The World is in the Throes of Chaos

Does anyone else have a hard time writing at times like this?

I have been getting into a daily writing practice over the last few months. I’m doing it for several reasons: I have always wanted to focus on writing and finally have time and headspace to do it, I would like to make some money doing what I enjoy, I’m feeling like this is a great way for me to process my life, and I enjoy having a creative outlet, which in one form or another, I have found I need in daily doses.

But in the last 2 days, I have felt myself stumble. The events unfolding in the Ukraine right now have thrown me a bit. I feel sick for that part of the world as well as much trepidation about what is to come. In the midst of that kind of real life trauma, where does my little world fit in and is it relevant to keep sharing it with all of you?

A bit of background…

My life has felt highly stressful for the last few weeks/months. All the problems that come with off grid living have reared their heads. I’ve been without power, proper heat, and water at different times, over and over, and it is not only hard to live that way, but it is mentally wearing.

I have been dealing with massive money stressors in a way where I’ve hit a new low. Every time I hit a new low, I think it can’t possibly get worse. And then it does. The pandemic took out 2 of our 3 businesses and the third has been sporadic.

Communication between my ex/not ex husband (we are married but no longer living together) and I has been almost non existent over the last few weeks for some really immature reasons, in my opinion. Feelings got hurt, apologies were given, but I have yet to hear if they were accepted. But again, stress has been running high for us both, so sensitivities are up.

And to top it all off, I have not been able to see my boyfriend with the frequency I would like and need to feel sane regarding our emotional and physical need for each other. This has fallen on both of us — I’ve been more busy than normal dealing with all above issues, and he is working like mad to finish trucking before calving season starts. And he’s needed to take time for his wife, kids, and other girlfriend in that mix. Not just me. And it really sucks. Because I find that when I am highly stressed, his physical presence really grounds me. It is an outlet I have needed more lately and have had less of.

Oh, and I might also be extra hormonal because of a recent IUD insertion. But I’m sure that has nothing to do with any of it 🙂

Suffice it to say I have been stressed.

Writing through and about my life has been a great way for me to process life over the last few months. But when actual war descends, innocent people are being displaced, losing everything they have and know, and are dying, I ask myself what the point of my writing is? It’s not that my stuff has gone away, but it’s more that I feel somewhat guilty thinking about myself and focusing on me at these times.

My best friend (and fellow writer), and I talked about this just a few hours ago. She is feeling the same way, is having trouble focusing on her writing goals, and I was wondering if the rest of you can relate?

After a bit of pondering, this is where I have landed today…

It’s ok to feel all the things. Be sad, mad, and confused about the world chaos AND be ok with the fact that my life is not anything close to bad on those terms. I don’t need to feel guilt, but I should use this as a perspective check. My tough stuff is still there and is relevant and needs to be dealt with. But gratitude for what I have is a great place to pause.

So I am sinking into the fact that I live in one of the most peaceful and beautiful places on earth. I have a warm roof over my head and I have food to feed my family. I have time and opportunity to write and to focus on creative outlets I love. At this very moment, my off grid system is working enough that I have water coming out of the faucet and the fire is keeping my house warm. And best of all, I am surrounded by love and support. I have an amazing relationship with my kids. They are great emotional support and are tangibly doing life with me and using their unique skill sets to get us through this off grid mess we are currently in. I have amazing friends who love and accept me on my good and bad days. My husband and I have weathered much worse and we will likely get over this hump too. Money should start coming in next month again. And, even if I’m not with my boyfriend, we communicate regularly and I know he’s got my back, loves me with abandon, and I will likely see him next week.

Go ahead and feel the pain of the world. Empathy can be powerful and can bring on lasting change when channeled into action. Pain sharpens our perspective which is always a good thing. Life is hard, but for most of us, it is also more good than bad. It just depends on what you are focusing on.

So I have chosen to write today. And I am grateful that I can.

Yes It’s Possible to Cheat in the Context of Non Monogamy

Why you would is a whole other story…

Before I dig into this story I would like to put a caveat in here. Sharing this is not intended to make anyone the bad guy or good guy and I’ve never asked anyone who knows both me and my husband to take sides. I truly believe that both of us have made some big mistakes with each other, we are fundamentally good people with good intentions, but somewhere along the way, we stopped showing the kindness and patience we both have in us, to each other. This situation was a long time building up and came from many directions.

My goal in writing about difficult past experiences is to process it for myself and also, to hopefully help others from making similar blunders. I am also happy to say that my husband and I are in a better, albeit separate, place now.

“If I had experienced different things, I would have different things to say.” (Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening)

My husband and I had been open for a few years at this point and I had been with my current boyfriend for about a year. For the most part my husband was quite supportive of this relationship and tried to give me the space I needed to experience it fully. But somewhere along the way, I believe he started getting jealous, despite the fact that he had not been the jealous type up to this point.

