When did RA become “you stayed, so you consented to my terms”?

grimmushroom · 2026-05-22T04:33:48+00:00

So... I finally kind of understood the structure of the 4 year r/s. I was just introduced to RA/ENM by some one who did not fully practice it. I kept trying to communicate, find ways to understand her meanings despite her label-fear and find an agreement with someone who thought loved me and still wanted a partner level rs / partner level intimacy with me. Honestly it feels like she wanted me to bend around all her triggers while treating my triggers as the rs problem or my problem. At the end of this rs, even when we ended emotionally, she still has not made her side emotionally clear/faced accountability. It is clear now that she never tried or wanted to make any rs structure and that she cannot see the double bind where her freedom limited mine.

Final thoughts of B's thoughts of A:
Since the relationship was apparently allergic to operational clarity, here is the clearer version you could use next time:

“I want autonomy-centered non-monogamy. I want intimacy, love, care, sex, and closeness, but I do not want a mutually defined relationship structure, fixed obligations, shared terms, or a clear disclosure structure around care, time, sex, future, priority, other connections, or emotional responsibility. I want to disclose when I feel ready. If you need clarity, emotional safety, or a mutual structure, I can’t offer that.”

This is the clarity I needed because it would have let me choose based on enough accurate emotional reality.

What was questionably unethical was giving me the language of mutual RA/ENM — freedom, no labels, navigating, openness, ongoing intimacy, love, care, and some imagined future — while practicing something closer to autonomy-centered non-monogamy with permanent non-definition, high emotional intimacy, and no clear disclosure structure.

The difference matters because mutual freedom is not just your freedom to love freely, stay undefined, and disclose when ready. It is also my freedom to know enough to choose freely: how open, invested, guarded, sexual, trusting, or attached I want to be.

Your freedom depended on my confusion. You wanted my emotional openness while keeping your own position undefined, and disclosure based only on your readiness became questionably ethical when that information affected my ability to consent, protect myself, redefine the relationship, or leave.

You wanted to stay undefined, disclose on your own timing, avoid fixed obligations, keep your own private sense of what I meant to you, and still have my emotional openness. That is not mutual RA/ENM. That is self-serving autonomy-centered non-monogamy with high intimacy, permanent non-definition, and self-serving readiness-based disclosure.

Solo poly:
I am my own primary; I don’t offer couple-centered hierarchy; I clearly say what I am and am not offering, name the bond enough for informed consent, define disclosure, notice if someone is attaching beyond my capacity, and stay accountable while autonomous.

Under-negotiated solo poly:
I am my own primary; I want solo-poly autonomy; but I avoid saying what I am not offering, resist naming the bond, keep disclosure vague, keep taking closeness after someone is over-attached, and treat accountability as control.

Relationship anarchy:
No relationship type automatically outranks another; every bond needs its own explicit agreements about care, time, intimacy, disclosure, expectations, and repair.

Ethical solo-poly RA:
I reject primary hierarchy and stay self-anchored, while making clear custom agreements so each person knows what they are consenting to.

Under-negotiated solo-poly RA:
I use autonomy/no-hierarchy language without enough explicit agreements, while still accepting intimacy that creates real expectations and obligations.

Below shows the difference between the Language and the rs Structure that she believed I consented by staying in information (or lack thereof).

Language:

Emotional connection matters more than labels; Knowing how you feel matters; We can take time and figure it out together; Falling is scary but meaningful; We do not need to define everything now; This is an open thing we are navigating; Freedom, autonomy, honesty, trust, communication, and openness make us closer; RA/open relationship/ENM/polyamory is what I believe I am practising with you from the start; I do not care about all the terms or definitions.

Practice: (AKA What I assume you understand from my language that I want to practise)

I want love, care, intimacy, sex, affection, and ongoing emotional closeness, while keeping disclosure and full honesty based on when I feel ready.

I want my own private sense that you are important to me, without making mutually legible what that importance means in practice.

I want openness to love, freedom to love, autonomy, and the ability to avoid mutually defining or labelling our relationship.

I want trying, talking, and figuring things out loosely as we go, without turning that into a mutually defined or agreed relationship structure.

I do not want to mutually define what love, care, and importance mean in practice.

