People who know me well are often not surprised when I come out to them as polyamorous. After all, I have a lot of natural tendencies that make openness easier for me than for many other people. I tend not to feel jealousy (though I’m still subject to envy), and I’ve always had the opinion that more people are merrier, even under crowded circumstances. The question sometimes becomes, what took me so long?
The short answer is that it’s extremely easy to be generous when one feels they have more than enough--in this case, more than enough love and security. After years of attentive monogamy, I became quite certain that nothing external like other lovers would drive a wedge between my spouse and me. This is something that I can’t over-emphasize; after enough time and space of being allowed to feel as if I were not competing for my spouse’s attention, it became easy to allow my spouse the time and space to pursue other people. After I had the chance to become completely secure in my primary relationship, it was easy to be generous with my and my spouse’s other attentions. This was a feeling that I’d noticed developing consciously for months, and quite possibly unconsciously for years, before I could define it.
The problem is that, for me, such security doesn’t develop in a pressure cooker environment, and I had a single experience that probably delayed the process of opening up by several years.
When experimenting with boundaries, my spouse and I decided it wouldn’t bother us if we kissed other people. This was convenient for stage performances and generally flirtatious friends, but we got our first intense experience at a party. These were my spouse’s friends, so I didn’t know anybody, but that’s never stopped me from having a good time before. As suggested by Miss Manners in her Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, my spouse and I usually go to parties together, engage in separate conversations, and talk about our different experiences when we get home. This was going on, as usual, when I noticed an energetic blonde flirting mercilessly with my spouse.
My first instinct was to be proud of my spouse. He still had it. People wanted him, and they demonstrated it. And it must have been flattering to him. What happens when my spouse feels good about himself is that I have a *fantastic* time that night, and quite possibly for weeks after. So I was pretty excited.
My spouse and the blonde went off to one area of the house, and I stayed in another to meet people. Eventually I got thirsty, so I wandered off towards the kitchen. On the way, I met an extremely attentive hostess who asked what she can get me. I asked for a glass of whatever red wine was open. It materialized in my hands a mere 30 seconds later. I wandered back to where I was to continue conversation.
Eventually, I got hungry, so I wandered off again towards the kitchen. On the way, a number of new faces stopped me and urgently wanted to talk to me. I inched my way closer to the kitchen. They inched their ways between me and the kitchen door. I finally made it to the kitchen, and a door on the other side closed surreptitiously. I got myself a snack, continued to hang out in the kitchen with light conversation, and started to notice I was getting tired. I asked if anyone had seen my spouse. There were murmurs that he was around somewhere, but wouldn’t I share my expertise on bike commuting in the city? Fifteen minutes later, I decided to check behind the closed door, as there were jovial noises coming from it, and perhaps there I might find my spouse to go home.
As I took large strides towards the door, new people blocked my passage, hands outstretched to push me to some other area of the house. They wanted to show me something or other, and in the confusion and mass of people, I went along. Eventually, my spouse materialized, and we went home.
As might be expected, when we settled in to talk about our experiences, my spouse couldn’t wait to gush about this great kiss he had been having with the blonde. Let’s just say my reaction was not charitable. In a flurry of visceral fear and emotional pain, I backtracked kissing permission on the spot.
So then we were back to being closed for a while, or at least more closed (flirting and innocent touching was always allowed). And when I’d finally had a chance to think, I realized that what I thought I was reacting against--kissing--was not the problem at all. I was reacting to my needs not being met. The problem was that a houseful of my spouse’s friends, seeing that my spouse was kissing Someone Not Their Spouse, banded together to keep me in the dark and keep me from getting home when I was tired (my spouse, by the way, just read this and is a little flattered that his friends would go to such lengths for him). My spouse’s behavior was perfectly within the boundaries we had set up for ourselves. I just didn’t like the feeling of being ganged up against with the assumption that, in a fight between my husband’s fun times and my presumed constraints, my husband’s fun times would win, with a large number of enforcers to keep me from finding out. I just wanted to go home, and a conspiracy of partygoers were pointedly exhausting me and deliberately keeping me from reaching that goal.
Incidentally, several months later at a party with many of the same people, a completely different unofficial couple was making out, and I was told under no uncertain terms to keep the official girlfriend from finding out. As mentioned last week, I don’t think it’s my job to tattle. But I did choose to stop interacting with that group.
What I learned from that experience is that the simple fun of nonmonogamy is not sufficient for me to consider openness. What I need is ethical nonmonogamy, wherein all people involved are kept informed of who else is in the loop so that boundaries are not often broken, and there’s an escape route for when they are. What constitutes the important aspects of ethics change with time and with individual people. What doesn’t work for me is an assumption of secretive nonmonogamy, especially if the expectation for me is that I both refrain from my own extracurricular fun, and my spouse and presumed equal partner in life is celebrated for cheating and getting his. Hence, my quiet breaking off from the group.
