We Created a Family by Moving in with Our Partners
By: M. Ellery
Tags: Relationships, Love, Home, Family, Polyamory

We Created a Family by Moving in with Our Partners

Building a home with partners & friends in adulthood was one of the best decisions of my life

Us moving out of our apartment | Photo courtesy of author

Living in a single-bedroom apartment with my partner for the last 2 years was great. We had an amazing time while we were there and it seemed like it was the perfect place for the two of us. But solely because it was the only cultural path of adulthood we knew back then.

Dreams & Expectations

I always knew I had to leave my parents behind (& grandparents in my case) to start my journey. In my family, it is culturally accepted that you move in with friends while you are in college. By saying that, I already involuntarily picture pictured a dorm-type commonplace in my mind. Someone's Led Zeppelin poster in the wall, hanging next to someone else's Lord of the Rings one, culturally clashing with the handwoven Brazilian pillows brought from a grandma's old house, all mixed up with stolen bar cups, and mismatching forks and knives, everything combined and not-so-carefully brought from each one's past.

I also picture parents half-happy to see their kids leaving while half-sad for having to endure the empty nest phenomenon. Unfortunately, both parents and kids think they don't have a choice because that is the path society has set for them.

And during this teenage-college moment, you better start looking for a husband or wife to move out with you from your messy life to a brand new one that comes together in the Happy Marriage Package: A washer and dryer in the unit, beautiful plates and cutlery that go well together (probably gotten as a wedding gift), and an always well-done bed, in a happily-ever-after-do-not-disturb-us state of mind.

I had that dream. Actually, I think my grandparents had that dream for my mom, and then she had that dream for me, and then I had that dream for myself and probably thought I would dream it for my children as well. And it is so upsetting to know that there are so many preconceptions that are established for us, way before we know we can choose anything or decide to change something in the middle of the way.

Liberation Through Change

But it is also very liberating when we find that out and realize we are able to change it, thanks to neuroplasticity and our ever-evolving capacity to adapt our brains.

Neural plasticity is the nervous system's ability to adapt and form new synapses, new connections, memories, abilities, and behaviors. And I can feel mine changing alright. It started when I and my partner decided to become non-monogamous. The little synapses started shifting their preconceived shapes and notions and it seemed that a whole new world had opened up for us. So many things I hadn't known before.

It started when I and my partner decided to become non-monogamous. The little synapses started shifting their preconceived shapes and notions and it seemed that a whole new world had opened up for us.

So many new feelings that I didn't know how to name. The unknown happiness of seeing my partner feeling happy kissing someone else, which I later discovered was called compersion. The unknown butterfly in my stomach of feeling desire for someone else at the same time my partner felt the same for the same person and being happy because of that. The joy of being able to extend my love to more people and not have it being called cheating. All of that and much more expanded my worldview in ways I couldn't imagine.

My partner and I started seeing how life could be much bigger than a one-bedroom apartment, shared with a one-person, between 4 walls that were molded to us way before we even knew we could choose something different. When I was younger I loved to live in my grandma's house with my mom. It always felt celebratory, uncles and aunts coming and going, the table always full, the heart always warm. And it is funny because those are exactly the things we miss when we have to go back to our binary pre-established houses and those are the reasons we always come back, be it on birthdays, holidays, or special occasions. Because as social beings, we love to live in groups, we love to be together, and society once more took that away from us. And who says it needs to be like that? We were ready to change it for ourselves.

Missing Togetherness

During the pandemic, my partner and I were staying together 24h at home and it started to feel dull. We still felt the same love that we shared for one another, it was always there, but the way we interacted started to change. It was all too intense, work, eat, sleep, have sex, do exercises, watch TV, discuss, go to the bathroom, shower, everything seeing one another every time in the same shared one bedroom.

One day he told me "Before, I loved the feeling of coming back home. But now, I would love to leave home to have time for myself" and I couldn't be angry at him, or sad because it was true. Living in a small space, confined just the two of us, had us losing our privacy, losing our desire, losing the excitement to share something new as we were already sharing everything.

When I was younger I loved to live in my grandma’s house with my mom. It always felt celebratory, uncles and aunts coming and going, the table always full, the heart always warm.

