Poly and the Medical Community

Just a few days after we got home from this latest hospitalization, an email arrived in my mail box from someone who obviously reads at the blog(s). I don't always have a good sense of how many people are reading and thinking about us and our lives and the stories we tell about that. Even though we do track stats, and even though I am aware of the statistics, it really does surprise me when some stranger pops up wondering just how this really does work. My correspondent wrote:

My question is, how does the rest of the world view your poly situation, and how do you deal with it?

And specifically, in the hospital situation, I assume people walk into your Master's room and see you and assume you are "his wife." Then they wonder who T is, when they walk in the next day. And I assume, people being nosy including me, they want to know which of you is a sister or cousin or neighbor, and which is his wife. Do you tell strangers the whole story? Or dodge the question? Do you tell people that T is his wife (I am assuming that's the "legal" situation) and that you are a friend, and does that make you feel as yucky as I think it would, to have this special relationship with him and feel compelled to deny it?

My first reaction to all of that is to say that I am pretty sure that I've already written about some of this before. We, unfortunately, have had more than just a few occasions to deal with healthcare professionals ( and some who are hardly professional), and since it is always an "interesting" experience, I'm sure we've discussed it before. Those who are interested in these stories can find them here and here.

So, I wonder, in responding to this enquiry, what else there is to say...

The first thing that occurs to me is that we three have gotten much more comfortable in dealing with the situations that set this kind of questioning up. We've stopped worrying about it, stopped fussing, stopped anticipating HUGE challenges to us or our family configuration. We've gained a sense of comfort and of "being alright," and that goes a long way toward forestalling most questions. We don't make our lifestyle an issue. We don't put it in anyone's face. We are simply who we are with one another, and we don't do that any differently in medical situations that we might at home. It isn't flashy, and it isn't aggressive, and it doesn't provoke much of an overt response generally. It could be that "the system" and "the society" have shifted into a place that is more tolerant and accepting of differences, but I suspect that the bigger change has been in the way we see ourselves and our simple right to be who we are.

Another thing that I think might be of note at this point is to recognize that nearly all the medical professionals we've encountered have just seemed to not care. Our family constellation is not something that they need to know about. Their concern, and their entire focus, is on the medical issue at hand -- on creating the circumstances of healing and wellness. They don't have the time to worry about which of us sleeps with which other ones. It just isn't germane. The occasional question, indicating some significant level of curiosity, almost always comes from some youngster in the beginning days of their medical career. I'd suspect that in those instances, we are seeing inexperience rather than anything that would constitute pervasive negative judgement on the part of the medical profession.

Another part of the dynamic around this is that people see what they expect to see. We've often referred to our approach to being "in public" as "hiding in plain sight." If we just go along and don't act like we are somehow out of the ordinary, most people never really notice, or if they do notice, they draw their own conclusions based on their own assumptions -- and that is almost never even close to what we are really up to... Most often, we are left with the impression that people look at us and assume that T and I are lesbian lovers, and that Master is just the poor cuckold husband of my bull-dyke lover. Gotta love it!

As to the other part of my correspondent's question -- I am not "the wife." T is His legal wife. It cannot and will not be otherwise. If the social circumstances were different; if it were possible to legally make us both "wife," I am sure we would do that. I can get myself all wound up about the issues around our society's lack of marriage equality, but there is very little upside to doing that. No amount of angst is going to move the needle on that issue.

swan