What to do if your partner is accused of abuse

I may be biased, but I’d say this is objectively good advice. There are some folks I’d love to see apply it.

The Brunette's Blog

There is a lively and timely conversation about abuse in polyamorous relationships, and the ways poly structures uniquely contribute to abusive situations, in both positive and negative ways. I have a lot to say about this. For today, though, I want to tackle one particular question: how one should behave if one’s partner is accused of abuse or consent violations.

One of the ways abuse in poly differs from many monogamous situations is that the abusive dynamics may be created and fed by several people in the poly network. While there may be a centrally abusive, controlling figure, often other members of the poly circle contribute in their own ways to creating a toxic environment that leaves one or more people feeling powerless and oppressed. This can operate a lot of different ways, but the simplest is when other partners of the abusive person insist that nothing is wrong, that the…

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Blog title: Undeclared

Hello, the internet. My name is Greg, and I’m trying to decide whether or not I’m a blogger.

(“Hi, Greg.”)

Reasons I might be a blogger:

• As of today, I have a blog. Thanks, WordPress!
• I have a lot of feelings, and sometimes an occasional thought. Those are things that go in blogs, right?
• One of my partners is a most excellent blogger, as are several fine folks in her circle of family and friends. I admire these people, and would be happy to be in their company.
• A number of the aforementioned people are currently going through a most unfortunate public circus due to the actions and rhetoric of a poisonous fellow in our local community. Blog posts are the battleground on which this is being played out, and I’d like to have a platform from which I can support and signal boost for the survivors of his abuse and the victims of his (and his partners’) ongoing attacks.

Reasons I might not be a blogger:

• Bloggers have to write a lot. I’m grammatically capable, but otherwise lack confidence in my writing. Additionally, I write verrrrry sloooooowwwly, so this might be one of those accounts that posts four times a year. We’ll see.
• When I do write, I tend to get very hung up on who my audience is and how they will interpret what I have to say. Since I’ve got no audience at this point, I’m going to try and just be me. If the howling trolls of the internet wasteland come snapping at my feet, I’ll either grow a thicker skin or disable comments.
• The B key on my keyboard is really hard to press. There’s a story behind this involving a bottle of cider and subsequent rice immersion, but the upshot is that my left index finger is going to have to get really strong if I keep typing words like “blogger” all the time.

By my count, that’s four arguments for and three arguments against. Apparently I am, mathematically speaking, a blogger now. This means I’m going to have to get good at writing, which includes (among other things, I suspect) knowing when to cut off a post.

How about here?

Dancing through love, loving through dance

A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gay and swift and free like a country dance of Mozart’s. To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern and freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding. There is no place here for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand; only the barest touch in passing. Now arm in arm, now face to face, now back to back- it does not matter which. Because they know they are partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by it. The joy of such a pattern is not only the joy of creation or the joy of participation, it is also the joy of living in the moment. Lightness of touch and living in the moment are intertwined.

– Anne Morrow Lindbergh, from Gift from the Sea