Why anonymous? Because I’m not ready to tell everyone. I have told a fair number of people, including my mother, who did not even bat an eye at the idea, which is kind of amazing because she’s selectively old-fashioned about things but witnessed the sexual revolution, so. She sort of has polyamory confused with swinging though, which is just another branch of ethical non-monogamy. Which I suppose I can explain a bit further.
But first I want to finish (or start?) answering the question of why I wish to be anonymous. While I have told my mother, one of my brothers, and a large portion of my Facebook friends via a filter I created, I know that a lot of my family would not understand. For example, my father would not approve, but he would let me live my life. However, he can’t keep a secret for the life of him, and so the secret would spread like wildfire through my family, and I would be overwhelmed by tirades about my soul being at risk and my marriage being in danger due to my inability to close my legs or some such nonsense. I would like to avoid all of that. Some argue that it does not matter what other people think, which--okay, is true, but it does matter to me. Also, my lifestyle is not pertinent to their lives, so to go out of my way to out myself at the next family gathering in between the Lord’s Prayer and passing the mashed potatoes would be for my benefit and mine alone. Our lives rarely intersect, and so this is not information that they would require. If that changes, then perhaps my viewpoint on telling my family will change.
Okay, so ethical non-monogamy. Perhaps I should capitalize that. Ethical Non-Monogamy. It’s what it sounds like. Being ethical about not being monogamous. Which means that this is not at all synonymous with cheating, which many folks believe. Under the umbrella of Ethical Non-Monogamy, there are three branches, which are Polyamory, Swinging, and Open Relationships. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure of the difference between Polyamory and Open Relationships, except that maybe one may have subtle changes? I don’t know. I could google it, but I’m choosing to focus solely on polyamory, as that is what I practice.
Have I always been polyamorous? Not really. That’s a weird answer, granted, but that’s because I have a complicated answer. So I’ll explain my polyamorous thoughts or actions prior to recognizing what it was:
(1) When I was in middle school (1995ish), I remember having a boyfriend I was into, but I was also crushing on another boy, who was crushing on me, but I knew I couldn’t date both, but I felt that things would be so much easier if I could. I didn’t though. This is a simple story that takes no time to read. As you will see, the stories become a bit more complex.
(2) In high school, I had an on-again/off-again relationship with a boy (well into college, actually), and I also had a brief on-again/off-again relationship with a gal (we broke up three times in the span of two months I think, so it was very brief). For a blip in time (1999), I was dating Gal, who was dating a dude, and I was dating Dude. Everyone knew about everyone and was totally on board. We didn’t know that it was called “polyamory,” but that’s what we were doing.
(3) Dude went off to basic training (this was in 2000), but prior to going, he told me that he felt that we should have an open relationship, since there’d be a lot of distance, and he wanted to make sure that I was okay. I initially said no to it because I felt it was unfair to him, since he was saying this would be for my benefit and not for him. However, communication with him was sporadic after he was stationed in Germany the summer of my high school graduation, and I serendipitously had met a fella who was slowly becoming smitten with me. So I reached out to Dude to see if we should reconsider the open relationship idea. It’s a long story as to why (I’d have to tell you about our dynamics as a couple and a couple of other backstories, and it’s just exhausting, so let’s skip it), but I was under the impression that he had approved of this notion, so Fella took me out on a date to see American Pie 2 the weekend before I started my freshman year of college. About two weeks into the relationship, we realized that we loved each other, and word got to me (through Dude’s mom) that Dude was not aware of my relationship with Fella. Not wanting to be unethical, I had a dilemma. However, in this instance, I actually broke up with Dude rather than Fella, because Dude had been letting me down a lot (the short version: Dude had the means to communicate with me and chose not to do it, and I wanted someone who would try, and I happened to have someone standing right in front of me who would.).
(4) Fella and I broke up after a couple of months. Dude and I got back together. Because I was a glutton for punishment. As you will probably learn in this blog if this goes in the direction that I think it will go. Dude and I were together for most of my college career. Near the end of the Dude Era (2004-2005 timeframe), we were in a purgatorial state of being with our dating dynamic, being more than friends but not a couple. Meanwhile, I had met another guy, who I eventually married. So Husband and I started dating, being more than friends but not really a couple. So I was seeing two people, and I was kinda liking it honestly. Husband wanted a monogamous relationship though, so I had to make a decision. And judging by the moniker I have selected for him, you can see how that went. (But the story behind that is so much more, but it’s an even longer story than the stuff I avoided telling you in #3. But know that it’s a pretty amazing story, and if you sit around with me long enough and have an hour to kill, and if you’re a fan of John Hughes films, then you’ll enjoy hearing it.)
(5) Husband and I were together for four years prior to getting married. I became super close friends with one of my exes a couple of years into my relationship with Husband, and I started to have strong emotions for Ex. I’m talking for years. And while he never officially stated it (nor did I), it was clear that he felt the same. We never acted on it, but I thought things like, “Why can’t I be with both of them?”
(6) While Ex and I dated in college (during one of the breaks with Dude in 2004), he introduced me to his roommate. I didn't know what kind of boring blanket name to give this guy, but he has requested The Yellow Dart. Anyway, shortly after Husband and I got married in 2009, The Yellow Dart and I reconnected through Facebook (who knew that people could use the site for what it was intended for?), and he told me about his polyamorous lifestyle. And we became good friends on an entirely unrelated note, but I began to also have the feels for The Yellow Dart pretty hard. However, I did not act on that either. But there were points in time when it ate away at me that I couldn’t.
So I have a fair number of moments in life that gravitated towards the notion. I remember one time in 2010-2011, I asked Husband what he thought of the idea of polyamory. I’m not sure how I phrased it. Maybe I was talking about some story that The Yellow Dart told me, and how I “couldn’t understand how anyone could have time for that sort of thing,” and then I asked him his opinion. He thought it was ridiculous, and I was like, “Oh, uh, yeah! Me too! Totally. >.>”
So how did that change? Weeeeellll…… While Husband was against the notion of polyamory, he was intrigued by the idea of having casual sexual encounters as a couple. I was terrified of this idea but also kind of interested. So we talked a lot about this sort of thing but, in actuality, did very little about it. And by “very little,” I mean that we hooked up with The Yellow Dart twice, once being with one of his girlfriends at the time. I was completely anxious the entire time, and I talked through a lot of it. Because that’s what I do. There were other times in which we almost had a random encounter with a person, but my fears overwhelmed me, and so we had to decline. This was the case in July 2015. We had recently befriended a married couple we had met through a mutual friend’s home (actually, she is now my girlfriend, but we can get to that later) during a game night. It had come to light that they were up for such shenanigans, and I had somehow managed to convince myself that I was a much more mature individual than I was years prior.
I was wrong.
Almost the instant that plans were cemented, I was terrified. I chatted with the wife throughout the week prior to The Weekend, in hopes of being more comfortable, but when the time came, I just freaked out and apologized over and over again (like I do). The wife swore it was fine, that we could take it slow and try again some other time. The husband said that even if it never happened, it would be okay because he would be fine with all of us simply being friends. I was surprised that they had taken it so well. It had come up a time or two after that weekend, but I was still nervous, so the wife said that, if it would make things easier, we could have a relationship and see how that went. So I talked with Husband to see what his views were about it. And then he and I were in a triad with the wife. The plan, for me, was to eventually feel comfortable with the husband and date him too, but I scrapped those plans for a while. Until about a year later. But that’s a story for another time, because I just wanted to get to the part where I became actively, knowingly polyamorous.
Maybe the next topic will be how we got through being newbies.
No comments:
Post a Comment