Tag: break ups

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Abandonment, Jealousy, and Other Common Fears When Opening Up a Relationship [Polyamory Conversation Cards #16]

Published on by Amy

Opening up a relationship that was previously monogamous is challenging and can be scary. Making the switch from monogamy to non-monogamy is more than just a change of relationship structure. It can be a fundamental paradigm shift in the way you view the world, view love, and relate to the other people in your life.

Of course that’s scary!

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it if non-monogamy is something you want.

In case you missed it, this post is part of a series inspired by Odder Being’s Polyamory Conversation Cards. As often as I can, I’ll pull a card at random and write a piece of content based on it. There will likely be some essays, advice pieces, personal experiences, rants, and more! You can read the whole series at the dedicated tag. And if you want to support my work and get occasional bonus content, head on over to my Patreon.

This week’s card asks:

“What fears or concerns do you have about your current or future relationships?”

Fear can be powerful. Fear can drive people to behave in all kinds of ways that do not align with their values, their desired outcomes, or the kinds of people they want to be. But fear, though very real, does not have to rule you.

In this post, we’ll look at some of the most common fears people have when they are opening up a relationship from monogamy to polyamory or non-monogamy. We’ll expose the realities behind the fears and explore some possible ways that you can reframe them.

“I’m afraid I will feel jealous.”

Sometimes you will.

Jealousy is a normal human emotion that we all feel from time to time. Those people who claim they’re immune? They are either full of shit or simply have not encountered a jealousy-inducing situation yet. You can no more be “immune to jealousy” than you can be “immune to sadness”. Some people feel jealous more often and more readily than others, but we are all capable of feeling it. Opening up a relationship does expose you to more potentially jealousy-inducing situations, though.

I don’t teach that jealousy should be avoided. Instead, I teach that jealousy shouldn’t be feared. When you fear or demonise jealousy, you create a powerful incentive to avoid it at all costs. This can prevent people from opening up a relationship at all, even if non-monogamy would generally suit them very well. It can also lead to people attemping to exert inappropriate control over their partners and metamours, creating all kinds of restrictive rules on other relationships, or exercising abusive practices such as veto.

Instead, I recommend getting comfortable with the fact that you will likely feel jealous sometimes. Then, instead of trying to prevent jealousy, you can create strategies that help you to cope with it when it arises.

“I’m afraid my partner will abandon me for someone else.”

This can happen in monogamy, too.

One of the hardest things to grapple with in any kind of relationship is the knowledge that your partner(s) can leave if they choose to. This includes the possibility that they could meet someone else and leave you for that person. In fact, the ability to leave – to opt out of a relationship at any time and for any reason – is one of the cornerstones of consensual relationships.

Some people believe that non-monogamy makes it more likely that their partner will leave them in favour of someone else. I do not believe this is true.

Here’s how I look at it: in a monogamous relationship, if my partner falls for someone else then they have a choice to make. They can have that new person or they can have me, but not both. In a polyamorous relationship, though, they can have both of us. (Well, unless the other person is monogamous or issues them with a binary them-or-me ultimatum… but if my partner is the kind of person who would give up polyamory for monogamy, or cave to an ultimatum, they’re not the kind of person I want to be with anyway.)

Of course, knowing that this is possible in any relationship structure and that the ability to leave is part of a consensual relationship doesn’t make it suck any less when someone does leave you. It still hurts like hell. But the risk of breakups is part of the deal when you open your heart to other humans. Opening up a relationship can increase this risk because, by definition, connecting with more people means more potential for breakups. Even so, I believe the rewards far outweigh the risks.

“I’m afraid my partner will like someone else more than me.”

This one comes in a lot of different guises, from “what if they’re kinkier than me?” to “what if he has a bigger dick than I do?”

Over and over, one consistent trait I’ve observed in the most successful non-monogamous people I know is this: they refuse to compare their partners. And I don’t just mean that they don’t voice those comparisons out loud. I mean that they fundamentally do not understand the act of comparing people they love to one another. The very idea of viewing relationships in that way is reprehensible to them.

