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Thirteen Things
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All About Me, boyfriend, polyamory, relationships, Thursday 13 | 
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Posted by mmkeekah
Today’s Quote:
Today’s Quote: “Polyamory scares people—it shakes up their world view.”
1 Comment | polyamory, relationships | Permalink
Posted by mmkeekah
In my last blog about polyamory, I spoke about how I was going to spend less time worrying if I was poly, worrying if my relationship fit the definition of poly and spend more time living and enjoying my life – which I am doing. But I still believe in the concept of polyamory. I spend a considerable amount of my online time supporting the online polyamorous community. I attend the polyamory functions that occur here in Denver, and I also still actively speak about poly to anyone who will listen really.
I also started spending more time in the swinging community – not as you would think (wink). But actually attending local meet and greets to get to know the people in “the lifestyle” as they like to call it. There are quite a few swinging groups in Colorado and most are active with parties at local clubs, bars, hotels and even at people’s homes. In particular, there is a local group where the women in “the lifestyle” get together monthly for a wine party – and their men attend a local men’s “support group” at the same time. The central theme to these parties isn’t to have sex, it’s to meet like minded folk who view sexuality and relationships differently than mainstream society.
What strikes me about these two groups is not just the similarity in their views on sex and relationship and how different it is from the “straight world,” but also how much they truly do not support each other in the alternative lifestyles they’ve chosen to live. When I’m in my polyamorists world, I spend a lot of time listening to the ways how poly is NOT like swinging. Some polyamorists will go, it seems to me, to any extent to proclaim how poly isn’t like swinging. They will even go so far as to talk about how many ways polyamory is so much better than swinging.
Then, I spend some time in the swinging world and listen to the other side disclaim polyamorists. While I’ve just gotten into talking to swingers about polyamory, most of what I hear is that dreaded “jealousy” word and how much folks who swing aren’t really into long term sharing. I’ve yet to hear anyone in the swinging world claim that their way is better than the poly way (the reserve that disdain for the straight world, sharing that view with the polyamorists). However, the sentiments surrounding sharing are a close second to that vein of thought in my book.
I guess it surprises me that either alternative lifestyle wouldn’t support the other given the fact that they are both alternative lifestyles. Both groups of folk seem to be seeking social and cultural acceptance from a society that holds marriage and monogamy as more important that individual wants and needs. It would seem to me that a united front would be a better way towards that goal than to hold each other with so little respect.
I shouldn’t be surprised though. I saw this in my life when I came out as bisexual back in the late 90′s. I experienced this from lesbian women who felt I was either pretending I still liked men because I couldn’t face wanting only women or who felt I was playing with lesbian’s minds because – in their eyes – I was either gay or straight. But I couldn’t be both. I saw this from gay men, whom I love and adore, who believe all men were gay and just pretending at being straight because of delusions or an inability to face who they were.
I don’t pretend to understand the human psyche and the need to prove one group better or more right than the other. It isn’t just a straight trait though. I feel and my experiences prove that this need is prevalent in all groups, in everyone – heck even in me at times (though my trait is a tendency to want to be right over anyone, which leads me to argue all sides of any argument – even to switch arguments in mid-stride if I feel I’m winning someone over to my side, go figure). I guess its ingrained in us to be the best, at any cost.
It’s sad though, that neither group can see that everyone loses in this situation.
I’ve spent a lot of time arguing (imagine that) with folks in the polyamory world about this “we’re better than swingers” mentality. I’ve talked about how, to me, polyamory and swinging have a lot in common – not necessarily in how they behave in relationships or how they love in relationships, or how they have sex in relationships – but in how we all are trying to live autonomously with integrity in ourselves and respect for our love partners. To me, that’s the central theme in both lifestyles. The path they each take to get there is different and yet their destination is eerily similar. I talk a good talk, but I rarely get anyone to listen. It’s too important to some folk that they not be viewed as polyamorists (or not be viewed as swingers) than to take a step back and honor the similarities instead of focusing on (and over-magnifying) the differences. Perhaps if we did so, we’d find a common ground to meet on and demonstrate how groups overcome silly, petty arguments.
