Since I came out as polyamorous I have been getting a lot of questions, so here’s an attempt to answer some of them.
What exactly is polyamory?
Ans: It means to love more; to love more people at the same time. The only rule that all poly people agree on is this: you tell the truth to everyone involved. That means that everyone involved in the relationship, or relationships, knows about everyone else. I’ve negotiated with several wives about relationship parameters with their husbands before certain boundaries were crossed because to do any less than be totally upfront beforehand isn’t poly, it’s cheating, and true poly doesn’t cheat. If anyone is telling you they’re poly but they’re sneaking around behind someone’s back, then it’s not polyamory.
Some people allow sexual partners outside of their main relationship but no other emotional ties, others see all relationships as serious only, no just sex allowed. Some close their poly at three, or four, or however many. Closed poly is also referred to as poly monogamy which is just like regular monogamy except it includes more than two people. Some people who are part of the BDSM community will include long time play partners as part of their polyamory, even if that play partner is strictly kinky dungeon time with no actual sex involved. Others see play partners as more casual. Many poly people are not part of the bondage community and many in the community aren’t poly.
How do you bring up the topic of poly to your spouse or special person?
Ans: I’ve never had to do this, so I honestly don’t know. I can tell you how Jonathon and I brought up the topic to each other. Jonathon and I married with the idea that we would not be monogamous as a married couple. Since we’re celebrating our fifteenth wedding anniversary this year, it’s worked for us. We’ve managed to raise a great kid who’s now in college. Our empty nest turned into a decidedly full one when our girlfriend of four & a half years moved in with us and brought her husband along, so that our couple became a fourple. Again, it’s working for the four of us but your mileage may vary. Here’s a little bit of how we got to this happy multiple arrangement.
More than fifteen years ago when Jonathon and I realized we wanted to marry each other, we both had reservations; not about our love for each other, but what the next step was in that love. He’d never been married before and I’d just gotten out of a sixteen year marriage. That had convinced me marriage wasn’t for me and monogamy was definitely not something I wanted to try again, but I was in love with Jonathon and he was in love with me.
One day he said, “I’m not sure I want to tie myself down to just one person forever.”
I replied, “I’m not sure I want to be monogamous with anybody ever again.”
We sort of looked at each other, and if we’d gone the traditional route the relationship would have been over right there, because we were both so not ready for a monogamous relationship like traditional American marriage. I suggested that we marry with the possibility of adding other people to our sex life down the road. We didn’t have a plan for how to do it, and we didn’t know there was a word for what we were trying to accomplish. It was a fan at a signing that first introduced the word, polyamory, to us. We knew monogamy was not what we wanted, so we set out to find something else, something that worked for us as a couple.
I really can’t tell you how to bring up the idea of polyamory into an already existing monogamous relationship, because I’ve never done it.
One thing I do know is that polyamory isn’t a fix for a marriage that is already in trouble. If you’re relationship is in trouble, go to a marriage counselor, or to your local clergy. Go to someone that can help you work on your issues both as individuals and as a couple, because what I’ve found is that a couple’s issues are usually a mix of individual issues that have never been addressed and problems within the couple itself. This holds true whether it’s two, four, or more, involved in the relationship.
Poly is not a cure all for failing marriages, in fact, if the base relationship isn’t strong enough, poly can be the death knell because often the couple isn’t poly at all, they’re just unhappy. Poly won’t fix what’s wrong in the initial couple’s relationship, that has to be strong to begin with to add other people into the mix. Strength builds on top of strength; a weak foundation will bring down the house that’s built upon it, so first your foundation needs to be solid. Only then can you add more weight, and extra people, extra relationships, are more “weight”. You have to be ready for that weight, or it will crush you.
I’m being so adamant in the above because I get far too many people asking me about poly as a “cure” for a marriage that isn’t working. People say, they’re bored and want to bring up poly to their spouse so they can add spice to their marriage. Poly isn’t about adding spice to your relationship, poly is a lifestyle choice. It is a way of dating, forming a domestic partnership, making a family. It is not just an addition to add to your life like date nights, or lingerie.
I know this doesn’t answer all the questions we’ve been getting about polyamory, but I hope it at least answers some of the basic ones. I also hope that it puts to rest this idea that people have that poly is an easy fix for a flagging relationship, or that poly is some fancy word for cheating on your spouse, because it is the opposite of cheating and it is far from easy. Think about the time, effort, and work it requires everyday in any marriage, now think about multiplying that by a factor of two, or more, and that’s what polyamory is. Its totally worth it for those of us who are wired this way, but it’s not a choice to be made lightly and there’s nothing easy about adding extra people to any relationship. Good, solid relationships whether monogamous or polyamorous, are not for wimps.
The picture is of the joined hands of our foursome; Jonathon, Genevieve, Spike, and me.
