Giving Away Free Mistakes!

Since starting on my polyamorous journey I’ve made mistakes. I’ve hurt people. I’ve surely been viewed as toxic by some people. I struggle to always find the perfect balance and I still don’t get it right every time. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I’m human. I think that’s an important thing we need to do on occasion because it’s easy to forget. While I’ve come a long way in my journey, sadly, the progress I’ve made over the years has come at a cost of some hurt to both myself and the people around me. I’ve tried really hard to not make the same mistakes twice and to be very conscious of learning as I go. It’s important to me that any pain caused is not wasted and I take as much away from those mistakes as I can.  

Since I’ve already put my hand on the hot burner more than once I’ve been able to gain some wisdom over the years. When I connect with someone who’s still early on in their polyamory journey, I struggle with trying to decide if I should slap their hand away from the burner so they don’t get hurt or just let them burn themselves so they can learn the same things I’ve had to learn. If I’m being completely honest, I still don’t know where that balance is. You can tell a couple first opening up their relationship to polyamory that triads are hard and people get hurt. You can strongly encourage them to date separately and send them all the resources to unicorn hunting that you can muster up and it doesn’t matter. A triad feels like the safest route for them so they almost never listen. If they already got it in their head that’s what they want, they go for it anyways. I didn’t listen, so why should I expect someone else to? Yup, my first foray into polyamory was a triad. I wasn’t necessarily looking for one but it happened. Guess what? It wasn’t very healthy and people got hurt just like everyone was telling me that’s what would happen. There were some good times, but all the bad things people were telling me would happen, did happen. 

I’m going to drop a list of many of the mistakes (for free) I made on my journey through polyamory. I want to make this list for a few reasons. 1) To remind you that nobody is perfect so don’t be too hard on yourself, 2) As a personal growth exercise to see and acknowledge my mistakes and 3) To maybe plant a seed that might help you avoid some of the pitfalls on your journey.

Ok… Here it goes….

1. Years 1 and 2 – I was in a monogamous relationship that opened up to polyamory. I’ll refer to this as my “primary” relationship although I’m not a fan of that word in general. It’s for clarity in this context. Here are some of the big mistakes in regards to that time period of my journey:
   1. I told my primary partner that I thought it would be weird if they dated someone like me and that just dating someone like me didn’t make sense. I even bordered on an OPP (One Penis Policy) vibe and while it was short lived my brain still went down that path and that was not ok.
   2. I gave my primary all the control because I wanted them to feel safe and secure. Even they admitted further down the journey that this was a bad idea. This meant my connections were anything but organic and were being controlled by an outside source.
   3. We started out with a triad. A very unhealthy one that was fraught with couples privilege. We were toxic af and the epitome of all that is wrong with new polyamorous couples jumping straight into a triad.
   4. I agreed to things that I didn’t really actually agree with. I really blew it here because I was either full of resentment or broke those agreements. Neither of which was healthy or good. 
   5. I should have left that “primary” relationship sooner. Polyamory brought all kinds of bad things to the surface that were swept under the rug since the beginning of our relationship. Despite them trying to be understanding and even be a willing participant in the concepts of non-monogamy, there were many times where I felt like I was just dragging them behind a truck. I should have drawn a line in the sand a lot sooner.
   6. Even when not in a triad, I still let my primary relationship greatly influence my other relationships. I hurt people and toyed with them because I was painfully unaware of how much couples privilege was actually taking place. It makes me sick thinking about what I did to genuinely amazing people in the first few years of my journey.
2. Years 3 to 6 – Here are some mistakes I made outside the scope of opening up a monogamous relationship.
   1. I was in the kitchen table polyamory or bust camp. Over time, I realized it wasn’t reasonable to make it a requirement. It’s not fair to put pressure on people to interact if they don’t want to. Kitchen table polyamory is still a preference but I’ve definitely pulled back on making that any kind of requirement.
   2. I would let NRE catapult me into a space that I wasn’t comfortable with, and then I would have to pull back. This understandably hurts people because it’s scary when you sense a partner pulling back. NRE is dangerous if not managed well.
   3. I let NRE blind me from observing problematic behaviors. This hurt me more than others but I have definitely missed some huge red flags because of pure lustful infatuation with someone. Again, NRE is dangerous if not managed well. 
   4. I have since learned that I’m probably more in the graysexual area, but I would participate in sexual activities before I was ready for 2 reasons: 1) Definitely some toxic masculinity and 2) The polyamorous space is a very sexual one and I’d put pressure on myself to keep up with my peers. This has caused me to get out of sync with partners and nothing good ever happens when you’re out of sync. 
   5. I would bite off more than I could chew. I’d get a wild hair and say “I’m going to take down my walls!” and then end up saturated in connections and finding myself overwhelmed and trying to figure out how to backtrack. While I’ve definitely gotten a lot better with this it’s still something I keep a close eye on.
   6. I would enter relationships with wildcards and not disclose them. Let me explain – I would say to myself in my head: “This is a new situation and I’m not 100% sure how I feel about it but I’ll give it a shot.” and then when the wildcard became a dealbreaker I would take a step back from that connection. More recently, I’ve become very transparent with people if there is a wildcard that I’m not sure about. Unfortunately, I haven’t always been so up front and I’ve hurt people. 

If it’s not obvious by the sheer amount of mistakes I’ve made over the years, I wasn’t lying in saying that I’m human. We all make mistakes no matter how much we try to mitigate them. Nobody gets into a relationship saying “I’m going to try to hurt this person!” Well, at least I hope not.

I’ve been extremely fortunate to still have a connection with most of the people I’ve dated in spite of all my mistakes along the way. This means I was able to get feedback on how my behaviors have affected people and I’m so grateful for that. It would be very irresponsible for me to not at least try to learn and grow from that feedback that has been gifted to me. I’m still going to continue to make new mistakes. Because I’m human. Just like all of us.  

I hope that by my sharing my mistakes from over the years it has helped you in some way. While I will be the first to remind you to not be too hard on yourself, I’ll also be the person to tell you to not give yourself a free pass either. If anything I shared made you question your own behaviors, take a look at them and see if you have some opportunities to be better. At the end of the day, I think that’s what is most important.