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.

Accountability & Scheduling

Who am I accountable to? In my life, there are:

Boyfriend #1 + his girlfriend + her boyfriend
Boyfriend #2 + his girlfriend + her husband
Girlfriend #1 + her boyfriend
My children + their father

So those +'s are people I'm theoretically not directly accountable to. And the boyfriends are not directly accountable to the partners of their other girlfriends. But it just doesn't always work out that way. And often, in my life, I land up being the one who checks in with *everyone* when we're making plans - or at least reminds my partners that I can't take a plan as confirmed until they've checked in with their 'chain of accountability'. You have to wonder how we get anything done.

And this is why, this weekend, we'll be inaugurating a (hopefully) weekly scheduling meeting for as many of us as are able and willing to make it. We're basing it on this article, which gives a lot of handy ideas, including ways for us to include the people who live out of town and can't always be present. Afterwards, we'll have pizza and play games. So it's a playdate as well as a meeting. Setting that up required about 8 messages, and I'm pretty sure the boyfriends didn't actually check in with their other girlfriends before agreeing to it (not so bad, since neither of them have plans with those girlfriends for Sunday afternoon). This means, of course, that either or both of the girlfriends won't be there, which is not great but at least we can get this thing off the ground. Because we need to. I'm now up to 5 out of 7 nights in a week booked as date nights. Add busy jobs and other projects in to that, for myself and the others, and it starts to look a bit crazy.

Because at the end of the day, I'm accountable to everyone in my relationship circle. I'm entitled to expect that my partners will be accountable to their partners, and will maintain open, honest communications with everyone. But if I'm not taking the needs of others into account when I'm advocating for my own needs (and vice versa), we're all going to land up too stretched. I need to remember, if I want or need to change date night with my girlfriend, that her boyfriend may have plans for them that night. Plans he might not even yet have mentioned to her because he's entitled, to some extent, to expect that our date night stays the same from week to week. And I have to check with Boyfriend #1 that he's ok that I'm moving that date to a night we often treat as an 'informal' date night. In case he was making a list of 'new house tasks' I might help him with that night.

Sounds like so much work, doesn't it? It kind of is. Check out how many date nights I get, though. <smiles> As Boyfriend #2 recently noted, just because we are the kind of people to whom the emotional/ romantic side of poly comes very naturally, doesn't mean we have to do less work at the day-to-day logistics stuff. It just means we are really committed to doing it, because these relationships make us happy. And they really do.

Poly Playdates & Focus

So that last post was about the focus problem, and how I was having trouble last week. Well, the remarkable girlfriend reminded me that when we're stretched a bit thin, the poly playdate can be a real lifesaver. Instead of trying to find space for kids and boyfriend and girlfriend (plus the social engagements we had this weekend), we all got together and made nachos and watched a fun movie. I had the very great pleasure of having most of the people I love and want to spend my time with all in the same room, laughing and eating and having a good evening, and I feel loved and rejuvenated. And excited to see Boyfriend #1, who is back this evening from his time away visiting with his parent.

Moving on in

Continuing with the changes in my life: in a few months, I will be moving in with Boyfriend #1. In many ways, this is simply a practical choice. We've found that it's frankly a pain in the ass for us to keep travelling back and forth to each other's houses. It cuts into our time. When we have tasks we need to do at our respective homes, we have to fit them around the times that we're spending out of those homes, and the time that the other one is in our home. Though we've been together so long, we still tend to spend our time together sitting chatting (or, yes, in bed). So, two to four nights a week and often at least one weekend afternoon, neither of us can get anything done because we want to be in the same space and that means, essentially, a date.

That's a big chunk of our time. And with being poly already requiring a certain amount of time-management, it gets silly. Now that we both have other partners, we realised we either have to give up some of our evenings together to fit in other dates *and* household errands (not to mention that both of us actually require alone time to recharge), or come to a better arrangement.

So, we move in together. This raises all sorts of questions about whether he will be, or actually already is, my "primary".

I dislike the terms "primary" and "secondary". I dislike the idea of hierarchical relationships. And I know, both philosophically and because I've lived through it, that relationships are prone to change.

Sometimes small change - patterns and habits developed over years are disrupted for many reasons. For example, a partner who once worked from home and was always available may get an office job and the dynamic changes. Emotionally, relationships ebb and wane to some degree. We go through periods of wanting to be together every free moment, and periods of being quite content to see one another a couple of times a week (still loving one another, just having other things we're concentrating on, and secure in the knowledge that this ebb and wane is natural and will ebb, or wane, again).

And big change happens. When #1 and I got together, I lived with my husband and children and we believed (#1 and I) that we would never live together, probably never even be able to go away on holiday as a couple. Sometimes people have to move for work, or switch from flexi-hours to working long hours that make them tired and unavailable for long periods.

Are we supposed, in times like that, to hold "secondary" partners at arms length? Are we supposed, during a waning period in one relationship, to artificially induce or hold back an ebb in another relationship so as to give one the "upper hand"? It's silly.

That said, Boyfriend #2 and I have been discussing this. We like to talk semantics. He's rather opinionated on the use of inappropriately generalised or unusefully specific terms, and both of us feel it hampers much of the material available for poly support. Yet there aren't 'better' ways to describe things, at this point. Which doesn't mean that terms like 'primary' and 'secondary' should remain in use. Merely that we need to work harder to describe the differences in relationships that occur in the poly lifestyle. And, because of course every relationship, and every set of relationships, will have its own quirks, restrictions, experiences, that's a pretty hard task.

