nicerad asked: Hey, I was wondering if you could tell me more about what polyamory means to you. I only really have a rough definition of it, and I'd like to hear it from a real person :}
I wrote a post a while back called Why I Love What Polyamory Has Done to My Relationship… which was more or less a long rambly enthusiastic rant about my feelings about it. It’s not a definition, per se, but it’s sort of a “What Polyamory Means to Me” post. Haha.
BUT.
The clinical-ish agreed-upon definition of polyamory is “Pursuing multiple loving relationships with people, where everyone involved knows about each other and has agreed to the relationship.” Meaning, in basic terms, it’s being with (sexually, romantically, intimately, in a thousand different ways) more than one person, but everyone is honest about who they’re seeing and the nature of the relationships, and everyone consents. That’s the key element, that separates it from cheating or “sleeping around” - that if you have three boyfriends, all three know that you’re seeing multiple people, and all three are completely okay with it. You don’t lie. You don’t hurt people.
Everyone does it in different ways, and there are many thousands of combinations of relationships, but the basic idea is that you’re with more than one person, everyone involved knows, and everyone is happy with the situation.
My version of polyamory is this: I am married to my life partner, Chris, who I have been seeing for five years (married for 6 months). I am also dating a guy named M (although … our relationship is kind of rocky right now) and have been for going on four months. Both relationships are loving as well as sexual. Chris and M are friends, but they are both straight and have no interest in each other. I’m free to seek out other relationships if I chose, but I don’t really want to right now. Chris and M are both free to seek out other relationships if they chose, although both have stated they’re so busy with their own lives right now they don’t think they could handle two relationships. If any of us were to date, or to even start flirting with someone else (in a “I think I want to pursue this” kind of way. random flirting who cares haha), they would tell me or I would tell them. I’d be happy for them, and they’d be happy for me. (To not inform the rest of the group, to keep it secret, is when it becomes cheating, and when it starts to hurt. Deeply.)
I hope everything is clear…? haha. :) I’m posting this publicly because I suppose I’ve never…. outright stated these things before? I’unno. :P
EDITED: forgot the link. Also I find it a bit disconcerting that if you google search “why i love what polyamory has done to my relationship,” I’m the top search option. I guess I assumed other people would’ve talked about this. Yikes. :P
