Choosing to miss out

Poly Means Many: There are many aspects of polyamory. Each month seven bloggers - ALBJ, Delightfully Queer, An Open Book, More Than Nuclear, Post Modern Sleaze, Rarely Wears Lipstick, and The Boy With The Inked Skin - will write about their views on one of them. This month, our topic is "loss" - visit the other blogs to read the other perspectives on this topic.

I don't like making decisions. I'm haunted by the choices I could have made and the options I've closed off, so often stall making them. I find some comfort in the freedom before choosing, as if by postponing the decision I am also avoiding the loss of the option I'll reject. Silly, I know, but every decision, no matter how positive, carries with it some loss. No matter what you choose, you'll miss out on something.

I miss out on a lot since becoming a parent. I have less sleep, less time and less freedom. These aren't trivial losses to me. I expect the fear of missing out is a large part of what causes people to pause when deciding whether or not to start a family, and may be enough to put them off altogether. I agonised over the decision to have a child for years, worrying that the price would be too high.

I wonder if this fear of missing out is what prevents some people from shifting from monogamy to non-monogamy. Monogamy provides a way to protect us from jealousy, an expectation of focus and time from our partner, and acceptance and support from society at large. Losing these benefits could be undesirable or even frightening to many.

Just as becoming a parent isn't a good choice for everyone, giving up the benefits of monogamy might be too high a price for many. Change means loss, even when that change is embracing the possibility of loving more than one partner, or deciding to expand your family by giving your love to a child.

Although I think about what I've lost quite often, I have no regrets. I'm on the right path, despite what I've had to leave behind. My daughter has started calling me 'mummy' and just that makes everything seem worthwhile, let alone the rest of the fun she has added into my life. The decision to give up monogamy was far easier. I've lost very little that I valued, and gained the love of a wonderful man that has enriched not only my life, but my marriage and family.

Whatever you decide, you miss out. That sounds terribly negative, but I'm starting to find it reassuring. Embrace your loss. Missing out is the price you pay for getting what you want.

(If you want a more eloquent take on the difficulty of accepting loss, try this.)

One Art, by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like a disaster.

from Collected Poems To tie in with September's 'Poly Means Many' posts on loss.

The risks of "chosen family"

Poly Means Many: There are many aspects of polyamory. Each month seven bloggers - ALBJ, Delightfully Queer, An Open Book, More Than Nuclear, Post Modern Sleaze, Rarely Wears Lipstick, and The Boy With The Inked Skin - will write about their views on one of them. This month, our topic is "Non-lovers" - visit the other blogs to read the other perspectives on this topic.

From Stalin Ate My Homework, by Alexei Sayle:

'One year one of the members [of the Communist party] told me he would make me a toy fort for Christmas... It took a long time to arrive but finally, wearily, right on Christmas Eve he deposited it at our house - and it was magnificent. It had all the things I had specified: a drawbridge you could wind up and a working portcullis and a little light bulb that worked off a battery. Then he stopped coming to the meetings and I never saw him again. That was one problem with having a family that wasn't based on blood ties - people often inexplicably vanished and you weren't supposed to miss them.'.

I'm expecting to read a few posts about how polyamory can build a "chosen family" and about close emotional ties with metamours this month. I'll enjoy reading them, but that's not what I'm going to write about. Partly because I think the other bloggers will pretty much say what I’d say anyway, partly because I've written it already but mostly because there is something else on my mind, which is how all this will affect my daughter. Because although I am sold on the benefits of chosen family, the polyamorous tribe and the added love that she will experience because of our extra lovers and metamours, the above passage from Alexei Sayle’s autobiography gives me pause. So too, does the onetime blogger PolyMom who believes strongly that polyamorous parents should stop dating when they have children because those children “deserve to grow up with minimal changes to their family configurations.” I don’t agree that the only way to provide stability is to stick to a rigid set up, but she does have a point.

Friends and lovers have drifted in and out of our lives. Some good friends moved overseas, some just stopped calling, and since having a baby, we’ve built a new social circle of other parents who understand and share our experiences. I expect that as time goes on, we’ll see some friends more often, others less. Not all of these people will be considered part of our tribe or family, but of those that do, not all will remain so. When you choose your tribe, it isn’t stable. And, as Alexei Sayle found out, when your parents choose it, the people who you might consider family aren’t there because of you. Chosen family is risky.

