YES, POLYAMORY PLAYED A PART IN MY DIVORCE

It just wasn’t in the way you’re thinking

First published at Medium.com

A little over a year ago, my partner and I came out to our family and friends as polyamorous.

A little over six months ago, we announced our decision to separate.

Did the former play a part in the latter? We’ve assured people that no, it didn’t. But that’s not entirely true. Polyamory did play a part in the end of our relationship. Only not in the way people may be assuming.

* * * * *

Polyamory wasn’t something we brought into our relationship to try and fix it when things went downhill.

My partner and I were together for fifteen years, and non-monogamous for ten of those. In actual fact, we decided to open things up within a year of our getting married. We felt safe exploring this thing together because we were at a point where our relationship was at its strongest.

We allowed things to grow slowly, over time. Initially, it was casual encounters only, but over time we decided we were in a place to start exploring polyamory. We both met people, and we both fell in love. We learned to balance that love with that we held for each other. We learned how to balance our relationships.

But while our polyamory was working, our relationship wasn’t.

Our relationship had been reaching its end for some time.

We had been together for fifteen years and married for ten. And while we believed we’d be together forever, it’s a hard fact that people grow and change. Some grow together, but others grow apart. Unfortunately, that was our fate. We had begun walking different paths and it was time to accept that.

And there is nothing wrong with this. There is a prevailing idea in our society that a breakup is a sign of failure. But I’ve written before about how this isn’t the case. The fact our marriage ended takes nothing away from what we had.

But when any relationship ends, it’s natural for people to make assumptions on why. This is why I believe there must be at least some people in my life who assume that our polyamory either played a part in our breakup or was an attempt to fix things by “spicing things up”. Especially because many of them only discovered we were doing it less than a year before things ended.

We’ve made it clear this wasn’t the case. But in fact, polyamory did play a part in our relationship ending. Just not in the way people would think.

* * * * *

So, the big question: How did polyamory influence my breakup?

Yes, in two specific ways: Perspective, and honesty.

It gave us a new perspective

When I started dating my new partner after starting polyamory, it was my first new relationship in fifteen years. I was older and wiser than the last time I was creating a relationship. At 21 you’re legally an adult, but at 37 — as I am at time of writing — I can see just how young I was. I was barely out of teens and making commitments that would theoretically last the rest of my life.

And because this is what society has taught us is the “correct” path for a relationship I never thought to question if anything could be different or better.

When I met my wife, when I married her, and when we became non-monogamous, the relationship fulfilled us both. But people change, and without alternate perspectives, that change is hard to see.

Coming into polyamory gave me perspective on what a fulfilling relationship should be.

So while my old relationship wasn’t bad, per se, my new relationship highlighted all the things it was missing. The ways in which my wife and I no longer clicked. The ways we had learned to work around problems, rather than addressing them.

It taught us to be honest

Relationships are not easy, and polyamory only adds additional complications. It takes self-awareness and honesty.

You can’t go into something like non-monogamy if you’re not honest with yourself and your partner(s). You have to be aware of the truth of what you want and how you are feeling at every stage.

This is something all relationships should have, of course. But when you are in a traditional relationship model it’s easier to let this slide. There are so many “norms” we’re conditioned to follow, we don’t raise issues that might signal we’re going against them somehow. It’s far too easy to filter your honesty to meet what we assume is normal.

The skills of brutal honesty we learned through our journey into polyamory allowed us to face the truth. The knowledge your marriage is at an end is a horrible thing, but we didn’t allow ourselves to ignore it. We knew we had to face the hard truths that we’d had our run and it was time to go our separate ways.

* * * * *

Polyamory also gave us some tools that make our breakup easier to face.

Through the work we had put into non-monogamy we had gained a better understanding of relationships. We were freed, at least partially, from the ingrained social notion that a relationship is a goal in itself. Something to achieve, and that losing one is a sign of failure.

We had taught ourselves that the relationship was there to serve us. To benefit us and help us grow as people. Not the other way around.

A relationship is something you participate in. It’s not something you’re locked into. And a relationship ending doesn’t mean you have failed.

Ultimately, the fact I and my partner came into polyamory in a healthy way meant it was neither the reason our relationship ended, not a symptom of it.

But the skills we learned along the path it took us on were what allowed us to recognise the facts about where we had come to, and address them in an honest and healthy way.