5 滋养你的关系 Nurturing Your Relationships

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*The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love—whether we call it friendship or family or romance—is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light.

MARIA POPOVA¹

*我活得越久，就越深刻地体会到，爱——无论我们称之为友谊、亲情还是浪漫——都是互相映照和放大彼此光芒的工作。

玛丽亚·波波娃 (Maria Popova)¹

5 Nurturing Your Relationships

第 5 章 滋养你的关系

The first part of laying the groundwork for nonmonogamy concerns yourself: developing things like security, self-confidence and flexibility. The second involves creating fertile soil for growth in your existing relationship, if you have one.

为非单偶制奠定基础的第一部分涉及你自己：培养安全感、自信和灵活性等特质。第二部分涉及为你现有的关系（如果你有的话）创造肥沃的生长土壤。

The tools for doing these two different types of preparation are very similar. This chapter is therefore relevant to people who are currently single or single-ish, as well as partnered folks, because no matter what your current relationship situation looks like, your past relationship experience and the assumptions you carry with you can still surprise you in unexpected and unpleasant ways.

进行这两种不同类型准备工作的工具是非常相似的。因此，本章不仅与有伴侣的人相关，也与目前单身或准单身的人相关，因为无论你目前的关系状况如何，你过去的关系经历和你所携带的假设仍然可能以意想不到和令人不快的方式让你措手不及。

There are a zillion fantastic books out there meant to teach good relationship skills—some of our favourites are listed at the back of this book—and this section isn’t meant to replace any of them. We’re just going to touch on a few areas that, in our experience, are often tender in nonmonogamous relationships in particular.

市面上有无数很棒的书籍旨在教授良好的关系技巧——我们在书末列出了一些我们最喜欢的——本节并不打算取代其中任何一本。根据我们的经验，我们只是要触及一些在非单偶制关系中通常特别敏感的领域。

Cultivating security

培养安全感

The word security can mean a few things. There’s personal security of the kind we discussed in the previous chapter. And then there’s relationship security—which itself can be used a couple of different ways: it can mean secure attachment (mentioned on pages 25–26), or it can just mean that there is no sense of the relationship being under threat.

安全感 (security) 这个词可以有几种含义。有我们在前一章讨论过的那种个人安全感。还有关系安全感——这本身也有几种不同的用法：它可以指安全型依恋（在第 25-26 页提到），也可以仅仅指没有感觉关系受到威胁。

As we mentioned on page 21, nonmonogamous relationships are inherently insecure in an attachment sense—meaning you have to put extra work into building attachment security (if a securely attached relationship is what you’re going for). In Polysecure, Jessica Fern uses the acronym HEARTS to describe the actions required to cultivate secure attachment: being here (present), expressing delight and appreciation, attunement, rituals and routines, turning toward one another after conflict, and secure attachment with oneself.² Because of the deep investment and commitment required to nurture a securely attached relationship, it is useful to try to be clear about when you are doing this so that you can be mindful about meeting the commitment it entails. But remember: When you are intimate with someone, attachment often forms even when you don’t intend for it to, and believing you can control this process is the source of a lot of heartache in nonmonogamy.

正如我们在第 21 页提到的，非单偶制关系在依恋意义上本质上是不安全的——这意味着你必须投入额外的工作来建立依恋安全感（如果你追求的是一段安全依恋的关系）。在《多边安全》中，杰西卡·弗恩使用首字母缩略词 HEARTS 来描述培养安全依恋所需的行动：在场 (here/present)、表达 (expressing) 喜悦和欣赏、同频 (attunement)、仪式 (rituals) 和惯例、冲突后转向 (turning) 彼此，以及与自己的安全 (secure) 依恋。² 由于培养一段安全依恋的关系需要深度的投入和承诺，因此尝试弄清楚你何时在这样做是有用的，这样你就可以留心履行它所包含的承诺。但请记住：当你与某人亲密时，即使你无意，依恋也往往会形成，而相信你可以控制这个过程是非单偶制中许多心痛的根源。

We mentioned that security can mean that there’s no sense that a relationship (attachment-based or otherwise) is under threat. A person can be in a relationship that’s secure in that sense, meaning it’s safe and they’re not in near-term danger of losing their partner, but they can feel insecure for a variety of reasons, including low self-esteem and a mindset informed by mononormative stories. Or they can be in a relationship that is insecure in an attachment sense, meaning that one or both people in it has one of the three insecure attachment styles (avoidant, anxious and fearful-avoidant), or they are just not functioning in the relationship in a securely attached way. But there’s another way that it’s useful to talk about security in relationships, which is when the relationship is not secure.