Still I suppose I’ll keep trying. Just like I do on this blog with the straight world – I try to demonstrate that non-monogamists are not sex-crazed folks who refuse to grow up and take responsibility or refuse to form commitments. I try to show that, while polyamory is hard, it is possible and it is a viable alternative to the traditional views on relationships. Some would argue that traditional relationships don’t work any better than the alternative lifestyles; some might even say they fair worse. But that argument is not one I’m taking up here, and it’s not one I necessarily support.
Sometimes having the ability to see all sides and argue all sides isn’t all its cracked up to be. Sometimes it’s tiring. But I will keep fighting the good fight, even if it sometimes seems I do it only for the fact that I enjoy the debate.
4 Comments | All About Me, polyamory, relationships, sex, Swinging, Truths | Permalink
Posted by mmkeekah
A few weeks back, The Beautiful Kind asked me a question in response to my post about my break-up with N. I started to respond immediately, but then realized I was lacking the appropriate time and distance from my situation in order to respond as A Mon-Mon would respond.
TBK said:
I’m cleaning house this week on my blog and just went through and purged the Triad stories from my site. Made me think of you. Do you think the best model for poly is to have a primary partner, and date secondaries as they come, enjoying the time you have with them, but not expecting to form long term romantic relationships with them? That seems to be the style that works best for me. To me, poly is having the ability to to add romance or sex to the list of things you can do with your friends.
My gut reaction was to agree with TBK because J and I have found a way to be comfortable and secure in ourselves and each other, a way to work through the discomforts that sometimes come from an open relationship without letting it almost destroy what we have like we did when we dated K. But we can’t seem to make it work with outside people. The very thing that we took so long to build, this solid relationship, seems to be the one thing that feels threatening to those we are interested in. Still fresh from the breakup with N, which started out well but turned bitter and ugly quickly, well yeah I wanted to say, “Yes! I prefer the primary model and want only to date secondaries, knowing that those people will not be permanent fixtures in my life.”
But then I remembered that I don’t care for the terms primary and secondary when they are applied to real life people. It makes those people seem less important, almost throwaways without any rights. I just can’t sign off on that… especially when we both have other people in our lives who are really good friends and some of those are even lovers. People who might be viewed as secondary because they aren’t part of my primary relationship with J, who occupy the background for a variety of reasons but are hardly secondary to either of us. If they feel secondary, well that would suck as both J and I try so very hard not to put anyone in that spot. Yet neither of us has control of how people perceive what we offer, what we give and how we choose to look at love.
It is true that J and I are in fact primaries because we chose to share our lives together, our domicile is together and our money is pooled. We get along enough to occupy the same space and still strive to give each other the respect and autonomy each needs without losing the jointness of our lives. He’s a little bit better at that than me, but every year I grow a little more and appreciate the lessons this relationship teaches me.
It makes me sad to think that my relationship with J could be threatening to potential love interests – threatening for the very reason that J and I love each other so much. Apparently it is evident how much I adore the man and how much he returns that love by the look in his eyes. I feign annoyance but I guess people see right through me to the fact that I love Jeffery Zander very much.
What people fail to see is how much I would love to share my love for J with a special someone who can look past their own personal insecurities and focus instead on the faith I’ve found in our love. Maybe someday… but if not, well I will treasure what I have.
I got off track a little. But maybe not. Because for me polyamory is about sharing love. It’s about the ability to get past those insecurities that demand we be primary to our lovers, forsaking all others even when love might join more than two hearts. I don’t know if I will ever have a true polyamorous relationship and I don’t really care anymore. I just want to live life and enjoy what it sends my way. And if that means its just J and me, well then so be it. But I couldn’t ever subscribe personally to the primary/secondary model, though I respect that it works for some… like TBK a beautifully wild and sexy woman who’s found a Beast to honor her Goddess as she deserves.
