In many ways, I am love. Love is the dominant driving force behind my entire existence – in this life and beyond. It is the basis for my decision making process and the basis for every meaningful thing that I do. So, if you want to try to understand me, it helps to understand the way that I look at love.
Many people view romantic love as some limited and finite precious resource that they should reserve to share only with some special person. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, but I personally cannot imagine limiting something as amazing as love in such a way.
For me, love is infinite, and I do mean literally infinite. No matter how much love I give, there is no drain on me. There is no depletion in my ability to love. There are many that I love, and several of these relationships have a romantic component to them. At the time of writing this, I currently have ten romantic lovers in my life, two of which are my wives. I also have some interests that have not developed into anything yet (and may not).
In addition to romantic love, I also share other forms of love with all of my lovers, and other forms still with many other people such as family and friends.
So, I identify myself as polyamorous. The actual meaning of the word is a bit different for every person you ask, but there is a common theme. At its core, it simply means “many loves”. It is the purest expression of love and trust between groups of people.
When I explain this to people, there are some common questions I tend to get in return from people who do not understand my way of love. So, let me try to address those here.
Q: How do you keep track of so many lovers?
A: I am genuinely interested in all of them. I care about them deeply, their lives, their desires, their problems and fears. It really doesn’t require effort to keep track of people when you genuinely care for them.
Q: How do you find the time for everyone?
A: Simply stated, I don’t. I have the same time limitations as any human while I am living this life. I honestly cannot devote as much time to any of my lovers as I would like to. However, if one of them needs me, they know they can call out to me and I will drop anything I am doing and go to them. We all understand that time is limited, and we focus on the time that we share rather than the time that we do not share. If I am only able to see one of my lovers once in a particular week, that moment together is what I will think of when my thoughts go to that person, not the fact that I only saw her once. Focusing on the positive rather than the negative puts us into a positive state of mind. Many times we spend our intimate time together in groups as many of my lovers are also lovers to each other. This helps greatly with time constraints.
Q: Don’t people get jealous?
A: Largely, no. Jealousy has no place in relationships that are built on love and trust. Jealousy stems from fear. Sure there are the rare occasions where two lovers in different places need me at the same time and I have to split my attention between them, and sometimes one or both of them might be upset that they are not getting my full focus. However, I would not go as far as to say they are jealous, except maybe in the most literal and trivial meaning of the word. We all understand that we have other lovers and we all respect and trust each other deeply. We each know that if someone cannot focus on us fully in a moment of time, that there is a good reason for it.
Q: Doesn’t the drama get to you?
A: What drama? I don’t get involved with people that create drama. A single person causing drama can hurt every single person that I am attached to. I would never willingly hurt the people that I love by subjecting them to that. All of my relationships are drama free. There may be external drama between my lovers and other people from time to time, but not internal drama between us – aside from the occasional (rare in my case) misunderstandings and hurt feelings that everyone in a relationship deals with at some point.