Discovering Polyamory in a World of Prince Charmings

Sometime in the space of the months after I moved out of the house I’d shared with my husband, I became the kind of person who had discussions about energy exchange. This led to a sunny, lazy afternoon in bed ending with a conversation about how lovely it had been. I can still recall with complete clarity the moment they turned to me and said, “I like how open and laid back you are. You’re low maintenance, but not aloof.” I loved that description. It’s like a tagline. The all new Rachael. Low maintenance, but not aloof.

In those months, I rediscovered my hibernating libido- scratch that. I can’t call it a rediscovery if it was completely different than it ever had been. Suddenly, I had an appetite, a hunger, and a freedom I’d never imagined. It was incredible. I had always assumed, no, KNOWN, that there were other women out there prettier than me, skinnier than me, better than me. Suddenly, that wasn’t true.

I came to know myself, for the first time ever. I came to love myself in a fierce, righteous way I’d never experienced. My confidence and self-worth bloomed, and I opened up wide to the possibilities and joys the world had to offer me. I felt power, I felt love growing in my heart, soon it was a free-flowing tap that I never wanted to turn off.

One day, as if a switch had flipped, I had a new craving. At first, it felt almost impossible to put words to it. The phrase I eventually came up with was ‘intimacy without expectations.’ This was the headline of the Craig’s List ad I posted that led my boyfriend to me, and it was exactly what I wanted. What did it mean to me? That while I love sex, and I wanted it (a lot), I no longer ONLY wanted sex. I wanted connection. I wanted love.

I had been in love before, but this hunger was for something different.

I’d lived for years tasting one flavor, and now I knew that there were countless more. The love inside me had evolved, grown, morphed, and threatened to break over me like waves. I found people with whom I was able to give it freely without an expectation of a certain end result. I wanted intimacy, but I also wanted to LIKE the people who were giving me all those orgasms. I wanted to be friends, to connect, to laugh, to love, in whatever form that took.

Simultaneously, two incredible people came into my life. One was the man I’d eventually come to settle in, nest, and parent with. My relationship with him is amazing and nothing like anything I have had before. From the beginning, it’s been comfortable, close, and exciting. It began amorphous, and I struggled with the lack of definition, but it was also good for me and helped me grow.

The other was the friend I mentioned in the first paragraph. We met for lunch one day and over Belgian waffles, they lent me their copy of The Ethical Slut. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that book changed my life. I devoured it. I couldn’t stop reading. I marked page after page, passage after passage. And I FELT it, I had never read something that I identified so closely with.

Suddenly, there was a name for my feelings. This was an actual thing people did every day, experiencing love and connecting and caring for other human beings, and not limiting themselves. My mind was blown wide open, and at the same time I talked to my partner-to-be about his other relationships and what he was looking for, I delved into the idea of polyamory with my other new friend. I learned, and I absorbed, and it all made so much sense.

I began to think more about what society considers “a relationship,” and about what types of human connection work well for me. These non-traditional connections defied my attempts to label them, and that was a hard habit to break because our culture really loves labels. We’re always trying to figure out what things are, how to label people, how to label relationships. I suspect this has something to do with trying to fit things that are new to us into boxes we can understand because we’re afraid of the unknown. Perhaps it is because we are so used to being able to define things and we don’t like feeling like we don’t understand or control something.

We grow up and become ingrained with so many expectations of what things SHOULD be.

In movies, virgin princesses waits their whole lives for Prince Charming, and we pine towards this final culmination of romance. Meet one person, who is perfect for us. Fall in love with them (but don’t sleep with them!). Fall into a love so deep and profound that it would be totally TRAGIC if you were ever separated. Become exclusive and monogamous. Get married, have children, have sex with each other and only each other until you are old and grey and die. Happily ever after.

