Poly Practise

I checked, when typing the title of this post, that I had the right form of practise. Because, you know, you could have poly practice. One is the repeated exercise of an activity in order to become better at it. The other is a customary, or habitual practice. You see where I'm going with this?

Five years, now, I've known that poly is right for me. I'm not defined by my polyamory, but I'm sure as hell shaped by it. And it has had, and continues to have, a big impact on how I live my life. And every day is a new adventure.

So I went from a husband and kids and a couple of weird overly invested friendships to a husband and kids and a boyfriend. And then to separated from my husband but still with my boyfriend. And then two boyfriends. And then divorced, with kids and two boyfriends and a girlfriend. All in the last five years. Much of it in the last two years. And now I'm gearing up to move in with both boyfriends. Whhhooooo. This all feels like it's maybe moving too fast. Evolving too fast. Somehow, we seem to be pulling it off. It really helps that all my partners are very committed to making poly work, and that we have similar poly relationship styles. It really helps that we are all willing to self-examine, and to talk, and to work at it. It really helps that we're all willing to practise.

See what I did there?

One day, probably, it'll feel easy and natural to check in with everyone before making plans. One day it'll be habit to spend time together or one-on-one, all within the same house. One day we'll be really good at supporting and loving each other and also giving each other personal space. One day we'll feel like we've made this family something as awesome as we can see now it can be. For now, it's practise. Working at it. Learning new things all the time and practising them, or discarding things that we've realised are not working as well as we'd like.

And, actually, I'm good with that. It feels good that we practise. And it feels good that, even when some things are habit, other things will still need practise. I feel like that's one reason, actually, why being poly works well for me. Prevents stultification. Keeps us on our toes. Reminds us that relationships do grow, and evolve, always, and they require attention. Not always work. Work sounds hard, doesn't it? But attention. Care. Practise.

End Goal

I've been reading a lot of Kimchi Cuddles lately. Loving it so much I can't actually express. It's like at least every third panel I'm going 'Yes! Yes that makes so much sense, I love you Tikva, can I marry you and have your babies?'. Well, maybe not, but can I love you forevermore?

Which brings me to the point of this post. Can I marry you and have your babies. Kimchi talks about the Relationship Escalator. We're trained from quite young that the way relationships go is you're monogamous, and there's a progression. Meet, date, date exclusively, move in, marry, children. Happily ever after. (That's the training, not the reality.) Depending on what you're taught, sex happens around the date exclusively mark. For some, they're taught that sex does not happen until you're married. That is one I've been trying to wrap my head around. It's the biggest load of bollocks I can imagine. It's so absurd to me that, when recently pressed, I couldn't even bother to argue why it's bollocks. I just tried to elucidate it for this blog but frankly I can't be arsed. If you actually think that marriage is some kind of magic point at which sex becomes sacred or the relationship is somehow exempt from ever ending, or, worst of worst, that women who are not 'virginal' are somehow not valuable enough to make a marriage-style commitment to... Ugh. That makes me puke in my mouth a little. And don't even get me started on how 'virginity' is defined in that setup. If you think that penis in vagina sex defines virginity, or defines sex, or the bit I got sidetracked from when I said 'if you actually think' before, then you probably shouldn't be reading this blog, because I'm sure to offend you.

Why, why, why? What is that shit? Why do we ask 'where is this going?' Why would someone who's been sort of long-distance dating one of my partners for roughly three months, and actually been in the same space with him about four times in that period, ask him if he would consider ever actually getting married (subtext: to her) and why oh why would that be a dealbreaker, especially so early in the relationship? Ok, to be fair to her, the ultimate dealbreaker was this poly business. It's pretty tough, when your end goal is get married, have sex, make babies, to build that relationship while one partner is having a happily sexual relationship with someone else. If I was trying on celibacy for a bit, I'd find it super-difficult to have one of my partners doing the naughty with someone else. Mainly because I'd keep imagining it and getting all hot and horny and that makes it hard to stay celibate. I'm digressing, again.

