Okay! Answering these in order:
1. Having kids complicates everything, being poly can complicate everything. Thankfully, I thrive on complicated. While at one point my Partner and I were a triad with their now ex-wife, parenting while poly doesn’t have to be as complicated as folks make it out to be. Overall we don’t have time for other relationships right now, but when we do? We leave the kids out of it. They meet other people as our friend(s) and we treat other partners like we do our friends and the kids are unphased. I hug and kiss everyone, so me sitting on the couch snuggled with a love watching a movie doesn’t look any different to them as when my best friend is visiting. As they grow older, we’ll share our relationship dynamic to them in age appropriate ways.
2. Yes and No. The youngest kids are preschool age and poly isn’t a concept to them, nor does it need to be. The oldest kid has slight memory of the triad so she knows that our relationship is one where we sometimes love other people while still loving each other. She doesn’t really care, hitting pre-teen and everything we do is old and gross. Middle kid has a similar base of knowledge and also doesn’t care. We have a lot of straight passing and mono passing privilege here.
3. Oh my stars did I feel freedom when I realized that Poly was possible and that I could stop my penchant for cheating by finding a like minded partner. So I did, and we are happy as can be.
The stigma is intense and made more so that we’re poly and have kids AND I am a sex educator and writer. I’ve had the joy of being on live TV while someone screamed at me “Do you ever even think of you children?!?” When my #OrgasmQuest (which had little to do with poly) was fully viral the hate mail and death threats were intense. People telling me they wanted my kids dead rather than raised by this poly whore. That has died down with time and the kids are shielded from my work. Slowly over the years we’ll explain in more detail and later on they can make the choice to read my work or not. Some of them I think will, and others will totally avoid the topic. — which is fine.
4. Not stigmatized for being a cis poly woman, when I was single and a “unicorn” (poly bisexual woman) I did feel that I was objectified by the couples approaching me. That they saw me more as a living sex toy than a person with feelings. Now when I am poking around dating sites (I’m uniqueern on OKC) I do make sure that folx know that I am not a unicorn hunter and avoid the behaviors that got to me so much when I was in their shoes.
5. This is difficult to answer so I’m sitting here with your wonderful question. Thank you, I love being asked the hard things because the answers often help me understand myself better.
There is always NRE (new relationship energy) with a new love and yes, both my partner and I will bubble up with that new shiny person for a while. NRE is a combination of so many wonderful feelings, it’s one of the joyous reasons I love being poly. I can keep experiencing that while also being in a loving, passionate partnership.
On the different person aspect…People nourish different parts of me and thus parts of me that may usually be dormant come alive. I’m never a different person — for better or worse I am always all me-but my personality may shift when with a different lover.
The best example of this is actually with my Partner’s other loves. My Partner is one of those super geniuses where the genius sometimes looks like madness. While I am incredibly intelligent, their brain works on a different level than mine does. One of his long time on and off partners is also a genius in that way. When they are together, all of that comes out and they might as well be speaking another language to me. Listening and watching them together makes me so happy. I love seeing them get that stimulation and interaction that I just cannot give.
They feel that way when a lover of mine is also into the NFL. (I grew up in rural Wisconsin. The Packers are my religion) When I have a partner who shares this, we go off into the same kind of world — speaking that completely different language-and they are thrilled for me to have that in my life because they really, really, really loathe sportsball.
I don’t lose myself in anyone anymore, but I do enjoy letting out the different aspects of my personality depending on the love I am with.
So, how did I do? If you have more follow up questions let me know. I’ll answer them here again or I’m hanging out in the slack channel all day. ❤ Thank you for these questions, I had a really wonderful time answering them.
