Opening Up...

“Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point. (The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.)”
-- Blaise Pascal

After a brain injury, a non-traditional arrangement

Feb 212012

Never is the word “polyamory” mentioned, but this extremely touching article from The Washington Post chronicles a unique situation that has echoes of non-monogamy. Page and Robert Melton had been married for eight years when, in 2003, Robert suffered from a heart attack and collapse that left him with a serious brain injury. Robert, who had previously worked as an editor and reporter for The Washington Post, suffered from profound cognitive loss.

Robert eventually came to understand who his family was, but he was moved into an assisted living facility. In the years that followed, Page busied herself with her full-time job as a government-affairs consultant and her work as an advocate for brain-injury and caregiver groups. Page had never considered entering a new relationship, but that changed in 2008 when she reconnected with an old classmate, Allan D. Ivie IV. From the start, this was not a traditional relationship.

[Allan] realized that the only way their relationship could develop was if it included Robert. As he started falling in love with Page, he said to her: “I see this responsibility that you have, and I want to help you with it. I understand this is a package deal.”

“That’s what triggered the relationship,” Page says. “He understood that Robert was central to our lives, that we needed to take care of him.”

Allan proposed to Page in June of 2010. When Page nervously brought the news to Robert, he replied, “You should marry him. He’s a good guy.” Allan and Page decided that they would move the family to Allan’s home city of St. Louis — and Robert would come with them.

Page formally divorced Robert while remaining his legal guardian. Then she married Allan in a heartfelt ceremony:

As Allan held Page’s hands, he promised to always love her and her daughters. He turned to Hope and Nell, who were their mom’s attendants, and smiled. Then he looked back at Page: “And I promise to always help you provide compassionate care for Robert.”

Today, Robert is settled into an assisted living facility in St. Louis, where Page visits him several times a week. Allan writes him daily emails and takes him to breakfast every Wednesday.

“In a way, I feel married to Robert forever,” [Page] said . . . “It’s not a traditional marriage. It’s not the marriage we signed up for. But I feel like there’s a connection there that never ends.”

. . . Robert has grasped the essence of their relationship better than any of them. He understands, she says, “that it’s not the legal arrangement, it’s the emotional arrangement, that emotional commitment.”

Read the full story on The Washington Post.

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Just a normal family… with more resources

Feb 192012

Sierra Black is a woman in an open, poly marriage who blogs about parenting at her blog ChildWild. She has written several pieces online recently about her nontraditional relationships and how they intersect with her parenting. The first, entitled “Our successful open marriage,” was published on Salon. In this piece, she discusses her home life and why she is drawn to partners outside her marriage.

Since we’ve always been poly, I often wonder how monogamous couples do it. I get so much support from my lovers. No one else, not my friends, not my parents, no one, is as willing to deal with the messes and mishaps of parenting as my sweeties. There’s something about romantic intimacy that builds a family-type closeness.

. . . To my kids, this is all normal. I’ve never had a big sit-down talk about how Mommy and Daddy’s marriage is different. They were born into this. We’re a big messy family. The kids know I go on grown-up sleepovers sometimes, and take it for granted.

Another piece from Black was published on parenting site Babble. This article is called “What It’s Like To Be A Parent In An Open Marriage,” and it’s a pretty in-depth look at common questions that people have about poly relationships. Black stresses that her life is nothing to be gawked at.

I’m writing this essay because I think it’s important to provide images of open marriage that counter the stereotypes. We’re just a normal family… who happen to have more resources.

. . . poly families resemble monogamous families in a lot of ways. I just spent an hour talking to my girlfriend about a charter school we’re both considering sending our kids to. Last night, my husband’s girlfriend came over and sat with my second-grader doing homework while he did bath time with the little one. Our partners are folded into the fabric of our family life.

Black’s articles are wonderful; be sure to read them both.

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Valentine’s Day for non-monogamists

Feb 112012

Valentine’s Day seems to spark extra interest in the poly community, and this year is no exception. In an article in the DC Around Town branch of The Huffington Post, there is an interview with Tamara Pincus, a psychotherapist and sex podcast host who also runs a local discussion group for non-monogamous folks. Pincus has two children and lives with her husband and one of her husband’s girlfriends. Both Pincus and her husband have other relationships as well.

Hilariously, most of the interview is spent with Pincus explaining how Valentine’s Day just isn’t a big deal to her, and that her only specific plans are to make breakfast for her children and record a new podcast.

In a similar vein, there’s an article on CNN’s website about how different couples spend Valentine’s Day, with a short section on “nontraditional relationships.”

“Each of my partners is like those in any monogamous relationships,” said Joreth, a representative of the Polyamory Media Association, which provides members of the press with information and spokespeople on how polyamory works. “There’s really no difference between how I feel about my current partners or how we relate to each other. The only difference is I didn’t have to break up with one to start the other.”

