Big News

So, you may or may not know this, but Alison's and my relationship has taken some interesting turns in the past year or so. I haven't talked about them on here, because people don't generally want to hear about the private lives of couples. Or rather, they don't want to hear about couples they know, directly from the horse's mouth, as it were. Gossip is another story entirely...

But it's gotten to the point where not talking about it is going to cause confusion among the people we love, as well as make us feel inauthentic or even dishonest with respect to them. So here's the basic story, leaving out the gory details as much as possible.

The big change that happened is that we started seeing other people, romantically, almost a year ago. It was a mutual decision, made for personal, psycho-philosophical/spiritual reasons. Essentially, neither one of us had ever seen monogamy as an important value, and we both realized we'd only lived monogamously up until then because it's the cultural norm.

So we talked a lot about it and read books and internet articles about how to develop and maintain loving relationships with more than one person in an ethical way, where everyone gets to be happy and no one gets hurt. It's called "polyamory," and you can find out LOTS about it just by Googling that word. The main ideas are lots of honest communication, empathy, and willingness to examine one's own fears and motives. The same kinds of qualities that are important in monogamous relationships, really, except that here it becomes apparent much faster when any of those qualities is lacking.

Then we went out to find other people who would be interested in being part of this social experiment with us. Alison met a few different guys, none of whom turned out to be all that interested in either the "honest communication" aspect of the project or its intent to expand the boundaries of real, genuine love. That was hard for her, but it also taught her something about knowing exactly what you want.

I, on the other hand, met a really nice woman named Amber who, if anything, is even more interested in breaking down cultural barriers with love and compassion than we had originally been. That was in October, and we're still together. I'll introduce you to her, if you're interested.

Does this sound like the craziest kind of lifestyle choice you've ever heard of? Are you thinking we must be some kind of masochists to want to put ourselves through this? It is definitely hard work, I'll grant you that. But there are a lot of people out there trying to make it work (more than you'd guess), many of them quite successfully. And, as they're all the type of people interested in honest and open communication, they have lots of good advice and stories on which to draw. I've probably gotten way more helpful and concrete guidance on how to do non-monogamy right than I've ever found about how to do monogamy right.

I'm not going to say everything's perfect now and we've got this all figured out, because it's not, and we haven't. We have definitely made mistakes. People's feelings have been hurt. Mostly, I'd say, fear has been the biggest problem, and lack of honesty because of it. For instance, I've been scared to tell people about whom I care deeply what's been going on, for fear that they would think badly of me, even knowing that I could be causing them suffering by letting them gather incomplete information on their own. And Amber has been hurt by my inauthenticity about our relationship, because it feels like I perceive the relationship itself as inauthentic.

Alison, meanwhile, has been experiencing fears of her own — that my new relationship will replace ours, that she'll never get over feeling jealous, and that this whole thing may have been a big mistake because she may really be a monogamous person at heart. I sympathize with all these fears, but I also have really good reasons for believing that they'll eventually prove unfounded. However, I don't seem to be the best person to prove them unfounded to her, at least not at this time. We saw a couples' counsellor for a little while, and she recommended that Alison find some ways to become more independent, in order to observe her own fears more objectively.

So, the latest interesting turn is that, starting next week, Alison will be temporarily moving into the spare room of a generous friend of ours for one month, while I stay in our apartment. The idea is that she will have a better idea of what she wants, given some alone time where she's forced to be more self-sufficient. I'm sure living alone will also produce some new insights in me. We'll see what happens after that, but I'm very hopeful, because we are both committed to maintaining a relationship full of love and honesty and generosity, whatever form that takes.

I'm sorry to hit you with such a potentially shocking bit of news and then end the story on a note of uncertainty. But I hope you get that a) we are both still mostly happy and positive about the future, and b) I'm telling you about all of this because I love you and want you to understand my life choices, even though you might not agree with them. I realize this is a weird bunch of information to digest, but I hope you won't be shy about asking me any questions you might have about it. And if you'd rather not talk about it, that's fine too.

Love,
Andrew.