Polyamory Observations #4

One thing that can be a challenge is that when you live a life that doesn't match up with social expectations or assumptions, you find that you don't fit anyplace. We encounter that phenomenon just about everyplace, and in almost every setting. It really just doesn't matter where we are or who we talk to. People who know us, in whatever context, and people who do not know us, make assumptions about us, that are almost never accurate. That can result in some interesting, and sometimes very awkward situations. We've gotten pretty good at bouncing with most of it, but it wears over time.

Master recently described some significant part of how we experience this pervasive social circumstance in a piece He wrote on a local poly list that we participate with. It was midway through a conversation that began because someone had made the (relatively common) assumption that "poly" equates to "promiscuous." As the exchange went back and forth, with the clueless one insisting that it was ABOUT SEX, Master wrote:

"I think too, we wonder if we will successfully
match up with other poly folks. We wonder if our relationship, a heterosexual
committed 24/7 poly V BDSM M/s, D/s), DD lifestyle (vanilla translation: we
three live together in our home in a straight Mf relationship, with a defined
authority structure, and we like to bind each other up and spank erotically and
disciplinarily, among other expressions of fun, excitement, and intimacy:)We'd
like to have friends with whom we can be who we are without pretext. We would
too like to be able to help others who are exploring polyamory. I don't think
that answers we've found for us are necessarily generalizable to others. I have
seen too much, especially in the BDSM community, of folks who feel that because
they have been active in a lifestyle for years, they must therefore be "experts"
and "teachers" of others. On the other hand I/we would frequently have liked to
have had others with whom we could have related, confided, observed, and learned
from (either by emulating them, or saying "that would never work for us") We
know for us as we began our family, and as we continue for that matter (we've
been together about 7 years now-- 2 years long distance and about 5 years living
together....and we expect to be together the rest of our lives), there are very
few resources or supports, to assist us, and we suspect, others, as we/they
encounter life challenges. We have the same life challenges as any middle-aged
family of suburban professionals.............it's just they are all different
with the addition of the poly dynamic superimposed on a world with a presumption
of dyadic heterosexual monogamy. Many of our challenges are not romantic/erotic
(although if you've read our Blog, you know we have those too) but are health
related, legal, professional, social, recreational, spiritual (no we are not
looking for a church:), etc. I'm always interested that discussions of polyamory
always seem to become about sex. Now don't get me wrong. I get it. I know that
the primary thing that makes poly different from monogamy is that there are more
than two adults who are intimately involved in relationship. Paraphrasing the
Clinton campaign, "It's the sex stupid." I'm far from oblivious to that fact,
nor am I a prude. We're very experienced, have played publicly in BDSM dungeons
and conferences, and even demonstrated some amazingly intimate sexual variations
with audiences, so it's not that we want to repress that major aspect of our
lives and our unique intentional relationship. The fact that we are poly doesn't
mean we want to play with you or become romantically involved. The fact too that
we are not inherently "available" doesn't mean it is unimaginable that life
could evolve to include intimate play or more in depth relationship with others
too. (How's that for simple clarity?:)Last November we took all three cars to
the tire store (all new in 2004 and so now getting worn). People find it odd I
have three cars and two women who drive them:) or at least that is the
perception they have. I am rather medically informed because of my educational
background and profession. We have interesting times with health care
professionals when I go to both T's and s's Dr. appointments. S recently went to
a new gynecologist who does not permit men to accompany patients to the exam
room. This won't be a long term medical relationship. All of life's challenges
are different and have extra-normal dynamics within a poly lifestyle. It would
be good to share information with others dealing with them."

I think that describes what it is to be a family that doesn't fit. We run into the "square peg" phenomenon all the time. There are several issues for us, really. When you talk about "poly, " you may have to deal with some or all of them. They all are founded in basic assumptions and expectations which, in turn, lead to biases.

The first set of assumptions that we find are the most obvious, and the ones that we expected from the beginning. These are the social/legal norms related to relational numerosity. The simple reality is that our society assumes, from the moment each of us arrives on this speck of dust, that we will live out our adult lives in one of two numerical relational formulations: we will either pair off, two-by-two, or we will remain single (or else return by times to that state). We learn it as we hear the fairy tale stories of our childhood. We absorb it in the "romantic/lusty" music that we are immersed in as young adults. The messages are pervasive throughout the entertainment industry. Inescapable. So, we do not fit the mold. We are NOT paired. We are NOT coupled. We are NOT two. And we are also NOT single.

