Can you have a family and be poly?

Can you have a family and be engaged in a polyamorous lifestyle? Can you raise healthy children when you are poly or non-mon? In short, I believe that the answer is yes. In this entry, I aim to talk about our experiences in being non-mon and poly with children as well as look at some of the challenges that come with this lifestyle and family.

Like many relationships, poly ones have many different dynamics with people from all walks of life and all backgrounds, that includes those with kids. Mr. Bear and I do have a pre-teenaged son who is an awesome kid, we will call him K, and two older children who don't live at home. Mr.Bear and I our son K and grandma all share a family home together and the four of us make up our immediate family unit. Now to start, neither grandma or K know that we are poly or non-mon for that matter. We haven't shared the non-mon/open part with really anyone besides one very good friend. This is mostly due to the fact that our sex life and furthermore our extracurricular sex life isn't their concern, nor does it involve them. Being poly isn't something we've shared with them either and here's why, we simply did not want to involve them until the time came when we found someone serious enough to introduce them to. As parents, we strive very hard to give K a stable and structured home life and until that someone comes around and we are serious with them enough to make introductions, it can wait.

Dating as a couple is odd by itself, dating and being a parent gives it a whole new aura. When Mr. Bear and I are just in the initial stage of chatting with someone we don't immediately bring up we have a kid. We both prefer to use that time to get to know someone on a pretty basic level, likes and dislikes, information about their lives and get a feel if were all compatible and on the same page. If talk gets more serious more along the lines of poly relationships and dating and potential meetings/dates we take that as a queue to breach the subject. We know that not everyone likes kids and although we aren't asking them to raise ours we ultimately do come as a package deal, so we feel why wait to ask the person how they feel. It may seem forward to some but for us, we would much rather get this out in the open and figure out where everyone stands rather than wait and have waisted there or our time. Most people have been ok with it and are pretty open. On the flip side to this, we also are curious to know what the other person is wanting as far as future children. Mr. Bear and I are cool dating or seeing a guy with a kid (s) but for us, we don't have a desire to have more. It's important to get an idea of what the other person wants because we would never want to limit his opportunity or desire to have more kids just because we don't. That too may seem odd, but we have encountered the situation where this topic was brought up later than should have been and it wasn't good. In short, the other man was young and wanted to have a baby in the future, it was something that he wanted to experience, and we were not willing to change our stance on that issue. He later tried to take it back and said he would choose to be with us rather than have a child of his own but to us, that was not fair to him. As a young man he had so much time and opportunity and we did not in any way want to be the reason he gave up that goal and dream, but I will write an entire entry on that whole relationship and experience in time.

For us, we find the most important "challenge" is to balance family time and time spent on others. Pursuing a poly triad is something that we want and are looking for, but we also have a family and that comes with its obligations as well. Mr. Bear and I are very hands-on parents and are involved in school, sports, friends etc. as much as possible and that's important to us. We have always made it a point to have "us" time, time that is just him and I to spend together and talk and decompress. The benefit for us is that we desire a poly triad in which all three members are equal and apart of one large relationship, as much as possible of course. I say that this is a benefit because for us dating someone or getting to know them is something that we engage in together and we like that. So, when we want to go on a date or a get together we use what would normally be "our time" but were still together and we still are pursuing a mutual interest. Life is a balancing act in many ways and for us being poly and having a family is just another facet of our life that we make work.

One issue that we have encountered on this journey so far has been people and how they interpret this lifestyle and how it relates to children. I have had one person express to me that people who are non-mon are not providing a good environment or a good example. To this I say, bitch, please! As I have said before we know that poly or any form of non-mon isn't for everyone and we respect that, however, it is for us. In my mind, I can’t see the problem with a kid knowing that his or her parent (s) have an abundance of love and affection and want to share that and multiply love. How can that be bad? Also, I fail to see how it would be a bad environment. It's not as though we have a revolving door of strange men or put our child in any dangerous or questionable situations. Mr. Bear and I wish K to grow up knowing that we are open to new ideas and new ways of doing things and to know that we are accepting of him and who he wants to be and how he chooses to live his life. Even if our kids chose to grow up and in a monogamous traditional relationship we would still love and support them just as we would if they chose a less traditional path.

Overall being non-mon and poly with a family has been a great experience. We find that being true to who you are and following the path that is right for you and your partner is really the best option. There will, we hope, be a day when we do sit down with K and grandma and tell them that we have found someone that we care about and that we hope they could grow to care about as well. With some rules and planning we truly believe that this lifestyle can work and can be great. As with any life-changing decision or path, it takes communication and forethought, but knowing what you want and what your plan is will make things much easier. Mr. Bear and I truly believe that being open and honest from the very beginning is the best plan and the easiest way to avoid issues further down the line. So, can you be poly with a family, we say yes.