我们提到安全感可能意味着没有感觉到关系（无论是基于依恋的还是其他的）受到威胁。一个人可能处于这种意义上安全的关系中，意味着它是安全的，他们近期没有失去伴侣的危险，但由于各种原因（包括低自尊和受单偶常态故事影响的心态），他们可能会感到不安全。或者他们可能处于一段在依恋意义上不安全的关系中，这意味着其中的一个人或两个人都具有三种不安全依恋风格之一（回避型、焦虑型和恐惧-回避型），或者他们只是没有以安全依恋的方式在关系中运作。但在另一种情况下谈论关系中的安全感是有用的，那就是当关系不安全的时候。

Not-security means that yeah, actually, your partner does have one foot out the door, and your gut is telling you so. Maybe they are using nonmonogamy as a way to “trade up”; maybe they like to make themselves feel powerful by pitting their partners against each other; maybe they’re addicted to NRE or novelty and are always chasing the newer, shinier partner, neglecting their more established partners to the point of abandonment. This kind of thing happens more often in nonmonogamous relationships than we’d like to admit, and unfortunately much nonmonogamy-related literature focuses on self-work as the solution to all feelings of insecurity in a relationship, which can be easily used to gaslight people who are in fact experiencing not-security.

不安全意味着，是的，实际上你的伴侣确实有一只脚在门外，你的直觉在告诉你这一点。也许他们利用非单偶制作为“向上攀爬”的一种方式；也许他们喜欢通过让伴侣相互竞争来让自己感到强大；也许他们沉迷于 NRE 或新鲜感，总是追逐更新、更光鲜的伴侣，忽视他们更稳定的伴侣到了抛弃的地步。这种事情在非单偶制关系中发生的频率比我们愿意承认的要高，不幸的是，许多与非单偶制相关的文献都将自我修养作为解决关系中所有不安全感的方案，这很容易被用来对那些实际上正在经历“不安全”的人进行煤气灯效应操纵。

Discernment is once again a valuable tool here. But that doesn’t mean you should be doing all the work of discerning alone! Look at your values and ask yourself whether the current situation aligns with them, and if not, what would need to change for it to align. Do you need to do something differently? Do you need to ask your partner to do something differently? Revisit your agreements to ascertain whether your partner is respecting them. Post anonymously online asking for advice from nonmonogamous folks. Read a relevant self-help book or watch a video. Go someplace or do something that always helps you feel grounded, and consider the situation from that place. Speak with a trusted friend or two, or a therapist, to get some insight from others who care about you and are good at giving you honest reality checks. Sometimes you need to hear a perspective outside your own head, whether that’s “Your partner did what? That’s awful! I hate watching them treat you that way! They’ve done it five times now and I think that’s over the line,” or “Honey, I know you’re upset and that’s totally real and I’m going to treat you to an ice cream, but from what you’re telling me, it sounds like they just made an honest mistake. Let’s strategize on how you can bring it up with them.” Put together whatever insights you come up with through all these strategies and check it against your inner voice. Does it resonate? Talk with your partner. How do they respond to your emotional distress?

辨别力在这里再次成为一个有价值的工具。但这并不意味着你应该独自完成所有的辨别工作！审视你的价值观，问问自己当前的情况是否与之相符，如果不符，需要改变什么才能使其相符。你需要做些不同的事情吗？你需要要求你的伴侣做些不同的事情吗？重新审视你们的协议，以确定你的伴侣是否尊重它们。在网上匿名发帖向非单偶制人士寻求建议。阅读相关的自助书籍或观看视频。去某个地方或做些总能让你感到脚踏实地的事情，并从那个角度考虑情况。与一两个值得信赖的朋友或治疗师交谈，从那些关心你并善于给你诚实现实检验的人那里获得一些见解。有时你需要听到你自己头脑之外的观点，无论是“你的伴侣做了什么？太糟糕了！我讨厌看到他们那样对你！他们现在已经做了五次了，我认为那太过分了”，还是“亲爱的，我知道你很难过，那是完全真实的，我要请你吃冰淇淋，但从你告诉我的来看，听起来他们只是犯了一个诚实的错误。让我们制定一下策略，看看你怎么跟他们提这事。”把你通过所有这些策略得出的任何见解汇总起来，并对照你内心的声音进行检查。它有共鸣吗？与你的伴侣交谈。他们对你的情感困扰有何反应？

We would love to be able to give you all the answers—some surefire ways to know what’s yours, what’s your partner’s and when it doesn’t even matter anymore because the situation is too untenable to go on. But we both know from experience that sometimes hindsight is 20/20. Sometimes dynamics only become fully clear months or even years later, whether you’ve stayed together or parted ways. Ultimately, cultivating security—the feeling and the reality—is a process, and the steps of that process will be different for each person and each relationship.

我们很想给你所有的答案——一些确定的方法来知道什么是你的问题，什么是你伴侣的问题，以及什么时候这甚至不再重要，因为情况已经难以为继。但我们都从经验中知道，有时只有事后才看得清楚。有时，无论你们是在一起还是分道扬镳，动态只有在几个月甚至几年后才会完全清晰。归根结底，培养安全感——感觉和现实——是一个过程，这个过程的步骤对每个人和每段关系都是不同的。

Building trust

建立信任

Throughout this book, we position trust as crucial in nonmonogamous relationships. That means, first of all, trusting yourself—your knowledge of what does and doesn’t feel right to you, your ethical system and values, your ability to discern the nuances of a situation, your sense of self and personal boundaries. It also means extending at least some trust to others as a starting point, knowing that you have the resilience to recover if trust is broken and needs to be repaired, or if it just turns out you’ve extended trust to someone untrustworthy. This isn’t about trusting uncritically, or not listening to your inner felt sense of what’s okay. It just means that trust is a basic ingredient in healthy relationships of all kinds, and that’s all the more true in nonmonogamy, which involves building trust among more than two people.

