Relationship....Issues....

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Raven on November 16, 2011 at 10:34

Great questions!  I'm always interested in thinking about ethics in our communities.

Our coven has a rule, and I think it is generally a community standard among most, though not all, elders, that an elder doesn't date a student, especially not a pre-first student, and not someone over whom they have authority.  So an HP or HPS shouldn't date a covener because they have the responsibility for deciding when they are to be elevated. 

 

I felt less responsible for protecting my student from the few elders who do think it's okay to pursue a student after she got her first, and definitely after her second.  Dating within the family is different than within the coven, but I still think it's important to pay attention to issues of power and influence.

 

So two initiates dating each other within the coven seems to me to be a situation where they need to face their responsibilities as initiates to not harm each other or the coven--that doesn't mean that harm can be prevented, though, and that's part of the responsibility. Also, I suppose it should be made clear that said initiates should be free to date--not married to other people.  That's just a disaster waiting to happen.

What happens when a pair breaks up depends on lots of things--how old are they, how established was the relationship, etc.  I've seen very long-term non-romantic coven leader partnerships break up, marriages between coven leaders break up, relationships among elders, and relationships between elders and non-coven students. There is always a lot of intensity, but there seems to be such a strong value on the community that people mostly figure out how to get alone within community--some people won't circle with others, but that's reasonably limited, and people tend to be fairly grown-up about it. Those who just can't do that, leave.

 

In our community, if coven leaders split, the coven goes to the HPS, although if the HP wants to start a coven of his own, hiving is certainly a possibility and might well be a good idea.

 

There are a lot of situations here--it sounds like part of what you're interested in is how power and status relate to the ethics of relationship in coven and in community. 

Permalink Reply by Leisha on November 17, 2011 at 7:50

Somewhat. One thing that we're advised to do is that when you see similar trends pop up over and over again, is to pay attention as there may be a greater lesson involved. Two of the scenarios I've mentioned above have come up in the past week, so I figured that the greater issue bore a bit of looking.

 

My husband and his ex-wife were once both initiates in the same coven. When they divorced, she left the area (and opted to cut off contact with everyone in the coven), so it was a non-issue. Prior to my time, a HPS and P divorced (not sure what degrees they were at when this happened, however). The P ended up moving out of the area to start a coven and the HPS stayed with the coven for several years more. The only other experience I had was when the two HPs in the coven where I initiated divorced. Ultimately one left the coven (although he did not opt to start his own group) and the other remains HP of the coven to this day. 

 

On the flipside, we've had quite a few initiates who start dating someone and then bring them around the coven, eventually to have the person initiate. In a couple cases (like mine), we eventually got married (in most cases prior to initiation, as the initiation process can take 2-3 years or more). In other cases, the relationships didn't work out, but they are still great covensibs. 

 

So overall, my experience has been that when a divorce happens between initiates (of any degree), one ends up leaving. That being said, my data set is pretty small on that, so I was curious if that's the norm. 

 

Then, because of an interesting community situation, I was wondering about the dynamics of having the head of a coven start dating a student. What I found, when thinking about it, was that if it was a male HP dating a female student, my instant reaction would be very negative because of the predatory overtones--even if there's nothing predatory about it. On the other hand, in the case of a HPS dating a male student, I didn't have the immediate predatory reaction. Certainly that shows me something I need to sit with regarding gender equality issues. :)

 

So yeah, just looking to see what other people have experienced or what their thoughts are about the ethics of relationships. As I pointed out to someone recently, magic is flippin' sexy if it is done right. There's a TON of emotions that can come up in the circle, because a good circle is intimate. For the safety of all involved, I think there do have to be boundaries...but how those boundaries are formed or maintained seems to be more murky in reality than it appears in theory. (But isn't that always the way!)

 

Thanks for the reply, and looking forward to hearing others!

 

Raven said:

There are a lot of situations here--it sounds like part of what you're interested in is how power and status relate to the ethics of relationship in coven and in community. 

Permalink Reply by Raven on November 17, 2011 at 9:54

I may be a bit more sensitive to the gender thing because I'm a therapist who often works with men who were abused as boys, sometimes by men, sometimes by women.  Not that cross-status relationships are necessarily abusive, but I think the burden is on the one with more power to be sure that the relationship is in the best interest of the one with less--among other things.

