I nearly spewed the drink out of my mouth when I read a recent article about a polyamorous mother who justified her extramarital relations and lovers did with “It’s who I am”. Although her statement caught me by surprise, you may find yourself encountering cheaters or lovers or sex addicts who also tell you “It’s who I am” as a justification of their cheating.
The mother goes on to say, her lifestyle makes her ‘happy’. There are countless marriages falling apart because one spouse puts their happiness above everyone else’s in the home. Happiness sounds like a good thing until you realize what is actually going on. A person seeking ‘happiness’ is actually seeking a series of happenings or event to keep their mood elevated. They are seeking an emotional ‘fix’, like a heroin addict seeking their next fix.
I suppose a drug addict with their constant ‘taking another hit’ to keep their mood elevated is chasing ‘happiness’ as well. I have seen and worked with too many ‘crack whores’ and drug addicts to view chasing ‘happiness’ as justification for ruining lives and families. To me, it is hollow and vacuous.
I suppose the article is another propaganda piece promoting profligate living. By putting up ‘happy family’ pictures, it comes across as an advertisement for polyamory. The woman and her family are being used as poster children for ‘the lifestyle’. I want to tell them, “put up the family pictures of the real families” whose lives have been ripped apart by affairs and chasing after energizing happiness.
There is something wrong when your own children ask you to “quit sleeping around”. When your kids have more moral awareness and insight than the parent, something is dreadfully wrong.
My typical response to “that’s who I am..” kind of thinking was taught to me by Doc Mahoney. In Mahoney’s story, you can act like a dog, even to the point of calling yourself a dog, but it does not make you a dog.You can crawl on all fours, bark and howl, but it still does not make you a dog. You are still a human, no matter how much you act like a dog. Your identity is human, even though you are acting like a dog.
He uses the story as a way of addressing the difference between who you are and what you do.
You may have thought that those two ideas are the same. They are not. Who you are is part of your identity. It is the “Who” of your life. What you do is your behavior, or the “What” of your life. Mixing who I am with what you do is toxic.
When you confuse identity and behavior, it sets you up for a myriad of problems. Confusing the two in the area of affairs is definitely problematic. The fusing of the two makes it hard to confront behavior without it being taken as a personal attack. When you fuse the two concepts, it puts you in a position to take things personally.
Fusing them sets you up for some major performance issues. When fused, your sense of identity depends on performance. Being based on performance, you will always do things proving your value as a person.
The constant seeking of approval sets you up as an ‘approval addict’. Anytime you feel bad, you have to perform. You need good performance (which is always a subjective measure) to inflate your identity. Your performance is about getting more approval in order to boost your self esteem. The better you perform, the higher your self-esteem.
Getting a performance system connected with sex puts you on a wild roller coaster ride. It adds sexual performance into your self-esteem.
You’re in real trouble if you hold this idea and find yourself in an accident or handicapped. Since your identity is tied to your performance, you can no longer perform, so you potentially… lose your identity.
So, do you person loose your identity when you are in an accident or sick or disabled? Of course not! This is why I do not see ‘who you are’ being based on ‘what’ you do.
Best Regards,
Jeff
