30


I was jobless. Almost mindless. It was easy to book a ticket home and make my great escape. Arriving in Cyprus, the country that had seen my teenage rebellion, had been warm and comforting. Peace finally pervaded my mind, and the relief I experienced from being away from the anxiety and stress of our relationship liberated me. In Cyprus’ cicada-thrummed atmosphere, amid the support of my family and friends, it had been very easy to make the decision. And even easier after six local beers to write the email as the drunken tears dripped on my keyboard.

Gilles darling,

After some soul searching, I am going with the decision that I knew to be true in the first place. Both my head and my heart are telling me to let you go. I don’t want to be involved with Elena in any kind of poly relationship. I would never choose to be in a relationship with her myself and do not want her in my marriage. Whilst you and I are two people with two choices, it is our marriage that she is involved in — and a sisterwife relationship is far bigger than a friendship. If I am involved with you, then I am involved with her — it is as simple as that. I cannot be in her def­in­ition of family.

I hope that you and I may be able to be friends in the future…but I am not going to put off my future any longer. I do hope that you will be happy in your new triad. But maybe your biology is doing what your head is denying. You have a much more balanced relationship with her than you do with me and maybe your heart says that your longer-term future would be more successful with her. I wish you all happiness and luck. And above all love.

Lx

During those two weeks, my wounded heart was bathed by alcohol and human compassion, and my brain stimulated by intellectual company. So desperate was I for touch and warmth that I fell into a pool of enchantment with an angel in disguise. A beautiful man. There was no pain. It was like floating on heroin. Blissfully cocooned in a new land of new love, I released my past with all its pain and joy. I no longer wanted any of it. And I thought about staying. I was content. There were no round robin emails, no coercion to pick sides and no contact from the beyond to disturb my tranquillity.

But the universe works in mysterious ways. At 2 a.m., ten days later, my past phoned me using a cellular connection. It was Morten:

“I’m divorcing Elena. Will you come back to me?”

One of our biggest justifications for exploring polyamory was to avoid the curse of serial monogamy. In a land far, far away, Gilles and I had faced separation and divorce. Poly-amory, such as we defined it, was a perfect way of having our needs met by others and maintaining our beautiful relationship. Building and integrating multiple relationships seemed ideal, especially as many would just be the extension of a friendship. But an unacknowledged fact of relationships was the power they had to mould and change you. Neither of us had recognised the impact of the new relationships on our characters, and we had discounted the fact that our existing relationships would be thrown up, by the rose-tinted fluorescent lights of the new relationship, into a sharp relief, painfully highlighting any inadequacies and failings. And instead of working on them, it was all too easy to bask in the comfort of Turkish delights and numbing sweetmeats of the honeymoon period.

The mainstream might understand polyamory from a bisexual standpoint. After all, why should you deny yourself love if you are equally attracted to different genders? It doesn’t seem fair. But comparison between two differently gendered persons is much more difficult. It is obvious that they have different roles.

But in my heterosexual quad, polyamory had proved a comparison and a judgement in too many ways. Two women,in two similar roles. But with two vastly different natures.Elena and I were chalk and cheese. I was passive. She was active. I believed in a work ethic and resented it. She believed in creativity and expression but was jobless. I believed in acceptance, even for unacceptable behaviour. She would not and could not accept anything but high standards. I was struck by the fact that despite all our attempts at avoiding it, both couples had come to this. Divorce.

“Did you hear me? Are you there? For God’s sake say something!”

I said all I could think of to stall for time.

“I’ve been with someone else, someone wonderful, for the last ten days.”

But it didn’t work.

“Why should I care?” he said. “We’re polyamorous. Will you come back to me?”

“Yes,” I said.

“It’ll be all right, I promise. I love you. We’ll see each other tomorrow; I just had to hear your voice.”

Was it possible after sixteen years that Morten would leave his professed soulmate and partner to be with me? We had been together for twenty-four months, and yet we had never been together just the two of us, as primary partners. But the next day at the arrivals gate, he met me. Just him. And just me.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hello, how are you?”

