Are We All Polyamorists?                                         Back to Marriage
By LifeAdviceSite.com

In case you've never heard the term Polyamory, it literally means "many love" and is used to describe the practice of engaging in committed relationships with more than one partner.  Unlike an affair often cloaked in secrecy, Polyamory is typically about multiple partners sharing in an open and honest relationship where each member is fully aware of the other.  It can involve any number of partners and degrees.  Some are life-long commitments like marriage, while others may involve relationships more similar to dating that last a few months or years.

Many people immediately balk at the thought and readily dismiss the concept altogether.  Particularly for those raised in conservative homes and taught to believe in a committed marriage relationship between two people, polyamory can seem little more than a flowery word to describe individuals seeking to righteously pursue sexual relationships outside of their primary committed relationship.

Recently I stumbled across an individual in my social circle who was describing a recent decision to enter into a polyamorist lifestyle.  Since I have long tried to live my life from a place of open-minded acceptance of each person's right to pursue happiness, I absorbed the opinion with an open heart and an open mind.

The explanation touched on the idea of oneness and the closeness we may feel with all of humanity.  While the individual's marriage brought happiness and joy, there was apparently something missing.  It was decided that "something" was emotional and physical intimacy with additional persons.

After all, the lives we lead on this planet are not solitary and are not meant to be solitary.  We join forces with each other in nuclear and extended families to learn, to love and to grow.  We share ideas with each other and we develop our own sense of self based on the relationships we experience and the reactions we have toward other people.  Life is all about change, experimentation and transformation.  We are all linked in a chain leading the way to our higher selves and whatever version of Heaven we imagine.  We are here to learn about ourselves and to love one another.

In interfacing with each other on an emotional or intellectual level, we develop close bonds and share both emotional and physical intimacies with one another.  It can often be a question of the chicken or the egg.  Does the physical intimacy of a hug or holding hands beget a deep emotional connection, or does the emotional closeness we feel naturally blossom into the desire to express further physical intimacies?  The case may vary by individual, but it seems the two are inextricably linked.

So if love is meant to be shared with everyone around us, would it make perfect sense to develop emotional bonds with many people and in turn allow those emotional bonds to expand into physical intimacies?  Are we all polyamorists deep down?

Well that's as far as I could get in making sense of it.  The fact is there are many people we connect with in our lives - our children, our friends, parents and siblings.  These can all be deeply emotional and spiritual connections, and none of them involve the sexual intimacies reserved for a mate.  In this regard it's a struggle to understand.  Love is meant to be openly and willing shared with all.  Sexual intimacy is something uniquely different.