Three is just not a number that is expected. Anywhere. It makes life complicated, and sometimes just comical. Some examples:

• We go out for a meal, and the wait person most often looks at the bunch of us quizzically and then gives up and asks, "Will this be one check or two?"


• There is absolutely no way to list two partners or beneficiaries or spouses on an insurance form or emergency contact form or next of kin blank space when you are filling out that sort of documentation.


• When we travel, we have to make sure we question hotel reservation clerks very carefully about the nature of hotel room sleeping accommodations. Two queen size beds work well. Two regular size beds can be made to work. One king-size bed will not work very well. We need more than the usual complement of bath towels that a hotel room offers; more than two water glasses, more complementary soap/shampoo, etc.


• Business give away prizes and complementary passes and the like in even numbered increments -- two's and sometimes four's (but never three's).


• In the medical care realm, there is ALWAYS an issue when two of us show up to accompany a third to an appointment or a procedure or a surgery. In medicine, humans are dealt with in pairs. So it is written.

We were prepared, sort of, for the number thing. It seems obvious. What we did not anticipate, and what has been almost as difficult for us to handle has been the set of challenges that have arisen for our household because of assumptions laid on us about gender relatedness in our family. There has come to be an expectation that to say that one is "poly" is equivalent to saying that one is also "gay" or "lesbian" or "bi-sexual." It is my belief that this is an expectation that has been in large part fostered within the "poly" community, although I think it creates a degree of anxiety/fear/prejudice outside our ranks. It happens that our triad is heterosexual. We have to explain that on an ongoing basis. People simply assume that T and I must be bi-sexual. We have come to understand that the liklihood is that a good deal of the remarkable acceptance that I find within Master's extended family is based on the probability that they believe that T and I are "involved." Somehow the family has an easier time conceiving that T and I might be sexually linked than they do imagining Master and I in the same way -- and they are way more OK with that notion. Conversely, my own mother's recoil from our arrangement may be largely founded in her own identical assumption. Too, we have noted more than once, a certain emotional recoil or whiplash response when would be "friends" first discover that their assumption about that orientation just wasn't true. It seems to go back to that "poly" is "sex" bias. People note that we are all together, and the image they form is that we must all be sexual with one another. How limited is our intimate vocabulary and how souless our relational imagination, that we cannot conceive of loving another without it necessarily being sex-based in every case.


At another level, other expectations creep into the picture. For me, this is the realm of the "availability" fallacy. When I came into the realization and recognition that it was possible to participate in and embrace more than one mature, loving, intimate relationship simultaneously, I found that to be healthy and good. I think that making the choices that led our family into this dynamic gave us the opportunity to love richly and joyously, and it allowed us to broaden our lives rather than narrow them. Making that choice, and doing the work to bring it to fruition does not mean that any one of us gave up our ability to be discriminating, sensible, intelligent, rational, or demanding in terms of what it is that we want or need from an emotional / intmate partner. If there is one thing that we have learned in doing this, it is that making good relationships work is a demanding and serious undertaking. It has its very definite rewards, but it is not simply a matter of genitals calling to one another from afar. So, I am continually stunned when I tell someone that I am poly, and I get that sort of "Do you wanna..." response that isn't anymore sophisticated than my 6th graders are managing these days. Excuse me? Or, and this is almost as annoying, the flip side of the coin, which is the one that goes: "you are already in a relationship, and I'm looking for sex, so I don't even have the time to talk to you." Call it the UNAVAILABILITY assumption. Our family is stable and committed. We are not "trolling" for partners. It doesn't mean that we wouldn't consider it if something happened. But it is real surely unlikely to happen if you assume either way without so much as a polite "Howdy, my name is _____________________." We all know what we have going for us, and we know what we bring to the table. IF we consider opening our hearts and our household, we'll be wanting to add a partner who enhances our lives and our loves.


