I Gravitate To Unconventional Relationships
By: Elle Beau
Tags: Elle Beau, Relationships, Love, Relationships Love Dating, Polyamory

It seems like, the less typical, the better

Photo by JOSHUA COLEMAN on Unsplash

I didn’t have my first date until after I was out of high school. And as much as we liked each other, the guy that I dated right after graduation wasn’t someone that I planned to stay with. We both knew that it was a summer thing and that we were going to colleges far away from each other, and besides, it wasn’t love; it was just intense like. On the last night before we parted, we had dinner at our favorite restaurant, exchanged tokens of affection, and kissed goodbye. That first relationship was probably the most conventional one I’ve ever had.

Although I did date some in college, it was more along the lines of hook-ups that went on for several consecutive months. I guess that I thought of some of them as boyfriends, but in retrospect, they really weren’t in any real sense and that was fine by me. I somehow knew I wasn’t going to meet a long-term partner in those 4 years, although that doesn’t mean that I was particularly happy when the hook-ups inevitably dissolved. I just kept doing what I thought I was supposed to in order to keep things rolling, even if it was somewhat casual, but it didn’t seem to matter, and so I finally abandoned doing what I thought I was supposed to in favor of doing what I wanted to.

I’d been low maintenance, nice to his friends, drank beer and not expensive fruity drinks, and was largely fun, and accommodating. But by my senior year, I’d gotten completely fed up with being a “nice girl” and started doing more of what I felt like doing, rather than what I thought I was supposed to. I wasn’t even looking for the illusion of a relationship at that point, and just enjoyed hanging out with friends, a couple of whom I had a benefits arrangement with.

By the time I met James a few years later, I still wasn’t looking for anything long term. Playing by the rules hadn’t gotten me anywhere, and so I was pretty much done with playing by the rules. He and I worked at the same place, although he was there on an unpaid internship before grad school and so was living rent-free with his great-aunt about as far away from me as possible in the metro area. After about three weeks of shuttling back and forth to my place, and him getting constantly lost, I asked him to move in.

James lived with me for about 4 more months until he left for grad school. By then, we knew that we were going to get married. We did the long-distance thing for a year and then I moved to where he was in school. After James completed his program, we got married and embarked on a fairly traditional and conventional life. Most of my dating experiences hadn’t been what I’d expected them to be, but they still fit into boxes that were largely known and accepted, although looking back, I can clearly see how my penchant for non-traditional relationships was beginning to develop.

About 20 years into our pretty normal marriage, James and I decided to open up to other partners. We were in the midst of a very connected and sexually exploratory phase and it just seemed like the next logical thing to do. I was interested to find out what it would be like to be with him and another man at the same time and he thought that sounded really exciting, as long as we could do that with a woman as well. By the time we found a guy to go along with our original idea, we were well on our way to full-on polyamory and found that we quite liked it, even though it took some adjusting to after so many years of monogamous marriage.

The man that we had our first MFM threesome with was Nat, a man that I am still involved with today, 4 years later. He has his own nesting partner and kids and lives on the other side of the country from us right now. James and I decided to move right about the same time that Nat and I were briefly broken up, and I don’t think I would have been able to manage it otherwise. When he and I met for the first time, it was more like re-encountering someone that I’d always known, but just hadn’t seen in a very long time. A very passionate and intense relationship ensued — one that wasn’t really sustainable in that incarnation over the long haul. Nat is my Twin Flame, a type of intense cosmic connection that has a lot of specific characteristics.

But once we moved, Nat and I started to realize how much we missed each other. We are in many ways the heads and tails of the same coin — very different but also completely a part of each other. We’re magnetically drawn to each other and just really understand each other, even though we are entirely different in a lot of fundamental ways. It most definitely has taken a lot of energy and effort to figure out how to make this work, and at the time that we met, I’d never even heard of the Twin Flame thing, so it was a completely map-free endeavor.

James was getting used to the idea that I loved someone besides him and I was getting used to the idea too, although, in many ways, it felt exactly right to me. We’d gone into the whole thing just looking to expand our sexual horizons and I ended up encountering someone who is an integral part of me. Even though we haven’t seen each other in person in years; even though we rarely talk on the phone because it’s too intense for me; even though it’s not much like our original relationship — except for the ways that it’s exactly like our original relationship, Nat is my partner in a very real and tangible way, and he will be for the rest of our lives.

There wasn’t a rule book when we were lovers but there is really no map for this thing now. There are still aspects that we are figuring out as we go, but for the most part, we’ve walked the bumpiest part of this track already, with no guidance, no map, just making it up together as we go along. I don’t see him in person and I won’t anytime soon. And he’s still my life partner just as much as James is.

I thought that things were kind of settling down in my love life, but then we met Tamara. Now that’s a relationship that is taking “no roadmap” to the next level and what got me wondering if this is kind of my MO. Tamara is an escort that James and I started seeing about two years ago. Over time we’ve all really developed feelings for each other and in some ways are in a bit of a three-way relationship.

Although James and I always saw Nat together, he and Nat were never physically or emotionally intimate. They like each other and think of each other a bit like extended family at this point, but Nat is really my relationship. James and I are both involved with Tam. She is our lover, maybe our girlfriend, although there really aren’t any words for this thing. We still pay Tamara for dates that take place in private, but in the past couple of months we’ve started seeing her in public situations, meeting for drinks and such, and a couple of weeks ago we got to meet her mom.

In other words, this is a really, really non-typical thing. She’s a professional and we are clients, but we are also more than clients. There are three of us and we really care for each other. We’re very close and connected and have been texting and talking more and more in between seeing each other, but in between all of that, we really live separate lives. No map for this…….

In many ways, this relationship with Tamara has helped me to better navigate the relationship with Nathaniel because it’s taught me to allow what is there to breathe, rather than to try to make it into something else that has more known parameters. There are no names for either of these relationships. They do not fit into any known boxes. And that’s something that really seems to work for me or at least that I am drawn to. Sometimes I wonder why I can’t be more like other people and most of the time, I’m really glad that I’m not.