The Polyamorous Misanthrope

This week’s column is by guest writer, Jenny Ford.

So you’ve researched the risk profile of all your favorite sexual activities and set your preferred standards for safer sex. Do you think you are now protected from the sexually-transmitted pestilence to which your immoral lifestyle exposes you?

Think again.

This is a true story. Only the names have been changed, to protect the not-so-innocent. The bottom line is – you can never be as safe in an open system as you are in a closed one.

So here we are. Lots of attractive, healthy poly adults practicing various versions of polyamory. Here is A, and his two girlfriends, B and C. They have been together for 8 and 15 years respectively, and long ago did the testing, embraced unprotected sex within the V, and practice condom use with meticulous care in any other sexual relationships. Here is X and Y, married 20 years, who just a few years ago became poly, using condoms with everyone but each other.

C meets X. Things go well. 18 months down the track, A and B begin to wonder if C and X will want to stop using condoms. B realises that her health would then be dependent on the safer sex practices of X and Y, people she has met once or twice at birthday parties. Egad!

But it gets worse.

Y meets J, who is already having unprotected sex with his girlfriend, K, as she does with her girlfriend, L. Things go well with Y and J.

Now, if Y and J want to move to unprotected sex, they need to call a conference of A, B and C, J, K and L, and X and Y, get everyone tested, agree on standards of safer sex behavior and decide how to handle notifications of any possible heightened risks.

Think that’s starting to get a little unwieldy?

Consider this – all that preparation and negotiation is only mitigating risks relating to relatively LOW transmissibility diseases – HIV, Hep C, syphilis, and so on. Granted, they are the ones more likely to kill or do permanent damage, so they are the ones on which we focus our attention. Even working with, say in this case, eight people, it should be possible to ascertain that any given infection is not already in the group, and then make sure the risk of it entering is minimised.

But it’s a completely different problem when you consider something which is more easily transmissible (albeit an irritation, not a life-threatening disease) – something like thrush (candida albicans).¹

Thrush can live in digestive tracts, mouths, noses, and so on. It can be transmitted via objects such as clothing and towels, via the hands from genitals to mouth, and even, although less often, during relatively safer sexual practices such as tongue-kissing.

Even if every one of the eight people took the once-only tablet which pounds your liver but kills the candida everywhere, unless they all stopped tongue-kissing outside the group, eventually, someone would get re-infected, and it would be back to Square 1.

Whereas in a monogamous pairing, once the thrush is gone it’s gone, period. Even a polyfi group could keep themselves free of it. It’s that damn free love that comes back to bite us on the ass (or in this case, somewhere close to that vicinity).

Now I am not advocating monogamy, or even polyfidelity, as a solution to this problem. For me, dealing with regular re-infections of something irritating but not life-threatening is preferable to shutting down all my kissing friends and swearing off any external sexual partners. That’s my choice, but I’m making it with my eyes open.

I don’t kid myself that by waving the magic condom-wand over my life I make it as germ-free as a staid monogamous paired life would be.

The reason I am writing this article now is that in the above fable it would be very easy for the couple X and C, or the couple Y and J, to think about the risks and make the decisions about their fluid bonding behaviors /without even realising how many other people will be affected/ by those choices. In addition, when it comes to things which get around condoms, it’s often the case that people never even stop to think in the first place. How many people start using dental dams during oral sex when they have a cold sore, for example?

I’m embarrassed to admit that it took me being in the position of Y and having thrush /come back/ post the nuclear holocaust tablet before I actually went through the “how can I prevent this from happening again” thought process – and realised I couldn’t. Not without giving up sex (or even tongue-kissing) with anyone who won’t be thoroughly fidelitous.

And I’m a reasonably intelligent, well-educated, risk-averse, rational thinker. If I had never thought this through, I’m guessing lots of other people haven’t either.

So I am saying – think it through. Not just about HIV and Hepatitis C. Find out about herpes, thrush, genital warts, and everything else. I’m not telling you what to do with the information. I’m just saying, make sure you understand what your current practices will and won’t do to protect you, and be sure you are willing to take the consequences.