Add the other oddities of who we are: a bit older, and into BDSM, and just a little bit outspoken, and prone to be left-leaning liberals, and who knows what all else, and well, we just don't fit anywhere much. Not that we couldn't, but you would have to get to know us; talk to us; learn about us, and let us learn about you -- it would be a little like building a relationship, or a friendship. That's how we got started with one another. That's how we think love grows.


swan

Polyamory Observations #3

One of the hardest things to do in talking about "poly" is to get through all the variations in terms of language and perception. We have found, as we've done this, that there are relatively few people who define themselves as "poly" AND mean stable, committed, long-term, multi-partnered loving relatedness. Many people use the term to mean creating intimate (read sexual) relationships with lots of partners, and everybody's fine as long as everybody knows about everybody else. Often those situations are shorter term and multi-directional. I don't have a problem with that, but it isn't what we mean when we talk about poly. We tend to find that our sort of live in, longview, lifestyle arrangement tends to make other poly folk nervous. We're not naive and we're not prudish. We understand that poly implies sexual relatedness TOO (or at least potentially) -- it is just that we tend to insist that there must be more to intimacy than how many people can be added to the "team" roster in that arena. We keep harping on the need to create "connections" as a prerequisite to making sure all that "friction" is really sustainable; and then watching people's eyes glaze over. Talk about feeling "old!"

There is an adage among poly folk. It has become almost cliche' to tell one another that "more love makes more love," and there is some validity to that. It is the clever phrase that we use to refer to the potential for multiple and additional relational dynamics to add to the love within poly interactions rather than "diminishing" in some way. We use it to assure (or perhaps reassure) one another and ourselves that there is no need to be fearful of new loves in the lives of our partners; that those new relationships will add richness and joy and potential to our own relatedness, and will not result in threats to our own love and happiness. That is all true as far as it goes.
What we've discovered is that, unfortunately, more love does not make more time. More love does not make more energy. More love does not make more space. There is only so much time, energy, space. Relating is time consuming. It requires work. Building a stable, committed, enduring relationship that will withstand the vagaries that life can pitch at us, does not happen overnight, or even over the course of a few breathless "dates."

We tend to not think too much about how we do the dance of accommodation for our demanding schedules -- all the various kinds of juggling and holding up of one another that allows us to keep it all together. And we don't keep "score." We simply give as we need to, trusting that over the very long haul that is our life, it will all come out in the wash. But, then, we've been together long enough to have survived the early going. We aren't caught in the heat of the early days of romantic infatuation when being together demands a very great deal of attention to keep it alive and healthy. We know there will be tomorrow and next week and next month and next year. That kind of knowing comes only from miles traveled together.
What that means is that tonight, we'll eat leftovers from the weekend in shifts so that we can shuttle cars to and from the repair shop and get to the nursing home to visit Grandma. It means that T and I buy Christmas, Valentine's day, anniversary, and birthday gifts for each other (and cards) so that "Mr. Romance" is never left in the awkward position of not having the appropriate gift to give one of us. It means that we do each other's laundry. She keeps the social calendar and I pay the bills. We each shop for the household groceries and we pick up everyone's prescriptions at the pharmacy and we all go to each other's medical appointments by times and we cook and clean for each other... mostly I do the weekday meals and she does the weekends, but that shifts depending on scheduling. We haul each other's trash, and we clean and we worry in fluid and shifting patterns. We try to never, ever, ever make life harder for one another, and we gently nudge when we know somebody is feeling tired or strained or tender -- and we interpret for each other (and go to bat for each other) when the need arises.

The truth is that we know each other so well that it is pretty seamless for us to just ebb and flow with whatever comes up. We do it without much effort and without much thought. We understand the economics of it all. We know that while it may not be true that "time is money," it is surely true that it is a currency that we exchange between us, and we work hard (with intent) to keep the balance of trade equitable.
These are hard realities when a brand new and exciting potential relationship comes into the picture and a poly person or a poly family/group (like ours) is confronted with the sometimes touchy business of dealing with what to do about limited energies and limited time. A new love doesn't diminish the love between partners, but it will (inevitably) shift the time/energy/space economy. We've smashed head on into this once or twice, and it can be really tough; especially in the beginning stages. It is tough on a couple different levels.

New folks, who are sincere, do not want to "upset the apple cart." Those who are less than sincere generally claim that they don't want to upset things. AND they can't help but do so anyway. They will change the dynamic. The demands on everyone will be there. It requires open acknowlegement of the benefits as well as the costs in terms of time and energy to incorporate new relational directions in existing flows. The new currents take time to settle in. On the other side of the equation, existing partners have to be able to distinguish between feelings and words that convey the sense of change and reactions that look like jealousy. The two are not the same thing -- although they can look similar.