Permalink Reply by Jenett on November 18, 2011 at 6:29

Case 1: I think that any romantic relationship between *any* initiate and a student is highly problematic: doesn't matter the genders involved. And it's more-so when it's the HPS or HP. That stage is already usually one of rapid change, self-examination, and shifting for the student.

 

Many students go through a period (some brief, some longer) of having effectively a crush on their teacher or HPS or HP: it's a pretty natural result of looking at someone and saying "I want to be more like them". (And the witchy aspect can enhance that for a lot of people.) The problem is, that there's also often a point for a lot of people where they either drop people off the pedestal they've put them on, or they start to rebel against something they're told in differentiation.

 

These are also normal - but sometimes hard to deal with - in ordinary circumstances. But if there's a romantic relationship involved, it tends to get a lot messier, and not just for them, but for everyone else in the group. So, my take is that it's the initiate's job to wait, or to find some other solution (more on that in a sec.)

 

There's also an issue of fairness to other students, both current and past/future. Someone's romantic partner has a great deal of access that others don't, and badly handled, it can seriously unbalance other relationships of trust in the circle. Again, waiting until after initiation usually helps a lot with this (in trads where there's a fair bit of training before initiate) because by then someone's usually

 

My HPS and a student found they were attracted to each other, relatively early on in the student's training. Once they realised that, they sat down with the HP, and then with me (I was working on my 2nd degree at the time, and the only one of the active 1st degrees interested in doing so at that point) and we did a bunch of talking about it. The end result was that the student ended up doing some of her training with a friend of the group, not in the same initiatory line, as a cross-check, and then working primarily with the HP and with me for practical training to cover other class material. That meant that we had three way triangulation on whether something needed more time, we needed to address issues of access to material (this now-initiate knows a *whole* lot more about my HPS's purely personal practice, for example, than I ever have or will.)

 

She was initiated (and incidentally, that was a very hard initiation for everyone, because the stakes were so high for everyone involved), she's now a 2nd degree, and they're still together, 5+ years later.  But there are also ways in which I still wonder if we did the group a disservice, because there are places the dynamics are very complicated by the relationship. (This now-initiate has had proportionately more influence on the direction and structure of the group than someone at her degree would normally have, pretty much all along. There are ways that's been awesome. There are ways that it's not as great for.)

 

Got to go to work, so will come back to the other cases later.

Permalink Reply by Aislynn on November 18, 2011 at 14:41

I've actually spent a lot of time thinking about this while considering the future coven.  In the student organization I ran on campus a few years ago, we had a lot of dating issues.  Two board members were dating when they were elected, and it was never a problem (they're still together), so we didn't even consider dating at first.  Then several members (and board members) got into relationships with other members.  While we obviously weren't a coven and there weren't inherent issues with these other relationships, they did all end badly (and in the same week).  At the following meeting, we found that the board members were the only attendees.  The group fell apart slowly after that with much in-fighting, choosing sides, etc.  The next semester, we added a dating clause (sort of a "don't ask, don't tell") into the constitution.  Every group I've worked with now seems to add one of these right off the bat now just to make sure nothing like this happens again.  There have been instances where a dating relationship was revealed for certain reasons (a couple apply for membership, for example) and we've kind of dealt with this on a case-by-case basis, but I knew that a coven would bring its own issues that Leisha pointed out above.

 

1a.  I admit that I am pretty much with you, Leisha, in that I feel a bit more odd about the HP dating a female student than the HPess dating a male (or female) student.  I know, however, that this goes back to some deep issues I have with men in general that I'm working on.

Either way, I do see the issues this relationship would bring.  I have set a firm no dating rule with my students and vowed to cut off the teacher-student relationship if I became attracted to them and/or deal with the issue in an appropriate way if they become attracted to me.  I feel like I'd probably deal with these situations the same way in my future coven.  I do think boundaries could be crossed with initiation and such. I know that if I were a HPess and I were dating a covenor, I would have trouble not running to them with coven-related issues for help/input which obviously creates issues if the other covenors don't get the same input.

 

So, overall, I'd probably urge them to find another coven whether or not we decided to pursue a relationship (or they decided to pursue a relationship with my HP).

 

1b.  Two initiates dating may appear to have fewer moral issues than the HP/student relationship, but given what I've seen in the student organization, I kind of know better.  I'm not sure if I'd try to do the "don't ask, don't tell" thing in the coven or not.  I feel like it would definitely be a more intimate group than the student org. and the study group, so it feels wrong to limit them like that, but given the issues I saw in the student org. with break-ups, I'm still considering how that would be handled.