In my case, possibly because I don’t know enough about my liver, I figure I’ll just keep taking the liver-blasting tablets as required. Ask me in 20 years whether I think I made the right choice …

¹Note from the Goddess of Java: We Americans call this a yeast infection colloquially.

Jenny Ford has an Honours degree in Psychology and works as a business consultant and executive coach …. by day. In her other life, she is a polyamorous, bisexual community-builder and relationships coach. She has husband, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, three children (though the teenager could count as three all on her own), and two cats. She lives in Sydney, Australia with a subset of the above family members and is currently researching how to bend space and time so she can live with ll the people she loves in all the places they want to live without leaving Sydney. Expressions of appreciation for Jenny should take the form of Lindt chocolate balls. Bonus points if they are the black 60% cocoa ones.

What They Don’t Tell You About STDs and Non-Monogamy

© 2007, Jenny Ford

Used by permission, all rights reserved

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Sex is only meaningful when you’re into having a long-term, committed relationship, right? It’s what polyamory is about, right? Committed relationships. We frown on people who “just have sex”.

That, my dears, is so much horse elbows.

First of all, there’s no such thing as “just sex”. That’s a lie adulterers try to tell to wiggle out of their perfidy, to make it seem as if the treachery really weren’t so.

Sex is always and forever tied up the heart and soul of who we are as people. It can be a power thing, a revenge thing, a sharing thing, an expression of soul, a demand of ego, a simple act of generosity and kindness. It can be compassionate, cruel, promoting of life and growth, or base and destructive.

It’s never meaningless. It’s too core to what it is to be human.

The mistake comes in, I think, when we throw a holy aura around some sexual relationships and not others — when we try to differentiate the specialness of one relationship over another in terms of sex.

I should be kinder than to batter your eyes with one of my infrequent attacks of poetry, but.. Well, I’m not.

Fuck the Fairy Tales

They can go to hell

With their “Happily Ever Afters”
And their endless repetitions of One True Love.

Worse than a lie
It’s a poisoned apple so shiny and lovely
That will choke you and leave you cold encased in glass.

The reality is that all Love is True
Or no Love is.

The glass slipper will shatter and slice
Your tender feet until you cannot take a step.

But in the field where your hands callus from the plow
The corn grows and falls in harvest.
Never forever

But…

The reality nourishes in a way
That no gingerbread house ever could.

The same could be said of sex. All sex is meaningful, or no sex is.

The thing is, sometimes the meaning is good — really good. Sometimes it’s not.

People develop their own touchstones for this. While I think “true love” and the whole drama nonsense is a bad one, there are things that can tell you if you’re on the right path.

For me, there is a sense of gratitude. Not as in, “Oh dear God, thank you for deigning to have sex with me.” That’s not very respectful of one’s self, after all. It’s more of a sense of, “I respect me and my individual self, and respect you and your individual self, and here we are sharing this sweet and human thing, isn’t it wonderful? Thank you for that!”

Proposals of contract? Promises of always and forever? You don’t need ‘em.

It’s never meaningless. And when you’re honest with yourself, you’re ensuring the meaning is good.

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Relationships can be good and fulfilling things — no doubt about it. They can bring joy, help and mutual comfort to all involved.

However, there is a problem. People are people.

Sometimes they’re just fine people.

Sometimes they’re rescuers.

Sometimes they’re users.

I’m aiming this article mostly at the rescuer. You know who you are. People have said things like, “Yeah, Mary? She takes in stray dogs from time to time.” Your sofa often has someone sleeping on it. You’ve carted people around to look for jobs. You might even have the number to the local women’s shelter memorized.

Now none of this is bad.

None of it is bad. I’m all in favor of being helpful, being charitable and helping people who are in trouble – if you’re maintaining proper boundaries.

The problem comes when you mix it with a romantic relationship. This is not poly specific, mind, but boy oh boy, when you find that elusive hot bi babe, you can get real blind real fast to a lot of stuff. If you are that single hot bi babe, you can make a racket out of it if you want to. So can anyone else, mind. People do the most astonishing things when they’re in love, and the feeling of falling in love is cause for a lot of people to ignore sane boundaries.

So, what are the warning signs you’re being used?

