Non-Monogamy and Self-Acceptance

Tanya's Story

“lay lady lay” by Luciana Urtiga

I’m coming to you live from gum surgery recovery, marking time by my next painkiller, and binging on the last season of The Crown. Princess Diana, man. What a glamorous weirdo.

When I was a kid, I never “got” Princess Di. Didn’t get the hair, didn’t get the clothes, didn’t get the worldwide fascination. But that changed when I watched Spencer on an airplane, with Diana played by Kristen Stewart (another glamorous weirdo).

I realize I am the last of roughly eight billion people to come around on this one, so forgive me if this is very obvious. But, I’ve decided Diana’s charisma came down to three main qualities:

• A real person first, a royal second. She couldn’t quite get down with the stoic British Royal Family pageantry, even if she dressed up and looked the part. And we know, because Di had a world-class eye roll.

• Her curiosity in other people. Normal people. Staff. Struggling people. AIDS victims, people maimed by landmines. I feel like that was her greatest gift, a genuine interest in others.

• She was a mom, and loved being a mom, but was also a three-dimensional person. An activist, a woman who dated, a person who openly struggled with mental health. Which feels very 2020s, but forthright talk about depression and eating disorders was radical in the ‘90s.

In a word, Di felt authentic – especially in contrast with the British Royal Family. 

And in many ways, she echoes my fascination with non-monogamous moms.

+

When I put out the call to interview non-monogamous moms, I got some amazing responses. But as soon as I saw Tanya MacRae’s submission, I knew I had to interview her first. The words “wholesome” and “group sex” in the same paragraph will do that.

Tanya wrote some things here that really moved me. And while I’ve opened up her Q&A with thoughts on Princess Diana, it might not be the most intuitive comparison, so let me make the link explicit.

+

The non-monogamous mom defies social expectation, and what that signals to me is a strong sense of interiority. Carl Jung has a quote that sits at the bottom of my therapist’s email signature:

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”

Which is a wonderful, inspiring thought — but also, goddamn. Becoming who you truly are takes work. 

As a recovering people pleaser (which is not nearly so altruistic as I used to think), I have discovered that building out your own interiority is challenging. It’s so much easier to size up what others want, and just do that. But for folks like Di, who couldn’t help being herself everywhere, you can enchant people with your authenticity….and, you’ll probably piss some people off. 

Because you have defied their expectations. In ways they find disruptive.  

+

Every non-monogamous mom I’ve spoken with has told me they’ve pissed some people off. Every one of them has bumped up against judgment and insult (mostly from strangers on the Internet). Each one has claimed ownership over her body, her sex life and her interiority in ways that make others uncomfortable, because we are not used to seeing that from moms. Each one has built networks of love and support in intentional ways, each one loves their kids like crazy, and so far, each one is married. 

At this point, it feels like I’m dancing around a way cornier quote than Jung, a quote you might find on a faux-weathered farmhouse sign in someone’s kitchen (“well-behaved women rarely make history!”). So let’s turn things over to Tanya before I go full Bed Bath & Beyond. 

You can follow Tanya at @illustratedwoman on Instagram, and as always, I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below.

---

1. When I received your submission Tanya, the first thing that blew my mind was that you and your husband were monogamish from the very beginning (as high schoolers)! What did that look like at the outset? A conversation between the two of you? Or did he already know you were bisexual, and it was assumed there would be room in your relationship to explore connections with women?

I told him from the outset that I believed I was bisexual, and he was actually the one who encouraged me to explore connections with women. While that sounds quite open minded for a 17 year old guy, this was the early 2000s- when monogamous women hooking up with other women at parties was commonly viewed as "not counted as cheating, and besides it's hot". As we matured we each later came to the realization that we had been perpetuating biphobia- he was unknowingly fetishizing my bisexuality, and I had internalized a belief that my sexuality existed partly for his titillation (even when he wasn't there). So while my bisexuality provided us with the initial justification to explore non-monogamy, we have both become considerably more educated about how these early attitudes could be damaging to queer women. 

2. After you had children, did everyone around you assume you be monogamous thereafter? I’m asking because I know at least one couple who’d been living a poly lifestyle, but after their baby, there was social pressure to be monogamous. Almost like it was looked down upon to be poly with a baby in the picture. What was your experience like with all this, after the birth of your first child?

After the birth of our first child, I had one brief intimate connection with a female friend. The social circle I moved in was mostly child-free so in fact, they didn't seem to anticipate how significantly becoming a parent could change someone. They did not judge me, but I was the one who initially put a lot of pressure on myself to be monogamous. I guess you could call it "mum guilt", or maybe it was my Postpartum Anxiety, but I found myself incredibly uncomfortable when I was away from my baby. Time spent in joyful casual connections, outside of the family unit, felt like I was doing something wrong. Thankfully my way of thinking shifted after the birth of our second child. 

3. When did you and your husband officially decide to open back up, and become fully poly?

Officially my husband and I decided to open back up when our youngest was approaching his 1st birthday, which also coincided with our 20th year together (and our 10 year wedding anniversary). Becoming fully polyamorous occurred within a few months of us opening back up.

4. Was there one of you who spearheaded that conversation? Or was it completely mutual?

I had first raised the topic of polyamory with my husband approximately one year before becoming pregnant with our first child. While it was me once again, who spearheaded the conversation about opening back up after kids, it was my husband- soon after- who reintroduced the subject of shifting our openness to full polyamory.

