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We did an Interview!

Posted by Caroline on April 9, 2016
Posted in: polyamory. Leave a comment

Well, it’s been a long time since posting, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing anything!  Our monthly Poly Cocktails event is growing steadily in popularity, and my loved ones and I started going on (gasp!) publicized interviews!

I’m sure I will quickly become overdue on writing the blog article I should one day write about how intimidating a prospect it is to lay yourself out there publicly, not to mention the total vulnerability of publicly outing yourself to the mercy of internet commentaries.  But that said, we did it!  And, so far, I am pretty fucking proud of us (if I do say so myself).

The original intention was for this to be a one-off five minute blurb, but I think (as we ALL come to realize eventually) polyamory became way to big, deep, and juicy of a topic for an interviewer to encapsulate in just five minutes, and so our (amazing and respectful) interviewer decided to break it up into a series of multiple segments.

I’ll leave the links here as they come online.

Enjoy!!

Asking for a Friend: So you have a wife and a boyfriend…

Asking for a Friend: Is polyamory just about having more sex?

Asking for a Friend: How do friends and family react to polyamory?

Asking for a Friend: Do your kids know you’re polyamorous?

Resource List

Posted by Caroline on April 3, 2014
Posted in: chicago, polyamory. 4 Comments

People who are perhaps polycurious or new to poly tend to be thirsty for any resource they can get their hands on (I know I was, and I see this a lot at our meetup events).  What books should I have my boyfriend read so he gets polyamory?  Where should we turn to get advice?  How accurate is the Showtime series as a portrayal of “real” poly?  Are there any examples of poly in the mainstream culture that are good? Where do you meet people to date? To commiserate with?

I think this would be a great place for people to post THEIR suggestions too.

Here’s my list with comments–

BOOKS

What book speaks to you depends a lot on who you are, but here’s a rundown of what they are and what I think they have to offer:

1) Polyamory in the 21st Century, by Deborah Anapol

-This is my favorite Intro to Poly book for a broad audience.  Most people choose Ethical Slut, but I think this speaks well to a broader audience.

2) The Ethical Slut, by Dossie Easton, Catherine A. Liszt

-This is usually referred to a LOT as a source for polyamory, but I felt like it didn’t speak to me as well at the beginning of poly as it does now.  I think it’s a great book, but for me it was intimidating for a first poly book.

3) Sex at Dawn, by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá

-This is an anthropological study into non-monogamy, so if you lean toward someone who likes to read pop non-fiction, it’s a good read.  Much less of a How To book, and much more of a book to answer “are we naturally monogamous?”.  As much as I love it, I will say that the writers take an advocate’s stance, and as a result it can get a little browbeating to people who may not agree with everything.  It comes across as more biased than most scientists would like.  That said, I’m an overall fan.

4) Opening Up, by Tristan Taormino

-If you are a couple, and you are thinking about opening your relationship, but are unsure of how you want to do that, this is your book.  It goes through many forms of consensual non-monogamy, not just polyamory.  So want to know the difference between swinging and polyamory and which one might fit you best?  This is the one you want.

5) The Polyamorists Next Door, by Elizabeth Sheff

-I’m in the middle of reading this so I can’t make a judgement call yet, but so far it seems like a solid academic text.  It even starts with a whole glossary of terms, some of which she coined (my new favorite is polyaffective).  It might end up being a good book to give to those special family members in your life who you are coming out to and have never heard of the term “polyamory” before.  It is a bit dry and written to be as objective as possible, so it lacks in compassion, humor, and first-hand experience, but if you are a stickler for getting as unbiased of a perspective as possible, I would say this is your book.

BLOGS

1) Polyamory in the News: http://polyinthemedia.blogspot.com/

-This is a fantastic website that gives you pretty much every mention of polyamory in mainstream media, usually with really excellent commentary and perspective from the poly community:

2) SoloPoly: http://solopoly.net/

-A GREAT blog for people who are coming at this, well, solo. I don’t know of another resource that caters to them in this way, and it’s fantastic.  (And for people coming at this as a couple, this post is the most important one people can read about “secondary” relationships: http://solopoly.net/2012/11/27/non-primary-partners-tell-how-to-treat-us-well/)

3) Tumblr Poly Tumblogs (admittedly, I got these from Josie since I’m not really a tumblr person): http://polyamoryspider.tumblr.com/polyblogdatabase/; http://psychophancy.tumblr.com/post/75300124272/non-monog-blogs

4) Specific essays on various blogs that are important:

