Polyamory is the practice, desire or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved. In polyamory, a quad is a relationship between a couple and another couple. Together, Byllie, John, Jean and Jerry are learning the pros and cons of entering a polyamorous relationship. Some of the favorite parts are the sex – because who doesn’t like fun sex? In addition, though, the support each individual has from the other three as troubles arise becomes a close second. Communication continues to increase as each realizes total honesty, including with oneself, is necessary. Trust also becomes a major plus as they each open themselves up to the possibility of this relationship working.

Of course, there are downsides as well. Communication break downs occur at times, which result in fighting between a dyad (two individuals within the quad.) Jerry and Jean have a whole different communication dynamic than Byllie and John. At first, Jerry and Jean’s passionate fights caused anxiety for Byllie and John, since their communication style is much more laid back. Jerry adds, “Each of us had to learn how to communicate differently” with each other.

Then there are the societal values, which play a part in their lives. Not just in having to deal with losing some cherished friendships but also dealing with a world that defines a successful relationship as being between one man and one woman. Byllie notes, “There is a lot of social stigma and discrimination when you put [polyamory] out there. You get looked on as kind of disgusting… [and] I would rather not have anybody tell me that’s me.” John points out, “In an ideal world, there would be no boundaries.” But in their world, they have kids and family to consider.

Byllie is in agreement. “In order to proceed, I need to know I’m primary… if a choice had to be made, that I would win.” Jerry’s perspective is a bit different. Jerry dislikes the notion of boundaries. “If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it all the way.” Turning away from a relationship that has developed and evolved to the point it becomes ingrained seems unfathomable to him.

Time away also became an issue. Whether it is time away from the primary partners or from the quad itself, the quad quickly had to adjust their expectations. Currently the four spend Friday night, Saturday and Sunday together as a quad with Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday belonging to the primary couples. Jerry also rekindled his romantic relationship with the wife of the couple Jerry and Byllie played with in the past. Jerry’s new/old relationship adds a different dimension and complexity. Jerry spends Thursday and Friday day with his other girlfriend. Dyad dating is a work in progress as the couples try to figure out a dynamic that allows everyone to feel comfortable. But as one clarifies, “it can’t be tit for tat.”

Jealousy also crops up on the con list. John dealt with jealousy early on in their swinging times when he saw Jean being fulfilled with others. Then, too, there is the issue of Jerry’s other girlfriend. Both Byllie and Jean have had to deal with jealousy with regards to Jerry’s other relationship. They deal with jealousy by facing it head on. Ultimately, Jerry notes that issues such as jealousy, scheduling pains and even his new/old love come down to one thing, which turns out to be “the worst part and the best part [of polyamory] – dealing with your own shit.”

One last point of contention with the quad is the definition of polyamory itself. Jerry believes that polyamory is defined by unconditional love, “loving people without expectations or without the need for it being reciprocal.” He wants to focus on the quality and not necessarily the quantity of interactions, which is an actual polyamorous mantra often noted. For the others, this is still a concept they are learning to embrace. Jean states, “[None of us] has the skill set yet” to consider completely opening up. “We would have to sit down and talk about it and discuss the impacts,” notes John. When asked what about deal breakers that would end this relationship, they are all in agreement. “If we all give up or if somebody digs their heels in on a given issue.” Just as quickly they all agree this is unlikely to happen. “The others wouldn’t let it happen,” Byllie says. John notes that this idea is very similar to his own personal view on his marriage to Jean.

“I would do anything I could to not get it to that point,” he says simply.

Byllie and Jerry were in the lifestyle for several years and had a regular swinger group of friends that played together. The first few months sparked a desire to meet another couple they could date. Byllie remembers asking one of the couples if they all would still be friends if they weren’t having sex. “I was looking for some kind of connection,” Byllie remembers. The response was not a good one.

