Long-lasting Poly Series: Michael and Agnes
Long-lasting Poly is an interview series with individuals and sets of partners who have been non-monogamous for years and have found ways of making it work for them.
PYP: How long have you been together and have you always been open?
Agnes: We've been together nine years now, and we've been open to some degree for about six of those. We did start out monogamous with no intentions or discussions of opening up in any kind of way when we got together.
Michael: Our opening up process was all over the place. It wasn't this nice clear march from strict monogamy to "four-way love pile at a sex party." It was this zig-zaggy interplay of "Do you like this? What if we xyz? Please don't do that, that makes me feel bad feelings. Are they too much to handle? What if we did it this way? Yeah I think I could do that if we met conditions A, B, and sometimes C." The process was messy, but ultimately positive, and I think that's because of our differing background yet shared values.
There were a lot of experiences that I hadn't had prior to meeting Agnes as basically a late teenager. Agnes, I think, just naturally is poly and felt a lot of pull towards connecting with people on a certain deep level that doesn't line up with the boundaries of traditional friendships. So our goals/needs in non-monogamy were a little different going in, but we both had this general sense of "I want my partner to get as much out of life as possible, and get the most experiences as possible, and I'm willing to deal with a couple of bad feelings like jealousy or fear to open those doors for them." And if that sounds like a process where you need a lot of communication, well that's because it is.
PYP: Talk about communication as it relates to being open.
Agnes: Being open has taught us how to talk to each other in a whole slew of circumstances and about some really hard things. That ability to communicate, which we continue to refine over time, boils over into literally every other aspect of our relationship and just makes things better and easier.
We find ourselves having all kinds of conversations that other friends and couples report they'd have a really hard time talking to their partners about—even something so basic that we take for granted, like how to tell the other when one of us doesn't like the dinner that was prepared.
Michael: I completely agree. I'd also like to stress that non-monogamy has helped us just by triggering conversations we wouldn't have normally had if we had not been exposed to so many people and ideas.
If one of our partners is going through something hard with one of us or one of their partners, well that's another scenario that we can apply to our relationship and go "if we were in that situation, how would we handle it?" So I think that's made us stronger as a couple. It's also, from my perspective, taught us new and better ways to love/show affection/be there for each other, simply by having more examples of what it looks like to other people.
Example: I recently had a partner who liked to be touched in a certain way, and it was just something I'd never thought of. Used that technique on Agnes. Instant success! And that extends to many parts of our relationship. For example, troubleshooting how to handle one partner's emotions, like jealousy or insecurity, brings up how we're handling ours, and then we can talk about it. It's honestly great, because there's just so much stimuli to catalyze conversation.
Agnes: Our conversations around handling jealousy have definitely grown over time. When we first opened up, we imposed a whole lot of rules on ourselves - because we'd never done this before and didn't have another model to follow. Anytime something remotely uncomfortable happened, we would structure a rule around it from ever happening again - which was obviously limiting and frustrating. We would say, "That makes me feel gross!" Over time, we started getting to the roots of what it was that was actually bothering us and having pointed and intentional conversations about them.
Some of that was age, I think, we were so much younger then, but a good portion of that was practice too. We first started differentiating between what we called “functional jealousy,” where we had bad feelings because a previously agreed upon boundary was crossed, and “insecure jealousy,” where jealousy arose because of some kind of personal insecurity or struggle. We came up with a format on how to handle hurt that arose from functional jealousy without it getting explosive – it was easier to start with because those conversations were a bit more objective.
We then had to develop a format for discussing when we felt there was an aspect of our relationship that was lacking because of time spent with another partner and we needed to restructure our time. While we wanted to support each other, it got cumbersome trying to figure out how to tackle those insecure moments without also feeling guilt for participating in something that helped to 'wake up' those feelings.
PYP: What have you found has been really difficult to talk about?
Agnes: I think most of the 'hard' stuff has been rehashing mistakes that we've made along the way that had some lasting effects. We started dating so young and with so little experience, we developed some unhealthy habits that we've had to tackle head on. One instance was that I was used to always having Mike around, and he always came running when I called. This proved to be really problematic when he started seriously dating a woman and I was constantly reaching out to him during dates. I didn't have any bad intentions, and most of the situations were legit really strangely timed emergencies (such as getting dumped in the middle of the night, or running into my abusive ex-boyfriend on the street), but I made it really hard for her to feel welcome and like their time was their time. Confronting that was really uncomfortable because I was behaving the same way that we always did, but I had to learn to adapt and do things differently for the sake of respecting this new relationship that was important to my partner. We're a lot better about that now!
Michael: Surprisingly, learning to talk about what I want. In monogamous relationships, there’s a whole pre-built vocabulary that you get to use whenever you want to communicate desires with your partner. You don’t have to say: “what you’re doing is making me jealous.” You can just say “you were flirting with that guy at the party,” knowing that the subtext ‘and we are in an exclusive relationship, therefore you should check your behavior to avoid hurting my feelings’ is implied and included. You can hide requests behind subtext and propriety, so you don’t have to feel selfish asking for things. Once everything was on the table, and we had to talk about everything explicitly, I found the hardest conversations were ones where I was asking Agnes for something, whether it be more date nights at home, or permission to go off with so-and-so and do things-and-stuff. I had to learn to trust that Agnes wanted to hear what I wanted, and that if something went too far or crossed her boundaries, that she would let me know. It’s still something that I’m working on, but it’s something I feel like I’ve made a lot of progress towards.
PYP: What else has being open taught you?
Agnes: Being open has helped me to be my best self. My other relationships are like mirrors—each one reflects a different angle of myself back at me in a way that I can observe. My partners’ needs and wants and temperaments are so varied, being with them helps me to learn more about myself both as an individual and as a partner. Just the other day, I had an instance where something another partner did drove me off the wall mad. I had to consider, if it were Michael, would I still be mad? Would it be worse? Why are my expectations different? Has this exposed a need or an insecurity that I have that I need to pay more attention to? Is there a better way that I can cope or express myself besides anger? Why haven’t Michael and I had this fight before? Is there a need that it turns out he’s neglecting? How can I develop to meet this need for not just the one partner, but both of them? Is that something I can do? Is that something I’m willing to do? It’s growth on steroids, and it’s happening constantly. It’s not always easy, but it makes me happy knowing that every day that passes, I’m a better partner, which overall makes me better in all of my relationships. I feel like poly has made me a better friend, sister, and daughter as well.
Michael: Yup! That!
I think it’s also taught me that there’s always more to learn. Whether it be about myself, or people, or relationships.
