What is amatonormativity?

Amatonormativity is a long word which philosopher Elizabeth Brake came up with. It means that, in our culture, it’s seen as normal for people to want romantic love, and to prioritise that kind of love over other kinds. Other kinds of love include things like the love we have in friendships, family relationships, work and play relationships, and relationships with ourselves and with companion animals, our communities, the world around us, and our spiritual beliefs.  ‘Amato’ means romantic love and ‘normativity’ means what’s seen as culturally normal.

Amatonormativity is linked to several other kinds of ‘normativity’: heteronormativity (where it’s seen as normal to want relationships with someone of the ‘opposite gender’), cisnormativity (where it’s seen as normal to be one of only two genders – male and female – and to stay in that gender all your life),  mononormativity (where it’s seen as normal to only love one person and to want a monogamous relationship with them), and sexual normativity (where it’s seen as normal to want to have sex, generally only with the person you’re in a romantic relationship with).

To make it simpler we could say that the overall ‘norm’ is to be in one gender yourself, to fall in love with someone of the ‘opposite’ gender (perhaps after dating a bit), and to form a monogamous relationship with them where you have sex and get more and more committed over time (the relationship escalator): getting married, having a family, and trying to stay together for life.

What are the different ways it affects everyone in society?

Amatonormativity affects everyone: the people who don’t fit into it and the people who do. 

The people who don’t fit into amatonormativity include people who are single or solo, people who are aromantic so don’t experience romantic love, people who prioritise other kinds of relationships in their lives, and people who prioritise many relationships rather than just one – like polyamorous people and relationship anarchists. Other people who don’t fit into amatonormativity are people from cultures where marriage and other committed relationships aren’t based on romantic love, which is actually people in many cultures around the world.

Some people don’t fit amatonormativity because they’ve realised it doesn’t work for them. It’s hard for them because the world around them assumes they will want romantic love and may discriminate against them or make them feel weird or isolated for being ‘different’. 

The people who do fit amatonormativity often have a hard time too. Because there’s so much cultural pressure – and pressure from friends and family and peers – to want romantic love and to focus on it obsessively, people often miss out on other great things in life like friendships and projects and community.

Also the huge pressure on a romantic partner to be ‘everything’ to you and ‘complete’ you and be your soul mate who meets all your needs means that most romantic love relationships often don’t work out long term. It’s just too much pressure to be someone’s best friend, and their lover, and the person they live with and have kids with, and their cheerleader, and the person who looks after them when they’re sick or struggling.

People can end up staying in really unhappy relationships because they’re scared to be alone in an amatonormative world, and they can end up breaking up with one person after another and getting really hurt by that because they’re so busy searching for someone perfect.

Is there anyone it particularly affects? 

Amatonormativity particularly affects those of us who are trying to do relationships differently because we’ve realised some of the problems with basing relationships on romantic love. While we might try to prioritise the other relationships in our lives, we may still find that our friends prioritise their romantic relationships and drift off as soon as they have a partner, or spend more time on dating than on friendships. Or they might find it weird to talk with us about how we might make commitments in our friendships.

Amatonormativity also affects people with trauma in their backgrounds – which is many of us. Romantic love can be quite risky when we have childhood trauma because it’s very easy to jump into relationships quickly and to try to get the kind of love there which we were missing – or lost – as a kid. Again that’s a lot of pressure to put on one relationship, and we can often end up getting hurt because painful patterns come up in intense romantic relationships and we can become very dependent on them.

Some neurodiverse people can struggle with amatonormativity because romantic love type relationships don’t give us the space we might need, enough solo time, or can just be too intense for us.

Finally, some people would say that amatonormativity – with its focus on one romantic relationship – isn’t so good for disabled people, or people with physical and mental health conditions, or even for parents, where being an isolated unit of just two people can be a lot of pressure. Perhaps community-based models and extended family structures where there are networks of people looking out for each other can work better when we need care and support.

Focusing on young people specifically, what expectations does it set and how might it harm them? 

For young people amatonormativity can mean that a lot of your focus goes on love relationships, particularly for girls who are still taught in stories and movies and magazines that love is their big adventure in life. When that message is all around you it can seem to make sense to spend a lot of your time longing for love, talking about the people you fancy, dating or hooking up. That can feel like the most fun and pleasurable thing in life. But what would it be like if we lived in a world where mates were seen as just as important as dates, where we were taught how to enjoy our relationship with ourselves rather than being so hard on ourselves all the time, or where we were expected to get just as excited about the things we’re passionate about as we do about the people we’re into?

If you’re a young person who doesn’t fit into amatonormativity there can be so much pressure to do so. You can end up being bullied for being weird and different if you don’t talk about who you fancy or get off with people, and you can end up feeling like an outsider or like there’s something wrong with you if romantic love isn’t something you’re interested in, or if it doesn’t seem to happen for you.

That’s why the idea of amatonormativity is really helpful. It reminds us that prioritising romantic love isn’t really the normal, natural, right thing to do. It’s just one thing we can do, and it might not even be a very good idea for all the reasons we’ve talked about.

Online communities can be a lot of help for finding other people who do things differently, and it can be good to see a counsellor if anyone is giving you a hard time. Website like BishUK and Scarleteen both have great advice for young people about relationship diversity.

Do you think there are structural things that favour couples, or privileges that come with being in a romantic relationship/marriage that are related to amatonormativity? 

One of the reasons it’s so hard to be outside amatonormativity, or to resist it if it doesn’t work for us, is because the whole of society is set up like it’s the One True Way to be. People who get married are given lots of legal and financial and health support that people who are in other kinds of relationships don’t get. It’s often much easier to get a house together if you are a romantic couple than if you’re in another kind of relationship with one or more other people. People who have kids together are often not recognised as valid parents unless they’re romantic partners.

Outside of these practical problems, cultural messages are So Strong that we should want romantic love and settle down with a romantic partner. It’s literally the ‘happy ever after’ of most fairy tales, movies, and novels. It’s also the focus of loads of magazines, soap operas, and reality TV shows like Love Island or Love is Blind. This means most people just accept amatonormativity and everyone from our mates to our families are probably assuming we’ll want romantic love and are pressuring us to date, especially around events like proms and weddings, or at times like Valentine’s Day and holiday seasons.

‘Couple privilege’ is a phrase for the many ways in which it’s easier to be in our society as a couple than it is as somebody single or in another kind of relationship. Couples never have to explain why they want to be together or stay together, whereas people who are single are always asked to explain themselves, as are people who leave romantic relationships, or who decide to prioritise other kinds of relationships.