At this point, polyamory had never been discussed within the couples. Although Byllie and Jerry met another couple and Jerry ended up developing a connection with the wife, polyamory itself was not discussed. Byllie and the husband did not share the same connection their spouses were experiencing, which caused contention in the other marriage. Byllie explains, “I was still not thinking that [polyamory] was what I was looking for… [I was] not going hey, that’s what I want.” Jerry chimes in. “We wanted friends with benefits but with more than sport fucking. Sex is fine and good but without the emotional connection, what’s the point?”

Jean heard the term polyamory at a swinger meet up for women and went home to discuss it with John. “That couldn’t work. That doesn’t make any sense. I just don’t get it,” Jean reminisces saying to John. John agreed with her. They weren’t looking for other loves; just some fun, no-strings-attached sex.

Then Jean and John met Byllie and Jerry in February 2009. And several months later, they fell in love.

“I think for me, upon the first time I locked eyes with John, before we even had a first date, I felt something deep and different. I don’t think at that time I thought it was love, but soon after that I knew I was falling in love with him.” Byllie fondly remembers. Jean shares, “The words I love you slipped out in a moment of passion in the first few months, but I knew they were very special over a series of incidents. The final clincher was when Jerry pushed me into trying to spend time with his other girlfriend, and when I completely lost it, he stayed with me and made sure I knew they weren’t going anywhere no matter what!”

“Falling in love is easy; staying in love is hard,” Jerry says, “I think I knew I was really in love with Jean after our first major fight. I don’t even remember what it was about, but I knew then that I wanted in my life what she brought to me.” John states, “I guess I’m still falling. There was a particular moment for me, after we got rings back in the summer, where I was really trying to grok what those rings symbolized. And I realized at that time, that for me, they symbolized my commitment to Byllie and the quad, and my willingness and desire to do whatever I could to make it work. That’s when I knew I’d fallen beyond the point of no return.”

Soon the foursome was inseparable, something that was noticed within the swinging community almost immediately. Suddenly couples who had been their friends for years were showing their displeasure at this new relationship by either protesting loudly or cutting them off. Support from the swinging community was not something they encountered, as they tried to figure out what this new relationship meant.

Next, Part Four: Learning About Polyamory Together

For Jerry and Byllie, their own explorations into swinging were different. “It was always about making friends first.” Byllie remarks. An emotional connection was a must before sex as far as she was concerned. She wasn’t interested in meaningless sex, not even in the name of fun.

Jerry and Byllie have been married for 10 years. They met in Las Vegas, where Byllie was a stripper. Jerry was a married man of 16 years at the time, but his marriage was faltering. “We had sex once in 7 years, and we both rolled over afterward and went, ‘why did we do that’?” Jerry comments wryly. When he met Byllie, he knew there was something about Byllie he had to pursue. Over the course of the next year, Jerry followed his intuition and visited Byllie at work until she finally agreed to go out with him. Jerry eventually left his wife and married Byllie.

The two were married for seven years when their life hit a rut. It was a great life but sex was infrequent. They had single female friends, strictly platonic, and no married couple friends. When they hung out with their friends, Jerry and Byllie didn’t want to be affectionate with each other for fear of making anyone feel like a third wheel. This lack of affection between the two of them in front of their single friends “kind of drew us apart sexually,” Byllie added.

They both agree a turning point in their marriage at that time was a visit to Amsterdam. They smoked hash for the first time, which was followed by amazing sex. “We had sex like rabbits for three days.” Jerry gets out, laughingly. “We pretty much had sex the entire time we were there. Then we got back home and we were like, ‘wow, that’s what was missing.’” Byllie chimes in. This sexual revival prompted further discussion, which led to the realization they needed couple friends and people who weren’t all “caught up in being paranoid about expressing their sexuality.” So began the research to find people who were open and that led Jerry to swinging.

Jerry created several profiles on some of the popular swinging websites and groups available. Jerry created these profiles to facilitate the learning process because only a member can have full access. It took Jerry a week to tell Byllie. “I went, ‘Um Byllie, by the way’…” he laughs. “And I was like ‘Whaaat?’” Byllie adds, “Because I had previous swinging experience with my ex.”

