And now a word for seniors

What a wonderful time it is to be alive! It's so exciting to see so many folks being able to come forward with different gender and/or relationship expressions. I know it's not easy still for many people. But, being able is an important concept, because there was a time when it was even more dangerous to do so than it is today.

Folks who were wired poly, in an ultra hetro-normative society, not only were shamed for the feelings they had by society, they self shamed. As a poly person, in an ultra hetro-normative pre-Internet society, the only options were usually repression or cheating. I am so glad that Polyamory is now a word and a rapidly expanding subculture. The challenge for many of us who discovered who we are later in life is how to respond.

We may be in long term relationships with mono partners made when that may have seemed the only option. Usually we have a history of repression, self shaming and/or cheating we have to reconcile with our now realized self identity. Now that we have a word for us, where do we go from here?

Days of innocence

It has been a long time and I do not remember all of the details. But during the almost five years from 1978 until 1982 that Mary and I were involved we would visit each other occasionally. We lived about 150 miles from each other so we tended to stay a few days. I had had a vasectomy and Mary had her tubes tied.

This was the time before AIDS, and after the sexual revolution, so basically everyone was fluid bonded with everyone else and we did not think much about it. Pregnancy seemed the most serious STI at the time.

Mary and I were fine but Cindy had to be careful and she was when she was with others. In a few years the AIDS epidemic would change everything and attitudes about sex would never be exactly the same. The days of innocence would end.

Flavors of Poly

There is always at least two sides to every story and so it is with Polyamory.

I read this on a Reddit Post on Poly and really like it. According to the poster, there is "I don't want to cheat on you poly" or "I'm just really able to love a whole lot of people poly."

In my opinion "I don't want to cheat on you poly" is circumstantial. It can be, "I am bored poly" or "I just want to see what other people are like poly." If you (or she/he) has decided you/he/she just wants to try something different there is a whole spectrum of things you can try to spice things up: including maybe trying new sex toys, maybe going to a no PDA naturist resort, maybe going to cuddle parties, maybe going to other play parties, maybe exploring "the lifestyle," all depending on both of your comfort levels and senses of adventure.

If you/he/she have/has discovered he is wired poly, then it is something both people in the relationship have to live with even if you stay together and live a mono lifestyle. This is an orientation. His/her/your emotions for others will be more than just crushes, even if you have a don't ask don't tell policy and you/he/she never acts on the emotions.

What did I learn?

Looking back on all this, writing this blog, has brought back a lot of memories. I asked myself what did I learn from all this that I can reflect on now, over 30 years later?

At the time all this happened Polyamory was so inconceivable that there was not even a word for it. For a lot of the years after Mary and I broke it off I just thought of it as something weird we did in the 70s. I still loved Mary deeply even after she remarried and I stayed married to Cindy.

She was still both Cindy and my best friend and after Cindy died in a late night car accident, Mary was the first person I called. I remember telling her, "I love you. I have some bad news. I need your help." I think she just said, "Oh God...Oh God...Oh God." She and her husband drove through the night to be there to be with me and to help.

Mary had a heart attack and died a decade later.

This was a love that most people would not understand. It was a lifelong love and it rents my heart when I think of how much it hurts that they are both gone.

As much as it hurt, knowing I can give my whole heart to more than one person at a time has given me strength to go on. I did not have to divorce my love for Mary and Cindy to let others into my heart. When I remarried there was whole table of special people at my wedding. Mary was still alive then and she was there too.

One of my then teenage children called it the ex-girlfriend table. They were not all ex’s. I heard it was the most fun table at the wedding.

I learned there is more to love than I ever imagined!

Naked

Going back in time a bit, right after Cindy and I were married, before we had kids, before we opened our marriage, before Mary was more than a friend; we went to a beach party with friends. To everybody’s shock not long after we arrived, other people arrived at the beach and proceeded to take off all their clothes.

Our friends all commented to each other about how awful it was for people to be running around naked in public, perhaps we did too. I can’t remember. I do remember us talking a lot about it on the way home from the party. We liked the idea. The next weekend we went back and got naked ourselves.

I took wonderful photos of Cindy running naked in the surf and sitting on the beach. She was a lovely 18 year-old woman and I took photos for an art photography class I was taking. I still have those photos.

Public nudity, naturism, being a nudist totally changed our lives in a good way and continues to be a great thing for me almost 40 years later. I shed my irrational jealousy of Cindy wearing short skirts in public and started a thread of body acceptance that still serves me well.

I still love the feeling of the sun on my body and the wind blowing across my body. I think there is also a primal bonding that goes on around and among people who gather together with no barriers between them. But, that’s a subject for another post.