I hope that answers your question, TBK, and I thank you for asking…
3 Comments | All About Me, polyamory | Permalink
Posted by mmkeekah
About a week after ending our triad, my gf let me know that I was being somewhat distant in my dealings with her. It wasn’t intentional – I tend to go inward when I’m dealing with a problem or struggling with how to deal with someone. It is a little off-putting when most of the time I’m the happy, go lucky, have fun, let’s love everyone kind of gal you usually know.
Still, I didn’t mean to close her out. I was just trying to deal with all these emotions I couldn’t really explain. I knew N wanted to keep things the way they were amongst the three of us, but I kept thinking, “she doesn’t want the triad,” which was a big way that the three of us all were. I was having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that she was still my girlfriend even though she broke up with me. But not really.
It was very confusing, and I guess for her too. We had many conversations about what led to her wanting to end the triad. And unfortunately none of them made her stance any clearer, especially when she shared that she’d been crying pretty much the whole time since the break-up. So we talked about what she needed, and she decided she needed some time to think things through.
A few days later, we all got together so she could talk to J and me. And she said she realized she was just running away because she was scared. Scared the relationship would work… scared she might fall in love… scared she might want to be a part of something. But when she thought it all through, she knew what she needed to do was give it a try. Try to work through the hard times instead of running at the first sign of hard work.
So we are still together. The triad is once again on. We spent a marvelous Christmas together and look forward to ringing in the New Year with each other.
Who knows? Maybe it will work out after all….
1 Comment | All About Me, boyfriend, ex-girlfriend, polyamory, relationships, share | Permalink
Posted by mmkeekah
I was talking to my cousin on email about the demise of yet another triad and he said to me, “It seems you and J keep dating people who aren’t familiar with polyamory and maybe you should consider keeping to people who are more experienced with poly.” There may be some truth to that but there are also these truths 1)even poly people have a hard time with poly, 2) the heart doesn’t work that way, and 3) there are a lot more “straight” folks out there than poly folk.
I don’t go out there looking for straight folk – especially not straight women – and yet I can’t help who I’m drawn towards or who returns my interest. In fact, it is very rare for me to be drawn towards just anyone. Even J, while finding many woman here in Denver attractive and funny, isn’t one to just fall in love with everyone.
It is even true that neither one of us was looking for anyone in particular when we met N. We just happened to both meet this funny, quirky, sexy lady camping this summer. And they had a definite “spark” going on between them, and I wasn’t threatened by it. I actually found her charming and attractive – and lo and behold she was intrigued by what she saw between Jeff and me and wondered if maybe she could be a part of it too.
It is so rare to find not only a physical connection but also a deeper connection that could lead to an emotional bond that will grow into a long term relationship with one person, let alone two people. So if it does happen, do you let it pass because one person isn’t familiar with a new relationship dynamic?
I certainly can see an argument for avoidance given the fact that my first triad bombed so tragically and horribly. And central to its demise was the fact one person in the triad tried something completely new to her and couldn’t get passed her monogamous upbringing and open her heart to the possibilities polyamory offers. She couldn’t even try honesty with herself, much less honesty with her partners, in order to be in a triad relationship. And poly talks a lot of self-honesty in order to maneuver the bumps open and honest relationships sometimes cause.
I can’t control who I’m attracted to but I can control who I pursue. Believe me, more than once I’ve stated out loud, “I’m done with ‘straight’ women who think they are attracted to girls – never mind what Katie Perry says” and “I’m only dating poly people.” But in the end, the spark ignited, I followed my heart, and I found myself falling for just the type of girl I was trying to avoid.
What’s that road to hell paved with? Oh yeah, good intentions. Well, I guess I can take comfort in the fact I’ve remained true to my initial promise to myself. I’ve kept my heart open, I’ve let it lead me where it will, and hopefully my reward is the fact that I’ve been open and honest with myself and others.
But thanks, Kiko, for worrying about me. It’s always good to know I’m loved.
9 Comments | All About Me, polyamory, relationships, Truths | Permalink
Posted by mmkeekah
It just figures when I finally get around to posting about the status of my triad, when I dedicate a whole week to triad relationships, my triad breaks up. I’m not sure that’s exactly irony defined but I certainly can see the incongruity of this even through the sadness. Yet, the very things I was going to discuss about polyamory and triad relationships in this post carry significance over why this triad relationship didn’t work out for me and even why the last triad relationship didn’t work either.