What Being Poly Means To Us and How It Happened

     In my first blog post I gave a general idea of what polyamory means on a broad scale, in this post I'd like to tell what being poly means to me and my husband, whom I call Mr. Bear, and a little story of how we  got here.

       Many years ago when I was young, I was married to a woman who I was not in love with and whome I didn't truly want to be with. Moreover, I was very confused about my sexuality and who I was and who I wanted to be with. I was the one to bring up threeways because I wanted to engage in non-monogamy for all the wrong reasons. I wanted to experience being with a man without the guilt of cheating. I quickly realized that I was not only gay and wanted to be with a man, but that my marriage was falling apart, largely due to the fact that my heart was not in it, I wanted out. Engaging in non-monogamy for reasons of exploring your sexuality without telling yourself or your partner the truth, in my opinion, leads to hard feelings and guilt. Ironically I tried to avoid the guilt by choosing threesomes rather than cheating. The issue was that I knew my real feelings and motives and felt as though she was doing this to appease me, not necessarily because she wanted to. This caused me some guilt and also lead me to project my feelings on her and accuse her of having feelings for others. Needless to say we ended our marriage and I came out, but also learned a lesson in making choices regarding non-monogamy.

     Fast forward several years and Mr. Bear and I have been together about a year or so and relationship wise we are happy and settled. Mr. Bear and I have always been comfortable with one another talking about other men being attractive or with chatting with others via apps and things of that nature. At this point in our relationship we enjoy a good sex life, but we aren't entirely comfortable sharing with each other our fantasies and deeper sexual desires. Now in all honesty I don't exactly remember how this all came about, but I can remember being in bed together one night talking as new couples do and I was sharing with him the story of my previous experience with non-mon and threeways. I told him how it was something that Ive thought about, but that I was also a little apprehensive about. I was deeply in love with him and didn't desire anything to come between us or to ruin what we had! Mr. Bear had up until this point had been someone that I would consider pretty "vanilla", meaning he didn't seem to have any fetishes or crazy fantasies. To my great surprise he confided that night that he had been intrigued and interested in a threesomes even in his previous long term relationship. He also revealed to me, that having threeways was something he had thought about in our relationship, but had not yet expressed to me. After this initial conversation we had many more conversations on the topic over the next few weeks. We talked at end about out thoughts, feelings and fears, and what rules we wanted in place. We eventually decided that it was something we wished to try on a limited basis. We had a plan and rules we would try this one time and afterword we would be completely honest with one another about how we felt and what our thoughts were before, during and after. The rules were no kissing, no swallowing and no anal sex. That may seem limiting to some, but you have to remember we were new and even in our own relationship we were lets say not particularly crazy into anal sex. So the game plan was we would look for a suitable man that was interested in us and set up a time and place to meet him and we would follow our rules then after we would de-brief and talk about it. Mr. Bear and I posted an add on a popular website and met someone that was in town, we booked a hotel room and nervously we met and carried out our plan. I can remember being in the car after this happened and I asked Mr. Bear how he felt and we agreed the the man we chose was attractive, was into us and a generally nice guy. We looked at each other and laughed because we both agreed while not terrible, the sexual experience itself was comical and lacked a certain something. We discussed our feelings and our thoughts and we both learned that we enjoyed ourselves and in fact enjoyed the experience of not only being with someone else, but that we liked seeing one another in action with another man. We also liked that this was something we could do together. We found it incredibly hot to see the other with another man in such an intimate way and were both pleasantly surprised to not feel or experience any jealously and overall had a good time.

     Again, fast forward a few years and we are still happy in our relationship and our sex life has been steadily getting better and growing and expanding. Agreeing to try out the three way opened a whole new world for us. We had more threeways and in doing so we felt more and more comfortable with telling each other our sexual desires and wants and fantasies and fetishes. Mr. Bear became decidedly less "vanilla" to say the least. In some of our discussions we had talked about poly relationships, at first because we know several people in them and in our area and because it was interesting to us. Mr. Bear had expressed interest in being poly a few times and an interest in knowing/exploring more, so explore we did. We talked to others and read articles and searched and learned what we could, that however, did not change the fact that I was apprehensive and somewhat against the idea. Mr. Bear was more ok with and into the idea of a poly relationship than I was. My thinking was more along the lines of open marriage not poly and his views were quite literally the exact opposite. To put it short and simply he felt that an open relationship was a way for me to seek another person to be with and love more than him and in a way take his place and I felt that same way about being poly. We talked this over and both assured the other that our desire to have an open/poly relationship was in no way us trying to replace the other. Even after long talks and understanding where the other was coming from and that we loved and cherished each other we more or less came to an impasse. We were ultimately both uncomfortable with poly and open relationships. But as things do, this topic came up a few more times over the months and we talked about it and as we talked more we worked out our (my) concerns and hangups and put to rest some things that didn't feel right.

