Being My Own Primary

I think it’s pretty obvious from everything I’ve written that I love my fiancée an absurd amount. I love being engaged to her, I love being around her, and I love going on dates with her.

Even so, the best person I’ve ever dated is still myself.

I started thinking this way a few years ago when I was in a polyamorous relationship. We agreed that we would be primary partners – that we would be each other’s first romantic ports of call. The relationship was a bad one that disintegrated within months and I want to be clear that it wasn’t bad because it was polyam – it was bad because my ex wasn’t at all there for me and wasn’t my port of anything. Even though I had friends and the occasional secondary partner, the only person that was consistently there for me through that time was me.

I started to consciously be my own primary. I started to think about how I would want an excellent partner to treat me, and how I would treat an excellent partner, and then I would do that for myself. I looked after myself as best I could. I tried to listen to what I needed. I took myself out for lunch, to farmers markets, to museums, to art galleries – I did all of the things I thought I had to do with someone else. I called myself beautiful all the time.

I do these things for L and she does these things for me, but I still try to remember I’m my own primary partner, too. I’ve done all of those things with L (except a museum date – we’ll have to get on that) and I want to keep doing them alone, too.

Is there anything you’ve been waiting to do until you get the right partner? Screw it. Go and do the thing. Even if you’re with the best person or people in the world, you should still do the thing, with them and alone. There may be a million people to look after you, listen to you, and tell you that you’re beautiful, or there may just be one, but there’ll always be you – because you’re amazing, and you deserve to tell yourself so.

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