Polyamory Can Work

Posted by AirencloseAuthor: Airen Name:
Email: airenwolf@yahoo.com
Site: http://shadowdarkdancing.blogspot.com/
About: I am a polyamorous pagan Mom of three. I am 40 years old, short, dark haired and eyed with a Rubenesque figure that my guys adore. I am involved intimately with two men, Sigel who is my husband and Arch who is our life partner. Sigel and I have been together for 24 years and we've experimented with many lovestyles before deciding that polyamory works best for us. We have two daughters aged 12 and 13. Arch has been with us for over 6 years. He and I have a son aged 4 months. We are currently working on living under one roof or at the very least the same country!See Authors Posts (21)

Recently we had a very sad little shout out to anyone who has a thriving successful polyamorous relationship. This poor guy was worried because while everywhere he read that polyamory is a wonderful lovestyle, and it is a wonderful lovestyle, but when he would ask questions he would get sob story after sob story. It’s pretty common and actually does happen in all lovestyles. Everywhere we read that marriage is the preferred place for all people, it is the only system that we are supposed to crave! Our entire lives we are bombarded with fairy tale love stories that have no substance, is it any wonder that when we wander out into the world, fresh faced and curious that we quickly come to the conclusion that love is something that no one can ever attain? We soak up every story we can find that has a happy ending forgetting that the heart sees something totally different than the eyes.

Take for instance my relationship. On the surface it looks like a tangle of trouble and strife. My husband and I live with all three of our children in the middle of the US while our life partner lives in Canada. Some years we spend almost half the year in one of the countries splitting our family. We have two or three days a year where we are all together. This is expensive emotionally as well as financially. Our life partner is male and our youngest child is his. He is almost 15 years our junior and was almost a shut-in when we began our relationship. We met in an online roleplaying game and we were smitten after long hours of play and conversation. When we met it was fireworks for all three of us even though the guys are not romantically interested in each other.

My husband remarked as our life partner came into our home, “This feels right, he’s meant to be here.” He had no idea what that meant just a bone deep feeling that somehow we had found the person we had been looking for, even though we had no idea we were looking. This feeling has been tested many times over the years but neither man is willing to be the Daddy that the kids visit. Still it’s been a never ending problem of border crossings. You see Canada doesn’t want us to come over the border, though we have no idea whether it’s personal or just something they subject everyone to. The Us is equally hostile to our Life Partner so every six months or so we brave the intrusive and angry questions for just the chance of spending 24-48 hours as a complete family.

Now this situation isn’t totally the fault of our governments. Our Life Partner has been very resistant to getting up out of the house and facing what’s outside the apartment. He is making so many life changes that sometimes he gets a bit of stage fright and wants to pull his head back in and hide. Love of me, our family and his son keeps him going. We all know this part of growing up sucks and we help him by loving hugs and swift kicks in the ass! This is what families do for each other.

My husband has had his issues as well. He is the child of a broken family, his mother allowed another man to enter his life and claim to be his father. This has caused problems for us and only recently has he decided to let go of his fears and embrace our life partner as just that, a partner not a replacement. So as you can see this isn’t all wine, roses and kinky sex- it’s real life.

It sounds like a recipe for disaster and not much fun doesn’t it? Well here’s a look at just one typical night:

I am talking to Sigel via Skype because I’m visiting Arch with all the kids for the summer. I mentioned that we bought a hamburger press and it works great. Scintillating conversations we have no?

Arch looks over at me and says jokingly, “It’s MINE!” So I say, “Yes and when you move in with me it’ll be mine too.” He smiles and says,”That works for me.”

Sigel pipes up with “He’ll drive me crazy I can’t live with him…” sort of half joking half serious, so I tell Sigel that living with him is no walk in the park either!

Arch says, “That’s ok we’ll let Sigel live in the garage…he can have his own water bowl and blanket! He can even have a hamburger if he asks really nicely….” We all break down in laughter and the girls start adding what other things their Dad can do while living in the garage.

This is fairly typical conversation…and then we make goofy faces and marvel at the newest thing our baby boy has learned to do. Tonight he has learned that he can’t bite the electrical cord on the floor without hitting his forehead on the wall. We were giggling and he gets up on his knees and begins rocking in frustration and bonks himself good. He sits up and rubs his head while looking at us confused…more laughter and a family tickle fest ensues. All the while Sigel watches and wishes he was here.

Tonight I will snuggle up next to Arch who has to work 12 hours tomorrow, and in a month I’ll be snuggling up next to Sigel the night before he has to work a 12 hour day. So mundane and so not the popular image of the sex crazed swinging people are SURE goes on in our house.

Yes you can have a happy, fulfilling and WONDERFUL poly life but it takes as much work as it does to have a happy mono life. What makes me sad is most people don’t see that and applaud the hard work we do, they just see how unwilling they are to do it and judge us to be “bad” or “sinful”.

S’ok though because tomorrow I will clean my house; walk with my children; and make breakfast, lunch and dinner. I will laugh, I will enjoy being part of a community of people of all persuasions and maybe I’ll write. Let other people keep their prejudices and ideas, I’ll take the love and intimacy I have over that anyday.