5. Was it an adjustment for your relationship for you to date other men, in addition to women? I’m thinking about the “one penis policy” I see in some open marriages, where the wife is openly bisexual.

Absolutely. While we had never had an overt OPP in the past, we had definitely practiced it incidentally. This was mostly at my discretion, and I suspect I was subconsciously trying to protect my husband from experiencing any insecurity in our relationship, while also avoiding putting myself in vulnerable situations with men in general. To my husband's immense credit, when we opened back up he had already unpacked an enormous amount of subconscious biphobia and misogyny and he was entirely encouraging of me dating other men. 

6. When did you come out to your children? How about your parents? 

Our children are still very young and so they have no memory of a time when we were effectively monogamous. Given that I tend to date within my friends groups, our children have known my other partners since they were born. Having multiple friends and loves is normalized for them. I expect there will come a time when I have to explain that monogamy is actually the dominant relationship structure in our society!

My husband and I came out to our parents about 18 months ago, and a large part of that decision was us not wanting our children to accidentally 'out' us (and we would never expect them to lie for us). My mother-in-law took it all in stride, and my father-in-law offered up an anecdote about his friends who are swingers. My mum struggled the most and we stopped speaking for a little while. She still won't confront the subject head-on, but she has come to a place of tolerance and has actually spent the most time around my boyfriend and metamour. On the other hand, my dad's response was wonderfully supportive and affirming from the beginning. He had only one question for me- "could your feelings for your other partners threaten your feelings for your husband?". I responded "no more than my love for my second child threatens my love for my first child"- which he immediately accepted, and he thanked me for sharing this part of my identity with him. 

7. As you know, I’m fascinated with the selfishness/selflessness narratives associated with non-monogamous moms. Those are false narratives of course, but I appreciate how non-monogamous moms can see the “selfless mom” trope for what it is (a trap, and a recipe for resentment probably!), and decide to do something different with her life and relationships. Nevertheless, has anyone ever judged you for being both a mom, and non-monogamous?

The most judgment I have received for being both a mother and non-monogamous, has come from strangers on the Internet. I have been called selfish, a bad mother, told I am messing up my children, and that ultimately I am behaving in a way that will leave them fatherless. Interestingly, my husband has not received anywhere near the same backlash. There seems to be a special brand of sexism and slut-shaming reserved especially for women like me. In the real world I have experienced very little negativity for being a polyamorous mum (at least to my face). When I first came out publicly I was overwhelmed by messages of support and polite curiosity from friends, colleagues and acquaintances. Many queries came from other mothers who could recognise the potential benefits of having multiple partners. Perhaps that is a testament to the kinds of progressive people who I generally choose to surround myself with. Or maybe it is a result of increasingly neutral, and occasionally positive representations of non-monogamy in the media?

8. I knew I wanted to interview you when I saw the words “group sex” AND “wholesome” in your submission. I feel like that’s news for a lot of people, that you can both enjoy orgies* and play dates at the park. How do you carry both identities inside of you, mom and poly/kinky/group sex lover?

*(Forgive me if this word isn’t ideal! I know it still carries a stigma for some.)

Accepting myself as a multifaceted human being has been a long personal journey. A large part of my decision to live openly came from my growing desire to practice authenticity, and to live a truly congruent life. Once I stopped compartmentalizing all of my different roles and identities, I experienced a huge sense of relief. It was like a weight had lifted off my shoulders and I was expending much less mental and emotional bandwidth in simply existing. Making friends with other non-monogamous parents, both in the kink scene and polyamorous networks, has been incredibly validating. Growing our community of non-monogamous friends, and practicing KTP (kitchen table polyamory) with metamours, has proven to me that these identities can and do co-exist in many others. We can be wonderful, attentive parents and enjoy our family time- and revel in sexy events with our spicy friends during adult time. It is a myth that the children of non-monogamous parents will be corrupted by deviancy. Our sex lives are not on display to our children, as I expect that monogamous parents protect their children from exposure to their sexual practices too.

9. Lastly, could you riff a bit on non-monogamous moms as a whole? What do you think non-monogamous moms have to teach the rest of us about parenting, and about relationships? 

Non-monogamous mums are brave. We are doing the work to unlearn societal conditioning and to cultivate relationships that suit us. When we become mothers we remain individuals, with our own unique interests and inner worlds. We know we are entitled to leisure, as are fathers and those who are child-free. We don't need to martyr ourselves- we can custom make the villages required to raise our children. We can share the load and continue to enjoy autonomous time, be creative, and say yes to spontaneous and joyful experiences. Happy and fulfilled women make excellent mothers and partners. Most of us already possess the time management and organisational skills needed to manage multiple relationships!

Many of the lessons learned through non-monogamy can also be applied to monogamous dynamics. Successful polyamory requires fostering relationships based on trust, open communication, and radical honesty. All relationships would benefit from accepting that love is not safe-guarded by exclusivity and possessiveness. Monogamous couples can also dismantle co-dependence, cease attempts to control one another, and forgo reliance on external structures to "keep" their romantic partner. Ultimately the decision to invest in any relationship, and to maintain it, is a decision that each one of us makes of our own volition every day. 

---

Thank you so very much, Tanya, for your thoughtful answers. A few of them made me tear up!

NEXT WEEK, I’ll share my interview with Abbey of

Evolving Love Project

. Until then, I’d love to hear your thoughts in comments. Let’s talk.