Do you think society is changing in terms of amatonormativity?

I hope so. In 2012 my book Rewriting the Rules came out, which suggested that we could question the love rules that prioritise romantic love over other kinds of love. Eight years on we now have a word for this: amatonormativity, and people are having these kinds of conversations more widely. There are also more and more words and communities for people who want to do things differently like solo poly people, self-partnered people, relationship anarchists, aromantic people, etc. Popular TV shows like Modern Love have started to portray lots of different kinds of love rather than just romantic love.

However, at the same time, the mainstream media seems increasingly obsessed with people at a young age finding The One and getting married to them. Look at all the massively popular reality TV shows where winning is based on falling in love and making that commitment.

It’s a bit like what’s happening with sex and gender. At the same time that we have asexual communities questioning why there is so much pressure to be sexual, we also have more and more cultural obsession with having ‘great sex’ and ‘experts’ insisting that it’s vital to have sex. At the same time that we have non-binary people questioning why people are divided into men and women, there’s also a lot of cultural pressure to be a manly man and or a girly girl and ‘experts’ insisting that gender is binary.

What can we do to be less amatonormative or how do we get rid of amatonormativity?

It is So Hard to step outside of culture so go gently with yourself. If you see the problems with amatonormativity then it’s a great idea to be part of communities of other people who feel similarly in order to get support. Finding online and offline communities of other people who want to do relationships the way you do is a great plan. You might also read some of the books and zines out there which question amatonormativity and offer alternatives. I hope my book Rewriting the Rules is a pretty good place to start, and me and Justin Hancock (from Bish UK) have a podcast where we talk about these things A Lot.

For me one of the answers to how to do things differently has been to slow down all relationships. These days I tell everyone that I want to be friends first. In fact I aim to have a friendship for at least a year before I consider adding anything to it (whether that is sex or romantic love or working together or living together). New Relationship Energy or ‘falling in love’ is a major feature of amatonormativity and I think it’s a great idea to slow that right down, because it generally isn’t a great basis to build a whole relationship on.

Do you also happen to know if any cultures across the world are not amatonormative?

Actually all cultures around the world do love differently. More cultures are some form of non-monogamous than are monogamous, and many cultures base marriage or committed relationships on some kind of family and/or financial arrangement, or on choosing a good fit, rather than on romantic love (although that can develop over time in such relationships). If we don’t want to impose one view on the rest of the world – as we have in the past – we need to get on board with relationship diversity.

Patreon link: If you liked this, feel free to support my Patreon, it will certainly help this self-employed person to maintain some income during these uncertain times.

Plural tag: This post was primarily written by Fox.

The post All about amatonormativity: the privileging of romantic love appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

It’s particularly good to be included on a list with other authors who I enjoy and respect such as Esther Perel and Polly Young-Eisendrath. Esther’s work offers similar critiques to mine of the common assumption that we can get all of our needs met in one relationship: particularly the need for hot passionate love and the need for warm companionate love. Like me Polly weaves together ideas and practices from western psychotherapy and from Buddhist philosophy.

It’s also great to see the inclusion of books like mine on this list which offer alternatives to normative culturally accepted ways of doing relationships. I’m now keen to get hold of Clare Chambers‘s Against Marriage: An Egalitarian Defence of the Marriage-Free State, which looks like it reflects on some similar issues to my book, but from the perspective of what levelling out hierarchies of love might look like on a societal level than an interpersonal one.

Thanks again for including me

The post Rewriting the Rules on relationship book list appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

We talk about how to figure out what relationship style works for you, as well as meta-communication, time-management, and dealing with difficult feelings like jealousy.

You can listen to the Sex Spoken Here podcast here.

If you fancy exploring these things more for yourself, check out our Make You Own Relationship User Guide zine over at megjohnandjustin.com.

The post Is non-monogamy for you? appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Here is the talk, and beneath it a written version:

Relationship Uncertainty

I want to start with a list of advice about relationships which I’ve found in various self-help books, problem pages and magazine articles:

• Never waste an opportunity to say ‘I love you’: Don’t be the first to use the L word.
• Take her at face value: Figure out the hidden reason why she’s upset.
• Don’t use complete sentences during sex: Talk dirty, he’ll love it.
• Work at your relationship: Be spontaneous.

Confusing right?

As a culture we’re currently in a state of relationship uncertainty. At the same time that we’ve opened up to same sex marriage, government insists that monogamous coupledom is the only good basis for a family. There has never been greater gender equality, but there’s a constant pull back to the view that men and women are from different planets. And, whilst some commentators argue that we should loosen our views around affairs and infidelity, others argue that we should tighten restrictions around people watching online porn – because this is seen as bad for relationships.

Why are we in such uncertainty? First of all, declining religion, unstable jobs, and the fact we all move around rather than staying in smaller communities have all meant that we look to romantic relationships to meet all of our needs in a way we never have before. Love has become the new religion.

At the same time we’re encouraged by the media, by advertisers, and by each other, to be independent individuals who fulfill our own goals in life and are true to ourselves no matter what.

This creates a tension as we long for belonging, togetherness and connection with a partner, at the same time that we strive for individual freedom, independence and personal fulfillment.

There are two main things that we tend do when faced with such uncertainty: Either we look back to the old rules that have been around before – and cling onto those for some sense of security, or we create new rules – but often we cling onto these just as tightly.

For the rest of the talk I’ll explore these two paths, and then consider an alternative: embracing the uncertainty that we find ourselves in in our relationships.

Grasping the old rules

The first option, in such a state of uncertainty, is to turn to the old rules of relationships and to grasp hold of these to get some sense of stability.

We see this in a lot of the mainstream advice about relationships which promises that we can find The One who will complete us and provide us with a happily-ever-after, so long as we follow a particular set of rules.

Often the rules are about gender. Back in the 1990s the best-selling book, The Rules, promised women that they would find the perfect man who would stay with them forever if only they would return to traditional femininity: Let him take the initiative; don’t talk too much, laugh too much, or demand too much, and he’ll have to make you his.

Almost as a direct response to this, the seduction communities of the early 2000s advised men on how to become alpha males and play the game that would make them irresistible to women.

Once in a relationship, there is a battalion of relationship therapists, agony aunts and experts on hand to ensure that we stay together forever in a constant state of love and great sex. Anything else is considered to be a failure.

There are many problems with this approach. First of all, this idea that we can find everything in one person is not actually an old one. It’s only since around the 1950s that we’ve expected our romantic partner to be our soulmate, our best friend, our perfect sex partner, and sole co-parent. As historian, Stephanie Coontz, says ‘people have always loved a love story. But for most of the past our ancestors didn’t try to live in one.’