–Pepper Mint’s website has a fantastic ‘Poly 101’ handout: http://freaksexual.wordpress.com/2008/03/22/practical-nonmonogamy-tips-ii/

–And also an essay that’s must-read for dudes on Poly from a guy’s perspective: http://freaksexual.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/nonmonogamy-for-men-the-big-picture/

–From SoloPoly, a must-read for couples ‘opening up,’ on how to treat secondary partners: http://solopoly.net/2012/11/27/non-primary-partners-tell-how-to-treat-us-well/

–And for anybody digging deeper, pretty much all of the essays on More Than Two, Franklin Veaux’s site, are wonderful. These are being collected into a book but are still available online:: http://www.morethantwo.com/

COMMUNITY AND ADVICE

Sometimes, poly is hard.  Just like monogamy.  Or work.  Or parenting.  Or a new diet.  But with those other things, there are scores of places to turn to for advice or role models or motivation or consolation.  Not so much with poly.  Probably the hardest thing about being poly can be the feeling of isolation–it feels like no one knows what you’re going through.  Friends and family might be a little too ready to point the finger at polyamory as being the problem instead of looking what might be a bigger cause, so confiding in them feels like you’ll just end up defending your decision instead of getting any comfort.  So where do you go?

1) Therapy

-I have already been on here raving about our poly friendly therapist, and I honestly think everyone opening their relationship should have one.  Clearly my life is filled with examples of amazing people who did it without that support so who am I to say, but I’m a huge therapy advocate.  We found ours through this amazing website called Kink Aware.  It has lists of professionals who are aware of and have experience with all kinds of non-monogamous and ”sexually deviant” lifestyles.  Instead of going to an uneducated couples therapist who may try to jump to the conclusion that opening your relationship is a sign that something’s wrong, I suggest going to one of these (unless, of course, you already have one that you like and want to continue with).

2) Support Groups

-Chicago Polyamory Meetup Group (CPMG) hosts a regular support group that is fantastic.

3) Workshops

-I went to an “Open Relationships” workshop two years ago at The Pleasure Chest, and it was amazing.  They also gave out a list of resources, and of course the person giving the presentation was polyamorous herself and was a great resource.

4) Meetups

-Obviously, I host one and I’m biased, but meetup groups are a great place to meet people face-to-face and ask them questions.  Any veteran I’ve come across at a meetup is open and happy to share their experiences with newbies.  Some meetups will have more veterans than others, so try a few different ones to get a feel for each.

5) OKCupid

-Believe it or not, it’s not just for dating!  Yes, many people on there are all about dating, but that doesn’t meant they don’t also want friends or help out.  I met many people through OKC who didn’t work out as a certain kind of partner, but I’ve definitely kept as friends.  Find some veterans on OKC and message them to ask them about their experiences and if they wouldn’t mind talking with you about them.

That’s about all I’ve got for now!  Any poly veterans want to leave their two cents??

Family Portraits

Posted by Caroline on November 21, 2013
Posted in: polyamory. 3 Comments

My son’s new preschool has a bulletin board right by the front entrance where everyone is asked to post a family picture.  It’s a sea of Typical Family Portraits: a mom, a dad, a kid or two, and maybe a dog.  We’ve now been there for over two months and the teachers keep bugging me to get them our family portrait.

I’ve totally choked.

Let me preface this by saying that I have a way of completely overthinking EVERYTHING.  Even a damn picture.  I could, of course, produce a Typical Family Portrait.  That would be the easy and simple.  We are not out as poly to preschool or my son’s friends’ parents and, to borrow some phrasing from my beloved queer friends, we “present” as a monogamous couple.  We attend birthday parties with just us and our son.  We gloss over the poly parts of our lives by using phrases like, “a friend of mine” and “a person we know”.  When my boyfriend comes with me for pick up, we don’t hold hands or brush up against each other.  The Typical Family Portrait would just be an extension of what we’ve been doing already.  Avoiding it and playing it safe.  Not lying, but also not revealing.

But the radically honest person in me is cringing with self-loathing.

I believe strongly that if one CAN come out she should.  Not only for her own mental health, but also to aide in progressing polyamory to be a more accepted and understood lifestyle.  If we all came out, we wouldn’t be considered so weird.  But this–my son’s preschool–is the first place I’ve had doubts about whether or not I SHOULD.  It’s not as simple as just “you can take me or leave me just the way I am, and your loss if you if you don’t like it.”  It isn’t really about ME at all.  It’s my son’s space, and it feels like opening up my innocent son to the potential for discrimination.  What if birthday party invitations stopped coming?  What if the other parents stopped talking to us, or told their kids to stop talking to him?  Heck, what if the preschool called child services on us?  Seems really unlikely–we are in Chicago after all–but do I really want to take the risk?

