This is a story about having a lot of partners. Like, A LOT.

It’s time for a poly partner roundup! We’ll be starting with the one and only Romeo.

Things with Romeo have been really solid for a couple of months now—not perfect, because no relationship is perfect—but so much better than it has been in the past. Despite my shift from hierarchical polyamory to non-hierarchical, Romeo continues to be the most significant partner in my life. Considering that we’re married, live together, and are raising children together, that should come as no surprise! But now, I feel like our relationship is in better balance. 

One thing that I changed to get to this point, other than eliminating the term “primary partner” from my vocabulary, was to stop sharing a bedroom with Romeo. Our house is small, and we have kiddos, so this was a bit of a challenge. I ended up moving into the kids’ room, which I now share with them. While it may seem counter-intuitive to now be sharing a (smaller) bedroom with even more people, this setup has been beneficial and actually made a big difference for me. I have a space that is separate from Romeo’s; this was important to break the codependent cycles we were stuck in. Establishing my independence from him, as my own person, has been transformational. 

At first, having our own rooms was intended to include us sleeping separately; I set up my weekly schedule so that Romeo had two nights each week allocated to him, and those were the nights I would sleep in his room. But as time has gone on, I have found that I genuinely prefer sleeping with him, and I’ve shifted back to that. I still get ready for bed/the day in my own space, and keep my things in my room, but I choose to sleep in Romeo’s bed when we’re both home. It gives me a sense of security knowing that I do have my own bed to sleep in if I feel like I need to—plus I like taking naps there. So, as unique as our room situation is right now, it feels like it’s working really well for us. 

Having an established schedule is another thing that has been important to the health of our relationship. It allows me to comfortably and clearly communicate that I intend to spend certain nights with certain partners, and use weekend free time to go on dates and develop relationships. If Romeo gets upset about any of the time I spend with other partners, I no longer feel the need to pacify him because I know that I am being fair to him, and the issues he deals with are his own to work on. 

Lastly, we’ve been doing couples’ therapy for a few months now and that has helped us tremendously. In addition to our own individual therapies, couple’s therapy has given us a safe place to discuss things that we might otherwise be afraid to confront. It has provided accountability, and encouraged us to set better boundaries with each other. 

My relationship with Romeo has never been easy, but it is so very rewarding. There is nobody on this earth with whom I believe I will ever share the same level of connection with that I share with Romeo. He is the person who I feel most myself with. He’s a partner who never has made me doubt his feelings for me, because the way he sees me is so extraordinarily adoring. There’s a reason that I’ve stayed with him through all of the trials we’ve faced! That reason is that the love we share is like nothing else. It is rare, and powerful, and not something to be given up without one hell of a fight. And believe me, we have fought hard for it. 

Okay so this post was intended to be an update about all of my partners, but as you can see I got a little distracted by talking about Romeo. I thought it was important, though, since I hadn’t really written much about our relationship in a while.

As for my other serious partners, things are feeling pretty consistent. With Benny, things are very steady. We’ve been struggling a bit with finding ways to connect better over the long distance between us, but overall I believe that our love only continues to grow stronger. 

With Audrey, I feel that we’re finding more balance as well as strengthening our attachment. She has been able to explore more outside of our relationship, and find some really amazing connections that seem to be highly satisfying for her, which has helped me to feel less of the pressure I was putting on myself to be a “good girlfriend.” I know that her happiness isn’t focused on me (not that it ever was!), which has allowed me to relax and appreciate the love that we have. It is only fair for me to disclose that a few weeks ago, I did try to break up with her (!!!) because I felt that she needed more from me than I could give. I’m so grateful that she didn’t just accept our relationship ending so easily, and that she fought for us to improve our communication rather than simply giving up. She was right, of course, and I feel much better about us now. I love her deeply, more than words can say, and I hope that I never lose her.

With Chase… I don’t even know how to fully explain how I feel, because I don’t fully understand it myself. Things are good between us and we seem to be recovering from our near-breakup a few weeks ago (can you tell that I was in a rough place a few weeks ago?). I felt like I’d made a lot of personal progress, in terms of releasing some of the intensity of my feelings for him. But after the last time we were together, which was our first sleepover in about a month, my carefully constructed detachment was shaken. Leaving him in the morning sucked, and my attachment to him still doesn’t feel nearly as secure as I would like, which only makes it worse. 

I’m finding that I see him as being in a different category now; because Romeo, Benny, and Audrey are relationships I feel very secure in—they’re what I consider “lifers” because I plan to love them for the rest of my life, and they all feel the same. Obviously I don’t feel that security with Chase. What is the best category label for someone who I love and long for, but know I can’t hold onto too tightly?

Side note: I know, I know. I should probably worry less about labels. But one of my autistic traits is the near-need to have things defined and organized so that everything makes sense in my mind. It gives me the sense of security that I crave.

As an example, the label “comet partner” for Enzo has been very comforting to me. It expresses a lot of what I feel our relationship is. We don’t know the next time we will see each other, but we know that we will. We both try to make sure it’s not too long in between those times and we’ve been finding ways to sneak in time together even if it’s not alone time, or not for very long. We both just want to see each other, and kiss and hug and cuddle… and other things, when the opportunity arises. Like a comet, Enzo shines brightly in my life, even though he’s not always close by. I can confidently say that there is love between us, both friendly and romantic.

