1. Was Paris worth it? I get why the urge would be there considering how  uprooted you were at the time. Was it a ‘I found myself’ trip that you are really truly glad you took? worth the debt? Or, now seeing how awesome your life turned out, would you have been better off saving the money? Just curious in hind-sight how you view that trip.

2. How did you meet your family? I’m not asking to be nosy. We are poly & the poly groups we found were kind of meat-markety, same with online groups. Although there was a lot of relationship seeking, it seemed to be a more sexually charged energy than we were hoping. For us, we figure one day maybe something organic will develop through synchronicity. Its so rare to meet another poly family, so when I do, I’m always curious to hear how they met. Love stories we can relate to are always inspiring to hear.

Signed,

DA

Howdy DA,

Thanks for asking such interesting questions!

1.) I first began this blog just before I ran away to Paris. I had just ended a torrid four-year on-again-off-again relationship and I found myself completely uprooted, as you say. (Readers, you can catch up on that adventure starting with this post.) I had barely any savings at the time, so I put the entire trip on a credit card. This isn’t the most responsible way to indulge in travel, to be sure. I have absolutely no regrets about Paris. Visiting the City of Lights was a life-long dream. A ‘bucket list’ item if you will. Even though I’ve since found such happiness with my wonderful family, I’m still very glad I took the trip. It was a trip that was best taken solo because nobody would have drank in the city the same way, and I think it was very important for me to see how much adventure and risk I was capable of on my own steam. Paris was totally one of those experiences where I often think “If I could do that, I can do anything.” In future, I’d definitely recommend a travel savings account, but I’m a big believer in fulfilling as many of our own dreams as we can when opportunity arises or when we can create opportunity. We really don’t know how much time we have to write our stories, do we?

2.) For those of you who are brand new to this blog, I’m in a committed domestic partnership with two people. Essentially, I have both a husband and a wife, and we are raising our three kids together. Our two eldest daughters are from my partners’ existing relationship, and our newest addition was my biological contribution to our motley crew. If you had told me five years ago when I started this blog that my search for the love and the family I yearned for would end in polyamorous (multiple loves) life, I think I would have laughed at you. It was definitely not something I was looking for.

I met my two partners on the patio of the Cadillac Lounge on the last day of the very first annual Toronto Burlesque Festival. My theatre company was performing in the Tiki Brunch, and I was one of the festival organizers that year. My business partner had cast a new gal (Charity Dawn, for those of you who are fans) and I had never met her, but we had many mutual friends, and a big group of them came to see her (get naked) perform. Nekky and Sarah were in that group. After the show we all stayed and ate and drank for a very, very, very long time. Nekky began to show boat by ordering copious amounts of everything for the table. I thought they were interesting people, but I frankly thought that Nekky was a show off. Ha!

After that epic first encounter, Nekky and Sarah began to turn up at all of our social functions, and the more time we spent together, the more I realized how much we had in common. It was when I first went to their home and met their daughters that I really started to fall in love with their family. I had never met such bright, beautiful, engaged children. Talking and playing with the girls was more interesting than most interactions I had with adults!

We began to spend a lot of time together, and N & S witnessed so many of my failed attempts at finding love, which we used to commiserate about. They knew how badly I wanted a family of my own, and how loud my clock was ticking. The two of them even went so far as to set me up with a good friend from university, with whom I was really smitten. I think one of my great dating failures was my enthusiasm, and I think I scared him off. I was terrible about putting the cart waaay before the horse, and I’d get so excited before really getting to know the people I was dating.

Finally, as I was crying into a cocktail over the latest dating disaster (and trust me, there were a lot of cocktails at that time) Sarah said “Why don’t you just marry us?”. At this point, I will admit that the three of us had definitely begun some (largely cocktail fueled) experimenting that certainly went beyond the traditional definitions of friendship. It was great fun, but nothing I’d considered seriously because, well, because I don’t think many of us would consider a husband and wife team as a serious dating prospect!

When Sarah said those words, some chord was struck deep inside me. All of my attempts at serious relationships were brought into sharp focus, and I realized that joining this family, however unconventional, could be exactly the missing link that would turn the traditional relationship model on it’s ear and make long-term commitment more appealing and less confining for me. Who would ever get bored with both a husband AND a wife?

The deciding factor in pursuing a relationship with Nekky and Sarah wasn’t how it would affect me socially, or how it might impact our extended families. I didn’t worry about how we would affect the children because I knew we were all amazing parents, and would always put their interests first. I didn’t even stop to consider legal  implications (at the time we formed our relationship, living conjugally with more than one person in Canada was illegal. Since then, a B.C. judge ruled that cohabiting with more than one conjugal partner was not in violation of the law, but taking any steps to make that union official can still result in prosecution. This includes having an officiant perform any kind of union ceremony.) I was mostly concerned about being able to have my own biological children some day.

Sarah was unhesitatingly into the idea of another baby, particularly one she didn’t have to birth. Nekky took way, way more convincing, but he eventually came around. Once he said that he would work towards reaching a place where having another baby was an emotional possibility, I made the decision to stop seeing other people. The rest is a complex and rich bit of history, but you’ll have to wait for the book.

I didn’t know much about polyamory before this relationship, and since then, we haven’t found any other families who are poly that we really can relate to. I would agree that any  poly groups we’ve found online seem disorganized and quite sexually charged. The three of us have our hands full, and aren’t looking for any additional partners, just some other families who share our unique perspective.

I have a lot of advice for anyone considering such a relationship model, and I’m happy to answer questions here as best I can, in the hopes that I can help others. Thanks for taking the leap and sending your note, and best of luck in your search. I hope you and your partner find worthy others you can share yourselves with.

Kisses on your nose,

Playboy Mommy