     I realized that being poly didn't mean he was trying or even wanting to replace me it was him wanting to add to our experience and or love and our relationship. I also came to realize and learn that poly didn't necessarily have to be what I thought it was it could be what we wanted it to be and how we decided it would be. Mr. Bear and I didn't want to loose ourselves we wanted to ensure that whatever journey we decided to embark on that we would not endanger what we had. We were and are so in love with one another and had the kind of relationship and love that we desired our whole lives, nothing was more important than that. Being poly for us was something that we wanted to add to our love and add to our relationship and lives, multiply love not divide. These conversations made me aware of how kind and loving and amazing my husband is and that he had more of that to give and, well, so did I and why would I want to keep that from the universe. We decided to try this to embrace the idea of multiplying our love and to work towards a poly relationship that would work for us. There was more talking and more learning to be done but we knew it was something that we wanted and that we wanted to give a chance to grow and blossom and to start what we hoped would be a beautiful journey and one that could better our lives. So here we are learning and loving and expanding our view of marriage and relationships.

      On an ending note we would like anyone who reads this to know that we have chosen to embrace a poly lifestyle and realize that it is not for everyone. We do however invite you you to follow us and lean and grow with us and enjoy our stories and insights on what its like for us. 

What is polyamory?

What Is Polyamory?

      What is polyamory or poly, what does it mean and what does it involve?

       Wikipedia defines polyamory as:

                                              "Polyamory is the practice of, or desire for, intimate relationships with more than one partner, with the knowledge of all partners. It has been described as "consensual, ethical, and responsible non-monogamy".  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyamory

       

The infinity heart symbol of polyamory

     

         Non-monogamy in and of itself is a broad term and may define many relationships and circumstances with polyamory being just one. People in a "non-mon" relationship can be open, semi-open, polyamorous, polygamists etc or a combination. Non-mon relationships work differently for each relationship and aren't the same for everyone and they also evolve and change as time goes on and as situations and life change. In consensual and responsible non-mon relationships there are rules and conditions and there are conversations that are had and are not entered into lightly.

       Polyamory like any relationship are unique and are not standard. People in poly relationships are able to make their own rules and make it work for them and their needs and desires. There is no wrong or right way to be poly or to have a poly relationship. Some have a relationship in which the partners, married or not, seek and date others more or less together and seek a tight-knit relationship with all involved. Others have a relationship, again married or not, where each partner seeks and dates others independent of one another. Still others aren't in one single relationship and may date couples, other single polyamorist or a combination. There are so many different varieties and combinations it would take a fairy large article to cover them all.

      There are some common aspects of poly relationships that you can find throughout most poly and non-mon exchanges. Here are a few that in my opinion are some of the most important 

•        Consensual, meaning that all parties involved know and agree to the poly aspect. Whether it be a couple dating others together or separate or a single person dating or seeing multiple people everyone involved should know and agree to the situation and have the opportunity to talk and set up their own rules and parameters.
•        Responsible. I believe this is key in that you are responsible to more than just yourself and you have a responsibility to be open an honest with those involved. Without this things can become sour with mis-trust and doubts, but holding yourself and others responsible can keep things in check.
•        Communication. Possibly the most important thing of all. Communication is so important because without it things just can't run smoothly, There are feelings and thoughts and emotions and there are more than just your typical two people in a typical monogamous relationship. Communication is also key because you need it to ensure that all involved know the parameters and expectations and what is expected. There needs to be an open line of communication and each person involved should feel free and open to share with the others,

       

       There are so many other important aspects of poly relationships like commitment, love, honesty, intimacy, equality and many more. Like the many aspects of a poly relationship or for that matter a non-mon relationship, there are many types and variations of these relationships. Polyamory is different for each person and couple involved and there isn't a standard or "right" way to do it. You find what works for you, and look within at what you want and what you expect from a poly relationship. That being said poly or non-mon isn't right for everyone. Some people don't desire non-mon let alone polyamory, and that's fine too, find what works for you and what makes you happy and do that!