What I want to talk about regarding triad relationships is about their dynamic from the perspective of a being in an established couple and adding a third person to the relationship. Earlier this week I gave you the female and male perspectives of folks joining an established couple. Heidel shared with you the struggles her little pride went through as she joined not only a married couple but her two closest friends. And Kevin shared with you how his triad works as he joined his couple. I think its important to note the use of the word couple in this last paragraph because it has a very important dynamic in a triad.
The biggest hurdle a triad relationship faces is the “existing couple” dynamic. The idea here is the existing couple in the triad has had more time to develop a relationship that precluded the “thirds” involvement and thus there is a “catching up” that must happen in order for all three members to be on equal footing. The time frame doesn’t seem to matter either; it could be three months the existing couple is together or 30 years – still this seems to promote a problem within the triad.
In my experience, I know I struggled with this dynamic issue in my first triad. When my insecurities and doubts about my ex-girlfriend’s romantic feelings towards me specifically were prevalent, I worried she was trying to steal J from me. When J was caught up in NRE with K and would lose patience with my fears and insecurities, I worried about losing him. And what I wanted most to do was save what I had before with J – our coupleness.
From the other side of the house (that “third” side), there was insecurities and feelings of envy over the fact J and I have an established relationship prior to their involvement. It was like the proverbial elephant in the room the third didn’t want to admit. But if anything came up that brought focus to the prior involvement and made the third feel, well like an actual third, then that damn elephant came stomping out, rearing its ugly head. From what I can gather, the issue is feeling like the third wheel, or less of a partner or less equal. Thus there was feelings of having this major catching up to do. In a dyadic relationship, the catching up is done equally by both partners (or at least that is the presumption being made here.) But when you have three partners, and two have a prior relationship of any length, then the third feels like they need to be where the other two are it in order to be considered equal.
The fallacy here is that it is in very rare moments that there will ever be true equalness in any part of the relationship – even in a dyad. Because rarely do we feel the same about our partner all the time at any given point. So if you add a third person, the chances of synching up and everyone feeling honkey dory about everyone is pretty slim. Which is why those rare moments are so precious. But to bank your whole relationship on synching up is crazy, well in my book anyway.
Then add into it society and monogamy and what we are all taught and bam! it complicates things further. Because the world at large believes in and supports only man and woman dyad relationships and specifically marriage between a man and a woman. So now you are facing issues within the triad because of this “existing couple” mentality and no one to offer you support in how to deal with those emotions. If you ask for help from your family, your church, your friends – what you will hear is you deserve better, you deserve all the love of one person, you are being cheated. No matter what side of the “existing couple” mentality you are on, that’s what you will hear. Along with a lot of “I could never do that myself.”
I’m not saying this specifically is what caused the breakup of both of my triads – we certainly had other personal fights to fight in order to be in a triad relationship. In the end, my current gf isn’t sure polyamory or a triad relationship is really what she wants for herself. I have to respect that even if I don’t agree. The promising note of this break up is we are still talking and even still somewhat dating. My gf doesn’t want to break up with me or with J. She just doesn’t want to be in a triad. I’m struggling to understand how this will work, to understand if I can be different with her after having experienced 5 1/2 wonderful months of being in a triad with her and J. I have some mourning to do, then I have some growing to do. But I know I don’t want to lose this amazing woman from my life.
Just the fact that she had the strength to be honest with me, despite being worried of upsetting me, despite what she had learned in other monogamous relationships about hiding her true feelings, despite knowing it would hurt – well it takes my breath away. And proves to me what she doesn’t know about herself – she has a kind, loving soul filled with integrity and love. Maybe we aren’t a triad. But we are all very good friends and lovers.
5 Comments | All About Me, girlfriend, polyamory, relationships, Truths | Permalink
Posted by mmkeekah
My next guest blogger for Polyamory Week is Kevin, who is in a MMF Vee triad (keekah-note: A Vee configuration in polyamory is when one person (known as the hinge) has relationships with two different people who are not romantically involved with each other (known as the legs.) The legs may or may not have a friendly relationship with each other.)
