The Twenty-Sixth One.

 Evening,

I was recently having a conversation with someone about polyamory and was asked "I'm guessing at some point you've had to ask yourself if you had the stomach for it?"

My immediate reaction in that moment was "Honestly, no, I've never asked myself if I had the stomach for it because I realized quickly that this is who I am and you don't really have a choice in opting out of who you are." That felt very true in that moment, but it's been a couple days since we had this conversation, and it's been rolling around in my brain a lot. 

I have always struggled in monogamous partnerships- every single one. No matter how much I have loved someone, and I have loved tremendously, it has not kept me from inevitably developing feelings for someone else. I felt inept in monogamy, broken, confused. Every example of love set before me said that if you really loved someone you'd love only them. Did that mean I didn't actually love my partners? What does it even mean to love? Is it a feeling, a set of behaviors toward someone, a bit of both? These are things I have asked myself, and over the years those answers have changed for me, because I've changed. 

Is that change considered opting out of who I was? What did I mean when I said that? 

I have mused on this topic before, but I saw a meme once that talked about how the concept of who we are is sort of bizarre, because no two people will ever meet the same version of us. There is no universal me/you. Our personality and beliefs, even if only slightly, change based on who we are interacting with and our shared experiences and how those shape us. If there is no fixed version of me, aren't I constantly making choices about who I am and opting out of old versions? 

I started describing myself as ambiamorous after a very heart wrenching and foundation shifting partnership toward the end of my marriage to my second husband. For those who don't know, to be ambiamorous means you could be happy in either a monogamous or polyamorous relationship depending on the circumstances. That was the only time in my life that I felt like if I gave monogamy a try, I could thrive. Was I a polyamorous person who would have opted out of who I was to give that partnership a chance, or was I a monogamous person that had opted out of that to pursue polyamory? It's tough to say, because that relationship was never given a chance to grow. I often wonder what would have happened and where I'd be today if it had. Would I have thrived, or would I have inevitably felt the same way I did in all my other partnerships- stifled? 

I guess I have been wondering a lot the past couple days who I believe myself to be in this moment, if that aligns with my actions, and if it's our beliefs or actions that can opt us in or out of new versions of ourselves. Based on everything I have been through and all that I feel today, I believe I am not ambiamorous, I am truly polyamorous. The biggest thing that pulls me that direction is the freedom to allow every relationship in my life to take the shape it naturally wants to be. Although I could probably align my actions with monogamy, my heart would likely never buy in, and I frankly don't want it to. I cherish growth and connection far too much to limit it to one deep partnership at the expense of any other that could arise in my lifetime. I won't always be seeking more than one partner, but were I to meet someone organically, I would be very sad to not water that seed. 

Do you think you can opt out of who you are? 

As always, I hope you enjoyed this stuff, and come back for more things.