Self Care is a Must in Polyamory!
Just when you think you’ll have more people in your life than ever before, you find yourself suddenly alone, and worse: lonely, all too often.
Given that polyamory is defined as “the practice of engaging in multiple romantic (and typically sexual) relationships, with the consent of all the people involved” (Oxford Languages), it is easy to assume that participating in this lifestyle will make your world so full of people, love, fun, and all the good things, that you won’t have time to be alone, never mind lonely.
But I can tell you that in the 7-plus years I’ve been involved in this lifestyle, I’ve never had so many lonely times in my life.
Even when my husband and I were still living together, the fact that we were both engaging with other people meant that we had many evenings and even nights or weekends where one person was gone, and the other was at home alone. It rarely worked out that one of us didn’t have to stay home because our off-grid and full of animals and kids lifestyle, was that of non-stop responsibility.
Feeling left behind in that circumstance gets tough quickly!
Things became even harder when my husband and I separated. In the best-case scenario, I see my boyfriend once a week. Every 2 weeks is much more realistic. And in that in-between time when I know he’s with his wife or another partner, I am alone. And for some reason, as soon as I know the person I love and miss is engaged and enjoying himself with someone else, I go to the lonely place swiftly.
It’s awful, so NOT conducive to the poly lifestyle, and I’m working on it. But it’s a struggle.
I chalk this up to a lack of skills. I’ve rarely been alone in my life for any length of time. I got married young and have been married for 26 years. Around year 20 of that marriage, I got a boyfriend. So being single is not something I have done since age 18.
There have definitely been many lonely times over the years, but the bottom line is, I’m not used to being by myself for lengths of time. I thrive on being surrounded by my loved ones. I love engaging with them and taking care of them. But my current reality is that I am more alone than not these days. And that isn’t likely to change for some time.
So what am I doing about it?
Given I am polyamorous, I have considered adding more relationships. But the fact that I have been through some rather stressful ups and downs over the last few years with a marriage breakdown, I have decided that for the time being, adding more relationships (romantic ones anyway) is not the right thing for me. Instead, I have come to realize I need to learn to take care of myself, be happy in my own skin and my own world, and be content with myself as company.
Here are just a few of the ways I have gone about this…..
I take daily baths.
When things started going downhill with my husband, I committed to nightly baths to give myself a breather from life and the tension in the household. To this day, I have continued this practice as long as time (and hot water and power) permits. I have always loved baths, and it’s a time for me when I am forced to relax and read or do nothing but sit and enjoy my surroundings.
I have immersed myself in meaningful hobbies.
As of late, I have discovered brewing beer and other fermented beverages, and that has been a life-changing activity for me. It engages my creative side, it’s as time-consuming as I want it to be, and thus it fits well into the life I have created, living outside the city and off the grid. I have gained skills in foraging which feeds my desire to be close to nature, I save money because I drink mostly my own alcohol and I use my creations for gifts, and I have gained community by meeting new people through this craft. Besides brewing, I also enthusiastically tend to my chicken flock, I love to cook, I have recently started learning the art of soap making, and of course, I write. Each of these activities feeds me in different ways. I feel productive and challenged, and my mind is occupied with enjoyable things.
I have worked on checking items off my bucket list.
One of my standout achievements in the last few years was getting my motorcycle license. It was something I had always wanted to do but never made time for. Then, when my oldest son turned 16, we decided to take the course together as an odd but super fun, mother/son activity. I was scared and had no history of riding anything ever, other than a bicycle when I was a kid, but I poured myself into it and I got my license and I crossed that one off the list, very proudly I might add :)
I build relationships.
The relationship I have with my kids has been a priority since I gave birth to them. But it’s become a different kind of focus in the last few years as they’ve gotten older and what they need from me has changed. Their world was also thrown upside down as my marriage fell apart and opening up about my polyamorous lifestyle caused much dissension in my extended family. We became even more of everything to each other, as we all lost support from people we thought would always be behind us.
My boys are amazing. I know most moms say this, but it’s true — mine are the best :) My boys have been with me through thick and thin, and somewhere along the way, the lines of who was taking care of whom became blurred. At this point, it’s a fairly mutual thing, and I am grateful for this every single day. I would not be able to live where and how I do without their daily help, and I’d also likely be plain old crazy! We have a very open, authentic, discuss all the things in life, full of fun kind of dynamic. They are truly the biggest gifts in my life, and I have come to realize that every effort I have put into those humans has come back to me in more ways than I ever expected.
I have redefined my values.
Many things have changed for me in the last bunch of years. I lost people, I lost the faith of my youth, my marriage got upended, and life has been full of stress and trauma of one kind or another for a long time. As some things have quieted down, I have had time to redefine what is important to me. One of these values is that I want my home to be a safe haven and a gathering place.
When tensions increased as my husband and I went through a lot of changes in our relationship, I lost sight of this. My home didn’t even feel emotionally safe to me anymore. But since we decided to live apart, this is something I have been working on rebuilding with intentionality. Covid times made this a bit tricky, but we still managed. At this point, it’s mostly a gathering place for my kids’ friends, and I wasn’t expecting that to be the group to land here. Ironically, we have the smallest house and yet this is where everyone comes every weekend, if not multiple times through the week.
We have regular bonfires, and we always have a warm, safe place to hang out and even sleep. Whether they are seeking fun, they are bored or lonely, or they have been through the wringer at work, school or home, and need to talk or split wood while they work out aggression, they come here. We have become the safe space for so many and I love it! This is the stuff that feeds my soul.
I practice gratitude.
This point is likely the most encompassing. No matter what is going on in my life, if I step back for even a minute, it’s not hard to see how full of amazing things my life is. If you’ve made it this far into my story, you already know that I have outstanding kids and love and community and a pretty great home to be grateful for. Life is hard, but it’s also abundant, and I have made it a practice to notice these things every day.
I am a work in progress. I find the polyamorous lifestyle the hardest thing I have ever done. But I am also learning and growing and becoming a better version of myself every day because that’s what I decided to do. The alternative was losing myself completely, and I had too much to live for to go in that direction.
No matter what is going on in your world or how you’ve chosen to live your life, self-care is vital. When you take care of yourself and pay attention to what is important to you, I have found that things have a way of eventually sorting themselves out.
So go have a bath!