Feminist Advice Friday: My partner's relationship with his ex is weird, right?
He's still best friends with his ex. He's not doing much for me in this relationship, either. What is going on?
I’m on vacation this week, so I thought it would be fun to dig into the archives and revisit the very first edition of Feminist Advice Friday. I’ve edited and expanded on my original answer. As always, please share your wisdom in the comments. You can submit your own question to zawn.villines@gmail.com
A reader asks…
My romantic partner lives with his ex-wife. He has always explained it as being a practical arrangement that allows both he and his ex-wife to care for their children. He's recently realized that, actually, he still loves his ex-wife (in a non-romantic way) and they have a deep spiritual connection. He tells me that his relationship with me is a different, but not a lesser, connection. I want to be open-minded, but the feminist in me is balking. Am I just a glorified bit on the side? Am I the milk he's getting for free? I have never wanted polyamory? Is this even polyamory if his ex-wife is not a romantic relationship? She is meeting his practical needs and I am meeting his romantic needs, but no one is meeting my practical needs. Even as I write this, I'm pretty sure I know the answer. But gosh I like him a lot, and would be sad to let him go. Am I his bit on the side? Can this be reconciled with feminism?
My Answer
I want to start by pushing back on the idea that you have to reconcile your relationship(s) with some monolith that is feminism. Feminism is a complex, multi-faceted movement with the sole purpose of supporting women and upending inequity. It is not a religion. You do not owe feminism anything. Feminism exists to serve you, not the other way around. That doesn't mean feminism creates no moral obligations, but if you're worried that your life is somehow an affront to feminists or feminism, you're looking at this through a lens of self-blame and guilt--exactly the sorts of emotions patriarchy creates in women.
There is no single feminist way to have a relationship. Polyamory can be feminist. Monogamy can be feminist. Both can also be weaponized in antifeminist ways, such as when men use monogamy to “own” women, or lean on polyamory as an excuse to demean women and make them feel like unimportant.
What really matters is how your relationships make you feel, and how well they serve all parties. The challenge in a sexist society is that women are taught not to look at how a relationship makes them feel, but to judge their relationship against the societal norm. So they ask if they should feel the way they do. Or whether their relationship is abusive. They wonder if their relationship is normal. They worry they’re asking too much. Instead, you should be asking yourself one question and one question only: Am I happy?
If this is not the relationship you want now, it’s not going to get better with time.
I don't know if your partner is sleeping with his ex-wife, or if he loves you, or what his intentions are. I don't need to know that to tell you that this is a damaging relationship, because you've told me yourself in a single sentence: "I am meeting his romantic needs, but no one is meeting my practical needs."
This is a relationship with a power imbalance. You feel you have to accept his terms, while establishing no terms of your own. You say that your reason for doing that is that you like him a lot, and are afraid of letting him go.
The fear is the thing I think you need to look at. Everything you have outlined points to an unhealthy relationship that is harming you and making you feel like garbage. Yet you're afraid of letting this go. I suspect this is because you hope things might change. The tough reality is that people almost always are on their best behavior at the *beginning* of a relationship. So you absolutely must assume that this is as good as it gets.
Showing him that you will accept scraps now teaches him to only offer crumbs later. This giver-taker dynamic is the classic patriarchal relationship. Accepting it is what has gotten millions of women into marriages that get steadily worse.
You deserve better, and there is better out there. This relationship is keeping you from enjoying whatever is next—whether that’s a glorious life as a single person or a happy partnership with someone who doesn’t treat you like garbage. Get out. No relationship is always better than a bad relationship.
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Feminist Advice Friday: My partner's relationship with his ex is weird, right?
I just have to say, I love this framing: "Feminism is a complex, multi-faceted movement with the sole purpose of supporting women and upending inequity. It is not a religion. You do not owe feminism anything. Feminism exists to serve you, not the other way around. That doesn't mean feminism creates no moral obligations, but if you're worried that your life is somehow an affront to feminists or feminism, you're looking at this through a lens of self-blame and guilt--exactly the sorts of emotions patriarchy creates in women."
Women ask sheepishly “is it feminist” when they are doing something they know is demeaning and degrading to women, but for whatever reason they want to do it anyway. And then they want a kind of “feminist priest” to come along and absolve them of this contradiction by using mental gymnastics to prove how this degrading, demeaning and/or subordinating practice is empowering. Relationships with men are reconciled with feminism when the woman is getting the same or more than she puts in, which is virtually never. The relationship structure doesn’t matter, men will make damn sure they are getting more out of it than their efforts would dictate. Men will not do one iota more than what’s necessary to keep the woman from running off screaming and tearing her hair out. And there’s not a single liberty they won’t consider taking.
Knowing that, what choice seems most empowering for women?
There is a fine line between blaming oneself unnecessarily for the actions of others (especially men), and seizing upon one’s own personal power to control one’s own life circumstances. So often as women we want our cake and to eat it too. We want to be in relationships with abusive, inadequate and deranged men, and we want those men to treat us right and make us happy. How are we going to make that happen? How can that work? We can’t, it can’t, and we refuse to accept it. We waste time arguing and “communicating” and setting up token economies / chore charts and reading books (eg Fair Play) and going to seminars to fight against basic 1+1=2 reality, while the men in our lives sit back, relax, and enjoy all the benefits they can wring out of us. Like this guy who essentially has two wives, or a wife and a girlfriend. AND A KID! He is living a silverback gorilla fantasy and he has no problem with it, because why should he curb his own pleasure for the sake of someone else? He’s gonna get his.
We take responsibility, but for the wrong things. We act, but on the wrong person’s behalf.
As an aside I wonder how much of the confusion in this situation comes from this new attachment theory based advice of “your partner can’t be everything for you, get your needs met by other people.” I wonder how the boyfriend would feel if the writer moved in with a male friend and got her “practical needs” (unclear what that means) met by him. Chances are he would be out of there ASAP, and maybe even dish up some violence before or after.