• Habitually working all day and coming home to a messy house when your partner does not have another job.

Obviously there are times when someone Just Can’t Get to the Housework. Kids break arms, cars break down, toddlers can get into things you thought were out of reach and strew them across the house in seconds… Stuff Just Happens. I’m talking about the norm.

I’m not saying that if you’re a breadwinner you have a right to expect a house that would pass a white glove inspection, including the person having picked up the trail of clutter you leave throughout the house, h’ors d’oeuvres and a martini waiting and the smell of a gourmet meal wafting through the house. In fact if you get it, you’re being bloody well spoiled rotten and I hope like hell it’s not you that is doing the using. What I am saying is that you have a right to expect that there be no more dirty laundry in the house than the laundry baskets can contain, a few dinners a week have been cooked, some shopping done, and a basic level of cleanliness maintained.

Now honestly, do I think that the stay at home person is automatically a user? Fuck no! I was a housewife for nearly 11 years. I was a full-time employee with a housewife at home for somewhere around four years. I would love a housewife at home even now. My personal choice would be that if I were in a household where the was a full-time homemaker at home that there would be a fairly clear job description and the person would get a stipend (each member of the household having his own personal money is also a strong preference!) Keeps things clear and there wouldn’t be any feelings of “loss of rights” or “say” in what goes on in the household.

So no, housewife is not equivalent to user. What I am saying is that if someone is not working (home businesses count as work), if he’s spending all day playing on his X-Box and there are pizza boxes everywhere, maybe you want to look into whether or not there’s a problem.

• Much of your financial resources going into fixing emergencies for the person

Now financial emergencies do happen. That’s okay. It’s okay to help out, too. But there’s a limit. If the person is consistently in financial turmoil and is not clearly doing something about it, that should be a big ole red flag, as is a lack of control about the difference between wants and necessities. If you have a partner who gets his car repossessed, but immediately upon having that happen, cuts his cards, goes into debt counseling and gets a second job, you’re more likely to have someone on your hands who really is trying to take responsibility for his life.

• Inequitable agreements

The partner wants veto power over your relationships but will not tolerate the reverse. If you’re getting a lot of “special exceptions” to the “official agreement” pay attention to those exceptions, because that’s the reality of what you’re agreeing to, no matter what the official version is! It is my strong opinion if your partner is not okay with you having a life outside of the relationship that you’re in trouble. I’ll even go so far as to say it’s time to look for other signs of abuse.

• Grand plans for the future

If you’re being assured that if you just support this person until he gets his business off the ground…

Now, again, people do start businesses that don’t work out sometimes, and it might be that nothing is amiss. If this person is not working more than 8 hours a day trying to build the business, you’re being taken for a ride. If you’re being begged to continue supporting a business that is losing money for more than five years, you are really being taken for a ride. If they’re working longer hours than you do and you see evidence that they are seriously studying how to market their ideas, you’re more likely to be okay.

If the person has already had a failed business or two, or seems enamored of get-rich-quick schemes, run.

If the person has a reasonable expertise in the subject, presents you with a contract about how profits will be shared, has gotten an accountant and all that, you’re on less shaky ground. Entrepreneurs are pretty self-motivated people and it is not actually difficult to tell the difference. The serious entrepreneur will treat work time as work time. The best ones tend to set boundaries around “work” and “home” life. You won’t find them screwing around with video games during designated “work” time.

Oh, and never invest in a restaurant. (So says a friend of mine who has been a cook for 20 years).

• Requests for support through higher education

If you’ve got someone with whom you’ve already negotiated a deal where their job is to run the home, they’re supporting themselves through providing a service. That’s okay. It’s if they’re not doing an agreed upon deal, or are not paying rent in some other way, then it becomes an issue. Get this agreement in writing if you make it. Verbal agreements are more subject to interpretation and points of view involving what really constitutes self-support vary widely. Be very careful to be clear. If you’re subsidizing the education through a loan or a co-sign of a loan, make triply sure you’re outlining exactly what this is going to entail and what you expect to get out of it. Get in writing. I don’t care how in love you are and what a model of “trust” your relationship is.