“This was actually one of the reasons why we did it,” they say almost simultaneously. “I have to digress a bit,” Byllie calmly states, her emotions showing on her face. “So my ex and I… he says to me (about five years into their marriage), ‘Let’s go to this house party. It’s a swinger’s party… because I don’t want us to get bored in our relationship.’ And I say, ‘Okay.’”

Byllie recalls the nervousness they felt about not knowing what to do and how to act. Eventually, the two of them encountered a single male and invited him to a room for some play. Byllie’s ex-husband suggested Byllie allow the man to “just lick your pussy.” At this point, Byllie was quite inebriated. “I was three sheets to the wind,” she reminisces. One thing lead to another and the two of them had sex.

Her ex then left the room on the pretext of having a cigarette but left the party without Byllie, effectively stranding her at a house party with people she barely knew. Understandably, this first swinging experience caused feelings of trepidation in Byllie once Jerry brought up the possibility of swinging. “But we also knew [because] we talked about it at length… that that was a demon she needed to face, “Jerry comments.

Byllie counters, “Well if I’d never swung again, I wouldn’t have been haunted by it.” Jerry reiterates, “There was still part of that anger you held over.” Byllie concedes his point, “Well, looking back I get angry. At this point in my life I’m not angry anymore… because I guess it was a necessary step in my life.”

Next, Part Three: An Evolution of Love

Sometimes it really is all about sex.

The promise of new and exciting sex is what would send a committed couple into exploring the swinging lifestyle. “The lifestyle,” as it is affectionately referred to within its own sacred and hallowed halls. For John and Jean, married 18 years, this was how they viewed their initial foray into swinging two years ago. They both always had a traditional outlook on marriage itself and didn’t feel the need for emotional commitments with other people. However, they did think being sexually involved with others could add to their marriage.

They joke that it probably started with the movie, Summer Lovers, which Jean watched with fascination as a young girl. Or maybe it was when John read Stranger in a Strange Land, which contains a theme on the spiritual importance of sexuality. Or perhaps it was during college, when Jean and John experimented in threesomes with two of John’s good friends, one of which became his best man. In fact, their best man joined them for some fun sexual play after the wedding.

Whatever was truly the beginning, it was a vacation to Florida on their 15th anniversary that opened up the discussions once again. During this trip, they went to a strip club for fun and ended up getting private dances from a stripper they both found attractive. They enjoyed the dances and went back the following evening. After dropping several hundred dollars on the same dancer, they discussed inviting her back to their room for sex but chickened out.

About four months later, they hired a painter for their new house. Jean found him very attractive and enjoyed a mild flirtation with him. It wasn’t until she made plans to have drinks with him without telling John that she started to feel guilty and confessed it all to John. John realized he didn’t have an issue with Jean pursuing the painter, though nothing came of the mild flirtation. After much discussion and an initial online search by John, Jean took over the research into swinging.

However, from the beginning, John made it clear to Jean that he took his commitment to their marriage seriously. “Divorce was never an option,” he states clearly from the couch where his girlfriend, Byllie, is twirling her fingers through his hair. From across the room, his wife nods her head in agreement, sitting comfortably next to her boyfriend, Jerry. “We always said we would do whatever it took,” Jean says. “We made a commitment that, no matter what, we would make [our marriage] work,” John adds, “We didn’t anticipate having emotional connections. It was just a fun play thing for us to go to do together…”

Next, Part Two: Looking For Kindred Spirits

When I was in high school, I was continually amazed by my friends and their ability to declare undying love to one guy, then break up with him one day and be dating an entirely different guy the next day, who was of course their soul mate.  It was confusing to me how transient and transferable their love was depending on their mood or the day.  I never felt that way about anyone when I was a teenager.  Though I daydreamed about finding my one true love, I never found it while traversing the hallways of my high school.

So I’ve never understood love – what it means, how people fall in love and stay in love with only one person.  I’ve loved, don’t get me wrong.  I meant society’s definition of love – it’s always flummoxed me.