I recommend doing everything to can to exorcise this way of thinking entirely. Do not compare your partners to one another and do not compare yourself to your metamours. This does not mean viewing everyone as the same or interchangeable, of course. Instead, cultivate an attitude of appreciating the things that are unique and special about each person and each relationship.

If it helps with the reframing, think about your friends. Chances are that you have different friends who you enjoy different activities or dynamics with. I have “dance all night in gay bars” friends, “get gin-drunk on the sofa and watch The L Word” friends, “drink tea and crochet” friends, “theatre buddy” friends, and more. Sometimes these things overlap, and sometimes they don’t. But I don’t value certain types of friendships more or less than others. I just enjoy each relationship for what it is. Romantic relationships can be exactly the same.

You deserve better than to be compared and ranked. If your partner is doing that, you’ve got a bigger problem on your hands.

“I’m afraid non-monogamy will change my relationship.”

It will. But so will lots of things.

Getting married, moving in together, moving house, having a baby, going through a bereavement, taking a new job or losing a job, making new friends, or getting involved in new hobbies can change relationships. But we do not typically avoid doing these things out of fear of change.

I wrote an entire (lengthy!) essay on this one and I recommend you go and read it. TL/DR version: opening up a relationship will change it, but change can be good. Communicate, know yourself, understand your bottom-lines and dealbreakers, and lead with trust.

“I’m afraid of losing control.”

Control is an illusion.

Monogamy often gives people a sense of control in a relationship. You know your partner won’t have sex with someone else, fall in love with someone else, leave you for someone else… right? Because they’re not allowed. Because the rules of monogamy protect you.

Except not really. Just look at the statistics around how many monogamous people cheat, have affairs, leave their partners for other people. The rules of monogamy are only as good as the people following them, and a lot of people simply don’t. Non-monogamy removes the illusion of protection those rules offer. But it doesn’t actually remove security or guarantees or control, because those things never existed in the first place.

Unless you were going to employ abusive tactics to keep your partner under your thumb then you never had control over your partner. This is a good thing. Adults should not have control over other adults (consensual, revokable and carefully-negotiated D/s notwithstanding.)

Non-monogamy simply challenges you to find security elsewhere rather than in the illusion of control or the always-breakable rules of monogamy.

“I’m afraid of STIs.”

I’m going to ask a difficult and blunt question: are you really, or are you using fear of STIs to mask an emotional reaction to your partner(s) being sexually intimate with other people?

STIs are a real concern when you’re having sex with other humans. We should not be blasé about sexual health. However, research indicates that consensually non-monogamous people are more likely to take precautions with their sexual health – such as barrier usage and regular testing – than the very high proportion of monogamous people who cheat. (Lehmiller, 2015.)

A lot of people unfortunately exaggerate their fears of STIs in order to control their partners. They hide behind sexual health to implement rigid rules or place limits on their partners’ interactions with others.

Whether you’re genuinely terrified of STIs or have realised this fear is masking a more emotional issue, here are five important things to remember as you navigate sexual health and non-monogamy:

  • Your sexual health is ultimately your responsibility. Understand your personal framework of acceptable risk, test regularly, use whatever barriers make you feel safe, and keep open lines of communication around sexual health with each of your partners.
  • Your partners also have a responsibility towards you and your sexual health. This includes testing regularly, being honest with you about their practices, informing you of any changes, and honouring any boundaries you put in place around your own body and sexual behaviours. It does not include limiting their interactions with other partners or capitulating to rules you attempt to place on their other connections.
  • With many of the common STIs, the stigma surrounding them is worse than the infection itself. Many STIs are either curable through a simple course of medication. Others can be managed to enable you to lead a full and normal life without passing the infection on. We should all take reasonable precautions to avoid contracting or passing on STIs, but we should also keep things in perspective. STIs are things that sometimes happen when humans come into intimate contact with other humans, just like the common cold or COVID-19. They’re not shameful and they’re not life-ruiners.
  • Barrier methods, such as condoms and dams, are still the most effective protection against STIs. You can also take other preventative precautions, such as getting the vaccines for human papillomavirus (HPV), hepatitis A and hepatitis B, and getting on PreP if you’re eligible. If you share sex toys, get educated on how to do so safely.
  • Having more sexual partners throughout your life does increase your lifetime risk for contracting an STI, but – assuming you’re sensible – probably not as much as you might think.

