end that relationship.
But if there are still good parts to the relationship,
if that middle section of the vin diagram
still exists, or if it has just shifted, then I
don't see a need to 'breakup' or stop seeing
a person.
Relationship anarchy gives people the space
to be themselves, and make their own choices.
If the two of you find that some parts of
your relationship aren't working, like living
together or sleeping together, you can change that.
It can be hard, because people might feel that
they are being relegated to a less important
space in your life. It will take work on
both your parts to manage the new dynamic.
But if you're patient and you communicate this is the best way you to stay in
each other's lives, hopefully they will understand and your relationship
will be better for it.
How do you feel about break ups? If you are
a relationship anarchist, do you still have breakups?
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