Reality check! This path does not work for everyone, so why aren’t we talking about it? We do what we know, and in this society, the “normal” that is commonly accepted is riding the relationship escalator. On OK Cupid, there are all of these questions that you answer to get your matches. One is: Which interests you more right now, sex or love? There are about a thousand answers that lie in between those, on a continuum of how connected you want to be to someone. Do we really have only two boxes, one for boning with no feelings involved and one for happily ever after?

What would happen if we removed these expectations? We could open up a whole new world of levels of relating to other people. People in this culture often look down on polyamory or non monogamous relationships. They think it’s weird. They think it’s strange. They don’t understand it, or have never heard of it. It’s taboo. But why? Why should we limit ourselves based on outdated expectations and one-size-fits-all endgames? Monogamy and marriage work sometimes, and they work for a lot of people. That doesn’t mean other things can’t work too.

The joy of discovering you are not alone in your experiences and feelings is sweet and powerful.

Many of the polyamorous people I have talked to since then have told me of having the same experience- of suddenly finding out that there was a word for what they were feeling, that this was an actual thing people do, and that it can really work for people.

My interest in the idea of non-monogamy settled gradually into the realization that polyamory is part of who I am. When I first began to identify as polyamorous, I was so excited that my feelings finally had a name. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops, but I knew that not everyone would understand. It was all very new, and I was aware that I had a lot left to learn. I began to be vaguely open about it to friends bit by bit.

Some of them understood, and others didn’t seem to, or didn’t seem like they wanted to. My Mom was one of the first to know, and she didn’t understand at first, but has become more comfortable and accepting over time. She is also just an amazing and supportive mother, so she is there for me no matter what. She was the first one I told about the fact that the guy I was seeing already had a long-term girlfriend, and that we were all okay with this.

I told one of my best friends and my cousin after a few months of contemplation. My friend was extremely receptive and loving and hugged me and told me she was so glad I was finding myself, but my cousin… she was not un-supportive exactly, she just didn’t understand. Her reaction was “doesn’t that just make everything more complicated?” She wasn’t wrong, that potential is there. Sometimes, dating poly is hard. But I have no doubt that the benefits outweigh those complications. I get more complexity, but I also get more love, and to share my love with more people.

All relationships get messy and complicated. Life is about how you handle it.

Being polyamorous doesn’t mean that I just sleep with whoever I want (though I also don’t think anything’s wrong with that- that’s a whole other post). It isn’t all about sex, it’s about the way I relate to people. It means I have partners and we have an agreement that we are not each other’s one and only, and between us we agree on what we want our relationship to be.

It also doesn’t necessarily mean I WILL always have more than one relationship. Life happens, transitions make things more difficult, and there isn’t always room for a lot of other partners. People come and go, and sometimes I may only be dating one person. There is a huge continuum of how poly relationships can work.

I’m lucky that in the area where I live, there is a pretty good community. I became involved in my local alternative/LGBTQAG community and led a monthly Polyamory discussion group for several years. Now, I help run the 4th Corner Polyamory Meetup group and attend discussion group meetings as often as I can. I’ve also found support online, built myself beautiful, safe, accepting pockets of wonderful people, and made amazing friends.

I’ve settled comfortably into having fewer expectations for my relationships. In romantic relationships, doors have opened, and as that’s happened I’ve found that I have the ability to form a wider variety of friendships as well. I connect with people more deeply, and it’s so nourishing to my heart and my soul. Sometimes, they become hard to define, but I’m okay with that. Labels are just words on a page and letting go of them can be freeing.

Being more open and accepting of myself and how I feel has led to me being more open and accepting of the world at large, and that is a very good thing.

I am happy. I have some seriously excellent relationships going on, ones I can’t define, and don’t want to define. They are what they are, and they are wonderful. They ebb and flow. I don’t know where I’m going, but who does? I can’t imagine ever being with just one person again, limiting myself, and trying to force someone to meet so many expectations and needs all on their own. This is not a phase. It’s not a choice I made, it is something that was inside of me all along. I am open. I am free, full of love. I am polyamorous.