贯穿全书，我们将信任定位为非单偶制关系中的关键。这意味着，首先要信任你自己——你对什么感觉对、什么感觉不对的认知，你的伦理体系和价值观，你辨别情况细微差别的能力，你的自我意识和个人界限。这也意味着至少要给予他人一些信任作为起点，知道如果信任被破坏并需要修复，或者如果你发现自己把信任给了一个不值得信任的人，你有恢复的韧性。这并不是关于不加批判地信任，或者不听从你内心对什么没问题的感觉。这只是意味着信任是各种健康关系的基本要素，在涉及在多于两人之间建立信任的非单偶制中更是如此。

Trust is built and maintained in small moments over time. All of the secure attachment behaviours in HEARTS (page 112) contribute to building trust, and so does consistency, when your words line up with your actions over and over again. Perhaps counterintuitively, one of the most crucial ways of building trust is through conflict: when people build a history together of generative conflict, where they are kind to one another, find solutions together, and reconnect afterward. (See the section on restorative relationship conversations in Polywise for one way to have generative conflict.)³

信任是在时间的推移中通过微小的时刻建立和维持的。HEARTS（第 112 页）中的所有安全依恋行为都有助于建立信任，一致性也是如此，即你的言行一次又一次地保持一致。也许违反直觉的是，建立信任最关键的方式之一是通过冲突：当人们共同建立起建设性冲突的历史，在冲突中他们彼此友善，共同寻找解决方案，并在事后重新连接。（关于如何进行建设性冲突的一种方法，请参阅《多边智慧》中关于恢复性关系对话的部分。）³

Trust can be broken much more easily than it can be built, through lies and major betrayals, but it can also be eroded over time: through neglect, inconsistency, lack of transparency, unkept promises, minimization and denial of another’s needs and feelings, and contempt. Broken trust isn’t necessarily the end of a relationship; many times, with effort on all sides, trust can be repaired. Brené Brown compares trust to a jar full of marbles: each small trust-building act adds a marble to the jar, and each small betrayal knocks a marble out.

通过谎言和重大背叛，信任比建立更容易被破坏，但它也可能随着时间的推移而被侵蚀：通过忽视、不一致、缺乏透明度、不遵守承诺、最小化和否认他人的需求和感受，以及蔑视。信任破裂不一定是关系的终结；很多时候，通过各方的努力，信任是可以修复的。布琳·布朗将信任比作一个装满弹珠的罐子：每一个微小的建立信任的行为都会向罐子里增加一颗弹珠，而每一个微小的背叛都会打掉一颗弹珠。

Of course, to build trust, you have to offer a jar for someone to put marbles into. We like a distinction between trust and faith offered by an anonymous blogger who goes by the name “the loving avoidant”:⁴ “Trust is built over time, and it is evidence based.” (That’s the marbles.) Faith, on the other hand, is a quality that you have in yourself, the way you give others the benefit of the doubt and hold their humanity. It is a potential that exists with everyone you meet—depending on your histories, values and particular wounds, you may have more or less innate faith—and it is far more resilient than trust, though also far harder to restore once lost. If you combine this idea with the marble-jar metaphor, you can imagine faith as the jar, the container that trust is built within. There are some betrayals so deep, so irrevocable, that they break the jar, but as long as that hasn’t happened, damaged trust can be rebuilt, though it may take time.

当然，要建立信任，你必须提供一个罐子让别人把弹珠放进去。我们喜欢一位名为“可爱的回避者”(the loving avoidant) 的匿名博主提出的信任与信念之间的区别：⁴ “信任是随着时间建立的，它是基于证据的。”（那就是弹珠。）另一方面，信念是你自身拥有的一种品质，是你给予他人善意推断并坚信其人性的方式。这是一种存在于你遇到的每个人身上的潜能——取决于你的历史、价值观和特定的创伤，你可能有更多或更少的先天信念——它比信任更有韧性，尽管一旦失去也更难恢复。如果你把这个想法和弹珠罐的比喻结合起来，你可以把信念想象成罐子，即建立信任的容器。有些背叛如此之深，如此不可挽回，以至于它们打破了罐子，但只要那还没有发生，受损的信任是可以重建的，尽管可能需要时间。

Fundamental to building trust is living with integrity. You build trust when you keep your promises—when you “walk your talk.” Trust decays when you break agreements, violate boundaries and act in ways that are not in accordance with your professed values. Living with integrity can hold you together when nothing else can. When you have no easy choices, and the effects of those choices on people you care about are impossible to predict, what serves as your guide? When you fail, or make mistakes, are you able to look back and say, “I upheld the values that are most important to me”?

