4 照料你自己 Tending Your Self

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It is a fault to wish to be understood before we have made ourselves clear to ourselves.

SIMONE WEIL¹

在我们对自己说清楚之前希望被理解是一个错误。

西蒙娜·薇依 (Simone Weil)¹

The first key element in a nonmonogamous relationship—well, really any relationship—is your relationship with your self. Of course, tending to your self is important in most areas of life, but being in multiple relationships with others can really accentuate the importance of self-care and shine a bright light on the places where you may need to make changes. This chapter focuses on some concepts that can come in handy for this purpose.

非单偶制关系——好吧，实际上是任何关系——中的第一个关键要素是你与自己的关系。当然，照料你自己在生活的大多数领域都很重要，但在与他人建立多重关系时，自我照料的重要性会变得格外突出，并会让你清楚地看到你需要做出改变的地方。本章重点介绍一些对此有用的概念。

Nosce te ipsum

认识你自己 (Nosce te ipsum)

“Know thyself.” No one will ever know themselves perfectly. But working on self-knowledge helps you figure out what you need and want, which is a solid step toward getting it, as well as your limits around what you will accept. It also helps you know what you have to offer, which helps you understand and communicate what commitments you can make to others. And if you find yourself behaving in ways you’d rather not, you need self-knowledge to figure out why you’re doing it and how to change.

“认识你自己。”没有人能完美地了解自己。但致力于自我认知可以帮助你弄清楚你需要什么和想要什么，这是获得它的坚实一步，也能让你了解你接受事物的底线。它还能帮助你知道你能提供什么，这有助于你理解和沟通你可以对他人做出的承诺。如果你发现自己的行为方式并非你所愿，你需要自我认知来弄清楚你为什么要这样做以及如何改变。

A willingness to question yourself, challenge yourself and explore without fear the hidden parts of you are the best tools to gain self-knowledge. Of course, people all change over time, so self-knowledge is not a one-and-done kind of job. It’s important to retain a practice of introspection and self-analysis over the course of your life so that you can adapt your decisions as you learn yourself better and track the way you’ve shifted. But while self-knowledge can be a moving target, it is ultimately your own responsibility. When people choose not to try to know themselves, they’re much more likely to end up in the relationships other people think they should have, not the relationships they want.

愿意质疑自己、挑战自己并无畏地探索你隐藏的部分，是获得自我认知的最佳工具。当然，人都会随着时间而改变，所以自我认知不是一劳永逸的工作。在一生中保持内省和自我分析的习惯很重要，这样你就可以随着对自己了解的加深来调整你的决定，并追踪你的转变方式。但是，虽然自我认知可能是一个移动的目标，但这最终是你自己的责任。当人们选择不尝试了解自己时，他们更有可能最终陷入别人认为他们应该拥有的关系，而不是他们想要的关系中。

Part of having integrity in any relationship is taking responsibility for the emotional work you need to do. It’s not easy. Most people are very good at hiding the truth about themselves from themselves. Some are very good at making everything seem like someone else’s problem. Others are too good at taking on other people’s problems as their own. No one’s self-awareness is perfect. But it starts with the simple act of looking inward, of asking yourself, “What am I contributing to the problem? What are others’ contributions to it?” As one of our readers once commented, “You can come with baggage, but you’re responsible for knowing what’s in the suitcases.” This is often described as “owning your own shit.” Self-awareness starts with awareness, period.

在任何关系中，正直的一部分是为你需要做的情感工作承担责任。这并不容易。大多数人非常善于向自己隐瞒关于自己的真相。有些人非常善于让一切看起来都像是别人的问题。另一些人则太善于把别人的问题当成自己的问题。没有人的自我意识是完美的。但它始于简单的向内看，问自己：“我对这个问题有什么“贡献”？其他人的“贡献”是什么？”正如我们的一位读者曾经评论的那样：“你可以带着包袱来，但你有责任知道箱子里装的是什么。”这通常被描述为“搞定你自己的破事”(owning your own shit)。自我意识始于意识，就是这样。

So what do you need to know? First, your needs. Most people are never taught how to figure out what they need, let alone communicate it effectively. Even for those who are really good at feeling their feelings (plenty of people aren’t, for various reasons), it’s normal to react to the feeling rather than the actual need. For example, it’s common to think that when you feel angry, it’s because someone else did something bad to you. So you react to that person, tell them how much they hurt you, and perhaps demand they stop. Sometimes anger really is about the thing you think it’s about—anger is often an important warning sign about how you’re being treated. But sometimes the anger is about a need that’s not being acknowledged or expressed, or one you didn’t even realize you have.

那么你需要知道什么？首先，你的需求。大多数人从未被教导如何弄清楚他们需要什么，更不用说有效地沟通了。即使对于那些非常善于感知自己情绪的人（由于各种原因，很多人并不善于此），对情绪本身而不是对实际需求做出反应也是正常的。例如，人们通常认为，当你感到愤怒时，是因为别人对你做了坏事。所以你会对那个人做出反应，告诉他们伤害了你多少，也许还会要求他们停止。有时愤怒确实是关于你认为的那件事——愤怒通常是关于你被如何对待的重要警告信号。但有时，愤怒是关于一种未被承认或表达的需求，或者一种你甚至没有意识到自己拥有的需求。

Getting in touch with those needs can be really hard. So working to understand the needs driving strong emotions is a valuable practice. Then there’s understanding your needs as they pertain to relationships. Do you need to be nonmonogamous? Do you need to be monogamous? Do you need at least the possibility of eventually moving in with a partner—or are you entirely closed to the idea of living with someone? Is sex an indispensable part of an intimate relationship for you? Are you open to nonsexual intimate connections? Are you willing to be involved in hierarchical relationships, where you are a secondary partner or subject to a veto? Or do you need to have a larger say in the course your relationship takes?

接触这些需求可能真的很难。因此，努力理解驱动强烈情绪的需求是一种有价值的练习。然后是了解你与关系相关的需求。你需要非单偶制吗？你需要单偶制吗？你是否至少需要最终与伴侣同居的可能性——还是你完全排斥与人同居的想法？性对你来说是亲密关系中不可或缺的一部分吗？你对非性亲密关系持开放态度吗？你愿意卷入等级制关系中，做次要伴侣或受制于否决权吗？或者你需要对关系的发展方向有更大的发言权？

Relationship needs are absolutely real. Particularly in attachment-based relationships, your partners’ actions affect you deeply, up to and including your physical and emotional health, and there’s no way around this, even if you might sometimes wish you could be less “needy” (which is a misogynistic trope anyway). There’s a dangerous side to focusing on needs, though, which we mentioned in chapter 1: the risk of treating people as need-fulfillment machines. For example, it’s not uncommon to see people create detailed descriptions of what their future partners will have to look like, be like and want: what role they should play.

关系需求绝对是真实的。特别是在基于依恋的关系中，你伴侣的行为会深刻地影响你，甚至包括你的身心健康，这是无法回避的，即使你有时可能希望自己不要那么“粘人/需求多”(needy)（无论如何这是一个厌女的修辞）。不过，专注于需求也有危险的一面，我们在第 1 章中提到过：将人视为需求满足机器的风险。例如，人们经常会详细描述他们未来的伴侣必须长什么样、是什么样的人以及想要什么：他们应该扮演什么角色。

One way to think about (and seek) the kind of relationships you want without objectifying others is to think about what you have to offer (or not). Examples might be: I can offer life-partnering relationships. I can offer intimate relationships that don’t include sex. I am interested in financially supporting a family. I am interested in caring for a family. I am not willing to move out of my home for a partner. I have only two nights a week available for partners. And so on.

要在不物化他人的情况下思考（并寻求）你想要的关系类型，一种方法是思考你能提供什么（或不能提供什么）。例如：我可以提供生活伴侣关系。我可以提供不包含性的亲密关系。我有兴趣在经济上支持一个家庭。我有兴趣照顾一个家庭。我不愿意为了伴侣搬出我的家。我每周只有两个晚上可以陪伴侣。等等。

This exercise can be useful in setting boundaries and helping clarify the kinds of relationships you’re looking for and can sustain. It also plays an important role in partner selection, something we’ll talk about later. It’s not going to be very satisfying, for example, for you to end up in a closed triad if what you really need is an open network with the potential to date other people. If you are looking for life partners, people who are looking for other types of relationships might not be the best fit.

这个练习对于设定界限和帮助阐明你正在寻找并能维持的关系类型很有用。它在伴侣选择中也起着重要作用，我们稍后会讨论这一点。例如，如果你真正需要的是一个可以与其他人约会的开放网络，那么最终陷入一个封闭的三人组中并不会让你感到满意。如果你正在寻找生活伴侣，那些正在寻找其他类型关系的人可能不是最合适的。

Minding the gap

关注差距 (Minding the gap)

Lots of nonmonogamous people are idealists, particularly if they come to nonmonogamy because of political or ethical convictions. These convictions are often rooted in very real and valid observations about how harmful mononormativity can be. We agree with many of those convictions! But they’re not always in keeping with a person’s current emotional skill sets. You may have lofty goals for your relationships and how you want to conduct yourself within them. But becoming the kind of person who can live those ideals is a never-ending process. Doing the work is important, but understanding and accepting where you are right now is just as important. That includes understanding whether you are ready to be with a partner who has other partners, or to have multiple partners yourself. The problem with being an idealist about nonmonogamy is that if you aren’t also a realist, you risk putting yourself into situations you’re not ready for. If you do that, you risk hurting other people.

许多非单偶制者都是理想主义者，特别是如果他们是因为政治或伦理信念而选择非单偶制的。这些信念通常植根于对单偶常态危害性的非常真实和有效的观察。我们同意其中的许多信念！但它们并不总是与一个人当前的情感技能相符。你可能对你的关系以及你想如何在其中表现有崇高的目标。但成为那种能够实践这些理想的人是一个永无止境的过程。努力去做很重要，但理解和接受你现在的处境同样重要。这包括了解你是否准备好与一个拥有其他伴侣的伴侣在一起，或者你自己是否准备好拥有多个伴侣。关于非单偶制的理想主义的问题在于，如果你不也是一个现实主义者，你就有可能把自己置于尚未准备好的境地。如果你那样做，你就有伤害他人的风险。

Although self-awareness is important, so is self-compassion. You don’t look inward so that you can pass judgment on all your flaws. You do it so you can be aware of how your behaviour is aligning with your values, what effect you’re having on other people, and how you may be sabotaging yourself and your relationships. Understand where you are, yes, but also understand that it’s okay to be there, at least for now.

