Today, my husband and I have been married twenty years.<\/p>\n
Now, unlike a lot of married couples, we never were monogamous.\u00a0 It\u2019s part of the reason why I choke when people ask how to transition from a monogamous relationship to a poly one.\u00a0 Buggered if I know a thing about it.<\/p>\n
So, things should have been wonderful, smooth sailing for we, the couple who had everything on board and saw eye to eye about such things, right?<\/p>\n
Everyone that knows us can stop laughing hysterically now.<\/p>\n
The reality is that we were kids when we married \u2013 just twenty and twenty-one years old.\u00a0 \u00a0We spent the next two decades trying to work out a lot of really serious stuff.\u00a0 We misunderstood how each other thought, where certain values came from, what was the motivation for each others\u2019 incredibly irritating behaviors.<\/p>\n
This is not to paint a picture of a bad marriage, though[1]<\/a>.\u00a0 Those things did happen.\u00a0 And like in many relationships, it nearly drove us to dissolve the partnership.<\/p>\n Except for a big honking basic \u2013 and one that caused us not to want to dissolve it at all.\u00a0 Love?\u00a0 Naw.\u00a0 Love\u2019s great and yes, I love The Prince a great deal.\u00a0 But no, love wasn\u2019t it.<\/p>\n We\u2019re actually really good partners.<\/p>\n Once we got over some rather childish communication issues, we got back to what got us together in the first place.\u00a0 It took longer than grownups should have taken to learn to be open with each other, to say no when we didn\u2019t want to do something[2]<\/a>, and to realize that given that we\u2019re the damnedest <\/em>mixture of traditional and outr\u00e9, that we were going to have to do a lot of Relationship Rulebook Writing on our own.<\/p>\n Strange as it may seem, even though we were poly, we still<\/em> had a hard time chucking a lot of the joined at the hip stuff a lot of married couples think they have to have to be a good marriage.\u00a0\u00a0 Our marriage is a lot more about two independent people choosing to be together than social constructs.<\/p>\n And there\u2019s where poly marriages can be difficult.\u00a0 There\u2019s no real roadmap.\u00a0 We have certain ideas about what marriages and relationships should look like. Once you step off that map, you have a considerably less clear idea about what to look for when checking on the health of a relationship.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s my personal checklist for my own life these days:<\/p>\n This really should be a no-brainer for any relationship.\u00a0 What we\u2019ve found interesting between ourselves is that both of us have a terrible habit of wanting to be kind and accommodating, only to find we\u2019re saying yes to stuff we\u2019re not cool with.\u00a0 Life\u2019s gotten a lot nicer now that we stopped that nonsense.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Yes, fun in a relationship is really important.\u00a0 REALLY important. \u00a0I put it up there with earning a living and making sure that the kids get proper meals.\u00a0 When you stop laughing together, things have gone really<\/em> wrong.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is a hard one.\u00a0 When everyone is stressed out and upset, it\u2019s easy to turn in on yourself.\u00a0 I think a mutual commitment to help each other keep spirits up during difficulties is an important part of long-term commitments.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n This is possibly a personal quirk, but I prefer relationships where we\u2019re creating<\/em> something together every now and thing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n We have our own projects, too.\u00a0 Being supportive of the individual as well as the group relationship efforts is important.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So, in closing, Happy 20th<\/sup> anniversary to The Prince.\u00a0 I\u2019m glad I chose to be with you, and am glad that I chose to continue to do so.\u00a0 I love you.<\/p>\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
[1]<\/a> Not that parts did not get very bad, indeed.<\/p>\n