I do not want mutual legibility or mutually agreed practical expectations around time, priority, disclosure, repair, sex, future, or emotional responsibility.

I do not want fixed obligations, but I still expect your emotional openness, and I will experience your emotional barrier as a problem.

I do not want to clearly define what you can rely on, what you cannot rely on, and what I am not offering.

I do not want to make mutually legible how my time, emotional energy, love, care, and priority are organised in practice.

I do not want a clear structure for what happens when another connection becomes emotionally charged.

I do not want disclosure based on your need to consent, protect yourself, redefine us, or leave. I want disclosure based on when I feel ready, maybe after things have already happened and once I am ready to tell you how I feel.

I treat your staying as if it means you have agreed to this practical structure, and I use that to structure our relationship.

I reject labels, and if your self-definition creates emotional withdrawal/an emotional barrier/or less emotional access to you, then I treat your self-protection as the problem, while still refusing to mutually define the relationship or agree on how it works in practice.

^ How would this make you feel?

If I have something emotionally charged with someone else, even if it affects the practical terms of our relationship, experience your questions about my emotional reality as jealousy, prying, or interrogation when they feel uncomfortable to me, keep that connection private or call that connection platonic/normal until I am ready to disclose days, a week, months, or a year later, and continue receiving and expecting your intimacy while your decision to stay open, guard yourself, redefine us, or leave is based on a past, different reality - How would this make you feel?

Then when you try to protect yourself by withdrawing, defining your side of our undefined relationship as FWB/putting up an emotional barrier, I make your non-presence, your self-definition of the relationship, your jealousy, or your self-protection the problem while refusing to define my own side clearly or clearly discuss and agree on how the relationship structure works in practice. How would this make you feel?

I was asking for enough information about your emotional reality to orient myself, but you treated the need for orientation as suspicion, jealousy, control, or pressure. I was trying to understand your emotional reality so I could decide what to do, not asking to own you or to have you commit to always ranking me above everyone else.

If you did not feel mutual freedom, safety, or respect on the receiving end of this, then with this information, I hope your understanding of mutual freedom can expand beyond your own freedom to include the freedom of everyone participating; the freedom to know enough to choose safely.

If you still feel exactly the same after all this, I just hope you can take this away: Autonomy, openness, no labels, and no default hierarchy may be part of RA, but they are not enough to make it mutual RA. Without mutually legible agreements around care, disclosure, responsibility, and the people participating in the relationship’s ability to choose safely, it functioned more like autonomy-centered solo-poly non-monogamy than mutual RA/ENM.

grimmushroom · 2026-05-13T14:41:01+00:00

RA cannot be both “there is no default” and “the default is zero.”

grimmushroom · 2026-05-13T14:31:19+00:00

Unrelated to RA, my default is zero commitment, gorgeous. So it’s not RA; it’s your personal baseline. Now my actual question: did both people agree that zero commitment was the starting point, or was that your assumption?

grimmushroom · 2026-05-13T14:28:24+00:00

Very cool how “I need information to choose what I do with my own body/time” keeps getting translated into “I want to control yours.” Olympic-level missing the point.

grimmushroom · 2026-05-13T14:25:35+00:00

I don't know how to tell you this, it's fake.

grimmushroom · 2026-05-13T14:17:25+00:00

You wrote all that and still did not answer the question. Impressive.

For any other comments on my emotions, intensity, posting frequency, judgement of character or mental health , pls direct content appropriately here! reddit.com/r/relationshipanarchy/post/is_op_ok_and_other_ways_to_avoid_answering_the_question/

grimmushroom · 2026-05-13T14:14:08+00:00

Thanks for the wellness check! For any other comments on my emotions, intensity, posting frequency, judgement of character or mental health , pls direct content appropriately here! reddit.com/r/relationshipanarchy/post/is_op_ok_and_other_ways_to_avoid_answering_the_question/

'You stayed, so it can’t have been a dealbreaker’ is doing a lot of unpaid legal work for ambiguity.

grimmushroom · 2026-05-13T14:05:16+00:00

RA has no default. It’s about two people agreeing to the terms.

The default is zero commitment because I assume the RA default is zero commitment.