Despite the title of my previous blogpost on the topic, real tribes aren’t chosen. A tribe is based on kinship, not friendship. Teresa Pitman wrote a guide for those interested in building a tribe in the style of the Continuum Concept and advises people not to be too picky: “People who actually live in tribes are born into them”, she says. “And I suspect that if we lived in tribes there would be people who we would get along with easily and those with whom we wouldn't mesh quite as well.” When we choose our family, the reasons that caused us to choose them might change. The success of tribal living is perhaps the lack of that choice.

I don’t want to sound defeatist, because I really am sure that Small will benefit hugely from the love that both my boyfriend and my husband’s girlfriend have shown and will continue to show her. Not to mention my boyfriend’s girlfriend, my husband’s other long-term lover and several other wonderful metamours, friends and lovers. These people who enjoy her company as well as ours will bring nothing but good things into her life. I don’t think that cutting any of them out would benefit her or improve the stability of our family. But these people, no matter how much they love her, are there primarily because of us, not her. Her grandparents, on the other hand, would still be her grandparents no matter what. If we fall out with our parents, they would still want a relationship with her. If we lose touch with one of our lovers and Small is especially close to them, what then?

While I think PolyMom does have a point, I don’t think that polyfiedilty or monogamy solves the problem or necessarily creates any more stability. After all, Alexei Sayle’s parents were monogamous. But it is still something I think about, and I haven’t decided what, if anything, we should do about it.

She is still very young, of course, and the only adults she shows clear signs of bonding with are those she sees at least once a week. So even our biological family aren't really family to her yet, no matter how much they love her. So at the moment, this isn't something I worry about. But it won't be long before she'll start asking about people she's met, learning to recognise names and faces, and enjoying the company of some of the people we love. Maybe by then, I'll know what to do.

Until then, if anyone has an answer, I'm all ears.

Reflected love

Poly Means Many: There are many aspects of polyamory. Each month six bloggers - ALBJ, An Open Book, More Than Nuclear, One Sub's Mission, Post Modern Sleaze, and Rarely Wears Lipstick - will write about their views on one of them. This month, our topic is "Love" - visit the other blogs to read the other perspectives on this topic.

My husband and I thought that having a baby would mean that some of our friends would drift away. Babies aren't everyone's cup of tea, and so we thought that some people might lose interest in us now that our lives revolved around one.

In fact, the opposite happened. It turns out, some of our friends were so interested in Small that they wanted to spend more time with us. Both of us have made new connections since Small was born, and those people seem to enjoy spending time with her as well as well. So we were wrong: having a baby seems to have made spending time with us more desirable, not less. We're surprised and lucky to have such an amazing, loving, child-friendly community around us.

And I love that people love her. I love nothing more than seeing people enjoying her company, not to mention investing time and effort into connecting with her. I love her so much that any kindness shown to her warms me as much as kindnesses offered to me directly.

Other parents will recognise how it feels to bask in this reflected love, but so will the polyamorous, I think.

I love my husband so much, that I warm to those that love him. When someone is enchanted by him, as I am, and wants to be in his company, that makes me happy. Monogamous people are sometimes baffled by this. They don't understand how my husband and I can not only put up with the fact that we love other people, but be delighted by it.

I don't know if I can explain it, because I find it hard to imagine being any other way. For me, love is, I think, fuel for more love.

5 tips for supporting your partner when they have a baby (and it isn't yours)

If you're visiting a new baby, this article at Offbeat Mama is a good starting point. But if one of the parents is your partner, it's probably not enough. You're not just visiting a baby, you're meeting an important new member of your family, and the worries about overstaying your welcome, or intruding at an emotionally vulnerable time probably don't apply. So, what should you do, and what can you expect?

After attending PolyDay for the second time, I'm aware that this might be an increasingly common situation in my community. You might be years off starting a family of your own, still looking for your perfect co-parent(s) or even be resolutely child-free, but the more relationships we have, the greater the chance is that one of our partners is at a different stage of life, or makes different decisions to us.

So you might not be ready to have children, or even want them at all, but now you have them, by proxy at least.

Either you are supportive of your partner's choice, and try to be involved with their new family member, or you risk drifting apart. Evolution gives new parents a one-track mind, so unless you're part of this, there's a good chance that they just won't have time for you.

So, if you decide you want to be a source of support, and a part of your partner's new family, how should you do it? You're in a better position than most of their friends, as not only do you probably know them better, but the intimacy that you have means that they may be more comfortable accepting your help and falling apart in front of you. My husband advises new parents to have no one around for long unless you would be comfortable crying in front of them, but you probably fall into that bracket, right?