I got married way too young – I’ll be the first to admit it… now.  So right off the bat my first serious relationship was already seriously flawed because I gave in to impulse and said yes when I should’ve said no.  And then add on top of that my seriously flawed new husband (who is now an ex-husband) who saw nothing wrong with demanding loyalty and fidelity from me while philandering around with just about anyone who would give him the time of day.

At one point in our marriage, my ex asked me if I would ever consider swinging.  I’m sure the appropriate response would’ve been extreme horror.  But, of course, I was curious.  At this point, he was my first and only lover, I’d never explored my bisexual side and natural attraction to women, nor had I really looked at another man because, frankly, my ex was an extremely jealous man.  (It figures he was the jealous one when he was the only one screwing around at that point.)  I was intrigued at this idea of mate swapping.

Though I was relatively innocent when this topic was introduced, I admit I was quite familiar with the “deviant” side of sex.  I, after all, was raised during my teenage years by my brothers.  Porn was something I was familiar with, as well as the adult magazines.  I enjoyed reading erotica, especially if it had a less-than-normal slant to it.  I even admit to fantasizing about sexual experiences with multiple partners and my favorite porn scenes included girl on girl action.

Too much information?  Hee… Well, it’s out there now.  I’ve always been a sexually curious girly girl with a pretty impressive imagination.  So now I was being presented with the possibility of sharing with my “one true love” what had up until then merely been fantasies.  So yes, I was interested.  Alas it wasn’t meant to be.  My ex immediately shot down the idea and treated me poorly for admitting an interest.

What does all this have to do with the conversation with my cousin?  One time, Kiko and I were discussing the theory of Inner Child.  Or rather he was telling me about his research on the concept.  In turn, he wondered if the loss of my parents and my subsequent childhood played a part in my attraction to polyamory.  Was I looking to recreate the love I lost during that time, attempting to recreate it by having two partners who loved me?  Was my inner child begging for love in order to finally be healed?

What an interesting concept and not one I can readily dispute.  I think everything I’ve experienced and learned has shaped this fascinating woman whose words you now read.  Not just the loss of my parents but certainly the love they gave me before they died.  The lessons they taught me about honoring them, honoring elders in general, having respect for those outside myself – they all contribute.  As well as the experiences I had with my brothers, with my friends, at school, in life – they all played a part in my seeking out something like polyamory.

Even now, when I am beginning to understand that polyamory is just another concept like monogamy, with its own inherent flaws that go along with this beautiful idea of love and relating to and with others.  It is because of who I am and what I’ve experienced that I can take something like polyamory and learn even more about myself.

I’m still not really sure about people and relationships and what motivates people to behave as they do when in love.  But I’m even more certain of myself and how I choose to behave in relationships.  I’m sure I will continue to discover new and exciting things about myself as I continue on in my life’s journey.

Him:  I was watching this porno where this couple was doing it doggie-style but the woman was doing all the work.

Me:  I think we saw that together.  It sounds familiar.

Him: Yeah, it does sound familiar.

Me: (laughing) How can it not sound familiar to you? You just said it.

Him:  Did I just say that?

Me:  Sometimes I miss the way we were in that phase.

Him:  What way?

Me:  We could barely keep our hands off each other.

Him:  We were never that way.

Me:  (in disbelief) What?

Him: (being ornery):  It never happened.  You couldn’t name one time we were like that…

Me: (unblinking)  I went down on you in a theater.

Him: (laughing) Oh yeah!  I lost my belt that night…

For Jerry and Byllie, their own explorations into swinging were different. “It was always about making friends first.” Byllie remarks. An emotional connection was a must before sex as far as she was concerned. She wasn’t interested in meaningless sex, not even in the name of fun.