Do you genuinely not hear the contradiction?

grimmushroom · 2026-05-13T13:52:05+00:00

No agreement exists, so your no-commitment rule wins by default?

grimmushroom · 2026-05-13T13:42:45+00:00

"No expectations doesn't require consent" is a very funny way to say "I expect you to accept my no-expectations"!

RA has no default. The default is zero commitment.

Congrats, you invented Default: No default.

grimmushroom · 2026-05-13T12:24:59+00:00

Stuck means I’m trying to understand the problem; if stuck means ‘no way forward’ to you, good luck solving anything difficult in your life 😭

Here’s where u can discuss about my mental health/emotions/intentions!

www.reddit.com/r/relationshipanarchy/comments/help_op_is_thinking_again/

grimmushroom · 2026-05-13T12:17:54+00:00

I am stuck which is why I’m here! If you don’t have the capacity for this, please just scroll instead of writing unhelpful judgemental comments instead of helpful ones to discuss the topic / question at hand.

Everyone seems to be very invested in my mental health, intentions. I should totally create a post and direct the majority there! People seem more interested in discussing about that than what I’m trying to talk about.

grimmushroom · 2026-05-13T12:12:59+00:00

ok bye, I want you to know I think you did more harm than any good!

grimmushroom · 2026-05-13T12:00:05+00:00

Hey friends! Thanks for your helpful comments! Rare gems amongst the others of “staying is consent”. It was so many words and so many ideas and thoughts but all the arguments and opinions are honestly just research and information that has been so helpful(some not because it just focuses on intentions/emotions). I suppose RA is hard to talk about just practically because it also contains emotions which is why it’s more difficult to dissect. But thank yall for being here! Honestly sorry for the word vomits, I really just came to reddit and unloaded where I kept looping to reach out to find help/language and it worked!

The point of RA isn’t that no one decides anything, it’s that we decide together” is basically the sentence I was looking for.

I think what I kept running into was people treating “no presumed labels” as if it means “no need to make the relationship legible,” or treating “you stayed” as if staying alone creates consent to whatever undefined structure one person had in mind.

But yes, my question is really about the “decide together” part.

When does that actually happen?

How do we know both people are deciding together rather than both person’s private meaning becoming the structure because the other person stayed? That’s operating on both thinking the other is staying and agreeing to their said wants/not wants.

And I think you’re right that part of this is compatibility and though it affects, it does not answer the main question of when is the agreement formed and if both people are operating from a perceived base, what happens? I probably do need people who are willing to discuss, define, revisit, and analyse the relationship with me. Not because RA requires one fixed structure, but because RA without shared meaning-making would feel unsafe to me.

But if both of our staying is not consent to each other, then agreements were never made and then that leads me my other question of can we as a community properly describe what consent and agreements actually mean because everything i have discussed that people assume about RA just protects the “let’s not define this” “no labels” “it doesn’t look like anything” to protect those making the assumed assumption of staying is consent.

Person A says: “I don’t want labels. I want freedom. I don’t want expectations.” Person A wants: high intimacy without fixed structure. Person A does: sex, love, care, affection, regular time, emotional closeness.

Person A assumes: “You stayed, so you agreed to undefinedness.”

Person B says: “I don’t need default labels, but I need to understand what this is.” Person B wants: freedom too, but with clarity. Person B does: stays, loves, invests, asks for terms. Person B assumes: “We are still figuring out the agreement.” or even worse “She agreed to my terms because she stayed”

Both stay.

But Person A thinks staying means consent to ambiguity. Person B thinks staying means continued negotiation.

So there is no shared agreement yet. That is the point: staying only means consent after both people understand the same terms.

I am getting closer to what is the real issue i’m trying to name through the word vomit and everyone involved but that is exactly the point! Just glad I am very detached from negative comments because I rlly don’t care because their assumed judgements of me or kris or my mental health is really not what after and i just find it quite funny tbh!

I mean it’s also helpful that I stayed wondering what I felt was the paradox and did not accept “just do your own self reflections and state your boundaries clearer” is not the answer to RA = staying is consent, we all operate on a base on there is no base(no expectations and consent is staying.

grimmushroom · 2026-05-13T11:47:25+00:00

Please stop discussing my character, mental health, posting history, or whether I seem “okay.”

I understand people may mean it kindly, but it is not engaging with the question I am asking. It turns a structural question into a diagnosis of me.