Most friends I talk to think I’m probably totally safe–my neighborhood and this preschool are not known for being intolerant–but I’ve already experienced that rejection first hand and it’s made me a bit paranoid.  My boyfriend lives in a more conservative suburb, and most of his friends are devout Catholics.  Though they are nice to my face, they certainly don’t agree with our choices and they’ve told us that we are not allowed to bring either my son or my wife to their houses.  Essentially, if we want to be friends with them we must play the part of monogamous couple and there is only “so far they can go” in accepting our lifestyle.  To paint a broad stroke, my being poly has resulted in my son being discriminated against: he’s not allowed in their houses or to play with their children.  (Thankfully, he’s too young to know the difference and has never met them so it really doesn’t matter.  Still, not a pattern I want to continue.)

We are new to this preschool and the stakes are so much higher.  We are still getting to know the parents, and we have no clue how socially conservative they swing.  I know that one day I’m going to have to bite the bullet and come out to at least some of my son’s friends’ parents and deal with their reactions.  I know I am delaying the inevitable.

Still, it pains me to admit that now simply is not the right time.  I know it’s a little manipulative, but I want them to know us and like us first so it’s harder to reject us in the future.  I don’t want to cut off those relationships before they even get started.  Our Typical Family Portrait is still true, it’s not a lie.  We are, knowingly, privileged to be in a relationship that “passes” as monogamous, so this form of manipulation can actually work.  Who’s to say being patient and waiting for the right time may not make a bigger difference in the long run?  Maybe people who would have outright rejected us at first will be more open when they know us a people first before poly.

But the idealist on my shoulder keeps yelling at me to shut up and stand up for myself and others who are less privileged.  Push buttons!  Fight the good fight!  I have to stop myself, take a deep breath, and keep reminding myself that this is for my son, not for me or anyone else.  Sometimes my principles about doing the right thing for him must supersede other principles.

After all, it’s just a freaking picture, right?

Poly Is: A Simple, Boring Halloween Story

Posted by Caroline on October 31, 2013
Posted in: polyamory, polyis. Leave a comment

Last night, after a crazy month in my house, we finally got a chance to turn our minds to Halloween.  I know, I know…it’s the day before and we had barely registered that it was coming, never mind carved a pumpkin or made costumes. But still! We wanted to have some semblance of a family night and an opportunity to get excited with our son about the festivities awaiting the next day.

Our little guy is now four years old, and this is the first Halloween he’s anticipated with excitement.  Last year, he didn’t really know what it was about.  He didn’t really get the whole dressing up thing and wouldn’t ask for for any specific costume; he hesitated with ringing his first couple of door bells (until he realized that every time he did it nice people gave him candy, and then he couldn’t wait to ring every door on the block).

This year, he’s been talking about it for a month.  He KNOWS what’s coming.

He had decided sometime in September that he wanted to be a ghost, which is awesome because I like to make his costumes and a better last-minute-throw-together costume I couldn’t have asked for.  That said, I still hadn’t made it.  They also had carved a pumpkin at preschool, and he’s been asking to carve one at home every day for about a week now.  I couldn’t bring myself to do it while in recovery from surgery and Josie’s been working insane hours, but what kind of parents would we be if we went all of October without carving a pumpkin!

So last night, we decided to do ALL THE THINGS.  Josie (my wife) left work and picked our son up from preschool.  Adam (my boyfriend) picked me up from work, and we headed to the grocery store to buy a pumpkin from the slim pickings still left on sale and some frozen pizzas for dinner.  We all met at home and stuck the pizzas in the oven.

On the floor of the dining room, Josie and our son got to work on the pumpkin while I set up at the dining room table with my sewing machine and got to work on the ghost costume.  Adam simply sat with us making easy conversation.  When the pumpkin was done, we stuck a candle in it and my son went around the apartment turning off all the lights.  Adam played with him by making spooky noises when the lights were out.  My son tried on his costume one last time to make sure everything was in place and started getting giddy with excitement.  Then Josie put him to bed and headed off to work again while Adam and I stayed behind and had a date night together.

—-

It’s such a simple story: a family having a night together in preparation for Halloween.  I would even say it’s too boring of a story to be worthwhile for a blog post.  But, then again, we’re poly.  The fact that it says “my boyfriend” instead of “a close family friend” or “uncle” somehow makes it titillating for some (or dangerous for others).  But I wanted to write it because I remember when we first became poly not ever seeing stories like this and I was thirsty for them.  I needed to know that we weren’t crazy and that this could be Normal.  Simple.  Boring.