Kevin’s Story
Hello all… my name is Kevin. I’m in an MFM triad-vee poly-fi relationship with snowbunny and brother-husband. She is the “hinge” of the “Vee;” he and I are the “legs” of the “Vee.”
They were married in 1995.
I met them in 1995.
We became good friends in 1995.
We became a triad in 2006.
I worked closely with snowbunny in a professional capacity in 2004 and 2005. She and I exchanged many increasingly long, personal emails. We eventually confessed feelings we’d had for each other for ten years. We’d never dared to confess that to each other before, nor even to ourselves, because we were monogamous.
We actually researched and discovered polyamory as a solution to our dilemma. She didn’t want to leave brother-husband, and I didn’t want her too either. I also didn’t want to give up on my romantic feelings for her, and she didn’t want to give up on hers for me either.
Brother-husband wanted the romantic relationships to be preserved. Polyamory was, for us, a middle ground that allowed us all three to stay together.
We’ve had much rough ground to traverse and crises in which the three of us almost split up. However, I think we have weathered those crises. The three of us have a very positive relationship with each other today.
Brother-husband and I are good friends. We get together once a week, just the two of us, to watch movies together and whatnot. We’re both straight, so the friendship is conventional and platonic.
Brother-husband lives in a townhouse. I live in a condo, just minutes away, by bike or by car. Our lady, snowbunny, lives at both homes in turn; about half of her days with him and the remaining days with me.
All three of us get together for dinner, conversation, movies, and what have you, about twice a week. Currently our big thing is watching Battlestar Galactica together. We’ve just this year been introduced to the series; we’re thoroughly hooked.
All three of us are very plain vanilla. If you saw us on the street, you’d never guess there was anything unusual about us. Our clothes are ordinary. Our hairstyles are conservative and non-colored. Neither guy has any tattoos, nor piercings. She has one small decorative tattoo on her ankle, and she had two piercings on each ear but one each of those has “sealed up.” Sometimes she wears small silver-bead pierced earrings.
All three of us are pretty conservative for being poly. Our biggest rebellions are our Democrat leanings, her non-organized-religious leanings, and my agnostic leanings.
We’re committed to limiting our sexual relationships to us three — which amounts to him and her,and to me and her. We’re also committed to sticking with each other for life.
We don’t rule out the possibility of adding a fourth (perhaps even fifth?) person to our three-person circle. We’re not actively looking though; we’re happy with what we have. If we did bring in a new person, we’d all have to be 100% comfortable about it, and the new person would be bound by the same commitments (as just described).
For more info on the definition and nature of polyfidelity in general:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyfidelity
If someone was to ask me to sum up the two man-woman relationships in our triad:
I’d call brother-husband and snowbunny peaceful. I’d call snowbunny and me passionate.
From those two words you perhaps get a glimpse of the pros and cons in each relationship.
And that’s why snowbunny has two guys in her life. Because brother-husband and I each contribute something that is good and unique.
As to the guys’ perspective in all this … We think it’s the closest brotherhood two men can share, when they care so much about one another that they’re willing to share the woman they love. To us the whole thing is a very cool way to live.
9 Comments | Guest Blogger, polyamory, relationships | Permalink
Posted by mmkeekah
And now the conclusion to Heidel’s Story: Part One:
FIGURING IT OUT
None of us had heard of or had any experience with what it meant to be poly. Figuring out how to make a relationship of three work, and work well, involved a roller coaster of emotion. As a third, I was impatient to achieve the comfortable “knowingness” Hubby and Wife seemed to have with one another. Wife was somewhat jealous of the “newness” that Hubby and I shared as we explored our new sexual relationship. There were bouts of awkwardness all around.
One of the first things we learned was that communication was key to keeping misunderstandings at bay. I explored personal issues that had heretofore undermined my loving relationships in an effort to keep this new, very complicated, relationship from disintegrating like previous ones. Hubby and Wife learned to communicate differently with one another, and with me, as my presence made changes they hadn’t anticipated in both their marriage and in their lifestyle in general.
