Polyamory in the 21st Century: Love and Intimacy With Multiple Partners (26 page)

“As our relationships with others evolved, we never hid our warmth for other people in our lives. We talked to the children about how much we were looking forward to seeing certain people and how much we loved them. So they were not surprised to see us hugging or being affectionate with each other in the kitchen while waiting for the water to boil for the potatoes. We had no problem expressing warmth and love in front of the kids. Of course we didn’t feel each other up; we didn’t do that as a couple either. We didn’t talk about our sex lives and who was sleeping where, but we didn’t hide it either. We talked openly about our lovers to the kids. We told them how much we enjoy spending time together or that so and so had called. We went to a lot of effort to set a context so that the kids never needed to feel uncomfortable about what was evolving in our relationships with others. We found that the kids tended to be warm and accepting with whomever we were warm and accepting with ourselves. There were times when we felt self-conscious, but mostly we just normalized the whole thing.”

About two years after opening their marriage, they met Erica. After dating for three years, Erica moved into the family home. “Erica was more like a favorite aunt than a parent,” Kelly explains. “She was just remarkable with the children, and they adore her. Even now, sometimes she stays
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with them when we go away.” The threesome ended after six months of living together, and each of the three has a slightly different take on why it ended, but they’re still close friends who talk every week and occasionally visit with Erica and her new partner.

Kelly emphasizes, “We felt it was very important never to lie to the kids, not even a white lie, so if they asked, where did we meet this person, we’d say, on the Internet, which was the truth, not at work or some other cover-up. We rarely get questions from the kids because we give them all the information they need. But if they ask, we answer truthfully. If I spent the weekend away with Erica and they asked, where did she sleep, I’d say, she slept with me.”

Kelly has known Selena for about eight years, and they’ve been lovers for five, but she’s only recently met the kids when she came to visit the family for a week. Eileen is slowly warming up to Selena, Kelly says, but prefers to stay with just friendship for now. Kelly explains that his relationship with Selena began while the family was living in England, and he would see Selena when he was in Vancouver on business. Selena has three children of her own who spend most weekends with their father, and they’re not at all ready to tackle the complexities of bringing the two families together, although I get the feeling that Kelly would like to if he could figure out the right context.

I asked Kelly if he’d discussed polyamory with his oldest son Trent, who is now nineteen and has a girlfriend. Kelly replied that Trent is aware that some of their friends are also lovers, but it just hasn’t come up with the younger ones. “Mike has never been very communicative, he’s more of a geek, and while Sally is nosier than the boys were, she’s really more concerned with her own life so far.” Kelly continued, “I’ve always had a close relationship with Trent, and he’s brought me questions about sex since he was eight or nine. When he was younger we would shower together, and that’s when we would talk. So if he wanted to talk to me, he’d say, ‘Dad, can we take a shower?’ He’d ask me about things he’d heard on the playground that he wanted to know more about. Once some kids called him a fag, so he wanted to know what that meant, and then he wanted to know how gay men had sex.”

For the past two years, Trent has had a long-distance relationship with a girl who’s away at boarding school. Kelly describes Trent as “a very good looking, outgoing, talented kid who plays in a band, and he always has a string of girls following him around. When we saw him starting to spend
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time with another girl, we did have a talk with him about whether he was about to create some drama with the two girls and advised him to communicate openly with both of them. We told him he’d have to decide how to handle it, but he should be honorable and not lie or withhold information and practice safe sex. We did mention polyamory, or sexual friendship, as possibilities and pointed out the advantages and responsibilities that go with different choices. I’m not sure exactly what he decided, but he slept over at the other girl’s house, and that was followed by a series of lengthy phone calls with the girlfriend who’s away at school. We were concerned that all the time processing was cutting into his time for homework and were relieved when they broke up.”

I loved the practical, down-to-earth way that Kelly and Eileen managed what could have been a rocky transition for their children from a traditional monogamous marriage to a polyamorous lifestyle. It was an added bonus that their life experience then allowed them to support their teenage son in making ethical and responsible choices for himself. For families with small children, the polyamorous context is often set from birth, so it doesn’t seem alien to the children unless it clashes with the larger culture.

Living in a socially liberal area is one way to avoid this clash, but crossing national boundaries is another way to circumvent rigid cultural norms, as illustrated in the following histories.

Juliette, Roland, Laurel, and their one-year-old daughter, Maya, make polyamory look about as normal—and easy—as anyone could imagine.

But then none of them are teenagers. All three adults are in their early forties and are self-employed freelancers. Juliette and Roland met and fell in love while both were working in Washington, D.C., in the mid-1990s.

At the time, Juliette was married to another man, and it was Roland who first suggested they try a polyamorous relationship, but Juliette’s husband didn’t like the idea. Eventually, they divorced, and she and Roland were married. Juliette says that the first ten years of their marriage were spent learning how to have an open relationship, moving to Spain, and trying to conceive—without success.

Two and a half years ago, they met Laurel, who had recently moved to Spain from France, through the polyamory network Juliette had started.

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Roland and Laurel were six months into their love affair when Laurel accidentally got pregnant. Roland was apprehensive about Juliette’s reaction to the news, but, as it turned out, she was just as delighted as the other two, perhaps because after some experience with medical interventions for infertility, she recognized this as an opportunity to bring a baby into their lives in a less expensive and more enjoyable way. They quickly decided that they all wanted to raise this baby and moved in together a few months before Maya was born. Juliette says they all get along very harmoniously and take an equal share in the parenting responsibilities. In a recent newspaper interview, Laurel attributed their success to good communication.

