Creating Healthy Relationhips: Celibacy, Jealousy, and The Most Important Relationship of All

By Helese Smauldon

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headshot october 2016

When I decide to commit to someone, they’ll have to take a second seat to who I’m already dating…the woman I am.

Sometimes I feel like I want a “relationship,” sometimes I don’t.

The truth is, I don’t ever want to be in relationship and yet, I am always IN relationship. (I left out the “s” on purpose. Relationship is a state of mind, a state of being.) The question is how I choose to show up.

As I’ve been thinking about becoming celibate, there’s the question of intimacy and sexuality.

I want to feel close to someone at various times. Who wouldn’t want connection? Who wouldn’t want to feel fun and abandon in one’s body? The question is, what will I choose to attach that idea of intimacy to in my mind? What meaning will I give it? Am I able to feel the fullness of sexuality and sensuality and intimacy in my life as a woman and refrain of actual sex?

I have realized that whatever I put as a condition for someone else is what I hold myself to.
 

I also think about my bouts with jealousy and possession that I’ve been prone in the past. When I imprison someone with jealousy and expectations, that has to come through me first in order to get to them. I’m no longer willing to subject myself to that first, mainly because it sucks for me.

I’m selfish like that.



If I choose to be exclusive with someone and I’m also celibate, by default they must be celibate too.

Am I willing to subject someone to that?  Are there men out there willing to share that journey with me? Do I want or need them to?

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I care more about what I want now, more than ever. And it feels damn good.
 

I’m already entangled in relationships of various styles, connections of various levels. None really have strings attached as I learn to “manage my expectations.” It’s a fun ride letting go.

 

I’m probably deceiving myself when I say “I don’t know if I want a relationship.”
 

What I’m really saying is “I  don’t know if I’m willing to take someone with me on this very self-centered journey of self-love and development. I don’t want to own you because I’m not going to let you own me. I’m quite good right now.”

 

When I decide to commit to someone, they’ll have to take a second seat to who I’m already dating…the woman I am.
 

That’s the most important relationship of all.

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