“I’m afraid no-one will want to date me.”

This one is really common, and I hear it from cis men more than any other demographic. Cis men partnered with women, in particular, fear that if they open up their relationship then their wives will be inundated with offers while they’re left on the proverbial shelf.

In non-monogamy as in monogamy, there are no guarantees. I can’t promise you will find a certain number of partners or find them in a specific timeframe. Sadly, a lot of factors can come into play here that you have little to no control over, from gendered dating dynamics to desirability politics. Opening up a relationship from monogamy does not guarantee that both partners will have equal dating options available to them.

However, there are also lots of things you can do to stack the odds in your favour. I’m planning to write an entire post on this subject soon, but in short:

  • Get on polyamory-friendly dating apps and write a compelling profile.
  • Get involved in your local polyamory community, joining online groups and attending meetups. Focus on making friends initially, and get to know everyone – not just people you find attractive. Finding dates will follow.
  • Consider getting involved in other groups and spaces where polyamorous people are known to hang out – kink communities, geeky pursuits such as D&D and boardgames, and ren faires are all known to attract plenty of polyam folks.
  • Work on yourself. Go to therapy, pursue your interests and passions, and invest in your relationships with your friends, existing partner(s), and others in your life.
  • Aim to date others who already identify as polyamorous/non-monogamous, not to convert monogamous people.
  • Keep an open mind about the types of people you connect with and the types of relationship structures you’re looking for.

Most importantly, give it time. Try to enjoy the process of dating, meeting people, and making connections rather than rushing towards a destination.

If you’re opening up a relationship or have previously opened up, what fears are/were you dealing with? Let me know if there are any big ones I’ve missed!

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Polyamory Breakup Tips: How to Support Your Partner Through a Breakup with Someone Else [Polyamory Conversation Cards #15]

Published on by Amy

I have thought more about breakups in the last one hundred and four days at the time of writing (but who’s counting?) than I ever thought either possible or desirable. I’m not even close to ready to write about the particular and brutal ways that my own heart has been torn out this year, and I’m not sure when I will be, but at least I can use this experience to bring you some hopefully-useful polyamory breakup tips.

In case you missed it, this post is part of a series inspired by Odder Being’s Polyamory Conversation Cards. Once a week or as often as I can, I’ll pull a card at random and write a piece of content based on it. There will likely be some essays, advice pieces, personal experiences, rants, and more! You can read the whole series at the dedicated tag. And if you want to support my work and get occasional bonus content, head on over to my Patreon.

This week’s card asks:

“How can your partner(s) best support you when you’re facing challenges in your other relationships or have a broken heart?”

I’m not going to give you my best “how to get over a breakup” tips, mostly because I don’t fucking know y’all, I wouldn’t still be crying every day if I knew that. So instead, we’ll look at another unique polyamory breakup problem: how to support your partner when someone else has broken their heart.

Ask What They Need

This is always my first tip when people ask me how to support their partner through a breakup or any other traumatic life event. People are different and need different things. Some people want lots of company and distraction when they’re heartbroken. Others prefer to be given plenty of their own space to turn inwards and process. So ask your partner what they need and what will be most helpful to them.

Of course, they may not know, and you need to make room for that. But even if they don’t know now, the simple act of asking shows that you care. It shows that you will be there for them as and when they do know what they need.

With that said, read on for some general tips that I’ve found tend to work well.

Take Care of the Practical Things

For the first four or five days after my most recent breakup, I could do almost nothing but lie on the sofa and cry. Mr C&K took care of practical things around our home, picking up the slack where I couldn’t and cooking for me so that I’d at least have a chance at eating something healthy.

Taking care of practical things can be a godsend for someone who is heartbroken. In the midst of grief, even small daily tasks can feel insurmountable. So feed them, take care of household chores, pick up the kids from school or walk the dog. By taking these things off their plate, you give them time and space to do the grieving they need to do.

