It is difficult, I think, for many people to get beyond the poly-mono divide. One or the other just seems too obvious to most people.
In my own case, I know I’ve been jealous and possessive at times – but I’ve never considered that to be an ideal. I’ve always considered sharing and non-possessiveness to be ideals. I’ve never enjoyed being jealous.
It seems in many people to be innate, this thing, this way you look at relationships. My first fiancée and I split up in 1975, largely over the issue of monogamy. I feel that both of our lives were affected permanently by our decision.
My fiancée and I had been engaged for several years. We had met while living in Europe. In the United States, we lived about 400 miles apart. We only saw one another every six months or so.
I had become very attracted to a woman at my college, but I had avoided becoming involved with her. Then I did become involved with my roommate and his wife. Eventually I told my fiancée about it.
Why did I tell her? This went against society’s law. The assumed rule is that having more than one lover is wrong, therefore you shouldn’t do it, and therefore you must hide it if you do it.
But I was following poly-law (although the term poly had not yet been coined). I still loved my fiancée even after becoming involved with my roommate and his wife. And, based on her assurances that she loved me, I assumed that was true even if I loved someone else as well.
I was wrong. I was wrong because my fiancée was a monogamous person, quite possibly by nature. And I was poly, quite possibly by nature.
When I told her about my other involvement, I thought I was showing her how much I trusted her. When I told her I loved her, it didn’t have anything to do with how she related to other people. This seemed obvious to me.
But her love for me depended on my not loving anyone else. This probably seemed obvious to her.
How could I explain this to her? I see it clearly now. But, even now, how would I explain it so that she would understand it? And how could she explain to me why she needed me to be involved with only her? Monogamy seems so obvious to her, and polyamory seems so self-evident to me.
That said, I feel that I am not in a position to dictate other people’s relationships. And therefore who am I to tell my ex-fiancee that she should be poly-friendly? Conversely, I would be very pleased if she were to tell me that she understands and accepts my polyrelationships.
“Easier said than done,” since one or the other often seems so natural to us. But we have to come to terms with the fact that what seems natural to us may seem abnormal and repugnant to someone else.
Somehow we have to accept one another.