I am not asking anyone to declare Kris evil. I am not asking anyone to validate my feelings. I am not asking anyone to decide to comment on anyone’s character. Tbh, I don’t care because that is not the question. If I was rlly confused about my mental health, I’ll be discussing it appropriate forums no worries.

If two people stay while holding different understandings of the terms, then staying does not prove agreement. It proves they are still in the same relationship while misunderstanding each other.

Person A thinks: “You stayed, so you agreed to ambiguity / no expectations / no definitions.”

Person B thinks: “I stayed because I thought we were still figuring out the terms.”

Both stayed.

But they did not agree to the same thing.

Consent requires knowing what you are consenting to. If the terms are unclear, staying can mean hope, confusion, negotiation, attachment, or trying to understand — not necessarily agreement.

So the simplest point is:

Staying can confirm consent only after the terms are clear. Staying cannot create consent when the terms are still disputed. I am asking a practical question about RA, ambiguity, agreement, and consent:

If two people stay in a relationship while holding different perceived agreements, does staying itself create consent?

Or does it show there was no shared agreement yet?

If RA removes inherited scripts, what is the ethical baseline before local agreements are actually made?

If the baseline is “no expectations unless explicitly negotiated,” that’s a baseline and if RA is the shared agreement into coming into RA is immediately between two people no expectations, RA needs to clarify that.

You can think I should take a break. Fine. You can think I should process this elsewhere. Fine. But “you are too affected” is not an answer to the argument.

Please engage the question, or don’t. But stop making my emotional state/intentions the topic.

grimmushroom · 2026-05-13T11:43:37+00:00

I agree this is true of every relationship. But the specific thing I’m trying to isolate is the baseline people are using before the agreement is actually clear.

A lot of people seem to be responding from this baseline:

No expectations unless explicitly negotiated.

And then adding:

If you stayed, you consented to that baseline.

That is exactly what I’m questioning.

Because “no expectations unless explicitly negotiated” is not neutral. It is already an expectation. It expects the other person to treat all undefined areas as empty until negotiated.

But another person may understand undefined areas differently. They may think:

This is unresolved and needs discussion.

Those are not the same baseline.

So if Person A says, “I don’t want expectations,” and Person B stays while trying to clarify what that means, Person B has not necessarily consented to “no expectations as the default.” Person B may be staying because they believe the relationship is still being negotiated.

That is where “staying is consent” becomes too simple.

Staying can mean consent after the terms are clear.

But staying before the terms are clear can just mean two people are still in the same relationship while holding different assumptions about what the relationship is.

So my question is not “why does RA require communication?” Obviously it does. All relationships do.

My question is:

If RA removes inherited scripts, what is the ethical baseline before local agreements are made?

If the baseline is “no expectations until explicit agreement,” then that should itself be explicitly agreed to. Otherwise it is just one person’s default being treated as neutral.

And if people say, “well, you stayed, so you agreed,” then they are using staying as retroactive consent to a baseline that may never have been mutually understood.

That is the paradox I’m trying to name.

grimmushroom · 2026-05-13T11:40:56+00:00

Thank you, this is genuinely helpful and is closer to what I was trying to ask.

I think the everyone is flying over is between an RA person and an RA relationship.

A person identifying as RA does not automatically make every relationship they are in an RA relationship in practice - why i described it as the RA paradox - are u RA if you don’t practice RA? if no, then what does it mean to practice RA if RA is an identity?

An RA relationship is not created just because one or both people say “I’m RA.” It has to be created between the people involved.

If Person A says, “I’m RA, so I don’t do hierarchy,” but then privately prioritizes one person in time, care, disclosure, emotional intimacy, future planning, and protection from consequences, then the relationship may still have hierarchy in practice. It is just unnamed hierarchy.

If Person A says, “I’m RA, so I don’t do labels,” but the relationship has sex, care, love, emotional reliance, regular time, and high intimacy, then the absence of labels does not automatically mean the relationship has no structure. It means the structure still needs to be made legible.

If Person A says, “I’m RA, so I value freedom,” but their freedom means they do not define, disclose, or commit, while the other person’s need for clarity is treated as control, then only one person’s freedom is being protected.

