For my first question to answer on here, I didn’t want to just wait for someone to search up my blog out of the blue, so I asked a friend of mine, Mily, if she had any questions for us regarding plurality. Mily has known myself and my partner system for the length of our relationship, and I didn’t know if she would have any questions for us that she hadn’t already asked. We happened to discuss our plurality with her a while ago when we were chatting in an emotional support channel on a shared discord, but the topic never really got discussed at length there. So at this point, it was common knowledge to Mily that I was the main fronter in my system, and that my fiance was a plural system as well.
“How do you identify which relation is strong or less strong between two people from two different systems?” -Mily
“Do you mean how would I compare my connection to Sky versus Lav’s connection to Shamrock?” -Bee
“Yeah, pretty much” -Mily
I had actually never been asked this before, in all of my times of opening up to someone about having plurality, and I’ve been fairly open about this to friends (and select family members). I suppose this is such a weird question for me because I never really thought about this actively until the question was asked. When I repeated the question to Sky for help in trying to think it through, we ended up interpreting “strong” to mean which relationship is given more importance when there are two systems that have two completely separate relationships. I think the question was a bit uncomfortable specifically for me because it kind of called to attention that as our systems go, I’m in a place of privilege, having 80-90% of the time in front, and being able to kind of drive our decisions. That sort of ability can be used as power, so it begs the question of “How do you make sure you’re being a good person in relation to being plural? How fair are you to your headmates?”
We’ve been asked about the separate relationships before so I might as well start there. This chart was made to show how relationships can work between two systems. There are other systems we know who also have multiple inter-system relationships and I’m willing to bet their charts will vary wildly from ours. But that’s a completely separate topic from the topic at hand. My relationship with Sky is usually placed first on a scale of importance because we are the main fronters, handling the stress of most of our live’s responsibilities. Lav and Shamrock obviously are not less important, but they find ways to see each other anyway. They would ask if they needed more time, and if I felt they were taking too much time, I would mention it to Lav for us all to talk about. Everyone has seemed to keep a balance so far that nothing has really had to be corrected so far. That I know of. As a system you have to keep some conversations private, so it’s possible that Lav has talked to Shamrock without me knowing, but they are married so you’d expect them to have their secrets.
I do try to keep track of how long it has been since a member of one system has seen a member of the other, and I also try to keep tabs with everyone internally as well. Sometimes I take time to just sit and look at Sky so each of my headmates has an opportunity to look in and see for themselves how Sky and her system are doing. I also just like looking at her, so that’s a win for me anyway, but more importantly I’m trying to make sure if someone needs to say anything internally, I’m personally taking time to listen. We try to be fair to each other internally as if we were roommates in a house rather than headmates in a head, and it’s like their system is just the house next door. I suppose the politics works the same as if we were separate people in those hypothetical houses, just that time in front is a finite resource, and should be balanced and rebalanced as needed by everyone. The topic definitely comes up internally, but it’s always a changing dialog, just like any house.
When you have more than one relationship going on in a house, you’ve got to make sure everyone has their time, space, and privacy. I’m pretty much always okay with my headmates taking time in front unless I have very specific plans with Sky or someone else. So I suppose the answer to “How can I be a ‘Good Person(r)’ to my headmate” is just taking the time to listen to them and keep communication open, whether it’s internal communication like we have or external by way of physical messages, emails, etc. Pretty much the same as you would for any friend, but you’re a bit more connected than that when you share a body.
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