Secondly, of course, this is a great deal of pressure to put on one person throughout the increasingly long lives that we are likely to be spending together. Nobody can provide us with constant love, great sex, validation of everything we do, and total security. Indeed, as my colleague and TED talker Esther Perel points out, many of the things that we require from a partner are contradictory: safety and excitement, shared lives and the freedom to do what we want to do, everyday togetherness and constant passion.

So we see many people bouncing from one person to another in serial monogamy, or having affair after affair, staying bitterly in relationships that don’t match their expectations, or giving up on the whole endeavour having been bruised and battered by one too many painful separations.

Graspingthe new rules

There is a story that Terry Pratchett tells about what happens when you have a bucket full of crabs. If one crab tries to escape the bucket, Pratchett says, the other crabs pull it back in.

Thus it is with the rules of relationships. They may not be working very well, but if anybody tries to propose something different they are quickly shouted down and brought back into line. The mass media tells us that anybody who is doing sex, gender, or relationships differently is – at best – a weirdo worthy of ridicule, and – at worst – a dangerous threat to society. Just think about how people who are kinky, or trans people, or people in open relationships, are generally portrayed in movies and newspaper articles.

However, occasionally a crab does manage to get out of the bucket and finds itself scuttling around out on the beach. What happens then? Because it is so precarious and scary out there alone, the strong tendency is to find another bucket and to settle in with all the other crabs there. As I say in my book, there are gay crab buckets, kinky crab buckets, polyamorous crab buckets, and every other kind of crab bucket you could imagine.

What this means is that, when we do come up with another way of doing relationships, we often grasp hold of that just as tightly as other people do to the old rules.

For example, in recent years lots of groups have come up with alternatives to monogamy. However, such groups often quickly find themselves in a crab bucket mentality. Perhaps they say it’s only okay to have sex with other people, but not to develop loving feelings. Or that we must have lots of rules in place to protect the specialness of the primary relationship. Or that everybody must be free to do whatever they want and feelings of jealousy or insecurity are not allowed. Whatever version of relationships we develop, it very easily becomes something a rigid system that we see as the only way, or better than the alternatives. Any crab who tries to do something different is pulled back into the bucket.

Embracing Uncertainty

I’ve suggested that, as a culture, we have tended to pass on old rules of relationships which are not helpful – perhaps even damaging. However I’ve also warned that – when we try to develop different rules to pass on to people which might offer helpful alternatives – these often become just as inflexible and brittle as the old rules.

What is the alternative? The idea that I would like to pass on is that of embracing uncertainty.

The author, Martine Batchelor, puts it this way. ‘Imagine,’ she says ‘that I am holding an object made of gold. It is so precious and it is mine – I feel I must hold onto it. I grasp it, curling my fingers so as not to drop it, so that nobody can take it away from me. What happens after a while? Not only do my hand and arm get cramp but I cannot use my hand for anything else. When you grip something, you create tension and limit yourself. Dropping the golden object is not the solution.’ The alternative is ‘learning to relax to uncurl the fingers and gently open the hand. When my hand is wide open and there is no tension, the precious object can rest lightly on my palm. I can still value the object and take care of it; I can put it down and pick it up; I can use my hand for doing something else.’

So what does this mean for relationships? It means that whether we’re turning to the old rules, or developing new ones, we try to avoid the tendency to grasp them tightly or to hurl them away. Instead, we hold them gently, recognising what they offer, but also their limitations. Rather than insisting on rigidly adhering to them we can treat them flexibly, recognising that they might need to shift over time as situations and people change.

Perhaps we can take the same approach to our relationships themselves. Instead of grasping hold of one person, or a few people, in our lives and insisting that they meet all of our needs, perhaps we can hold all of our relationships more gently, appreciating what we have with partners but also with friends, family, and colleagues. From people we are close with to those with whom we share only a fleeting connection.

Holding relationships gently means that we can see them more clearly, noticing when things need to change rather than becoming stuck in the dilemma of staying together just as we are or breaking up and never seeing each other again.

In this way perhaps we can learn that people in our lives are not objects that need to be figured out and played according to some set of rules, so that we can get what we want from them. Rather they are complex people in their own right, ever-changing and with their own contradictions and vulnerabilities, hopes and fears, triumphs and tragedies. Perhaps we can then be present to that person as they are right now, instead of grabbing hold of them or rejecting them entirely.

Those are the kinds of ideas about relationships that I would like to pass on.

There is an Italian translation of this talk here: http://www.poliamore.org/riscrivere-le-regole-delle-relazioni/

The post TED talk: Rewriting the Rules of Relationships appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

My immediate reaction was to feel angry that this – otherwise excellent – charity was using guilt tactics to frighten people into action. I also disliked the implication that other people might have so much power over what somebody chooses to do with their own body.

However, I had to reflect that – when it comes to mental rather than physical health – I have used a somewhat similar argument myself. I am a great believer that we all need to build some form of self-care into our lives in order to be in an okay place emotionally and psychologically. It is when I don’t have a moment to myself that I get overwhelmed when stressful things happen, respond badly to conflict, or make mistakes at work. Similarly, clients who I work with in therapy are often constantly engaged with work, family and friends. When I encourage them to build in time for a ‘daily kindness’ to themselves, or for quiet reflection, the major block that they frequently come up against is all their obligations to other people in their lives. They don’t want to let down their managers and colleagues, their partners and parents.

For many of us the argument that we will feel better if we look after ourselves doesn’t get very far because we see self-care as being self-centred or as spoiling ourselves. When we’re depressed we don’t feel that we deserve this. Or perhaps it doesn’t fit the self-sacrificing image that we want to have of ourselves.

However, the realisation that we will be better for the other people in our lives is often the thing that helps us to make that first small shift towards building in some time for self-care. For example, we might notice that a small amount of self-care can leave us less exhausted, more able to hear other people, and better able to manage extra pressures. We might also see that we are a better role-model for others in our lives if we demonstrate that we are able to say ‘no’ to things or to prioritise looking after ourselves.

So how is this different to the Diabetes UK argument that people should take steps towards better physical health in order to be in a better place for their loved ones? I think it comes down to the complex tension that we all face that we are, at the same time, independent individuals, and unavoidably involved in interdependent relationships with the other people in our lives. There are a few elements of this that I want to tease out here, but I don’t think there are any easy answers. Rather I hope that this blog post might be a starting point for people who want to talk about such matters, and that it will set out some of the territory in a way that is helpful.