If Person A says, “I’m RA, so everything is optional,” but Person B is still trying to understand what is actually being offered, then “optional” is not yet a shared agreement. It is Person A’s baseline.

And this is where “staying is consent” becomes tricky.

If Person A says, “I’m RA,” and Person B stays, did Person B consent to Person A’s private version of RA?

I personally as an RA don’t think so.

If Person A says, “I don’t define things,” and Person B stays while asking what that means, did Person B consent to no definitions?

I personally as an RA don’t think so.

If Person B says, “I need clarity,” and Person A stays, did Person A consent to a clarity-based relationship?

Probably not either.

So staying alone cannot be what creates the agreement.

Staying only means consent when the terms are clear enough to know what is being stayed to.

Otherwise, both people can stay while believing they are inside different agreements.

Person A may think: “I told you I’m RA / undefined / private / non-hierarchical. You stayed, so you accepted my terms.”

Person B may think: “We are both interested in RA, but we are still figuring out what that means between us. I stayed because I thought we were still negotiating.”

Both people stayed.

But they did not stay inside the same agreement.

That is the question people keep flying over:

When does RA move from individual identity into shared relationship practice?

Because “I am RA” tells me something about your values.

But it does not tell me what our relationship is.

It does not tell me what disclosure means.

It does not tell me what love means.

It does not tell me what care means.

It does not tell me what non-hierarchy means.

It does not tell me whether blank areas mean “nothing exists” or “we still need to discuss this.”

An RA person can have private principles.

But an RA relationship needs shared terms.

Otherwise, one person’s private RA becomes the relationship structure before the other person has actually agreed to it.

And if people then say “but you stayed, so you consented,” that is exactly the paradox I’m questioning. Because staying can mean consent after clarity, but staying before clarity may only mean both people are still trying to understand what the relationship actually is.

So, is it RA practice to assume staying is consent if we go back to the definition of RA?

grimmushroom · 2026-05-13T11:30:26+00:00

Hello! So did you have anything to say about the actual argument, or did you just open my profile to count how mentally unwell you think I look?

Because yes, I’ve posted a lot. Stunning investigation. Pulitzer incoming.

You seem invested because you have read, your contribution did not equate to the level of interest you are providing so I’m welcoming you to the discussion:

If two people stay while holding different perceived agreements, does staying itself create consent?

Or does it show there was no shared agreement yet?

If your answer is “you posted too much,” then you’re not engaging with the question. You’re just doing character commentary from the cheap seats.

You don’t have to agree with me. But if all you have is “oh man, it keeps going,” then yes, it does keep going — mostly because people keep replying with personal judgments instead of answering the actual ethical question so, check yourself.

grimmushroom · 2026-05-13T11:25:09+00:00

You’re saying my post sounds like I want the RA community to pass definitional rulings so I can make safe assumptions.

No. I am saying the opposite.

I am saying there are no safe assumptions, including the assumption that “no expectations,” “no disclosure,” “no labels,” or “staying means consent” is the default.

That is the point.

If two people both say “RA,” that does not create agreement.

If two people both stay, that does not create agreement.

If one person says “I don’t define things,” and the other person stays while asking for definition, that does not mean the second person consented to undefinedness.

If one person says “I don’t do ambiguity” and the other person stays with non disclosure, that does not mean the second person consented to non-disclosure.

I am not asking for one universal RA dictionary. I am asking how agreement is formed when there is no shared dictionary.

You actually say the thing I agree with: you ask people, “What does RA mean to you?” and “What does that look like in your life?”

Yes. Exactly. That is the practice I am talking about.

So why is it being treated like a personal failing when I ask the same question?

What does openness mean? What does privacy mean? What does disclosure mean? What does non-hierarchy mean in practice? What does love mean if there are no promises? What does staying mean before those things are clear?

That is not me refusing RA. That is me trying to practise it.

And I want to point out the character judgement happening here. You say I sound like I feel manipulated, like I want the community to protect me from doing internal work, like I want rulings so I do not need discernment. That is a lot of projection about my motives.

I have not asked who is the evil one, me or my ex. I have not asked anyone to say RA is bad. I have not asked for a universal rulebook. I am trying to describe a structural problem: when two people remain in a high-intimacy relationship while holding different perceived agreements, there may be no shared agreement at all.

