Healthy Relationships

Another day in the office and I’m left reflecting on what constitutes as a healthy relationship….

I’d like to say I’ve always been a big believer in being open and honest in relationships, but I distinctly remember being a teenager and not being so open and honest with my boyfriends at the time because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. It’s probably been the last 5 years I’d say, where honesty in relationships have become a must for me, no ifs, no buts, no exceptions. I want the good, the bad, the ugly. I want to experience it all in a relationship.

My partner and I work on such terms. We both understand that one another are sexual beings, with perhaps a slightly over the top sex drive and as such are happily in an open relationship. Whenever you tell someone for the first time they want to know how you could possibly be okay with your partner sleeping around with other people. I find it funny how quickly people just assume we are going out and trying to have sex with random strangers left, right and center. In reality, the reason we have agreed to be in an open relationship, is to take the pressure off being monogamous, and remove the main factor for why so many relationships end… cheating.

In saying that I do believe my partner could cheat on me and I could cheat on him in a different way. It’s not being attracted to or sleeping with someone else. The one thing that would hurt me beyond all measure would be if my partner lied to me about being attracted to or being with someone else, because as soon as they’ve said that lie they’ve started to create a gap or a rift in that partnership that you share with them. So, for me honesty is a must, the more we know about each other, the more we have the chance to love every part of that other person, despite any part we might not like. Not to mention it’s nice just being able to be completely yourself and having someone say you know what I still love you despite all your shitty annoying parts.

Obviously, I am aware that this doesn’t work for everyone but today I found it particularly interesting. I was seeing one of my regulars, a very successful psychologist. He is very good at what he does and very passionate about psychology, but I find it so interesting that he doesn’t share with his partner that he pays to see other women to fulfill his sexual desires. Of course, I don’t know his wife and I don’t know their relationship, but I can’t help wonder how as a psychologist, he thinks it’s better to not tell his wife and to keep what he is doing a secret. Research has shown that dishonesty is one of the main causes for distance between partners and in turn for relationships to end, and as a psychologist, who should be able to understand why people act and react certain ways, shouldn’t he be one of the few who is honest with his partner.

In saying all this I’m not passing judgement on my client, simply questioning and analyzing why he chooses to act this way. Is it because his partner would be to hurt by honesty?, this is a big reason for many. Or is it because he condemns his actions himself, and as soon as he tells someone in his “real” life (not in the escorting world) what he’s doing, does it become too real then? Is it something that makes his view of himself not match up with his actual self??? It’s definitely interesting.

I actually ask every client that I have whether they have a partner, and whether their partner knows about this part of their life. I think in the 8 months I’ve been working in the industry, I’ve had 1 client who said his partner did know he saw working girls. I have no idea what ratio that is, but all I know is I’ve seen a lot of different men in the past 8 months and the majority did have partners.

If the majority of people aren’t being honest with their partner about certain extra curricular activities they get up to, or certain fantasies they hold deep down, is anyone having honest relationships these days? Divorce, as we well know, has become an increasing trend over the past 5 decades. Some people blame the increased presence of women in the work place, some have blamed the internet and social media, some have blamed “success’s” increasing demand on our time, and thereby the decrease in time we have for our personal lives. I’m sure all these things do have an impact on relationships without a doubt, but maybe it’s also the increasing need for people to be treated with kiddy gloves.

Political correctness has in the past decade gone way past acceptance and equality to absolute ridiculousness!!!! I honestly completely avoid using pronouns such as he, she, him and her out of fear I might offend someone who doesn’t want to be categorized by their gender. I’m a leftist myself, but at some point we have to be realistic and practical. One of my cousins had their first child a few years ago and has decided to name it a platonic name, which I’m all for, but they have taken it one step further and requested we do not refer to it (the child) by any sort of gender pronoun, which as you can see leaves me referring to a human being as “it”. I feel like excessive leftist thinking is creating a world where people can’t handle being offended. Our society is creating a generation where anything offensive shouldn’t be said and won’t be said, but how then are we supposed to grow as people? How then are we supposed to be able to take criticism graciously? How then are we supposed to have open and honest relationships?

Everyone’s relationships are different, and that’s great because everyone is different. But I still wonder what constitutes a healthy relationship because clearly my idea of what a healthy relationship is, is counter-intuitive to society’s expectations.