Jerry and Byllie have been married for 10 years. They met in Las Vegas, where Byllie was a stripper. Jerry was a married man of 16 years at the time, but his marriage was faltering. “We had sex once in 7 years, and we both rolled over afterward and went, ‘why did we do that’?” Jerry comments wryly. When he met Byllie, he knew there was something about Byllie he had to pursue. Over the course of the next year, Jerry followed his intuition and visited Byllie at work. Byllie finally agreed to go out with Jerry. Jerry eventually left his wife and married Byllie.
The two were married for seven years when their life hit a rut. It was a great life but sex was infrequent. They had single female friends, strictly platonic, and no married couple friends. When they hung out with their friends, Jerry and Byllie didn’t want to be affectionate with each other for fear of making anyone feel like a third wheel. This lack of affection between the two of them in front of their single friends “kind of drew us apart sexually,” Byllie added.

They both agree a turning point in their marriage at that time was a visit to Amsterdam. They smoked hash for the first time, which was followed by amazing sex. “We had sex like rabbits for three days.” Jerry gets out, laughingly. “We pretty much had sex the entire time we were there. Then we got back home and we were like, ‘wow, that’s what was missing.’” Byllie chimes in. This sexual revival prompted further discussion, which led to the realization they needed couple friends and people who weren’t all “caught up in being paranoid about expressing their sexuality.” So began the research to find people who were open and that led Jerry to swinging.

Jerry created several profiles on some of the popular swinging websites and groups available. Jerry created these profiles to facilitate the learning process because only a member can have full access. It took Jerry a week to tell Byllie. “I went, ‘Um Byllie, by the way’…” he laughs. “And I was like ‘Whaaat?’” Byllie adds, “Because I had previous swinging experience with my ex.”
“This was actually one of the reasons why we did it,” they say almost simultaneously.“I have to digress a bit,” Byllie calmly states, her emotions showing on her face. “So my ex and I… he says to me (about five years into their marriage), ‘Let’s go to this house party. It’s a swinger’s party… because I don’t want us to get bored in our relationship.’ And I say, ‘Okay.’”

Byllie recalls the nervousness they felt about not knowing what to do and how to act. Eventually, the two of them encountered a single male and invited him to a room for some play. Byllie’s ex-husband suggested Byllie allow the man to “just lick your pussy.” At this point, Byllie was quite inebriated. “I was three sheets to the wind,” she reminisces. One thing lead to another and the two of them had sex.
Her ex then left the room on the pretext of having a cigarette but left the party without Byllie, effectively stranding her at a house party with people she barely knew. Understandably, this first swinging experience caused feelings of trepidation in Byllie once Jerry brought up the possibility of swinging. “But we also knew [because] we talked about it at length… that that was a demon she needed to face, “Jerry comments.

Byllie counters, “Well if I’d never swung again, I wouldn’t have been haunted by it.” Jerry reiterates, “There was still part of that anger you held over.” Byllie concedes his point, “Well, looking back I get angry. At this point in my life I’m not angry anymore… because I guess it was a necessary step in my life.”

Next, Part Three: An Evolution into Love

I’ve never really talked about compersion here on this blog. Maybe I mentioned in passing that compersion is the term coined to explain that feeling of happiness one person gets when they see their lover, be it husband/wife or girlfriend/boyfriend, with another person sexually and/or romantically.  I say and/or romantically because polyamorists adopted the term compersion to try and get the world to understand you can have multiple relationships successfully and share in your lovers’ emotional and sexual satsifaction with another person without being involved necessarily.  Maybe I talked about it in that vague, unattached way without giving you any real life examples.

Mainly because when I experience compersion in my relationships, it’s generally mixed in with a great big dose of fear that sometimes looks a little like jealousy and, more often than not, envy.   I get the wonderful gift of feeling joy at watching J enjoy multiple relationships while at the same time worrying over every little detail like only another Virgo mind can really appreciate.  I can honestly say that, with the exception of our first experience with K, every relationship since has brought the same warring feelings into my life, heart and mind.

It wasn’t anything these ladies did so much as what their entrance to my life could mean.  I was worried about what might be -  because with K , I did no such thing.  With K, I threw caution to the wind and took a chance that my heart meant as much to her as hers and J’s meant to mine.  I thought our years of friendship, the time her and I had taken to know each other and care about one another, would be my safety net.  I also put a lot of stock into J’s other poly experiences and his talk of being able to love more than one person at a time without it causing damage to our relationship.  I took a lot at face value in that first poly relationship.