Joreth, her three male partners and their additional “metamors” are going out for dinner at a nice steakhouse in Tampa, Florida. All told, there will be six of them around the table.

“I don’t personally observe Valentine’s Day, but my partners’ other partners do,” she said. “The holiday’s not important, but making my loved ones feel that I care about them is important.”

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The media’s renewed interest in open relationships continues

Feb 062012

It began when the former wife of GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich told Nightline that Gingrich had once, on the heels of a 6-year affair, asked her for an “open marriage.” More and more news stories about the controversy just keep popping up, many of them mentioning non-monogamy in some way.

The latest is a piece from the New York Times entitled “Open marriage’s new 15 minutes.” The article is a cursory look at the different permutations of non-monogamy, with some quotes from myself, Anita Wagner (organizer of the Polyamory Leadership Network), and others.

If nothing else, Marianne Gingrich’s allegation, which the candidate has denied, provided an unexpected publicity bounce for advocates of open relationships, who have long been trying to paw their way out of the cultural margins.

. . . In the first flush of open marriage in the ’70s, there was hardly any way for the curious to find like-minded people. “Then the Internet came along and it was all just a keystroke away,” [Janet W. Hardy] said, adding that there are dozens of online forums devoted to the practice today. “It turned from an oddity into a community.”

Meanwhile, Modern Poly released a statement about the effect of big news stories like this one on the poly community. The statement is directed at Gingrich.

. . . with every backlash more and more people will come out, non-monogamy will become more and more normalized, more network television shows will be interested in exploring a non-monogamous plot arc, and then sitcoms, and eventually, things will change… And we owe a lot of that to you, Newt, for being the person in power to be scandalized by allegedly asking for a sexually non-exclusive relationship.

So thank you, Newt, for giving us the spotlight, so we can show people all the good ways to practice polyamory and non-monogamy… through honesty, compassion, responsibility, commitment, love, a sex-positive outlook, and a willingness to work through the hard things like boundaries and jealousy. Please–keep doing it wrong, so more people can find their way to us. Because the more you do, the more the movement is fed and ready to start making things better.

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Non-monogamous blogger lays out the facts

Feb 032012

Samantha Fraser, blogger at Not Your Mother’s Playground, was interviewed for an article on non-monogamy in The Grid, an online city magazine run by the Toronto Star. The piece is decent, but the author spends a lot of time stressing how complicated, confusing, and exhausting non-monogamy seems.

Fraser wasn’t too bothered by the coverage, but she did take the opportunity to clear up some things that the article left murky. In the process, she wrote a blog post more useful than the original article.

To be honest, the only issue that I have with it is that it seems to focus on the fact that — a few months into non-monogamy I struggled extra with the little details — like the visual cue of my husband’s date’s wine glass being left behind in my kitchen. When we were relatively fresh other people fuckers, silly shit like that was hard to handle. So I share those stories with other people because those are the things that threw me for a loop back in the day. A few commenters on the article have latched onto the wine glass story, suggesting that if I’m not comfortable with that then I must not really be happy with non-monogamy at all.

And this is a mild challenge I always see that, for the most part, I ignore. There are a lot of assumptions out there about open relationships. First of all, people will often react strongly when they hear someone is in one. “Isn’t that hard? What about jealousy? What if you fall in love?”. On the flip side however, if I suggest mySELF that non-monogamy is hard and that sometimes those questions can have really tough answers, then I obviously must not be happy with it.

. . . I find this attitude so ridiculous which is why I will constantly strive to be honest when discussing open relationships . . . However in the interest of clarity, I will list a few points here that maybe I haven’t said in some time.

Read Fraser’s list of things she has personally learned from practicing non-monogamy.

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Audiobook version of Opening Up

Feb 012012

Yes, it’s true! As of last fall, Opening Up is available as an audiobook. This is my first book ever to be converted into an audiobook, and it’s unabridged — a full 11 hours of non-monogamous goodness. The audiobook is narrated by Jo Anna Perrin and published by Tantor Audio.

You can buy the audiobook online on many sites, such as Amazon, Audible, and Tantor (where it is currently 50% off!). Mp3 audio samples are available on all of those sites, so you can preview the narration before purchase.

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Battling breast cancer with multiple partners

Jan 312012

Allena Gabosch is a polyamorous woman and the founder of Seattle’s Center for Sex Positivity. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she turned to her partners for support and comfort. In “Breast Cancer and Polyamory: A Story of Non-Monogamy, Love and Commitment While Going Through Chemo,” Rachel Rabbit White interviews Gabosch about the ups and downs of dealing with cancer as a poly woman.

Gabosch quickly found that being poly was a huge asset in her fight against breast cancer. Her partners were able to comfort each other. Gabosch became much closer with her partner’s primary, Sophie, who treated her with an array of herbal remedies and vitamins, and she bonded with Sophie’s daughter as well. She was always surrounded by love.