For some time, he was fully engaged in the process of finding someone, casual or long term, and was not having much success. At least according to his perspective. I felt like the fact that he’d connected with several woman over the period of about 2 years in both a serious and in some casual capacities was fairly successful.

However, a woman he fell in love with trampled on his heart. Some short term flings weren’t quite as fulfilling as he’d hoped and he just wasn’t getting far in finding anything that would stick. All the while he watched as I, the one who didn’t really want to do the open relationship thing, had succeeded in finding a person I loved and was fully engaging in polyamory.

The other issue we had been dealing with since we opened up was that I had a hard time letting him do what he wanted and following spontaneity. I have written about our different styles in the past. I am a planner and like to know what is ahead with time to process, and he wants to follow wherever the wind leads. These styles did not ever mesh well. And at this point in time, our differences came to a head.

From my perspective, I told him he was free to find someone and follow that through, but I wanted notice as the process unfolded and most definitely before things happened physically. But I knew he hadn’t found anyone, in any capacity, for a long time, so frustration had been building.

Then he found someone. She was introduced to me as a woman he didn’t see wanting more than friendship with. I met her and liked her and agreed we should all hang out again. But at the end of that same day, my husband had kissed her and was wanting to start more with her than friendship. I was shocked and not very happy because I felt like I had been blindsighted. I knew and communicated that he had the right to change his mind but our agreement was that I was to have notice before he took steps acting on feelings.

I was upset. And he was upset, and thought I was in the wrong.

Despite the fact apologies were never offered, eventually I calmed down. I took it upon myself to work things out and try and be happy for them. After all, he was happy for me and the man I had found. After this they proceeded with their relationship in such a way where I was kept in the loop which I appreciated.

I thought we were on sure footing once again.

But then one night everything changed. Forever.

We had just finished dinner outside on a lovely summer night. We had some wine in our systems — my husband more than I. We were sitting around chatting. Our boys went off to play. And somehow we got into the topic of relationships. I’ll admit details get a bit fuzzy at this point. More alcohol was consumed and this night upset me so thoroughly I have spent a lot of time trying not to remember it all. Suffice it to say, before we knew it, things got heated.

Out of the blue I got accused of blocking what he wanted in his life and I got called all kinds of names and was told I was the most selfish person he had ever met and all kinds of awful things. He then told me, as he was yelling, that he had been sleeping with someone I hadn’t even heard of for a few weeks now. And that he was pursuing things with two people (which had also been our agreement not to do simultaneously). And too bad for me (said in terrible ways).

I was in shock, felt betrayed, and was utterly devastated, and to this day I would say that was one of the worst nights of my life.

We yelled, I sobbed, he swore at me, there was more yelling, and finally I took off to the far reaches of our property where I could catch my breath and process alone. (One day I will tell the story of how my kids responded to this conversation they should never have heard — our house small — and how they found and took care of me which forever changed the nature of our relationships).

In one night, my world as I knew it had changed forever. My husband cheated on me in the context of agreed upon, non monogamy. It was insane. AND, he blamed me for his actions, saying I pushed him that way because I gave him no choice.

This was simply untrue. Choices you make are always your own. I had cheated in the context of monogamy and yes many factors from both sides lead to that, but in the end I made a decision. And although it was hard, I owned that decision. He never owned his mistakes, which is what inevitably unravelled our relationship.

I did not make non monogamy as easy for him as he would have liked, but he knew how I was wired from day one and that it was important for me to keep boundaries and to break new ground together. He broke our agreements, did not take ownership, and it fundamentally changed our relationship forever.

His actions also went against the poly circle because it was a group agreement to be tested all around before engaging physically with a new partner. So to start with, we ceased our physical relationship, believing then, that this was temporary while we worked through all that had happened. But as time wore on we realized taking the physical stuff off the table for us was a relief. In our 20 years of marriage, we were rarely on the same page sexually and although this was something that had improved over the last few years, (ironically I was very happy with our sex life when this situation happened), it was a struggle for us. So we agreed to keep this off the table which allowed him to do his sex life more spontaneously without affecting me physically.

It took some years yet to stop sleeping in the same bed and eventually live separately, but this was the best move for us. And our separation has allowed us to rediscover our friendship, which was always our strong point.

In conclusion, yes, it is possible to cheat in the context of non monogamy. What that means will be different for everyone. This is why it is SO important to discuss and AGREE on protocols everyone is comfortable with long term and to not change them unless it is discussed and mutually agreed upon. Honesty is paramount in making ethical non monogamy work! You also need to be vulnerable enough to ask for what you want and need, and be open to dialogue. Communication and respect for what everyone needs is key. And of course, at the base of it all — the foundation of trust is vital. Sadly for us, the trust was broken in such a way that was beyond repair.

