A Field in Bloom

As a polyamorous person, maintaining a relationship in the midst of one ending is probably the most difficult thing that I have done. The end of my marriage after 12 years has brought to the surface long held insecurities, pieces of the broken parts of me that I thought I had cleaned up long ago. While I refuse to speak about the final causes of the end of that relationship in such a public forum, I can take the time to look at my exposed self, and delicately dissect it, both in my personal life and in sessions with my dedicated therapist. But this is what this post is about.

This post is about managing my current relationship with my girlfriend while I have watch my internal and external worlds slowly implode and morph. Many years ago, I believed myself to be a relationship anarchist, putting no one relationship above another, valuing no one love above all else. My priorities shifted with marriage and the birth (physically and metaphorically) of our children together. I spent 12 years as a devoted stay at home parent and house wife. I put all my energy into that, so much so that I was often left at the end of the day with no energy for myself. I put the dreams of my husband, my children at the forefront of my mind and let the self I had no slip away. I practiced hierarchy. Not just in terms of outside lovers, but in terms of internal family structure.

Now outside of that marriage, that setup, I find myself gazing at my options, much like a field of flowers in the blooms of spring. Do I continue to practice this hierarchal mindset or do I give myself the…