That’s the first word that comes to mind after this Easter.
The day started in the fucking crapper. It was my third overnight shift as a caregiver and my chronic-whatever that’s making me not eat was really flaring up, to the point where I had to sit down every two minutes or so to keep from passing out. From the start of the day to the end of that night shift, I’d eaten maybe 400 calories, tops. I couldn’t get home from the facility fast enough. Once I walked through the door, I peeled off my scrubs and climbed into bed with my girlfriend and her other girlfriend, who were staying the night, and I slept like a damn rock.
I thought Easter was going to be pretty shitty as well, considering my state of health. And it would have been, except today made me realize I have the greatest support system on the planet.
From the moment I woke up this morning, the whole polycule doted on me. Livvy, my girlfriend, headed out into the wild to fetch me food I’d actually eat. Crass, my wife, hunted down my Sylveon kigurumi and made sure I was warm and comfortable. Meanwhile, Gabbi, my metamour, played all of the funniest bullshit she could find on YouTube for me. As my loved ones went above and beyond making sure I was healthy and happy, I came to this really beautiful realization.
We might not share a bloodline or a surname. But we’re family nonetheless.
Growing up, I was pretty close to my family. But after my grandmother’s passing when I was in high school, the glue that held my family together sort of dissolved. I haven’t had real quality time with my cousins in years, and my older siblings and I text maybe twice a year. The only blood relatives I still talk to regularly are my mom and dad, who are, in all fairness, the greatest humans to ever have the honor of being parents. But aside from them, I don’t really have a strong connection to my family, which kind of sucks, especially considering I wanted that kind of connection. There’s a reason I begged my parents to give me a little sibling for years.
Yet I’m realizing lately that family looks different for everyone, and sometimes, it’s your chosen family that’s really there when you need them.
This was a short post — more of a life update if I’m honest — but I wanted to write about how happy my little family of neurospicy queerdos made me this Easter, just by caring for me when I really needed it. I know it’s not conventional or traditional, but why stick to tradition if there are other ways that work just as well, or even better? They say it takes a village to raise a child, but really, we’re all still growing. We all need support throughout our lives. That’s what being with my partners means to me. That’s what being polyamorous means to me. That’s what being a family means to me.
I’ll leave y’all with a song by one of my favorite pop artists, Rina Sawayama, who absolutely should be as big as Chappell Roan.
If you haven’t heard the news yet, I proposed to my long-term, long-distance partner Olivia last night at a house show, the two year anniversary of the show we met at.
I had it all meticulously planned out — I bought her a rose gold opal ring and played the song I wrote for her during the show and did the whole “down on one knee” thing. She cried. I cried. I think some random strangers cried. It was beautiful.
Now begins even more planning, venues and dresses and cakes and all that. We’re going to go through all the motions and do a spiritually binding ceremony of sorts. But here’s the thing — we can’t legally marry. I’m legally married to my wife, Crass. No, I’m not leaving her for Olivia. They know about each other and like each other a lot. In fact, we all plan to live together as a family.
That’s the joy — and pain — of polyamory.
It hurts that I can’t ever legally make Olivia my wife, but for all intents and purposes, she will be my wife. I plan to do everything in my power to treat her as an equal to Crass, from adding her to my will to making her legal guardian of my future kids (whom she will have a hand in making as the sperm donor). We’re fighting an uphill battle against a monogamy-centered world that doesn’t understand, but it’s worth it. She’s worth it.
As a queer woman, I’m reminded of all the LGBTQ+ couples throughout history who never got to have their love validated by the government. I’m a romantic at heart, as much as I want to deny it at times. I don’t need a formal piece of paper saying we’re a couple. The greatest love stories of all time were never “sanctioned” by the government, all the queer and otherwise forbidden romances between folks of different races or socioeconomic backgrounds during a time when those relationships weren’t allowed. The Romeos and Juliets and the Jacks and Roses.
There’s a Bon Jovi song (of course) that reminds me of these relationships.
I was afraid to listen to it as a church-going kid because it mentioned sin and sin is supposed to be bad, right? But the message of the song is so much more beautiful than my child-mind could have comprehended. It’s about not needing the government or the rest of the world to validate your love. The young couple in the song maintains that it’s not legal marriage that makes a love, but the love itself.
Or is it right to hold you And kiss your lips goodnight They say the promise is forever If you sign it on the dotted line
Bon Jovi, “Living in Sin”
Listening to this song as an adult through a queer lens, and especially as someone in a “scandalous” polyamorous relationship, it takes on a new, deeper meaning. I don’t know where we fit, the three of us, but I know I belong with my partners. I belong with Crass, and I belong with Olivia, and nothing can ever take that from me.