I spoke with Juliette and Roland via Skype at their Barcelona home recently, and they told me that “it’s amazing how not different it is raising a baby in a triad.” Of course, they’ve never raised a baby any other way so probably wouldn’t believe me if I told them how much easier it can be to have an “extra” adult in the house, but they did say they’re happy to find it’s getting less demanding now that Maya is beyond infancy. Roland says the hardest part was having virtually no time for himself while juggling a job, a baby, and two women. This triad believes in being open to the flow and is currently considering adding Laurel’s new boyfriend, who lives in Amsterdam, to the family. Their only agreement, apart from honesty with each other, is that they’ll wait six months to a year, until the new relationship energy has worn off with a new lover before making any big decisions about the future. Roland emphasizes that he is heterosexual, so, while he prefers to have friendship and mutual respect with his partners’ lovers, he’s not looking for sexual intimacy with a man. Rather, they “must respect and treat my partners well. I’ve had to hold my tongue at times with men I didn’t like being around and didn’t think were treating Juliette well, but eventually it didn’t work out with them anyway. I try to allow the women to discover this themselves, and I hope to do the same with my daughter when she grows up. People need to be allowed to find things out for themselves and not be told what to do.”

Roland is as surprised as anyone to find himself “married” to two women.

He always assumed he’d be sharing Juliette with another man instead of vice versa. “I’ve only been with three women in my life,” he says, “and I’m still with two of them, whereas Juliette has had a number of boyfriends.”

Roland says he always believed women can have multiple loves, but he really wasn’t that interested in finding another woman for himself. It just happened.

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When I asked Roland how he escaped the usual male programming, he immediately pointed to his cross-cultural background. “Moving from country to country as a child, I never felt the kind of peer pressure that what society and friends are telling you is what you have to do,” he explains. “I had few friends and was always an outsider socially.” Roland also feels that his birth order, being the middle child of three, meant that from the very beginning of his life, he was accustomed to sharing the love of his parents with siblings, so he’s comfortable with not being the center of attention and knows there’s always enough love to go around. Roland also mentioned the Christian values he was raised with, especially Christ’s emphasis on unconditional love, as an important influence.

As foreigners in Spain—both Juliette and Laurel are Americans, and Roland is British but lived in Africa, Colombia, and Mexico before his family moved to the United States when he was a teen—they feel graced with a freedom from social norms that the Spaniards might hesitate to extend to their own kin. They’re close friends with another polyamorous family who live nearby but are originally from Germany. In terms of the reactions of their own families, Juliette tells me that Roland’s family has been the most supportive, and this was a big surprise to them because his parents are quite religious. As mainstream Methodists, they’ve apparently taken to heart the teachings of Jesus. Both Juliette’s and Laurel’s parents are divorced and not very happy about the situation, but their mothers seem to be getting over their original upset.

Roland and Juliette bristle a bit when I ask if they’ve thought about what they would do about custody in the event of a breakup. “Couples don’t usually think about future breakups when they have children, and we don’t either,” they retort. “I have less fear in my heart about this than the standard monogamous couple. I’m not really worried about it,” Roland continues, clearly finding it tedious that everyone asks this question, but he relents and says, “We’d move, to another country if necessary, to be close enough to continue having a relationship with Maya.”

Kamala and Michael, whom we first met in chapter 2, live in suburban San Diego with their son, Devon, and with Michael’s dad. Ever since Devon was born three years ago, Kamala has been hosting poly potlucks and other workshops and social events at their home. I first met Kamala about ten years ago when she was a popular “hot bi babe” in the growing San Diego poly community. Kamala is a slender, high-energy woman who seems to juggle her family, numerous lovers, and a booming business with
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ease. When I asked her to tell me what life is like for her as a polyamorous mom, she readily agreed. Kamala enthusiastically described how thrilled Devon is to welcome both old and new friends and lovers, whom she introduces to him as “auntie” or “uncle,” into their home. He often becomes the

“doorman” at events like the monthly poly potluck, running to answer the doorbell for arriving guests, all of whom know him and greet him warmly.

Devon is usually the only child in this sea of loving adults, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He happily takes his place in the introduction circle where people say their names and are asked to name a flower that expresses how they’re feeling. It’s rare for other children to attend these events, although Kamala says she doesn’t discourage it. Kamala proudly relates how Devon, who is barely three, understands the game and shouts “Daisy!” when it’s his turn. After dinner when the group discussion gets deeper, Devon goes off to spend time with Grandpa, who is the “nighttime nanny” after the full-time nanny goes home for the evening. “The reason we don’t include Devon is not because of the content,” Kamala says, “but because of his attention span.” Kamala reports that Michael’s dad is very liberal and has no gripe with their lifestyle, although he has suggested that as Devon gets older, they should put an addition onto their suburban San Diego house to allow him more space from the hubbub.

At three, Devon is too young for much in the way of verbal explanation of a poly lifestyle, but he loves to watch the recorded television spots of Mom and Dad discussing polyamory because he’s in some of them. Kamala recalls that he has asked questions when he happens on Mom or Dad engaged with another partner but usually takes it in stride. For example, when he’s entered their bedroom while she’s with another lover, he might ask, “Where’s Dad?” And Kamala will matter-of-factly respond, “He’s in the other room with Auntie June.” Between them, Kamala and Michael have about ten other lovers, and Kamala is gratified to find that “their love for me spills over to my son.”

While their lifestyle no doubt sounds outrageous to many people, Kamala is very public about her life and often appears on television talk shows along with various intimate friends. She says she’s unconcerned about the possibility of government interference because there’s no one in their families or social circle who would make a complaint and Devon is so obviously a happy and healthy child. She says they own their home, pay their taxes, and just don’t anticipate any problems. However, Kamala reports that many of the critical comments on her blog do concern children. After her
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