Cheers Sexy People!
Hello all! Recently, the below comment came in from my last blog post:
I have been following you for quite a while and while your posts are inspirational, many times I am left utterly confused. You speak of your ups and downs with your BF more you do with your husband. Does this mean your married life is that perfect or do you feel your audience wants to hear more about you and your BF? I am seeing many of my poly friends lean more on their BF or GF more than they do their spouse. Can you reflect on that more in some of your articles?
I promised this reader that I would dedicate my next blog post to answering her question. So as promised, here’s my answer to her question.
Let me see if I can break this answer down with some kind of order.
Is my married life so perfect that I don’t feel the need to talk about it?
I think it may be obvious what I am going to say here. No, of course my married life isn’t perfect. I would dare say that anyone who claims that ANYTHING in their life is perfect is either lying or kidding themselves. I personally view almost all things as a work in progress, as I also do with my marriage.
What I will say confidently is that I am fortunate enough to have a very good, very healthy marriage to a man whom I consider one of my very closest friends, a man that I adore from the top of his head to his funny looking toes (sorry, baby. Haha). He is also a man that I learn from on a daily basis. We also chose each other hoping that our lives would grow in the same direction, and essentially they have. When I was looking for a mate to marry, after years of fits and starts of other relationships, I decided that I needed to marry someone very much like me, which is no small task. I am a bit of an oddball in some ways. So I did what many smart, modern women do – I turned to the Internet. I found my husband on match.com from a search I did on my couch while surrounded by my cat, my laptop and a box of dirty tissues (I had a really bad cold that night). And it did, in fact turn out that he and I are very much alike in many ways. I tell you this to try to help you understand that this is part of the reason that we get along so well, and so easily (which I partly address here). We agree about almost everything, from the decor we decorate the house, to the relationship style we subscribe to, to the people that we allow to get close to us in our lives. This easy symmetry tends to make for very few disagreements, fights or animosity. In the twelve years we have known each other, I can count maybe three fights that we have had (one was about a bowl of all things, another about a potential speeding ticket I think, and I can’t remember the others. They were unimportant and quite possibly silly).
Also, I should point out that I do mention him quite often in many of my blog posts. This post was dedicated entirely to him and our relationship. In this top-ten rated post, I speak directly about my open marriage and how I spent my Valentine’s Day with my husband (and my boyfriend). He is also in virtually all of my “coming out” posts, as normally, we are “coming out” to our friends as a polyamorous, married couple, usually side by side. It’s possible sometimes I do not say “with my husband” when I am describing something because it is so elementary to me that he is standing beside me. My bad if that is the case.
As far as the imperfection of my marriage, we have our ups and downs like any other couple. Shortly after we were married, my father fell ill to cancer and died six months later after a grueling experience watching his health fail. Then we later found out we were infertile and could not bear our own children, and then my mother died as well. So my sweet husband stood by me as he watched me deal with grief, depression, a sagging libido and go to therapy to try to fix myself. In the end, those experiences brought us closer together as a couple instead of driving us apart. But that is not to say that those experiences were easy to get through – but get through them we did. He is my rock, and I am passionately in love with him, and will sing his praises to the moon and back.
Do I feel my audience wants to hear more about me and boyfriend?
This answer has several layers to it. In a small way, I think it would be somewhat boring to talk about roses, and holding hands and smooching and cuddling on the couch in a pleasant marriage or alternative relationship all of the time. Plus I feel there is somewhat less to learn there. I think spurts of personal growth happen around the disagreements, the struggles, the problems we are faced with. In some ways, my boyfriend and husband are alike, and in other ways, they are incredibly different. Hey, I’m a girl that loves variety, thus one of the many reasons I lead a polyamorous life! In a funny twist of fate, my beau and I sometimes do NOT agree on certain things or do not communicate easily with one another some days. That makes for some interesting stories that I talk about here and here. I also believe whole-heartedly that it can be very difficult being a “secondary” the way my boyfriend is technically to me, which I discuss at length here. It is easy for society to recognize my relationship with my husband, but less so for them to recognize my love relationship, as well as domestic partnership (because he lives with us) to my boyfriend. Even this Christmas, after coming out to virtually all of our friends and family, we still receive cards to our three-adult home labeled only to my husband and I (with no greeting or mention of my boyfriend who they know lives at this wonderful house of ours). To me, this shows both how uncomfortable people are still with polyamory, but also how difficult it must be to be in my boyfriend’s shoes, feeling a bit shoved to the side. I very much sympathize with that and like to write about it here – a blog about polyamorous relationships.
Also, I tend to spend more physical time with my boyfriend, because we both work from home and have many similar interests. Also, my husband has a very demanding job, and a thriving martial arts hobby that keeps him very busy. So in some ways, I have more day to day interactions with my boyfriend, simply due to logistics.
Lastly, the other reason that I speak of my boyfriend often is he is regularly dating new women off and on. Thus I am constantly working on my own emotions and compersion, metamours, and break ups. My husband dates as well, but the women he dates tend to be good friends of mine that I have known and trust for years. And thus he also never “breaks up” with them. Some of them move away, have babies, etc. But there is less drama frankly.
One final realization: My husband reads this blog. My boyfriend does not. Haha. So maybe sometimes I mention my husband less for privacy reasons because I know he will read each and every blog post.