Distract Them

Grief and heartbreak need to be processed. However, no-one can do this 24 hours a day until they feel better. Sometimes, it’s important just to get back out into the world and think about other things.

Providing distractions can be a great way to cheer someone up, pull them out of the fog, and show them that they’re still an awesome and complete human without the person who broke their heart. Take them out if they’re up for it. Watch fun movies or TV shows with them, play a game, do a project, or just talk about something else.

Let Them Feel Their Feelings

When someone you love is hurting, it can be tempting to want to make them feel better by any means necessary. This comes from a good place, but it can end up doing more harm than good. If you’re not careful, your partner may end up feeling pressured to hide their true feelings or to “get over it” more quickly than is realistic for them.

Hold space for their feelings. Do not diminish those feelings, try to “logic” your partner out of feeling them, or tell them that they shouldn’t feel a particular way. Instead validate, empathise, and let them know that whatever they feel is okay.

Don’t Expect it to be Quick or Easy

Breakups, particularly bad and traumatic breakups, are a form of grief. This pain does not, for most of us, pass quickly or easily. It can take weeks, months, or even years for someone to completely get over the ending of a relationship.

That’s not to say they’ll be totally non-functional for all that time. Most people won’t be. I went back to work a few days after my recent breakup, because I had to.

Sometimes, they might think they’re fine. They might even be fine for hours, days, weeks at a time. Then something will remind them of the breakup and they’ll be slammed by a wave of grief again. Be there for them when this happens. Be patient, and be prepared to reassure them that this experience is normal.

Resist the Temptation to Step Into the Ex Partner’s Place

When your partner is experiencing loss, it’s natural to want to fill that void. In a polyamorous situation, remaining partners often make the mistake of trying to step into the ex partner’s place or fill their shoes (either in a self-serving way, in an attempt to comfort the grieving partner, or both.)

Resist this temptation with all your might.

Nurture and grow your own relationship with your partner, and allow it to be what it is. This may or may not include changing some aspects of it in response to the breakup, either temporarily or permanently. But do not try to be or to replace someone else. It will backfire badly on both of you if you do.

Seek Support for Yourself, If You Need It

There are two important angles to consider here.

Firstly, caring for someone else – even (or especially) someone you love immensely – can be draining. It’s important to also take care of your own needs and seek support so that you don’t burn out.

The Circle of Grief can be useful here: support in, dump out. In other words, extend support to people who are closer to the current crisis than you (in this case, that’s your partner who got their heart broken.) Vent to, complain to, and seek support from people who are further away from it than you (in this case, that’s likely other friends or family, possibly other partners, and maybe a therapist.)

If you were practicing kitchen table polyamory or were otherwise close to your now ex-metamour, you might also be experiencing your own feelings of loss and grief. I’ve lost friendships and sexual relationships with metamours when one of us broke up with our mutual partner, and that loss is real and painful. If this sounds familiar, don’t forget to tend to yourself too.

Do you have any useful polyamory breakup tips for us? Any amazing ways your partner(s) have supported you when someone else broke your heart?

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15 Things I’ve Learned in 15 Years of Polyamory

Published on by Amy

Today, 13 March 2024, marks my 15th anniversary of being polyamorous. Of course, knowing how to quantify such things or where to count from isn’t always easy. Personally, I count from the first day that I was in two romantic relationships at the same time (with the full knowledge and consent of everyone involved, of course.) For me, this was the day I got together with my first girlfriend – the woman I call my firework – while still being with my then-fiancé.

I’ve changed a lot, many times over, in those intervening fifteen years. Unsurprisingly, neither of those relationships survived for the long-haul. I’ve also learned a few things, even if I still feel like I’m winging it half the time.

So just for fun, here are fifteen things I’ve learned about polyamory and non-monogamy to celebrate fifteen years in this world.