As the months passed, we tried different configurations to find a way of being together that was most comfortable. We explored different sleeping arrangements, we distributed and redistributed chores and financial obligations, we experimented sexually. Eventually we settled into a comfortable life in which Hubby essentially has two wives of equal emotional and sexual importance to him, and the wives, though emotionally connected and committed to one another, don’t sleep with each other.
We also decided that we’d be a closed group. None of us have any interest in bringing additional members into the group, and none of us are emotionally ready to handle another member. There is some debate in the poly world whether this is truly polyamorous (or simply polygamy without the religious connotation), but whatever the designation, this is what works for us.
At first, Hubby told everyone about us. He was proud to have two wives (still is, really) and he told everyone – his coworkers, his family, his friends. Most people were receptive.
Male response: “That’s so cool! How can I do that?”
Female response: “Can I be your third?”.
This latter response became so prevalent that Hubby finally stopped talking to people about it and now only tells people on a need-to-know basis.
As receptive as strangers might be, his family, however, thought I was a home wrecker. This was ironic and heartbreaking for me considering I’d been a regular at his family gatherings for more than 15 years, and as soon as they found out that Hubby and Wife’s marriage was open and I was in it, they turned on me. Equally ironic, mine and Wife’s families were initially happy for us, but later turned on us as well. Each became protective of their respective family member – worried that the other two were somehow out to harm them – and so we have had to slowly retreat to our oasis of a home, where we have become a united front against naysayers.
We now only see our families when we have to, we require that they be all inclusive of all three of us (or they see none of us at all), and we do major holidays at home, on our own. Because of this arrangement, our families are starting to come around, to accept us as a threesome rather than a twosome, and a recent gathering for our one-year-old son brought all three families harmoniously together for the first time in more than two years. That was symbolic for us; it helped us to realize how far our new family has come in the almost three years we’ve been together.
The outside turbulence we’ve experienced over the last couple of years has led to plenty of turbulence within our triad as well.
I have bouts of jealousy and envy that stems from power struggles with Wife and the fact that I’ll never be a legitimate wife.
Wife has bouts of jealousy that stems from the fact that she has to share a man she never intended to share, and her comfortable married life has had to grow and change in order to accommodate one more.
Hubby has to deal with not just one, but two, hormonally charged, independent and feisty women who require that he balance their needs and desires at all times.
Because of all this we’ve had our moments when we wonder if it’s worth it.
But when we wonder this, we also consider that we are living a dream. There is a special and unique bond between the three of us that exists whether we want it to or not. We are bound by more than just love and time and friendship. We are bound by some eternal and universal bond that extends beyond sleeping arrangements and shared parental responsibilities. I could move out and move on; I could marry someone else again and invite Hubby and Wife to dinner parties at my house. But I know what would happen.
It’s what always used to happen when we lived apart. The three of us would sit around the table, drinking microbrews or rum and Cokes, sharing memories and inside jokes for hours as we gaze lovingly across the dinner table at each other.
Eventually, Wife would tease my new husband, with no humor in her voice at all: “I will steal her away from you someday, you know.”
Meanwhile Hubby would throw his arm around me protectively and whisper something funny and irritatingly romantic in my ear: “Remember that time we ran naked through the January rain and the creek was so swollen it blocked the driveway so we couldn’t leave the house for three days?”
And I would giggle and return Hubby’s embrace.
And Wife would eventually steal me away.
So turbulence and unconventionalism and doubting family members can come and go. What lasts is love. And love is what I have. Who am I to question the package (or packages) in which I’ve received it?
Tomorrow: Kevin’s Poly Story
Leave a Comment » | Guest Blogger, polyamory, relationships | Tagged: polyamory poly triads triad | Permalink
Posted by mmkeekah
This week is all about polyamory – please read below for the first of a two part story from Heidel, who is currently in a triad marriage:
Part One: FALLING IN LOVE
So, keekah has asked some of her poly friends to contribute to her blog, as I understand it, in an attempt to show you wonderful readers that there are as many different ways to be poly as there people who *are* poly. Mine is unconventional, even for the already unconventional poly lifestyle.