It’s not that I blame K (okay maybe I blame her) or that I blame J even… truth be told, we all were to blame.  Me for my blind faith, K in her lack of faith inability to share, and J for his unwillingness to accept that K was not who he thought she was, who she claimed to be.  It was all part of why we weren’t able to stay together as a triad.  It also plays a part in why it is almost impossible for me to experience just compersion in any current or future poly relationships I might become a part of later in life.  I can’t say it will always be this way; it’s just the way it is now.

So, while I was happy for J that he had a new friend with benefits, maybe potential love interest – I was all kinds of crazy scared of what that change meant for me.  J and I are funny that way…  one of the things J tells everyone about is his inherent selfishness.  And it’s true.  J wants what he wants and damned anyone who gets in his way.  Even me, at times.  But this is what gets  me… when people look at our relationship and hear that or experience it, they think of me as the martyr, the poor suffering girlfriend who lets her man get away with it.  But the truth is – I’m just as selfish as J.  I think that’s why we work so well.  He’s fighting for what he wants, I’m fighting for what I want but in between all that is this amazing love that refuses to let us break up without reaching a compromise between what he wants and what I want.

So it’s been several months since C entered our lives.  We had some really interesting times between J and me as we tried to navigate this new relationship.  J and C have settled into a really nice friendship and casual sexual relationship (that sometimes I get to enjoy as well).  C has learned a bunch of new terminology from this newly tried open relationship style that so far only encompasses one couple (that would be J and me, in case you weren’t following).  Of which, her favorite term would be compersion.  She’s even explained it to her ex-boyfriend and several other close friends.

When C learned about my initial worries regarding her, she was a little devastated and I think hurt.  I’d promised her total honesty when it came to whether or not she was “stepping on my toes.”  What she didn’t understand is that I didn’t consider my worries something she needed to do anything about… no, it was all on me.  It was my stuff to own.  I think I’ve worked on it quite well and C and I are fast friends.

It probably won’t be the last time I find myself working through the compersion/jealousy feelings.  I’m glad it worked out well this time.  I found myself a great friend… and sometimes bed partner, so to speak.

I found out about it last year for the first time.

It’s funny – because you know, I slept with my best friend’s husband when they were still married and kept it secret for five years – before telling her and eventually losing the dearest friend I ever had in my life.  So I had a unique perspective on the whole situation when I found about this friend and her indiscretion.  Plus, it helps that I’m not with my ex AND I don’t like him all that much.  His actions didn’t surprise me.

If I’m honest, my friend’s actions didn’t surprise me either.  Not because she is anything like my ex-husband – not at all.  I know she didn’t deliberately do this act out of malice, out of spite or anything like that at all.  She is a good person – warm-hearted, loving, a great mother and a good friend.

How can I say that when I now know what she did to her husband, and I guess in some way, to me?  Because I can see that she didn’t do this to me.  This wasn’t about me.  This wasn’t even about her husband.  This was about my friend and her circumstances at the time.  Sometimes people make bad decisions and end up living with the results for the rest of their lives.

I guess I can’t be mad at my friend because I am her in some ways.  I guess I can’t be mad at my friend because I know the pain and guilt she is living with every day.  I guess I can’t be mad at my friend because she did this to herself.

I know that now – from personal experience.

I found out last year but she and I just talked about it last night, at her insistence.  I was quite content to live with the knowledge, be her friend and let it go.  But she wanted to talk about it – no – she needed to talk about it.  She had to let me know she didn’t do it on purpose, didn’t do it to hurt me or even her husband (now an ex-husband, by the way).

I understand.

Sometimes you just need to talk it all out – to admit what you did to someone besides yourself.  I didn’t offer her forgiveness because there was nothing to forgive from my perspective.  But maybe she can finally forgive herself.  It might make it easier to live with.  If she figures out how to do that, I hope she shares her secret.