things they didn't tell me about being in relationship(s)

You won't always agree with your partners. You will have differing interests and sometimes when you talk about your passion the other person's eyes will glaze over. There will be miscommunications and misunderstandings. There will be schedule conflicts and sometimes you'll end up sleeping alone.

Some weeks, no one will want to do laundry and it will pile up. Dishes will swim in the sink's dirty water when the dishwasher is empty, there will be bugs in spring and summer. Someone will eat your leftovers. Every once in a while you'll step in cat puke.
There will be political differences and there will be conflict. You can't fix the world and you can't fix your family. A person's rage or fear or sadness will be triggered by an event and there will be nothing you can do but hold space for them.
You'll learn about yourself and how you react. You'll learn to do the little things that say "I love you" and you'll learn to listen for when your partner says it back. You'll learn the long lesson of setting healthy boundaries and how to communicate.
If you're very lucky, you'll learn to forgive.
It's not quick, it's not easy. But if you can set expectations, advocate for yourself and your partners, and live according to your morality, there's a great reward in having an adult relationship between partners who pull their weight and support one another.

Blogwut?

I swear I'm a writer
Can I blog in only poetry?

I am on a constant journey of self improvement
Recognizing that perfection is a perfectly acceptable aim
Simultaneously it is not an achievable goal

Coffee
Recovery
Relationships

Not necessarily in that order.
I dislike hierarchy.
More later, right now I gotta chair a meeting ;)

Throuple 101

Polyamory is a novel concept to some, and being the newest to this healthy-poly-lifestyle thing of the three of us, I've decided to take on the task of explaining my perspective on throupledom. The first question I'm usually asked by monogamous people when they hear about my relationships is, "How does that work?" To which I usually respond, "Just like any other relationship but with more talking and less rules." As a person with a longstanding interest in why people do the things they do (I think some people call that social psychology), I always questioned where rules came from. Why can't I call him first? What is so magical about sex on the third date? If people can fall in love with more than one person across a lifetime, what is there to keep them from falling in love with more than one person at once?

I found my first love early in life, at the barely ripe age of 18. It was a passionate, intense, and mostly monogamous relationship. To this day, I still love him, and I probably always will, although we haven't spoken in over two years or seen each other in six. That love didn't go away when I found my second or third love. No, they were all still there, each flame different, each glowing their own soft hues of red or purple or an ethereal blue-white in varying intensities. When I met Man Face, I was still carrying around two old loves and all their respective baggage. That may have caused problems down the line in a monogamous relationship, but he was already engaged to Otter Face, and after quickly verifying through the grapevine, I confirmed that they were in fact poly—YES!

It didn't take long after my first date with MFace for us to spiral through the new relationship energy (NRE) onto the love train. There were a few rough patches to work through between the three of us, but we soon found our new normal in that initial V formation, me dating and quickly falling for MFace while he and OFace figured out how to marriage. We started spending more time all together and found something there I don't think any of us originally expected. Last June, Otter Face and I dropped the L-word bomb on each other, jumpstarting our transition from V to triad.

There are as many different styles of polyamory as there are people who practice it, which makes sense because it requires only that you be honest with yourself and your partners about your needs and desires and construct your relationships to maximize mutual benefit. There is no one-size-fits-all guide to non-monogamy, and there are no societal rules handed down through generations about how to do this. Although the three of us have slightly different approaches to poly, we all agree on a few points in all of our relationships:

• No partner is more important than another partner. (No hierarchy)
• It is each person's responsibility to honestly communicate their own needs and to listen to and respect the needs of their partners. (Radical honesty)
• Commitments and expectations must be fully communicated, and consent must be given by all involved parties. (Informed consent)

This works for us, and yes, it does involve a LOT of communication. We use group texting, Facebook, and Google calendar, but that's no replacement for face-to-face communication. When a need arises, we find a time to sit down and talk about it. We are able to sustain a household together, our relationship as a throuple, our individual relationships between each other and with our other partners and friends, and our own personal lives with careers and hobbies and everything because we genuinely want each other to be happy and we all work toward that common goal.

"But don't you get jealous?!" Well, let's talk about that for a minute. What is jealousy? It's the feeling you get when you want something someone else has. It's like this cool little tool your brain has built in to help you figure out your own desires. If you see someone drive by in a Corvette, and you feel jealous of that person, that's your brain telling you that you want a Corvette. If MFace goes to a concert with another partner instead of me, and I feel jealous, that tells me that I want to go to more concerts with him. So I use that information to communicate that need and say, "Hey Man Face, I really like going to concerts with you, and I want to do more of that. The next time you find a show you want to see, can we go together?" Some people call jealousy the green-eyed monster; I call it the green light. It's kind of the opposite of a red flag. It's the "go towards it" signal in my brain, pointing me in the direction of my wants and needs. Once my need is met, I don't feel jealous anymore.

I am the happiest I've ever been, and I owe it in large part to my polyamorous lifestyle. I have a huge support system and a wonderful community; I have loving partners who give me all the good feels; I have a chosen family that beats the pants off the crazy people with whom I share a gene pool; and I have a promising future ahead of me full of love and adventure. Some people don't understand the choices I've made for my life, and that's okay. I am living as my best actual self, and that's all that matters.

art by adria / mercuri

Can It Be My Birthday Every Day?

So yesterday was my 30th birthday. The big three-oh. Sex and the City and Cosmo says it's a big deal. I made it a big deal. I got all up in my head about diet and exercise and whether I had sun spots or wrinkles. I noticed grooves by my eyes when I smiled, and I tried to not make the concentration face so I wouldn't get that groove between my eyebrows. I started noticing babies more: mostly that I didn't have one. At thirty, my mother was pregnant with me: I was born a few months after she turned 31. My older sister was also pregnant at 30.
I felt like I was behind. Shouldn't I have the grownup job by now? Shouldn't grocery shopping feel like a chore, and not like I'm playing house? Should I still be surprised by adult things, like W-2s and jury summonses?
But after five months of "I'm turning thirty I'm turning thirty OMGS I'm turning 30"
(because it wasn't quite real until new year's)
I had quite possibly the best birthday ever.
Third best was probably the renaissance faire when I was in high school. All those hormones and men dressed in leather.
Second best was rock climbing a few years ago. It was my first time going, I got to learn a new physical skill I wasn't awful at, and I got to sweat and then drink margaritas. (Margaritas taste best after a sweaty day)
Best birthday ever: this weekend.
I accomplished something. I built a project, it was my idea and I was mostly in charge. My girlfriend and my husband were super enthusiastic about it, but we didn't have perfect communication. But we bettered that communication and negotiated until we were happy with the result.

Let me tell you a poly secret: there is no such thing as perfect communication. If you think someone understands you completely you're probably wrong. This happens when everything is flying along perfectly and it seems like everyone is on the same page, but sooner rather than later you will realize that your perfect system is comprised of imperfect people, and sometimes they're tired, hangry, or don't share your vision.
So you have the fights.
"But it makes more sense to do it this way"

When the actual conversation is:
I want to help you make this better. And I love you.