Please, learn from our mistakes, do the hard and often uncomfortable work, and don’t let this happen to you!

Speculation Can Kill a Relationship

Especially when it has no foundation of trust under it.

We all know the old adage about assuming. “When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me” (Oscar Wilde). Get your facts straight before you speculate and make assumptions that can hurt. This goes for all relationships but I’d say polyamory is especially susceptible to the downfalls of this type of thinking because with more people involved, there is an increase in possible variables to speculate about, especially if you aren’t physically together very often.

Here are a few of my own poly examples of harmful speculation…

My husband is on a date with another woman and I bet he’s going to fall in love with her and dump me.
If my boyfriend finds another partner he won’t have time for me.
He hasn’t texted me back all day, he must have forgotten I exist.
He hasn’t answered my question about hanging out so he must not want to see me.

As soon as there is a gap in communication most of us quickly move to speculation. And in my case, it’s often self deprecating. When more than two people are involved it is infinitely easier to come up with endless theories and stories of what may or may not be going on during this gap in communication. I have a pretty good imagination so maybe that’s why I go to this place so quickly. Not good!

I have speculated, made an assumption, gotten it wrong, and hurt both me and my loved one. At the end of one such day of not hearing from my boyfriend and assuming I lacked importance in his life, I found out he had been dealing with some pretty big emergencies on the ranch and there was simply no room for keeping me in the loop. I wrongly speculated he was having too much fun with one of his other partners and forgot about me. So I stewed, I was mad at him, and I made myself feel crappy all day for no reason.

I’ve had more days along those same lines than I care to admit.

It really helps when I hear a good reason for the silence. But what I’ve asked myself after mulling this over a few times is, what if he hadn’t have had a good reason. Would this actually matter? Do I trust this person, our relationship, and how he feels about me, enough for communication gaps to be ok and not opportunities for freak outs? I have answered yes to these questions and have found myself getting better at navigating these gaps when they come.

This all comes down to communication and trust.

You need both to make a relationship worth. Communication is what builds trust. And ongoing communication is what keeps trust intact. When my boyfriend and I communicate (which is with a decent amount of frequency most days), it is done well and with honesty and because of that, I trust what we have built.

I believe that once trust is firmly established, there is more room for error in communication. If you trust a person and if you know where you stand with someone, this stuff shouldn’t matter as much if the gaps are sporadic. There should be room to make mistakes, to screw up communication and to not have it break you.

So here is where you need to start when you are feeling this way…

What is behind my speculation, assumptions and following anxiety? Is it fair to the other person? Do we have a foundation of trust?

I had a chat with a friend only this morning along these lines. He has feelings for a woman who is not communicating properly with him and our conversation was full of speculations about what could be behind her behavior. He has realized he has to put the damper on this situation because he is finding himself hurt time after time because he speculates, wonders, waits, makes assumptions, and in the end he gets no answers from her to help him navigate. This is becoming like non stop torture for him.

This woman has been through a lot with him and has become an important friend, but it hasn’t been enough to translate into stepping into the next stage of a relationship. He is missing trust in her and where they stand with each other because there has not been enough honest communication to have a foundation to fall back on. He does not trust that she has his interests at heart.

He has been floundering, questioning, and panicking because he is not seeing signs of her trying to remedy the situation. So despite the fact that he doesn’t want to, he is cutting ties because he is realizing he needs to protect himself and I am proud of him for making this hard choice.

When you haven’t heard from your loved one, do you speculate and make assumptions? Has this line of thinking hurt you or the other person? Mull it over next time this is where your headspace goes and dig a little deeper. And once you figure out your why’s, you can make a change. Address the issue in your own head and possibly together if a conversation is warranted, and then cut ties if need be.

At the end of the day, if trust is the foundation, then you should lean into that, especially on the hard days! Life is too short for anything less!

Make Sure He’s Available BEFORE You Get Involved

I learned this the hard way and lost some valuable friendships over my mistakes.

Once upon a time, there was this guy…

We had been casual friends for a few years. He and I had gotten to know each other through my husband. They shared some mutual hobbies and his presence waxed and waned as time for their interests did. My husband was in school, starting a new career path, we were busy having babies and also recovering from a total loss due to a forest fire. Life kept us fully occupied for quite some time.

A few years later as those parts of our lives were settling down, he came back into our world in a substantial way just as my hubby and I were opening up our marriage. Given the fact that I recently lost most of my friends and he hardly had any to begin with, we became a magnet for each other. He was seeing someone at the time and I was aware of this. I treaded lightly given my screw-ups of the past, and kept things as a no-line crossing friendship.