The fact is that it wouldn’t have been all that different if we weren’t poly.  Maybe it would have been a close friend instead of a boyfriend.  Maybe it would have just been us and been slightly more harried.  Maybe there just wouldn’t have been any spooky noises when the lights went out.  But–hey–for me, I hope more and more of my family holidays look like this in the future.  Fuller, more complete, closer to my own personal ideal of a home.

So for those of you who need a story like this, Happy Halloween!  I wish yours to be as boring and lovely as mine!

 

Back from the Dark

Posted by Caroline on October 30, 2013
Posted in: my poly story, polyamory. Leave a comment

Just wanted to throw out a quick apology for disappearing for the past month.  Turns out it was a CRAZY FREAKING month for me, including a wedding, a marathon (literal, not figurative), a work fiasco for me, an even crazier work fiasco for my wife, a surgery for me, almost another surgery for my wife, and a sick child.  I AM READY FOR NOVEMBER.

That said, since this is a poly blog and I am a poly gal, I have to say that I have never been so thankful to be poly.  My wife entered into two weeks of work hell—working from when she woke up to well after I was asleep in bed, 7 days a week—and on top of that, I had to have surgery.  When my wife couldn’t be with me, I had my boyfriend helping me change gauze, making me tea, and picking up my son from preschool.  Not only was I so thankful for his presence, my wife was right there with me thanking him for being with me when she couldn’t.

Poly FTW.

Why does it have to end badly?

Posted by Caroline on June 7, 2013
Posted in: polyamory. Tagged: , . 5 Comments

I was sitting around with some co-worker friends yesterday eating lunch, just chatting about nothing in particular. (Yes, I am out to all of my work friends.)  One of them was talking about a family friend of hers when she said with amazement, “He’s still really good friends with his ex-wife. Isn’t that WEIRD?!”

“No,” I say simply.

“But–I mean–it’s his EX-wife!  I’ve never seen that before. It’s just bizarre, right?”

“Nope, not really. Why should it be?  Maybe it just didn’t work out as a marriage, but there was still a good friendship there they wanted to hang on to.”

She just stared at me in astonishment. Then everyone else laughed, did their oh-Caroline’s-so-poly eye roll, and then admitted they agreed with me.

To be fair, I can’t blame her for thinking like that–it is the social script we live in and gets reinforced throughout our culture. The story goes that to get a divorce or end any serious romantic relationship, things must be so bad that you are throwing things out the window and punching holes in the wall while you fight, that the thought of seeing that person who was once your significant other must be so painful that no friendship could blossom out of that, that when things end, they have to end for good. But why?  Why do relationships have to end like that for people to feel it’s a legitimate end?

I am not saying that polyamorous folks don’t have their horrific break ups, and that there aren’t relationships that need space when they end, but I would say that permanent displacement and refusal to have a friendship might be the exception rather than the rule. I’ve heard poly folks call it “transitioning” a relationship instead of “breaking up”, which I think is rather elegant. It speaks to the fact that relationships are always changing and being re-negotiated, and often two people feel the need to change the nature of the relationship while still maintaining the foundation of why they initiated the relationship in the first place. Maybe a girlfriend becomes just a friend without commitment, maybe a non-sexual friend gets labeled as a partner, maybe a lover becomes an acquaintance. And, yes, there are often tears and discomfort, but there is also a beauty in the fact that people don’t have to find a reason to fight or hate each other in order to change things to better suit their needs. There was always a reason you started the relationship in the first place, and chances are pretty good that those reasons are still totally legitimate for maintaining some connection. It’s definitely how I personally prefer to think of things. It makes me comfortable in a way it may make few people, and some people will always need to cut communication off completely in order to feel comfortable about having broken it off, no matter how insignificant the relationship was in the grand scheme of things.

There are probably a dozen reasons why transitioning happens so often in the world of poly, some of them being things we pride ourselves on like communication skills and an open concept of relationships, but a large part of it is admittedly that we live in a relatively small community and you can’t really get away with breaking up with someone badly unless you want your social life to get really awkward. Chances are they are dating, once dated, or will one day date someone you know, are dating, once dated, or will date. They will end up at your social events. It’s inevitable.

I realize I do a disservice to some non-polys by thinking of this as “poly” thinking. As was evident in that conversation with my work friends, clearly people are capably of it who are (presumably) monogamous, and I’ve definitely seen polyamorous people who have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. But as was also evident from that conversation, monogamous couples who do this are seen as an anomaly by society, and my personal experience has witnessed the “normal” break up paradigm being challenged in the poly world far more than in the broader world.