Brand new, shiny, exciting, hot relationships bring with them an intense kind of energy, often referred to as "New Relationship Energy" or NRE. NRE feels like the most wonderful thing in the whole world, and the tired, old, mundane routines of the tried and true can pale in comparison. It is normal, natural, and entirely human for folks caught up in NRE to want to be where the bright lights and glittery glamour of the new and exciting shines so enticingly from the arms of the newly discovered shores. That's the thing we've dealt with from internally.

Of course, the new partner coming in from the outside is all excited too. They have all sorts of NRE as well, and they want lots of time to get to know their new love -- it is all romance and hot sexy fun... In our experience, the business of keeping demanding schedules, and picking up the car and making it to the doctor appointments, and the late night meetings and the nursing home and on and on and on... are almost never the things that new loves get all hot and squishy about after a couple of iterations. And so things get dicey. Quickly. In the beginning at least, it is usually the new love that gets a lot more of the goody, and the rest of us pick up the slack. That can be sustained for awhile, but sooner or later things have to shift back to something closer to normal. That, we have found is when new ones either prove their mettle or stomp their feet and start making demands. So far, no one has stuck it out through the passage.

Love. Yes.

Time, energy, space. Those too.

swan

Polyamory Observations #2

My Dear friend, morningstar, asked the question which we are very often asked wihich is, "how do our housing arrangements work?"
The simple answer is that we own two, basically identical (although mirror-imaged), condominiums, that are side-by-side, which we treat as one household. For us, this is so much the normal way of life that we really don't think much about it, and so it seems quite obvious. It is a bit of a stretch for us to comprehend how it must be for all of you, peering in from outside, to "picture" just how it all works. So, in this edition of my poly observations series, I'll try and make our housing arrangement a little bit clearer.

The condos really are side-by-side, at ground level. There are no stairs, and we've put stepping stones in front and out back. We can go out our front doors, or out our patios in the back, and be within about twelve feet of the doors to the other side. Those stepping stones are essentially like outside hallways, and that's exactly how we treat them. During the waking hours of our days, the doors are open, and we go back and forth between the two sides pretty much like they were one house. We keep intercoms on the counters in both kitchens, so we can call back and forth without walking from one place to the other. All of us have keys to all the doors. We use both kitchens (where we have nearly anything you could possibly want to prepare almost anything you can imagine between the two of us), all four bathrooms, both refrigerators, both stoves, both garages, the multitude of closets are full (mostly of His shoes and His clothes), we do laundry on one side, keep a major storage pantry on one side, a guest room/cat bedroom on one side, an exercise room/library on one side... You get the idea.

We often refer to "my" side and "T's" side, or the '67 side and the '69 side (a shortening of our addresses. Sometimes she jokes that her's is the "storage" condo -- where Master stores all the stuff He is not immediately using. I respond then that mine must be the "hemherroid" condo -- the place where all His piles are... We laugh a lot. Mostly those designations are "geographic so we can keep track of where people are...

The exercise room is on "my" side.

The laundry room is on "T's" side.

The guest bedroom/cat bedroom, where Prazer holds court is on "T's" side.

The BIG dining table, where we sit down to eat with crowds, is on "my" side.




And the smaller table, more suitable for just the three of us, or where we eat when we want to be near the fire place, is on "T's" side.