虽然自我意识很重要，但自我同情也很重要。你向内看并不是为了评判你所有的缺陷。你这样做是为了意识到你的行为是否与你的价值观一致，你对他人有什么影响，以及你可能如何破坏你自己和你的关系。了解你在哪里，是的，但也要了解在那里是可以的，至少目前是这样。

In her book Daring Greatly,² shame researcher Brené Brown introduces the idea of “minding the gap.” She’s talking about the values gap: the space between who you are now and who you want to be. Minding the gap is part of walking toward the horizon we talked about in chapter 2. There will always be times when you are imperfect, when you fall short of the best possible version of yourself. Minding the gap is being aware of where you are now and striving to move in the direction you want to go. That’s part of living with integrity. No one is perfect. People’s lives are filled with struggles and mistakes. The effort to be perfect only drives people away from one another and damages their self-worth.

在其著作《勇敢的力量》(Daring Greatly)² 中，羞耻感研究员布琳·布朗 (Brené Brown) 引入了“关注差距”(minding the gap) 的概念。她谈论的是价值观差距：现在的你和你想成为的你之间的空间。关注差距是走向我们在第 2 章中谈到的地平线的一部分。总会有你不完美的时候，当你达不到最好的自己时。关注差距就是意识到你现在在哪里，并努力朝你想去的方向前进。这是正直生活的一部分。没有人是完美的。人们的生活充满了挣扎和错误。追求完美只会让人与人疏远，并损害他们的自我价值。

The reason you need to understand where you are right now is so that you can understand your limitations. Your relationships will benefit if you can examine your sensitive spots, both so that you can be aware of what is going on when you feel upset, and so you can communicate with others about what’s going on and how to support you. Knowing where you stand now will help you figure out what tools you need to employ if you feel jealousy, resentment or other difficult emotions.

你需要了解你现在在哪里的原因是这样你才能了解你的局限性。如果你能检查你的敏感点，你的关系将会受益，这既是为了让你能在感到不安时意识到发生了什么，也是为了让你能与他人沟通发生了什么以及如何支持你。知道你现在的立场将有助于你弄清楚如果你感到嫉妒、怨恨或其他困难情绪时需要使用什么工具。

When you hurt others or make mistakes, it’s handy to refer back to your values and your ethical system. This can help you to think in terms of what you’re striving for and how you want to live, rather than in terms of your attributes: for instance, “I am someone who values integrity” rather than “I am a super-together person.” That way, you can more easily realign your actions with your values if things go wrong. For example, if you think of yourself as a person who values kindness, you can respond constructively when someone points out that you have been mean to them. You can ask yourself questions like “What’s making me respond to this situation in a way that doesn’t reflect my values?” “What kind of support do I need to help me respond differently?” “What actions do I need to take?” Minding the gap is about being able to see these things.

当你伤害他人或犯错时，回顾你的价值观和伦理体系是很方便的。这可以帮助你从你正在努力争取什么以及你想如何生活的角度来思考，而不是从你的属性角度来思考：例如，“我是一个重视正直的人”，而不是“我是一个超级从容的人”。那样，如果事情出了差错，你可以更容易地重新调整你的行为以符合你的价值观。例如，如果你认为自己是一个重视善良的人，当有人指出你对他们刻薄时，你可以做出建设性的回应。你可以问自己这样的问题：“是什么让我以一种不能反映我价值观的方式对这种情况做出反应？”“我需要什么样的支持来帮助我做出不同的反应？”“我需要采取什么行动？”关注差距就是能够看到这些事情。

Think of it as an opportunity to make a plan. If you need to travel from point A to point B, standing at point A and being mad at yourself for not having already reached point B isn’t going to get you very far. Instead, do a little route planning, get your bike tuned up, check the tires, pack a backpack, get water and make some sandwiches, check the weather and hit the road. You will need resources to make this journey across the gap—shame, guilt and unrealistic expectations are not fuel, food and functional wheels. What do the metaphors of fuel, food, a well-packed backpack and bike repairs look like in real life? Depends on your situation. Maybe what you need is therapy to help reframe things, reassurance from your partner, support from friends, introspection time, exercise so you feel more balanced and able to be your best self, time to read a book and practise some new communication tools. Maybe you’re dealing with a crisis and everything else has to wait while you get it sorted out. The point is, holding yourself to an ideal when you don’t have the resources to meet that ideal is a recipe for failure. So focus on getting the resources lined up rather than dwelling on your own inadequacy.

把它看作是一个制定计划的机会。如果你需要从 A 点旅行到 B 点，站在 A 点生自己的气，因为还没有到达 B 点，这不会让你走得太远。相反，做一点路线规划，调整好你的自行车，检查轮胎，打包背包，带上水和三明治，查看天气，然后上路。你需要资源来完成跨越差距的旅程——羞耻、内疚和不切实际的期望不是燃料、食物和功能正常的轮子。燃料、食物、打包好的背包和自行车维修的隐喻在现实生活中是什么样子的？取决于你的情况。也许你需要的是帮助重新构建事物的治疗，来自伴侣的安慰，来自朋友的支持，内省的时间，锻炼以让你感觉更平衡并能够做最好的自己，读书的时间和练习一些新的沟通工具。也许你正在处理危机，其他一切都必须等你解决后才能进行。重点是，当你没有资源达到那个理想时，强迫自己达到那个理想是失败的秘诀。所以要把重点放在准备资源上，而不是纠结于自己的不足。

Very few people make it to adulthood without getting a little broken on the way. No one can see other people’s wounds; no one can really know what other people’s struggles look like from the inside. But one thing’s for sure: everyone has them. Nonmonogamy can push on your broken bits in ways few other things do. You may be able to build walls around deep-rooted fears, insecurities and sensitive spots in monogamous relationships—walls that nonmonogamous relationships will often raze to the ground. And because so many more people are involved, more people stand to suffer. Everyone has things they need to work on and gaps they want to bridge between their actions and their values.

很少有人能在成长的过程中不带一点伤痕。没有人能看到别人的伤口；没有人能真正知道别人的挣扎从内部看起来是什么样子的。但有一件事是肯定的：每个人都有。非单偶制会以很少有其他事物能做到的方式触碰你的破碎之处。你也许能够在单偶制关系中围绕根深蒂固的恐惧、不安全感和敏感点筑起高墙——而非单偶制关系通常会将这些墙夷为平地。而且因为涉及到更多的人，更多的人会受苦。每个人都有需要努力的地方，以及他们想要在行动和价值观之间弥合的差距。

We recommend The Polysecure Workbook, by Jessica Fern, for a series of in-depth exercises to help you understand yourself and how you function in relationships, and to cultivate secure attachment with yourself and others, as well as the exercises in her book Polywise, written with David Cooley.

我们推荐杰西卡·弗恩的《多边安全练习册》(The Polysecure Workbook)，其中包含一系列深入的练习，帮助你了解自己以及你在关系中的运作方式，并培养与自己和他人的安全依恋，以及她在与戴维·库利合著的《多边智慧》一书中的练习。

Worthiness

价值感 (Worthiness)

Nonmonogamy will challenge your emotional resilience. Instead of building walls around painful feelings like fear and jealousy, you’ll need to find a way through them. You may experience more loss; more relationships mean more possibilities for heartbreak. And you may encounter judgment: slut-shaming, trivialization of your relationships, and claims that you’re treating your partners badly or neglecting your kids are some of the most common forms. We discuss these more in the rest of this book, but what’s important here is developing a sense of self-worth that protects you from internalizing these corrosive messages.

非单偶制会挑战你的情感韧性。与其在恐惧和嫉妒等痛苦情绪周围筑墙，你需要找到穿越它们的方法。你可能会经历更多的失去；更多的关系意味着更多心碎的可能性。你可能会遇到评判：荡妇羞辱、对你关系的轻视，以及声称你虐待伴侣或忽视孩子的说法是最常见的几种形式。我们在本书的其余部分会对此进行更多讨论，但这里重要的是培养一种自我价值感 (self-worth)，保护你免受这些腐蚀性信息的内化影响。

Worthiness connects to your sense of belonging, which you get when you allow yourself to be vulnerable and are accepted as you are, within relationships where you know you are not disposable. But being able to allow that vulnerability, as well as to exercise discernment about who it’s safe to be vulnerable with, requires—gotcha!—a sense of worthiness. To connect with others, you must take a leap of faith and believe you are worthy of connection. That kind of belief is something that tends to get instilled in people—or not—in their families of origin when they are very young. It’s reinforced as they grow, in the interactions they have with the world around them and in the other relationships (intimate and otherwise) they have. Those who experience various forms of marginalization, especially, experience constant external attacks on their self-worth, which is a major reason that, for example, suicide rates are so high among queer and trans youth. In turn, not knowing what real belonging feels like can lead people to seek out or stay in relationships where they aren’t treated well, which reinforces the cycle.

价值感与你的归属感相连，当你在知道自己不是可有可无的关系中，允许自己脆弱并被接纳时，你就会获得这种归属感。但是，能够允许那种脆弱，以及运用辨别力来判断与谁在一起是安全的，需要——你猜对了！——一种价值感。要与他人建立联系，你必须有信念的飞跃，相信你值得被连接。这种信念通常是在人们非常年轻时在原生家庭中被灌输的——或者是没有被灌输的。随着他们的成长，这种信念在他们与周围世界的互动以及他们拥有的其他关系（亲密关系或其他）中得到加强。特别是那些经历各种形式边缘化的人，会经历对自己自我价值的持续外部攻击，这也是例如酷儿和跨性别青年自杀率如此之高的主要原因。反过来，不知道真正的归属感是什么感觉会导致人们寻找或留在那些得不到良好对待的关系中，这加强了这种循环。

So if someone didn’t have the privilege of having a strong sense of self-worth instilled in them from a young age—maybe if they’ve never experienced it at all—how do they even begin to believe they are worthy? What if the concept of “worthiness” is so far outside your realm of personal experience that you, perhaps, can’t even imagine it? Unfortunately, there’s no one thing that works for everyone. We do know that you need to work at it. It sounds cliché, but it really is about cultivating a loving relationship with yourself—learning to offer yourself the love and acceptance you never received from others. A trusted therapist can offer you mirroring and acceptance within a safe container, and with time, you can practise sharing more of yourself with trusted friends. We also know some folks for whom working with psychedelics such as psilocybin and ayahuasca has been transformative for healing their relationships with themselves. As this process goes on, you may also begin to feel guilt, regret or shame for how you have talked to or treated yourself in the past, and then it’s important to practise love and compassion for the past self who was mean to you as well as the past self who you were being mean to. If feeling worthy does not come naturally to you, you may need to work at it, to a greater or lesser degree, your whole life. If you slip back into a miasma of fear and self-doubt, just remember to start practising again, and slowly work your way back out.