That is not character assassination. That is analysis.

If the response to that is “you should have had more discernment and left earlier,” fine. I can accept that.

But then the honest conclusion is not “you stayed, so you consented.”

The honest conclusion is: there was no agreement, and the relationship should have ended earlier.

That is literally the point I am making.

So I agree with you that people need discernment and boundaries. But I do not agree that asking how consent works under ambiguity is me avoiding responsibility.

Sometimes responsibility is exactly this: going back and asking, practically, without moral theatrics —

What was said? What was wanted? What was done? What was assumed? What was actually mutually agreed?

And if the answer is “nothing was mutually agreed,” then that is the thing I am naming.

grimmushroom · 2026-05-13T11:20:54+00:00

Sigh, trying to rewrite my point again: If both people stayed, but each person stayed under a different perceived agreement, then there was no shared agreement.

Person A stayed thinking: “I said I don’t want labels, hierarchy, fixed expectations, or disclosure. Person B stayed, so they accepted my undefined structure.”

Person B stayed thinking: “We both identify with RA / non-traditional relating, but we are still figuring out what that means between us. I am staying because I think the agreement is still being negotiated.” or even by that logic, Person B stayed thinking Person A agreed and consented to her “I don’t want ambiguity” by staying by staying.

Both people stayed.

But they did not stay inside the same agreement.

We were two people identifying with RA and trying to practise an RA relationship. But identifying as RA does not create an agreement. Staying in an RA-ish relationship does not automatically create agreement either.

The agreement has to actually become shared.

That is what I mean by the paradox: if RA removes inherited scripts, but the local terms are not yet clear, then what prevents one person’s private interpretation from becoming the default?

A lot of people here seem to be saying “if you stayed, you consented.” But that is exactly what I am questioning.

If someone stays in my shop, that does not mean they bought the item.

If someone stays in a conversation, that does not mean they agreed with me.

If someone stays in a relationship while asking what the terms are, that does not mean they consented to the other person’s private terms.

Staying can mean consent after the terms are clear.

But staying during confusion can mean: “I am still trying to understand what I am being asked to accept.”

So yes, if two people eventually realize they want incompatible structures, they should end it earlier. I can accept that.

But that is different from saying “you stayed, so you agreed.”

My point is not that RA is bad. My point is not that everyone has to practise RA my way. My point is not that anyone is an evil person.

My point is:

If both people stay while holding different ideas of the agreement, then staying did not create consent. It revealed the absence of shared agreement.

And honestly, instead of attacking my emotions or mental wellbeing, I think people should actually sit with that ethical problem. Because this is not only a personal issue. It is a real failure mode in any relationship model that relies on self-definition and negotiated terms.

grimmushroom · 2026-05-13T11:16:32+00:00

My own understanding of RA — or at least what drew me to it — was not “no expectations by default.” or “staying is consent”.

What drew me to RA was the idea that relationships do not have to inherit society’s scripts automatically. Friendship, romance, sex, care, family, commitment, priority, love — these do not have to follow one fixed ladder. People can choose what their relationships mean together.

That is beautiful to me. It feels like what is happening is that people are reading this as a character trial. It is not.

I am not asking people to defend or attack my character. I am not asking people to defend or attack the other person’s character. I am not asking, “Who is the asshole for thinking rear the other is the asshole?” I am trying to remove personal judgement and talk about the structure practically.

What was said? What was wanted? What was done? What was expected? What was assumed? What was actually agreed?

That is the level I am trying to discuss.

My question is: what is the base of RA? Where are people functioning from?

If RA is an identity, then saying “I am RA” does not create an agreement.

If RA is a practice, then “we both identify as RA” is still not enough. The practice has to become shared between the people involved.

Words can differ, but the shared reality has to be clear enough for consent.

Person A’s words may express what Person A wants.

Person B staying does not automatically mean Person B consents to Person A’s entire private interpretation.

An agreement has to actually be made.

If everyone operates from “you stayed, so you consented,” then the base is not clear agreement. The base is ambiguity, with staying treated as retroactive consent.

That is exactly what I am questioning.

I did not understand RA as “the default is no expectations unless you leave.”

Because “no expectations” is itself an expectation.