Guilt doesn’t work

The main difference that I can see between the Diabetes UK campaign and the conversations that I have with clients (and with myself!) is the direction of travel. With clients I encourage them to explore the implications – for themselves and for others – of the ways in which they are currently living their lives. I might suggest that they experiment – for example with building in a daily kindness or a little time to themselves into the day – and report back on what the experience is like, including what was difficult about it. I’d certainly explore what kinds of self-care they had found helpful – and not – in the past, and what it meant to them. And I would be open to the likelihood that this person would be different to me in terms of what counted as ‘self-care’ anyway, and how they experienced it.

What I’m saying is that it would be a collaborative conversation, and the client would be the expert on what works for them – not me. This is in contrast to campaigns that suggest that you are being bad for your loved ones. The implication of such campaigns seems to be that it is a relatively simple matter to get tested and to make the necessary lifestyle changes, and that recognising that we might be bad for our family is enough to make such changes happen.

These tactics are dangerous. Back in the 1980s scare tactics were frequently used in the ‘safe sex’ campaigns around condoms and HIV. As this Sigma report points out, the risk of using fear in this way is that people will come to associate condoms themselves with fear (rather than HIV) and will actually be less, rather than more, likely to engage in safer sex behaviours.

I imagine that the same is the case with guilt-based campaigns. At-risk people viewing these posters are likely to already have anxiety about their health. Adding guilt to this could easily lead to them feeling overwhelmed and even more worried about finding out whether they actually have diabetes. Similarly, making any potential lifestyle changes could become associated with feelings of guilt and fear of failure: it could easily feel safer to do nothing.

Personal meanings: We’re all sensible

Vitally, guilt and fear based campaigns fail to address the personal meanings behind people’s behaviours. Most of us have a fairly good idea these days about what constitutes healthy and less healthy behaviours. So when we do something less healthy (such as failing to build self-care, or physical activity, into our lives, or having unsafe sex) there are good reasons for this. If we just nag people – telling them that they should meditate, for example, or go to the gym, or put on a condom, then we are ignoring these reasons and giving them the message that they are faulty or deficient for struggling in this area (more guilt). This is what we often do to ourselves – of course – when we beat ourselves up for not exercising more, or eating less, or taking up yoga, or whatever, without trying to really understand why this might be difficult for us.

An alternative approach would be to assume that we – and others – are sensible people, so if we are doing something that seems irrational, we need to listen and explore more in order to understand how it makes sense. Perhaps a person has learnt that the only way to feel valuable is to work as much as possible, and that doesn’t leave space for self-care or exercise. Perhaps food has become such an important way of controlling a person’s emotions that the idea of eating more, or less, would be very threatening (taking this strategy away). Maybe someone has internalised the cultural messages that it is vital to be sexy, attractive and desirable, and they are willing to put themselves in risky situations if it validates this view of themselves.

Even these are oversimplifications, and there are likely to be many things going on for all of us in our relationships with food, time alone, physical activity, work, sex, and so on.

The danger with guilt and fear-based campaigns – and when we nag, berate or criticise ourselves and our loved ones – is that we make it less, rather than more, likely that people will be able to kindly, and gently, explore these individual meanings and the very personal fears and desires behind them. Without such understanding I doubt that lasting change is possible, and a continual pattern of trying and failing will likely make things worse rather than better.

Sidebar: Physical and mental health

I realise that I’ve been writing here about physical and mental health – running together things like depression and diabetes. I think that this might be useful because the kinds of underlying behaviours that we are talking about impact on both our physical and mental health, e.g. physical activity, food, sleep, work, self-care, etc.

Also, as we’ve seen, physical and mental health are pretty inextricably linked. Our past experiences, the messages we’ve taken on board, and related feelings like guilt, worry, fear, irritation, and envy are interwoven with our physical health in many ways: from how we feel when we get sick, to our reaction to various potential ‘health behaviours’, to our immune function and likelihood of having accidents.

Of course, in all cases, there are also likely genetic factors and other physiological – and external – aspects involved that we have little or no control over. But the parts that campaigns like the diabetes one, and counsellors working with depression, are trying to address are the parts that we can do something about ourselves – in addition to any medical treatments. Also, of course, whether or not we access screenings, treatments, etc. is an aspect of that controllable part.

However, it is worth also remembering how much of our physical and mental health is out of our control. We can easily spend our whole lives having a go at our partner who smokes, and our kid who goes motorcycling, only to be the one who is struck down by totally unanticipated accident, chronic condition, or period of despair. Perhaps part of our desire to believe that we – and others – are responsible for our health comes from the existential anxiety we all have about the inevitability of sickness, suffering and death.

Useful conversations: What can we offer? What do we expect?

It seems like what I’ve concluded here is that it’s good for us to decide – ourselves – to address our physical/psychological health in whatever ways we can, but that it is definitely not so good (indeed perhaps even counterproductive) to tell somebody else that they need to do so. This is where my discomfort with the diabetes advert comes in: it is not inviting somebody into a conversation about what they would like to do with their body, rather it is telling them what to do (or else!)

However, questions then come to my mind about what we do when other people in our lives don’t address their health – in whatever way – and that does have serious implications for us.

What about the colleague whose difficulties with stress get in the way of our joint projects? Or the partner whose risky behaviours have implications for our own safety? The friend whose aggression has alienated all their other friends, leaving us the only person to pick up the pieces each time they get in trouble? Or the housemate who goes out all night and is therefore never around to help with the chores and is too tired and run down to have a conversation about it

On the one hand whatever a person does can be viewed as sensible if we are willing to really listen and try to understand. On the other hand, what do we do if the person isn’t up for listening and trying to understand themselves? Or if they’ve done so and still continue with some behaviour that feels difficult to us. Should we accept any behaviour, even if it leaves us resentful and angry? Surely that isn’t very helpful either?

A tentative suggestion here is that it might be useful to communicate about the kind of relationship that you have and how that might shift if it there is such a tension.

We tend to take for granted what it means to be a colleague, partner, friend, housemate, child, parent, sibling, etc. and what responsibilities come with that. But none of this is set in stone. It is often the assumptions that are the problem here. We might assume, for example, that if our parent became sick they would come and live with us for the rest of their lives. Then we might feel like we should be very involved in any decisions that they make about their health. However, this may not be in their plans at all, and/or there may be many other possibilities that we could explore together.

Of course we can’t always know how we will feel in the future – especially if a mental and/or physical health crisis happens – but it might be worth having some conversations about what you think you could offer to people in your life under various circumstances.