We then decided to travel with our best friends, a married couple that became very close to us, on a long-weekend trip. And it was the best decision we ever made. Having that community-feeling back that I so much missed from my childhood was what I ever wanted. I wanted to have that place in which we could share chores, laughs, tears, and stories. I wanted that heartwarming feeling back, and we had that and much more on that trip! And once again, my little synapses started rebuilding their connections.

I finally could see outside the realm of the adulthood pre-established binary household, I saw that we could actually live in a community and curiously, it looked very much alike to what I had in my childhood.

Finding a Home

When the four of us started talking about it, it started becoming more and more like a reality. We started looking for houses and places to live, and once again, the cultural norms of adulthood came knocking on our doors. In the first apartment we went to, the landlord told us "Even if you guys can prove the income for the rent, you know that if we have to decide between the five of you or a family, we would go with the family" which unfortunately was something that we were already prepared to hear, knowing the society we live in.

The other apartments usually had a larger room (the parents) and much smaller rooms for the kids. Others had all the rooms so small and separate from each other that we could only think that it was for newcome students that don't know each other and possibly want to continue that way, as separate as possible.

After a lot of looking around, we finally found the perfect place. I was reluctant to tell my mother about it, as even her being a psychologist, I think her brain is still not prepared enough for this kind of information. And how crazy is that right? I still have to prepare to tell my mom that I, a married person, am moving in with my partner and my married friends, something that shouldn't be a problem at all, but since I am already an adult, that is much against what she has learned her whole life.

Creating the Family We Desired

When I finally told her, she said to me "What? moving in with friends? So you are going to reduce your privacy to a room????" And that came out so shockingly to me, as we lived our WHOLE lives like that, me and her, with our privacy restricted to our rooms, and our shared lives with our huge family in Brazil, which by the way, we loved!!

When did I reply that to her, "Yes mom, it will be exactly what we had when I was a kid, and we loved having those non-privacy moments remember? we loved staying longer than the mealtime at the table talking about everything, we loved being together with everyone in the living room during movie time and we loved having a house full to always come back. So, I am just going back to what we did and loved, what is the matter with that?" to which she replied, "I am old fashioned and I am monogamous, and yes I don't understand, but I want your happiness, so if your happy, I am fine with it".

The culture builds the social norms (or the other way around), and we believe in them because they are what we are made of and what we have always known.

And I know she meant it, I know it came from her heart, but I also know it is not her fault. This is something she was taught, she learned to think in that way and she needs to reframe it for herself, as we all do. This extract from the book Sex at Dawn pretty much sums to me whose "fault" is it:

"When we are talking about intimate, personal, biological experiences, we mustn't forget that the familiar fingers of culture reach deep in our minds…Every culture leads its members to believe some things are naturally right and others naturally wrong."

The culture builds the social norms (or the other way around), and we believe in them because they are what we are made of and what we have always known. Anything other than that is different, and what is different we don't know, hence it scares us. But we mustn't be scared! We can't repel what is different, but instead, try to understand it. To understand something completely new, we need to digest it first, reframe everything that we have learned so far and frame it again, knowing that we can ALWAYS come back to it and reframe it again, as life is in constant change.

So yes, we decided to move before the holidays because we wanted to spend Christmas together with our extended family and so far it has been amazing. The extended physical space of our new house, combined with the extension of opinions, food tastes, decoration, dogs, music, ideas, and conversations made it the perfect place for us to spend time together. Just yesterday we had a friend coming over to bring some tools, and he ended up staying longer while one of us was cooking, the other setting up the table, while another had just arrived with the wine while my partner was talking with his brother over a video call in speaker.

And now we are five.

Two non-monogamous married couples, and a friend, all of us who already work, are graduated for a long time and live in our adulthood days. And it doesn't matter. Nothing matters, because yesterday, in this shared dinner, seeing all of these conversations going on at the same time, smelling the delicious food, laughing and sharing what had happened in our day with each other, reminded me so much of my grandmother's house, of my tribe and the amazing moments we shared.

And it just got me thinking, why conform ourselves to the pre-established societal and cultural norms? Why be scared of the new and follow the flow if we can create our own flow? One that is aligned with what we believe in? And knowing that even what we believe in, is narrowed to only what we know, and sometimes, we need to know more, to discover new things and create new beliefs.

That is why I decided I wouldn't be scared to live a life that was not pre-established for me and would change that ingrained pattern for myself. That is why instead of living a life of two I decided I could be living a life of many and learning and sharing much more.