1. You’ll probably never stop feeling as though you’re making it all up as you go along

The nature of non-normative relationships is that there are few roadmaps. Sure, there are books like The Ethical Slut, Polysecure, Polywise and so on but, compared to an entire world of monogamy-centric conditioning and assumptions about how relationships work, a lot of this is relatively unchartered territory.

As you navigate a non-monogamous relationship structure, you’ll likely always feel to some extent like you’re making it up as you go. Embrace it. That journey is part of the fun.

2. Being too rigid about relationship structures is the enemy of happiness

A lot of people enter non-monogamy thinking they know exactly what they want out of their relationships. A closed triad, an open quad, one male and one female partner, a sprawling polycule made up exclusively of neurodivergent queers…

It’s fine to have an idea of what sort of thing might make you happy, but being too rigid about the relationship structures you’re seeking can prevent you from connecting with the actual humans in front of you. Instead, stay open to possibility and accept that it will probably never look exactly like the “ideal” vision you thought you had when you first decided to practice non-monogamy. You know what’s really cool though? It might end up even better.

3. More relationships means more joy, but also more heartbreak

Being polyamorous has brought me tremendous joy. It has also brought me some of the most devastating heartbreaks of my life, including one very recent one.

When you have more relationships, you can experience more of those glorious highs that being in love brings. The flip side of this is that you also have more potential for heartbreak. Unless you’re extraordinarily lucky, at some point some of your polyamorous relationships will end, and it will suck every bit as much as it does when a monogamous relationship ends.

4. You cannot open a relationship without changing it

I recently wrote an entire huge essay about this, so I won’t recap all those points again here. But many couples come to non-monogamy saying “we want to do this without it changing our relationship.” To which, in the kindest possible way, I say “good luck with that.”

To transition from monogamy to non-monogamy is to change the fundamental structure, foundation, and nature of a relationship. There is no way to make this transition and to keep your relationship the same as it was before. This isn’t something to be afraid of, though. Change can be good. Change can be beautiful.

5. You will likely always feel at least some jealousy at least occasionally

A common misconception from monogamous people is that polyamorous people don’t get jealous. A common misconception from newly polyamorous people is that at some point they will trancend jealousy and simply… never feel it again.

Hah. I wish.

Jealousy is a normal human emotion that we are all susceptible to from time to time. You’ll likely always struggle with it at least occasionally. Instead of fearing it or placing restrictions on your relationships in an attempt to avoid it, though, it’s time to get comfortable with it. Learn to sit with difficult feelings, learn to understand what they’re telling you, and learn to communicate your way through them with your partners.

6. Compersion is lovely but it’s not essential

Compersion – that feeling of warm, fuzzy joy you get when you see your partner happy with one of their other lovers – can be absolutely wonderful. It’s one of my favourite things about polyamory. What it is not, though, is essential. Some people will never feel compersion and can still be happily polyamorous. Many people feel it sometimes but not all the time, with all partners, or in all situations.

Either way is fine. Chasing compersion is likely to just make it even harder to attain, and beating yourself up for not feeling it will make it downright impossible to find.

7. Look for community before you look for partners

When people decide to practice non-monogamy, particularly if they are opening up from an existing couple, they’re likely to ask “where can I/we meet potential partners?” And it’s a fair question, but it’s also not the first one you should be asking.

Instead of looking for partners, look for community. Join groups and forums, go to meetups, attend polyamory events and classes and workshops, and get to know other people doing this thing we call consensual non-monogamy. Finding people to date will fall into place, but you need non-monogamous friends and safe community spaces first.

8. With rare and specific exceptions, mono/poly does not work

I’ve seen a lot of people attempt a mono/poly relationship, where one person wants a monogamous relationship and the other person wants a polyamorous one. If you find that you and a partner or prospective partner have this incompatibility, the best and kindest thing you can do in 95% of cases is break up amicably.

When people attempt to make a mono/poly relationship work, most of the time one or both parties is utterly fucking miserable. Sure, you might be the exception to the rule. But in most cases, the polyamorous person will feel trapped and restricted or the monogamous person will feel sad, jealous and resentful… often both.