建立信任的基础是正直地生活。当你信守承诺——当你“言行一致”时，你就建立了信任。当你破坏协议、侵犯界限并以不符合你所宣称的价值观的方式行事时，信任就会衰退。当没有其他东西可以维系你时，正直的生活可以让你保持完整。当你没有简单的选择，而且这些选择对你关心的人的影响无法预测时，什么能作为你的向导？当你失败或犯错时，你是否能回过头来说，“我坚持了对我最重要的价值观”？

Sometimes in nonmonogamous relationships—as in many other situations in life—there are no good choices, and it seems like, at least in the short term, you can’t win, and no one else can either. Maybe it’s a question of where everyone is going to spend an important holiday. Maybe it’s where the kids go after a breakup. Maybe it’s what to do when two partners whom you cherish with all your heart can’t stand being in the same room together. You can talk about negotiation and compromise and finding win-win solutions, but sometimes the happy medium doesn’t exist. The more people you put in the mix, the more likely conflicts are to arise, and sometimes there are no easy solutions.

在非单偶制关系中——就像生活中许多其他情况一样——有时没有好的选择，似乎至少在短期内，你赢不了，其他人也赢不了。也许是关于每个人要在哪里度过一个重要假期的问题。也许是分手后孩子们去哪里的问题。也许是当你全心全意珍惜的两个伴侣无法忍受待在同一个房间时该怎么办的问题。你可以谈论谈判、妥协和寻找双赢的解决方案，但有时折中方案并不存在。你把越多的人加入其中，冲突就越可能出现，有时没有简单的解决方案。

Sometimes you are stuck minimizing losses rather than maximizing gains, and no matter how you reason your way through a situation, it feels like crap to make choices that you know are going to hurt people. And sometimes you genuinely can’t tell what will be best. Sometimes you’re faced with choices that feel lousy in the short term and whose long-term effects can’t be predicted. So when that happens—when you can’t make a move without hurting yourself or someone else—how do you make your choices?

有时你陷入了最小化损失而不是最大化收益的境地，无论你如何理智地分析情况，做出你知道会伤害别人的选择感觉都很糟糕。有时你真的不知道什么才是最好的。有时你面临的选择在短期内感觉很糟糕，而长期影响无法预测。所以当那种情况发生时——当你如果不伤害自己或别人就无法行动时——你如何做出选择？

Integrity is a big part of navigating these difficult situations. But even that can be slippery. What does it mean to act with integrity? Some people define integrity as essentially the same thing as honesty. Others see it as consistency of action, or consistency of action with belief. But the root of the word integrity means “whole.” Focusing on integrity, for us, means intense examination of the present moment: What am I doing right now, and is it in alignment with my values? If I look back at myself in ten years, would I like the person I see?

正直是驾驭这些困难局面的重要部分。但即使这也可能很滑手。正直行事意味着什么？有些人将正直定义为本质上与诚实相同。另一些人将其视为行动的一致性，或行动与信念的一致性。但 integrity 这个词的词根意味着“完整”。对我们来说，专注于正直意味着对当下的强烈审视：我现在在做什么，它是否符合我的价值观？如果在十年后我回顾自己，我会喜欢我看到的那个人吗？

Practising compassion

练习同情

The word compassion is all over the place these days. But what does it mean? It’s easy to throw it out as a glib admonishment, and ironically, it can sometimes include a shaming undertone. As in, “I am a compassionate person and you are not,” or “I am putting up with you because I am so compassionate.” If your social set intersects at all with New Age circles, you probably know someone who likes to play the “more compassionate than thou” Olympics. (In fact, many of the ideas in this book can be used that way. Please don’t do that.)

同情 (compassion) 这个词这年头到处都是。但它意味着什么？很容易把它作为一个油嘴滑舌的告诫抛出来，讽刺的是，它有时可能包含一种羞辱的意味。比如，“我是一个有同情心的人，而你不是”，或者“我容忍你是因为我太有同情心了”。如果你的社交圈与新时代圈子有任何交集，你可能认识喜欢玩“比你更有同情心”奥林匹克竞赛的人。（事实上，这本书里的许多想法都可以被那样使用。请不要那样做。）

Compassion is—again—not something you are, not something you feel, but something you practise. It’s putting yourself in another’s shoes. You can sit with a person in whatever they are feeling and bear witness to their pain while still loving who they are. Sometimes that person is yourself. Compassion is not politeness, and isn’t even the same as kindness. It’s definitely not doing good deeds for someone while quietly judging them! Compassion engages your whole person, and it requires vulnerability, which is part of what makes it so hard. You have to be able to allow yourself to be present as an equal with another person, recognize the darkness in them and accept it—and that forces you to embrace, as well, the darkness within yourself.

同情——再次强调——不是你是的东西，不是你感觉的东西，而是你练习的东西。它是设身处地为他人着想。你可以陪伴一个人处于他们感受到的任何情绪中，见证他们的痛苦，同时仍然爱他们是谁。有时那个人就是你自己。 同情不是礼貌，甚至也不等同于善良。它绝对不是在悄悄评判某人的同时为他们做好事！同情需要你整个人投入，它需要脆弱性，这也是它如此困难的部分原因。你必须能够允许自己作为一个平等的人与另一个人在一起，认识到他们内心的黑暗并接受它——这迫使你也拥抱你自己内心的黑暗。

A lack of boundaries is not the same thing as compassion, nor is letting someone walk all over you, or overlooking poor behaviour or mistreatment of others. Real compassion requires strong boundaries, because if you are letting someone take advantage of you, it becomes very hard to be authentically vulnerable to them. Compassion requires a willingness to hold other people accountable for the things they do, while accepting them for who they are. Compassion means coming from a place of understanding that others have needs of their own, which might be different than yours, and extending to them the same understanding, the same willingness to appreciate their own struggles, that you would want them to extend to you. Even when someone is causing harm or acting with ill intent, you can have compassion for them (while holding appropriate boundaries).

