Embracing Relationship Options
What I read: Amatonormativity by Elizabeth Brake.
Every so often a new word emerges that makes me sit up and take notice. When I stumbled on Elizabeth Brake’s new word, amatonormativity, it immediately struck me as a useful word.
Amatonormativity is a word I coined to describe the widespread assumption that everyone is better off in an exclusive, romantic, long-term coupled relationship, and that everyone is seeking such a relationship.
“The belief that marriage and companionate romantic love have special value leads to overlooking the value of other caring relationships. I call this disproportionate focus on marital and amorous love relationships as special sites of value, and the assumption that romantic love is a universal goal, ‘amatonormativity’: This consists in the assumptions that a central, exclusive, amorous relationship is normal for humans, in that it is a universally shared goal, and that such a relationship is normative, in that it should be aimed at in preference to other relationship types. The assumption that valuable relationships must be marital or amorous devalues friendships and other caring relationships, as recent manifestos by urban tribalists, quirkyalones, polyamorists, and asexuals have insisted. Amatonormativity prompts the sacrifice of other relationships to romantic love and marriage and relegates friendship and solitudinousness to cultural invisibility.”
I know some reading this are likely rolling their eyes right now. Do we really need a word for this? My take? Yes, we do. Specifically, here is why I believe the word is not only useful but necessary.
Amatonormativity is a kind of harmful stereotyping. It also encourages structuring law and society on the assumption that amorous relationships are the norm. This discriminates against, and at worst creates barriers to making other kinds of relationships – friendships, asexual romances, some kinds of polyamory – central to one’s life.
All of us are heavily acculturated to accept the idea that one-on-one, long-term romantic relationships are the gold standard to which we should all aspire. Families enforce this mindset. So do schools, religions, movies, books, articles, and most of our friends. Just about every sector of life elevates romantic relationships above all others. I consider this a mistake.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying romance isn’t a good thing. It is. If you happen upon romance, embrace and enjoy it. But it’s placing it on a higher level, essentially better than other types of relationships, that I find problematic.
Plus, assuming everyone wants such relationships places pressure on people to adopt a romance-first way of looking at the world and that does a disservice to those for whom it’s not a current priority or not necessary at all.
In my own life my close friendships are just as important as any romantic relationship. An article by Rhaina Cohen, What If Friendship, Not Marriage Was at the Center of Life?, suggests that perhaps repositioning friendships as the core foundation of our relationships might be wise. Cohen points out that part of the problem is the lack of codified social scripts that govern friendships.
Intimate friendships don’t come with shared social scripts that lay out what they should look like or how they should progress. These partnerships are custom-designed by their members.
Cohen doesn’t just ask us to consider friendships as equal to romantic relationships. Rather, it’s suggested that maybe, at least for some, friendships can serve as the primary foundations upon which people share their lives instead of relying on the highly scripted “date and then marry for life” construct.
Many of those who place a friendship at the center of their life find that their most significant relationship is incomprehensible to others. But these friendships can be models for how we as a society might expand our conceptions of intimacy and care.
Justin Myers poses the same questions about society’s diminution of friendships in his article, Friendship is a greater reward – and challenge – than romance.
Why is friendship generally so undervalued? Arguably, friendships can be some of your longest and most enduring connections, outliving disastrous flings and rocky marriages. The obsession with forging a romantic connection and locating and hanging onto a mythical “one”, has made us see a relationship that doesn’t include sex and romance as somehow second-class.
I have ongoing, intimate friendships with people I’ve known far longer than my partner of 30 years. They are just as important as any romantic entanglement I’ve entered during my lifetime.
The School of Life video, Alternatives To a Standard Relationship, points out the folly of assuming we have only one option for meaningful relationships.
To a greater extent than we perhaps realise, when it comes to what sort of relationships we are allowed to have, our societies present us with a menu with only a single option on it: The Monogamous, Cohabitating Romantic Relationship, usually served with a Side Order of Children.
To be considered remotely normal, we are meant to develop overwhelming emotional and sexual feelings for one very special person, who will then become a combination of our best friend, sole sexual partner, co-parent, business associate, therapist, travel companion, property co-manager, kindergarten teacher and soulmate - and with whom we will live exclusively in one house, in one bed, for many decades, in substantial harmony and with an active tolerance for each other's foibles and ongoing desire for their evolving appearance, till death do us part.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at the reality in front of us to know that such a rigid view doesn’t align with the truth. About 50% of marriages in the United States end in divorce with subsequent marriages splitting at an even higher rate (60% of second marriages, 73% of third marriages). And what about those who choose to remain single for much of or their entire lives? Singlehood is increasing in prevalence in the United States and perhaps it’s because they’re finding the married, monogamous ideal less appealing than in the past.
In a 2017 census report, 55 percent of Americans expressed the belief that getting married is not an important milestone in leading a happy adulthood.
Now add into the mix of non-married relationship options polyamory, or more radical subsets of polyamory like solo polyamory or Relationship Anarchy (RA), or the “living alone together” (LAT) phenomenon, and one starts to envision a wider set of relationship options that I believe our culture should start to socialize and normalize so that young people growing up in the future don’t feel like they’ve been programmed to accept only one style of acceptable relationship.
I didn’t write this post to try to convince you to abandon romance or romantic relationships. Perhaps it’s natural that we all find ourselves overcome with romantic feelings due to a variety of biological and situational factors. But does championing romantic relationships as worthy of placement on an altar above all other forms of relationships really serve us well? I contend it does not, and I hope you’ll examine the relationships in your own life and what priority and value they offer without the shackles of outside influences deciding for you.
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