The other thing we learned is that separate transportation from an event can create that all-important escape route and do wonders for spousal harmony.
Questions or comments? Try me! polysaturated@rocketmail.com.
The short answer is that it’s extremely easy to be generous when one feels they have more than enough--in this case, more than enough love and security. After years of attentive monogamy, I became quite certain that nothing external like other lovers would drive a wedge between my spouse and me. This is something that I can’t over-emphasize; after enough time and space of being allowed to feel as if I were not competing for my spouse’s attention, it became easy to allow my spouse the time and space to pursue other people. After I had the chance to become completely secure in my primary relationship, it was easy to be generous with my and my spouse’s other attentions. This was a feeling that I’d noticed developing consciously for months, and quite possibly unconsciously for years, before I could define it.
The problem is that, for me, such security doesn’t develop in a pressure cooker environment, and I had a single experience that probably delayed the process of opening up by several years.
When experimenting with boundaries, my spouse and I decided it wouldn’t bother us if we kissed other people. This was convenient for stage performances and generally flirtatious friends, but we got our first intense experience at a party. These were my spouse’s friends, so I didn’t know anybody, but that’s never stopped me from having a good time before. As suggested by Miss Manners in her Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, my spouse and I usually go to parties together, engage in separate conversations, and talk about our different experiences when we get home. This was going on, as usual, when I noticed an energetic blonde flirting mercilessly with my spouse.
My first instinct was to be proud of my spouse. He still had it. People wanted him, and they demonstrated it. And it must have been flattering to him. What happens when my spouse feels good about himself is that I have a *fantastic* time that night, and quite possibly for weeks after. So I was pretty excited.
My spouse and the blonde went off to one area of the house, and I stayed in another to meet people. Eventually I got thirsty, so I wandered off towards the kitchen. On the way, I met an extremely attentive hostess who asked what she can get me. I asked for a glass of whatever red wine was open. It materialized in my hands a mere 30 seconds later. I wandered back to where I was to continue conversation.
Eventually, I got hungry, so I wandered off again towards the kitchen. On the way, a number of new faces stopped me and urgently wanted to talk to me. I inched my way closer to the kitchen. They inched their ways between me and the kitchen door. I finally made it to the kitchen, and a door on the other side closed surreptitiously. I got myself a snack, continued to hang out in the kitchen with light conversation, and started to notice I was getting tired. I asked if anyone had seen my spouse. There were murmurs that he was around somewhere, but wouldn’t I share my expertise on bike commuting in the city? Fifteen minutes later, I decided to check behind the closed door, as there were jovial noises coming from it, and perhaps there I might find my spouse to go home.
As I took large strides towards the door, new people blocked my passage, hands outstretched to push me to some other area of the house. They wanted to show me something or other, and in the confusion and mass of people, I went along. Eventually, my spouse materialized, and we went home.
As might be expected, when we settled in to talk about our experiences, my spouse couldn’t wait to gush about this great kiss he had been having with the blonde. Let’s just say my reaction was not charitable. In a flurry of visceral fear and emotional pain, I backtracked kissing permission on the spot.
So then we were back to being closed for a while, or at least more closed (flirting and innocent touching was always allowed). And when I’d finally had a chance to think, I realized that what I thought I was reacting against--kissing--was not the problem at all. I was reacting to my needs not being met. The problem was that a houseful of my spouse’s friends, seeing that my spouse was kissing Someone Not Their Spouse, banded together to keep me in the dark and keep me from getting home when I was tired (my spouse, by the way, just read this and is a little flattered that his friends would go to such lengths for him). My spouse’s behavior was perfectly within the boundaries we had set up for ourselves. I just didn’t like the feeling of being ganged up against with the assumption that, in a fight between my husband’s fun times and my presumed constraints, my husband’s fun times would win, with a large number of enforcers to keep me from finding out. I just wanted to go home, and a conspiracy of partygoers were pointedly exhausting me and deliberately keeping me from reaching that goal.
Incidentally, several months later at a party with many of the same people, a completely different unofficial couple was making out, and I was told under no uncertain terms to keep the official girlfriend from finding out. As mentioned last week, I don’t think it’s my job to tattle. But I did choose to stop interacting with that group.
What I learned from that experience is that the simple fun of nonmonogamy is not sufficient for me to consider openness. What I need is ethical nonmonogamy, wherein all people involved are kept informed of who else is in the loop so that boundaries are not often broken, and there’s an escape route for when they are. What constitutes the important aspects of ethics change with time and with individual people. What doesn’t work for me is an assumption of secretive nonmonogamy, especially if the expectation for me is that I both refrain from my own extracurricular fun, and my spouse and presumed equal partner in life is celebrated for cheating and getting his. Hence, my quiet breaking off from the group.
The other thing we learned is that separate transportation from an event can create that all-important escape route and do wonders for spousal harmony.
Questions or comments? Try me! polysaturated@rocketmail.com.
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