Why We Choose To Be Married — Even Though We're Polyamorous And Date Other People
Have I told you lately that I love my husband?
Getty Images I once wrote an article about how lucky we are. We, the non-monogamous, the swingers, the polys, the pans. We have so much love in our lives, so many people around us, so much life. I’m always a little excited when meeting someone else who is “like me,” who is open-minded and curious and accepting of all the craziness in the world.
I love my husband, and once upon a time, he was just as open and accepting as I was.
I sometimes find his narrow-mindedness to be plastic, fake, something to hide behind. My husband, Ark, is afraid to be interested in taboo subjects because he is such a people person and he doesn’t others them to think strange things about him. I am almost completely his opposite socially. I’m quiet, an observer; I listen, soak up information, and if I’m around a lot of people I don’t know, I gauge what I say depending on how they speak and act.
But, unlike Ark, I am not afraid to tell people that I’m not funny ha-ha, I’m funny queer, mm-hmm.
This isn’t to say that I’ll just blurt out:
“Hey, I’m Blue and I’m a polyamorous pansexual. Also, I don’t believe in God, and I’d walk around barefoot all day if I could, and today my pubic hair looks like this …”
No, I do have a little more tact. Tact is something Ark lacks, which is maybe why he’s afraid to be involved with these strange things — because he knows that, at some point, it’ll just tumble out of his mouth whether he wants it to or not. No matter how friendly or close I am with people, I know that some of them won't ever want to know certain things about me, so I just keep them to myself. Unless, of course, they ask a question, in which case I will answer them honestly.
People ask us all the time why we got married if we’re not going to be exclusive.
This is probably the question we get asked most often.
For both of us, the answer is that we know we want to spend the rest of our lives with each other, regardless of who (or what) else comes up in the interim.
Ark is my home.
Growing up, I never had a very strong bond with anyone except for my mother, and when she died, I felt lost in the world. I felt like there was no one left who knew me and loved everything about me. She was the only one I talked to. I’m not going to go into it here.
Ark is my home, and I say that to the full extent of the meaning.
When people think of “home,” what do they think of?
Ark says home is “A safe place or the place where I can feel the safest. It’s where I live.”
Some might think of a house, or their pets, or the things that surround them that make their house a “home.”
I wander. Things come and go and I know this. People also come and go, and I think that, seriously and honestly, if Ark went, I’d go too. If something came up and he got an amazing job on the west coast, I’d start packing. Thinking about his absence fills me with a cold fear close to panic. Anytime something is amiss between us, my first worry is, ‘Will this be it?’
My husband is amazing. He is the best husband a girl could ask for, I think.
He rarely complains. If I ask him to do a chore, he does it. If I don’t say I’m making dinner, he makes it without question. Regardless of the kind of day he's had, at the end of the night when we’re on the couch together, I get foot rubs. He will do anything for me — a fact I likely take for granted from time to time. He’s a great daddy to the girls (cats, people, not human babies … get with the program!). And he is super understanding and patient with me.
So, when we come to a little bump (lately the majority of little bumps have been due to the polyamory of it all), naturally I’m ready and willing to sit down and talk about it.
I want him to be happy. I want him to feel as awesome in our relationship as I feel and sometimes it’s hard for me to realize that he is. I know that if he didn’t love me and if he wasn’t happy with me, he’d make it clear and he would leave.
Ark wants to be with me as much as I want him to be with me.
Just because I was the catalyst for this type of relationship and just because I appear cool on the outside about most things most of the time, it doesn’t mean I don’t feel jealous. Or afraid or sad or worried or apprehensive.
I do feel these things. And I have to sit there and remind myself that … Ark is still here.
He still treats me like a princess. Sometimes, he is less than princely himself, but at the end of the night, it’s me he snuggles and it’s me he kisses and it’s me he declares his love to.
We’re tied together by paper, by law, but it’s our hearts that really hold us to one another.
So, why did we get married?
I married Ark because I can’t imagine going through a single day without his love. Life is so comfortable and perfect with him loving me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Also, health insurance.