• Requests for personal loans

One of the things I sometimes see on some online forums these days is a paypal button and a sob story about how the person cannot afford to go to Pennsic or Burning Man or some other entertainment. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for that. Sorry. If you’re getting a lot of requests like this, especially for entertainment, take good look. Now, if you’re going somewhere, want your partner to come along and can well afford to bring him along, that’s all good. Benevolent is fine. It’s how you’re treated if you say you cannot afford it that is the key. Temper tantrums and shrieks involving the word “unfair” are often a big tip-off in a lot of things.

• Personal emergencies of a non-financial nature consistently interfering with your personal plans

Emergencies happen. That’s okay. But if you’re dealing with anxiety attacks, emotional meltdowns, relationship issues (and anxiety-related medical issues), or the like consistently when you have other plans, you need to examine what’s going on. This is more being used emotionally rather than financially, but being used is being used.

If these issues crop up so that you are discouraged from getting enough sleep, this line creeps from use to abuse. Beware the partner whose favorite time for discussion is at 2 am when you have to get up for work in the morning — especially if he can make up for the lost sleep or has a considerably lower need for sleep than you do! Sleep deprivation is a useful brain washing tool.

When consistent claims of needing overly special treatment because of childhood issues interferes with your life, you need to take a look. In this, I don’t mean little things like, “Please don’t tap me from behind,” or “Please do not touch me to wake me,” or “Please call me when you’re going to be more than ½ hour late”. I mean things like, “I have abandonment issues, so I need you to make sure I am never left alone in the house,” or “I can’t learn to drive because I was in a car accident, so you need to drive me everywhere.” If it doesn’t interfere with your life and you feel the requests are reasonable, that’s one thing. But, watch for little requests here and there gradually adding up to more and more requests for special treatment that start to look like demands (the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie syndrome again). Especially watch for temper tantrums and accusations of being insensitive if you cannot meet these demands.

If the person objects to you having a life outside of the relationship, you’re in serious trouble. I know I’ve already said this, but it’s a big ole honkin’ sign of Bad News.

• Substance abuse

I am not for once second saying you cannot stick by someone who has a substance abuse problem. I am saying if it is interfering with the person’s life and she’s not getting help, evaluate the situation. You’ve heard of enabling, I know. Are you enabling?

• Bad credit, bankruptcies, etc.

Again, I don’t think it’s okay to throw out the relationship because someone made mistakes, but it’s important to make sure you keep an eye out. Any one thing isn’t the big deal that several items on this list or a pattern is.

• A history of broken relationships

This is not only romantic relationships. How many friends does the person have? Do they still see them? If not, why not? Sure, you can find out you’ve been in a few toxic friendships — we’ve all made dumb choices. But keep an eye out.

• A really dramatic hard luck story

Yeah, problems happen. A LOT. Life can SUCK sometimes, and we’ve all made stupid choices. Watch. What is the person DOING about it?

I hate to add this, but tales of abuse (If used to excuse outrageously bad behavior ONLY!!!!) falls into this category, too. It ain’t that horrid things don’t happen to people. They do. What are they doing about it? Are they in therapy? Are they working to overcome that? If so, you can deal better. If they’re insisting you make up for their hard luck, run.

• A string of broken educational pursuits/difficulty keeping a job consistently/inconsistency in sticking to things

I keep coming across things that I’ve done! No high horse here. Check it out and watch carefully. The person might be all right to be involved with. Might be looking for a sucker.

• Anything that smacks of abuse

Abuse is not just physical. Sleep deprivation, belittling, being demanded to give up personal goals, having one’s appearance consistently attacked, attempts at social isolation, finding yourself walking on eggshells to keep from activating your partner’s temper, feeling like you have to give in to keep the peace at the expense of your own interests, gaslighting… That’s all signs of abuse.

I know it seems so contrary to the whole principle of love and trust to even think about these issues. However, the simple fact of the matter is that people are people and you’re looking at a big range of behavior. It all boils down to boundaries. What are you okay with? What are you not okay with? This is important. Figure it out before it becomes an issue.

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“Love may be limitless, but time is not.” — Me (And forty’leven other polyamorous people)

Where are your priorities? No, no, sit back down and stop panicking. I’m not here to tell you that you need to give up your life to other people.

