Angela Han’s Post

6 reasons the world wants you to stay monogamous (when you don’t really want to) 1- You’re easier to understand and digest for other people. Which is a fruitless pursuit because you are a multidimensional human being with evolving thoughts, preferences, and stories that continue to unfold and require ongoing and steadfast curiosity to even scratch the surface of comprehending. 2- You keep your relationships to clearly defined buckets like “friends,” “colleagues,” and “spouse” so that you don’t look for things outside of those labels. Which then brings us quickly to boredom, confusion, and frustration because we are more focused on what to call people instead of actually relating to them and experiencing the unique way they fill our cups. 3- Staying monog typically keeps your community small, which often has you feeling like something is wrong with you when you need more community care. Which then keeps you out of what you really want and instead on the hamster wheel of capitalism so that you can focus on “self-sufficiency” and “productivity” rather than connection and depth with the people around you. 4- When you’re not invested in the way you love and how you want to love, you spend that time being “valuable” to other people. You think less about what you really want and think more about what other people want. Which is required for oppressive systems to thrive and take advantage of your labor. 5- It keeps you focused on what is “right” or “wrong” instead of how you actually want to love and be loved. Which then keeps us feeling miserable and dead inside, which then keeps us going back to oppressive systems to keep churning out “value” so that at some point we can maybe feel better. 6- It keeps you feeling like you are uniquely fucked for wanting to be different. Which then keeps you from actually expressing your differences. Which then keeps you from finding the people who love your differences. Which keeps you alone in ways you don't want to be. * Oppressive systems thrive on you feeling like you are the problem. Every time you decide to stay with yourself outside the constructs of what you “ought” to do, you make the world a safer place to love more deeply and on our own terms.

Desire: I want this. Expectation: I should get what I want. Entitlement: You should give me what I want. Desire informs. Expectation disappoints. Entitlement disconnects.

Yesterday, I was sitting next to someone whose thoughts I value and who had over 20 years of experience being polyamorous. He said, “Just from what I’ve seen, it is in most people’s nature to be polyamorous.” Even though I don’t have as much experience as he does, and I can’t know anything for sure, I happen to agree. Not to say everyone needs to be polyamorous or that they need to admit to being polyamorous when they don’t want to admit to it. But to say that you are not as odd or off as you think you are if you believe that you are polyamorous. What I want to do with my words is not to indoctrinate anybody but to offer a sense of relief for those who are looking for language to describe their experiences. So many polyamorous people who have not yet had a chance to talk about that part of their identity experience so much shame and discomfort around how to even explore that part of themselves. Who do I talk to? What’s wrong with me? What if I lose everything? How do I even talk about it? Where can I go? The fact that we have such limited resources is what almost drove our marriage off a cliff when we were opening up last year. I don’t find such a barren environment to be acceptable for us to experience love expansively and true to who we really are. In order to love expansively, we must feel safe to love in the first place. This is what The Opener is about. It is a community where we finally confront the shame and tend to our truth together. In here, we stop needing ourselves to be different and instead learn how to talk to the people we care about so that we can be loved just as we are. If you want to join us, send me a message.

I have never identified myself with “ENM (ethical non-monogamy)” and here’s why. Ethics describes “the moral principles that govern a person's behavior.” Morals describe “the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.” Who decides what is “right or wrong” and what is “good or bad”? Certainly not me. I am not the arbiter or the authority of what is a “better” option for anybody. Supremacy culture dictates that there must be options that are superior to another, and the most harrowing conflicts are borne out of the need to be right about what is a “better” option. Because of the attachment to be “right” or “better,” we forego the more challenging work of connecting and understanding differences and examining the ways we are unwilling to see beyond our own paradigms. We forego love. If you ask me, I think “ethical” was just slapped in front of non-monogamy to make it seem like it’s on the “same level” of acceptability as monogamy. There is nothing more inherently “ethical” or “acceptable” about monogamy. Just because something is more widely practiced doesn’t mean that it is “better.” Monogamy and non-monogamy are simply two very different ways of practicing love with different consequences and challenges. Instead of asking whether something is “ethical,” I find the following questions more useful: -Is it loving? -Am I really causing harm, or am I assuming power over someone’s emotions? -Am I practicing consent at the highest level? -Am I willing to be wrong if it means I get to love? When things are less certain and straightforward, we become more skillful at holding the uncertainty and the void. We become more curious about the human being. We stop demanding answers. We love more skillfully. I find that to be a more interesting pursuit than going after what’s “ethical” and what’s not.

