What is the purpose of a relationship? Is it to spark emotional growth? Is it to move you to the next place? What role does longevity play in the quest for cutting-edge progressive relationships? Are short, firecracker relationships worth it? What makes sense when you have children?
Louisa Leontiades’s daring memoir examines these complex conundrums, which each of us must ultimately face and analyze for ourselves, in whatever relationship we find ourselves in or moving toward. Louisa takes us with her on her relationship road trip, but she ultimately delivers a map for starting and continuing a process of wise self-examination and relationship success.
When I read the original release of Louisa’s memoir, The Husband Swap, I was excited to hear a story about an open marriage and quad relationship similar to my own, which I chronicle in my own book, Wide Open: My Adventures in Polyamory, Open Marriage, and Loving on My Own Terms. Reading about her sometimes rugged transition into the world of open marriage, I highlighted passages and typed enthusiastic remarks in my e-reader notes: “Yes!” “Totally!” When the publishers at Thorntree Press approached me to write a foreword for this compilation with Lessons in Love and Life to My Younger Self, originally published as a separate book, I eagerly started reading the new material. The two books together, now released as A World in Us: A Memoir of Open Marriage, Turbulent Love and Hard-Won Wisdom, provide a seasoned prospective of consensual non-monogamy.
In the memoir, Louisa starts her journey into consensual non-monogamy with the smart zeal of a nervy beginner. This echoed my own gusto when, ten years ago, I first started out on the path of ethical non-monogamy. The thought of loving openly — not only with the consent but the support of my current spouse — sounded like the most enthralling possibility ever. No concept seemed more evolved! As ideas go, open marriage and polyamory were right up there with the Internet, the Pill, seedless watermelons, voicemail and solar energy. It had me ready to grab a megaphone, climb to the highest tower and yell my revelations to the world.
I recognized Louisa’s matched enthusiasm for her new life, which entailed her agreeing to move back to her homeland in England — which meant giving up a highly lucrative job and moving physically close to family that she had needed to distance herself from. Louisa courageously made this choice. In the lessons portion of this new book, told from her wise reflective self, she examines the conscious and somewhat subconscious reasons for making this ultimately challenging move.
Similar to Louisa, many polyamorous people embrace change to ultimately create positive transformation and to carve their own path of relationship expression. What I particularly enjoyed in Louisa’s words and admissions was her willingness to show her vulnerability. Decisions that seemed the correct choice at one time are now re-examined with hindsight. Louisa often asks What part of me made this decision? Were there motives I wasn’t fully aware of at the time? This pensiveness makes her insights as a writer — and character — valuable and worth emulating. When a person gets into the thick of any relationship, monogamous or polyamorous, there can be mess. But the difference with polyamory, from my experience at least, is the higher amount of mathematical permutations in which mess can happen: more people = more potential mess.
What I admire about Louisa as a pioneer in relationship innovation is her willingness to reveal the mess so that we can learn. Her memoir is like a tour through the lovely home of an old friend, the kitchen piled high with dirty dishes and a clear view of that dilapidated couch the cat has used as a scratching post for far too long. In the lessons, she does what all great mentors and teachers seek to do: put her home in order. I found myself alternating from wincing slightly when she divulged something particularly tender to quietly whispering “amen girl — amen” as she moved from the unique problems in being multi-partnered to suggesting better life practices that strive for relationship excellence.
This is what sets Louisa apart from the average relationship participant. In the midst of her challenging quad dynamic, and with a steadfast and unerring determination, she examines her new life, asking difficult questions followed by yet another challenging question. Like: Do I enable my husband? Am I jealous of my husband’s girlfriend not because of what she’s doing, but because she has qualities I don’t allow myself to embody? What is my part in this? And now that I’ve thrown away the hackneyed old relationship script, whats the new storyline going to be? Louisa’s wiser self in the lessons is chock full of hard-earned epiphanies from the world of open marriage. Take, for example, the eggplant incident. One day, an eggplant that Louisa had saved to make dinner for her husband was instead used by Elena, his girlfriend, to make a snack. This upset Louisa — quite a bit.
Louisa analyzes the depth of her upset. “Acknowledge your anger. Be conscious that you are angry.” This is a skill unto itself, and at times hard to do in the midst of a multi-partnered life. Even as my heart went out to Louisa, I couldn't help chuckling a bit about the damn eggplant. What Louisa clearly illustrates is that when you are melting down about an eggplant, it is inevitably, of course, not about the vegetable: something more compelling and complex is happening. Its easier to get angry about an eggplant than to talk about the fact that, for instance, your husband hasn't worked in years, or has become more of a kid brother than an romantic partner. Louisa has an uncanny ability to self-analyse, and her ability to exercise this skill is another reason why this book is particularly engaging and inspirational.
This makes Louisa’s book, although it is a story about polyamory, useful to anyone who is in a relationship. Monogamous, polyamorous, swinging, whatever structure your relationship follows: There is something here for you. Good relationship practices — honesty, self-examination and taking responsibility — hold true in all relationships.
I feel a kinship to Louisa as a writer, a seeker, and a “relationship artist.” With the combined work of her memoir and the lessons, we get a woman writing from a full spectrum of multi-partnered relationship experience: a place of satisfaction and integrated experiences that now make her life work. Louisa’s quad with her boyfriend, her husband and his girlfriend ultimately did not last. Does that mean that it was not worth doing? Absolutely not — there is so much to be inspired by in her story.
There is certainly pressure among polyamorous writers to tie everything up with a big bow and move the story to “happily ever after.” If we don’t, we feel it might reflect badly on our multi-partnered relationship orientation. When we have discord in a polyamorous relationship, we are told by the “professionals” that “polyamory does not work.” But when a monogamous relationship fails, the professionals don’t question monogamy. We need more stories and shared lessons about multiple loves. Poly pioneers are worth hearing about, writing about and discussing so that we can shape an understanding of what is useful and what is best avoided.
In her book, Louisa has a tendency to take too much responsibility for everything in her love life — a flaw I share. But at least with taking responsibility comes the next step: agency. And agency is a part of all successful relationships. Showing up as a full participant in what happens in your love life is certainly one necessary ingredient to successfully constructing relationships.
After breakdown comes breakthrough, and in this new volume, we get both. Society is witnessing a breakdown of traditional marriage and a breakthrough of all different kinds of relationship structures and orientations. These new relationship expressions allow us to live with authenticity, resilience and commitment to excellence. We can get a chance in Louisa’s words to experience a life with “new lessons to be learned, new adventures to be had and new miracles around the corner.”
I commend Louisa, my fellow relationship artist. May relationship miracles await all of us around life’s next corner.
— Gracie X