He quickly became my confidant and I told him all my secrets. I talked about my past mistakes, my desire to change my life for the better and to fill it with quality people, and we delved into my stresses regarding opening up as well. It was a perfect situation because he knew my husband well, we were all fairly close and talked to each of the other about everything, and so he acted as a bit of a bridge for us. He had also been engaged in open relationships over the last few years so he had a bit of wisdom under his belt for us.

Or so I thought.

To make a long story short, I trusted this guy, and given our long history and how we were engaging at that time, I don’t think I was out to lunch to do so. And then he started pushing the friendship lines as my comfort level with him grew.

It started innocently. But doesn’t it always?! A compliment here and there, requests to spend time together to talk, long texts deep into the night…and soon enough it turned into a much more direct kind of flirting. He would say things like: Do you find me attractive? I find you attractive. What do you like about me? What part of me do you find most attractive? Have you ever thought of us as more than friends? Etc… It was flattering and it fed my ego which was starving at the time. He knew exactly what he was doing and I was falling for him without even realizing it.

I assumed (this was my first mistake), that he was keeping his girlfriend up to date on our friendship and even the potential for more, given he was “so” experienced with non-monogamy and talked a good game about honesty.

I was mistaken.

One night, he came over for a hang with a few friends. His girlfriend was busy that night and did not join us. She actually rarely joined us which I should have seen as a red flag…But, we had a ton of fun, drank the best gin and tonics of my life, flirted endlessly, and thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company. It got late. Everyone went home except him. He’d had too much to drink after all. So we put him up in our guest bed. Safety first, right?

My husband went to bed and I went to check on my friend as I was shutting down the house for the night. Turns out, I went to check a little too closely and before I knew it we were kissing. Kissing soon turned to mad groping as the pent-up tensions of the past months poured out of us. It was rather fantastic!

We didn’t want to but we stopped ourselves before all our clothes came off. I was a bit nervous about it all as I headed to my own bed, but I honestly thought we’d be ok navigating this. I knew my husband was fine with everything so first on the agenda was to make sure the girlfriend was ok, and then we could proceed.

Once again — I was mistaken.

The next morning he took off before I saw him. And then didn’t talk to me. I sent messages. And the only thing he ever sent back was that he made a mistake and won’t be talking to me again. And after that, he never talked to me again! I was devastated! I was heartbroken! And I was mad! He was my best friend at the time and he took himself out of my life without even consulting me!

It turns out he never talked to his girlfriend about being non-monogamous, nor did she know of his past in that arena! To make matters worse I found out that he spread rumors and lies about me. He made it sound like I tempted and then trapped him into making out with me and that I clearly couldn’t be trusted because of things I had done in the past. I told him too many things in confidence and he told people who had no business knowing my ancient history — the people who were involved were dealt with properly and it was agonizing to have it all brought up again in such an unfair way. He twisted what I told him to get himself out of a sticky situation and he came out looking squeaky clean. I, on the other hand, had words like “slut” thrown around about me. He tainted my name and ruined the few friendships I had at that time. I lost everyone all over again and it was brutal.

What did I learn?

Sometimes jerks come disguised as friends
Always ask if that person has practiced ETHICAL non-monogamy, not just non-monogamy
Before you start madly flirting, ask how his girlfriend feels about my presence in his life, and get an answer from her if you can’t get a straight one from him
People who look and act strong are often weak and scared and will project their inadequacies on to you
Don’t tell your secrets to people unless you are prepared to have them come out one day
Stop being so naive!

This situation sucked, the timing was terrible as far as my mental health, and I felt taken advantage of big time. There was no question this man was a jerk and behaved poorly. But I also screwed up and have since learned to be wiser with the company I keep. I tend to trust people easily and to be fair, giving others the benefit of the doubt has worked well for me in the past. But it can’t be done so naively. I should have kept things innocent until I knew, without a doubt, that he was available. Because in the end, it was me who got hurt.

Live and learn…

Polyamory can Make Valentine’s Day Difficult When Attention is Divided

But instead of being sad I wasn’t able to see my love, I decided to spend it with my friend.

I kind of hate Valentine’s Day if I’m honest. It’s one of those holidays that has been made harder by my polyamorous lifestyle. Ironic isn’t it?

It got complicated in the last years my husband and I lived together because our relationship was a bit of a mess and it’s one of those days that feels like it rubs your issues in your face. On the flip side, I have only spent one Valentine’s Day with my boyfriend in the almost 6 years we’ve been together and the one we had together was only part of the day and we were trucking, not having some romantic date 🙂 He has two other partners and a job that takes him on the road a lot, so the reality is, things rarely line up well for anyone with days like this.

Suffice it to say, the last bunch of years have been tricky in one way or another and it has made me resent this over commercialized holiday because it constantly reminds me of what I don’t have instead of what I do.

But I’m finally learning and I got proactive!