True love is a rare, special thing, and I was lucky enough to find it not once, but twice. That’s not something to take for granted.
When your mother and I officially got together, we came to an agreement — we’d be free to date other people as well. Part of it was due to your mother’s asexuality — there were certain things she couldn’t give me that I needed in a relationship, and I didn’t want to ever pressure her or make her feel uncomfortable by making her do physical things with me that she didn’t want to. But I never had any desire to date around or meet anyone else. I was content to be a one-woman woman.
That changed when I met Olivia.
When I first saw her at a Valentine’s Day art show, she was wearing a tight little skirt and a mess of short dark blonde curls. She was playing electronic music behind her then-friend’s poetry. She had this air about her, graceful and effortless, and I knew I had to get to know her. We ended up in the kissing booth that had been set up, trading life stories between smooches, and she told me about her life, how she was struggling with her gender identity and how to tell her parents, and how she’d been very ill until recently, putting a strain on her relationship with her ex. I listened as if she was telling me the secrets of the universe, enthralled at her every word. When we parted, we traded information, promising to meet somewhere between my home in Michigan and hers in Indiana someday.
About a month later, someday happened. I booked a hotel halfway between Ypsilanti and South Bend, in a town called Kalamazoo. It was reckless and unlike anything I’d ever done before, but something felt so right about this perfect stranger. I wanted to know more about her. I wanted to know everything about her. I kept trying to tell myself this was just a fling, just a way for me to blow off steam in a way I couldn’t with your mother, but I knew deep down in my heart that something else was happening.
Another month later, we met for a third time at an indie music festival in East Lansing. At some band’s show in some random person’s backyard, we drifted off together in a hammock, tangled up in each other’s arms. It was in that moment I think we both realized what this was.
It was love.
We continued to meet every month or so, sometimes in Michigan, sometimes in Indiana. I met her friends and family, and she met mine. She even met your mom, and while your mom was slightly overwhelmed by her exuberance, she gave us her blessing.
I still remember the afternoon we took a boat out on the lake together. We held each other close on the tiny inflatable vessel and daydreamed about the future, uncertain as it seemed at the time, and you came up! She mentioned that before she transitioned, she took steps to ensure she’d be able to have kids someday, and she said she wanted them with me. I told her about you, and how badly I wanted to have you one day. We promised each other that when the time was right, we’d bring you into this world together. It wouldn’t be easy, raising a child with this unique arrangement, but we’d be damned if we didn’t try.
I know this love is not conventional, but I’ve never been one for conventional things. I love your mother with all my heart, and I love Olivia with all my heart, and I wouldn’t trade either of them for the world. They’re my soulmates, my true loves. Love is not a finite resource, and I’ve got so much of it to give. Sometimes I fear we’ll receive pushback or discrimination for choosing to love the way we do, but it’s a chance I’m willing to take. The world may never understand, but so long as I’m alive, I’ll fight for this strange, beautiful thing we’ve built together.
I could write an entire book about all the memories I share with Olivia, and I just might eventually. But the story isn’t over yet, and I pray it never ends.
It started with a conversation with my coworkers about our planned futures. I mentioned I wanted kids someday, and I’d be the one carrying them.
“So you’re planning to get a donor?” one of them inquired.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s between one of my wife’s good friends and my girlfriend, who’s trans and had her you-know-what preserved before transitioning.”
“You have a girlfriend too?” another coworker asked.
“No, she obviously means a friend who’s a girl,” the other said.
“Actually,” I began, “I do mean girlfriend, as in a girl that I’m dating. We’re polyamorous.”
Can of worms, now open.
Cue me getting bombarded with questions about the lifestyle choice, which I don’t mind answering at all. But it made me realize just how little the world as a whole actually knows about polyamory!
That’s where this blog post comes in. I want to answer some of the common questions I get about being polyamorous (a word that literally means “having many loves”). I’m not super open about it yet, but I’m trying to change that, because I think the world needs to know there’s nothing wrong with not fitting into “the norm.” Which leads me to my first question.
How did you realize you were polyamorous?
I never “realized” anything. In fact, I’d argue that being poly is more of a conscious lifestyle choice than a sexual or romantic orientation. No one chooses to be attracted to the same or opposite gender, but I’d argue that everyone has been attracted to more than one person. You haven’t had just one crush or partner your entire life, have you? It’s what you choose to do with these feelings for multiple people that determines whether you’re monogamous, ethically non-monogamous (basically polyamorous), or non-ethically non-monogamous (a cheating asshole). If you’re monogamous, you choose to disregard any feelings for other people and commit to a single person, which is completely okay! But if you’re ethically non-monogamous, you and your partner(s) are open to the idea of dating other people as well, so long as everyone is in the know and consenting. And the second you cross the line into not telling your partner or partners you’re dating someone else, that’s just cheating, and you suck. Yes, it is possible to cheat in a polyamorous relationship!