Was naturism the gateway drug to open marriage? Is that the reason we have met so many lifestyle people at naturist resorts? Or, is an open enough attitude that allows for public nudity the same kind of openness that is required to even consider a non-monogamous lifestyle?

Our struggles

During the time (1970s and 80s) of my poly relationships with both my inamorata Mary and my wife Cindy, emotions were very confused. Cindy and Mary were best friends and some intimacy occurred between them as well. Cindy was bi-curious and had very strong fantasies of having a female lover. But, she also had a conflict of her own over very strong conservative religious beliefs, which said homosexuality, and open marriage for that matter, was a major sin. The goal of the faith then was for gays to pray the gay away.

We still all were caught up in the hetronormative mindset in different ways. I was okay with Cindy exploring her bisexuality, in fact it was kinda hot to me when I got to see her and Mary together and with others. I did not have the guilt and self shaming over that that Cindy had over what we did. That was her struggle. My struggle was different.

What I struggled with was my love for Mary. I told Mary I loved her many times but she never admitted her love for me until after Cindy died in a car accident, about a decade after Mary and I stopped being sexually intimate.

Polyamory did not exist as a word when we had our triad and did not learn that word until well into the 21st Century. So, I thought my falling in love with Mary meant by definition that I was falling out of love with Cindy. I think now that was Mary’s fear and that’s why she said to me at the time, “I am not in love with you.”

This is the scarcity model of love. It treats love like a glass of water. If you pour the water from one glass to another, neither can be full.

In my mind being in love with two people simply was not possible. It took me a long time and a lot of pain to realize not only was it possible, it was my normal. Even more than two…

The kids

During the time of my poly relationships with both my inamorata Mary and my wife Cindy, and their relationships with other lovers, and other significant others, we all had kids. It was both complicated, and simplified, by the fact that Mary had once been married to Cindy’s brother Lenny.

It simplified things in that when Mary’s kids were really little their uncle coming to visit and spending a few days with their mom was no big deal to them. For our kids having their aunt Mary come visit and sleep with mom and dad was no different than having one of their little friends come visit and sleep over in their room.

Of course that started changing, as they got older.

The fact that Mary and Lenny were now divorced did make Mary and our relationship feel a bit less taboo. Even though Mary was not in anyway related to either Cindy or I biologically, when she was married to Lenny the relationship still felt a bit incestuous.

Our kids and Mary’s kids were, and are, cousins. That is a huge part of why this blog is anonymous. I love Mary deeply and profoundly and always will. I feel the same way about Cindy. That did not end when Cindy and Mary died.

Mary’s kids do not need to know both their uncle and aunt were their mother’s lovers or that their parents had an open marriage over 30 years ago when they were little. Neither do mine. Neither do the grandkids.

Double Dating With a Twist

I have fond memories of double dating “with a twist”. My inamorata Mary and I had dinner at a nice restaurant with my wife Cindy and one of her fellas. This one was another neighbor. He was married with a couple of kids our kids age.

I liked him and we all got along well. This was always an interesting dynamic and allowed me a perspective of Cindy most men never have of their wives. Mary and I were a couple in our own right and since Mary was Cindy’s best friend, it was very comfortable.

I preferred getting to know the metamours and since I already knew and liked this one there was not even a hint of jealousy this evening. It was pretty radical for the early 1980s the decade before the word Polyamory even existed, and before the rules of everybody knowing and consenting were appreciated.

After an enjoyable dinner Mary and I went to my place and Cindy and him went to his. I don’t think she spent the night there. I think early in the morning she came home and crawled in with Mary and I.

The bummer ended up being that he did not have his wife’s permission and she found a condom wrapper. I don’t think she ever knew it was Cindy that her husband was with. If she did, she didn’t let it show.

Poly is not easy

Some folks perceive poly people as being easy and lazy. Well, polyamory is not easy and it is a lot of work. Emotions conflict with each other sometimes. You have many more relationships you have to balance. Not only do you have to balance your relationships with your significant others, their other significant others, your metamours have to be taken into account.

Poly is not easy and it is a lot of work and it is not for the lazy. But, in my opinion it can be deeply rewarding. Setting love free to express itself as life leads in a way that is honest and respectful of others can change how you experience family.

In my opinion some folks are incapable of walling off their love to only one person. I know I can’t. For folks like me poly may be the most ethical lifestyle. I will be glad when it becomes more socially acceptable.

Her mom called

She was a journalist, in her mid twenties like me. She had a boyfriend and a promising career. I had an open marriage and a polyamorous lifestyle.

I met her in a class we were both taking. She was well traveled, smart and spoke several languages fluently. I really liked her.

We had several meals together and some great conversations. I can’t remember many details of our dates. I do remember the phone rang one day and it was her mother. She talked about her family and her boyfriend and I talked about my life situation. She knew my marriage was open. There was chemistry but I don’t think it went very far.