那么，如果有人没有幸在年轻时被灌输强烈的自我价值感——也许他们根本从未体验过——他们甚至如何开始相信自己是有价值的？如果“价值感”的概念完全超出了你的个人经验范围，以至于你甚至无法想象它，那该怎么办？不幸的是，没有一种方法对所有人都有效。我们确实知道你需要为此努力。这听起来很陈词滥调，但这确实是关于培养与自己的恋爱关系——学会给自己提供你从未从他人那里得到的爱和接纳。一位值得信赖的治疗师可以在一个安全的容器内为你提供镜像和接纳，随着时间的推移，你可以练习与值得信赖的朋友分享更多的自己。我们也知道一些人通过使用裸盖菇素和死藤水等迷幻剂，在治愈与自己的关系方面发生了转变。随着这个过程的进行，你也可能开始对自己过去对自己说话或对待自己的方式感到内疚、遗憾或羞耻，这时重要的是要对那个对你刻薄的过去的自己，以及那个你对其刻薄的过去的自己，练习爱和同情。如果感觉有价值对你来说不是自然而然的，你可能需要在一生中或多或少地为此努力。如果你滑回恐惧和自我怀疑的迷雾中，请记住重新开始练习，并慢慢地找回出路。

The good news is that once you know what worthiness feels like, you know that you can experience it—even if you aren’t experiencing it right now. A sense of worth is critical to counteracting a scarcity model (see pages 105–107) in both love and life. If you do not believe in your worth, you become disempowered, unable to advocate for your needs. You may turn to self-abuse, which in turn can lead you into other relationships that are abusive, whether you are the abuser or the abused. You may not see or embrace the love that is actually around you in your life. It becomes harder to treat your partners well, because you do not see what you bring to their lives. And if you don’t understand your value to them, you are more likely to feed your jealousy and fear of loss.

好消息是，一旦你知道价值感是什么感觉，你就知道你可以体验它——即使你现在没有体验到。价值感对于对抗爱情和生活中的匮乏模式（见第 105-107 页）至关重要。如果你不相信自己的价值，你就会失去力量，无法为自己的需求辩护。你可能会转向自我虐待，这反过来又会导致你陷入其他虐待关系，无论你是施虐者还是受虐者。你可能看不到或无法拥抱生活中实际上围绕着你的爱。善待你的伴侣变得更加困难，因为你看不到你给他们的生活带来了什么。如果你不了解你对他们的价值，你就更有可能助长你的嫉妒和对失去的恐惧。

Notice that institutions built on disconnection—too many workplaces, too many families—always inculcate a sense of low self-worth. Under capitalism, low self-worth is valuable to those who want to profit from your labour, to say nothing of profiting from you as a consumer of products and services to endlessly improve yourself. And in relationships firmly anchored in unquestioned traditional binary gender roles, low self-worth can keep everyone trying to achieve impossible ideals, as well as exploiting women for unpaid domestic labour. Since most people are raised in or heavily exposed to such systems, it’s no surprise that low self-worth is a struggle for so many.

请注意，建立在断裂之上的机构——太多的工作场所，太多的家庭——总是灌输一种低自我价值感。在资本主义下，低自我价值对那些想从你的劳动中获利的人来说是有价值的，更不用说作为产品和服务的消费者来不断提升自己从而让他们获利了。在牢固地建立在未经质疑的传统二元性别角色基础上的关系中，低自我价值会让每个人都试图实现不可能的理想，并剥削女性进行无偿家务劳动。由于大多数人都是在这个系统中长大或深受其影响，低自我价值感成为许多人的挣扎也就不足为奇了。

Worthiness is not the same as validation. A sense of self-worth comes from within, not from someone else. It can be tempting to look to the outside for validation—to look to your partner and say, “They love me, therefore I am worthy.” That situation creates fear rather than reducing it, because when you rely on outside things in order to feel worthy, you fear losing them all the more. The same problem arises when you source your self-worth in your career, your body, the amount of money in your bank account, or any other measurable criteria. (Which is not to say that mistreatment or shaming in any of these areas of life won’t erode your self-worth, or that you should be immune to it. We don’t believe the cliché that “no one can make you feel anything you don’t want to feel.” But your self-worth is what helps you believe that you deserve better, stick up for yourself where you can, or find people who treat you better.)

价值感不同于验证。自我价值感来自内心，而不是来自他人。向外寻求验证是很诱人的——看着你的伴侣说，“他们爱我，所以我值得。”这种情况会产生恐惧而不是减少恐惧，因为当你依靠外在事物来感觉有价值时，你会更加害怕失去它们。当你从你的职业、你的身体、你银行账户里的钱或任何其他可衡量的标准中获取自我价值时，同样的问题也会出现。（这并不是说在生活的任何这些方面受到虐待或羞辱不会侵蚀你的自我价值，或者你应该对此免疫。我们不相信“没人能让你感觉你不想感觉的东西”这种陈词滥调。但你的自我价值感是帮助你相信你值得更好的东西，在你力所能及的地方为自己挺身而出，或者找到对你更好的人的东西。）

Self-worth isn’t about your accomplishments or about being good at things, or a good person, or sufficiently gorgeous or sexy. It’s not about belonging to social categories that are seen as better than others or that hold more privilege, or trying to resemble people in those categories. Self-worth is not based on measurable criteria. It needs to be anchored in a belief that all human (or depending on your belief system, living) beings are worthy, and because you are human (or alive), that applies to you, too. Self-worth is also not about developing a big ego; it’s not about thinking you’re better than others. In fact, a big ego often indicates that a person is trying to compensate for or conceal low self-worth.

自我价值不在于你的成就，不在于擅长某些事情，不在于做一个好人，或者足够漂亮或性感。它不在于属于那些被认为比其他人更好或拥有更多特权的社会类别，也不在于试图模仿那些类别中的人。自我价值不基于可衡量的标准。它需要基于一种信念，即所有人类（或取决于你的信仰体系，所有生物）都是有价值的，因为你是人类（或活着的），这也适用于你。自我价值也不在于培养一个巨大的自我；它不在于认为你比别人好。事实上，巨大的自我通常表明一个人正试图补偿或掩饰低自我价值。

For some, it can help to think of self-worth as a universal right, like water and air and bodily autonomy. These aren’t things you have to earn; they’re your birthright, something you are entitled to by the simple fact of being human. For others, it can help to consider self-worth as a spiritual concept: If your deity created you, that presumes they believe you’re worthy; who are you to contradict them? Still others might find it useful to think of self-worth as a building block of political activism or other core projects—the principle of “put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others” is highly relevant here. In some ways, self-worth is fundamentally based in a kind of profound humility: If you believe that every human is worthy, and acknowledge that you are neither superhuman nor subhuman, then you, too, must be worthy.

对一些人来说，将自我价值视为一项普遍权利，就像水、空气和身体自主权一样，会有所帮助。这些不是你必须去赚取的东西；它们是你与生俱来的权利，仅仅因为你是人类就有权享有。对另一些人来说，将自我价值视为一个精神概念会有所帮助：如果你的神创造了你，那就假定他们认为你是值得的；你是谁，竟敢反驳他们？还有一些人可能会发现，将自我价值视为政治激进主义或其他核心项目的基石很有用——“在帮助他人之前先戴好自己的氧气面罩”的原则在这里非常相关。在某种程度上，自我价值从根本上基于一种深刻的谦逊：如果你相信每个人都是有价值的，并承认你既不是超人也不是次等人，那么你，也必然是有价值的。

Self-efficacy

自我效能感 (Self-efficacy)

Let’s say you’ve set out on your bicycle trip, and you make a wrong turn. A little while later, you’re out in the middle of a tangle of remote logging roads with no cell signal, and the sun is going down. Do you know a few wild plants you can collect to feed yourself? Do you know how to find water? How to make a shelter and stay warm? If not, how confident are you in your ability to figure these things out? Will you begin to panic? Will you think, “Oh, my God, I’m going to die!” Or will you take a deep breath and say, “Well, I’ve never done this before, but here I am, and I’d better get on with it. Let’s see, it’s getting dark. I guess the first thing is to look for some shelter and figure out if there’s something I can eat.”

假设你开始骑自行车旅行，然后转错了弯。过了一会儿，你在偏远的伐木小道中迷路了，没有手机信号，太阳正在下山。你知道几种可以采集来养活自己的野生植物吗？你知道如何寻找水源吗？如何搭建住所并保暖？如果不知道，你对弄清楚这些事情的能力有多大信心？你会开始恐慌吗？你会想，“天哪，我要死了！”还是你会深吸一口气说，“嗯，我以前没做过这个，但我现在在这里，我最好开始行动。看看，天快黑了。我想第一件事就是找个避难所，弄清楚有没有什么东西可以吃。”

There’s a kind of calm that comes from believing you can handle a situation, even one you haven’t faced before, and that calm increases your competence. This effect is called self-efficacy. Trying new things—like writing a book, or exploring nonmonogamy—involves learning new skills, and research on academic performance repeatedly shows that believing you can learn has a big impact on how much you learn. Self-efficacy in nonmonogamous relationships is the feeling that you can make it through your partner’s first date with someone else. That you’ll figure out a way to manage your jealousy, even if you don’t know how yet. That if you have to sleep alone some nights, even if it’s been years and you don’t remember what it feels like, you’ll get through it and be okay.

相信自己能处理某种情况，即使是你以前从未面对过的情况，会带来一种平静，而那种平静会增强你的能力。这种效应被称为自我效能感 (self-efficacy)。尝试新事物——比如写书，或探索非单偶制——涉及学习新技能，关于学业成绩的研究反复表明，相信自己能学会对你能学到多少有很大影响。非单偶制关系中的自我效能感是这种感觉：你能度过你伴侣与别人的第一次约会。你会想办法管理你的嫉妒，即使你现在还不知道怎么做。如果有些晚上你不得不独自睡觉，即使已经很多年了你不记得那是什么感觉，你也能挺过去并且没事。

This may seem to have a flavour of New Age, power-of-intention pop psychology, but the study of self-efficacy goes back five decades, and there’s solid evidence supporting it. Whether or not someone believes they can do something has important effects on whether they can. This has been demonstrated for everything from learning new skills to quitting smoking.

这似乎有点新时代、意念力流行心理学的味道，但对自我效能感的研究可以追溯到五十年前，并且有确凿的证据支持它。一个人是否相信自己能做某事，对他是否能做到有重要影响。这一点已在从学习新技能到戒烟的各种事情上得到了证明。

As to developing this calming competence, research has identified several strategies for improving self-efficacy. Here are two simple ones: Small successes. Step outside your comfort zone. Find something you can succeed at: something that seems hard to you, but not so hard it will result in you quivering under the covers in tears. Stay home while your partner is on a date instead of distracting yourself by hanging out with friends. Talk to your partner about your insecurity or jealousy instead of bottling up your fears. Each small step will build on the last, giving you a stronger sense of your ability to tackle the next challenge. Those challenges won’t necessarily become easier. But the key is to develop your belief that you can do this.