Certainly if we get married it is worth discussing what ‘in sickness and in health’ means to each person. For example, does it mean ‘in sickness and in health provided that I know you’ve done as much as you can to stay healthy’, or ‘in sickness and in health physically but I know I really can’t cope with serious mental illness because of my own history’, or ‘in sickness and in health as long as our relationship could adapt that I’d still get my needs for socialising/sex met if you got ill’, or ‘in sickness and health as long as we cultivate a good group of friends who’ll be there to support us too’.

Also, of course, these things are likely to have different meanings for each person, so it may well be that what the other person has to offer is not the same as what we could offer ourselves. It might be that one of us can promise that we’ll be great in an emotional crisis but are likely to struggle with anything involving blood, whilst the other can confess that they really struggle with sudden changes but can be very patient with long-term conditions involving gradual shifts.

And, of course, it is only in marriage that the ‘sickness and health’ discussions come up at all. Perhaps it would be a good idea to open up such conversations with other people in our lives, despite there being less obvious contexts for doing so.

I suppose that what I’m reaching for here is something that respects both our own – and the other person’s – freedom whilst recognising the ways in which we are inevitably bound together and impact on one another. I’m trying to capture the ways in which we have some control over our physical/mental health whilst recognising all of the ways in which it is out of our control. I’m seeking to respect each person’s choices – both around their own bodies and feelings – and around the limits that there might be on what they can offer.

Find out more…

Check out my zines on Self-Care, and Making Your Own Relationship User Guide.

The post Is taking care of ourselves a relationship responsibility? appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Me and Jen Yockney (of BCN) at No.10

Opening up

Clearly the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act does something extremely important in legally accepting that relationships between two people of the same gender are as legitimate as those between two people of different genders. Whilst civil partnerships brought us some way towards this, marriage is the way in which our society currently recognises relationship commitment, so the cultural impact of this on people who love people of the same gender cannot be underestimated.

As David Cameron rightly remarked in his Downing Street address, the potential impact of this on people’s everyday lives is immense. Whilst many lesbian, gay and bisexual people currently experience painful responses from family members when they come out, and even total exclusion from families, the message that same gender romantic relationships are as real and valuable as different gender ones may well help matters a great deal. Parents at such times often express concerns that they have lost the opportunity to see children reach the important social milestones in life such as getting married and having children, and clearly now this is not the case.

Along similar lines, the statistics on homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in schools make frightening reading. As Cameron also suggested, it may well be the case that the knowledge that future relationships will be equally valued, whether they are with people of the same or different genders, will result in some decrease in this bullying culture, greater confidence on the part of teachers in challenging it, and an increase in the comfort in LGB&T people being out in schools, and in their neighbourhoods and workplaces.

When we look back over the last few decades, to the times when having same-gender attraction was regarded as a psychiatric disorder, and when it was not even allowed to be discussed in schools, this seems like a huge step forward which many LGB&T organisations could not even imagine until very recently.

Also, regarding my own particular area of activism and research – bisexuality – the Downing Street event marked an important step forward. Last year was the first year in which a bisexual organisation was invited to the number 10 LGB&T garden party (Bi Community News). This year, my own group, BiUK, was also invited along. As Jen Yockney from BCN playfully pointed out, if the number of bisexual organisations included continues to double year on year then this will be a fantastic achievement for bisexual visibility!

More seriously, there have been real issues in the past with the lack of bisexual input into UK LGB&T policy, both nationally and locally. The last couple of years have seen a major shift in this, including regular meetings between UK bisexual organisations and the Government Equalities Office, and the inclusion of BiUK on the National LGB&T partnership (of the Department of Health), and the LGBT Chief Executives’ Network.

The inclusion of bisexual groups at the Downing Street event, and the use of terms ‘equal marriage’ or ‘same-sex marriage’ in the act and by the Prime Minister, were important steps in the recognition that many bisexual people have same-gender relationships as well as lesbian and gay people. Given the previous lack of visibility of bisexual people and their relationships, and the potential knock on impact of this invisibility on their comfort with being open about their sexuality, and their mental health, this is also extremely important.

Closing down

However, there are several concerns following the same sex marriage act which need to be taken seriously. Broadly speaking these are the remaining issues facing LGB&T people which the act does not address, and the relationship and family issues which the focus on romantic/sexual relationships (whether same or different gender) does not cover.

In both areas there are legitimate concerns that the passing of this act will lead people to believe that all the work has been done and that we no longer need to fund, research, and address LGB&T issues (on the one hand) or relationship issues (on the other).

LGB&T Equality

The saddest moment for me yesterday occurred in David Cameron’s speech when he commented that Britain was now “the best place to be gay, lesbian or transgender anywhere in Europe”. UK bisexual groups have fought hard for many years for recognition that bisexuality is a vital part of the LGB&T grouping and that bisexual people face many bi-specific issues, as well as having shared experiences with lesbian gay and trans* people (and of course many people are both bi and trans*). It was hard to hear the B left out of the LGB&T by our Prime Minister.

There is a strange sense sometimes that there is only space for one more spot in the acronym (after L & G) and that bisexuality and trans* have to fight for that place. Many times T is left off by organisations which only speak for LGB people, despite the fact that there are large overlaps in the agendas of these communities, and the involvement of trans* people in the gay rights movement from its early days. Other times people assume that bisexuality is covered by ‘lesbian and gay’, and so they only need to add the T (as in yesterday’s speech and in references to ‘homophobia and transphobia‘, which miss out biphobia).

I realise that this may seem like a picky point to those who are not as immersed in bisexual politics as I am. The reason that it is important to include the B is that our culture tends to regard sexuality as an either/or thing: either you are gay or you are straight. The inclusion of bisexuality in the LGB&T acronym means recognising that some people are attracted to, and form relationships with, more than one gender. Statistics on how many people this covers range from 3% to 20% so it is a significant grouping. When the B is left out this, it perpetuates commonly held assumptions that bisexuality is somehow a questionable identity (‘just a phase’ or ‘a confusion’), or that it doesn’t exist at all. This makes everyday life tough for bisexual people, who may have to come out multiple times due to people disbelieving them. It also means that we very rarely see depictions of bisexual people in the media. And the knock on effect is that many bisexual people don’t feel confident about their identity or experience, and may not have access to any support from those around them. We know that being invisible or constantly doubted and disbelieved by those around you takes a major toll on mental health and other aspects of well-being. Perhaps a useful thought experiment is to imagine what it would be like if you had to repeatedly remind people that you were straight after they kept assuming you were gay, or if – as a gay man – you had to access services that were labelled as for ‘lesbian, bisexual and trans*’ people.