缺乏界限不等同于同情，任人践踏、忽视不良行为或对他人的虐待也不是同情。真正的同情需要强大的界限，因为如果你让别人利用你，就很难对他们保持真正的脆弱。同情需要愿意让其他人为他们所做的事情负责，同时接受他们的本来面目。 同情意味着从理解他人有自己的需求（这些需求可能与你的不同）出发，并给予他们你希望他们给予你的同样的理解，同样的愿意体谅他们自身挣扎的意愿。即使当某人正在造成伤害或怀有恶意行事时，你也可以对他们抱有同情（同时保持适当的界限）。

You practise compassion every time you feel that surge of annoyance when someone does something you don’t like, and then check yourself and try to see the reason for their behaviour from their perspective. You practise it every time you are gentle with others instead of being reactive or retaliatory with them, even if you feel angry. And you practise it when you apply that same gentleness to yourself, every time you accept that you are flawed and imperfect but are worthy despite that. You practise it in every recognition of your own and each other’s frailty and error.

每当你因为某人做了你不喜欢的事而感到一阵恼怒，然后克制自己并试图从他们的角度看待他们行为的原因时，你就在练习同情。每当你对他人温和而不是对他们做出反应或报复时，即使你感到愤怒，你也在练习它。当你把同样的温和应用于自己时，每当你接受自己是有缺陷和不完美的但尽管如此仍是有价值时，你也在练习它。你在每一次承认自己和彼此的脆弱与错误中练习它。

As a nonmonogamous person, you face particularly pressing needs to cultivate compassion for your partners, their partners and other nonmonogamous people with whom you might share community connections. But perhaps most important of all is compassion for yourself. You are learning a new way of doing things. You’re developing new skills that no one’s taught you before and challenging yourself in ways that many people never do. You’re trying to learn how to treat not just one partner well, but potentially a larger network of people whose well-being depends, to some extent or another, on what you do. And that’s hard.

作为非单偶制者，你面临着特别迫切的需求，即培养对你的伴侣、他们的伴侣以及你可能与之共享社区联系的其他非单偶制者的同情。但也许最重要的是对自己的同情。你在学习一种新的做事方式。你在发展以前没人教过你的新技能，并以许多人从未做过的方式挑战自己。你试图学习如何不仅善待一个伴侣，而且可能是一个更大的网络，这些人的福祉在某种程度上取决于你的所作所为。这很难。

It’s easy to beat yourself up for not being a perfect nonmonogamous person, especially with nonmonogamous activists putting their best faces forward publicly in order to gain mainstream acceptance. Whether you’re feeling jealous and insecure, or you’re having trouble with appropriate expressions of anger, or you can’t figure out how to clearly communicate your needs … these are common challenges. You don’t need to be a nonmonogamy perfectionist. You’re not the first person to have felt these things, not by a long shot. Try to treat yourself the same way you would treat someone you cared about who is having the same problem: with compassion and acceptance.

很容易因为自己不是一个完美的非单偶制者而自责，特别是当非单偶制活动家为了获得主流认可而公开展示他们最好的一面时。无论你是感到嫉妒和不安全，还是在适当表达愤怒方面有困难，或者你不知道如何清楚地沟通你的需求……这些都是常见的挑战。你不需要成为一个非单偶制完美主义者。你绝不是第一个有这些感觉的人。试着像对待你关心的有同样问题的人那样对待自己：带着同情和接纳。

Managing your expectations

管理你的期望

We all have expectations. Most of the time, our expectations are reasonable and mundane. We expect that when we turn on the tap, water will come out. On a more basic level, we expect that the laws that govern our interactions with the world are stable and immutable. We expect water to be wet, fire to be hot, gravity to make things fall. Our expectations form part of the basis for our perception of the world. They provide a sense of stability and predictability; if we had no expectations at all, living would become nearly impossible.

我们都有期望。大多数时候，我们的期望是合理且平凡的。我们期望当我们打开水龙头时，水会流出来。在更基本的层面上，我们期望支配我们与世界互动的法则稳定不变。我们期望水是湿的，火是热的，重力使物体下落。我们的期望构成了我们感知世界的基础的一部分。它们提供了一种稳定性和可预测感；如果我们完全没有期望，生活将变得几乎不可能。

Things get more slippery when it comes to expectations regarding other people. People are self-determining, with their own motivations and priorities. You can expect some things of other people. For example, you can expect that your friends won’t set fire to the house or steal the cat when they come to visit—but your expectations are always going to be hampered by the fact that you can’t really tell what’s happening inside another person’s head. Sometimes people do set fire to houses or steal cats. And lots of expectations aren’t all that mundane, and may not even be that reasonable, but they’re such an inherent part of your worldview that you don’t even realize they’re there. You might have expectations around how often someone will text, what they’ll tell you about a new relationship, who will pay for dates, or a million other things that you may not even realize you need to communicate.