The most incredible part was I never went to the oncologist, to chemo, or to surgery without one or more of my partners with me. When I went in for the lobectomy . . . As they were wheeling me away, I showered each lover in kisses. The nurses did look at each other, like, ‘well this is strange.’

There were other unforeseen benefits as well. When Gabosch’s sex drive diminished, she did not have to worry about whether her partners’ sexual needs were being met. Gabosch even met a new partner, right in the middle of her battle.

Dealing with cancer only strengthened Gabosch’s belief in polyamory.

In both cancer and love, for me it is about not being at the whims of society and what you are supposed to do, but being proactive and finding what really works for you, and I think being poly has a lot to do with shaping that idea.

. . . I learned a lot about love and commitment and how committed these people truly are to me. One of the ideas people have about polyamory is “well you guys don’t know how to commit, that is why you are poly” I always knew that wasn’t true but here I was really seeing it, my partners were so committed to me, 100 percent . . . I never lacked for attention for my entire cancer experience, and that is a powerful place to come from.

This interview is an ultimately uplifting reminder of the shortness of life and the importance of support and love. Read the full interview in SexIs Magazine.

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Female boxer: polyamorous?

Jan 292012

Listening to Weekend Edition on the local NPR station today, I heard an interesting piece, “‘I Am A Boxer’: Fighter In The Ring, Lady Outside It,” about female boxers who hope to make the U.S. Olympic Team for women’s boxing. The first woman profiled was Bertha Aracil, a 29 year old amateur boxer. Talking about Aracil, reporter Marianne McCune said this (emphasis mine):

When I met her she was living in a basement apartment in the Bronx with a man and a woman she called her husband and her wife. They were cooking for a band of nieces, nephews, and sisters, part of a big family of Cuban immigrants. Aracil is 5’9″ with jeans, boots, she says that her many tattoos tell the story of who she is.

Whoa, what? That’s right. Not only was Aracil clearly open about her nontraditional and nonmonogamous (polyamorous?) relationship, but the NPR reporter treated it as completely ordinary, just part of the profile. Unfortunately, this little item is missing from the written piece on npr.org, but you can download the audio of the segment here.

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An Opening Up read-along!

Jan 202012

Blogger Kit O’Connell has launched an Opening Up read-along! O’Connell is encouraging readers to follow along in Opening Up and engage in discussions about the various chapters — and non-monogamy in general.

Here’s how it will work: each week or so, O’Connell will post about a new section of the book and his thoughts on it, using that as a launching pad for more broad discussion of non-monogamy. He will also share his own experiences in the polyamorous lifestyle.

In this first post, O’Connell writes about the introduction in Opening Up:

In addition to talking about her background and the creation of the book, the introduction to Opening Up takes a look at the state of relationships in our culture today. Most of us grow up believing that lifelong monogamous marriage is not only the current default, but always has been for everyone . . . Countless events (the Stonewall riots), technological developments (birth control), and cultural changes have shown that there is no normal relationship and a lifetime of emotional & sexual monogamy is a rarity and not always a worthwhile or realistic goal.

. . . Opening Up attempts to cover a wide gamut of relationship styles, from polyamory of many kinds, to swinging, to pairings where one person is monogamous and the other poly. It has chapters devoted to major issues which confront us as we explore these new relationship styles, and profiles of how others have shaped their relationships. Remember as we go through this book that, quoting the author, “there is no formula for an open relationship.” There is not even one definition of polyamory. Instead, approach your relationships as you would a toolbox — choose from what works for you and your lovers, without worrying about what you perceive as normal.

The read-along will continue next Thursday, January 26th, with chapter 1, which examines the history of non-monogamy since the 1950s. Go contribute your voice to the discussion and follow along on O’Connell’s blog, Approximately 8,000 Words.

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“Monogamish” couples speak in Savage Love

Jan 182012

In Dan Savage’s recent Savage Love column, entitled “Meet the Monogamish,” he hopes to squash the stereotype that non-monogamy is a recipe for disaster — by simply sharing the stories of non-monogamous folks. Savage writes,

Why do most people assume that all nonmonogamous relationships are destined to fail? Because we only hear about the ones that do. If a three-way or an affair was a factor in a divorce or breakup, we hear all about it. But we rarely hear from happy couples who aren’t monogamous, because they don’t want to be perceived as dangerous sex maniacs who are destined to divorce.

. . . “You know lots of couples who have had three-ways and flings who aren’t divorced,” I told the skeptics a few weeks ago, “you just don’t know you know them.” In an effort to introduce the skeptics to some happily monogamish couples, I invited coupled people who’d had successful flings, affairs, three-ways, and swinging experiences to write in and share their stories.

Seven different letters are printed, ranging from threesomes to semi-open relationships. One reader writes in succinctly:

I agree with you that we rarely hear about successful marriages that are open. How do I know? I just discovered that my parents are swingers — and they have been married for 26 years!

Read the rest of the stories in Savage Love.

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