1. Offer to help with nappies
If you've had a baby, you'll understand why I'm saying this. If you haven't, you'll probably be scared of the yuck and of doing it wrong. But most new parents haven't had a great deal of experience with this skill either, and now they have to do it 6-10 times a day. It's terrifying. So, if you're confident, offer to change a nappy, perhaps asking for supervision. If you're unsure, offer to help or ask to watch, so you can do it on your own next time. Even with poo, it's not that bad, I promise, and once you've done it (and the baby's parents can see you can do it), you'll feel much more comfortable with the idea of baby care, and become a much more useful source of support.

The parents might turn down your offers of help. Maybe they're uncomfortable having other people care for their new child, or maybe they're trying to be polite. They will definitely appreciate the offer. There won't be many people who feel comfortable or willing enough to offer, so it shows your commitment to both your partner, and keeping involved in this new person's life.

As time goes on, the parents will become more confident, and nappies will become less of an issue. But your early involvement will be a sound investment in keeping your bond with your partner and their child.

2. Feed the parents.
If you're visiting the new baby in hospital, after the birth, bring food. The mother and her birth partner(s) will be starving, and struggling to survive on hospital rations. Giving birth is hard work, even for the people who are just there for support, and it's likely none of them had a chance to eat much (or sleep at all) during labour. If you don't get a chance to ask them what to bring, cake and biscuits are usually safe. This is not the time for salad.

If you're visiting at home, bring food. New parents struggle to find time to eat, let alone prepare food. It can be hard to accept care from friends or even family, but you're probably used to caring for your partner, so they will probably be grateful of a cooked meal, or even a sandwich. Recovering from birth and beginning breastfeeding takes a tremendous number of calories just to keep on an even keel, so I guarantee that help in this area will be welcome, whether your partner is the mother, or just the co-parent who is trying to care for her. I had people bringing me plates of food, snacks and hunks of cake continuously for the first four weeks, and dear God it was amazing.

You know your partner better than most, so you'll know what sort of food they'll appreciate. Just make sure it takes little or no preparation, and if possible, can be eaten with one hand.

Oh, and if you ever see someone breastfeeding, offer her a drink.

3. Help around the house.
New parents might still feel like they have to 'host', but hopefully, you'll be close enough to both of them to be able to pitch in without them becoming uncomfortable. Someone did our washing up without asking when Small was two weeks old, and I'm still grateful. If you see any little jobs that need doing, just do them, and if you have the time to do anything more, ask if you could run a hoover around, or hang the washing out. Again, this is the sort of help that would make most people uncomfortable, but it's much easier to accept from someone you love.

4. Get comfortable with your new family member.
Get comfortable cuddling them, making faces, singing songs, patting and rocking them to sleep. Cuddling them as you dance around works with most newborns. The more confident you get with these new skills (and calming and keeping babies happy is definitely a skill!) the easier you'll find it both to support your partner, and stay an intrinsic part of their family.

Personally, in the first few months, I was usually desperate for a break from the dratted child (sorry, Small...) so was much happier when someone offered to hold her so I could throw on some washing, than if they had offered to help with the housework. Sometimes, what I really wanted was to have a bath with the bathroom door closed, so it might feel that just holding the baby isn't enough of a help, but your partner might be both grateful of the break, and happy that you want to spend time with their child.

5. Be aware that the ground has shifted
If your partner has just given birth, you'll know not to expect sex for a while, but even if your partner is the mother's co-partner, you might not be sharing a bed. The baby is the parents' priority, and newborns need parenting 24 hours a day. Everything is different now, and the space the two of you had before has gone. It will take time to work out how things have changed for you both.

It's not easy to predict how the recovery will affect the intimacy between you and your partner, even if your partner isn't the one recovering from the birth. The first few weeks are overwhelming, but it will get easier. There is a reason everyone tells you that they grow up so fast. It's a cliché, but they really do. It may seem almost impossible for you to find space to be with your partner now, but things will change incredibly quickly. The two of you can find a way to reconnect, but you'll need to be patient and gentle with the parents, and don't push it.

There is also no exaggeration to the cliché that your life is never the same again after having children, so you can't expect your partner to give you what they used to. But don't see this as a bad thing. Supporting your partner as they settle into parenthood will bring you closer in a new way, and when they're able, they will be even more delighted to support you with your life changes, whatever those will be.

Being a part of a person's life right from the very beginning is a peculiar and rare privilege, and so even as things between you and your partner are changing, new opportunities for love are blossoming. Enjoy it. They grow up so fast.