9. Humans are extraordinarly bad at predicting how things will make us feel

“Experience shock” is a phenomenon wherein how we think we’ll feel about something in advance does not align with how we actually feel about the thing when it happens. It’s incredibly common and so, so normal. Most of us are really bad at predicting how we will feel about something ahead of time.

Make room for experience shock as you explore non-monogamy, both your own and your partners’. Learn to say “this feels different in practice to how I thought it would in theory.” Learn to talk through difficult feelings as they come up and give yourself and your partners permission to say “I don’t actually know how I will feel about this.”

Most importantly, never ever berate yourself or a partner for having experience shock.

10. Rules and restrictions are almost always a bad way to deal with difficulties

When there’s a challenge in your relationship – particularly a spousal or nesting relationship – or one of you is feeling something difficult, is your impulse to bring in rules and restrictions on outside relationships in an attempt to solve the problem or eliminate the feeling?

I understand the temptation, but this is almost always the wrong approach for several reasons. First, your or your partner’s outside relationships are just as important as the one between the two of you. Those other partners are people with feelings and should not be collateral damage in your relationship issues.

Secondly, if your partner doesn’t want to consider your needs and treat you well, the rules won’t actually compel them to (and if they do want to, the rules are unnecessary.)

Finally, restrictive rules do not build trust and security. If anything, they stifle its growth by strategising around problems instead of actually addressing them.

11. No matter how many partners you have, you will still feel lonely sometimes

Of all the things I’ve learned about polyamory, this one might be the hardest to swallow. Loneliness is a reality of life no matter what relationship structure you practice. Some people think they can avoid loneliness through non-monogamy. After all, if I have enough partners I never have to be alone… right?

Yeah, sorry, it doesn’t work like that. Even if you have ten partners, there will be days when they’re all busy or on other dates or working or sick or otherwise not available to you. And sometimes you’ll feel lonely even if you’re surrounded by people, because that’s just how humans work.

Learning to be comfortable in your own company is a vital skill not just for polyamory, but for relationships in general. Feeling okay alone allows you to approach relationships from a place of curiosity and possibility, not one of desperation, and helps to prevent you from staying too long in relationships that are not working for you.

12. You can probably handle one fewer partners than you think you can when you’re starting out

How many serious relationships do you think you can manage, nurture, and sustain at one time? If you’re new to polyamory or have not yet tested this theory, substract one from the number you just said. That’s more likely to be your actual number.

Polysaturation is real, and oversaturation can be tremendously damaging, both for the person experiencing it and for their partners. To avoid becoming oversaturated, start one relationship at a time and give that relationship plenty of time to grow, mature, and settle into the form it wants to take before you start any others.

I have met very few polyamorous people who can successfully handle more than three serious relationships. Those people exist, but they are the exception.

13. NRE is fun, but long-term love is where the really good stuff is

New relationship energy (NRE), also known as the honeymoon period, is that giddy love-drunk feeling at the start of a new relationship where you can’t get enough of the other person. Polyamory allows you to experience NRE multiple times throughout your life without needing to lose any existing relationships.

NRE is a lot of fun. It’s also finite, kinda exhausting after a while, and can cause its own problems. Long-term love, though? That’s where the real magic is for me. When you’ve overcome challenges, had each other’s backs, and seen each other at your worst and you’re still totally in love. For me, the security and comfort and safety that comes with this kind of love – and the ability to have that with multiple people – is one of the greatest joys of polyamory.

14. Most metamour problems are actually hinge problems

Not getting along with your metamour – your partner’s partner – is a real concern for many polyamorous people. However, I’ve realised over the years that most problems with metamours are actually problems with the hinge partner (that is, the person in the middle.)

If your metamour’s behaviour is damaging your relationship with your shared partner, they have a responsibility to manage the situation. They should be setting boundaries, advocating for their relationship with you, or keeping the relationships parallel. They should not be playing you and your metamour off against each other or sacrificing your relationship to placate another person.

If you think you have a metamour problem, you probably have a hinge problem. This isn’t universally true, of course, but it is true the vast majority of the time.