Casey is still a bit of an ambivalent relationship for me. The feelings between us are decidedly sweet, flirty, and loving. In a lot of ways, he fits into what I would consider boyfriend-status. But, he doesn’t want that label. And I think I know why. I think he doesn’t want to fall in love with someone who’s polyamorous, because he wants to have his partner all to himself. I also think that he doesn’t feel that he’s worthy of a loving, committed relationship right now. Whether those hypotheses are accurate or not, I know that he treats me very well and that our connection is growing stronger and deeper the more time we spend together. I’ve accidentally said “I love you” to him twice already! Usually, I know that I love someone when that thought starts popping into my head often, and then when those slips of the tongue (or near-slips) start happening. So you can take that as you will. 😉 

Things with Luca have continued to be consistent. We don’t text very much, but we do say good morning and check in most days. I’m excited to see him for our second date tonight! I have continued to keep my feelings for him in check, since I don’t feel like they are fully embraced by him. When he does say flirty things, though… Lord, help me. One realization that I had today was that, despite my general belief that age is just a number, for some people it can reflect more clearly in their maturity level. I say this because Luca is one of the youngest people I’ve ever dated (in comparison to my own age), and that shows. He has a lot of emotional intelligence, so don’t get me wrong! But I also have to take into account that he hasn’t had as much life experience, let alone romantic experience, as I have. Sometimes that might mean that he doesn’t satisfy my emotional needs as much as I would like, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. It just means that he’s still learning—as we all are—and that he’s a few steps behind me.

I had my second date with Patrick last night and it was awesome. We spent some of the time hanging out with Romeo at our house, and it was super fun to enjoy the positive and fun vibes between all of us. When we were watching a movie on the couch, he put his hand on my thigh and boy oh boy did that do things to me. I thoroughly enjoyed being snuggled up next to him for over an hour. AND, since we all know that I am in fact one to kiss and tell—I can gladly report that he kissed me at the end of the night. He’s an excellent kisser. When I came back inside I was more giddy about that first kiss than I’ve been for a while now. Best of all, he texted me in the morning and gave me such good reassurance that he’s into me, and said some flirty things that made me giddy all over again. I’ve been thinking about him quite a lot today, in fact! It seems that this unsuspecting turtle has so much more potential than I’d realized.

Unfortunately, things have come to a close with Harlowe and Turtle #3. I went on a date with Harlowe and it was great. We even kissed at the end! Unfortunately, something happened in their life that has caused them to need to pull away from dating at this time. They don’t feel they have the capacity to continue pursuing a relationship with me, and I totally understand and respect that. And, I ended up canceling my date with Turtle #3, because I wasn’t feeling the chemistry with him. He took it well, fortunately, which can’t be said for all guys! 

Meanwhile, two turtles who were previously counted out of the race have now re-entered. Interestingly, they were put in the same group as Patrick (previously Turtle #7)  in my last full update, in which I said:

“Turtles #6, #7, and #11 then also began falling significantly behind. We’re all still talking, and I’m planning on meeting #7 this weekend because we’ve had this date planned for a while, but my connections with these three are just not strong enough to become anything close to what I’m feeling with my new first place turtle.” 

To refresh your memory, I will also include what I said about each of them in my first Turtle Race post:

“Turtle #6 is one I’ve spent a bit more time texting than the others. He’s been more responsive and proactive about continuing our conversation, which I appreciate. We’ve also shared a good deal of sextual interactions, and for a minute there he was actually in the lead. However, after asking when we could meet and me giving him times that would work (you see the pattern?) he became much more noncommittal. I’m not sure what his intentions are, whether to just enjoy some digital flirtation or to actually meet IRL, but I do know that he’s no longer in the lead because of his yo-yo routine. Turtle #6 is falling behind.” 

“Turtle #11 is also new, and also started off supremely well. This one was almost more like instant bestie vibes at first, but then he said some stuff that made my tummy do things it doesn’t typically do for my besties. There were also a strange number of mind-reading moments and wild coincidences that made it feel something like kismet. So yes, he’s up high on the leaderboard as well, BUT one very unfortunate detractor which I really shouldn’t ignore but seem to be struggling not to is: he’s another Casey situation all over again. He is only looking for FWB type relationships. And I already have one FWB that I would much rather be in a real romantic relationship with! I don’t need two. To paint a visual, I would say that Turtle #11 has managed to launch himself into the air and is now sailing haphazardly toward the finish line, but he’s not really racing since he’s not even on the ground, so nobody knows whether to count it if he crosses first. I do not know what to do with Turtle #11.”

To make things simpler, I will give pseudonyms to Turtles #6 and #11 now. Turtle #6 will henceforth be called Anderson, and Turtle #11 will now be called Noah.

Anderson has continued to be consistent and proactive about texting me, and continues to show interest in exploring our connection. He had some concerns about sexual safety, considering the number of partners I have. That’s fair, as it’s certainly not for everyone to have such a large polycule web. (I do take sexual safety seriously, which includes using barriers and getting regular STI testing). However, he decided that he’s still interested in getting to know me, and I could see some potential there, because for my part, I really like him a lot. We shall see! We still don’t have plans to meet, yet. 

Noah has been pretty much radio silent (which to be fair, goes both ways), but he has at least scheduled a date with me, which is tomorrow. Whether or not something can, or should, come of this connection is going to be based a lot on our chemistry. Because obviously, I don’t need another FWB… but at the same time, I do like having fun. It’s a balance, amiright? 

SO! To sum it up, I currently have six consistent partners: three of whom I consider lifers (my husband Romeo, my boyfriend Benny, and my girlfriend Audrey; although I very rarely get to see Benny due to the long distance), and three of whom I consider very loving but less committed (my boyfriend Chase, my comet partner Enzo, and my FWB Casey). In addition, I have two developing relationships (Luca and Patrick), and two more potential relationships (Anderson and Noah). I’m hoping that within the next month or so, I’ll be able to officially say that I’m closing the exploration stage and settling into some consistency with the partners that end up sticking around. <3