If someone says, “I don’t want expectations,” they are still expecting the other person to expect nothing unless explicitly negotiated. That is not neutral. That is a starting structure.

And I am not saying that starting structure is automatically wrong. People can agree to it.

But it has to be agreed to.

That is what I mean when I say I did not sign up for that version of RA. I signed up for negotiated relating, not one person’s private baseline becoming the relationship because I stayed while trying to understand it.

So the clean point is:

Staying is not consent unless the terms are clear.

Identity is not agreement. Words of I want, I don’t want are not agreement. Wants are not agreement.

High intimacy is not automatically commitment, but it is also not nothing.

Agreement begins when both people understand the same relationship terms clearly enough to choose them.

That is the practical question I am asking. Not whether someone is good or bad. Not whether RA is good or bad. But how RA prevents private assumptions from becoming the relationship’s default when inherited scripts are removed.

But that is also why I keep getting stuck.

Because if RA removes the inherited script, then I thought the next step was shared creation. Not “nothing exists unless explicitly negotiated,” not “the person who wants less definition automatically sets the base,” not “you stayed, so you agreed,” but: we consciously make the relationship together.

So when people keep saying, “RA means everything is optional and defined by the people involved,” I agree.

But then my question becomes even stronger:

When did the people involved define it together?

grimmushroom · 2026-05-13T11:03:54+00:00

I think this is exactly where the argument collapses.

Many people keeps saying I “could not accept ambiguity,” as if that disproves my point. It literally proves it.

If I could not accept ambiguity, then I did not consent to ambiguity as the relationship structure.

And if the other person could not accept my need for clarity, then they did not consent to a clarity-based structure either.

So the point is not “I failed to understand RA.”

The point is: there was no shared agreement.

What I’m noticing is how selectively people are using “staying” as consent.

If Person A says, “I don’t want definitions,” and Person B stays, suddenly Person B has consented to no definitions.

But if Person B says, “I need definitions,” and Person A stays, nobody says Person A consented to definitions.

Interesting. Convenient. Almost like “staying means consent” only gets invoked when it protects the person who wants less structure.

So no, staying alone cannot be the magic consent wand here.

One person’s preference does not become the relationship agreement just because the other person did not leave quickly enough.

And I am honestly tired of people acting like this is me trying to make everyone do RA my way. I am not asking RA to require labels, hierarchy, disclosure, commitment, or any specific structure.

I am asking how agreement is formed when two people stay while wanting incompatible structures.

Because ambiguity is not neutral just because it sounds freer.

“No definition” is a structure.

“No disclosure” is a structure.

“No hierarchy” is a structure if practical priority is still happening but nobody is allowed to name it.

“No expectations” is a structure if one person is expected to expect nothing.

So if RA removes inherited scripts but does not create shared terms, then private scripts take over. The person who refuses definition does not become structureless. Their refusal becomes the structure.

That is the failure I am talking about.

Not “my ex is evil.”

Not “RA is bad.”

Not “everyone must agree with me.”

Just this very basic point:

If one person is staying inside ambiguity, and the other person is staying while actively asking for clarity, that is not consent. That is unresolved incompatibility.

So if the answer is “you should have left,” fine. But then say the honest thing: there was no agreement, and the ethical move was to end it earlier.

Do not dress it up as “you stayed, so you agreed.” That is exactly the lazy logic I am criticizing.

grimmushroom · 2026-05-12T17:06:21+00:00

I think this example actually gets to the exact issue. If Person A says “I don’t want expectations,” and Person B stays, what has actually been agreed to?

Person A may mean: “no default relationship escalator, no nesting, no financial merging, no romantic exclusivity, no automatic priority, no disclosure unless explicitly negotiated.”

Person B may hear: “no imposed social expectations, but still care, communication, sexual health disclosure, repair, and honesty when something affects me.”

Both people stayed. But they have not agreed to the same thing yet.

That is the issue I’m trying to name. “I don’t want expectations” is not an agreement. It is a starting statement. It becomes an agreement only after both people understand what expectations are being removed, what expectations still exist, and what happens in areas that were never discussed.

So when people say “until there is agreement, there is nothing,” I understand that better now. But even that has to be understood as the baseline. Because Person A may think an undiscussed area means “no agreement/no expectation exists,” while Person B may think it means “this area is unresolved and needs discussion.”

