Growing Pains

I know it’s been a while since I updated. I recognize that there’s no way that I’ve covered everything, but I’ve been at a loss as to what to talk about. Some people, however, have requested that I talk about how I adjusted to the poly lifestyle. I have touched on this, but I don’t think that I’ve focused on it as a topic in and of itself. So here we go.

As I’ve mentioned before, my husband and I have been together for a long time. Going on 14 years in fact (nine of which we’ve been married). The first decade of our relationship, we were monogamous, although I had thoughts of polyamory (see second blog post for entirely too much detail). We kind of fell into a triad in July 2015.

(I love Eddie Izzard.)

My husband had had swinger-y thoughts in the past, while I’d had the polyamorous ones. So us haphazardly becoming a part of a triad came about when I had agreed to a foursome with a couple, lost my nerve, and half of the couple said, “How about we try a relationship?” My husband and I thought on it, but we honestly didn’t do much talking about it. I was excited over the concept because I’d been wanting to do something like this for so long, and my husband was the hesitant one, but we jumped in head-first.

And once everything began, it was surreal. I had a girlfriend. For the first time since high school. Only this one wasn’t going to break up with me for getting mad at her for lying to me about not being able to sneak away from class to see me at lunch (because she totally did it for her boyfriend the very same day, y’all—so yeah, a polyamorous relationship in high school too, but very brief, and we didn’t know the term). I was giddy about that. But I felt squeamish over my husband’s giddiness. I knew that this wasn’t “fair” because why should I be giddy but not him? I recognized this. I felt it all the same though.

I did what you’re supposed to do about it, which is acknowledge it. I talked to my partners. I told them that I was uneasy, that I knew that I “shouldn’t” be jealous and to please forgive me for that because I didn’t want to feel the things that I felt.

And they were totally understanding. They explained to me (mostly my girlfriend, but my husband had immersed himself in the literature) that it’s not that I “shouldn’t” feel jealousy. A myth about polyamory is that you’re too evolved for such a base emotion. I was pointed to a lot of resources to help myself through this.

I’ll spare you the trouble of seeking it all out. It all says that jealousy is a valid emotion and that communication is key. I wasn’t satisfied with these findings though because I was searching for some magical advice to rid myself of the jealousy. Unfortunately, no such advice exists. All I could do though is acknowledge it, communicate it, and work through it.

Which is hard.

But it gets easier, I swear. I still battle with jealousy (see, um, other blog posts where I mention this). Not sure if that’s comforting or not. On the one hand, I can see it being unhelpful for those seeking a way to remedy themselves of this inconvenient emotion. On the other hand, it can be helpful to know that you’re not alone and that nothing is wrong with you.

Like I said, I worked through it by talking to my husband and my girlfriend. And by doing so, I learned the source of my jealousy, which is what you’re supposed to do. For me, my jealousy came from (1) the fear that my husband would care more for our girlfriend than he did for me and would leave me, and (2) having thoughts of not being “enough,” because he was with someone else. It’s faulty/hypocritical logic because by that logic, he wouldn’t be “enough” for me either.

So to address the first point, because I said it first and because it’s just easier, he wasn’t going to leave me for our girlfriend. So how to handle this fear? Address it, and if it happened to be the case of him notgiving me enough attention, then he could do so. (That was rarely the case, but we handled this by having “radio silence” one night a week, when we would put away our phones for a few hours in the evening, in order to ensure that we had quality time together). And if he was giving me enough attention (which was the norm), then I could just say, “Hey, if I’m acting weird, here’s why, but I’m working through it because I know that we’re fine.”

As for that second part about not being “enough,” it’s complicated. You have to think about what polyamory is. You don’t need to put all your eggs in one basket. I have an analogy, and hopefully it comes out right. People often think of themselves as puzzle pieces in monogamy, looking for that one piece that completes them. But—-well, first of all, set aside that notion that you’re incomplete, because you’re not. You’re a whole person all on your own. But to continue with the idea of puzzle pieces: for polyamory, different people meet different needs. So imagine multiple puzzle pieces. Just don’t think of yourself as an end piece (although even with an end piece, you still connect with more than one piece to the puzzle).