关于发展这种令人平静的能力，研究已经确定了几种提高自我效能感的策略。这里有两个简单的： 小成功。 走出你的舒适区。找一些你能成功的事情：一些对你来说似乎很难，但又不是难到让你在被窝里哭得发抖的事情。在伴侣约会时呆在家里，而不是通过和朋友出去玩来分散注意力。与伴侣谈论你的不安全感或嫉妒，而不是压抑你的恐惧。每一小步都将建立在上一步的基础上，让你更强烈地感觉到自己有能力应对下一个挑战。这些挑战不一定会变得更容易。但关键是培养你能做到的信念。

The flip side of this strategy is to address how you cope with “failure,” if it turns out you weren’t quite as strong (yet) as you’d hoped. People with high self-efficacy tend to be resilient in the face of failure; they know that often you have to fail many times before you succeed.

这一策略的反面是解决你如何应对“失败”，如果事实证明你并不像你希望的那样坚强（还不是）。自我效能感高的人在面对失败时往往很有韧性；他们知道，通常在你成功之前，你必须失败很多次。

Role models. An important factor contributing to a person’s idea of whether they can do something is whether they see other people doing it. We can’t stress enough the usefulness of having nonmonogamous role models, ideally people in your social network who you can talk to and get feedback from. Find your local nonmonogamy discussion and support group, or start one. As nonmonogamous people, we are surrounded by a culture that tells us, “You can’t do this,” “That’s not possible,” or even “That’s morally wrong.” It can be hard to maintain a belief in yourself and your abilities in the face of this social censure, especially when things get hard. That’s why it’s critical to establish a nonmonogamy-friendly support system and find people you consider to be good examples.

榜样。 影响一个人认为自己能否做某事的一个重要因素是他们是否看到其他人在做这件事。我们怎么强调拥有非单偶制榜样的用处都不为过，理想情况下是你社交网络中可以交谈并获得反馈的人。找到你当地的非单偶制讨论和支持小组，或者创办一个。作为非单偶制者，我们被一种文化包围，这种文化告诉我们，“你不能这样做”，“那是不可能的”，甚至“那在道德上是错误的”。面对这种社会指责，很难保持对自己和能力的信念，尤其是在事情变得艰难的时候。这就是为什么建立一个非单偶制友好的支持系统并找到你认为的好榜样至关重要的原因。

Building self-efficacy in other areas of your life also builds success in nonmonogamous relationships. It takes the bite out of two scary monsters: failure and being alone. For many people, for example, the first breakup is the scariest, because it’s their first taste of the failure of the romantic fantasy. Will you find love again? What if the person you just broke up with was The One? Believing that you can be alone and thrive, that you can survive the end of something and rebuild, are important elements of self-efficacy.

在你生活的其他领域建立自我效能感也有助于非单偶制关系的成功。它消除了两个可怕怪物的威胁：失败和孤独。例如，对许多人来说，第一次分手是最可怕的，因为这是他们第一次尝到浪漫幻想破灭的滋味。你会再次找到爱吗？如果你刚刚分手的那个就是“真命天子/天女”怎么办？相信你可以独自一人并茁壮成长，相信你可以从某事的结束中幸存下来并重建，是自我效能感的重要组成部分。

Courage

勇气 (Courage)

In relationships, you need everyday, ordinary, non-heroic courage. The courage it takes to confess a crush. The courage it takes to say, “Yes, I am going to open my heart to this person, even though I don’t know what the outcome will be.” The courage to love a partner who loves another person even though you do not have the trappings of security that monogamy promises. The courage to sleep alone. The courage to begin a relationship with someone who’s already partnered, trusting that person to carve out the space for you that you’re going to need. The courage to apologize, and the courage to forgive.

在关系中，你需要日常的、普通的、非英雄式的勇气。承认迷恋所需的勇气。说“是的，我要向这个人敞开心扉，即使我不知道结果会怎样”所需的勇气。爱一个爱着别人的伴侣的勇气，即使你没有单偶制所承诺的安全保障。独自睡觉的勇气。与一个已经有伴侣的人开始一段关系的勇气，相信那个人会为你腾出你需要的空间。道歉的勇气，以及原谅的勇气。

This kind of moral courage comes from a willingness to be vulnerable, and to accept that you will be okay even though you don’t know what will happen. And you know what? Courage is required because sometimes what you’re trying doesn’t work. Your vulnerability is rejected, or worse, betrayed. That’s the whole thing about courage. It can’t promise a happy outcome. We can’t say, “Just be brave and vulnerable and you will obtain love and master nonmonogamous relationships ever after.” It wouldn’t be courage if there were guarantees.

这种道德勇气来自于愿意变得脆弱，并接受即使你不知道会发生什么，你也会没事。你知道吗？需要勇气是因为有时你的尝试并不奏效。你的脆弱被拒绝，或者更糟，被背叛。这就是勇气的全部意义。它不能保证一个快乐的结果。我们不能说，“只要勇敢和脆弱，你就会获得爱并从此掌握非单偶制关系。”如果有保证，那就不是勇气了。

You may feel like saying, “Well, I’m just not that brave.” But we’re not talking about something you are or are not. Everyone has times when they act with courage and times when they don’t. Courage is a choice: It’s not something you have, it’s something you do. You practise a bit every day. And if you fall down, if your courage fails you, you always get another chance. Courage happens in increments. You’ll need courage because nonmonogamous relationships can be scary. Loving other people without a script is scary. Allowing the people you love to make their own choices without controlling them is scary. The kind of courage we’re talking about involves being willing to let go of guarantees—and love and trust your partners anyway.

你可能会想说，“嗯，我只是没那么勇敢。”但我们不是在谈论你是或不是某种人。每个人都有勇敢行事的时候，也有不勇敢的时候。勇气是一种选择：它不是你拥有的东西，而是你做的事情。你每天练习一点。如果你跌倒了，如果你的勇气让你失望了，你总会有另一次机会。勇气是逐渐累积的。你需要勇气，因为非单偶制关系可能很可怕。没有剧本地爱别人是可怕的。允许你爱的人做出自己的选择而不控制他们是可怕的。我们所谈论的勇气包括愿意放弃保证——并且无论如何都要爱和信任你的伴侣。

So how do you learn to have courage, to develop this practice? By taking a deep breath, steadying yourself, and then choosing the difficult, scary path over the easy way out. As the theologian Mary Daly said, you “learn courage by couraging.”³ The path of greatest courage also seems like the hardest: It takes you right past the places where your fears live. But just as you cannot put off learning to swim until the day you magically know the butterfly stroke, you cannot put off learning courage until the day you magically become courageous. This is work you must do, now, to create fertile ground within your relationships that allows you to move with integrity and compassion.

那么，你如何学会拥有勇气，发展这种实践呢？通过深呼吸，稳住自己，然后选择那条困难、可怕的道路，而不是容易的出路。正如神学家玛丽·戴利 (Mary Daly) 所说，你“通过勇敢行事来学习勇气”(learn courage by couraging)。³ 最大勇气的道路似乎也是最艰难的：它带你直接经过你恐惧居住的地方。但是，就像你不能把学游泳推迟到你神奇地学会蝶泳的那一天一样，你也不能把学习勇气推迟到你神奇地变得勇敢的那一天。这是你现在必须做的工作，以便在你的关系中创造肥沃的土壤，让你能够以正直和同情心前行。

Discernment

辨别力 (Discernment)

The counterbalance to courage is discernment.

勇气的平衡点是辨别力。

What does that mean? Well, let’s give an example. Both of us do yoga, and it presents us with a great metaphor. Yoga often encourages us to push ourselves through difficult movements—to summon our courage and do things with our bodies that we might not have thought we could do. And sometimes that’s exactly the right approach. Never tried a headstand before? With proper instruction, an explanation of the body mechanics involved, and a careful, step-by-step approach, you might well be able to do it. And that moment of going from “oh no I can’t, this is terrifying” to “holy crap I’m actually doing it!” can be exhilarating. At the same time, yoga also generally encourages us to pay careful attention to our bodies and what they need; to breathe deep and assess whether we can bend a little further, but not to grit our teeth and ignore pain as we push ourselves to achieve a pose.

这是什么意思？好吧，让我们举个例子。我们俩都做瑜伽，它为我们提供了一个很好的隐喻。瑜伽经常鼓励我们推动自己完成困难的动作——鼓起勇气，用身体做我们可能认为自己做不到的事情。有时这正是正确的方法。以前从未尝试过倒立？有了适当的指导，对涉及的身体力学的解释，以及小心的一步一步的方法，你很可能能够做到。从“哦不，我不行，这太可怕了”到“天哪，我真的在做！”的那一刻可能令人兴奋。与此同时，瑜伽通常也鼓励我们仔细关注我们的身体和它们的需要；深呼吸并评估我们是否可以再弯一点，但在我们强迫自己完成一个姿势时，不要咬紧牙关忽视疼痛。

So how are you supposed to know which one to do? Push yourself past a limitation so that you can accomplish new things and discover things you didn’t yet know about yourself? Or stop because you’re about to injure yourself? Good question. Figuring out when to push and when to pause or pull back can be challenging. It means cultivating the ability to tell the difference between different kinds of pain. In the context of nonmonogamy, that means discerning between the psychic equivalent of a nice, deep stretch, and the pop of a tendon tearing or shoulder dislocating. You need to get grounded, listen deep and hard to your inner voice, reflect, consider. You need to look at how a situation is or isn’t lining up with your value system, whether it’s crossing your boundaries or respecting them, whether it’s meeting your needs or falling short, whether you have more to offer or are tapped out, whether it’s hurting you in an unacceptable and ongoing way or causing the kind of temporary pain you can work through with a little care and skill. Discernment is about cultivating your ability to listen to your inner voice—and your ability to tell your demons to take a hike.