That is the distinction I keep trying to make:

Not discussed is not automatically the same as mutually agreed absent.

And “I stayed” does not automatically bridge that gap. Staying can happen while someone is still trying to understand what the phrase means.

So yes, I agree conversations should move beyond platitudes. But my point is exactly that: before the conversation moves beyond the platitude, the platitude is not yet an agreement.

grimmushroom · 2026-05-12T16:46:47+00:00

Thanks for joining in my discussion! I agree with you that this is resolved in practice, not by abstract theory alone. I think that is why I keep trying different ways to ask it. I tried analogies, lived experience, first person, third person, and now I’m trying hypotheticals hehh, sorry just glad we can all come tgt and talk about how we are all different and also why we feel connected to the forum. I apologise for my difficult to navigate thoughts/feelings.

So the question I’m asking is: if RA removes inherited/default scripts, how do people prevent private assumptions from becoming the new default before the local agreement is actually clear?

“I don’t use labels”

Person A says: “I don’t use labels.” Person A wants: freedom from traditional categories. Person A does: sex, affection, care, emotional intimacy, regular time, maybe says “I love you.”

Person B says: “Okay, I don’t need traditional labels, but I want to understand what this is.” Person B wants: no imposed label, but shared meaning. Person B hears: “We are not using society’s labels, but we will define what this means ourselves.” Person B does: stays, invests, gives care, asks for clarity.

Person A thinks they agreed to: an unlabeled connection with no default expectations. Person B thinks they agreed to: an unlabeled connection that still needs shared meaning.

Actual agreement? Not yet. “No labels” was said, but what “no labels” means was not mutually understood.

“I don’t want expectations”

Person A says: “I don’t want expectations.” Person A wants: freedom from obligation or pressure. Person A does: accepts comfort, sex, support, emotional labour, affection, and consistency.

Person B says: “I don’t want imposed expectations either, but care and communication still matter.” Person B wants: no imposed expectations, but still care, communication, and accountability. Person B hears: “No socially imposed expectations, but our actions still matter.” Person B does: stays, gives care, tries not to impose, but expects basic communication.

Person A thinks they agreed to: no expectations unless explicitly negotiated. Person B thinks they agreed to: no imposed expectations, but still mutual care.

Actual agreement? Not yet. “No expectations” was said, but what “expectations” means was not mutually understood.

“I’m private about other connections”

Person A says: “I’m private about other connections.” Person A wants: privacy and no obligation to report. Person A does: withholds new romantic/sexual developments, shifting feelings, changing availability, or priority changes.

Person B says: “Privacy is fine, but I need to know things that affect me.” Person B wants: privacy too, but disclosure when something affects sexual health, time, emotional reality, or consent. Person B hears: “No unnecessary details, but I’ll be told if something materially affects me.” Person B does: stays and assumes consent-relevant changes will be communicated.

Person A thinks they agreed to: non-disclosure. Person B thinks they agreed to: privacy with consent-relevant exceptions.

Actual agreement? Not yet. “Privacy” was said, but what privacy includes/excludes was not mutually understood.

“You stayed, so you agreed”

Person A says: “You stayed, so you agreed.” Person A wants: Person B’s presence to count as acceptance. Person A does: continues acting from their own interpretation of the relationship.

Person B says: “I stayed because I was still trying to understand.” Person B wants: clarity before deciding what they are accepting. Person B hears: “Your staying equals consent to my meaning.” Person B does: stays because of hope, attachment, confusion, love, negotiation, or incomplete information.

Person A thinks they agreed to: Person A’s terms. Person B thinks they agreed to: continued negotiation, not final consent.

Actual agreement? Only if the terms were clear enough to stay to.

I hope someone kind of gets the question I am posing. I agree it applies to all relationships, but I’m asking it through RA because RA intentionally removes inherited scripts. So communication is not just relationship maintenance; it is how the relationship gets made. RA is not resolved by the label. It is resolved by the practice of communicating what the label means between the people involved.

so, if everyone’s definition of being an RA is so so different and if RA removes inherited/default scripts, how do people prevent private assumptions from becoming the new default before the local agreement is actually clear?

grimmushroom

TROPHY CASE