Author’s note: In most contexts, I prefer to use terms like ‘nesting partner’, ‘live-in partner’, ‘long-term partner’, or [person’s name] rather than husband. But for clarity and (some) anonymity, I have chosen to use ‘husband’ rather a lot in this essay, even though it’s a bit of a loaded term and not entirely in line with my egalitarian values.

 

I’m about to celebrate my tenth wedding anniversary, and I couldn’t be happier–with my husband, with my choices, with this partnership and how we have both been able to thrive within it. But while our marriage is conventional in a lot of ways, there is one thing about it that is glaringly different–our non-monogamy. Most people who know me, know that I identify as polyamorous–open to having more than one emotionally intimate loving relationship at a time. And though my husband feels that his energy is currently best directed towards one romantic relationship, one parenting relationship, and one very energy-intensive career right now, he identifies as poly too.

So why, then, did we ever get married? Isn’t monogamy the point of marriage? And how does choosing a legal marriage for this particular relationship affect how my other relationships might grow and develop?

Let’s look first at marriage itself and its appeal, legal and social/cultural.

I made the choice to legally marry mainly for practical reasons. My partner and I were planning to co-parent, and he was hoping to support me financially (which included wanting me on his health insurance). It also seemed like, if we were pursuing an unconventional lifestyle, it might be important to offer our prospective kid(s) whatever security and financial and social advantages we could get to counterbalance that. Society certainly rewards conventional coupling in a lot of ways, and we felt that we needed to access those rewards for the benefit of our future offspring. (Including but not limited to: health insurance, tax breaks, inheritance laws, and the ease of owning joint property.) Choosing to claim privilege like this, eyes open, is emotionally complicated. But it made sense to us to take advantage of the system where we could.

On the social and cultural side, there were other things to consider. Not all marriages–and not all marriage ceremonies–are alike. To me, marriage equals commitment, and the people doing the marrying define for themselves what that commitment entails. The point of having a ceremony, and making public vows, is to get recognition from family and community of an important bond, and (hopefully) enlist their wider support in the cultivation and support of that bond. And for those reasons, the two of us would certainly have held a public ceremony, with or without our trip to the courthouse.

In this relationship, there was never an assumption that marriage meant monogamy. It wasn’t just a matter of leaving out that ‘forsaking all others’ bit in our intentions and our vows–we spent the formative first six years of our relationship with other entanglements, and were quite content to live that way. It was not even clear, when we first began dating, that the two of us would end up in a primary-style cohabiting relationship someday. (And my husband feels strongly that this very fact made our relationship much more comfortable and me much more approachable in the beginning, because there was no implicit pressure for him to be ‘The One’.)

Just eight months before this legal wedding, I stood up before my gathered friends and family for a commitment ceremony and ten year anniversary celebration with my other partner. As part of that celebration, she and I had our trusty first mates (other partners, one of whom who would soon be my fiancé) right there by our sides for an exchange of vows. So we were starting out with a complicated relational landscape.

The next summer, my husband’s and my wedding party would also be composed of people in our relationship network. His (emotionally intimate) best friend, my then-partner of 11 years, and my then-girlfriend were all right there with us, taking part in the ceremony. We didn’t make a huge deal about it–but it was a potent symbol of our style of comfortable, family-building polyamory.

Our story is a bit of a contrast, not only to the mainstream narrative, but also to one of the most common poly narratives–that of a couple opening their relationship after starting out monogamous.

Our slightly unconventional wedding party and ongoing efforts to be out and proud certainly haven’t stopped people from making default assumptions about our marriage, of course, particularly during those times when we happen not to have any additional partners. Our marriage often functions as a closet–we ‘read’ as conventional unless we explicitly come out to someone. And not every encounter or relationship merits the extra effort of disclosing the true situation and educating about poly as needed. (I ‘read’ as straight, too, when I’m only involved with men, unless I make a deliberate effort to counter that narrative, so it’s a familiar feeling, if not a welcome one.)

So let us consider what having a legal marriage means for living in a poly context.

As would be true for any long-term, logistically entwined couple, it requires focused effort on my husband’s and my part to manage our couple privilege, and legal marriage is part of that entwinement. We have to stay aware of the ways in which any new partners might be inadvertently disadvantaged by or excluded from our ‘official’ status in ways that they care about. The social approval we get by default from appearing monogamous tends to make me very uncomfortable (insofar as I notice it, because that is, of course, the sneaky thing about privilege), particularly when it not only disagrees with my internal sense of my own identity, but comes at the expense of making any other partners I might have feel invisible. So it matters a lot to me that I am not complacent about mitigating those negatives. Checking in with additional partners about how they feel is good general practice–on this topic or any other! And since I am privileged to live in a liberal area and have a tolerant and supportive extended family, one of the forms that also takes is being out about my polyamory as much as I am able.

The down side of legal marriage is, of course, its limited scope. A legal marriage currently presents a barrier to other, simultaneous legal marriages. So, if I someday end up in a second relationship that is moving towards a high level of entwinement on a practical level, my second partner and I will be faced with certain challenges common to any unconventional relationship–needing to sign health care proxies, paying money to lawyers to own joint property or set up wills–all of the things familiar to same-sex couples in this country until very recently. And these requirements would soon become complicated, expensive, and onerous if there were additional prospective children involved. Or if I hoped to have more than two adults legally parent my existing child. It’s not a perfect situation for poly folks, for sure. But I am not convinced that remaining unmarried (basically as a political statement for poly equality) is the answer. At least not for everyone.

When it comes to the non-legal parts of marriage, however, the outlook is less grim. Contrary to the popular conception of people in open relationships being commitment-phobic, I’ve always been more commitment-centric. If it were possible in our society to legally marry more than one person, I could easily see myself doing it if the right circumstances arose. (Which would include both my and my partner’s desire to do so, as well as his or her compatibility with the rest of my family… no one ever claimed polyamory wasn’t complicated!) But (necessarily, by current law) failing that, I personally remain open to the idea of taking on whatever symbols and components of commitment make sense in the bounds of a particular relationship, and feel right to me and my partner(s). Whether that means that we seek the social approval of our friends, families, and community with a ceremony, whether that means we choose to utilize some of the cultural scripts of marriage (like vows or rings), depends entirely on what we feel is right for us. Like in so many parts of poly, conscious choice and deliberate design are required!

So. Nonmonogamy and marriage. Surprisingly compatible, depending on the people involved and how they choose to do it. Stay tuned for an upcoming post that delves deeper into why I think this relationship style suits me so well.