那你怎么知道该做哪一个呢？突破限制，从而完成新事物并发现你自己尚未了解的事情？还是因为你要受伤了而停止？好问题。弄清楚何时推进、何时暂停或后退可能具有挑战性。这意味着培养区分不同种类疼痛的能力。在非单偶制的背景下，这意味着要辨别心理上相当于一次美妙、深度的伸展，还是肌腱撕裂或肩膀脱臼的爆裂声。你需要脚踏实地，深入而努力地倾听你内心的声音，反思，考虑。你需要看看一种情况是否符合你的价值体系，它是否越过了你的界限还是尊重了它们，它是否满足了你的需求还是有所欠缺，你是否有更多可以提供还是已经筋疲力尽，它是以一种不可接受的、持续的方式伤害你，还是造成了一种你可以通过一点小心和技巧来解决的暂时性痛苦。辨别力是关于培养你倾听内心声音的能力——以及你告诉你的心魔滚蛋的能力。

This can be difficult work, and there’s no one right path. It’s a process of deepening your self-knowledge. Sometimes you do that on your own, by reading and reflecting, by journaling and taking time for introspection. Sometimes you do it through your body—yoga is one way, but there are lots of others. Sometimes you do it with the help of other people, like trusted friends, family, therapists or communities, or with the help of a spiritual system or ethical code to give you something to check against. For most people, it’s a combination of tactics.

这可能是一项艰巨的工作，没有一条正确的道路。这是一个加深自我认知的过程。有时你自己做，通过阅读和反思，通过写日记和花时间内省。有时你通过你的身体来做——瑜伽是一种方式，但还有很多其他方式。有时你在他人的帮助下做，比如值得信赖的朋友、家人、治疗师或社区，或者借助精神体系或道德准则来给你提供对照。对大多数人来说，这是多种策略的结合。

One thing that doesn’t help is when someone else is pushing you hard in a direction that would work really well for them, or that lines up with their value system. For example, Andrea once did a hot yoga class with an instructor who barked instructions like a drill sergeant and came down hard on students who didn’t keep up. Feeling under pressure, Andrea chose to push through what felt like impossible demands on their body—and ended up in pain for a week with a badly pulled muscle. Never again! On the flip side, they’ve also spent years doing a regular class with a beloved instructor whose routine is very predictable. It’s wonderful, relaxing and affirming, but it’s not super challenging, so if they want to grow and develop, they need to explore other instructors and styles as well.

有一种情况没有帮助，那就是当别人把你往一个对他们非常有效或符合他们价值体系的方向猛推的时候。例如，安德莉亚曾经上过一节热瑜伽课，教练像魔鬼教官一样吼叫指令，并严厉斥责跟不上的学生。由于感到压力，安德莉亚选择强行通过那些感觉对身体不可能的要求——结果严重拉伤肌肉，痛苦了一周。再也不去了！另一方面，她们也花了数年时间上受人喜爱的教练的常规课，该教练的套路非常可预测。这很美妙、放松和肯定，但不是特别具有挑战性，所以如果她们想成长和发展，她们也需要探索其他教练和风格。

If someone is pushing you (or perhaps you’re pushing yourself) to be courageous around something where all you want to do is scream “no!”—or, perhaps more ambiguously, where you really aren’t sure you want to say “yes”—be kind to yourself. Take more time. Think more deeply. Trust your instincts. Read, reflect, talk it over with people you trust. Listen to your feelings until you come to a place where you’re feeling truly ready to move forward—or a place where you feel clearer that you’re just not into it. Your authentic “yes” is important, your authentic “no” must be respected, and your authentic “I don’t know (yet)” should be met with compassion—other people’s and your own. Don’t succumb to pressure or let anyone hurry you along. There is no rush. Nonmonogamy is not a deadline project. And it might not be a project for you at all. That choice is yours, and yours alone.

如果有人在逼你（或者也许是你自己在逼自己）在一件你只想尖叫“不！”的事情上勇敢——或者，也许更模棱两可的是，在你真的不确定你想说“是”的地方——对自己好一点。花更多时间。思考得更深一点。相信你的直觉。阅读，反思，和你信任的人商量。倾听你的感受，直到你觉得真正准备好向前迈进——或者你觉得更清楚你只是对它不感兴趣。你真实的“是”很重要，你真实的“不”必须受到尊重，你真实的“我（还）不知道”应该得到同情——别人的和你自己的。不要屈服于压力或让任何人催促你。不用着急。非单偶制不是一个有截止日期的项目。它可能根本就不是你的项目。那个选择是你的，而且只属于你。

Yoga is an apt metaphor here for a number of reasons, not least of which is that in recent years the yoga world has been rocked by various scandals involving leaders who became highly respected, and even revered—but who exploited and abused their students emotionally, financially, physically and even sexually. Does that mean all yoga is bad? Certainly not. It does, however, mean that a context in which you’re pushed to do and be “better” by someone you trust, particularly someone who others around you also trust, can end up being quite harmful. This is why it’s important to maintain some kind of balanced perspective, retain your own independent sense of what is and isn’t okay with you, and listen carefully to your inner voice.

瑜伽在这里是一个恰当的比喻，原因有很多，尤其是近年来瑜伽界被各种丑闻所震撼，涉及那些变得备受尊敬甚至崇敬的领袖——但他们在情感上、经济上、身体上甚至性上剥削和虐待他们的学生。这是否意味着所有瑜伽都是坏的？当然不是。然而，这确实意味着，在一个你被你信任的人（特别是周围其他人也信任的人）推动去做和变得“更好”的环境中，最终可能会非常有害。这就是为什么保持某种平衡的视角，保留你自己关于什么对你来说可以、什么不可以的独立意识，并仔细倾听你内心的声音很重要的原因。

In the context of nonmonogamy, that might mean a number of things. You might learn that if you take a deep breath, summon your courage and use your skills, you can get through some really difficult moments and come out happier and stronger both in yourself and in your relationships. You might realize that nonmonogamy itself is fine, but it’s showing you things about your current relationships or your current agreements that aren’t healthy for you, so you need to either fix those things or exit the relationships. You might realize that even if nonmonogamy is ethically okay with you, it’s too difficult, too damaging and ultimately not bringing you joy or feeling right to you, so you need to stop, whether temporarily or permanently. Or you might even realize that nonmonogamy doesn’t line up with your values or emotional makeup at all. For nonmonogamy to be truly consensual, all these options need to be on the table.

在非单偶制的背景下，这可能意味着很多事情。你可能会了解到，如果你深吸一口气，鼓起勇气并运用你的技能，你可以度过一些非常困难的时刻，并在你自己和你的关系中变得更快乐、更强大。你可能会意识到非单偶制本身很好，但它向你展示了关于你当前关系或当前协议的一些对你不健康的事情，所以你需要要么解决这些事情，要么退出关系。你可能会意识到，即使非单偶制在伦理上对你来说没问题，但它太困难、太具破坏性，最终没有给你带来快乐或让你感觉不对劲，所以你需要停止，无论是暂时的还是永久的。或者你甚至可能意识到非单偶制根本不符合你的价值观或情感构成。为了使非单偶制真正成为双方同意的，所有这些选项都需要摆在桌面上。

Heidi Priebe, mentioned on page 24, has talked about the idea of growing pain, which is the discomfort that ultimately makes you and your life bigger, versus shrinking pain, where you and your world are becoming smaller.⁴ In a YouTube video comparing these concepts, she lists five ways to discern whether you’re feeling shrinking pain:

第 24 页提到的海蒂·普里贝谈到了成长痛 (growing pain) 的概念，这是一种最终让你和你的生活变得更大的不适，相对于萎缩痛 (shrinking pain)，那是让你和你的世界变得更小的痛苦。⁴ 在一个比较这些概念的 YouTube 视频中，她列出了五种辨别你是否感到萎缩痛的方法：

Does it get worse the more you engage with the painful situation?
How much do you have to work to make what is happening make sense?
Do you feel a sense of scarcity around joy, like you have to hold onto it at all costs, or do you feel like the life you’re living is going to naturally produce it?
Are you focused on what you “should” be doing, thinking, feeling—or are you in touch with what you actually want?
Do you feel like you are going endlessly in circles, or do you feel like you are expanding?
你越是介入痛苦的情况，情况会变得越糟吗？
你需要付出多大的努力才能让正在发生的事情变得合理？
你是否对快乐感到匮乏，就像你必须不惜一切代价抓住它，还是你觉得你过的生活会自然产生快乐？
你是否专注于你“应该”做什么、想什么、感觉到什么——还是你接触到了你真正想要的东西？
你觉得自己在无休止地兜圈子，还是觉得自己正在扩展？

We think these questions are useful tools, and if you’re struggling with discernment in a painful situation, we recommend watching the whole video (listed in the notes). To pick up an earlier metaphor for a moment: It takes courage to be a whistleblower. It takes discernment to figure out whether your actions will actually be able to help anyone, or whether you’ll put vulnerable people in even more danger. Courage is not the only tool you need when facing difficult situations.

我们认为这些问题是有用的工具，如果你在痛苦的情况下难以辨别，我们建议观看完整的视频（列在注释中）。借用之前的一个比喻：成为吹哨人需要勇气。弄清楚你的行动是否真的能帮助任何人，或者你是否会让弱势群体处于更大的危险之中，则需要辨别力。面对困难情况时，勇气不是你需要的唯一工具。

We can’t tell you how to exercise your discernment. Every situation is unique and there’s no one right answer. Also, you will make mistakes along the way; don’t beat yourself up about them. Everyone learns and changes over time. Making a mistake doesn’t invalidate your self-knowledge; it adds to it. Just remember that your decisions are your own to make, and the more you can cultivate trust in yourself, the clearer your discernment will become.

我们无法告诉你如何运用你的辨别力。每种情况都是独特的，没有唯一的正确答案。此外，你会在此过程中犯错；不要为此自责。每个人都会随着时间的推移学习和改变。犯错并不会使你的自我认知失效；它会增加你的自我认知。只要记住你的决定由你自己做出，你越能培养对自己的信任，你的辨别力就会变得越清晰。

Fear of loss

失去的恐惧

Fear of loss presents another area where the stories you tell about your relationships affect the emotional experiences you have within them. Hopefully, you are with your partners because they bring love and meaning to your life and share intimacy with you. And opening yourself up to that love, meaning and intimacy makes you vulnerable, because life is uncertain. Many people try to protect themselves from that fear by never allowing themselves to fully open up, trying to prepare themselves for anything by imagining worst-case scenarios, or numbing themselves through distancing and deactivating strategies. Others protect themselves by trying to control the people or environment around them, to keep the possibility of loss at bay.

失去的恐惧是另一个领域，在这个领域中，你讲述的关于你关系的故事会影响你在其中的情感体验。希望你和你的伴侣在一起是因为他们给你的生活带来了爱和意义，并与你分享亲密。向这种爱、意义和亲密敞开心扉会让你变得脆弱，因为生活是不确定的。许多人试图通过永远不允许自己完全敞开心扉、通过想象最坏的情况来为任何事情做好准备，或者通过疏远和阻断策略来麻木自己，从而保护自己免受这种恐惧。另一些人则试图通过控制周围的人或环境来保护自己，以阻止失去的可能性。

Your distress may be compounded by an amatonormative script that says if you aren’t torn apart by the thought of losing a partner, it means you don’t really love them. In reality, commitment and fear of loss are only indirectly related. Often the fear of loss is more closely linked to a fear of being alone than of commitment to a partner; in monogamous relationships where even platonic intimacy outside the couple is frowned upon, losing a partner means being alone. And, paradoxically, if you want something too badly, the fear of losing it can become greater than what you gain by having it. When that happens, you hold onto things not because they make your life better, but because the thought of losing them makes you suffer. Both having them and not having them become sources of pain.