So, here are some questions I'll be exploring over the coming while:

1. Can we really say "I love you all equally"? Does it make sense in the context of length of relationship, time spent together, and that quality of familiarity and comfort that comes from the combination of the above?
2. How do we describe the difference between a relationship that is still growing and evolving rapidly (as happens in the first year or two, say) and a relationship that is long-standing and stable, without reverting to hierarchic terminology?
3. How do we describe the difference between the relationship I have with the partner with whom I share my most private space (a master bedroom) and the partner with whom I spend a lot of time, including some nights of the week, but with whom I do not officially share that private space?
4. How do we describe the difference between either of those two and the relationship I have with the partner who is also a major part of my family but who lives elsewhere with another partner with whom she shares her most private space?
5. How do we decide, whether we are in or out of the poly closet (though in the case of out it's slightly easier), which of those partners attends work and family functions?
6. How do we ascertain, or examine, the difference in quality of time spent with partners who have official 'date nights' and the partner with whom we share the day-to-day comforts of a long-term live-in relationship? How do we value both?
7. How do we make decisions, if we want to make a family, about who should be included in the living arrangements and how they are included?
8. How do our partners' other partners, existing and possible future, fit into these arrangements? 
9. And, so very much not least, is it extremely important to work all this stuff out? And if we even work it out to some degree, isn't it likely to evolve, just as our relationships evolve?

Next in my current blogging spree: Girlfriend #1-and-only and the year of making it happen.

Poly with kids

My daughter had a friend over today. Her friend is a lovely girl a little older than her. When she got out of the car (we dropped her at home), my daughter said, "She was very nervous to meet you." I asked why, and pointed out how delightful and charming I am. Why would anyone be scared of me? "Well," said the daughter, "she's quite shy. But also she knows your friend who reads your blog and they have talked about polyamory. She's very interested in it."

Yikes. That was my immediate reaction. I quickly checked in that the friend is fine with this, and reminded my daughter that not everyone is as open-minded or smart as her friend. And that's pretty much the day-to-day. My kids are fine. They, like any other kids of divorced parents who get on reasonably well, would like if their father and I were still together. Aside from that, and understanding that we simply aren't going to get back together, they would just like us both to be happy. If we're happy, we're nicer to be around.

My daughter is at an age where the fact that I'm poly and bi makes me cool, rather than weird. I worry slightly that she'll make life choices based on coolness rather than considered thought. But then I think I've done my best to make sure can think for herself, and is brave enough to make choices that are right for her rather than what her parents want or society expects (which are not mutually exclusive but not necessarily always in step). My son tends to think I'm weird, but he, too, sees my choices as valid and acceptable.

As far as my children are concerned, my being poly means there are more people around who care about them, and about me, and provide us with support, love and plenty of fun. I am honest with them about my relationships, and about their ups and downs. I hope that they are learning that all relationships are different, and that there are ups and downs in all of them, and that these things can be dealt with. I hope that they are learning that we can't predict how our life is going to go, but we can be kind to ourselves and to others, and sometimes that takes us to interesting places. I don't know for sure. Parenting is quite a hit and miss affair most of the time. My kids seem nice. People seem to like them. So I guess it's going ok so far.

Practically, poly life is easier when the kids are away with their father part of the time. There's only so much time and energy in a day, and kids are demanding. I probably wouldn't be able to sustain the number of partners I have if the kids lived with me full-time. On the other hand, if I got my dream of having all my partners, and their partners, living together in one (really big) house, there'd be lots of people to fetch and carry and feed and entertain and otherwise help out with the kids...

And then there's the issue of being outed by your kids. Many poly folk I know live 'semi-out' at best. For many reasons, not least because it gets boring having to explain things to people all the time, I tend to not be out to the whole world. And, certainly, kids, especially young teens, can be wildly judgemental. My kids have already encountered backlash at declaring themselves atheists. I can imagine they'd get a lot worse if kids (and parents) knew their mom had several partners, not all of whom are guys. So we talk about keeping it quiet. Also, it's my private life. There's no need for all the kids at school to know about it. But still, things will happen. Some kid will be friends with someone I know who reads my blog and has mentioned it to them. That'll happen more as the kids get older. And that's ok. As they get older they have to start making life choices. And if their choices are better informed and they have more open minds about their options, and they know that whatever they do they should respect themselves and those they are involved with, then I've done my job well and I don't care who knows it.

My kids are awesome, and I have a great relationship with them. And their father is a remarkable man, who is happy to have them involved in my poly lifestyle as long as they know it's not the only option (which of course it isn't). I think everyone thinks their own kids are awesome. Whether they're emotionally and psychologically prepared to know about your being poly or about your sexuality depends on what you've taught them as they've grown up. And on how honest you are prepared to be with them. You've got to be straight with them. Don't beat around the bush. Obviously, I don't discuss my sex life with my kids, but if they ask me if I'm having sex with a particular partner, I'll tell them. If they ask me how to open a condom packet, I'll tell them that too. Wouldn't have told them that when they were seven, but they'll need to know if, if not now then within too few years. Condom packets can be surprisingly difficult to open, especially if you're nervous.

The caveats would be the same, I think, if I were mono: don't introduce someone new as your partner if you're not sure they're going to stick around. Don't put up with people who have no respect for your children or your relationship with them, no matter how cute they are. Don't force your children to spend time with someone they're ok with but don't have a great time with. And don't expect any of your partners to parent your children unless and until the relationship between the two of you is at a stage where that becomes part of your lives together.

Take it slow, be honest and everyone will be fine. Poly doesn't hurt kids. Bad relationships, of any stripe, do. But you knew that already.