And you people who spend all your lives on other people can hang it up with the smug, too.

This is not meant to be a value judgment. The simple fact of the matter is that we choose how we live our lives. Some of us decide to spend our lives inventing a pacemaker, others in rearing our children,and still others in making money.

These are all valid choices. Thing is, when you’re poly, you are adding a time-sink into your life. I’m choosing the negative expression purpose.

Lucky you, there’s an escape clause.

Poly is a time-sink unless you make conscious choices about who you have in your life.

“But!” I hear you cry, “But, Mama Java, you just don’t understaanndd! I have this lover who needs to make sure I see her for an afternoon every 3.7 days and my wife hates it when I’m away at night, so if I spend time with this other lover I have to do it this way, and it’s causing all sorts of tension if I don’t because…”

Makes you tired just thinking about it.

Back up and think a little bit. You don’t have to have people in your life that aren’t in harmony with how you’re choosing to live it. No, I’m serious.¹

Be very careful in your relationships. Make sure that they’re in harmony with how you do want to live.

I could never have a relationship, for instance, with anyone who had a problem with me taking time to write. More to the point, that person would have to be fine with me mentally checking out for months out of the year while I work on my current novel. (No, I don’t need Absolute Silence, thank God. I’m writing this in a bar drinking a cup of Irish Coffee and listening to karaoke).

But what is it you want and need in relationships and how does that relate to how you have crafted your life?

It’s not unusual for poly people to desire an greater than usual share of autonomy, ferinstance. But is that what you want? Is it in harmony with how you are crafting your life? Yes, I’m presuming you’re actually living consciously. If that isn’t a goal, these columns aren’t going to be of much use to you.

Once you know what you want and what you’re about, it becomes easier to pick and choose your relationships to match this. You’ll know that because you want to spend great swathes of time with a love that dating a musician getting a career started or a PhD candidate will be a Bad Relationship Move. If you’re really focused on your marriage and kids, maybe an LDR² with that same person might actually work out really well. It’s going to depend on how you’re choosing to live.

But, no, your time isn’t limitless. This means that you’re going to have to get your priorities straight. If you don’t, it’s almost impossible to be truly loving. You’ll twist around with what you don’t want, assume obligations you’re not comfortable with, and do all sorts of things that Just Aren’t Productive. Need I say that it’s no use at all to try to force yourself into what “should” be your priorities? Be honest with yourself, even if you think it’s icky.

You’ll be able to be more loving for it. I promise.

¹ A wise friend of mine often points out that if a cannibal can find someone who will volunteer to be killed and eaten, your own problems about finding what you want are fairly trivial in the face of that!

²Long Distance Relationship

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Bryghteyez and Michael are a poly couple I’ve known for some years on the PolyFamilies list, as well as working with them on a couple of PolyFamilies CampCons. They graciously consented to be interviewed about their marriage and relationships.

1. How old were you both when you met?

Michael: Lesse, it was the spring of ‘77, so I was twenty. Bryghteyez would’ve been eighteen.

2. How long were you together before you married?

Bryghteyez: Our first official date was 3/17/1977 and we were married 8/25/1979, so, about 2 1/2 years. I think this is important, because I see so many people getting married when they haven’t known each other very long, or moving someone into their home on short acquaintance while still in the throes of NRE, without really taking the time to get to know each other.

I didn’t want to get married. Time Enough for Love convinced me to marry him. I saw possibilities in that book that I thought I could live with over 50 years, unlike the patterns of a lot of the marriages I saw around me. I couldn’t bear the idea of someone thinking of me as property and, coming from a rural area in upstate NY, that was the norm. Don’t misunderstand, most of our family members were married for the long haul – but that kind of being chained down didn’t and doesn’t work for me. Luckily, I met a man who was willing to let me be the person I was and has the patience to put up with my temper.

3. How long have you been married?

Bryghteyez and Michael: Twenty-seven years.