15. There are no experts

Whenever I’m writing, speaking, being quoted, or teaching a class about polyamory, I am always very firm that I am not under any circumstances to be referred to as a “polyamory expert.” This is because I don’t believe there are any experts. We’re all just imperfect humans working this thing out as we go along (see #1 on this list!) Some of us are sharing the wisdom we’ve gathered, but none of us actually have it entirely figured out.

Not to mention, in the last few years we’ve seen what happens when certain voices are elevated and exalted too much and for too long in this community.

So there you have it. Fifteen things I’ve learned from fifteen years in polyamory. Whether you’ve been doing this for five minutes or for so long it puts my mere decade and a half to shame, I’d love to know the most important lessons you’ve learned about non-monogamy on your journey!

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Empty Spaces

Published on by Amy1 Comment

Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know that I recently ended my relationship with the person I referred to as The Artist. As with the ending of any long-term relationship, the reasons were complex and I won’t be going into them here. Please respect my/our privacy and don’t ask me to spill details, because I won’t. Please don’t make assumptions or demonise them, even under the guise of being supportive.

When you end a relationship, especially a long-term relationship, it inevitably leaves empty spaces behind. People think that us polyamorous folks can just brush off a breakup. “You have other partners, right? So what’s the big deal?” they ask. To that, I want to say this: if you lose a dear friend, do you just shrug it off because you still have other friends? Of course you don’t.

Yes, I’m in the fortunate position of not being alone. Yes, Mr CK has been an absolute fucking rockstar in all this, supporting me through making an incredibly difficult decision and caring for me through my heartbreak. But you know what? I broke up with someone I loved. It still hurt like absolute fuck.

When you love an artist, you inevitably accumulate a collection of their work over the years. The choker-definitely-not-a-collar they made for me is still hanging on the back of my office door as I write this, wondering what the hell to do with it now. There are empty picture hooks on my wall where the paintings they did for me used to hang. I took them down and packed them away because looking at them was a visceral reminder of the loss and grief in the immediate aftermath. Memories shoved into a closed drawer, maybe to be revisited someday when the pain is less immediate. Empty spaces, a fitting metaphor for the total obliteration of everything we had.

After I finished taking the paintings down, I automatically picked up my phone and scrolled through messages, my fingers tingling with unsaid words. That little green bubble by their name showing they’re online, and the do-it-don’t-do-it battle not to send the message. I still love you. I’m sorry. I wish I’d had any other choice. Typing and untyping, writing and deleting, imagining them seeing the little dot-dot-dot next to my name, all the things we both said and didn’t say and probably should have said and definitely shouldn’t.

I have had a tendency, in the past, to jump from one serious relationship directly into another. Though this hasn’t always gone badly (Mr CK and I hooked up very soon after I left my abuser, after all,), I don’t think it is a healthy pattern overall. The result is that I end up basing my worth and my sense of self on my romantic relationships.

That’s why, in the wake of this most recent breakup, I decided to take a long break from dating new people. I don’t know yet quite how long this break will last or what it will look like. At the moment, I’m tentatively considering getting back on the dating apps after the new year. But right now, even thinking about it is exhausting. The idea of sitting across the table from a stranger and trying to figure out if there is any chance of us fitting together, the idea of having to disclose that I’m a survivor and have a history of mental illness and oh by the way I have a sex blog, fills me with dread.

So I’m hitting the pause button.

As a polyamorous ethical slut, there’s sometimes an internalised sense that I should always be dating new people or at least open to dating new people. Isn’t closing myself off to new connections just a holdover from monogamous culture? Well, no.

I need to get to know these empty spaces inside me that I have filled or attempted to fill with one relationship after another after another since I was fourteen.

I’m still a polyamorous person. Just having the one serious partner (as well as a couple of casual or not-sure-yet-it’s-early-days connections) doesn’t negate that part of my identity. Just like being bi isn’t dependent on the gender of my partners, being polyam isn’t dependent on the number of them there are.

I’m just doing things differently this time. Instead of trying to fill the empty spaces with another new relationship that is probably not a great fit in the long run, I’m filling them with other things that nourish me. With hobbies and friends, with self-work and self-compassion, with therapy and writing and fitness and literally anything else.