“Um, a little dazed to be honest. Are you OK?”

I touched his face. It was familiar and yet a stranger’s. My stranger. The man with whom I had just agreed to build a future. He looked down at me with eyes that were weathered and exhausted and said, “I’m a bit of everything — very happy, very sad.”

“Can you fill me in from the beginning, please?”

“You mean what happened this week and in my head?

“Yes…how, why, stuff like that,” I said.

And as we sat in the arrivals hall at Gatwick airport with steaming cappuccinos, he started.

“First you and I were still together, then we knew it wasn’t working, but it didn’t really feel like we’d broken up until our coffee. I think that’s when it really struck me. That I was losing you. At the same time, I had strong doubts whether Elena and I would be able to repair our marriage enough to be happy together.

“I started panicking at first because I didn’t speak to anyone, and it just felt like my head would explode. We were looking to sign the tenancy agreement on our apartment for another year, and all I saw was this crossroads: Elena (for some reason always to the right) and you (to the left). And I started to believe that I was about to follow the wrong path…which was a huge step for me. You know how loyal I am, so breaking up a sixteen-year relationship is not peanuts.”

I almost smiled at his understated turn of phrase. Breaking up a relationship of any amount of time was not peanuts. And sixteen years wasn’t even coconuts. It was boulder-sized nuts.

“Finally I started to talk to Elena, which of course was terrible, but at the same time it felt good because the pressure in my head got a bit better. Then I talked to Gilles and more to Elena. Then, yesterday afternoon we went to therapy and then to the pub and then home. All those talks have made me stronger. All along, I have been consistent about the fact that this is what I want and one good test has been seeing Elena cry and say things that are horrible to hear, since I can’t help but feel guilty.

“I have done my fair share of crying too, but it hasn’t changed my mind. Not a bit. I cried at the therapist, at the pub and at home, and so did she. But I never had any doubt, and then I left the flat when Gilles came over, and I called you.”

“So this decision is barely embryonic...?” I said. “I believe you, but I am so terribly scared. For the last weeks, I have tried my best to put all of you away from my life. I even started to think I might stay in Cyprus.”

“I think in my mind the decision is older than I know consciously, but it’s very difficult to say ‘I have made up my mind, I am leaving you.’”

“Good Lord,” I said. “How is Elena...are she and Gilles still together through all of this?”

“Elena is a mess, but she is reaching out to her friends, which is good. And Gilles is there for her.”

“Dad was very fair to Gilles,” I said, “but said to me that it was doubtful that he would change and if I didn’t want that in the future then I shouldn’t have it now. And suddenly I knew that I thought the same way as my father about many things. And that continually doubting myself on those things wasn’t doing me, or him, any good.”

“He seems to be wise, your dad.”

“He is wise. Logical. You’re not that different. But Morten...you’re standing in front of me offering me everything I ever wanted and I’m terrified.”

“I am. And I’m also terrified.”

I held his hand, and we were both trembling.

“What scares you?” he asked.

“That you will take it away,” I answered. “That you’ll go back to her.”

“I guess I can understand that. But is there anything I can say or do?”

“No. You shouldn’t have to worry about my fears right now. I think you have enough to deal with. And I have already agreed to go into the unknown with you. I just hope and pray that I’m not being stupid.”

He said, “I made both Elena and Gilles promise not to say anything to you until I had made up my mind. If I had stayed with Elena, you would never even have heard about my doubts.”

“I couldn’t understand why everyone went quiet,” I said. “I thought you were all getting on with your lives. I can’t even begin to think of everything. That’s also scary.”

“But thrilling and happy too, right?” he said anxiously. “It is for me. It’s what kept me going through the horrible things I had to do. Thinking about you and us. We will have blue-eyed children.”

I started to sniffle. And pretty soon, it had turned into a full-blown storm. He said gently, “You’ve been frustrated with me lately when I didn’t make decisions. That I didn’t just break up with you even though it seemed like the best solution and was what I said I wanted. You should understand now that I couldn’t…I love you, Louisa. Let’s go home.”