恋爱常态的剧本可能会加剧你的痛苦，该剧本认为如果你没有因为想到失去伴侣而心碎，那就意味着你并不真的爱他们。实际上，承诺和失去的恐惧只是间接相关的。通常，失去的恐惧与对孤独的恐惧的联系比与对伴侣的承诺的联系更紧密；在单偶制关系中，即使是伴侣之外的柏拉图式亲密关系也不被赞同，失去伴侣就意味着孤独。而且，矛盾的是，如果你太想要某样东西，失去它的恐惧可能会超过拥有它所获得的收益。当这种情况发生时，你抓住东西不放不是因为它们让你的生活变得更好，而是因为想到失去它们会让你痛苦。拥有它们和没有它们都成了痛苦的来源。

The truth is that you will lose everything. Every one of your partners, friends, family members, everything that brings you joy and meaning will one day leave your life—either through life’s normal uncertainty and change, or through the inevitability of death. So you have two choices: embrace and love what you have and feel as deeply and fully as you can, and eventually lose everything—or shield yourself, keep others at a distance … and eventually lose everything. Living in fear won’t stop you from losing what you love; it will only stop you from enjoying it.

事实是，你会失去一切。你的每一位伴侣、朋友、家人，每一个给你带来快乐和意义的事物，总有一天会离开你的生活——无论是通过生活正常的无常和变化，还是通过死亡的必然性。所以你有两个选择：拥抱并热爱你所拥有的，尽可能深切和充分地感受，最终失去一切——或者保护自己，与他人保持距离……最终还是失去一切。生活在恐惧中并不能阻止你失去你所爱的东西；它只会阻止你享受它。

A practice of gratitude can’t make that fear go away, but it can help you build resilience to it. Welcome the people who care for you and the experiences you have together; practise cherishing each moment for what it is, without attaching yourself to a particular outcome (shout-out from Eve to fellow anxious babes: I know this can be harder than it sounds). If the idea of gratitude doesn’t resonate for you (perhaps you’ve heard a little too much “you should be grateful” in your life as a way of browbeating you into accepting things that actually aren’t okay!), an alternative way to look at it is through the lens of joy. While we agree with Carrie Jenkins’s critique of the notion of happiness as a goal of life, joy is a bit of a different beast. It’s about allowing yourself to see and deeply appreciate moments of delight, connection and sweetness without holding back or second-guessing the experience. What’s going really well right now? What brings you that feeling of warmth, laughter, pleasure or rightness? Focus on those moments and experiences, and really let yourself feel them. Even though they are fleeting, they are real, and taking the time to recognize them as they happen can make you more likely to notice and feel them over time.

感恩的练习不能让那种恐惧消失，但它可以帮助你建立对它的韧性。欢迎那些关心你的人和你们共同拥有的经历；练习珍惜当下的每一刻，而不执着于特定的结果（伊芙向焦虑的伙伴们大声疾呼：我知道这说起来容易做起来难）。如果感恩的想法不能引起你的共鸣（也许你在生活中听到了太多“你应该感恩”，以此来强迫你接受实际上并不好的事情！），另一种看待它的方式是通过快乐的视角。虽然我们同意凯莉·詹金斯对将幸福作为生活目标的批评，但快乐是有点不同的东西。它是关于允许自己看到并深深感激那些喜悦、连接和甜蜜的时刻，而不退缩或事后怀疑那种体验。现在有什么事情进展得很顺利？什么给你带来了那种温暖、欢笑、愉悦或正确的感觉？专注于那些时刻和经历，真正让自己去感受它们。即使它们是转瞬即逝的，它们也是真实的，花时间在它们发生时识别它们，可以让你随着时间的推移更有可能注意到并感受到它们。

The inevitability of change

改变的必然性

We know our readers are approaching nonmonogamy from a lot of different places. Some of you have never had a monogamous relationship. Others are exploring nonmonogamy after decades of monogamy. Some of you will be venturing into nonmonogamy single, while others will be opening a previously monogamous partnership. Some of you may have a long history of healthy, secure relationships, including romantic ones, while others may never have experienced love that feels safe.

我们知道我们的读者是从很多不同的起点接触非单偶制的。你们中的一些人从未有过单偶制关系。另一些人在几十年的单偶制之后正在探索非单偶制。你们中的一些人将单身进入非单偶制，而另一些人将开放一段以前是单偶制的伴侣关系。你们中的一些人可能有长期健康、安全的关系历史，包括浪漫关系，而另一些人可能从未体验过感觉安全的爱。

Security and some basic predictability: These are fundamental human needs. At the same time, autonomy, independence and self-reliance are also fundamental values for many people, including both of us. We’ve seen how a focus on these latter values alone can lead to some pretty poor treatment of partners. It’s important to build relationships in such a way that the people within them can feel secure, feel a sense of belonging, and have some basic expectations they can rely on. But it’s also essential that people have agency in their relationships, that relationships be built on a foundation of choice and free will. These are not mutually exclusive goals.

安全感和一些基本的可预测性：这是人类的基本需求。同时，自主、独立和自力更生对许多人（包括我们俩）来说也是基本价值观。我们已经看到，仅仅关注后一种价值观可能会导致对伴侣的恶劣对待。以一种让其中的人感到安全、有归属感并拥有一些可以依赖的基本期望的方式建立关系很重要。但同样重要的是，人们在关系中要有代理权，关系要建立在选择和自由意志的基础上。这些目标并非相互排斥。

Here’s an uncomfortable truth: If you decide to open your heart and your life to loving more than one person and letting your partners love others too, your life will change. You will change. If you started this journey with a partner, your partner will change. Every new person you let into your heart will disrupt your life—sometimes in small ways, sometimes in big ones.

这是一个令人不舒服的真相：如果你决定敞开心扉和生活去爱不止一个人，并且也让你的伴侣去爱别人，你的生活将会改变。你会改变。如果你是和一个伴侣开始这段旅程的，你的伴侣也会改变。每一个你让其进入你心里的人都会扰乱你的生活——有时是很小的方式，有时是很大的方式。

Disruption is a fact of life. And that’s okay. After all, almost everything else you do in life risks disruption to your relationships. Taking a new job, losing a job. Having a baby. Moving to another city. Getting sick or injured. Having problems in your family of origin. Taking up new hobbies. Experiencing a death in the family. Hell, every time you walk outside your door or step into a car, you’re risking serious injury or death, and that’ll disrupt a relationship real quick!

干扰是生活的事实。这没关系。毕竟，你在生活中做的几乎所有其他事情都有干扰你关系的风险。接受新工作，失去工作。生孩子。搬到另一个城市。生病或受伤。原生家庭出现问题。培养新爱好。经历家庭成员的死亡。见鬼，每次你走出家门或踏入汽车，你都在冒着重伤或死亡的风险，那会非常快地扰乱一段关系！

When they’re offered a new job or decide to have a child, most people accept at some level that these choices will change their lives. Nonmonogamy is similar: You accept that changes in your intimate life will affect your relationships, you resolve to act with integrity and honesty to cherish your partners to the best of your ability, and you trust that your partners will do the same for you.

当人们获得新工作或决定生孩子时，大多数人在某种程度上接受这些选择会改变他们的生活。非单偶制也是类似的：你接受你亲密生活的变化会影响你的关系，你决心以正直和诚实的态度尽最大努力珍惜你的伴侣，并且你相信你的伴侣也会为你做同样的事情。

Many problems encountered in nonmonogamy, particularly in a relationship that was previously monogamous, come from attempts to explore new relationships without having anything change. Sometimes those changes involve coming face-to-face with one’s deepest fears: abandonment, fear of loss, fear of being replaced, fear of no longer being special. Relationship change is scary. Sometimes it comes on in jarring ways.

在非单偶制中遇到的许多问题，特别是在以前是单偶制的关系中，都源于试图探索新关系而不让任何事情发生改变。有时这些改变涉及直面一个人最深层的恐惧：被抛弃、害怕失去、害怕被取代、害怕不再特别。关系的变化是可怕的。有时它是以刺耳的方式到来的。

Embracing nonmonogamy involves not only examining the expectation that your partners will never change, but also examining expectations about how and when they change. People don’t always change in the ways or on the timetable you want them to. New partners bring new experiences, and these experiences will change your relationships. Good relationships always change you—it’s one of the best things about them!

拥抱非单偶制不仅涉及审视你的伴侣永远不会改变的期望，还涉及审视关于他们如何以及何时改变的期望。人们并不总是按照你想要的方式或时间表改变。新伴侣带来新体验，这些体验将改变你的关系。好的关系总是会改变你——这是它们最好的地方之一！

One of the standard tropes of mononormativity is that you can prevent infidelity by limiting your partner’s access to other potential partners. Opportunity creates infidelity, or so you’re told, so you limit opportunity. This approach is a lot more common in heterosexual relationships with rules against the amount of closeness permitted with members of one binary gender or another; it’s a lot harder to do this in queer communities where groups don’t always split easily down gender lines and people’s friend circles are often also their dating pools. But even in queer monogamous relationships, sometimes partners limit each others’ friendships and social lives by this same logic. In nonmonogamous relationships, this trope can manifest in more subtle ways, such as by trying to limit the depth of a connection or the time a partner spends with another partner. As we discuss in chapter 11, it’s common for people in a relationship to seek to use their power to constrict, limit or regulate a partner’s other relationships, in the hopes that this will make those other relationships less disruptive or threatening. People try all kinds of structures to do this: enforced power hierarchies, limitations on how much emotional or sexual intimacy a partner may experience with others, rules that an established couple will only have sex with a third person if both are there for it (often on the assumption that this will prevent jealousy), and so on.

