By Sanja Gjenero @ stock.XCHNG

This week, I will post a series of articles on different questions that a poly-curious individual should probably ask themselves before purusing a polyamorous lifestyle.

The purpose of these articles is two fold

• To help those of you that are new to polyamory examine their current readiness level
• To provide additional resources that are relevant to the topics that the questions are based on. At the end of each article, I will provide links for websites or books on those topics.

Here is what I’m asking of you as my readers

1. If you know of additional online resources that can help answer a specific question that I am posing, please submit a comment with a link to it.  Please link the specific page or article/episode permalink (in the case of blogs and podcasts) rather than a link to the main site.
    
2. If you have questions about something that I wrote, please leave a comment. I will try to answer it to the best of my ability.
    
3. Don’t feel that there is a time limit for submitting comments – if you are reading these articles months or years after I published them, I still want your comments!
    
4. Don’t keep me a secret – share my posts with others.

I’m looking forward to the feedback and discussion that will hopefully come from this.

Photo by Cezar Perelles @ stock.XCHNG

“You must love yourself before you love another. By accepting yourself and fully being what you are, your simple presence can make others happy.”
~ Author Unknown

When I first ventured into my relationship with Corey over 11 years ago, I can honestly say that I did not love myself.  I hated the way I looked.  I felt socially awkward – partly from being an introvert, and partly from not having many established friendships in high school.  My low self esteem contributed to me not taking care of myself, which only made me loathe myself further.  It took years for me to accept and appreciate the positive aspects of myself to the point where the good thoughts outnumbered the bad.

Whether you are in a relationship - whether it is with one partners or several –  it is important to love yourself as an individual.  By this, I do not mean narcissism, which is a malignant self-absorption. Instead I am referring to having a sense of self worth and self-esteem that is independent of others’ view of you. This is important for a couple of reasons:

Picture by Christian Ferrari at stock.XCHNG

This is the second of seven articles that I am writing about the things that you should consider before pursuing a polyamorous lifestyle.

In yesterday’s article, I wrote about the importance of loving yourself and building your self esteem. This is especially important when we talk about intimacy.   The most basic component of intimacy is the sharing of yourself.   How will you be willing to share something unless it is something that you already like?  Also, in the process of loving yourself, you gain a sense of self awareness and identity that becomes important in building relationships with other individuals. Without a solid sense of self, you may be prone to allowing your identity to be subsumed by the relationship.

Now that I’ve talked about the importance of loving yourself and knowing who you are, let’s take a deeper look at the meaning of intimacy.

By Konrad Mostert @ stock.XCHNG

In yesterday’s post, I wrote about the different types of intimacy that can occur in a relationship (friendship, fwb, dating, etc.)

While most types of intimacy are tied to an action or thing (intellectual, physical, and sexual), what builds emotional intimacy is a bit harder to pin down.  The reason for this is that it’s tied to what a person needs in order to feel loved and cherished, and that varies based upon the individual.

Fortunately, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel.  An author and relationship counsellor, Gary Chapman, wrote a book on something he called the Five Love Languages, which are five elements that people use to deepen emotional intimacy.

Rather than simply go over these 5 love languages, I am going to add a twist – I will show you where my husband (Corey), my boyfriend (Dale), and I rate in each category, along with how I feel on each of these.

By sanja gjenero @ stock.XCHNG

“The problem with communication … is the illusion that it has been accomplished.”
~ George Bernard Shaw

 com·mu·ni·cate

•  to convey knowledge of or information about : make known

• to transmit information, thought, or feeling so that it is satisfactorily received or understood

“Communicate, communicate, communicate” is a mantra that you will probably hear over and over again by Sage Polyamorists Everywhere ™.  The question comes up as to what qualifies as good communication, and why is it so important?