Of course, another question that comes up frequently is the question of who sleeps where. In the beginning of our relationship (when we were still a "quad"), we followed/used the very common poly notion of calendar driven alternative nights... where Master spent one night with T and the next with me. He actually kept notes in His planner as to which of us He'd be with from night to night, and played roaming Dominant each night. In time, He came to be very weary of being the Dominant without a room of His own, and He became increasingly resistant to being moved from place to place. He found that He never knew where His things were, or (in truth) really where He was. Too, His inclinations and sleep mode led us to eventually evolve toward a decision point: He is a snuggler and a cuddler; He likes to have His sleep partner pulled in tight, tucked in under His chin and wrapped up in His arms. He likes to throw a leg over and keep them all rolled up in a ball. It is not a sleep style for those who are claustrophobic, restless, or particularly warm-blooded. I was the one who not only tolerated that sort of thing, but actually enjoys it -- the warmer the better. Plus, I am the one who likes (sort of) to get spanked.
So, gradually, but very definitively, over time, we moved toward the point where He came to spend His nights with me, and would get up early when I would leave for school, and go snuggle in the early mornings with T. We've learned that is works best for us to make "snuggling" time for the two of them when and as they need and want it, and to recognize "sleeping" time for old folks like us for what it mostly is -- sleeping time.
When we were first three, just after my divorce, we were convinced that we wanted a BIG bed that would allow us all to sleep together. So we went out and shopped and found this king sized bed. We actually wanted something larger, but couldn't find anything. The poly "wisdom" and gold standard at the time was "three in a bed," and so that was our goal. It is a great bed. Unfortunately, we quickly discovered that we do not sleep comfortably all together in one bed. We CUDDLE quite happily in the big bed all together. WE have a great time watching TV on Sunday morning or late at night. But sleeping was not going to work. So, back to "coupled" sleeping...

That is just the tip of the iceberg of course. This evening we'll cuddle up together near the fireplace to watch the Super Bowl. We'll cheer for The Bears (in lieu of The Bengals), and T and I will privately celebrate because the Super Bowl marks the date when we are finally allowed to take down the Christmas Trees. Himself would, I think, have us keep them up all year long if He could figure out a way to justify it. Super Bowl is just the most recent latest date for taking the evil monsters down. She is a little ahead of the curve because she at least has the ornaments off of hers in anticipation.

So, that is a glimpse into the way we do it around here. It is not the way everyone might do it. Not even the way we imagined ourselves doing it in the beginning. There are times when we think about owning a single house (especially when we are hauling laundry and groceries back and forth across those "outside hallways" in the dead of winter), but there are other times when we value our spaces and our private places. All in all this works for us quite nicely.

So there, now you've had the virtual tour of The House of Heron.

swan

Polyamory Observations #1

A couple of entries back I implied that there was probably no real interest in or value to a discussion of the day-to-day "stuff" of poly living. I simply couldn't imagine why anyone would care about things like who buys the groceries or makes dinner or pays the bills.

Roy, in commenting, suggested that it would be helpful in fact to hear the nuts and bolts. Plenty of folks have "theories" about how poly SHOULD work, or MIGHT work, he said -- but that's a far cry from how it actually DOES work, and he thought it would be instructive and useful if we would share our experiences in the living of a real 24/7 poly life. Now, one person asking, is hardly a groundswell, but then, maybe he does have a point...
So, consider this the beginning of a series of entries -- "Poly Observations," that will detail the ways we do our lives together as a family and a household (not that we haven't done a fair amount of that anyway). I intend these pieces to be not so much discussions about "theory" as commentaries about the practicalities and actual realities of how we do what we do.