I am a “third” in a poly-fidelitous triad. What that means is that I am involved with a married couple. Our situation is unique in that we didn’t date each other before we became lovers – but rather we are close friends who chose to commit our lives to one another. In fact, we’ve been committed to each other for most of our lives – though we’d never thought to call it polyamory until a couple of years ago.
I met “Hubby” when we were children. Our parents were acquaintances and later good friends. I remember him being in and out of my life throughout my childhood, and in my late teens, as our parents grew closer, I spent a lot of time with him. He was a few years older than me, and had married by then. Through him, I met and later married my first husband (his best friend). Though it was a bit unconventional, I considered Hubby one of my closest friends, if not my best friend.
“Wife” was my high school friend. When we met we felt an instant connection. People thought we were sisters. Her family unofficially “adopted” me. Later, after high school, through jobs and cross-country moves and a million other changes, she and I stayed close. My children have called her their “second mom” their entire lives. At my wedding, Wife was my maid of honor, and Hubby was our best man.
When Hubby divorced from his first wife, he asked me for Wife’s phone number. I lost them for a few months as they blissfully blundered through their honeymoon period, until reality set in and they returned to me; their relationship was often turbulent and spotted with periods of separation (both circumstantial and by choice). During those times, I straddled both relationships. When my marriage fell apart, Hubby was a comfort (from a distance, he lived on a different coast at that time), and Wife moved in with me to fill the void. Later, they called a truce, married one another, and I was Wife’s maid-of-honor (as an aside, though this surprises some, my ex-husband was best man; I’ve always felt that exes should be friends not enemies).
Fast forwarding many years, I found myself free falling from a second divorce, standing on a city bridge during a music festival, alone on the East Coast. My cell phone was ringing. I’d been talking to Wife for days as she emotionally guided me through the horrendous process of detangling myself from my second husband. She had suggested I drop my career and the life I’d built in that city and bring my children back to the West Coast where my family was, where my children’s father was, where she was. I was hesitating.
Thinking she was calling me again, I answered the phone without looking at Caller ID. “You should see the view,” I said. “I’m standing on a bridge overlooking the city skyline listening to Shinedown play on the stage next to me.”
“I’m sure the view isn’t nearly as beautiful as you.” The voice on the line surprised me. It was male. It was my best friend. My other best friend. “When are you coming home?”
After that call, there was no question what I would do next. I loaded up my car with my three kids and all the belongings that meant anything to me and drove 3,000 miles to start a new life with the two people who meant the most to me.
Wife and I had joked about getting married (just as soon as our state made it legal) years earlier. It was during one of the periods when she and I were living together, without any men. She was the housewife, she took care of the kids, and I brought home the bacon and paid the bills. The only thing missing was Hubby, but at that time, the concept of *sharing* or taking care of each other’s needs hadn’t ever come up.
This time, I moved into *their* home. From the start, Hubby faced envious teasing from friends about his “two” wives, and this initiated talks about what it would be like if that were a reality. I verbally expressed that after two failed marriages, I realized my ideal marriage would be if I could just marry the two of them. At the time, it was a joke, a wistful and amusing sentiment, one we all thought impossible.
But after a couple of months, after I found a new job and was making preparations to leave, Wife sat me down and said that she didn’t think I should leave. She asked me to stay.
So I did.
Later I realized that those first few months, in which we began to explore more and more what it meant to be together in every way, just the three of us, was what poly people sometimes call NRE – New Relationship Energy. It was a honeymoon period. I was ecstatic to be living with, making love with and just in a relationship with my two best friends. During this time their marriage went through RRE – Renewed Relationship Energy. They fell back in love with each other (though, to be honest, they never fell out of love).
It was the NRE that carried us through the first few turbulent months of figuring out how to make it all work.
Tomorrow: Part Two: Figuring It Out
3 Comments | Guest Blogger, polyamory, relationships | Tagged: heidel, love, poly, polyamory, relationships, triad | Permalink
Posted by mmkeekah
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