Admittedly, this is a hard concept to grasp, and it took me a long while to get it.  Over time, I chilled over the idea of my husband being happy with our girlfriend and even felt compersion over the two of them going on dates (reminder: to have compersion is to feel happiness over your partner’s happiness being with another partner). But then I felt jealousy and uncertainty again when my husband began dating someone else in 2016. This story gets complicated and is honestly for another time if I am to discuss it in greater detail, but the relevant pieces are that this was another step outside of our comfort zone.

See, the thing about my husband and I being in a triad was that we were growing together in a sense. And then I began to date our girlfriend’s husband, but even so, we were still somewhat together because our polycule changed gradually, with my boyfriend-at-the-time going from metamour (partner’s partner) to partner. But when my husband got a new girlfriend, she was completely outside of our polycule, which was an altogether new experience. To add to the newness, our husband and I had begun our journey into polyamory as hierarchical, which is to say that my primary relationship was with my husband, whereas my secondary relationships were with my other partners. Everyone was on the same page about this, as my other partners were primaries to each other, and they considered their relationships to me as secondary as well.

However. With my husband’s new girlfriend-at-the-time, he came to me and said that he felt that she and I were on equal footing. Which threw me for a loop because, like I said, we were hierarchical at the time. I went back to feeling that I wasn’t “enough.” I didn’t understand how someone he had known for less than a couple of years and had dated for less than three months could be as important to him.

Which was hypocritical of me because I had started developing some hardcore feelings about my boyfriend, but I felt guilty about them and was trying to deny them to myself.

But also? I’m honestly ashamed at the phrasing I have to use to explain how I felt at the time. I don’t want to knock hierarchical polyamory as a whole, but a problem with it is that it implies that other relationships are not as important (I mean, look at what I said before). And by that logic, people are not as important. But people are people. People are not expendable. And I know at the time that I did not feel that our secondary relationships were expendable, at least not on the surface. But when push came to shove, that was what I had been feeling underneath, at least when it came to this new person. The relationships challenged my perspective and my beliefs.

Between that and some other issues that I would rather not get into because now is not the time, the relationship between my husband and his girlfriend brought forth a multitude of challenges to our dynamic. Out of all the negatives though, one positive was that I learned about egalitarian polyamory. I learned to no longer deny the feelings that I had for other partners and slowly began to shirk off the guilt of having said feelings.

It’s complicated when I try to explain our dynamic now. I see hierarchical and egalitarian as more of a spectrum than as an either/or. I don’t see my other relationships as secondary, but with my husband, he is my nesting partner (which means we live together), our finances our intermingled, and we raise two children together. So sometimes, these things have to come first. Arguably however, that’s not hierarchical polyamory because that’s not me choosing my husband as a primary but my family as a whole. Could be a case of potato/poh-tah-to.

So to review: at the beginning of polyamory, I was riddled with jealousy. Now? It’s a passing emotion that I acknowledge. For the most part, I recognize it for what it is and don’t bother telling my partners unless I think that it may seriously be bogging me down. Even so, it’s more to explain why I might be “off” because I get the attention that I need from my partners, so I recognize that what needs to happen is a change in perspective. Or a distraction. So I have been focusing on my hobbies, like writing, making music (I’ve been goofing with some apps lately), reading (I have two books I’m reading concurrently), walking, and eventually running (is the plan at least). We began our dynamic as hierarchical and are now more egalitarian. People are people and are not disposable. It’s kind of common sense, but feeling threatened can challenge what you think you believe.

To review even further: change is scary. But we can learn to confront our fears. I’m thankful that I did because while the first couple of years of polyamory were an emotional rollercoaster for me (mostly the second year honestly), this last year has been amazing, and I wouldn’t have any of it if I had cut and run.