Call this edition "Resources." I'm starting there because that's where my mind is this week, this day. Our family has been stretched to the limit in the past few days, physically and emotionally, AND we've managed it. We do that because we know what our resources are, and we've gotten very good at using them wisely and well. We work together to get our business and our necessities handled, so when things get intense, we don't have to spend a lot of time and energy fussing about who will do what when or how -- we know that we can count on each other. We fall into place and into patterns of behavior that carry us through, even when we are sad, tired, worried, and strung out. It works. That it works is largely testimony to the fact that we have, in calmer times done the work needed to figure out what we have in the way of assets, and then put those things to work in service to one another and to the entity that is our family.
It is my view that there is no way that a viable poly relationship is going to last for long, past the point of the hot and lusty sex, if the participants don't evaluate what they have in the way of resources and then figure out how to best use those resources in support of the relationship. Actually, I think that is true of any relationship, no matter how many partners and directional arrows are involved.
So what do I mean by "resources?"
It isn't as straightforward as I think some people tend to assume. I think we believe too often that the only real resources worth counting are financial. If there is a wage earner; a bank account sufficient to maintain the household, then fine and dandy. For many, the BDSM fantasy usually pictures a "slave" ensconsced in the Master's realm, and in that vision, the assumption has to be that the economic support is being supplied by the Master or by some outside source... It can be a "pretty" picture at some level; enticing to dream of being swept away to some walled off inner sanctum where all one need be concerned with are the demands made by the "Owner." It isn't our reality, and I just don't think it is the reality for the vast majority of people. I can read the governmental economic reports, and the raw statistics tell me that the bulk of us have got to bust our collective butts to keep afloat economically out here these days. So, for all that "castle" and "dungeon" imagery that we find so evocative, the hard truth is that we've got to figure out how to pay the mortgages and the electric bills and all the rest of it.
And that isn't even the half of it if the truth be told. There are vehicles, homes, lawns, wardrobes, appliances, etc. to be maintained, schedules to be kept, records to be organized and tracked, outside relationships at multiple levels to be managed and facilitated, familial and organizational and civic and social obligations to fulfill, health care needs to be attended to, unexpected events to adjust to and "finesse" -- the list goes on and on. We are social creatures and we live in social environments. The interconnection of our lives creates both joy and stress -- often simultaneously.
One of the great advantages, for us, of being a poly household is that there are more heads, hands, and hearts to tend to all the many complexities of our lives. On the other hand, because there are three of us, sometimes, there are simply more complexities. We've all got pretty intense and demanding careers. We have still got four elderly parents between the bunch of us. We have four children -- all 18 years old or better, plus a raft of neices and nephews (and "steps"), some of whom insist on having babies of their own. And T and I have a collection of evil "baby" brothers who are all nominally adults, although no one would know it by their behavior for the most part. The extended family dynamics can get weirder than bat-shit somedays. I keep calculating that, by the time we complete this year's cycle of birthday celebrations in April, we will have obtained a combined age of 160 years. If it is true that "with age comes wisdom," then we ought to be approaching the edge here somewhere soon I would think. In these last few weeks, we've needed all the wisdom, patience, fortitude, and simple, pure solid stuborn, Irish-German-"Don't let the bastards wear-you-you-down" stick to it-iveness we could scrape together.
In the last couple of weeks we've been just a little busy:

• First one and then the other of Master's parents have spent several days in the hospital.
• Then His Mother moved directly to a nursing home (likely for the rest of her life - ending what has been until now a fruitless search for such a placement). That was good news, although she has had dreadful falls each of her first three nights there -- two of which have resulted in all night trips to the emergency room for her and Master.
• Our friend died and was buried.
• Master's advocacy agency continues to struggle with funding and staffing and a wide variety of political challenges.
• My daughter is once again embarking on the path of living without hallucinogenic drugs, and outside of the correctional system.
• T recently attended a funeral with her Mom for a long time family friend of theirs.
• There was the evil, who knew what the hell it might be, breast lump.
• T had her birthday and mine approaches this weekend. Hooray!

All of that is on top of the normal routines of our daily lives: the jobs and the chores and the stuff that has to be done to keep any household running relatively smoothly. It's a lot. It would be a lot for any family; for any relationship. The reality is that these kinds of things happen in life. Whatever our fantasies might be, whatever we dream, LIFE has a way of imposing sometimes daunting demands on us all.
If we were three single adults, living our lives out alone, we'd each of us have to deal with these dynamics as best we could -- alone. Or we'd call on friends for whatever support they might be willing or able to offer. If any of us were a couple, living in what is viewed as the normal, traditional "marriage," then we'd have to juggle the demands between us. I know that I did that for a lot of years. It was sometimes OK, and at othertimes it was nearly impossible. The upside is that society endorsed my "normal" marriage, so there was no onus on me BECAUSE of the marriage itself. Our triad family, because it is stable and functional allows us flexibility and strength that is not available in other family configurations. During these last few days and weeks, we've frequently split up, heading off in three different directions to fetch and manage things at different locations and in different arenas so that all the parts and pieces could be taken care of in a reasonable fashion. We know that we can all call on one another without any questions being asked and without apology or hesitation. It frees us up to use our whole set of resources when we really need to.
So how does someone who is thinking of building this kind of relational model think about resources? I looked at how the word "resource" is defined, and this is what I discovered:
available source of wealth; a new or reserve supply that can be drawn upon when needed

• a source of aid or support that may be drawn upon when needed; ``the local library is a valuable resource''
• resource, resourcefulness, imagination -- the ability to deal resourcefully with unusual problems; ``a man of resource''