单偶常态的一个标准修辞是，你可以通过限制你的伴侣接触其他潜在伴侣来防止不忠。机会创造不忠，或者你是这么被告知的，所以你要限制机会。这种方法在异性恋关系中更为普遍，有针对允许与某一二元性别成员亲密程度的规则；在酷儿社区中，这要难得多，因为群体并不总是容易按性别划分，而且人们的朋友圈通常也是他们的约会池。但即使在酷儿单偶制关系中，有时伴侣也会用同样的逻辑限制彼此的友谊和社交生活。在非单偶制关系中，这种修辞可能以更微妙的方式表现出来，例如试图限制联系的深度或伴侣与另一个伴侣共度的时间。正如我们在第 11 章中所讨论的，关系中的人试图利用他们的权力来约束、限制或规范伴侣的其他关系是很常见的，希望这能使那些其他关系更少干扰或威胁。人们尝试各种结构来做到这一点：强制权力等级，限制伴侣可能与他人体验的情感或性亲密的程度，规定既定夫妇只有在两人都在场的情况下才会与第三人发生性关系（通常假设这会防止嫉妒），等等。

Of course, not everyone will have such feelings. If the idea of controlling your partner’s other intimate connections to protect your relationship seems strange to you, you probably won’t run into the problems we describe in that chapter. An important skill in creating functional nonmonogamous relationships involves learning to see other partners, particularly a partner’s other partners, as people who make life better for both of you rather than a hazard to be managed.

当然，不是每个人都会有这种感觉。如果通过控制伴侣的其他亲密关系来保护你们的关系的想法对你来说很奇怪，你可能不会遇到我们在那一章描述的问题。建立功能性非单偶制关系的一项重要技能包括学会将其他伴侣，特别是伴侣的其他伴侣，视为让你们俩的生活变得更好的人，而不是需要管理的危险。

If such a perspective does not come naturally to you, though, it can be learned. Doing so requires investing in communication, overcoming fear and rejecting some of the harmful things you may have been taught about love and intimacy. It means accepting that you and your partners will grow and change, and the secret to maintaining relationships in the face of change is to be resilient, flexible and loving. It also means cultivating a strong sense of security, accepting that you’ll all make mistakes, and building relationships robust enough to weather them.

然而，如果这种观点对你来说不是自然而然的，它是可以习得的。这样做需要在沟通上投入，克服恐惧，并拒绝你可能被教导过的关于爱和亲密的一些有害观念。这意味着接受你和你的伴侣会成长和改变，而在变化面前维持关系的秘诀是有韧性、灵活和充满爱。这也意味着培养强烈的安全感，接受你们都会犯错，并建立足够强大的关系来经受住这些错误。

Scarcity and abundance

匮乏与富足

People who are privileged enough to grow up with securely attached, attuned early relationships are more likely to experience love and connection as abundant. Those with insecure attachment styles, or who experienced certain kinds of neglect or abuse in either early life or adulthood, are more likely to have a sense of scarcity around relationships. The latter can also be true of people who are marginalized in various ways, such as being fat, disabled, racialized in ways that the dominant beauty model deems unattractive, or mentally ill in ways that are societally coded as “crazy” rather than just quirky or intriguingly troubled. These experiences, and the patterns they leave in people’s bodies, in turn get carried forward as expectations of their future relationship lives. These mental models of relationship can be loosely grouped, to varying degrees, as abundance and scarcity models.

那些有幸在安全依恋、协调一致的早期关系中长大的人，更有可能体验到爱和连接是富足的。那些具有不安全依恋风格，或者在早年生活或成年后经历过某种忽视或虐待的人，更有可能对关系有一种匮乏感。这对于那些在各方面被边缘化的人来说也是如此，例如肥胖、残疾、被主流审美模式认为没有吸引力的种族化特征，或者患有被社会编码为“疯癫”而不仅仅是古怪或有趣的心理疾病。这些经历，以及它们在人们身体中留下的模式，反过来会被带入对未来关系生活的期望中。这些关系心理模型可以在不同程度上大致分为富足模式和匮乏模式。

In scarcity models, opportunities for love and intimacy are rare. People with this mental model believe potential partners are thin on the ground, and finding them is difficult. Because most people you meet expect monogamy, finding nonmonogamous people to connect with is particularly difficult. Every additional expectation you have shrinks the pool still more. Since genuine connection is so rare and precious, you’d better seize whatever opportunity comes by and hang on with both hands—after all, who knows when another chance will come along?

在匮乏模式中，爱和亲密的机会是稀缺的。拥有这种心理模型的人认为潜在的伴侣寥寥无几，很难找到。因为你遇到的大多数人都期望单偶制，所以找到可以建立联系的非单偶制者尤其困难。你拥有的每一个额外期望都会进一步缩小这个池子。既然真正的联系如此罕见和珍贵，你最好抓住任何出现的机会并用双手紧紧抓住——毕竟，谁知道下一次机会什么时候会来呢？

In abundance models, opportunities for connection are all around. Sure, only a small percentage of the population might meet your criteria, but in a world of more than eight billion people, opportunities abound. Even if you exclude everyone who isn’t open to nonmonogamy, and everyone who doesn’t match up with your sexual orientation, and everyone who doesn’t have whatever other traits you want, you’re still left with tens of thousands of potential partners, which is surely enough to keep even the most ambitious person busy.

在富足模式中，连接的机会无处不在。当然，可能只有一小部分人口符合你的标准，但在一个拥有超过 80 亿人口的世界里，机会比比皆是。即使你排除了所有不接受非单偶制的人，所有与你性取向不符的人，以及所有没有你想要的任何其他特质的人，你仍然剩下成千上万的潜在伴侣，这肯定足以让即使是最雄心勃勃的人也忙个不停。

People learn their models through their lived experiences, but the models in turn tend to become self-fulfilling. If you have a starvation model of relationships, you may dwell on the times you’ve been rejected, which may lower your self-esteem, which decreases your confidence … and that makes it harder to find partners. You may start feeling desperate to find a relationship, which further decreases your likelihood of finding a new one or incentivizes you to settle for a bad one. So you end up with less success, which reinforces the idea that relationships are scarce.

人们通过生活经历学习他们的模式，但这些模式反过来往往会变成自我实现的预言。如果你对关系持有饥饿模式，你可能会沉溺于被拒绝的经历，这可能会降低你的自尊，从而降低你的自信……这让你更难找到伴侣。你可能会开始感到绝望地想要找到一段关系，这进一步降低了你找到新关系的可能性，或者促使你将就一段糟糕的关系。所以你最终不太成功，这强化了关系稀缺的观念。

When you hold an abundance model of relationships, it’s easier to just go do the things that give your life meaning, without worrying about searching for a partner. When you do that, you’re likely to meet other people who are doing the same. Cool! The ease with which you find people to connect with, even when you aren’t looking for them, reinforces the idea that opportunities for love are abundant, which makes it easier for you to go about doing what you love, without worrying overmuch about finding a partner … and ’round it goes. Your perceptions are shaped by reality, but the reality you experience is also often shaped by your perceptions, as we discussed on page 96.

当你持有关系的富足模式时，你会更容易去做那些赋予你生活意义的事情，而不必担心寻找伴侣。当你这样做的时候，你很可能会遇到其他正在做同样事情的人。太棒了！即使你不去寻找，也能轻松找到人建立联系，这强化了爱的机会是丰富的这一观念，这让你更容易去做你喜欢的事情，而不必过分担心寻找伴侣……这就形成了一个循环。你的感知是由现实塑造的，但你体验到的现实也往往是由你的感知塑造的，正如我们在第 96 页所讨论的那样。

To be very clear, we’re not talking about some pop-spirituality, law-of-attraction nonsense. First, your expectations really do shape your experiences: Cognitive scientists talk about confirmation bias—the tendency to notice things that confirm your ideas, and to discount, discredit or not notice things that don’t. Even when good things are happening to you, a belief that good things don’t happen to you can keep you from noticing them or giving them weight in your assessment of your life. Second, if you believe relationships are rare and difficult to find, you can be more likely to stay in a relationship even when it’s damaging you. Because of the effects on your self-esteem, energy and emotional availability, being in one bad relationship can make it harder to find other good ones—in turn further reinforcing your experience of scarcity.

说清楚，我们不是在谈论某种流行灵性、吸引力法则的废话。首先，你的期望确实会塑造你的经历：认知科学家谈论确认偏误 (confirmation bias)——即倾向于注意到证实你想法的事物，而对不证实你想法的事物进行打折、怀疑或忽视。即使好事发生在你身上，如果你相信好事不会发生在你身上，这也会让你无法注意到它们，或者在评估生活时不重视它们。其次，如果你认为关系稀缺且难以找到，你可能更有可能留在一场关系中，即使它正在伤害你。由于对你的自尊、精力和情感可用性的影响，处于一段糟糕的关系中会让你更难找到其他好的关系——这反过来又进一步强化了你的匮乏体验。

Naturally, there’s a fly in the ointment. Sometimes the things you’re looking for or the way you look for them creates artificial scarcity. This might be because you’re doing something that puts other people off, or because you’re looking for something unrealistic. If you’re looking for a Nobel Prize–winning Canadian supermodel with a net worth of $20 million, you might find potential partners few and far between. Similarly, if you give people the impression that you’ve created a slot for them to fit into that they won’t be able to grow out of, opportunities for long-term relationships might not be abundant.

当然，这里有个棘手之处。有时你寻找的东西或你寻找的方式会造成人为的稀缺。这可能是因为你在做一些让别人反感的事情，或者因为你在寻找不切实际的东西。如果你在寻找一位净资产 2000 万美元的诺贝尔奖得主加拿大超模，你可能会发现潜在的伴侣寥寥无几。同样，如果你给人的印象是你为他们创造了一个他们无法成长出来的框框，长期关系的机会可能就不会太多。

We’re also not trying to say that you can just decide to view love and connection as abundant, at which point healthy, fulfilling relationships will suddenly manifest. But there are a couple of ways we know of to begin to deconstruct a scarcity model in your life. Heidi Priebe addresses this notion in a video about intimacy scarcity.⁵ In her definition, intimacy scarcity isn’t the same kind of scarcity we’ve been talking about; it’s the assumption that someone can and must get all their intimacy needs met in only one relationship. This idea is embedded in amatonormativity, for sure, but it’s also experienced by people with relational wounds that make it very hard to open up with others and let them in. Once you find those one or two people you feel deeply seen by, the thought of losing them becomes unbearable, because it means losing your only mirrors and thus, in some way, your self. In her video, Priebe isn’t advocating for nonmonogamy, per se, but for expanding your idea of how you can meet your connection needs—an opportunity that is admittedly greatly enhanced by breaking down mononormative assumptions about intimacy! Basically, you start by cultivating closer connections all around you, not just the ones that meet your definition of partnership. Priebe advises that you begin to break down intimacy scarcity by practising, incrementally, sharing yourself vulnerably with other people in your life, gradually building intimacy in your other trusted relationships until you no longer feel like an intimate partner is the only person by whom you can feel seen and known.

