Partners are not Possessions

What I find in a lot of monogamous and heteronormative style relationships is this attitude that people own or possess their partners.  This is something that I find incredibly disturbing. This is an unspoken belief that so many people in our society just assume is the way that "relationships should work", they don't even think about it.  They talk in a way that reinforces this, statements that include "allow my" or "make my" partner/spouse are simply disgusting and harken back to the days of women and children being chattel of their spouses or fathers.  This is horrific, it leads to behaviors that are controlling, manipulative, coercive and abusive.  If you own something, you can ignore it, break it, or discard it without a thought.  If a partner is a possession, then they are not allowed to be full people.  Possessions cannot have freedom of choice, independent thought or the ability to pursue happiness.  I have yet to meet someone who is mentally or physically abusive to their partners who doesn't believe that their assumption of control and possession of this other person is reasonable and expected, it's their god given right to abuse this other person because they gave them a ring or spoke some vows or agreed to this relationship.  

To me this is also part of the pervasive idea where someone is not a complete person until they have found the "one", this idea promotes all kinds of dependency and codependency that are just frightening.  The thought process goes something along the lines of this other person being absorbed into them, making the two of them into some kind of amalgamated being, is the thing that will make them (and their lives) whole and meaningful.  As though people are not worthy unless they have been assimilated into coupledom.  If someone is incomplete without their partner, somehow that justifies behaving like their partner is a possession or an extension of themselves.  I find this entire idea and the thought processes that go along with it painfully damaging to human beings of any sort, and especially damaging in polyamorous relationships.  I think that a lot of fear and envy and jealousy come from these base assumptions about relationships making people possessions or extensions of another.  What happens if the assimilated partner is going to do something that doesn't include them, or that isn't directly about them, or that may remind the assimilated partner that they have a life and value as an individual?  They can't do that, they can't allow that, they can live with that.  This is the essence of loosing control of their partner, taking something away from them or damaging to them, and so out of fear comes this grappling with the autonomy of another person. You cannot be without them because they cannot be without you, you can't be whole alone and if they are whole beings then they don't "need" you.  

This is where I see the seeds of a lot of the issues I struggle with in poly communities, the hierarchies and one-penis-policies and couple privilege stuff seems to me to link back in whole or in part to these basic assumptions. If  you can't be whole without completely consuming or controlling your partner, but your partner has other partners then you can't have all of them all the time and therefore you cannot be whole.  It's saddening and annoying and heartbreaking and infuriating to run into these same things over and over again, and its exhausting to try and work through them with people you care for. 

I do not want to be anyone's other half. I do not want fuse myself into another person. I am not interested in defining the whole of who I am by my relationship to a particular person. When someone behaves as though this is "how relationships work", it's incredibly disturbing to me.  Relationships, to me, are about wanting to be there and choosing to build a connection between people.  A partner is someone who chooses to take your desires and needs and feelings into consideration when making their decisions, not someone who is incapable of doing anything without your say so.  If I cannot be whole without another, then no other person can make me whole.  If I cannot find value in myself then no one will truly value me.  The things I choose to do and have in my life and the people I choose to share it with add to my life, but they are not my whole life.  When I refer to someone as "my" partner/lover/friend/family member that is clarifying our connection to each other, it is not a flag denoting my possession of them.