My Poly Story: Triggers & the Normalizing Process

Posted by Caroline on May 21, 2013
Posted in: my poly story, polyamory. Tagged: , , , . 3 Comments

Tomorrow, my wife and I will celebrate our ninth wedding anniversary.  NINE YEARS!  Would it be cliche to say it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long? (Absolutely, but I’m going to say it anyway.)  It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.

Now for the moment of brutal honesty: when she started dating her first girlfriend in our new poly “married and dating” life, there were moments–brief, emotional moments–when I thought we weren’t going to make it to nine.  (She, of course, never had a doubt, but then again she wasn’t the one getting triggered by anything and everything at all moments of the day.)

You see, when we first decided to open our marriage, she immediately jumped onto OKCupid and got started.  I was a bit busier at the time, so I was about four days behind her on the OKC bandwagon.  Before I could even make my profile, she had (I kid you not) messaged ONE woman, gotten a very positive reply, had started chatting with her multiple times a day, and set up a date.  By the end of the week, they had met and she was smitten.  By the end of a few weeks, they were in full-blown NRE–messaging and texting all hours of the day, meeting up five times a week, all-consuming preoccupation and inability to talk about anything else–and me?  My brain went into full-time nonstop trigger mode.

You learn a lot about yourself and your relationship when you see a partner in NRE.  Every trigger you feel has an insecurity or fear or dysfunction behind it, and I felt them ALL.  She had a kid too, so they would get together for a play date and I would get jealous.  They would spend time together during the day while I was at work–boom! Another trigger. She was a perfume lover.  I’d smell it on my wife–trigger! On our son–trigger!  On the couch–trigger! Something spontaneous happened–trigger!  Something planned happened–trigger!  They were getting together four or five times a week, and it was like I couldn’t breathe from one date to the next.  Each one taking things a step further, making them more enraptured with each other, and making me sicker to my stomach with the fears and insecurities that lay behind those triggers.

I write about this now because if I have one piece of advice for any person or couple entering poly from a long history of monogamy it is this: get thee some mentors.  Some shamans, as Peter put it.  (Peter was on of my first poly shamans, come to think of it.)  Join a community, find other poly folks and pick their brains (trust me, most of us are used to it and really want to help because we’ve been in your shoes).

The best decision my wife and I ever made (aside from having a child and learning how to bake our own bread) was go to see a couple’s councilor who had previous experience with polyamorous relationships.  She truly was a mentor more than anything.  She had all the vocabulary, knew of many other people who had been through the same thing, and was able to put everything into perspective.  Because she knew what polyamory was already, we never had to go through the steps of educating her (or trying to defend our decision to open our marriage), and she already knew that what we needed was just to normalize things.  I think most of the advice I give to other people is taken straight from her mouth.

I remember those first months of being poly were like being in a different country with a different language without an interpreter.  Thankfully, our therapist and our new friends in the poly community taught us the native tongue so we could call the new country our home.  The normalizing process is not easy, but we were taught we needed to have patience and give our brains time to adjust.

Here are just a few tidbits from those first few months that helped us out, in case others out there are looking for it:

  • Sleep.  A full-night sleep is the best thing you can give your brain to help process things.  Let it do the work for you.  It can’t do it without deep sleep.
  • NRE is powerful, but it’s not an endurance athlete.  Enjoy it while it’s there, but it will run its course.  It is dangerous to put too much stock in it–when it has passed (and after you get into your first fight) is when you truly learn how lasting the relationship will be.  Partners on both sides of the emotion could do with some reminding of this.  This too shall pass.
  • Emotions are always valid, but they are not always correct.  Emotions and triggers need to be given respect, but just because you have a knee-jerk jealous reaction doesn’t mean that your partner did anything wrong or that your worst fears are coming true or that you made a giant mistake.  Focus on what that emotion is truly telling you if you want to stop feeling it.
  • Agree to boundaries that help each other through triggers, and know that they can be renegotiated after a trial period or after the need has passed.  We instituted a “just us on the weekends” rule when I was at the height of my triggers to give me some time and space to reconnect with my wife and not have to worry about other partners.  It got tweaked drastically, but we still ask for reconnection time on an as needed basis and understand the importance if we need reconnection time with other partners as well.  We had a “no sex in our bed” rule that quickly got tossed when we realized we didn’t care one bit.  I’m afraid that my partners still have to shower after being with anyone who smells strongly of perfume.

Anyone else want to add a tidbit to that list?