“I am polyamorous.”
A simple response to a question about my ‘status’ has created much disturbances, albeit whispered. Once a not-so-young gent on a date scuttled away leaving his bill for two white wines on me! But that was a lesser evil considering the other upheavals included murmurs about nymphomania and warnings regarding occult-practising Bengali women turning men into sheep via the Kamakhya route.
Yes, it hasn’t been easy living as a polyamorous woman but then, when has love ever been painless—mono, triangular or poly! To those who keep asking me whether I miss the speculative insurance of a single partner and their undying loyalty, on good days, I say that love and life give only hope and never guarantees. On bad days, I remind them of all the cheaters caught late and the dead gone early, taking with them all promises of togetherness. The polyamorous me on any given day feels as lonely or loved as any other person—the difference being that we are more realistic about loneliness as an experience of life than those who believe in one-true-love Qayamat se Qayamat Tak-type popular storytelling.
Now I have mentioned the unmentionable—loneliness. Isn’t that what we are all desperately running from? And isn’t finding the one-true-love an enduring talisman against it? I bring up loneliness because that is the question I have been asked the most after I began discussing polyamory in public. Do I feel lonely because I don’t have one exclusively-mine kind of partner? It is true that in polyamory there are times when none of our partners are there to share grief or joy instantly. A friend mentions that even when she has a primary partner, the person may be unavailable since the nature of commitments here are often different from the habitual togetherness of monoamorous couplehoods. I too have had this niggling feeling whether monoamory is better. It is similar to what married people sometimes feel about singlehood or parents feel about childfree life. But doubts melt away quickly since the richness I gain from being in multiple relationships of love and long-term commitments is not something I am willing to barter for a day’s loneliness being assuaged.
Also, I don’t think even monoamory has found the antidote to loneliness. The answer lies elsewhere. From my conversations with friends as well as my own experiences, I have learnt that loneliness has little to do with how exclusive the partner is or how much time we live with them—but our inability to cope with the failure to be needed, desired or loved. A dear monoamorous friend told me once that one of the most desolate places in the world is to sleep lonely on one side of the bed shared every night with the same person for years. I believe her.
“Are you never jealous?” I am asked with a mix of curiosity and envy. The short answer—of course I am! How can I not be, given that the entire heteronormative one-true-love universe has made jealousy not just evidence but the absolute measure of love? A lover I had would complain if I wasn’t jealous, “You don’t love me enough.” But I started analysing jealousy and realised that firstly, it can be identified, tamed and altogether abolished with time and practice, and secondly, it is an utterly futile emotion producing more bile than pheromones.
I also stumbled upon the opposite of jealousy—compersion—a feeling where one finds joy when the partner is happy with another lover. However, practising this is hard at the start. “I am happy for my lover who is enjoying a holiday with another lover” is not easy to exercise. But if one contemplates what love, even in its most conservative sense is professed to be, it is being ‘happy for the one you love’. The idea of compersion only stretches this to include the other ‘co-lovers’ in the mix. But the problem remains that while rationally this is comprehendible, how does one control the dark, corroding feelings that overflow as jealousy?
This is the simple routine I follow if I feel jealous—I sit myself down, remembering the love I experience with him and explain to myself that this jealousy is really the fear of being displaced in his heart. I recall that my partner’s heart is large enough to accommodate more than one. I have often treated jealousy as one would a health issue, and I can affirm that with time and effort, it is possible to not only cope with jealousy but feel happy for the joy one’s partner experiences with his other lovers. In fact, every time I have come out of one of those hellish spiralling jealousies, I have felt liberated and alive. I will risk saying that the idea that love is an exclusive zero-sum game is a trick, part patriarchal and part capitalist.
For polyamory to be based on ethical grounds, honesty and consent form two foundational pillars. But how honest we should be with partners about our other relationships needs to be considered. In most relationships there is a mutually agreed upon ‘limit on sharing’, decided with consent among partners. A friend tells me that he remains sensitive and alert to what he shares, including praising other partners, giving intimate details and remembering memories of situations that he is now experiencing with another partner. I too notice the changing moods of a partner when I share and sometimes ‘shift the topic’ midway. If anyone feels that this makes my polyamorous life more arduous than a monogamous one, I would remind them that I am only as careful about sharing details of my present relationships with partners as they are about sharing details of their past relationships. The stories of love often bring us to the same places even when we take diverse routes.
I have been asked about the complication of prioritising among partners. On days I am slightly irritable I wonder why no one has ever asked this question to a mother of four children! Or perhaps they have—only to be contended with the proverbial endless love that flows from the bottomless pit that is a woman’s heart when she becomes a mother and her tireless long days. I am tempted to respond that when a person discovers they are polyamorous they immediately receive infinite love tanks and three times the hours of day from Poly-Love Goddesses.
But that would be churlish. It is true that in polyamorous relationships it does get difficult to ensure that one is engaged equally with the various partners, giving time and care. This requires patience and open conversations to arrive at what is acceptable to all. While some fixing of schedules work, relationships can hardly be calendar-based, so there is a need to check intermittently if everyone is comfortable with the arrangements. However, this is as challenging as in any other relationship. Monoamorous folks too find it really hard to make quality time in their busy lives today for their partner and family unless they work hard at it.
Practising polyamory over decades now, and listening to the stories people bring to me, I think there is a need to put out some alerts. Many people, especially the younger lot, are experimenting with different ways of loving. These alerts are not intended to be warnings but more as signs to watch out for in order to have safe and healthy relationships.
In my opinion it is difficult for a joyful relationship to develop between a polyamorous and a monoamorous person. While it goes well initially, soon it turns out to be unfair for both, given the differences in needs and expectations. This is best avoided. Also, while sexual relationships with multiple people may be exciting for some—that is not polyamory and must not be called so. Polyamory is about love—with or without sexual intimacy, with a desire to build a relationship. Only with such intentions of commitment must one venture into it. While the idea is to be open to more than one relationship, if the numbers start multiplying rapidly, one must rethink one motivation. Moreover, heterosexual women must be particularly careful because sometimes men in the patriarchal system use the ‘wokeness’ of polyamory to justify emotional and physical abuse. And this I cannot emphasise enough—no one must ever be in a relationship they do not want, and where they do not fully consent to not just the nature of the relationship, but also to its terms, conditions and responsibilities. Anyone saying otherwise is suspect.
Finally, the questions that linger: Why all this trouble? Why polyamory? The answer for me is simple. Because my heart sees beauty, courage, kindness and compassion in more than one person and desires to connect with them—the same reasons for which anyone would fall in love with one person, I fall more than once. I just refuse to say, “Stop. Your quota of ‘one life, one love’ is done.”
Has polyamory made me happy and content? Yes, emphatically. Has it made me sad and despondent? Yes, many times. Like any relationship, this too comes with its trials by fire, tests by flood. I have been both burnt and drowned. This is no different for any journey of love—mono or poly. To love is hard—staying in love is harder, no matter how many lovers there are. And any love can break us. But then, the broken are the really brave because they embody proof of encounter, evidence of having lived. That is the hope.
Note: My experiences have been mostly within heterosexual relationships, so my insights are from that perspective. Polyamory can have stories from other genders and sexualities.
(Views expressed are personal)
(This appeared in the print as 'Journey Of Many Desires')
Arundhati Ghosh is a writer and cultural practitioner based in Bengaluru
