Lessons on Love and Sex From Two Years in a Polyamorous Triad

It’s Fal, Kate, and my 2nd anniversary today!!!! That’s right, exactly two years ago we all had a date and fucked like rabbits for the first time together.

I remember how afterward we were actually really surprised by just how much more comfortable and affectionate we felt with each other. So many times you hear people say how bad an idea it is to fuck your best friend because it changes everything, and it did, but the change that happened for us was actually really positive. In fact, it honestly felt like a natural progression of our friendship and quickly evolved into us being partners without us even realizing it until months later.

Now here we are countless date nights, suppers, Netflix shows, and yes, hot as fuck threesomes later and we’re still going pretty damn strong! Especially considering all of the unexpected polyamory struggles that have happened along the way.

Speaking of which, since we’ve already had our night of cuddles, McDonald’s hamburgers, and watching Captain Marvel, I wanted to celebrate our 2nd anniversary with the rest of y’all by sharing three big lessons I’ve learned about love, sex, relationships, and myself, through being with Kate and Fal.

I hope that some of the following help any other polyamorous and/or non-monogamous folks out there should they need it, or, if you’re not polyamorous, that they encourage you to reflect on your own perceptions of romance and pleasure in potentially constructive ways.

 

My triad isn’t just ONE relationship, and should not be treated as such.

I mean, yeah, Fal, Kate, and I are in a relationship all together but one of the earliest and most important things I realized was that as much as you want to treat your triad as your one, completely equal, relationship, it can actually be super fucking detrimental to perceive it so simplistically all of the time.

Because if you really think about it it’s not “one” relationship, is it?

In our relationship it’s four-fold: there’s the relationship between Fal and I, the relationship between Kate and I, the relationship between Kate and Fal, and then the relationship between Fal, Kate, and I all together. And all of those need to be balanced, respected, and maintained as unique, yet cohesive, bonds to the overall triad.

Similarly, our relationships with ourselves are super fucking important too! If I’m not looking after my own health and wellness, asking for support when I need it, unpacking and addressing my personal struggles, taking my medication, seeing my counselor, or doing my best to cope with my dysthymia and major anxiety, then that can cause some problems in my other relationships as well.

The trick is having a lot of patience, compassion, and understanding for ourselves and each other, and to have a willingness to continuously work on our communication, honesty, and trust.

Oh, and check-ins! Like, pretty fucking frequently.

 

Taking and/or giving space is actually a good thing!

In the past, when I heard a partner say they needed some space it always spelled the doom of our relationship. So when Kate asked for some time to herself for a couple of weeks this past August, shortly after we had come out of a frustrating and confusing fight, Fal and I put on our “yeah for sure!” faces but inside we were pretty fucking anxious and scared.

Yet, rather than do what I would have done in the past, which would be to panic and not respect Kate’s needs, and constantly look for affirmations, and obsess over the relationship for every waking moment, I tried something a little different this time: I fucking listened and gave her the damn space.

Turns out that space was the absolute best thing for our polycule. After taking our little “break”, during which I processed a lot of my own emotions and thought about my relationship needs and wants as well, the three of us came back together for another conversation, which turned into a hot mess of miscommunication to start off, but through patience and respectful listening we actually managed to work through it really fucking well!

Seriously, we fucking rock. Go team!

I can’t speak for Kate or Fal but I felt SO much better. I think it’s safe to say that we each got the chance to finally process some pushed aside frustrations and long neglected feelings, got a lot off of our chests, and, both heard, and felt heard, by each other in a really genuine way. But I truly believe that we never would have gotten to that place had Fal and I not respected Kate’s need for space, and used it to look inward for ourselves too.

So yeah, my partners expressing that they need space isn’t a scary thing for me anymore because I’ve now seen that it can literally just mean that your partner is overwhelmed by everything else in their life or struggling with something internally and just needs room to think, rest, and sort themselves out a bit.

Why wouldn’t I give them that if it means them feeling better respected, heard, and, as a result, more comfortable and fulfilled?

 

It’s 100% okay to not be perfectly sexually or romantically compatible with your partners.

One of Kate’s biggest “not gonna happen” things when it comes to sexy times is any and all forms of anal sex or pleasure. She’s just not comfortable with it, giving or receiving, at all. And that’s cool, I respect that, but I’d be lying if I said that at times it hasn’t made me a little sad that as a person with a prostate, who absolutely experiences the most earth shattering orgasms from some prostate stimulation during sex, I’ll never get to experience that with one of my partners.

However, I CAN enjoy butt stuff with Fal, who is super excited about pleasuring my ass, has been helping me unpack a lot of shame I’ve had about it, and will hopefully be fucking me with a strap-on soon. Plus there are other play friends I have, including my long-distance fuck buddy, Kris, who I know would down as fuck to dick, lick, and finger my butt, and you KNOW I’d fucking worship their booty, when the day comes we can visit.

Likewise, Fal has some genuine sexual needs for really rough sex, pain, and BDSM play that I’m not the most comfortable with, and neither is Kate, so, we’re really encouraging of them finding other play friends who can give them those experiences instead!

See, that’s one of the best perks of being polyamorous and non-monogamous! My partners and I are able to have our needs met outside of our relationship so long as we are safe, ethical, and communicative about it. It’s fucking wonderful!

Similarly, on the romantic front, Kate falls somewhere on the aromantic spectrum whereas Fal and I are super duper lovey and affectionate a lot of the times. And you know what? That’s totally okay too.

At first it was a struggle for me though because as a very romantic and affectionate person, with some lingering insecurity and abandonment issues, I held a lot of unfair expectations about what love “should” look like in order for it to be “real”. To me, it had to be reciprocated in the same way that I expressed it, otherwise that meant that my partners didn’t love me as much as I loved them.

But as I slowly came to see how those expectations I held were heavily informed by sappy Hollywood movies, manipulative marketing to sell you “couples” products to prove your devotion through capitalism, my own lingering co-dependency behaviors, and, monogamous, religious, and frequently conservative “family values” elevated as absolutes by society at large, I started to acknowledge and understand that love isn’t always experienced in the exact same, monolithic way as we’re conditioned to believe.

This revelation has brought me tremendous peace in all of my relationships now! I don’t need my partners to experience love, or express it, in exactly the same way I do. I’m just so glad that they care about me, want me in their lives as their partner, and it brings me joy that they love me in whatever way is most comfortable and true to them.

 

So, yeah, here we are two-years in and I’m excited about all the years still to come! It hasn’t always been smooth sailing, but for three 30-somethings in their first ever polyamorous relationship, I think we’re doing pretty fucking great at growing together so far.

Kate, Fal, you two are the best friends and lovers that I’ve ever known and my life is so much better with you both in it.

… celebratory threesome?