Demeter by Carol Ann Duffy

Where i lived – winter and hard earth.
i sat in my cold stone room
choosing tough words, granite, flint,

to break the ice. My broken heart –
i tried that, but it skimmed,
flat, over the frozen lake.

She came from a long, long way,
but i saw her at last, walking,
my daughter, my girl, across the fields,

In bare feet, bringing all spring’s flowers
to her mother’s house. i swear
the air softened and warmed as she moved,

the blue sky smiling, none too soon,
with the small shy mouth of a new moon.

from The World's Wife

Where do you find the time?

Poly Means Many: There are many aspects of polyamory. Each month six bloggers - ALBJ, An Open Book, More Than Nuclear, One Sub's Mission, Post Modern Sleaze, and Rarely Wears Lipstick - will write about their views on one of them. This month, our topic is "Daily Life" - visit the other blogs to read the other perspectives on this topic.

"Where do you find the time?" This is the question I'm most often asked when I tell other mothers about my relationships. I don't always manage, I tell them, but this is why it is worth it

There are several different ways and places that we spend time together. Tonight, it works something like this.

My boyfriend and I have a date. Before I became a parent, this would mean I would go to his place, he would cook dinner, we'd have sex, plan to watch a film, talk too much, realise it was too late, cuddle up, and go to sleep. We rarely went out together. Now, it works differently. I check with my husband, (as me going out means he must stay in), and I put the date into our calendar.

Before my husband and I were married, when we lived more than 50 miles apart, I would plan our time together carefully in advance. I would think about food, drink, clothes, hair and makeup, daydreaming about that first touch, that first kiss. We took care to show each other our best faces, and tried to make our limited time perfect. After many years of living together, we still plan our time together in this way, but only rarely. We see each other every day, and so our days are filled with little, unplanned moments of intimacy that make planning ahead less of a necessity. In some ways, my relationship with Jemmy is locked into the old model: even though we have been together longer than any of my other relationships barring my marriage, the structure doesn't change much. Our time together is always precious, rarely casual. The terminology the polyamorous use to pin down these differences rarely seems satisfactory, but whether you call it primary and secondary, domestic and non-domestic, live-in and not, the two are just different. With my husband, there is always tomorrow, but with Jemmy, there rarely is.

And like I used to when my husband lived far away, I daydream about our time together. I imagine how he will smile when I open his front door, how it will feel when I touch him and take him into my arms. My husband and I rarely embrace the way he and I do any more, which might sound sad, but it's not. It's bittersweet to see your lover after a separation, even if it's just a few days, and so this fervency makes up for lost time that I don't lose with my husband. With him, there is no bitterness to make up for.

If Jemmy and I are going to have dinner together, this means my husband has to handle both dinner time and bed time for our daughter. There's a strange pull of freedom and guilt to that. In any case, the last thing I do before leaving the house is feed Small, and I do so, praying that she will go to sleep easily without me. She's usually had her dinner by this point, and might even be in her pyjamas ready for bed, depending on when I leave. I say goodbye to them both, and my husband sends Jemmy his love.

I still don't leave my daughter often, or for long. Evenings at home are not the same; even without considering the knife-edge of awareness that she is asleep upstairs and could wake up at any time, there are always things I need to do. At his house, I'm off duty, but still at home. He cooks me dinner, he fetches me a drink, and I can't spend the time with the housework of parenting, preparing for the next day. There is no baby upstairs. We would like to spend more time all four of us together, as a family, but sometimes, I need this. It's worth making the time for.

The evening probably passes much as you imagine it would, with the subtle differences that make all relationships unique. At some point, I start to become more aware of the time. There are consequences to staying out late. My daughter might need help to sleep; my husband has work in the morning, and I don't want him to be tired, or to feel that my time with Jemmy creates a burden on him; and I rarely get more than a couple of hours sleep at a time, so feel an urgent pull to bed as the evening wears on. And I won't be sleeping at this house.

As we say goodnight, he tells me he wishes that I could stay, and we talk about the indeterminate future, when the demands of parenting will have lessened enough for this to be possible. We remember waking up together, lazing around his house over breakfast before getting dressed. But not tonight. It's a wrench to leave him after so few hours, but I'm running out of time.

Back at home, my husband is waiting up for me, and I think how incredibly lucky I am to be loved by these two men. Our daughter is asleep beside him, and I climb into bed between them, taking care not to wake her. Without any conscious thought we find ourselves in each other's arms, the high-pitched sounds of her breathing behind me. It's strange and beautiful to leave them both and come back with fresh eyes. Although just a moment ago I was wishing to be elsewhere, now, I wouldn't be anywhere else.