The space that's left

Poly Means Many: There are many aspects of polyamory. Each month, the PMM bloggers will write about their views on one of them. Links to all posts can be found at polymeansmany.com. This month, our topic is "the bad stuff".

I was pregnant only a few months after meeting my boyfriend. And if you know me, or have read any of this blog before, you'll know he is not the father. I'd been living with the father, my husband, for 5 years at that point, and we owned property together, not to mention cats and a lifetime of plans for our future.

When I met my husband, I was single, living alone in a rented flat, starting my first professional job, and had no fixed plans beyond the next 12 months. Neither of us had put down roots. The only things restricting our relationship were our desires, and once we were clear that they aligned, we headed pretty quickly towards the things we both wanted out of life and love: cohabitation, marriage, mortgage, cats and children. There was very little in our way.

When I think about the "bad stuff" in polyamory, it's hard for me to pin it down, because I'm really very happy with my lot. I have all the important things that I ever wanted, and plenty that I didn't think I could have. But I think that the more entangled we become, through living our lives, falling in love, putting down roots, making commitments and plans, the less space there is for these new connections that we've opened our hearts to.

Love isn't enough to sustain a relationship. We all know relationships that ended despite the love, not because of the lack of it. To grow, develop and thrive, a relationship needs space.

So not only was the space in my life pretty inflexible when I met my boyfriend, but it was about to become a lot more rigid, as I began to devote my energies to my daughter, even before she was born. The space available for our relationship to grow into was shrinking, and if that hadn't been enough for either of us, that would have been it. And once she was born, he found me retreating from him even further, as my time, energy and focus went into parenting.

These big life decisions - starting a family, moving house, settling down or shaking up your life-plans completely - are more of a risk and a limitation to polyamorous relationships than they are to the monogamous. What happens if one of your partners doesn't want to have children with you, but another one does? What happens if you and your partner plan to move across the country (or the world), but then you fall in love with someone new? What if you want to live with your partner, but the house they own with their other partner isn't big enough? What if you fall in love, but the person you fall in love with really doesn't have the time, or emotional energy, to make the connection with you that you're yearning for? If you have more than one relationship, these life decisions, both past and future, are more likely to come up, and love isn't going to be enough to fix them.

Luckily for me, he waited, and I came back to him and found our bond stronger than ever. Eventually, the space that my boyfriend and I had for each other turned out to be just right for the relationship that suits us. But I can imagine that if he hadn't seen the long-term view of wanting to be a part of my family, or hadn't loved children as much as he does, or hadn't enjoyed seeing how my life was developing, or hadn't been willing to support me when I had nothing to give back, or hadn't generally been as patient and understanding as he is, I might not be writing this blog from such a happy position.

So if I fall in love again, good luck to whomever that is. If they don't fit into my family, my two existing relationships, and aren't happy for our relationship to grow into the left over gaps and spaces that the rest of my life hasn't eaten up, it's probably not going to work out. But at the moment, problems caused by me having everything that I want don't seem too bad. I'll take the bad stuff when it leads to all this happiness.

Sex and pregnancy - part 2

Early pregnancy really knocked my libido. As you can probably imagine, the nausea and exhaustion did not make having sex easy or desirable. The very sensitive gag reflex didn't help either. Towards the end of the first trimester, I managed to control the symptoms with extra sleep and peanut butter sandwiches, and then, the awfulness just faded.

In late January, the three of us hosted what we were pretty sure was going to be our last house-orgy for a while. I was more than 5 months pregnant, so right in the middle of pregnancy: the sickness was just a memory, I no longer needed afternoon naps and early nights, and I finally actually looked pregnant, as opposed to just waistless.   I felt great, my friends were openly appreciative and interested in my changing body, and I suppose I felt special.

Late pregnancy is different. Like a Weebl in reverse, once lying down, I was down for good. Moving around the bed was hard work. Even cuddling required creative problem solving. Plus, starting from around the middle of pregnancy, penetrative sex felt less and less good, until I just gave up on it entirely. I wasn't expecting that.

Putting my other post on sex and pregnancy together with this gives a balanced perspective on my experiences: it was awesome and it was terrible, but in new and unusual ways.

Change

So my due date is less than a week away, and I'm getting to the GET IT OUT! stage of pregnancy.  I'm, big, uncomfortable, getting head-butted in my cervix, tired and not really sleeping well.  Last night, my boyfriend, Jemmy, came over for dinner and a film, which was lovely, (apart from the film, but that's another story.)  My husband slept on the sofabed.

This is actually the first time we've done that.  Not because of any deep, emotional reasons that require 'communication', but just because of logistics.  It's been a common occurrence for my Gaius (my husband) and his dates to sleep on the sofabed, while I (being pregnant and having difficulty sleeping and getting comfortable) get the king-size to myself.  But because my boyfriend has his own place, I've always just gone to him.  Now I am over 39 weeks pregnant, I just can't face sleeping there anymore: I need my own bed, and knowing that birth is IMMINENT means I want to stay close to home, my husband, and those hospital bags.

As an introduction to our situation, this is pretty complicated, because things are changing. 

Before this transitional pre-parenting phase, the poly part of my marriage worked much like this: I have Jemmy, who I've been seeing for well over a year now, and we've settled into a once-a-week routine.  My husband doesn't have a regular 'other', but he does have a few women that he sees infrequently: usually at our place, when I'm staying over with Jemmy, but sometimes when I'm there, and sometimes he visits other cities to see them.  None of them are yet approaching relationship status, the way that Jemmy and I have developed, and neither have any of the women that we end up entertaining together. 

All this is obviously going to change.

We don't know how.  Our interest in ethical non-monogamy was orirginally chiefly sexual, and while the friendship, romance and affection are now equally as important, the actual having-sex-with-other-people is still a very important part of our relationship.  When this baby is born, when will we even get back to having sex with each other, let alone my boyfriend and the others?

So this blog is intended to see how we get along with being both polyamorous, and parents.  There is a possibility  that most of the non-monogamous stuff will just fade away, at least for a little while.  But how, and to what extent this happens, we just don't know.