If we think of "resources" in the first sense, as primarily financial, then within a poly family, it becomes essential to consider the economic resources that are available. The reality is that there are some "economies" of scale to living as a poly household, but there are probably not as many as a starry-eyed poly dreamer might want to believe. As my dear old Dad used to tell me on a regular basis, "two can eat as cheaply as one -- if one doesn't eat." The same goes for three or four or... It makes sense to evaluate the soundness of your earning potentials as a family. Poly families that expect to reside together need adequate housing. That means sleeping spaces, living spaces with communal and private areas, social spaces, storage areas, cooking facilities, laundry facilities... A very close, and happy couple can make do with a one bedroom apartment; a poly family is going to need a bigger space, and more space costs more money. If you all intend to live and work as a family, everyone needs to have safe, well-maintained, appropriate transportation. We all have phones, and computers, and radios and ...

Too, the financial side of things involves such questions as who manages the bills, how are banking matters handled, who makes decisions about investments, who is and is not named in wills and as beneficiary on insurance policies, who is on titles to properties, etc. How the financial matters of a poly household are structured is not typically a simple thing. Depending on the perceptions and intentions of the members of the relationship, such questions may be fairly stratightforward, or they may entail some very complex negotiations and legal advice and documentation to manage. There is no "one size fits all" solution. We've not yet resolve all the questions, and we find as we go along that the questions evolve and sometimes change.

As to the second meaning of "resource," as an aid or support that can be drawn upon when needed, this is the hidden gem of poly relating that doesn't get much play because it just isn't sexy I suspect. We count on each other for all those prosaic kinds of things that you do for people that you care for deeply: aid, assistance, help, and refuge. Sometimes it means that I call home because I am at school in the middle of a blinding migraine and I can't find my medicine. Master has, on more than one occasion, dropped everything, and driven across town to bring me the single pill that will keep me functioning (and all too often helped me find the one that was invisible to my headache stricken sight, and there in my purse all along). Or it means that I scramble across town with the tax forms to meet T in the parking lot on her lunch hour so that she can sign them -- and then I tear madly across town to the post office to get them mailed under the deadline. Another time it is T cooking and feeding us as Master and I struggle to turn out a proposal for funding for the agency -- working until the wee hours of the morning to get all the bits and pieces just right. We use all our resources -- all our considerable talents and gifts in service to and support of each other because, honestly, the world is a tough and demanding place and we need all the help we can get each day.

I shake my head when I hear about people looking for poly relationships, and I see the lists of "qualities" that people put together. Most of the time, those lists are full of the sort of characteristics that make for a really great fuck buddy. That's great if that's what your after, but I'm increasingly sure that if what you intend to create is a long term relationship, you better be thinking about the kinds of qualities you want in a partner that you are going to be doing some hard traveling with. It is really important to know what you bring to the table, and what you want in return. Probably it is important that whoever you create a relationship with not scare the bejeezus out of you first thing every morning, but far more important is knowing with absolute certainty that you can pick up the phone anytime and know that whatever it is you need -- it is yours for the asking.

The third "sense" of "resource" is the idea of resourcefulness or imagination -- the ability to deal with unusual problems in creative and unique ways. I think that part of what keeps us afloat in the face of all the rest of it is our ability to laugh; to not take ourselves too seriously; to find the spaces where we are OK as just exactly who we are. We somehow have the wonderful gift of finding the quiet shoals where we come up into the sunshine and notice what we've got in one another and take great joy in that. It is enough, and it keeps us going in the face of a very great deal that might give us an excuse to throw in the towel. We thrive on "family" jokes, on "family" traditions, on "family" stories, and in our "family" spaces.

So, to begin this series, at what I thought would be the end of a very trying week for us, there you have some thoughts and observations on poly resources. We've never done an "inventory" as such, although I think we've tabulated a lot of that in one sense or another. We know a great deal more of it now than when we first began. I think we really didn't conceive of a lot of it in the beginning, and no one really talked about it with us. We don't hear it discussed much anywhere either. It perhaps is less of an issue for those who do not propose to live together as we do. Shared housing and fulltime living together creates the need for routines and financial arrangements that occasional connecting does not necessitate. Still, I think that sustained relationship building goes better if the parties understand from fairly early on that they bring gifts and assets, talents and treasure, to the bargain as well as needs both conscious and unspoken. How much better and more honest to work together, with intent, to try and create dynamics where the resources of the family are dedicated to meeting as many of the needs of the denizens of the place as may be?

swan