This year I knew it was unlikely I’d see my love so instead of feeling sorry for myself and trying to forget what day it was, which I knew wouldn’t work with the constant reminders EVERYWHERE, I started asking friends to hang out. After all, I have many people in my life whom I love and are worth celebrating. Valentines’s Day does not have to focus on romantic love alone.

Last minute, a friend I have been trying to connect with for 2 months said yes.

It turns out this may have been one of the most important Valentine’s “dates” I have ever had!

I have known this man for many years and in the last year we have become closer than ever because of shared grief. His wife, one of my best friends, died of cancer less than a year ago. It was a long difficult road to her end and it was hard on everyone and of course, especially on her husband.

To make matter unimaginably worse, their son died in an accident this past Fall. Just as healing was beginning, his heart completely shattered again.

Then…his business of many years, permanently shut its doors at Christmas. He knew this one was coming but it was still hard. Everything in his life has changed. He has lost half of his family in less than a year, he has no meaningful work, and he has to move in a few months. To say this is man is broken is an understatement.

My friend feels SO lost and SO alone.

We met for a beer and stayed until the brewery doors shut. We talked, we laughed, we cried, and it was priceless. Every time we see each other, we get real very quickly. He knows all of my secrets and my struggles (he thinks the poly lifestyle is insane and tells me that regularly :)) and yet, he accepts me for exactly who I am and where I am. And I do the same for him. He told me things he has never shared with anyone and this is something he desperately needed to do.

This man needs me and I need him. This friendship is gold for us both and I needed the reminder to make it more of a priority.

I am so grateful I wasn’t able to see my love and that I decided not to wallow, took initiative, and made time for this friendship! Our world is a hurting place and too often I get caught up in my own drama and the business of life and I don’t take enough time to pay attention to the hurting people around me. But when I do, it can feel so worthwhile and even life changing.

Isn’t it funny how life works out?

Polyamory Protocol: Striving for the Ethical in ENM

Starting a new relationship in the context of existing ones requires different skills than working within the confines of monogamy.

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

When more than two people are involved, subscribing to rules, boundaries or protocols of some kind makes sense, especially at the beginning of the relationship. Going over the top with with this process is something many want to do when they get started in any kind of an ethical non monogamy situation. It makes us feel safe as we navigate uncharted territory. But going too far often backfires. People tend to want to bust out of boxes as soon as they feel them being closed in around them. There has to be a balance between helping maintain trust and safety in existing relationships and allowing a new one to progress in some kind of normal manner.

When starting a new relationship in the context of other existing ones, your behavior cannot be the same as working within the confines of monogamy. Everyone’s feelings need to be considered and respected and I think this is one of the hardest things to implement when navigating non monogamy. Before going down this road you need to ask yourself if you have what it takes to put your wants and needs aside if you have a partner who wants or needs something else, or is plain freaking out! It’s important to be true to yourself, but if you’ve made a commitment to another human, you also need to be true to them and honour your agreement. And sure, this all sounds simple enough when you are only thinking about you and your known partner. And then you catch feelings for someone else and things get a whole lots tougher! Hormones and NRE (new relationship energy) add a nice challenge to not acting selfishly 🙂

I’ll share a little of my own story in regards to how we went about the early years of non monogamy, both from mine and my current partner’s perspectives. I think some things were done well and other things were done terribly…

When my husband and I opened up, this was immediately a place where our opinions diverged. I should have seen that as a sign of things to come but we persevered. I wanted ALL the rules and he wanted none. His whole reason for wanting to open up was to be able to act spontaneously. Whereas, I wanted to find long term love and commitment and was happy to do that in the confines of rules, parameters, plans and boxes — whatever it would take to make me feel safe in the context of change. We were both unrealistic.

Opening up has a way of highlighting problems you never knew you had.

The fact that we each wanted something very different from this experience dictated how we proceeded to find it. In retrospect, I’m not sure if we really ever found a middle ground or not. I kept thinking we were on the same page and then things would happen in ways I didn’t expect them to and I’d be thrown off completely and we’d be back at square one with our discussions.

Me and panic were tight friends in those first years.

What I learned from the way my husband and I did things was — find a better way! Communication is key. Everyone says this and everyone knows this on some level. But I’m telling you — keep talking! Opening up has a way of highlighting problems you never knew you had. You have to delve into the good, bad, uncomfortable, etc etc…and things need to be hashed out until there is a green light from BOTH parties. This journey is something that is supposed to enhance your lives, not bring it crashing down.

I thought we were communicating prolifically and it still wasn’t enough. We managed the basics (after some screw ups) like always practice safe sex, always tell the other where you are, no unplanned sleepovers, and stuff like that.