I don’t believe in the concept of “patience.” When someone tells me that I am patient, I have this image of me sitting so peacefully like Buddha, unbothered by the world. It couldn’t be further from the truth. I am very much bothered. All the time. I want things now. Yesterday. All of it. I want to have sex now. I want to be loved now. I want to be showered with attention at all times. I am very impatient. But the reason people experience me as “patient” is that I don’t engage with my impatience. Even if I want someone to text me back right now, I don’t engage with that urgency by acting on it. I don’t text them, “Did you get my text? Can you give me attention? Are you there?” Because, when I engage with my impatience, I don’t get what I want. Patience is simply a manifestation of my unwillingness to engage with my impatience. Anybody’s experience of my patience requires the existence of my impatience. Which brings me to my point: There is no moral high ground between patience and impatience. They exist at the same time. They depend on one another. The more important question is, what do I want, and how will I get it? Of course there are times when I act on my impatience. Like when I believe that my well being or someone’s well being is in danger. Or when I am looking for a fight 😂 But here’s another important question: what if I trusted that going after what I want is an exercise of care for myself and my community? We would likely find that the way we engage with our impatience and patience becomes more intentional. This is one way we listen to ourselves without the need to be right or wrong.

I am canceling the fireside on resolving conflict in marriage because I keep wanting to talk about opening up your marriage 😂 So I had to return to my congruence. Sorry to everybody who registered. I sent you an email. If you want to talk 1:1 about what’s going on in your marriage, I am here to chat. I will be mostly listening and will offer insight only when requested. Thanks for being in community with me as always 🥰

I think it is delusional to believe that we can effectively resolve conflict at a larger scale when we cannot even talk about the dishes in our own marriage. Resolving conflict in our marriage is not just about the dishes. It is about knowing how to relate to people that we care about so that we can show up for issues that we care about. And of course, finally resolving the issue around the dishes so that you feel safer and more secure in your marriage. Practicing that for yourself is the fastest path to building safety and security in community. The fireside on resolving conflict in marriage is on Friday, May 17 at 11am Eastern. Register here: angela-han.com/conflict

Unlike most parents, I don’t have my children as my home screen picture on my phone. When I look at my phone, I don’t want to be reminded of the reason I don’t have the kind of freedom I actually desire. Instead, I have a photo of a tangerine tree that I can look at for a micro moment of peace and nature. I also never go into the living room, which is basically a play area for the kids. My body already goes on high alert whenever I step into that area. Cleaning up after the kids? Forget about it. Not happening. Read on for my own reckoning in my parenting: https://lnkd.in/emyv2Ur9

Conflict often arises from a sense of betrayal. It’s like, “I shared all my heart and soul with you, and I still feel abandoned and misunderstood.” Of course this is understandable. Like when you have sex with someone and then they don’t want to talk to you anymore. Or when you have such an intimate conversation about your insecurities and they say something that pokes at those insecurities. Even if they didn’t intend to hurt you, their choices feel difficult to forgive. That is why we have conflict with the people we care about the most. We have expectations around what kind of decisions they are “supposed” to make with all the information they have about us. But the reality is, you are a multidimensional human being that can have one desire this moment and another desire the next moment. We evolve with each minute. So the question is, what do I want to share about myself right now that feels the most important? If I believed that whatever I had to share was essential to the kind of relationship I want to have with this person, how would I communicate that information with love and care? To betray is to disregard someone’s confidence. It is challenging to disregard someone who is offering love and care. It is challenging to experience betrayal when we are clear about how we want to be regarded. Conflict offers us direction on how we want to communicate with love and care so we can use it to get closer to one another. The fireside “resolving conflict in marriage” is on Friday, May 17 at 11am Eastern. Register here: angela-han.com/conflict

Conflict in marriage is not “bad.” Or even “good.” There is no moral ground here. Even if there is a moral ground, who determines whether a conflict is morally good or bad? Conflict is simply a feature of our humanity. And we get to decide how we want to experience it. The question is, are we going to use it to get closer to one another, or are we going to use it to solidify the conclusion that we’ve made up in our minds that the marriage is doomed and hopeless beyond repair? Repair is available to us anytime we make that decision. The fireside on “resolving conflict in marriage” is on Friday, May 17 at 11am. Register here: angela-han.com/conflict