In conclusion, I do learn from, lean on, grow with, adore and admire BOTH my husband AND my boyfriend – in both similar ways and also in very different ways. My sex life with each of them is very pleasantly different as well (again, I love variety!). I hope that this post helps clear up my reader’s question. How about you? What about the reader’s comment of “seeing her poly friends leaning more on their boyfriends/girlfriends than they do their spouses.” Have any experience there to share?
Wishing you peace, love and happiness,
(and thrilling, fun sex too!)
Kitty
If you would like to have an authentic, clarifying conversation with me so we can discuss ways to help you create loving, happy, secure, and exciting open relationships, feel free to learn more about my coaching services here. Then the button at the bottom of that page will offer you the opportunity to book a FREE Breakthrough Session with me – taking you directly into my calendar. I look forward to speaking with you!
Love this! Thanks for sharing. I often lean on my boyfriend emotionally moreso than my husband these days, but that doesn’t mean I hold one in a higher standard than the other, ever. Everyone is different, everyone’s relationships are different, and those relationships can shift from time to time. It’s all about communication, understanding, *trust*, and time management, imho. (I wish my bf could live with us, but his wife and kids are almost 3k miles away– nope– sigh.) This blog is great, I thank you for creating it and I look forward to reading more. Best, Heather
You are most welcome, Heather! Thanks for contributing to the conversation here with us, and offering your viewpoint. It is highly valued. I agree with everything that you said, including that there is an ebb and flow with relationships. I’m glad that you are enjoying yours, even though your beau lives 3K miles away. You rock, sister!
It’s my opinion that when you’re poly, talking about your core relationship and how that’s working as well as talking about your poly connections can give those curious about being poly more useful information. I know when I’ve written about it, I’ve tried to encompass every aspect of my poly relationship, from the core relationship with my wife, to how I related with the other women in our relationship and even how they related with each other.
It paints a more complete picture, I think… but some of us might not do this because our core relationship is what it is and while this relationship is special enough to allow polyamorism (is this really a word?), it’s not that our core relationship isn’t interesting – but our activities with our poly members is, you know, along the lines of, “This is how we do it!”
We write about the pros and cons when it comes to being poly and dealing with the others who are in our circle; we might even write about how to protect and maintain our core relationship – the rules under which govern our behaviors in this… but maybe we just “overlook” things like our core partner’s POV on this because, um, we know what it is. It’s not that we think their POV isn’t important – we damn well know it is – we just kinda don’t really think about including it when we write about being poly, huh? We talk about poly management, like how we do our best to keep all of what’s going on as straight as possible… but maybe we just “forget” to talk about how we do this with our core relationship and then how that management extends to those who are with us in this?
Just saying, ya know? When you’re married to someone, being polyamorous might begin with one person… but it is a “group” effort that begins with how one’s core relationship is structured to allow being poly to exist and grow and, yeah, sometimes, we just forget to talk about it. I know I’ve mentioned in my various writing that it wasn’t my idea for us to be poly – I was challenged to be poly and, yup, I accepted the challenge and then then had to learn on the fly how to be poly even more than my wife did since it got left to me to “be in charge” of the whole thing.
Stuff like that can be important for the budding and/or curious polyamorous person because, well, you know, it’s not just about what we do in this or why we do it as much as it is about how we do it, from our core relationship to our extended ones.
Just my eighteen cents worth…
You are so awesome for sharing all of these thoughts here. Thank you! Yes, it’s not that we take our spouses opinions or arrangements for granted at all – I almost feel sometimes that my husband is an extension of me, and we agree on so many things, that to me it’s elementary that we are almost always on the same page. All well said, thank you, as always!
“seeing her poly friends leaning more on their boyfriends/girlfriends than they do their spouses.”
I lean in different ways. I live with my husband. I lean on him for day-to-day things. However, my BF is better at dealing with my emotions. So, when I’m upset about a situation (with friends, with a poly issue, or with work, for example), I’m more likely to vent to and seek advice from my BF. I do also ask my husband, but he and I have different world views about some things, and my BF has more experience in (1) being poly and (2) teaching college (a lot of my issues revolve around my job). In short, my BF and my husband get leaned on a lot…. but in different ways.
Thank you for contributing your thoughts here! I really appreciate it. What you describe makes total sense, and I completely understand. Sometimes I lean more on my boyfriend simply because he is physically around more some days. And yes, I lean more on each of them in their different areas of expertise.
Thank you for clarifying things. I want to be as supportive as I can to my friends, and we always recognize their additions to house parties etc.. I don’t understand the cruelty of leaving someone out simply because you are made uncomfortable.
You seem to be a very sweet and compassionate person, and that is so nice that you try to be supportive of your friends with such great care. The world would be a better place if everyone attempted to be so thoughtful. As far as when my friends leave off my boyfriend on Christmas cards or invitations even though they know the deal and that he lives here, I think sometimes they perhaps simply forget (because my husband has been around for over a decade, but my boyfriend for only four years), or it’s just not on their radar. Or perhaps maybe out of habit, they just write mine and my husband’s names. I assume they are not doing it intentionally to make my boyfriend feel left out. But I also have other friends who make a point to write all of our names and/or invite all of us. I don’t take it personally. But it does make the friends really stand out who go the extra mile to be inclusive and sensitive.