我们也不是想说你可以直接决定将爱和连接视为富足的，然后健康、充实的关系就会突然出现。但我们知道有几种方法可以开始解构你生活中的匮乏模式。海蒂·普里贝在一个关于亲密关系匮乏的视频中谈到了这个概念。⁵ 在她的定义中，亲密关系匮乏与我们要谈论的匮乏不是同一类；它是指一个人可以且必须只在一段关系中满足所有亲密需求的假设。这个想法肯定植根于恋爱常态，但也存在于那些有关系创伤的人身上，这使得他们很难向他人敞开心扉并让他们进入。一旦你找到了那一两个让你感到被深刻理解的人，失去他们的想法就变得无法忍受，因为这意味着失去你唯一的镜子，从而在某种程度上失去你自己。在她的视频中，普里贝并不是在倡导非单偶制本身，而是在倡导扩展你关于如何满足连接需求的想法——诚然，通过打破关于亲密关系的单偶常态假设，这种机会大大增加了！基本上，你从培养周围更紧密的联系开始，而不仅仅是那些符合你对伴侣定义的关系。普里贝建议，你可以通过循序渐进地练习与生活中其他人脆弱地分享自己，在其他值得信赖的关系中逐渐建立亲密感，直到你不再觉得亲密伴侣是唯一能让你感到被看到和了解的人，从而开始打破亲密关系匮乏。

The second antidote to scarcity is, perhaps counterintuitively, learning how to be alone—a subject big enough it requires its own section.

第二个解毒剂是，也许违反直觉，学习如何独处——这个主题大到需要单独一节来讨论。

Being alone

独处

Some people are introverts or otherwise find solitude easy and pleasant; some people enjoy being single or single-ish, or prefer a solo poly approach to nonmonogamy in which they live alone and function as a free agent while still enjoying partnerships. If you fall into one or more of these categories, you might not experience a lot of fear of being alone in your day-to-day life—though you might still feel lonely if you lack intimacy, and you might not be immune to the more existential, long-term fear of aging and dying alone. But many people find being alone challenging to varying degrees. People are wired to connect; fear of being alone is part of being human.

有些人是内向者，或者觉得独处很容易且愉快；有些人喜欢单身或准单身，或者偏爱独身多边恋 (solo poly) 的非单偶制方式，即独自生活并作为自由人活动，同时仍享受伴侣关系。如果你属于这些类别中的一种或多种，你在日常生活中可能不会对独处感到太多恐惧——尽管如果你缺乏亲密关系，你可能仍然会感到孤独，而且你可能无法免疫于更存在主义的、长期的对变老和孤独死去的恐惧。但许多人发现独处在不同程度上具有挑战性。人生来就是为了连接；害怕孤独是人性的一部分。

But if you’re so afraid of being alone that you think losing a partner will destroy you, it can have consequences on the health of your relationships. You can’t as easily set good boundaries or make healthy choices. And if you don’t feel like you’ve fully consented to a relationship, but instead are in it because being alone is worse, that’s not a strong foundation for healthy intimacy.

但如果你太害怕孤独，以至于认为失去伴侣会毁了你，这可能会对你关系的健康产生后果。你无法那么容易地设定良好的界限或做出健康的选择。如果你觉得你并没有完全同意一段关系，而是因为孤独更糟糕才身处其中，那就不是健康亲密关系的坚实基础。

In nonmonogamy, it becomes especially vital to come to terms with the fear of being alone, first because you are likely to be alone from time to time, even if you have several partners, and second because more than one relationship may be on the line. One of the core ingredients of successful nonmonogamous relationships is the ability to treat all the folks involved, including not only your partners but their partners as well, with compassion and empathy. It can be hard to do that when all you feel is fear.

在非单偶制中，接受对孤独的恐惧变得尤为重要，首先是因为即使你有几个伴侣，你也可能时不时地独处，其次是因为可能不止一段关系岌岌可危。成功的非单偶制关系的核心要素之一是能够以同情和共情对待所有相关人员，不仅包括你的伴侣，还包括他们的伴侣。当你只感觉到恐惧时，这很难做到。

Fortunately, it is possible to cultivate and grow your ability to be alone—to tolerate it, find value in it, enjoy it, and even eventually seek it out for the nourishment it provides. You can follow a structured program to work on this, such as the one suggested by Sara Maitland in her book How to Be Alone.⁶ If you’re working with a therapist, you can bring it up as an issue you’d like to work on, and ask for suggestions and support on how to tackle it. Or you might want to wing it by simply doing things alone that you would normally have done with a partner, such as taking yourself out for dinner or a movie, going away for the weekend, or keeping yourself amused at home. You can also do activities where you aren’t technically alone, such as having a meal with friends or family, but for which you’d normally have your partner at your side. Consider journalling about or otherwise putting some thought into how these experiences make you feel, what fears or other feelings they bring up, and what resources you marshalled to get through them.

幸运的是，培养和增长独处能力是可能的——忍受它，在其中发现价值，享受它，甚至最终为了它提供的滋养而寻求它。你可以遵循一个结构化的程序来为此努力，例如萨拉·梅特兰 (Sara Maitland) 在她的书《如何独处》(How to Be Alone)⁶ 中建议的那样。如果你正在与治疗师合作，你可以将其作为一个你想解决的问题提出来，并寻求关于如何处理它的建议和支持。或者你可能想即兴发挥，简单地独自做一些你通常会和伴侣一起做的事情，比如带自己出去吃饭或看电影，周末出游，或者在家里自娱自乐。你也可以做一些技术上不算是独自一人的活动，比如和朋友或家人一起吃饭，但通常你会有伴侣在身边。考虑写日记或以其他方式思考这些经历给你的感觉，它们带来了什么恐惧或其他感受，以及你调动了什么资源来度过它们。

You may find, over time, that you change in two areas. First, you’ll find new strengths in yourself, new tools and resources, and new pleasures. You might discover pastimes that you didn’t make space for before; you may learn new things, triumph over adversities, discover deeper inner strength, and feel more yourself. All these things, and many more, may lie on the other side of your journey into solitude. Second, these self-changes will likely have an impact on your current relationships, as well as any future ones. When solitude is no longer something you dread, it takes that particular pressure off your relationship decisions, so you can reach out to your partners more authentically. It can help you access your capacity for compassion and generosity, and it leaves you more emotional and cognitive space to come up with creative solutions for getting your needs met and meeting others’ needs. If fear of being alone has kept you in a troubled relationship, your adventures in solitude can even help you realize that the relationship needs to change or end—and can teach you that you have the resilience to get through any related upheavals.

随着时间的推移，你可能会发现自己在两个方面发生了变化。首先，你会发现自己新的力量、新的工具和资源，以及新的乐趣。你可能会发现以前没有腾出时间的消遣；你可能会学到新东西，战胜逆境，发现更深层的内在力量，并感觉更像你自己。所有这些，以及更多，可能就在你通往孤独之旅的另一边。其次，这些自我改变可能会对你目前的关系以及未来的关系产生影响。当孤独不再是你害怕的东西时，它就消除了你关系决定中的那种特定压力，这样你就可以更真实地接触你的伴侣。它可以帮助你获得同情和慷慨的能力，并为你留出更多的情感和认知空间，以想出创造性的解决方案来满足你的需求和满足他人的需求。如果是对孤独的恐惧让你留在一段麻烦的关系中，你在孤独中的冒险甚至可以帮助你意识到这段关系需要改变或结束——并且可以教你，你有韧性度过任何相关的动荡。

Solitude can be a source of great strength, power and joy if you’re willing to invest the time and effort, and muster the courage, to stop seeing it as an adversary and make it your ally.

如果你愿意投入时间和精力，并鼓起勇气，不再将孤独视为对手，而是将其视为盟友，那么孤独可以成为巨大力量、权力和快乐的源泉。

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF 问自己的问题

To become more self-aware and identify your personal strengths, weaknesses and fears—especially as they relate to relationships—here are some questions to consider. Some of these are questions you may want to reflect on over and over through time, and in different relationships.

为了变得更加自我觉察并识别你的个人优势、劣势和恐惧——尤其是当它们与关系相关时——这里有一些问题需要考虑。其中一些问题你可能想随着时间的推移，在不同的关系中反复思考。

What is my relationship to worthiness? Growing up, was worthiness nurtured in me, or undermined, or both? Can I think of a time when I felt worthy?
What can I offer myself to help me feel cherished, loved and secure?
What arouses fear for me in relationships, and where in my past does this fear originate?
In what ways do I protect myself from being hurt? How do these strategies impact me, my partners and the connections between us?
What signals has my body given me when I have been in an unsafe or unhealthy situation? Do I need to work on listening to these signals?
Do I have a history of overriding my own intuition when making the decision to forge ahead, take a pause or pull back? If so, where did I learn this strategy, and how has it served me?
What measures can I take to get more in tune with the part of me that’s looking out for my well-being?
What would summoning my courage to continue look like and feel like? What would summoning my courage to call things to a halt or set a boundary look like and feel like?
我与价值感的关系是怎样的？在成长过程中，我的价值感是被培养的，还是被破坏的，亦或两者兼有？我能想起我感到有价值的时候吗？
我可以给自己提供什么来帮助我感到被珍视、被爱和安全？
在关系中什么会引起我的恐惧，这种恐惧源于我过去的哪里？
我以何种方式保护自己免受伤害？这些策略如何影响我、我的伴侣以及我们之间的联系？
当我处于不安全或不健康的情况下时，我的身体给了我什么信号？我需要努力倾听这些信号吗？
在决定继续前进、暂停或后退时，我是否有无视自己直觉的历史？如果是这样，我在哪里学到了这种策略，它对我有什么用？
我可以采取什么措施来更好地与那个关注我福祉的自我部分保持一致？
鼓起勇气继续下去会是什么样子和感觉？鼓起勇气叫停或设定界限会是什么样子和感觉？

It is a fault Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace (London, UK, and New York: Routledge, 2022), quoted in Maria Popova, “Simone Weil on the Paradox of Friendship and Separation,” The Marginalian (blog), August 24, 2015, https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/08/24/simone-weil-friendship-separation. ↩ ↩²
shame researcher Brené Brown Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (New York: Gotham Books, 2012), 231–238. ↩ ↩²
courage by couraging Mary Daly quoted in Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are (Center City, Minnesota: Hazelden, 2010), 7. ↩ ↩²
growing pain and shrinking pain Heidi Priebe, “Growing Pain Versus Shrinking Pain: How to Tell if You’re Moving Forward,” YouTube, July 23, 2023, https://youtu.be/iWEB3jfeBzc. ↩ ↩²
intimacy scarcity Heidi Priebe, “Fearful-Avoidant: How Intimacy Scarcity Keeps You Codependent (and How to Change It),” YouTube, February 12, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLiZDks_vlU. ↩ ↩²
Sara Maitland Sara Maitland, How to Be Alone (London: MacMillan, 2014). ↩ ↩²