当涉及到对他人的期望时，事情变得更加棘手。人是自主决定的，有自己的动机和优先级。你可以对别人有一些期望。例如，你可以期望你的朋友来访时不会放火烧房子或偷猫——但你的期望总是会受到这样一个事实的阻碍：你无法真正知道别人脑子里在想什么。有时人们确实会放火烧房子或偷猫。很多期望并不是那么平凡，甚至可能不那么合理，但它们是你世界观中如此固有的一部分，以至于你甚至没有意识到它们的存在。你可能对某人发短信的频率、他们会告诉你关于新关系的什么、谁来为约会买单，或者你需要沟通的一百万件其他事情有期望，而你甚至可能没有意识到你需要沟通这些。

Expectations differ from related feelings like hopes, fantasies, wishes or desires. If you have any of those and they don’t come true, you may feel disappointment or even grief, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad to have them. Expectations, on the other hand, imply a responsibility on the part of another person (or even an entity, like God or Fate or “the universe”). Expectations can extend to a sense of entitlement. So when they are not fulfilled, in addition to whatever disappointment you might feel, you also feel anger, resentment or blame. Expectations lead to disappointment when they aren’t met, and fear of that disappointment can cause people to hide or deny their expectations—sometimes even from themselves.

期望不同于希望、幻想、愿望或欲望等相关感受。如果你有这些感受但没有实现，你可能会感到失望甚至悲伤，但这并不意味着拥有它们是坏事。另一方面，期望意味着另一个人（甚至是实体，如上帝或命运或“宇宙”）的责任。期望可以延伸到一种权利感。因此，当它们没有实现时，除了你可能感到的失望之外，你还会感到愤怒、怨恨或责备。期望在未得到满足时会导致失望，而对这种失望的恐惧会导致人们隐藏或否认他们的期望——有时甚至是对他们自己。

Let’s talk about “reasonable” and “unreasonable” expectations. While there are clear and obvious extremes, such as that a friend won’t steal your cat or that gravity should make things fall, between these obvious endpoints lie the waters filled with dangerous reefs, ready to shipwreck the unwary. Your expectations can run aground at just about any point in a relationship. Throughout history, different social contracts have prescribed, with more or less specificity, what reasonable expectations look like in a variety of relationships. These social contracts, though, are locally and culturally specific, and in today’s diverse, globalized society, you’re likely to end up forming a variety of relationships throughout your life with people who have been raised with at least some default expectations that differ from yours. Further, in nonmonogamy, you’re intentionally rejecting large parts of the default social contract surrounding relationships that exists in most dominant societies today, so it can be really hard at the outset to know if you even have a mutual understanding with someone about what you’re rejecting and what takes its place.

让我们谈谈“合理”和“不合理”的期望。 虽然存在明显和极端的例子，比如朋友不会偷你的猫或重力应该让东西掉下来，但在这些明显的端点之间，是布满危险暗礁的水域，随时准备让粗心大意的人翻船。你的期望几乎可以在关系的任何一点搁浅。纵观历史，不同的社会契约或多或少具体地规定了各种关系中合理的期望是什么样子的。然而，这些社会契约具有地域和文化特异性，在当今多元化、全球化的社会中，你一生中很可能会与那些成长过程中至少有一些默认期望与你不同的人建立各种关系。此外，在非单偶制中，你有意拒绝了当今大多数主导社会中存在的围绕关系的默认社会契约的大部分内容，因此一开始真的很难知道你是否与某人就你拒绝了什么以及什么取代了它达成了相互理解。

On the one hand, people do not, by and large, have the right to expect things of other people without their consent. A desire on your part does not constitute an obligation on someone else’s part. And you can never reasonably be upset at someone for failing to live up to your expectations if you haven’t talked about your expectations in the first place. That said, everyone—everyone—has some baseline expectations in relationships, and some of them can reasonably be expected as the baseline in a subculture that prizes consent, autonomy, equity and care. A manipulative person can use the idea of reasonable and unreasonable expectations, or the notion of all expectations needing to be negotiated and agreed upon, as a shield to deflect responsibility for being a jerk to their partners. Nonmonogamous blogger Ginny Brown describes this dynamic well:⁵

一方面，总的来说，人们无权在未经他人同意的情况下对他人抱有期望。你的愿望并不构成他人的义务。如果你一开始就没有谈论过你的期望，你就永远无法合理地因为某人未能达到你的期望而对他们生气。话虽如此，每个人——每个人——在关系中都有一些基准期望，其中一些可以合理地被期望为一个重视知情同意、自主、公平和关怀的亚文化中的基准。一个控制欲强的人可以利用合理和不合理期望的概念，或者所有期望都需要协商和达成一致的观念，作为挡箭牌来推卸对伴侣表现混蛋的责任。非单偶制博主金妮·布朗 (Ginny Brown) 很好地描述了这种动态：⁵

In a healthy conflict, needs are discussed against other needs, feelings against other feelings. You say “I want this thing because I feel X, Y and Z” and your partner says “I want the opposite of that because I feel Q, R, and S,” and then you work together to see how you can best accommodate both sets of feelings. If instead you say “I want this thing because I feel X, Y and Z” and your partner says “Let’s have a rational discussion of whether X, Y and Z are good things to feel, or whether the thing you want will actually get you them, or whether Q, R and S are objectively more important than X, Y and Z”—that is a power play. Whether they admit it or not (they almost certainly won’t), the principles they’re injecting are in defense of the thing they want, but rather than meeting you on equal ground, direct personal want against direct personal want, they’re going to jump to the higher ground of ideals and values. And you can’t jump to the same level, even if you’re able to think fast enough to dredge up whatever ideals and values would support your position, because you’ve already admitted you have a personal want on the line.