The issues around trans* inclusion in the same-sex marriage act are perhaps even more significant than those around bisexual inclusion. An amendment to the act means that married trans* people applying for a gender recognition certificate will now require the consent of their spouse in order to receive this. There is a real danger that this sends a message that being trans* is not really legitimate, and that transitioning implies a massive change in one’s relationship, which it does not for many people. Given the level of transphobia in our culture, we could really do with changes that make trans* people more confident that transitioning is a totally acceptable thing to do, and that enable the significant people in their lives to be more supportive of them in doing this (whether or not they decide to remain in the same kind of relationship together).

Finally, on this note, there is a fear amongst many LGB&T people and groups that same-sex marriage will be regarded as the end point in the journey towards LGB&T equality: that it will be assumed that now we have achieved this there is nothing else to do. People are worried that funding will be withdrawn from LGB&T organisations or that remaining issues will be dismissed. Of course there are still many problems facing LGB&T people which are not addressed by same-sex marriage (such as hate crimes, homelessness, and specific health issues facing older LGB&T people and black and minority ethic LGB&T people to name just a few). And there are the specific remaining problems of biphobia and transphobia eluded to above. Globally, of course, we are reminded that progress towards equal rights can easily be reversed, as in Russia at the moment. It was concerning that the presentations by both David Cameron and Ben Summerskill at Downing Street yesterday seemed to suggest that same-sex marriage meant that we had achieved total equality around sexuality.

Valuing relationships

My other concern about the same-sex marriage act is that, whilst it gives a strong message that same gender and other gender relationships are equally valid, it also reinforces the idea that romantic and sexual relationships are more valid than any other kind, given that these are the only kind that are legally recognised and celebrating in front of friends and family.

In his speech, Cameron outlined his view that relationship commitment is the best basis for both families and for society as a whole. I agree with him that it is important for humans to commit to each other in all kinds of ways. For example there is the commitment that parents and other people in their lives make to care for children, the commitment of adults who support other adults in their lives in all kinds of ways, and the commitment that those of us who work together make to mutual endeavors and to help each other to achieve our goals.

However, I’m not convinced that commitments between romantic/sexual partners should be regarded as the most important kind of commitment, or the only legitimate basis of families and societies. This is for two reasons: first, this kind of pressure on relationships is actually often damaging rather than helpful; and secondly, there are other kinds of relationships which may be equally valuable for both families and for society as a whole.

To take the first point, the pressures that we currently have on romantic/sexual love to provide us with all our needs and to last forever (many of which are underlined in the common marriage vows), are – I think – to a large degree responsible both for people remaining in very painful and damaging relationships, and for people having non-ambicable and even devastating break-ups. Each of these situations is not only hard on the two people involved, but also very troubling for those around them (including any children they may have as well as other family, and friends and colleagues who may be called upon to ignore the suffering of their friend or to ‘pick a side’ in a separation).

I would like to see romantic and sexual relationship bonds become more flexible such that it was acknowledged that a ‘successful’ relationship can be one which lasts a lifetime, but equally one where people recognise when it has run its course. Also it would be great if the multiple roles that people have in each others’ lives could be equally valued such that it was easier for people to remain co-parents, close cohabiting friends, or engaged in mutual work projects, for example, even if a relationship has ceased to be sexual or romantic, or if other sexual or romantic relationships have been forged.

To me this would seem to fit with some of the current government’s ideas about ‘big society’. When we are constantly focused on our romantic/sexual relationships – because we are desperate to find one, because we are totally caught up in one, or because they have become painful and hard – we are very turned in towards our internal worlds and our individual lives. If there was less pressure on such relationships, and more of a sense that all the relationships in our lives were valuable, people might find more time and energy to focus outwards on their wider communities, and to connect with diverse people in their lives rather than just those who were seen as ‘family’ or ‘like them’.

Such a perspective might, for example, involve a return to considering the potential of extended family networks where multiple adults are involved in any child-rearing or support of other adults which needs to happen. It might involve people making more flexible commitments in (all) their relationships which recognise how such relationships can – and do – change over time. Societally it might be about finding ways of celebrating all kinds of relationships (not just romantic/sexual ones), of defining success in other ways than longevity, and of reconsidering the promises that we make on formal occasions like weddings. As with many issues we’re currently facing, a good starting point for this might well be a form of relationship education which values all the relationships children currently have – and may have in the future – and considers, with them, how they might engage with these in mutual, kind, and ethical ways.

Read more:

These latter ideas are explored, in much more detail, in the commitment chapter of Rewriting the Rules. For more about bisexuality, see BiUK, BCN or The Bisexual Index.

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Dr. Meg Barker has been invited to a reception celebrating the passing into law of the marriage (same sex) couples act at 10 Downing Street on Wednesday 24th July.

Dr. Barker has been included because of the work of BiUK: a group who are now on the Department of Health National LGB&T partnership group as a result of The Bisexuality Report, which was published by Open University Centre for Citizenship, Identity and Governance (CCIG) last year. The act will mean that many bisexual people with same-gender partners will now be able to marry their partners just as heterosexual people and bisexual people with other-gender partners are able to do. However, the fact that civil partnerships were not extended to other gender partnerships is still a matter of concern in terms of bisexual equality. There are also remaining issues around ‘spousal veto‘: an aspect of the new law which means that trans people will need their spouses to consent to the granting of a Gender Recognition Certificate if they apply for one.

It is important not to call same-sex marriage ‘gay marriage’ because, of course, it applies to many bisexual people too. The name ‘equal marriage’ is also not accurate as there are remaining inequalities regarding trans people, and also those in openly non-monogamous relationships, who were generally excluded from the debates this time.

Dr. Barker said ‘I am delighted to have been invited to the Downing Street celebrations next week and hope to take the opportunity to raise some of these important remaining issues with the Prime Minister there.’

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“We all struggle with relationships but now the rules have changed. We need a new rule book, and this is it.” –Dorothy Rowe, Psychologist and Writer.

“Meg Barker reveals, step by step, how unpacking and rewriting the ‘rules’ can not only free our relationships from the ties that bind us, but also offer a path to deep self-knowledge and acceptance. A beautifully explicated journey to the heart of loving.” – Dossie Easton, Marriage & Family Therapist, Co-author of The Ethical Slut.