But ffs. It makes me cringe that there are people for whom this is the actual relationship model. I mean, I have absolutely no problem with two (or three or four...) people waking up one day and going 'you know what, I love you and this shit is totally working between us. Let's have a big-ass party and get presents and tell the whole world we want to be together all the time. While we're at it, let's do it legally too, cause that solves a whole bunch of practical issues.' But people who enter into a relationship with 'it's either marriage potential or it isn't, and if it isn't, I'm out'? Wow. How many awesome awesome relationships are they missing out on? How much chance to learn so much about themselves and who they are in a relationship and how to do this dance we call romance? How much heartbreak and heartmend do they miss, and how much do they cause?

To be clear (yeah, because that rant above was super-clear): it's a great idea to examine your relationships and how they make you feel and whether the space they're in is a healthy one for everyone, etc. It's a great idea to allow relationships to grow and evolve and change. It's just a really really stupid idea to expect them to evolve in a particular direction. They won't. They'll do their own thing, as they should. And if you're focused on that one direction, you're going to miss the total amazingness that is the multiple other directions they might or do go in. And I'm not all that and a snackwich.... I sometimes miss those bits, and I sometimes fall prey to the old narrative and wonder where a relationship is going. And I'm perfectly aware that I've lived that narrative.. I've been married and had kids and I speak from a place of knowing just what a big fat lie that narrative is, and for someone much younger and more hopeful my knowledge is just sad cynicism.

Grab the rainbow, kittens.... Stay off the escalator and just live the relationship. There ain't nothing wrong with commitment, but there ain't nothing wrong with living in the day either. In the immortal words of my beloved bestie: Life is too short to worry about it. Life is long, all things will come around.

Yes, but you...

I've had a lot of conversations that go like this:

Me: I'm feeling unhappy about this thing that you are doing/ have done.
Partner: Yes, but you did/ do that thing too.
Me: <blank>

What's going on in my head:

• I'm trying to talk about my unhappiness and how I might be able to resolve it and what I can reasonably ask you to do to help me resolve it. That's now been derailed into a blame game.
• If I did/ do that thing, does it make you unhappy like it makes me unhappy? If so, why didn't you mention it before now?
• If it doesn't make you unhappy, that's good. But it makes me unhappy, so I need to talk about it.
• Are you even listening to me? This is not a game of 'who's being an asshat?'. It's about the fact that I need to resolve something that makes me unhappy. I'm not saying you're a bad person for doing the thing. Or even that it's a bad thing. Just that it doesn't work for me.

What I do:

I change the subject. Or I just shut down. Because I hate being an asshole, and I know that I sometimes am. Especially when it comes to relationships. Especially when it comes to managing multiple relationships. And I'm super-sensitive about it. Which kind of makes me an asshole, I know. My partners should be able to talk to me about when I'm being a twit without me going all sensitive and weird on them. I'm working on that.

But I don't think I'm being an asshole when I try to express what's making me feel unhappy or uncomfortable. I think if I don't express that, and talk it through and work it out, I'm likely to behave like a great big hat-wearing ass because I haven't dealt with the issue. I think it's tedious that this conversation pattern is re-entering my life. It happened a lot with my ex, and it's happening again. And this blog post is kind of me working out how I'm going to explain to my current partner/s why it's a bad conversation pattern. And I really think it is, for any relationship. I think maybe a better pattern would be something like:

Me: I'm feeling unhappy about this thing that you are doing/ have done.
Partner: Ok. Let's talk about why it makes you unhappy and see if it's something you can fix or something you need my help to fix. And then could we talk a bit about how you do something quite similar, and how my response to that is different to your response to this? Maybe that would also help us to figure out how to handle this issue?

(Writing down imaginary dialogues somehow always turns them into extremely formal-sounding conversations I would never have. Obvs I don't talk like that in real life, and my partners definitely don't, but I think the point is clear, no?)

What do you think, kittens? Anyone have any handy links or advice on this issue?