What was fascinating was that when I got a boyfriend, my husband suddenly needed some boundaries in place too. Certain protocols were on the table because for the first time, my husband was uncomfortable with the unknown. For example, he didn’t want me spending the night with someone else for quite some time, he wanted notice before sex was imminent, and basically wanted to be kept in a close loop as things progressed in the relationship. Low and behold — he didn’t want any surprises!

The lesson we learned from this is that you have to put yourself in the other person’s shoes. It’s not just about what you want and what you are comfortable with. You have to imagine how you might feel if your partner gets what they want and you are the one essentially left behind.

I loved my husband and wanted to honour my marriage so I respected his discomfort and did what he asked of me. But it sure was a delicate balance keeping everyone happy and feeling like I was able to move forward in this new relationship — especially as I was falling madly in love with this new man!

Just to complicated matters, on the other side were my boyfriends’ protocols to add to my mix! These were well hashed out between my boyfriend, his wife and his live in partner, and they were very much set in stone. It felt like there were a lot of rules and the thing I found difficult on my end, was that they weren’t communicated with me quickly enough. I felt like I was always catching up to new information after I had desires and wishes of certain outcomes, and I found that frustrating. In my experience, issues and concerns seem to grow exponentially as people are added to the mix and this was probably why they had all these boundaries — there were already 3 of them, each with a different level of comfort in any given situation.

Not everyone is ok with the same kinds of boundaries as everyone else and certain things could be a deal breaker for some.

The lesson here is to include the new person in these kinds of discussions before they become more. Not everyone is ok with the same kinds of boundaries as everyone else and certain things could be a deal breaker for some.

To give you a few examples, here are some of the rules he and his partners had in place.

I couldn’t call without notice unless it was an emergency (the partner who needed this is no longer in the picture but to this day I rarely feel free to call my boyfriend on a whim just because I got so used to this)
We were not able to show any kind of affection other than hugging, when greeting or leaving, to each other around the other partners (again, this was for the one partner — this is not an issue with his wife who is still happily in the picture)
We couldn’t kiss until STI testing was done and results shared all the way around
STI testing was not approached until months after declaring that we were in a relationship we wanted to explore, thus giving everyone time to get used to the idea of someone new being around
We couldn’t spend the night together while at his house until months into the relationship (this was a long distance thing so driving all that way and not getting the night together was tough)
Sex (specifically intercourse) was not on the table until some time AFTER STI testing AND kissing and needed notice that it was imminent
Fluid bonding was not an option until my husband and I were no longer engaging sexually and then it took discussions and more testing all around before this became our norm

I would do things differently this time around. But for the most part I respected where everyone was at and was fine with it at that time. I was on board with going slowly and making sure all involved were as comfortable as possible because I knew panic and discomfort all too well and had no desire to be the cause of that in someone else. But the kissing one really bugged me! Man it was hard not to kiss for so long!!

Funny enough all these rules did not deter from our intimacy in the least. We simply got more creative 🙂 Our chemistry was strong as soon as we opened that door and we had an oddly fulfilling sex life even before we could do many of the things we really wanted to do 🙂 But it was a good day when all the rules were thrown out the window and we were free to play and explore however the mood led!

Everyone has their own way of doing ethical non monogamy, but I’d like to highlight the fact the ETHICAL is the key here! If you want to travel down this road you must realize it is not just about you. And it never will be. Consider the fact that everyone associated with you is a human with valid thoughts and feelings — even if you don’t know them personally or possibly don’t even like them.

No matter what — always be respectful and please, go about your actions with integrity.

Confusion

The Curse of Dementia

Alzheimer’s took my dad’s life a few years ago but I always say, he was gone years before he was physically taken. Watching a loved one suffer with dementia is brutal, as anyone who has been there knows all too well. It was recently the anniversary of his death so my dear old dad has been on my mind a lot. I did some writing in the final years of his life to help me process what I was observing. This is for you Papa, gone but never forgotten.

I see you wander aimlessly
You are looking… For something
We try to help you but don’t know how

Are you looking for what is lost? Are you wondering what is lost?
Are you looking for something to dull the pain?
Are you looking for someone to fill in the gaps?
Are you looking for someone who knows your name?

You try to speak but the words won’t come out
We try to guess but your frustration rises
You turn around and keep looking, for something

It makes us sad and desperate for you. We try to hide the panic rising in our hearts as you wander off

What will happen?
How will this end?
Are you scared?
Does the lost, the missing, and the unknown frighten you?

We pray desperately for peace!

When I find you and look into your eyes, I can see it.
You are not alone and you know it. In this place and in this time, you know it.
At that moment, you have peace. And in turn, so do I.

Self Care is a Must in Polyamory

Just when you think you’ll have more people in your life than ever before, you find yourself suddenly alone, and worse: lonely, all too often.