4. Did the relationship start out polyamorous? If not, what made you decide to go poly?

Michael: More or less, but we were making it up as we went along. I’ve always had a hand in music somehow or other, but until we moved to Virginia I’d never considered making a full-time living at it. After we got here and I discovered that I could get paid a weekly wage for playing bass, I spent the next twelve years or so doing just that. Being on the road and away from Bryghteyez as much as I was would’ve put a much larger strain on our relationship than it did if we hadn’t had the “open” relationship we have. I’ve worked with a great many musicians who tried to maintain conventional relationships while out on the road, and they never seemed to work as smoothly as mine did with Bryghteyez. In fact, watching the other guys dog their way through one club after another made me appreciate my not having to lie and hide things from her that much more. I will confess to having fallen into the trap of trying to keep my activities hidden from her, but it blew up in my face spectacularly enough that I really don’t want that to ever happen again.

Once we found out what “poly” meant, we’ve more or less embraced the concept wholeheartedly. It’s interesting to find out that our views on relationships have been more or less legitimized. We thought for a long time that we were the only ones, or some of a very rare few, who viewed our marriage the way we do.

Bryghteyez: For starters, I didn’t know the word. Having said that, we didn’t have an exclusive relationship pretty much from the start. MK graduated college at the end of my freshman year and was spending the summer away playing in a band (story of our lives together). I told him I had no intention of staying home alone all summer and didn’t expect he would either. After he picked his jaw off the floor…well, I’m still around

5. How did you get involved in the “Polyamory Community”? What is the present nature of your involvement? (Workshops, discussions, cons, etc)

Bryghteyez: Well, we had a quad blow up in our face and MK wanted to know why. He did some research online and found a local poly group and polyfamilies and got very excited about telling me we weren’t the only ones.

Well, we had a quad blow up in our face and MK wanted to know why. He did some research online and found a local poly group and polyfamilies and got very excited about telling me we weren’t the only ones.

I belong to the polyfamilies list and we are members of one local poly group and there seems to be another one starting up that I am involved with. I’ve been a member of the Board of the local group for the last 4 years. We participate in local dinners, discussion groups and workshops. Been to 2 PolyFamCampCons. I’ve been to a couple of PolyCamps in WV, one with MK, one without. I’ve facilitated a lot of discussion groups, including a series called Practical Poly for the local group covering topics like How to Keep House with a Multi-Adult Household Without Killing Someone, Rules of Engagement – or How to Argue Effectively, Financial Arrangements, Kids and Discipline, How to Deal with The Relatives, Legal Necessities, What NOT to Do?, BDSM & Poly, etc. When I am teaching, I prefer a seminar or discussion group approach rather than lecturing, even though I might do an introductory short lecture of some sort.

Michael: Bryghteyez has already related the disaster our first attempt at a quad turned out to be, so I won’t recap that. Somehow or other, and I still can’t really remember how, I stumbled over the term “polyamory” while on line one day, and decided to pursue it in order to find out where our plans went wrong. We were both hurting pretty badly over how it all turned out, and my initial interest was in finding out how we could avoid such in the future. I distinctly remember Bryghteyez coming into the study while I was doing the search, reading what I had up on the computer screen, and saying “I thought we tried that and it didn’t work.” My reply was “I know. I’m trying to figure out what we did wrong,” or some such. After that I discovered that there was a polyamory organization right here in Tidewater, joined it, and started to investigate its resources. Bryghteyez was sufficiently intrigued by the things I was relating to her from my search to check out the site herself. She subsequently joined, and spent a few years on the board of directors.

Our involvement in that group has mostly to do with attending special events the group sponsors, along with occasionally hosting events ourselves. “Practical Poly: What Not To Do” is a big seller.

6. How do you feel about your present relationships?

Michael: Given that I currently have none outside of my marriage, I can’t really say for myself. As regards the relationships Bryghteyez has going, I have no problem with them. Humans being the multi-faceted beings we are, I’m not threatened by her actions in going out to find relationships that let her explore the facets of her character that don’t get much attention from our marriage. It makes her a happier, more “whole” person, and I can’t help but benefit from that.