This was the 1980s, before cell phones, and I was glad I was the one who answered the phone at home. It was my lady friend's mom. Her mom did not like her daughter being involved with a married man no matter what the circumstances. She said, "shame on you!" I never saw the daughter again. I don’t remember if she even went to class again.

I wonder how my wife would have handled it had she answered the phone?

Little Sweetie Pie

I went out with several other women, besides Mary, after Cindy and I moved. Since the word polyamorous did not exist yet, and even the concept was alien, it was hard to sell the concept that I was married, my wife was okay with me dating and I am not just looking for a one night stand.

One gal I met at a disco. She was such a sweet little lady. She lived in a single wide at a trailer park. It was the first time I had ever been in a mobile home. We went on a few dates, including spending a day at Big Sur.

We stopped in Nepenthe. This sweet little lady introduced me to pecan pie. To this day I cannot eat pecan pie without thinking of her.

Their Divorce

When a couple in an open marriage splits up the blame is sometimes put on the open marriage. I don’t know how much, if any, of Mary and Lenny’s marriage falling apart had anything to do with their open marriage and having other lovers. I don’t think it was a major factor, and I am not saying that because Mary was a paramour.

From what Mary told me the reason of the split was because of Lenny’s unwillingness to get and hold a decent job. Not only was I her friend and occasional lover, I was kind of her marriage counsel ear. She was the only one working in her marriage that also had two kids. Their split up was amicable and they remained good friends until Mary’s death.

Decades later, Lenny and I helped Mary’s husband put on her funeral.

Changes

Change is constant in life and relationships. In 1979 there was some dramatic changes in our lives.

My Mary and Lenny split up.

For Cindy and I there was a change too. We moved away, about 100 miles away from where Mary lived. This had zero to do with what was going on in Mary’s life. I went to a new school.

It’s too bad Cindy and I did not make a connection with the swinging couple we met earlier. We were in the same town.

Cindy and I kept our marriage open, and I remained in my polyish relationship with Mary.

Compersion before compersion

Urban dictionary defines compersion as, “A feeling of joy when a loved one invests in and takes pleasure from another romantic or sexual relationship.” A Wikipedia definition is, "Compersion is an empathetic state of happiness and joy experienced when another individual experiences happiness and joy, and the term is regularly used by members of the polyamory community in the context of polyamorous relationships. It is used to describe when a person experiences positive feelings when a lover is enjoying another relationship."

I remember feeling strong compersion when wife Cindy and/or our girlfriend Mary were having sexy times with others and even more when we were doing threesomes together. We just did not have the word compersion for these feelings when they were happening in the 1970s.

It gave me pleasure seeing their pleasures. In fact it was hot! In the Book Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá, the authors contend having multiple sexual partners was common and accepted in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness before the advent of agriculture. Cristopher Ryan did a Ted talk on this subject.

According to Wikipedia, “The authors argue that human beings evolved in egalitarian hunter-gatherer bands in which sexual interaction was a shared resource, much like food, child care, and group defense.”

So, perhaps there is a biological precedent for socially acceptable non-monogamy and compersion having once been the norm. Is that why so many folks suck at monogamy? Does having a biological precedent even matter? You may ask, what about love?

To my knowledge Cindy was only sexually, never emotionally, involved with another man when she was married to me. So, I never got to experience her being in full new relationship experience (NRE.) I was both emotionally and sexually involved with Mary. But, Cindy was there for me and seemed to accept my love and NRE for Mary and expressed her own love for Mary in our triad.

Compersion, yea, I think it’s real. It was for me, even before it was defined.

Jealousy and I

Jealousy for me has been a strange companion. It’s like the devil on one shoulder with the compersion angel on the other. I remember when we were young having a jealousy cow over Cindy wearing short short skirts. Then, not much more than two years later I had no problem with Cindy being a nude model and enjoyed it when Cindy was having sexy times with others and I was able to be there, even more when we were doing threesomes. Both Mary and Cindy were with other guys during the time I was with them in those days. I was with them in three or moresomes with other guys.

Still, I did not outgrow my jealousy for a long time. I’ve struggled with jealousy and weird feeling over girlfriends exs when I was single after Cindy died.

Jealousy was a strange illogical companion, especially in the early times. When I have been jealous of an ex or a paramour of a partner I have felt (for me) the best thing was to meet the person who was the source of my jealousy. My metamour becoming real is a good thing for me. Usually the jealousy is over someone I have never met. Once they became real, and not a myth, my jealous abates.

Most women don’t think their men want to know details about the others in their lives. Not me, not knowing was worse. My jealousy is fueled by myth and mystery.