As for me personally, I’ve never been all that jealous in relationships anyways, so when my wife and I first got together and she mentioned she was poly, I just went with it.
So you’re all dating each other?
Absolutely not.
Some polycules (we prefer that term over “throuple,” by the way) are cool with mixing all together. Those are kitchen table polycules, as in everyone gathers at the table together and does life with each other.
My wife is not into that. She prefers to keep our relationship separate.
It’s not that she doesn’t like my other partner (who I’m not going to name, as she’s not openly poly and queer at this time). She simply isn’t interested in her like that, and she’s not a very social person anyways, so we don’t all sit in a circle and sing kum-bah-yah or whatever. She’d rather me go out and spend time with my other partner, then come back and spend time with her afterwards.
There’s more than one way to be polyamorous, and sometimes that does involve multiple partners living together and coexisting. Should my girlfriend move to Michigan someday, she would either live in a duplex-type situation with us or have a separate house, and I’d split my time between them. But my wife and girlfriend wouldn’t ever live together.
So your wife can date other people, and you don’t get jealous?
Not at all! I simply don’t see love or sex as a finite resource. Now time is a finite resource, but I don’t think it’s advisable or healthy for even monogamous couples to spend every waking hour together. If you can balance your time between two or more partners and everyone’s okay with it, so be it.
Okay, this is a weird sex thing, isn’t it?
Not at all! In fact, I consider sex to be the least important aspect of both of my relationships, and it barely factors into one at all. That particular partner considers herself to be on the asexual spectrum, so it’s actually nice to be able to fulfill that need with someone else instead of guilting her into sleeping with me when she’s not into it. There is some overlap between the poly community and the kink community, but being poly doesn’t necessarily mean being kinky, and vice versa.
But you love one partner more than the other, right?
Again, not necessarily! Poly folks might have a “primary” partner who comes before the others. You could argue my wife is my primary because I live with her and I’m legally bound to her, but I prefer the term “nesting partner,” as it erases that sense of hierarchy in the relationships. I love my wife and my girlfriend in different ways. I have a very romantic relationship with my girlfriend. I want to watch the sunset with her and lay in bed serenading each other and see all of the wonders of the world with her by my side. On the other hand, I have a very familial relationship with my wife (which is why she’s my wife!). I can see myself having kids with her and being silly with them and watching them grow up together, the way she and I grew up together. They’re both very warm, heartfelt, fulfilling relationships in different but equal ways. As I like to describe the feeling, I love one like the moon, and one like the stars
But this is scandalous! Do you tell people about this?
If it comes up, yes. I’ve learned to be a little more open about it because things will never change to become more accommodating to poly folks if no one ever “comes out” as being poly. I’ve told my mom, and while she’s hesitant, she just wants me to be happy. She knows I’m not the “one husband and 2.5 kids with a white picket fence and a dog” type, and I never have been. I’ve tried living that life and it wasn’t for me. As I’ve said on here before, never break your own bones to fit into someone else’s box. I don’t know if the rest of my family knows, but honestly, it’s not their place to judge my relationships. I’m happy and everyone involved is happy, and that’s what matters.
I’m usually a little more open about being polyamorous with younger people. Older folks are a little more set in their ways and old-school about relationships, which is completely okay as long as you don’t try to force people into that box. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — there’s nothing wrong with straight, cis, monogamous couples and families. I’ve just learned that life is not for me.
Aren’t you a Christian? This is against God’s word!
Lots of people in the Bible had more than one partner. In fact, you could argue that the big 3 Abrahamic religions all condone polyamory. Well, technically polygamy — historically men were allowed to have more than one wife. This is likely due to the fact that 1. ancient societies were decidedly patriarchal and 2. women were more plentiful than men because they weren’t put on the frontlines of war. But God has never said anything condemning polyamory in particular. The only argument against it is the fact that things went sour for Abraham/Sarah/Hagar and Jacob/Leah/Rachel, but that’s less of an argument against polyamory and more of an observation about how sucky human relationships in general are. We all mess up, and obviously, the more people you add to the equation, the more there’s a chance someone’s gonna screw something up.
Thank you, imaginary person whose questions I’m answering.
Okay, this has all been very enlightening.
So that’s the long and short of polyamory and why it works for me. I’ll probably do a part two on what I think are the best parts of being poly are (like getting to eat ice cream and cry with your wife when someone else breaks your heart), but for now, I just wanted to answer the basic questions. Do you think you could ever be in a poly relationship? Why or why not? Let me know in the comments, and feel free to ask me any questions you might have left!
JESSA JOYCE 