I had thought “ah the writing between the lines- have I finally found out this woman”; but no she comes through trumps with her candour and honesty shining through.

After all she married the ‘man’ who was the ‘woman’ and so who is surprised he became the she and given a chance it will work just fine……………apart that is from the bonking that may be missed but you can’t have it all and with their level of intelligence I have little doubt that acceptable solutions will emerge.

For me when my 18 year relationship foundered on a pair of breasts (well they are quite stunning breasts actually- we are as they say “a big breasted family”) I was emotionally wrecked but after three years my partner has returned, wary but willing. And so we continue our own version of this mortal coil with for me at least a degree of equanimity.

Good luck to both of you.

Rosie

“I’m a polyamorous trans-woman in my early twenties. My partner and I have known each other for seven years, been best friends for about five, and been lovers for three. Our relationship has spanned hir transition, and then two years later, mine. We have both had other lovers in the last three years, and just recently we’ve been seeing the same person seperately (a trans-guy from a new social clique that we had joined.)

The big challenge, every step of the way, has been about recognizing and accepting our own feelings, and then sharing them. A point that I made to my boyfriend just recently is that it’s always ok to feel jealous, and it’s always ok to lovingly express jealousy. And what my partner explained to me is that jealousy is an indicator of one of two things: an unmet need or an unknown insecurity. In the first case negotiation is necessary(1), and in the second it is a good indicator that individual (and alone) self-exploration is necessary.

As for happy endings, I definitely fell into believing that I could find a happy ending some day when I was in high school, but as soon as I started having a longer term sexual relationship, the idea pretty much evaporated. At this point I think it’s a capitalist fantasy designed to keep folks from thinking too far past buying the engagement ring/wedding dress, which is where a lot of the really challenging communication lies. If popular media concerned itself as much with the maintenance of relationships as it does with the formation of relationships, young people might have a little more negotiation/consent training than they do.

With regards to the desire for a cis-male partner: I’m totally right there with you! I think this is a very common phenomenon for polysexual folks, but it’s also understandable in other ways. My partner and I watched the show True Blood and got frustrated when the main female protagonist was caught between two men, one of whom was a vampire. We both thought: “How convenient! A day boyfriend, and a night boyfriend!” I have a lover whom I only ever see for a specific kind of BDSM play, and we’re always in character with one-another. There are any number of ways in which a single lover can be inadequate to meet one’s sexual/emotional needs. It’s just super important that partners are honest with one-another about their needs, and allow the other person decide on what he/she/sie is ok with, or under what terms the fulfillment of that need is acceptable.

I always like to recommend to anyone who is struggling with intimate relationship negotiation the book The Ethical Slut (Easton and Hardy) even when they don’t consider themselves to be poly. It really presents a sort of logical and acceptable framework for understanding sexual relationships, IMHO.

1: One thing to keep in mind about negotiation is that you have to bring dramatic relationship modification to the table. That is to say, the negotiation could be very unproductive if you and your partner aren’t willing to accept break-up (or at least desexualization) as a possibility.”

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