The broken refrigerator and its application to triggers

This entry was written after my first day of "therapy", but published well afterwards.

The counselling session opened with mindfulness meditation. (I mentioned I was nervous, he suggested we do a meditation/breathing exercise to get me calmer). That took me by surprise. It was just like Sam Harris' one from the Global Atheist Convention 2012, so I felt a little less weird about it since I'd had experience with that sort of thing before.

I noticed one interesting thing that my counsellor said that I could really relate to as a polyamorist.

He said, "Often when we feel negative emotions our immediate reaction is to run away from them or avoid them. But we would really benefit from looking at the emotions, or confronting them in some way and examining the reasons behind them. It's often just your body and mind trying to warn you about a threat, but in reality there's no threat there."

I almost said to him, "that sounds just like the broken refrigerator analogy for polyamory!". 

But I didn't. I wrote this blog post instead.

The Broken Refrigerator

The broken refrigerator analogy is something that really spoke to me when I first read about it.

The analogy goes like this:

Imagine you have a refrigerator. One day, it stops working - you come home to find your ice-cream melted, your milk warm and smelly, and your vegetables wilted.

You have three options at the moment: you can figure out how to fix the refrigerator; you can throw it away and buy a new one; or, you can decide to keep it as it is but never buy any foods that need to be frozen or refrigerated.

The last option is patently ridiculous; and yet it is the one most people in the poly community seem to choose. That is, when someone feels jealousy at their partner doing a particular thing, they make a rule against the thing rather than trying to find the cause of the jealousy.

The article I linked to above goes into LOTS of detail explaining it, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't already read it and is interested in polyamory or open relationships.

I had an experience the other day that made me think back to the refrigerator analogy:

Miss Prism was joking to a female friend of hers, asking her if she wanted to have a threesome with herself and my beloved Mr Oldman. Watching this happen in front of me made me seethe with jealousy - I wanted to be part of such a threesome, thankyouverymuch! I wanted to provide Mr Oldman with an outlet for that stock straight male fantasy!

It got to the point where I was going to pull them both aside and tell them I wouldn't be comfortable with Mr Oldman having a threesome unless I got to be a part of it, even though I knew this proposition was a joke and the chances of the threesome happening were almost nil.

Then I thought about the refrigerator. Clearly, this hypothetical refrigerator of ours was broken and I was about to propose he stop buying frozen foods. Really, I should try and fix it instead.

I thought about Mr Oldman. I imagined the joy on his face if this hypothetical threesome were to occur, and immediately felt a little bit of compersion at the idea. I imagined how wonderful that day would be and who would I be to take that away from him!

Then I thought about why I was feeling jealousy - it's because I wanted to do something nice for my partner. I wanted to make him happy. And him having a threesome with two other women wouldn't infringe on that; in fact, my making a rule against it would have been the exact opposite of what I really wanted!

So, Miss Prism - if you can get that threesome for Mr Oldman.... go for it :)