I’m lucky to be able to do this from the position of having a secure, stable nesting relationship as a base, and I am immeasurably grateful to Mr CK for providing that base. But the ending of any relationship still leaves empty spaces behind, and I am both excited and terrified to explore those spaces and see what I want to fill them with next.

I’ll think about dating again when doing so fills me with excitement.

This post was written as part of Smutathon 2021! You can check out all our work and learn more about the challenge on the Smutathon website. Please consider donating to this year’s charities, Gendered Intelligence and Trans Lifeline.

A bunch of dead roses. For a post about a D/s break-up

“Bring the Collar:” The True Story of a D/s Break-Up

Published on by Amy1 Comment

I don’t want to write this post. I really don’t. I’ve been mulling it over all day and a huge part of me just wants to go, “oh fuck it” and write a generic “how to get over a break-up” listicle.

But I feel like that’d be a cop-out. Today’s 30 Days of D/s prompts is all about break-ups, and to be honest I’ve been inspired by Kayla’s amazing raw honesty in telling the story of her own D/s break-up a few years ago. So… here goes nothing, I guess.

15.05.2015

Realistically, I knew we were breaking up. Our relationship had disintegrated beyond repair now I’d finally, a good five years too late, begun to stand up for myself.

We were to meet in the park. Neutral ground. The stated aim: to have the make-or-break conversation. My true intention, though: to escape as quickly as possible with my head held high and my dignity intact.

All of this to say, dear readers: I knew it was over. It was overer than over. That relationship, like Marley, was dead as a doornail.

Still, it was three words on a text that broke me into pieces and tested my get the fuck out resolve to its limit.

“Bring the collar.”

Of course, I’d known he would want it back. That was in the contract. The Contract, to love and protect on his part. To love and obey on mine. Worth less, in the scheme of keeping us together, than the notepaper it was written on. But even so, this was the moment it sunk in. Master is releasing me. He doesn’t want me any more.

My subby heart broke then. I’d thought I was as good as over it – mentally checked out of the relationship I was technically still in. I’d mourned the man I’d loved, come to accept he’d never been real and this monster who now stood in his place had been him all along. The guy who told me I was the most beautiful woman he’d ever known, one perfect night in a student dorm room when I was nineteen, and the man who looked me in the eyes five years later and told me I was poison, were one and the same person.

But as his submissive, I’d tried so hard to please. To obey, do everything he said, shut my mouth and look pretty and never take up more space than my little allotted corner. A toy isn’t supposed to complain when it’s tossed aside once playtime is over.

What I felt then, when I kissed the little silver lock of the collar one more time and handed it over to him while I tried not to cry, was that I’d failed. He’d thrown it at me plenty of times over the preceding weeks, while whatever was left of our love dripped down the drain. Bad sub. Not really submissive. Disobedient. If you’d just shut up and do as you were told, we’d be fine.

For years, I’d twisted myself until the core of my identity was being his. I wrote him a poem in the early days. In it, I said, “You are life. You are oxygen. You are everything.” My blood and breath. My heart and soul. More myself than I am.

What I know now, and wish I’d known then, is that I wasn’t the one who failed. I was just a young girl who got thrown into a lion’s den too complicated and fucked up to comprehend, and then spent years trying to tame the most vicious, dominant lion while he snapped and snarled at her heels.

He was the one who failed me. He promised too much, delivered too little, broke me down too hard. I gave love, loyalty, obedience, absolute devotion, and what I got in return was emotional devastation, over and over and fucking over.

In that moment, I saw him as he was. All my idealistic, teenage bullshit fell away and I saw a man who could never love me. A man who can, in all likelihood, never truly love anyone. In that moment, I took myself back. I gave him back his collar but I took back my agency, my power, my life.

You’re not my blood and breath. I am.

I belong to nobody. I am free. And I am happy.

No kinky item today. This is too raw to add anything to it. If you want to help with my ongoing therapy bills, just hit the buy me a coffee button!