Hi, my name is Harper! My pronouns are she\/her, and I’m a polyamorous omnisexual cisgender woman. I practice Ethical Non-Monogamy with multiple partners, in various capacities. And I love it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I identify as poly because I resonate deeply with polyamory and have found it to be an important part of my identity. Some people practice polyamory because they enjoy the dynamic, or believe in the underlying principles. But I consider myself polyamorous by orientation. For me, a big part of living my best life as my truest self includes having freedom to explore and enjoy a variety of romantic and\/or sexual connections. Me being monogamous would be like a (100%) gay person being in a heterosexual relationship. It would be like cutting off a vital part of myself. Fortunately, I am privileged to be able to live my life openly and without fear. My life, like my love, is abundant and free!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have a long-distance boyfriend named Benny, a girlfriend named Aubrey, and a life partner named Mica. I also have a few casual friendship-based poly relationships that help me feel socially balanced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This blog is a place for me to share my adventures in love and relationships. I use pseudonyms for everyone I write about, but the stories are 100% real. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thanks for visiting, and please enjoy! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A little about my polyamory journey:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’ve been polyamorous for over five years, and have been in a marriage for the entire time up until very recently. (I’m currently still married, but separated). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was married to my first ex-husband Carter for 10 years, and first became ENM (ethically non-monogamous) during the last six months of our marriage. Carter and I divorced amicably and have a positive co-parenting relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was with my second ex-husband, Romeo, for almost five years before we ultimately ended our emotionally tumultuous relationship. You can read more about that in my post, This is the story of an ending I never wanted.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the course of my time in the poly world, my views and approach have evolved significantly. When I started out, I was firmly hierarchical. That means I used labels of “primary partner” and “secondary partner” to describe my relationships. It made sense to me, because I knew that my marriage and family were my highest priority over any other partners. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When Carter and I divorced, it was because we had both outgrown our relationship and needed to find ourselves outside of it. I immediately shifted into a primary partner relationship with Romeo. We moved in together and started co-parenting each other’s children, and eventually had a baby together. For much of that time, we were in a closed monogamous relationship because that was what he wanted and felt he needed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When we opened up to ENM again, we started in a very restrictive hierarchical structure. As time went on, I felt more and more stifled and the challenges in our relationship didn’t help matters. Eventually, I realized that it was important for me to shift to a non-hierarchical approach to my relationships. That shift turned out to be the first step for me emotionally to disentangle myself from the codependence in our relationship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I describe myself now as a relationship anarchist. The way I look at relationships is that each one is unique and can be whatever the participants want it to be. It’s okay to pick and choose common aspects of relationships to create the dynamic that feels right for you! <\/p>\n\n\n\n I can have asexual relationships that feel romantic and include non-sexual affection like hand-holding, cuddling, and kissing. I can have deeply loving and committed relationships that don’t involve any sort of “relationship escalator,” which is the concept of continuously moving toward the “next step” in your relationship. I can have a relationship that looks and feels like a “primary” relationship, while still maintaining my own freedom and independence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My goal is and always will be to love in a way that feels abundant and free. Whatever that looks like may change over time, and I’m okay with that! <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hi, my name is Harper! My pronouns are she\/her, and I’m a polyamorous omnisexual cisgender woman. I practice Ethical Non-Monogamy with multiple partners, in various capacities. And I love it! I identify as poly because I resonate deeply with polyamory and have found it to be an important part of my identity. Some people practice… Continue reading About<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-14","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abundantandfree.love\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abundantandfree.love\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abundantandfree.love\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abundantandfree.love\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abundantandfree.love\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/abundantandfree.love\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":355,"href":"https:\/\/abundantandfree.love\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14\/revisions\/355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abundantandfree.love\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}