#polyrolemodels

So you have all the basic beginner books about Polyamory. What do you read next? I highly recommend Love’s Not Colorblind by Kevin Patterson (Curator of @polyrolemodels​)

First off, I want to make it clear that is not a “Polyamory How-To” book. To me this is one of the only Polyamory books out there that is one step beyond the basics. I would call this an intermediate polyamory book. Many books will tell you the basics and to start embracing a polyamory lifestyle and those books will give warnings about simple things not to do or watch out for. But this book has no shame in really calling out some of the problems and red flags that exist in polyamory communities. It asks us to stop only focusing on the big obvious issues and to have a conversation about some of the deeper wounds that affect not only Polyamory but all alternative communities.

Now you might be thinking that this book is not for you. Maybe you are thinking that you are too “White” for such a book. I am White too and trust me, both times I read this book the contexts were very important and moving for me. It did make me rethink past thoughts or behavior I had done got me saying to myself, “I can do better”. You may not think that the issues addressed in this book affect you but if you are a human being then they do affect you as well.

Polyamory is becoming more and more mainstream but it is still very much a marginalized community and therefor it is of upmost importance that we build our communities to be supportive of all polyamorous people that need support. And the fact is that we are just not doing a good enough job. We can’t just rest on our laurels. Community is an ever-growing and evolving life form that we need to tend to. Because if we can’t take care of our own then how can we hope for society to respect us. We can’t leave anyone behind and we need to listen to the plights of everyone in our community without brushing them off as “Not my problem”.

I took these excerpts from an interview with Joreth Innkeeper on  polyrolemodels.tumblr.com. The lines that made an impression on me I’ve bolded/italicized…

2. What does your relationship dynamic look like?

[…]

No discussion of what my relationship dynamic looks like would be complete without mentioning my metamours.  Even though I know them through our mutual partner and they are not romantic or sexual partners of mine, they are my family.  I have very different relationships with each of them, but I couldn’t imagine my life without their support, their humor, their wisdom, and their plotting!  To me, metamours are the benefit to being poly, as opposed to being monogamous or some other form of non-monogamy.  I mean, multiple partners is great and all, but the metamours make polyamory worth it.  They’re one of the things that differentiate polyamory from other forms of non-monogamy and one of the reasons I prefer polyamory over the other forms of non-monogamy and definitely more than I prefer monogamy.  

3. What aspect of polyamory do you excel at?

Communication. I can talk a person’s ear off, and I’m usually pretty good at listening and understanding the other person’s position. Also compersion. I was never very prone to jealousy to begin with and I’m extremely introspective so I’ve gotten really good at isolating, identifying, and understanding my various insecurities and communicating to my partners if I’m having any issues and how those issues can be solved.  This tends to lead towards issues being tackled before they become too big to deal with, which leaves me with plenty of room left over to feel happy and excited about my partners’ lives outside of their relationship with me. Having a now-extensive history with successful metamour relationships also helps with that. I feel pretty confident in my partners’ abilities to manage their own relationships without my concern or interference, so I can spend my energy on viewing my metamours as potential opportunities rather than threats.  Seeing metamours as opportunities makes it easy to feel compersion.

We’re about three weeks into “The Move” [where my bf and his gf +kidlets are now all living together] and things are still settling. He doesn’t have the spare bedroom set up for us yet but we’ve been VERY lucky in that hubs has just started sleeping over at his ladyfriend’s place which has made my house - quite serendipitously - free for our last three dates. *High tens all around to our group’s boss coordinated scheduling!!* 

It’s sure as fuck interesting tho. Ahdunno how well this would have been going had we not had my place to retreat to. While she’s open and WANTING of me to stay over there while she’s home, there’s been challenges/caveats to that and I’m super grateful we weren’t forced into the steep learning curve on that right away. Plus she wants to wait until her munchkin has had more time around me before he wakes up to me sleeping over, so that’s ruled out a few of our chances right there. All things that would have aggravated my sense of autonomy and sovereignty with him in dating how / when / where we choose had we not had my place to use.

She’s also now witness to how much him and I text each other and is apparently getting a little bit jealous. The dreaded J-word!! Which threatens me to hear as we’ve already taken a big hit to our online time ever since the summer when they started spending most of their time together, plus all the extra space I’ve given him on top of that to work on his move and the gazillion other things that guy’s got on his To Do list… to hear she’s reacting to the little time we DO actually catch each other online for a convo nowadays…welp. All I can say is that I’m pretty damn grateful this guy reads the poly books and listens to the poly podcasts and has the confidence and language to be able to assert my role in his life in a caring and supportive way. It’s completely understandable what she’s experiencing, especially after living the married, nested life once before where you're the only outlet for your partner’s romantic attention. There’s a big adjustment to living with a partner who brings in this third person’s presence tho (hubs and I can attest) and getting used to the new routines and patterns that come with that; especially when there’s no template to follow because you’re building it as you go. 

What’s great is that she genuinely WANTS this poly life and to work through these things. [She’s considering getting back into dating and finding a second partner herself actually]. I need to remember that her jealousy doesn’t necessarily mean she’s demanding change (in the same way mine didn’t months back), but only that she's working through her discomfort and that that may require a little more love and attention in her direction.

I appreciated the above excerpts as it was a good reminder that I DON’T have any successful metamour history to chillax into; or moreso, the history of having a partner I could trust to manage two romantic relationships at once. There’s still this negative “other woman” archetype rolling around in me and it’s difficult to trust that her feminine charms and/or wrath (hah) won’t wear him down over time. Especially when she is such a strong, pushy, and self-admitted ‘Self-ish’ personality as is who’s stepping into this live-in role now that will gain her farrrrr more influence. Not maliciously, but just in the realm of balance. He has someone co-parenting his kids and sharing their responsibilities and he has to do right by her now. As much as neither of us like to use hierarchies, there’s still this worry that if she having an extra tough time with things, that he’s gonna feel the need to modify his behaviour for her, his new ‘primary’. I don’t think that’s the case…he’s done nothing but assert my importance and she’s never done anything to demand he change his relationship with me…it’s just hard not to fret sometimes over when that luck is gonna decide to run out!

As unsure as I feel about fully trusting Ilana yet (who I still have a long way in getting to know better), I have a confident partner who’s self-assured, poly-informed, centered in his principles, and has no troubles asserting my role in his life to her. So the lesson I take from the above is that I need to relax a bit more in trusting HIM to manage her rather than feeling the need to monitor the situation from the sidelines. Doing so may help me to start seeing her more as the wonderful opportunity she is, rather than just the threat.

I also need to change my connotation towards hearing about her ‘jealousy’ in the mono sense, which might mean more aggravated, rule-based consequences (e.g. “I felt terrible about watching you text her, so I want you to put your phone away whenever I’m in the room!”). In poly, my assumption should lean more to ‘self-accountable envy’ or a call for reassurance (e.g. “I felt kinda yucky being at home alone while you were on your date tonight. Can we get in a few hours of cuddle time?”). I know my jealousy leans towards the latter, I just gotta believe that maybe, just maybe!, Ilana could lean that same way too.