在一个健康的冲突中，需求是针对其他需求讨论的，感受是针对其他感受讨论的。你说“我想要这个东西是因为我感到 X、Y 和 Z”，你的伴侣说“我想要相反的东西因为我感到 Q、R 和 S”，然后你们一起努力看如何最好地容纳这两种感受。 相反，如果你说“我想要这个东西因为我感到 X、Y 和 Z”，而你的伴侣说“让我们理性地讨论一下 X、Y 和 Z 是否是好的感受，或者你想要的东西是否真的能让你得到它们，或者 Q、R 和 S 是否客观上比 X、Y 和 Z 更重要”——那就是一场权力游戏。无论他们是否承认（他们几乎肯定不会），他们注入的原则是在捍卫他们想要的东西，但他们不是在平等的立场上与你相遇，直接的个人愿望对直接的个人愿望，而是跳到了理想和价值观的更高立场上。而你无法跳到同一水平，即使你能足够快地思考以挖掘出任何支持你立场的理想和价值观，因为你已经承认你有一个切身的个人愿望。

Here, we think a principle from restorative justice is useful. The colonial, prison-based justice system is focused on what rules were broken, who needs to be punished and what that punishment should be. In restorative justice, the focus is on who was harmed and what they need to repair the harm. In an intimate relationship, if someone is hurt because an expectation they had wasn’t met, it’s not really important whether the expectation was reasonable or unreasonable. What matters is that they’re hurt, and what is needed now to tend to the hurt and restore the relationship. Their expectations, spoken or unspoken, can come into play in the aftermath, as the people involved sort out what needs were not met and how to meet them. It is also, of course, highly relevant whether an expectation exists because of an explicit commitment that has been broken.

在这里，我们认为恢复性正义的一个原则很有用。殖民主义的、基于监狱的司法系统关注的是什么规则被打破了，谁需要受到惩罚以及惩罚应该是什么。在恢复性正义中，重点是谁受到了伤害以及他们需要什么来修复伤害。在亲密关系中，如果有人因为期望未得到满足而受到伤害，那么期望是否合理其实并不重要。重要的是他们受伤了，现在需要什么来照顾伤痛并恢复关系。他们的期望，无论是说出来的还是没说出来的，可以在善后工作中发挥作用，因为相关人员要理清哪些需求没有得到满足以及如何满足它们。当然，期望的存在是否是因为明确的承诺被打破了也是高度相关的。

However, like with anything else, if you take this notion too far in the other direction, you end up in another troubling place: a place where someone holds unvoiced expectations, gets upset when they’re not met, and then wants their feelings centred and soothed, and their lashing-out ignored or forgiven, while never taking responsibility for saying what they want up front. When that becomes a repeated pattern, intentionally or otherwise, it puts the other person in the position of walking on eggshells and never knowing when there will be an emotional outburst about a thing they didn’t know they were expected to do (or not do), and might or might not have agreed to if they had known. It’s the “read my mind or I’ll be mad at you” pattern, and it’s one of the more toxic forms of indirect communication. This pattern can be super harmful to the person on the receiving end, as well as a deflection of responsibility—and it’s rarely effective in helping anyone get their needs met.

然而，就像任何事情一样，如果你把这个概念向另一个方向推得太远，你最终会陷入另一个麻烦的境地：某人持有未表达的期望，当期望未得到满足时感到不安，然后希望他们的感受得到关注和安抚，他们的猛烈抨击被忽视或原谅，而从不承担提前说出他们想要的责任。当这成为一种重复的模式时，无论是有意还是无意，都会让另一个人处于如履薄冰的境地，永远不知道什么时候会因为一件他们不知道自己被期望做（或不做）的事情而爆发情绪，而如果他们知道，他们可能同意也可能不同意。这就是“读懂我的心思，否则我会生你的气”的模式，这是间接沟通中更有毒的形式之一。这种模式对接受端的人来说可能极其有害，也是一种责任的推卸——而且它很少能有效地帮助任何人满足他们的需求。

So where does the balance lie between putting all the responsibility on one person to state every little expectation out loud versus putting all the responsibility on the other person to know every little thing that isn’t being said? When is someone weaselling out of their responsibility to be a basically kind and considerate person, and when is someone weaselling out of their responsibility to own, acknowledge and share their feelings and needs? Like so many other areas, this is a place where discernment is in order. It’s a lot easier to discern in the extreme instances. No, you should not have to tell your partner that you expect them not to set the house on fire; you should be able to safely assume they will not harm your home. No, you should not have to guess that your partner has a deadly allergy to strawberries; you should be able to trust that they’ll inform you about life-and-death matters you can’t possibly know about from any visible evidence. It’s harder to discern responsibility in the murky middle.

