Down the Rabbit Hole; Six Years of Polyamory
If someone were to ask me “what’s the most surprising thing that has come from stepping away from monogamy and into polyamory?” I would say “how it has changed me in ways I could never have imagined”.
Taking steps away from monogamous relationship structures and mono-normative society, can be a thrilling and healthy decision for people. The first steps are often taken with a sense of adventure, new frontiers, and a racing heart, imagining all the experiences and lovers to come. Perhaps it feels like a true alignment of your authentic self, a coming home, which can be deeply powerful and surprising. It has become a more popular choice over the last decade, and I am happy to see a healthy and thriving community emerging from the more traditional relationship paradigms.
However, the growing popularity of polyamory and ethical non-monogamy has had some negative effects as well, and I admit, I sometimes find myself struggling with the volume of those who are diving into a “lifestyle” without exploring the deep potential repercussions. Stepping away from established social conformities like monogamy requires intentionality because that decision will inherently other you, and we would all do well to really take that in. The world is shifting at an ever increasing rate, but the truth is the majority of us still operate within these traditional social and relational structures. Stepping outside of that, even if you remain discrete, is like opening a door to a room you didn’t know was there. And once it is open it reveals that that room has hundreds of doors of its own. Knowing you can open one, makes you curious about opening others. The more you open the farther you get from the world you knew, like Alice in Wonderland, down the rabbit hole. Even if you take it slow, with the best of intentions, things will likely emerge, that will surprise you. A lifestyle choice can suddenly become an identity. A couple may begin to realize that as individuals they want different things. New partnerships could be game changers, and threaten the rules a couple established to keep the primary relationship “safe”.
Before my marital partner and I took our first steps into polyamory over 6 years ago, I was solidly identifying as a monogamous, heterosexual cis woman, with pretty vanilla sexual desires and didn’t consciously question my identity much. When we began to flirt with the idea of opening up our marriage, we mostly thought it was a healthy and sexy way for us to get fulfillment outside of our relationship and explore new people. Our approach back then was naive and deeply rooted in couples privilege and toxic monogamous ideas, though we didn’t know that at the time. We fashioned rules for opening up that made us feel safe with no regard to the consent of anyone else involved. The learning curve was far sharper than I had imagined and I was often in a tailspin as I confronted again and again my codependencies, insecurities, identities and deep need to control my life and the life of my partners. I had opened doors I couldn’t close. I was Alice, lost in a world I didn’t recognize. I couldn’t have known then that all of those doors led to shadow parts of myself, the parts I had judged as small, shameful, and deviant. There was no closing these doors and I would be forced to recon with what was inside.
It’s not that my previous identifiers didn’t fit, because they did to a large extent. Monogamy was never easy for me, but I figured innocent cheating here and there was just the way things were done. Growing up in a conservative Midwestern town, I always quietly knew I liked girls as well as boys, but I explained my attraction away as mere curiosity; a passing phase. And as long as I liked dating boys I figured I was straight. (Side note, the number of girl friends I awkwardly, and unsuccessfully tried to make out with during sleepovers is cringeworthy). I also tended to be confused about wanting to be sexy and girly like all my friends, but also was strongly pulled by a desire to be a “tomboy”. Growing up in the country, I used to spend hours catching frogs, searching for salamanders under old logs, and trying to outrun the neighbor boys. I could never quite figure out if I wanted to kiss them or be them. I was also a deeply sexual child and as a young catholic girl, I felt the searing guilt, shame and fear of my desires. I pushed them down and convinced myself that only sick and evil people had kinky thoughts.
When I cracked open the door to polyamory it cracked everything open. I had done something bold and outside the lines, and breaking that social taboo made me want to break more. I was fascinated and scared by the parts of myself that were re-emerging from my youth; those self proclaimed deviant, hedonistic, queer and naughty parts of myself. It has taken a full 6 years to finally come to some peace and balance with it all. I now identify as polyamorous, queer, pansexual, gender non-conforming, kinky, and who knows what else. I am open and curious and that feeling has been hard won, so I am grateful to myself for being brave.
Let me say that this is my story. I would never suggest that everyone who enters into an alternative relationship will find themselves at such odds with who they thought they were. That being said, if you think stepping away from monogamy is all you are doing, you may be as naive as Alice following that white rabbit.