“To tackle the dos and don’ts that flood intimate relationships advice, Meg Barker’s sharp, insightful, open-minded and friendly guide is here to help you navigate the mazes of modern love. Meg’s pen is like a benevolent friend who’s hand you don’t want to let go. Hold on to Rewriting the Rules.” – Esther Perel, Author of Mating in captivity.

Rewriting the Rules, is out this week, published by Routledge. Rewriting the Rules provides an alternative to the many self-help books about relationships by locating relationship difficulties in the cultural messages which people receive rather than in their individual psychology or biology. In addition to this, the focus is on questioning and exploring various possible rules of love, rather than putting forward one single set which will work for all people and relationships.

The book examines the rules around attraction, love, sex, gender, monogamy, commitment, conflict, break-up, and the ways in which we treat ourselves. In each chapter dominant social rules are considered, and there is an examination of the ways in which these might be challenged, the alternatives that various groups have put in place, and what it might be like to move beyond a rules-based model. Drawing on interdisciplinary research on love, sex and relationships, Rewriting the Rules aims to be both academically informed and accessible to the general reader.

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According to the BBC, the letter states the following:

“There are many reasons why people get married. For most couples, there is an instinctive understanding that the stability of a marriage provides the best context for the flourishing of their relationship and for bringing up their children.”

“Society recognises marriage as an important institution for these same reasons: to enhance stability in society and to respect and support parents in the crucial task of having children and bringing them up as well as possible.”

This law would “gradually and inevitably transform society’s understanding of the purpose of marriage.”

“There would be no recognition of the complementarity of male and female or that marriage is intended for the procreation and education of children.”

Catholics have a “duty to do all we can to ensure that the true meaning of marriage is not lost for future generations”.

The government response to this letter was: “The government has made clear its commitment to equality. We believe people should have the option of civil marriage, irrespective of sexual orientation.”

Responding directly to the Archbishops’ letter risks giving it more credibility than it deserves. Often simply presenting a counter-argument suggests that there is some merit to the original argument, which clearly – in this case – there isn’t. Hopefully by now people are familiar with the wealth of research finding that ‘same-sex’ couples are just as good parents as ‘opposite-sex’ ones, and that there is no evidence that their relationships are any less ‘stable’. If not then the reviews of the research produced by the American Psychological Association on same-sex parenting and same-sex marriage should prove helpful. Hopefully also the principle of equal rights to people of all sexual identities is embraced by the vast majority of people, as reflected in the government statement.

Here, then, I want to move the discussion in a slightly different direction. First I’ll present a brief argument that flexibility in the laws and rules around relationships might be something to embrace, rather than resist, and secondly I’ll suggest some further questions around the kinds of relationships which might be included in such a flexible approach.

Embracing the transformation of ‘society’s understanding of the purpose of marriage’

In these discussions reference is often made to tradition. Archbishop Peter Smith, one of the authors of the letter, frequently justifies his position with the argument that the current form of marriage has been present since ‘time immemorial’.

However, looking to history we can see that marriage has changed markedly both in terms of who has access to it, and what it is for. The current form of ‘opposite-sex’ marriage can be regarded as a relatively recent invention, as argued by historian Stephanie Coontz in her history of marriage. Marital laws’ assumptions about the age, kinship relationship, and race of partners; the number of partners a person can marry; and the rights of partners to own property and to bring legal actions against one another have all changed over time, and there is no reason to regard the gender of those involved as any more intrinsic than those aspects. The historical Christian ceremony uniting people of the ‘same-sex’ is also interesting to reflect upon in this context.

Many scholars have argued that the nature of intimate relationships and the family have changed radically, again, in the past fifty years or so. It seems telling that the Catholic Church have chosen to focus on ‘same-sex’ relationships rather than other shifts such as: rates of separation and divorce, cohabiting before – or instead of – marriage, the increase in numbers of people living alone, shifts in gender roles in relationships, or rates of infidelity and increases in forms of open non-monogamy. Perhaps these should all be reasons to regard such relationships as in a constant state of process, rather than as something static, and to embrace regular reflections on whether the policy and practices surrounding them needs to shift accordingly.

Further potential transformations

Of course there is a wider debate to be had over whether the state should have a role in intimate relationships at all. However, if we proceed on the basis that it currently does have a role, for example in determining who is supported in adopting, or bringing up, children, and who is recognised as a legitimate partner in the case of medical emergencies or in relation to shared money and property ownership, then such rights and responsibilities clearly need to be extended beyond the married ‘opposite-sex’ couple, and any two-tier system (such as marriage and civil partnerships) is problematic since it still gives the message that some relationships are more legitimate than others. This is clearly linked to heterosexism and prejudice towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer people.

Whilst religious organisations remain free to celebrate specific events in a person’s life in the ways that they wish to (which differs from group to group), any civil recognition needs to be available to all. One example of the ridiculousness of the current situation is in the case of married couples who have to go through annulment and civil partnership if one person changes gender such that they become a ‘same-sex’ couple.

Another important point, regarding equality, is made by The Bisexual Index. Talk of ‘gay marriage’ in many media reports of these debates is problematic because, of course, many of those in ‘same-sex’ relationships are bisexual rather than gay. Furthermore, at the same time as extending marriage to ‘same-sex’ relationships, it is important to extend civil partnerships to ‘opposite-sex’ relationships such that all people would have access to either of these (there being political reasons, relating to the gendered baggage of marriage for example, why some would prefer a different form of relationship recognition). The Bisexual Index concludes that “the way the law is currently written does not mention sexuality, but instead the genders of the people. Why can’t the people campaigning for equality understand that the way to amend the law isn’t to talk about ‘gay vs. straight’ but instead to address the genders – remove the genders from the law and it’s not just gay and straight men and women who’ll have equal love, but all of us.” Making the gender of those involved irrelevant to the right to marriage/civil partnership would also end the need for the unwieldy ‘same-sex’, ‘opposite-sex’ terminology which doesn’t represent all experiences of gender either.

Moving on from this we might want to explore, more broadly, the kinds of relationships which should be possible to recognise in these ways. For example, in order to be co-parents, or committed co-habitees, people do not necessarily need to be in a sexual, or a romantic, relationship. Close friendships and asexual and aromantic relationships challenge these assumptions. Similarly, it is possible for more than two people to co-parent, to co-habit in a committed way and/or to be romantically and/or sexually involved so we should certainly consider extending relationship recognition beyond the ‘couple’.

Given that intimate relationships, and the social norms surrounding them, are in process rather than static, it is important, and necessary, that policy and practice relating to them is also flexible and fluid, rather than rigid and restrictive.