Bryghteyez: Very warm and fuzzy. No, seriously. Last weekend, I went to spend the weekend with a new long distance partner, whom I’ve known for a while, casually, but with whom things have gotten fairly intense recently. His primary girlfriend made a point of chatting with me online, taking the time to get to know me a little and letting me know how much she was looking forward to meeting me. My husband helped me pack the car and asked me to stop by his office on my way out of town so he could send me off with a hug and a kiss. My local sweetie of several years made a point of calling me that afternoon to wish me a lovely trip and a lot of fun.

What more could a woman want? Really.

7. How do you feel that they’re working out?

Michael: When I have one that works, I’ll let you know. I have a bad habit of rushing into something new way before it’s strong enough to withstand that much attention, and over the last few years I’ve had several budding relationships tank as a result. I find myself more than a bit gunshy over starting anything new, but I do have some close friendships that I hold dear.

Bryghteyez: Everyone involved is poly and has been for quite a while. All of us are adults. By that, I mean, none of us are into ‘drama’ and most of us are very good at communicating our needs and desires. Those that aren’t, are learning.

8. What sort of relationship challenges do you face? Do you ever feel like you’ve fallen flat on your face in them? If so, how do you handle that?

Michael: “Fallen flat on my face”? All the time. My biggest challenge, as I stated beforehand, is to keep my feelings from running away with me to the point where the other person in the bright, shiny, new relationship doesn’t feel buried or smothered. Scared off quite a few that way, I have indeed.

Consequently, I tend to hold back more than I probably should. There’s an inherent dilemma in that: If I show too much interest too soon, I tend to scare people off. If, on the other hand, I hold back and try to let things progress as they naturally will, I tend to act as though there’s not much interest there, and things never get off the ground. All in all, I’d rather take things slowly and preserve a friendship rather than rush things too far and break that friendship from too much weight and pressure. I don’t go out on a lot of dates as a result, but there are warm hugs and kisses waiting for me here and there.

Bryghteyez: Hell, yes!

If so, how do you handle that?

Oh, you want details? About 10 years ago, I got involved with a guy, K, to whom I had explained and thought he understood about our marriage being ‘open’ (best term I had for it at the time). Within a couple of months, he had moved in with us and so had a partner of M’s, J, who was coming off an abusive marriage. K & J barely knew each other when they moved in with us. Mistake #1. K was lazy as sin and didn’t seem to understand my house rules about everyone working, paying rent and doing housework. Mistake #2. M and K were both pretty fixated on me, leaving J feeling odd-woman-out. Mistake #3.

At the time, M was still out on the road, so he was only home 2-3 days a week most of the time. Our son was a young teen.

J moved out. She couldn’t take feeling like second string, and really didn’t understand poly – still doesn’t for that matter. We are still close with her, but she is much happier now that she’s been married 5 years to someone who is laid back and comfortable with her being who she is.

K eventually made it clear to me, after it was clear to everyone else with eyes, I might add, that he was trying to break up my marriage and wanted me to himself.

M nearly had a nervous breakdown and gave me an ultimatum – the only one of our marriage – him or K. K moved out.

M and I spent the next year putting our marriage back together. We spent time learning to communicate all over again. We had separate rooms for a while. We passed a notebook back and forth to talk about the stuff we had trouble talking about face to face.

Sheer cussedness kept us together. Neither of us were willing to give up on the other.

It was nearly 5 years before I was willing to take a chance on another relationship and I’m glad I did.

9. What effect do you feel being poly has on your marriage?

Michael: It’s opened a great many doors to communication and conversation that would otherwise never even be recognized as being there, much less opened. We’re much closer, as a result. There isn’t a whole lot that we either can’t or don’t discuss, much to the embarrassment of our son’s friends.

Bryghteyez: In the long run, it has made us stronger, more self-sufficient – and if we weren’t poly, we probably wouldn’t still be married.

10. If you could go back to your younger self, what advice on poly would you give?

Bryghteyez: Don’t ever forget the rules:

1: Treat others as you wish to be treated

2: Only sleep with friends

Every time I’ve ignored one or the other, I’ve gotten into trouble.

Michael: Slow down, dammit! Loving someone new doesn’t require flipping head over heels and drowning in NRE. It’s a holdover from my teenage years, one that I’m still having trouble handling now and again.

Thanks to the both of you for being willing to be so frank! Here’s to 27 more years!

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