 

Since all of the cases under 2 are influenced by what I've written above, I'm not sure how that would be handled in this hypothetical coven of mine.  But I do love that this thread was created!  It was something I've been meaning to discuss.  Thanks, Leisha and everyone who replies.

Permalink Reply by Jenett on November 18, 2011 at 15:29

Ok, coming back (and with thanks for Aislynn's comments, because it reminded me of something...)

While "find another coven/teacher" is a good thing in theory, in practice, it can be more complicated. I'm the only person in my tradition teaching within 1500 miles of where I am, and while there's another person doing Craft work within the county area, that's pretty much it. Someone who I was interested in who I *also* wanted to practice within the tradition with (which, i would ideally like to do with a long term partner) is ... well, pretty stuck.

The answer I've seen to that - and this one has a better track record - is that you do one then the other. Either you work as teacher and student through initiation (or to a point where it's clear that's not the right choice for the student) and then go for the romantic relationship - or you go through the romantic relationship, give it a couple of years to stablise, and then go through the Craft bit. (By which point, hopefully, you've been doing non-initiatory work together for a while, other people in the trad have had time to meet the partner and develop independent interactions, etc.)

Both have complications, but at least it's better than "can't have both, ever." (I've thought a whole lot about this one because various things - dreams, divination, etc - have suggested a new relationship, in both the working-partner sense and the romantic-partner sense, coming into my life with the recent move. And really, I don't have a ton of local options, since this is the middle of nowhere.)

Case 1b: Instead of a HP or HPS, it is two initiates of the same degree who start dating. Yea or nay?

The thing with initiates is that if you can't presume they're going to do their best to behave like mature adults who think through stuff in advance, you probably shouldn't have initiated them. I think the issues with initiates dating - while potentially messy if there's a nasty breakup - are a lot easier to handle than issues with a teacher and a student (where there's a temporarily quite major power imbalance in all sorts of ways.)

The advice I've seen for this (and that seems to have a clear track record) is to be clear up front (ideally, before the situation comes up, or at least gets too involved) and say "You are presumed to be mature adults who can choose your actions. If this is what makes both of you happy, awesome. However, if you do end up at a point where your relationship is affecting group work, here's how we're going to handle that."

I've seen different solutions there. Sometimes the person with seniority gets to stay. Sometimes the person who's close to hiving gets supported in leaving (if they were already aiming that way.) Sometimes the person who was less committed to the group is the one who leaves. In all cases, it seems to help (from the stories I've heard) if the HPS and Hp and whatever other elders/senior folks can help provide options, and make it clear that it's not choosing sides: it's looking at the overall shape and needs of the group. (i.e. continuing to see both people socially, if they wish, that kind of thing.) If there's really no way to tell, both people get to take a break from the group, and everyone revisits the situation in 3 months or 6 months or whatever seems to make sense. (And often by then, one of the two will have found some other solution anyway.)

From what I've seen, there's often a bit of messiness - but not necessarily *tons* more than any breakup sends through a group of shared friends. I think that messiness is part of being human, though groups can do a lot to create scaffolding and modelling good ways to depart a group or setting, rather than the more hurtful ones.

Case 2: Separation.... two initiates (of any degree except HP/HPS) decide to break up/separate/divorce. What issues do you think come up in those situations that would be different if only one of the people in the breakup was part of a group/coven?

I've already covered most of this above, but basically, being clear that the group decision is not about the individuals (and who's right or wrong) but about the overall needs of the group, and what that means.

I think it's a lot easier if one of the couple is not a member of the group - but it can be particularly messy, in my experience, if a couple are initiate and student (say, an long-term existing couple who started training a year or two apart, or where one of them took longer for whatever reason - this is surprisingly common in my experience.) The initiate is theoretically more able to stand on their own, practice wise - but they've given more to the group. The student has a right to certain agreements with their teachers, but is not a full member yet.

Case 2a: A working pair (let's assume for ease of discussion, a HP/HPS pairing who run the coven) decide to break up/separate/divorce. How do you think those sort of issues can/should be handled? 

As gently as possible? One hopes?

i think that there's so many possible variables here that it's hard to get more specific than that. I'd hope that any discussion between HPS and HP would include a "what if" discussion (what happens if one of htem becomes seriously ill and can't fulfill their role. What happens if they can no longer work together: who keeps the group, etc.) Sometimes traditions simplify pieces of that (in a priestess-lead tradition, there's an obvious answer there.)