Dont I Get A Choice?

and does that satisfy you more than loving just one person romantically?

How do the other parties involved feel about your affects toward the other ones?

What makes you say that?

Im sorry, but who died and made you arbiter of human emotions?

The vast majority of polyamorous relationships are just as "confining" (unfortunate choice of words) as monogamous ones.

Being married means one has resolved to direct one's strongest, deepest, most intimate feelings, thoughts and energy toward just one other person. It means one has promised to endure in such a relationship no matter what. This commitment and its exclusivity are what makes marriage unique. Even without sex no other relationship is like it. Can the polyamorous person say the same? Obviously not.

Again, who died and made you arbiter?

"Not to be treated differently"? If you're doing something I think is morally wrong, am I supposed to turn a blind eye? If so, how far should I take such a response to things I think are immoral? Doesn't such "blindness" itself become immoral? I can think of instances where it would.

I think not encouraging love is immoral, what do you suggest I do?

What makes me say that romantic feelings are fundamentally sexual in focus? Well, if they weren't, they would be platonic feelings of friendship, wouldn't they?

My point was that love is not primarily a feeling. The Bible describes the greatest kind of love as self-sacrificing. "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (Jn. 15:13) Love isn't completely devoid of feeling, of course, but feeling isn't the defining characteristic of love. It is action that seeks the betterment of the other person - even at the expense of oneself - that evidences true love. This is the Christian view of love.

Now, no one is demanding that you agree with the Christian view of love, but if you dismiss it out-of-hand as mere opinion, then you give others the right to do the same to your point of view. This doesn't allow for very useful discussions however...

This is obviously not the case. As you've indicated yourself, there is a very plain difference between "mono" and "poly."

Are you disagreeing with me? If so, perhaps you could give some better rationale for your disagreement than this vague retort.

Why do you say that romantic feelings are fundamentally sexual in focus?

And I see that as a different kind of love than love you might feel for your wife.

You seem to feel that your definition and yours alone applies to how others feel and that because what I feel disagrees with that, its wrong.

How is romantic love distinguished from all other kinds of love? Well, why do we say that a man and woman who are simply good friends, who are not involved sexually, are in a platonic relationship rather than a romantic one? Why, when a man and woman have the expectation of sexual intimacy with each other is the relationship suddenly "romantic"? Answer these questions and you'll understand why I think romance is fundamentally directed toward sex. Oh, and please note that I say "fundamentally directed," not "solely directed." Romantic relationships aren't only about sex, just fundamentally so.

Oh, but it isn't! This is precisely the kind of love I strive to enter into with my wife. Again, note that it isn't completely devoid of feeling, just not directed by those feelings. My marriage promise to my wife transcends what I may or may not feel. My main goal isn't to gratify myself through my wife, but to give to her - even when it costs me. I am convinced that without this kind of love in a marriage that marriage is doomed to failure.

I am convinced that the things I believe about love are correct, but that doesn't mean I assume that you or all others agree. At the same time, your anticipated disagreement doesn't mean that I should waver on, or water down, my declarations of what I think is the truth. If I believe I understand the truth in this matter then, yes, I also believe this truth applies to you and everyone else. This is the nature of this kind of truth.

You do realize you are doing to me what you accuse me of doing to you. You think your definition is better than mine and, because my definition doesn't agree with yours, it must then be wrong. Really, all either of us can do is set out what we believe and let the other decide whether to agree or not. I think you're wrong and vice versa and nothing we've said so far has prompted a change in the other's perspective. Well, then, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. For me, that doesn't mean I will just turn a blind eye to what I believe is the immoral nature of polyamorism and say nothing critical about it. I can't be truly convinced as I am and do that. You may feel the same on your side. So be it.

You are repeating yourself and not answering my question. WHY does romantic love ALWAYS have to be fundamentally directed by sex?

Where is the passion? The fire? It seems to me even a relationship with love that lacks passion is a waste of time.

But why are you the only one who can be right?

I dont feel your outlook is the right one for ME. I am also trying to help you understand my position just as I am asking to understand yours.

I think you guys are at an impasse. You each have your own views on this matter and neither is going to change position. Maybe it is time to move on?

I may seem to be repeating myself because I think what you're asking is self-evident and cannot be explained in any better way than the way I have already explained it. This is why I draw attention to the difference between a platonic and a romantic relationship. It seems very clear to me that a relationship that is platonic necessarily cannot be romantic, or vice versa. The distinction we make between the two kinds of relationships draws attention to the very things I'm saying about sex and romance. If a romantic relationship isn't fundamentally about sex, then it is a platonic relationship and not romantic. It sounds to me, though, like you're trying to suggest that there is a relationship that can be both at the same time. This, for reasons I've recently outlined, I believe is impossible.