那么，在把所有责任都推给一个人，要求其大声说出每一个微小的期望，与把所有责任都推给另一个人，要求其知道每一件没说出来的微小事情之间，平衡点在哪里？什么时候某人在逃避做一个基本善良和体贴的人的责任，什么时候某人在逃避拥有、承认和分享他们的感受和需求的责任？像许多其他领域一样，这是一个需要辨别力的地方。在极端情况下更容易辨别。不，你不应该必须告诉你的伴侣你期望他们不要放火烧房子；你应该能够安全地假设他们不会伤害你的家。不，你不应该必须猜测你的伴侣对草莓有致命过敏；你应该能够相信他们会通知你关于你不可能从任何可见证据中知道的生死攸关的事情。在模糊的中间地带，辨别责任要困难得多。

If you feel like you’re frequently struggling over unclear expectations in your relationships, whichever side of the situation you’re on, it is probably most useful to look at how each person is approaching the matter, especially patterns over time. If you’re repeatedly clashing over expectations, there’s probably a deeper issue at play. Is someone sincerely looking to communicate to have their needs met? Or are they just looking for someone to blame? Do unspoken expectations repeatedly feel like they’re coming up as a gotcha, or do they seem to be coming from real misunderstandings? Is everyone genuinely trying to listen and meet each other’s needs as they understand them, or does it feel like someone repeatedly disregards the effects of their actions on others? Does it consistently feel like you’re on the same team?

如果你觉得自己在关系中经常因为不明确的期望而挣扎，无论你处于哪一方，最有用的做法可能是看看每个人是如何处理这个问题的，尤其是随着时间的推移形成的模式。如果你们在期望上反复发生冲突，可能有更深层的问题在起作用。是否有人真诚地寻求沟通以满足他们的需求？还是他们只是在找人责备？未说出口的期望是否让人感觉像是故意抓把柄，还是似乎源于真正的误解？每个人是否都在真诚地试图倾听并满足他们理解的彼此的需求，还是感觉有人一再无视他们的行为对他人的影响？你是否始终感觉你们在同一个团队？

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF 问自己的问题

Here are some questions it might be useful to ask yourself (and talk over with your partners or metamours, if you’re in relationships) about how you care for your connections:

以下是一些你可能觉得有用的问题，可以问问自己（如果你在关系中，也可以和你的伴侣或情敌讨论），关于你如何照顾你的关系：

• In what ways do I exhibit attachment-secure behaviours in my intimate relationships (as well as in other relationships, such as with family and friends)?

• How do or can I communicate or demonstrate to my loved ones that they are secure in their relationships with me?

• Can I think of a relationship where I was secure but felt insecure? What was behind the feeling of insecurity?

• Can I think of a relationship I have had where I was not secure? What signs showed me I was not secure that are not present in my secure relationships?

• In what ways am I consistent or inconsistent in my relationships? Do my words and actions align? If not, can I improve this alignment?

• Am I comfortable with conflict? If not, what steps can I take to improve my conflict skills, and how can others support me in this?

• Am I a safe person to have conflict with? What can I do to make my conflicts safer for others engaging with me?

• What are some baseline expectations I have in relationships that others may not naturally assume? When and how do I think it is appropriate to communicate these?

• 我以何种方式在我的亲密关系中（以及在其他关系中，如与家人和朋友）表现出安全依恋行为？

• 我如何或能够如何向我爱的人沟通或证明他们在与我的关系中是安全的？

• 我能想起一段我很安全但感到不安全的关系吗？不安全感背后是什么？

• 我能想起一段我不安全的关系吗？哪些迹象向我表明我不安全，而这些迹象在我安全的关系中是不存在的？

• 我在关系中哪些方面是一致的或不一致的？我的言行一致吗？如果不一致，我可以改善这种一致性吗？

• 我对冲突感到舒适吗？如果不，我可以采取什么步骤来提高我的冲突技巧，别人如何在这方面支持我？

• 我是一个与之发生冲突是安全的人吗？我可以做些什么来让与我发生冲突的人更安全？

• 我在关系中有哪些别人可能不会自然假设的基准期望？我认为何时以及如何沟通这些是合适的？

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Footnotes

1. The longer I live Maria Popova, “The Light Between Us,” The Marginalian (blog), January 31, 2022, https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/01/31/james-baldwin-nothing-personal-love. ↩ ↩²

2. the acronym HEARTS Fern, Polysecure, 173. ↩ ↩²

3. generative conflict Jessica Fern and David Cooley, Polywise (Victoria, BC: Thornapple Press, 2023), 149–162. ↩ ↩²

4. trust and faith The Loving Avoidant (@thelovingavoidant), “Trust vs. Faith,” Instagram, February 15, 2023, https://www.instagram.com/p/CosyteqPRDL. ↩ ↩²

5. Ginny Brown Ginny Brown (@ginnymoonbeam), “The values shield: ethics as defense,” Tumblr, May 13, 2024, https://www.tumblr.com/ginnymoonbeam/750404680582037504/the-values-shield-ethics-as-defense. ↩ ↩²