Hiding My Polyamorous Relationship
The Masquerade of Hidden Sexuality
You probably wouldn’t know it from my work here on Medium, but to most of the world, my relationship simply doesn’t exist. My girlfriend and I are nothing more than friends, casual-but-close people who never so much as hold one another’s hand. We live double-lives, not because we want to, but because we know that most people wouldn’t be able to handle the details of our relationship — because we have to. Before most people, our displays of affection are simply off-limits, our designated roles don’t exist, and our identity as a couple vanishes.
For all of its joy, for all of its grandeur, for all of its wonder and beauty, for all of its undeniably sweet and savory splendor, our relationship brings us some real, practical challenges in our everyday lives. While a lot of people tend to focus on the sexual aspects of the polyamorous relationship, the mundane, the usual, the everyday, and the commonplace, all present various nuanced differences which have made us question what’s important to us at every turn.
Those nuanced moments have brought us a strength that few know, in our willingness to compromise our egos and through the democratization of our relationship. After all, when your relationship could damage your reputation simply by existing, it’s important that the…