You seem to be framing this particular point in what I'm writing in a one-or-the-other mindset.

I never said that there was no passion in my marriage, or that my love for my wife was devoid of "fire."

I only said that mature love, godly love, cannot use passion or fire as its foundation. Any one who has been married more than a short time can tell you that romantic passion waxes and wanes. The fluctuating nature of these feelings makes it a very poor foundation for loving anyone. There has to be a deeper root for love, something more stable and persevering, that serves as the ground upon which a husband relates to his wife. I have explained to you in my last post what kind of love that is.

The nature of truth denies the idea that everyone can be right about a particular thing even though they all disagree about it. For instance, if I say love is fundamentally a self-sacrificing action and you disagree and say it is fundamentally romantic passion, we may both be wrong, or one of us may be right, but we cannot both be right. This would contravene the basic law of logic known as the Law of Non-Contradiction. Take a simpler example: If I point to my car and say "The car is green," and my wife points to the same car and says, "The car is purple," we cannot both be right. It must be one color or the other (assuming that the car is one solid color); it cannot be both. We can see in this that truth is naturally exclusivistic. If the truth is that the car is green, all other colors are excluded; the car is not blue, or pink, or yellow, etc, etc. In other words, there can be only one right answer to the question, "What color is the car?"

In the same way, the matter you and I have been discussing has, I believe, only one right answer. We can't both hold opposing views and still both be correct. If we try to do this, we become logically fallacious in our thinking and confuse truth with opinion. We may both of us be wrong, or one of us is right and the other not, but we cannot both be right. I think I am right. Because our views diverge as they do I cannot believe I am right and think that you, too, are also right. The nature of truth (and basic logic) won't allow it. Now, I may also be wrong, but I have yet to be convinced of this. Until I am, I will continue to think as I do.

Just because I think you're wrong doesn't mean I don't understand what you're saying. I have to understand what you're saying to be able to assess it as right or wrong. In other words it is, in part, because I do understand what you're saying that I think it is wrong.

Also, I don't think I'm giving you merely my "outlook." I believe I understand the truth of this matter. You, on the other hand, seem to be approaching our discussion with a very postmodern outlook: Truth is whatever you choose to make it; truth is ultimately unknowable and subjective. This is suggested in the phrase you use: "the right one for me." But Truth isn't like a pair of shoes you buy, or paint you choose to color your bedroom walls; it isn't a flavor, or a preference. So it is that when we come to the place where we must agree to disagree, I don't go away thinking that we have had merely a divergence of opinion, but that you are completely mistaken in your view of the truth of the matter. This doesn't mean I have any personal dislike for you - far from it! I don't get a hate on for someone who thinks 2 + 2 = 5; I don't agree with their arithmetic, but this isn't a basis for burning them at the stake. At the same time, I don't tolerate this kind of mistaken addition, or promote it. Imagine how foolish this would be when buying something, or building a house, or doing my banking!

Again with the car, if I see a car as green, someone else may come along who is colorblind and sees the car as white. Am I wrong? Is he wrong? We are both doing the same thing, observing reflected light from an object. We tend to think of what WE as individuals see as "normal" however we forget that sometimes changes in perspective can result in changes in what you actually see.

I think the disconnect is that you seem to feel that you seem to believe that a relationship of romantic love is founded mostly on sex; I strongly disagree. I think you are compartmentalizing things to make them fit.

What you said made it sound very much that way.

There is no reason in the world we cant both be right or wrong. In your car analogy, if we are looking at a car that is dark blue and you say that it is blue and I say that it is black, we are both correct; the car has aspects of both.

I often find that the idea of absolute truth comes from a lack of focus on details and details can be extremely important.

I must confess a lot of your thinking is very alien to me.

A lot of your responses suggest that you dont understand what I'm talking about and Im sure a lot of the confusion on my end is due to the fact that I dont clearly understand a lot of your thinking as well.

Again, I find the idea of absolute truth very difficult to accept simply because there ARE no absolutes, which isnt even absolute in and of itself.

Again with the car, if I see a car as green, someone else may come along who is colorblind and sees the car as white. Am I wrong? Is he wrong? We are both doing the same thing, observing reflected light from an object. We tend to think of what WE as individuals see as "normal" however we forget that sometimes changes in perspective can result in changes in what you actually see.