Given that polyamory is defined as “the practice of engaging in multiple romantic (and typically sexual) relationships, with the consent of all the people involved” (Oxford Languages), it is easy to assume that participating in this lifestyle will make your world so full of people, love, fun, and all the good things, that you won’t have time to be alone, never mind lonely. But I can tell you that in the 6 plus years I’ve been involved in this lifestyle, I’ve never had so many lonely times in my life.

Even when my husband and I were still living together, the fact that we were both engaging with other people meant that we had many evenings and even nights or weekends where one person was gone and the other was at home alone. It rarely worked out that one of us didn’t have to stay home because our off grid and full of animals and kids lifestyle, was that of non stop responsibility.

Feeling left behind in that circumstance gets tough quickly!

Things became even harder when my husband and I separated. Best case scenario, I see my boyfriend once a week. Ten days to 2 weeks is much more realistic. And in that in between time when I know he’s with his wife or other partner, I am alone. And for some reason, as soon as I know the person I love and miss is engaged and enjoying himself with someone else, I go to the lonely place swiftly. It’s awful, so NOT conducive to the poly lifestyle, and I’m working on it. But it’s a struggle.

I chalk this up to a lack of skills. I’ve rarely been alone in my life for any length of time. I got married young and have been married for 25 years. At year 20 of that marriage I got a boyfriend. So being single is not something I have done since age 18. There have definitely been many lonely times over the years, but the bottom line is, I’m not used to being by myself for lengths of time. I thrive on being surrounded by my loved ones. I love engaging with them and taking care of them. But my current reality is that I am more alone than not these days. And that isn’t likely to change for some time.

So what am I doing about it?

Given I am polyamorous, I have considered adding more relationships. But the fact that I have been through some rather stressful ups and downs over the last few years with a marriage breakdown, I have decided that for the time being, adding more relationships (romantic ones anyway) is not the right thing for me. Instead I have come to realize I need to learn to take care of myself, be happy in my own skin and my own world, and be content with me, myself, and I as company.

Here are just a few of the ways I have gone about this…..

I take daily baths.

When things started going downhill with my husband, I committed to nightly baths to give myself a breather from life and the tension in the household. To this day, I have continued this practice as long as time (and hot water and power) permit. I have always loved baths and it’s a time for me where I am forced to relax and read or do nothing but sit and enjoy my surroundings.

I have immersed myself in meaningful hobbies.

My last post discussed my discovery of brewing and how that has been a life changing activity for me. It engages my creative side, it’s as time consuming as I want it to be and thus it fits well into the life I have created, living outside of the city and off the grid. I have gained skills in foraging which feeds my desire to be close to nature, I save money because I drink mostly my own alcohol and I use my creations for gifts, and I have gained community by meeting new people through this craft. Besides brewing, I also enthusiastically tend to my chicken flock, I love to cook, I have recently learned the art of soap making, and of course, I write. Each of these activities feeds me in different ways. I feel productive and challenged and my mind is occupied with enjoyable things.

I have worked on checking items off my bucket list.

One of the standout achievements in the last few years was getting my motorcycle licence. It was something I had always wanted to do but never made time for. Then when my oldest son turned 16, we decided to take the course together as an odd but super fun, mother/son activity. I was scared, had no history of riding anything ever, other than a bicycle when I was a kid, but I poured myself into it and I got my licence and I crossed that one off the list, very proudly I might add 🙂

I build into relationships.

The relationship I have with my kids has been priority since I gave birth to them I suppose. But it’s become a focus in a different way in the last few years as they’ve gotten older and what they need from me has changed. Their world was also thrown upside down as my marriage fell apart and opening up about my polyamorous lifestyle caused much dissention in my family. We became even more of everything to each other as as we all lost support from people we thought would always be behind us.

My boys are amazing. I know most moms say this, but it’s true — mine are the best :)) My boys have been with me through thick and thin and somewhere along the way the lines of who was taking care of whom became blurred. At this point it’s a fairly mutual thing and I am grateful for this every single day. I would not be able to live where and how I do without their daily help and I’d also likely be plain old crazy! We have a very open, authentic, discuss all the things in life, full of fun kind of dynamic. They are truly the biggest gifts in my life and I have come to realize that every effort I have put in to those humans has come back to me in more ways than I ever expected.

I have redefined my values.

Many things have changed for me in the last bunch of years. I lost people, I lost the faith of my youth, my marriage got up ended, and life has been full of stress and trauma of one kind or another for a long time. As some things have quieted down, I have had time to redefine what is important to me. One of these values is that I want my home to be a safe haven and a gathering place.

When tensions increased as my husband and I went through a lot of changes in our relationship, I lost sight of this. My home didn’t even feel emotionally safe to me anymore. But since we decided to live apart, this is something I have been working on rebuilding with intentionality. Covid times has made this a bit tricky but we’ve still managed. At this point it’s mostly a gathering place for my kids’ friends and I wasn’t expecting that to be the group to land here. Ironically we have the smallest house and yet this is where everyone comes every weekend, if not multiple times through the week.