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Monday 16^th January 2012 saw the launch of a new Open University research project called Enduring Love? Here I will introduce the project and also summarise the talks at the launch about current thinking on relationships, and the pressures they are under.

There has been plenty of research on break-up, divorce and separation. The team behind this project decided that it was time that we knew more about what makes people stay together as well as what makes them split up.

The plan is to get as many people as possible to fill out the online questionnaire so that the researchers can get a good idea of the diversity of ways in which people are experiencing long-term relationships, as well as anything that people who stay together have in common. At the same time, there will be much more in-depth research on sixty couples who will keep a diary of their relationship, take part in interviews together and separately, and explore the way they live and how they feel in their relationship. The detailed research will consider various aspects of the couple relationship such as emotions, sex, commitment, and the way that their partnership fits with other important relationships in their lives. You can already get an idea of the kinds of things people are saying about their relationships from the video clips and podcasts that the team has put together.

The project is called Enduring Love? with a question mark to give the title a double meaning. The researchers are keen to explore what makes relationships work for those who stay together long term and who find that a fulfilling way to live. At the same time it is clear that some couples feel pressured to stay together even when they are very unhappy. It is useful to know what makes an enduring love, as well as what the experience is like when love itself becomes something to be endured. Of course many relationships include elements of both these things: when times are hard the relationship feels like something to be endured, and when things are going well the ‘enduring’ nature of the relationship is something that may be celebrated. Enduring hard times can build intimacy as well as sometimes breaking it.

At the launch event we heard from a representative from the Department of Education who spoke about ways in which the research could feed into government strategies around relationships. For example, it could help to illuminate the diversity of relationship styles that people are currently engaged in, feeding into relationship education in school PSHE, developing relationship therapy training, and informing programmes which help couples to transition to different forms of relationships (for example, those who continue to co-parent or live together when they are no longer a couple).

After the talk from the DoE, author and journalist, Kate Figes, spoke about her book Couples: The Truth which was based on interviews with a range of couples. She found that people don’t tend to reflect on their relationships whilst things are going well – only when things go badly wrong. People also felt that their relationship had to be private and that it was disloyal to talk about what went on in their relationship to anybody outside of it. Finally, people were very concerned about whether their relationship was ‘normal’.

Of course when nobody speaks openly about the reality of relationships, it is easy for us all to assume that everybody else’s relationship is much better than our own (because that is what they look like from the outside), and to worry that something is wrong with us. One reason that I love the book Mistakes were made (but not by me) is that it argues that intimate relationships are actually one of the most challenging things we can possibly do, because letting someone in so close that they get to see all sides of you is exposing, and often confronts us with difficult truths.

Kate’s ideas resonated with my own thoughts on this topic as she highlighted key pressures that relationships are currently under, many of which I also explore in my book Rewriting the Rules, which is out later this year. She said that there is romantic pressure to find a soulmate who will provide us with our happily-ever-after; there is sexual pressure to have perfect exciting sex throughout a relationship; and there is pressure to be monogamous, with any kind of infidelity regarded as unacceptable. However, the first two pressures make it more, rather than less, likely that people will end up looking elsewhere because nobody can be everything to us, people change over time, and such insularity can leave us gasping for freedom.

Kate reckoned that important ways forward were for people to be more honest about the lows and highs of their relationships, to communicate better with each other, and to recognise the impact of our backgrounds, cultures, and family histories on how we understand relationships (which will inevitably be different to that of our partners). She also argued that the adversarial legal system is very bad for people who are trying to shift their relationship into a different form (co-parenting for example) and that mediation is a better alternative.

We also heard from academics Lynn Jamieson and Ann Phoenix who talked about their own research in this area and what their hopes were for the Enduring Love? project. Lynn spoke about the way our understandings of coupledom has changed over time. An older participant in her research spoke about the way marriage used to be just what people did at a certain age, whilst many now see love as a vital ingredient. Lynne, and others in the audience raised questions about who we count as a couple. For example, many couples now don’t live together some, or even all, of the time. There are also people who are in secret couples which others in their lives do not know about. And polyamorous people have relationships with more than one person so they may be in more than one couple, or in a triad/quad or family rather than a couple at all. In Rewriting the Rules I question the dividing rules that we have between romantic love and other kinds of relationship which are not always clearcut (what about a romantic relationship that has become more like a friendship over time, or a close friendship between people who live together and have intense rows and good times together?).

Lynn suggested that the Enduring Love? research could provide valuable insights into ‘practices of intimacy’: what are the building blocks of relationships that we may not be aware of but which we use everyday to connect with those we’re close to? What is the role of talking (and deciding not to talk about certain issues)? Other practices include practices of caring for each other, learning about each other, spending time together (physically present and digitally mediated), prioritising, and giving and receiving.

Lynn agreed with Kate about the ludicrous pressures of cultural ideas such as ‘The One’ and ‘Mr/Ms Right’, suggesting that we might move towards celebrating more pragmatic arrangements that people have in their relationships. Ann Phoenix went on to explore such ideas further in her talk which highlighted the roles of myths and stories that couples have about their relationships (which draw upon cultural myths as well as family backgrounds). Like Kate she highlighted the importance of recognising that all relationships have dissatisfactions and disharmonies as well as shared stories, even if these are more rarely spoken about with others.

Ann suggested that key areas to consider, when exploring relationships, include the diversity of experiences of those in transnational couples (who may be forced to live apart and/or have different backgrounds and privileges, for example), and same-sex couples. Like polyamorous people, such couples have the additional pressure of frequently having to explain their relationships to strangers, which is a very different experience to those whose relationship is take-for-granted and even celebrated by others and by wider culture.

Ann also discussed change, which is something that I focus on in Rewriting the Rules. She said that over time we are not the same people who we were back when we got together, never mind being the same couple. She also questioned the binary way in which we tend to see ‘enduring’ and ‘breaking up’. As I explore in my chapter on break-up, given the shifts that relationships go through over time we might begin to challenge what it means to ‘stay together’ and to ‘split up’ and what there might be between these two extremes. Perhaps ‘enduring love’ is a love that is flexible enough to shift and change over time as the situation demands it.

Hopefully the sociological approach taken by the Enduring Love? researchers will enable a continued exploration of the psychosocial nature of relationships. Our intimate relationships happen in a wider context of global, economic, political, and social change as well as within wider social networks which may support or constrain our relationships. We know, for example, that social policies influence whether people can live together or not, and economic situations and policies determine who can get married. Clearly cultural ideals about relationships impact our expectations and experiences. Relationships are not something we learn how to do once and for all, rather they are a work in progress operating within a world which is also changing all the time.

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