I’m nine months pregnant, and two weeks ago, Flo and I moved in together to a new two-bedroom apartment in Berlin.
Since then, we’ve fallen into 1950’s-style domesticated roles.
As a pregnant person, I’m not supposed to carry anything heavy (because apparently it can spur early labor), so he has been doing all the handy-work and lifting, which has left me with cooking, cleaning, and laundry.
In addition to that, I’ve become a much more subdued version of myself. In order to keep my body and thus the creature living inside of it as happy and healthy as possible, I’ve mostly avoided staying up late, smoky bars or overly-crowded viral places.
I’ve become a person that people smile at on the street and are extra nice to, but also expect less from.
Which is nice in some ways (it’s nice when people are kind), but also an extremely bizarre way of relating to the world. I feel a bit like a child again.
I also feel like one big cliché.
An identity crisis.
Who am I? What have I become?
And where does non-monogamy fit into all of this?
Now I don’t know if I can stand by what I said at the beginning of my pregnancy. Back then I announced that I don’t plan to become more monogamous now that I have a kid on the way. Why would I? If anything I want more support, more friends and love around me, now that there’s a child in the picture.
Yet that seems to be what has happened; I’ve become more monogamous, not by choice but by circumstance.
I can understand a little better now why people, especially parents, ask whether polyamory is a phase, something “for young people.”
Because when you’re pregnant like I am, and theres just so much kid stuff to think about, and when you can’t actually go out and party like you used to, and when the idea of putting yourself on a dating app feels like either fraud or begging to meet someone with a fetish, non-monogamy is just much less practical.
There’s a part of me that feels foolish for imagining it could be different, that life could stay wild and free.
At the same time, do I actually believe non-monogamy is a phase? Hell no.
I’m still thrilled — almost relieved — to know I am non-monogamous. That even though, in practice right now, I’m doing the whole 50’s housewife thing, in reality I’m not stuck in this role.
If anything is a phase, it’s pregnancy itself.
There is a beginning and there will be a clear end. And sure, when it ends, things aren’t going to simply bounce back to the way they were before.
But non-monogamy was never about being in relationships or sleeping with several different people at once all the time. It was about freedom and options. And although I’m limited in new ways (because of choices I myself have made), I still have those. I always have.
This wasn’t the plan.
Moving in together just the two of us was not our plan; it was neither of our plans to just be a classic nuclear family unit.
Yet Flo is the only one in the world who truly sees me and loves me in a way that I can’t even begin to describe, the way he looks at me, the way he is attuned to random pains in my abdomen or my bursts of hormone-fueled emotion.
How he offers me the comfortable seat at the restaurant and always carries my bag.
The ways he smiles at me and rubs my belly when we wake up together in the morning.
How he took responsibility for building our kitchen, going to the baumarkt to buy huge pieces of wood for countertops that he spent the whole day sanding and oiling.
How even through his own nerves about what will come next, he shows how excited and happy he is to start this new life together.
I could go on.
I looked at him the other night in bed and just started crying because it feels like we’re falling in love all over again.
It’s all so beautiful and I’m so grateful.
But I also feel so vulnerable. And dependent.
And yes so monogamous.
So what now?
I still want community, more people around that I love and see regularly, and yes polyamory.
But right now, it doesn’t feel urgent.
Officially living together in a nuclear family unit doesn’t mean we will forget about all else that’s important to us, like our friends, like our social lives, like our autonomy.
So for now, let’s just get our apartment in order, let’s make sure we also are revisiting and checking in about what’s working and what’s not.
And let’s be parents.
We can make what we want out of this life too.
Want to be interviewed for the ARS 2024?
I’m planning to host another Alternative Relationship Summit this spring, documenting the myriad of ways people do relationships differently from the norm. If you believe you love or relate differently from the average person, whether you are poly, monogamous, paired, single, whatever it is, then you’re a candidate to be interviewed!
The interview requires you to spend 30-45 min with me on Zoom, and the video recording would be made available publicly.
If you are interested, you must also be willing to be vulnerable and actually share something about your relationship (please get permission from involved parties beforehand). By sharing your story, you are helping people’s minds open in a powerful way. There is nothing like seeing firsthand from real people what is possible when it comes to love.
If you are interested in being a speaker and inspiring thousands in the process, please fill out this form :).
Goodbye for now
Thank you again for being a reader of this newsletter. <3 As you may know, I’m taking the next threeish months off starting at the end of the week. (My due date is on Jan 14!)
I don’t plan to keep this newsletter active during that time. That said, I may decide to send an email here and there if the mood strikes.
Don’t you forget about me.
Circa 3am, New Years 2024, I still got it!
Your courage to be vulnerable in this post is damn commendable.
Nothing in life is “forever” although sometimes it feels so. Remember that during babies crying jags or colic.
Do the best you can to live within the moment and treasure them. Monogamy or non monogamy aside. You will figure it out together.
Good luck and enjoy all the new moments. It’s amazing, exhausting and exhilarating! Not one single aspect of your life remains unchanged but it keeps changing. Babies grow so fast and you will have lots of choices as you move forward. It’s all a phase so enjoy each one as it comes.