{"id":257,"date":"2008-12-08T00:00:07","date_gmt":"2008-12-08T04:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/?p=257"},"modified":"2019-07-15T16:07:24","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T16:07:24","slug":"ask-the-misanthrope-cover-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/2008\/12\/08\/ask-the-misanthrope-cover-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask the Misanthrope: Cover Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi, Goddess of Java,<\/p>\n

I am a BIG fan of yours and I come to this site in times of need, loneliness or when other frustrations arise.<\/p>\n

I am the 3rd in a triad of a married couple with 2 kids. I am very grateful to be able to love my new family and to be with them on a regular basis.<\/p>\n

For almost 2 years, I have struggled with being the 5th wheel and the nanny of the “cover story”. For the most part, I have come to terms with it. Proudly, I am far less emotional about it than I used to be.<\/p>\n

However, there are still moments that it bothers me (yay for me, I can admit it now, too). Especially around the holiday season when families gather with extended family for gatherings, I am reminded that I will never be recognized for who I truly am. It’s the subtle, little things that eat away at my emotions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Having a cover story where you are the household servant is not a “subtle, little thing”.\u00a0 It’s a big, blatant one.<\/p>\n

There are definately situations in which you will not necessarily want to give the world every damn detail of your life.\u00a0\u00a0 I break with a lot of polyamorous people when I say that I think there might be legitimate reasons why you might want to be personal about your personal life1<\/sup>, and I don’t think the less of anyone who chooses that.<\/p>\n

But, you’re being introduced as the household servant<\/em>.\u00a0 The only way I would ever consent to being introduced as “Java, our household’s Nanny” is if I were getting market rate financial compensation<\/em> for actually doing <\/em>that job!\u00a0 If you’re being paid to be their Nanny, then that’s your job and there’s nothing wrong with that.<\/p>\n

There are other ways around that where one does not have to be introduced in a way that looks like you’re the hired help if you’re not.\u00a0 Say, “Java, who lives with us.”\u00a0 If anyone is so ill-bred to ask why, an answer using Miss Manners’ classic horrified disdain works wonders.<\/p>\n

No, you’ll probably never get the outside social respect of “wife” in the household, and certainly that’s painful.\u00a0 The group marriage I lived in was mostly “out”, but even so, I’ve been in situations where I could not be socially recognized as a wife to one of my husbands, and it hurt.\u00a0 I’m not trying to blow that off.\u00a0 But you’re subtly being encouraged to accept considerably less respect than you deserve by being introduced as a servant when you’re not being paid to be one.<\/p>\n

I’m not trying to paint your partners as the bad guys here.\u00a0 I know in the part I edited out for the sake of space you mention that they’re very concered with being inclusive.\u00a0 Since that’s so, I bet they’d be open to talking about your concerns about the dynamic and the three of you could certainly put your heads together to come up with something that’d make you all a lot happier.<\/p>\n

\n

1<\/sup>Which has been suggested as a topic for another column, and will probably show up soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi, Goddess of Java, I am a BIG fan of yours and I come to this site in times of need, loneliness or when other frustrations arise. I am the 3rd in a triad of a married couple with 2 kids. I am very grateful to be able to love my new family and to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,13,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boundaries","category-relationships","category-the-polyamory-community"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1155,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions\/1155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}