We have regular bonfires and we always have a warm safe place to hang out and even sleep. Whether they are seeking fun, they are bored or lonely, or they have been through the ringer at work, school or home, and need to talk or split wood while they work out aggressions, they come here. We have become the safe space for so many and I love it! This is the stuff that feeds my soul.

I practice gratitude.

This point is likely the most encompassing. No matter what is going on in my life, if I step back for even a minute, it’s not hard to see how full of amazing things my life is. If you’ve made it this far into my story you already know that I have amazing kids and love and community and a pretty great home to be grateful for. Life is hard but it’s also full of abundance and I have made it a practice to notice these things every day.

I am a work in progress. I find the polyamorous lifestyle to be the hardest thing I have ever done. But I am also learning and growing and becoming a better version of me every day because that’s what I decided to do. The alternative was losing myself completely and I had too much to live for to go in that direction.

I find the polyamorous lifestyle to be the hardest thing I have ever done. But I am also learning and growing and becoming a better version of me every day because that’s what I decided to do.

No matter what is going on in your world or how you’ve chosen to live your life, self care is vital. When you take care of yourself and pay attention to what is important to you, I have found that things have a way of eventually sorting themselves out. So go have a bath!

Do You Need a Hobby?

Finding one unexpectedly saved me from the bleakness that was in front of me.

There was about a year of my life that looks very dark in retrospect. I lost most of the important people in my life because I screwed up badly. (See past stories for those details if interested.) In that time period, Jack and I opened up our marriage and started dabbling in non monogamy. This was a very tough period in my life where I felt like I was making decisions for everyone but myself because I was so consumed by guilt. I was lonely, broken, and I felt like I had no hope or vision of any kind of happy future. Something had to give.

It took about a year before I took some control and started making different and better choices for myself. Getting a new hobby was one of these choices.

One day my youngest son and I went kayaking. Well, to be fair, we got into our kayaks, paddled out past the buoys, and proceeded to float around on a hot summer day, as we talked about everything and nothing 🙂 Somewhere in the middle of those conversations we discussed how neither of us knew what we wanted to be when we grew up. So right then and there we decided — why not try brewing beer?!

I’m honestly not sure why we went there. He was only 14 and I was not a huge beer drinker. But something about that activity sounded fun to us that day. So instead of just coming up with dreams and ideas and promptly forgetting about them, as was often the case, we actually did something about it!

A week later we went to a local brewing supply shop and got our first kit and all the necessary equipment to start brewing and we gave it a whirl! And guess what?? We had fun AND we made pretty decent beer, especially considering it was a kit!

We got hooked!

We made a few more kits to learn the ins and outs of the brewing process and the important steps of cleaning and sterilization that go with this craft. Once we had the system down we did our first all grain batch. We screwed up, we had a blast, we got stressed (well I got stressed and my son talked me down — he’s really good at that 🙂 and we made fantastic beer! In fact we made many fantastic beers!

I finally found a hobby I could immerse myself in and to this day I enjoy it immensely! I’ve expanded my brewing to cider, wine, and all kinds of wildcraft brewing from foraging in the forest around me, which is a blast, and makes me feel a tad witch like 🙂

Brewing has bonded my son and I in unique ways, despite the fact that I do most of it without him these days, given he is a busy human working on his own real life career goals at this point. But I’ll always be grateful for the fact that we learned this skill together.

This pastime has also brought me community in unexpected ways. And boy have I really needed that! I have made actual friends who not only brew and can give me sage advice in this arena, but who also accept me for me and all that means these days!

Despite the fact that I took my son along for the ride, I started brewing for myself and that alone is very unlike me. In the past, I usually made decisions based on my husband or kids or how things affected us communally. This time I only cared about what I wanted to do and about having something new and fun to focus my energy on. I needed to get at least part of my brain actively away from all the drama permeating my life at the time.

Brewing has helped shape my identity into the more independent person I am today. And it has also taken me back to my roots of being fun and creative which somehow also got lost along the way.

Sure it’s “just” a hobby and it seems like such a simple thing, but I am so grateful for the way this craft has manifested into something that actually turned a page of my life book into a new and better chapter!

Holes

My life was full of them…

Frustration

Emptiness

Loneliness

Regret

Friendship lost

Relationship ended

Community gone

History meaningless

No words can change the past

What’s done is done no matter how badly you want to change the actions

Forgiveness lingering in the air

Asked for but not granted

Waiting

Wishing

Hoping

Praying

Wanting

Anger

Sadness

Memories

So many memories

Good and bad

Extending forever into the past

But nothing new for the future

Laughter ended

Pain

Sorrow

More regret, useless, unrelenting, regret

Holes, SO many holes