Hello! My pseudonym is Ophelia, and I’m joining the blog team primarily to write about my personal experiences with polyamory and the LGBTQ community. This is my introduction post, and while I won’t delve into anything too controversial or personal in this piece, I’ve decided to take a pseudonym in case I discuss any deeply personal aspects of my life or relationships in future posts. Please think of questions for me and post in the discussion below, as I will be heavily relying on feedback to direct future posts!
I have two wonderful partners in my life, who I will refer to as Samantha and Eric, or S&E for short. I met Eric my freshman year of undergrad, and we dated for three and a half years before getting engaged and later married. While we were engaged, he met Sam. Fast forward a few months, and the three of us are as thick as thieves. Obviously a lot happened behind the scenes, and it wasn’t always seamless, but I want to focus my first piece on my experiences as an openly bisexual polyamorous woman.
Being polyamorous and in a relationship with both a man and a woman has mostly supplanted the need for conversations about my sexuality. Once someone knows about S&E, they often correctly assume that I am either bi- or pan-sexual.
I never had a big “coming out” moment as bisexual, since I never felt as though I needed to. I was in a relationship with a man, and had always been in relationships with men. I always felt as though “coming out” would have been attention-seeking behavior or a misrepresentation; since I was straight-presenting and could cash in all sorts of straight privilege, it felt wrong to claim membership within the LGBTQ community (hello, internalized bi-phobia!).
Once S&E and I had become confident in our relationship, I realized that I did not want to hide such a large piece of my happiness. Most of my friends knew about Sam by that point, but they are all chill millennials who would barely blink an eye at that type of thing. Telling my family was a bit more of a process. After I was open in my personal life, however, I would notice myself falling into familiar patterns of interaction with my co-workers and other professional contacts. It was so easy to refer to “my husband” if any personal topics arose, and completely omit this entire other aspect of who I am as a person. Once I noticed this, I made a conscious effort to change it.
During the rotations I had to complete for school, I decided to use the term “my partners” if anything personal arose. It worked surprisingly well. Most people just rolled with the punch and continued like nothing had happened. One or two asked for clarification “like, business partners?” to which I responded, “no, life partners.” I am actually shocked that more people didn’t ask questions or seem surprised, but I suppose that would have seemed rude.
I have (so far) never had a negative encounter of casually mentioning “my partners.” I even used the term in conversation with my Real People Boss at my Real People Job, and we had a nice conversation about S&E. That said, I suppose I am good at guessing how people will react, and there are certain people in my professional career I would not be open with.
Overall, I have been very happy since “coming out” as polyamorous in my personal and professional lives. I feel closer to my family and to those that I have shared this part of my life with. It’s wonderful to be able to bring S&E to family gatherings and other social occasions. And I have double the love!
P.S. I love questions! I don’t know what you don’t know, and I’d love future posts to be informative or interesting for readers – so ask away in the discussion section below!
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