We don’t want anyone to be running around under a false impression, over here: this post is to check you know we’re poly right now (and have been since around mid-2007). That is to say, we’re polyamorous, rather than monogamous. This means we spend rather more time talking about feelings than people in films, but also significantly less time arguing about who kissed who, or whether it counts if it’s the office Christmas Party, or what have you. (That’s a very crude and lighthearted summary, mind, because if we got into the nitty gritty of the philosophy, we’d be here all Internet). For reference, our relationships currently have a kinda J-R-D shape, where Ruth has two long-term relationships going on, and I’m having lots of no-strings-attached fun playing computer games. At the moment, then, Ruth can talk about having a fiance (me), and a boyfriend (Dan).
Of course, that’s all got to change after Ruth and I get married: we’re going to have to start treating each other as husband and wife, so Ruth will end up talking about her husband and her boyfriend, instead. That’s a pretty big change, I think – it’ll feel strange to me, leastways – but big though it is, it’s the only change you’re likely to see come November.
Y’see, getting married – to us – doesn’t mean ‘never seeing anybody else,’ and when you think about it, there’s no real reason it should, since we already found that being together anyway didn’t mean that. What it does mean to us is something like ‘we are a unit, and that’s not about to change.’ That’s probably a whole post in itself, and I’ll rein in my natural instinct to shoehorn it into this one through the use of parentheses: the important thing to note here, is that this isn’t the sort of wedding after which we make everyone miserable by foisting ultimata onto them.
We’re legally square here – because we’re neither of us proposing to get married twice – and more importantly we’re theologically square – because whilst we both believe we’re making a commitment to one another before God, and our family & friends, we’re not committing to anything we don’t mean: just that we’ll be loving and faithful to one another (and, to be honest, we were rather trying to do that anyway).
This is one of the things I really like about the Quaker marriage, and I have to say that when we promise to be loving and faithful we may well have an edge over rather more people than you’d think, because we’ve got a pretty rock solid idea of what we mean by ‘faithful.’ It’s actually the same definition we’ve been working to for about three years now, I’m pretty confident we can manage to stick to it in the future.
Meeting, being populated chiefly by people who describe themselves as Quakers (although we’ve got at least one Buddhist, and anyway, it’s not like it really matters as long as it works for them) were very nice about that: if’n you propose to get married in the Quaker tradition they set up a Meeting for Clearness – chiefly so as to make sure you know what you’re doing – and that was really good: they asked excellent questions about how it worked for us, and where we saw things going in the future, and coming out to them all turned out very well; we didn’t even require another meeting, which was an unexpected compliment, since it often takes two or three to ensure everyone is comfortable with agreeing to appointing a meeting for marriage.
It went a lot smoother than I’d expected: in advance, I was quite worried about the process, since the stakes felt pretty high, and what if we didn’t explain things very well? Someone (I forget who) noted that I was stressed about this in advance, and they suggested we could just keep quiet about being Poly, but that felt wrong to me: this is a damn serious thing we’re getting into here, and I rather think that an enormous lie isn’t the best way to kick the enterprise off… which is wherefore this post, y’see.
We don’t want people to turn up under the impression that us getting married is somehow an end to the poly thing, because it isn’t. I can’t see what’s down the line, of course, and I guess it’s possible that things might change at some point, but right now this works for us, so there’s no good reason why we shouldn’t carry on as we are.
Chances are if you’re not some random who wandered in by googling words in the nearest search engine, we probably invited you, and we’d like anyone we invited to come to the actual Wedding if they can. The party afterwards is pretty nice, I guess, but it’s not important. The Wedding ceremony is the important bit, with the commitment to one another, and the request for divine assistance in doing so, and all that, and the party’s mostly just there because once you’ve got all your friends and family to witness a marriage, it seems a bit harsh to just pack ‘em off without any supper.
Either way, now you know, and you’re perfectly at liberty to say something like ‘well, fair enough, if it works for you. Bit weird for me, though.’ Equally, you’re free to say ‘I think this is morally wrong,’ or ‘I don’t think you should get married if you don’t intend to be monogamous,’ or even ‘I don’t believe in God so asking God to back you would make me feel wrong’.
Understand that this post is to tell you what we believe and what we think, not what we think you should. So if you do feel – for whatever reason – that it would be wrong for you to come along and witness the actual marriage and ask God to back us up in it, then it’s perfectly OK to not show up to the actual Wedding bit.
The thing to remember is that at a Quaker wedding, being there for the actual Marriage part of the day isn’t just being part of the audience the way you might expect: you ain’t just there as witnesses, you’re part of the actual doings. Technically we marry each other, but blessed as Quakers are with a total absence of organised clergy, anyone who is present at a Quaker wedding is automatically a part of that marriage: you don’t just sign the certificate, you sign off on the entire enterprise simply by virtue of coming in.
If your objection is ‘It ain’t for me,’ that’s fine, but if you’re along the lines of ‘It’s not right,’ or ‘It won’t work,’ or something, I’m fairly sure we’d all be happier in the long term if you quietly excused yourself from the ceremony, and just came to the party afterwards.
We won’t mind, I want to make that clear. We won’t ask why, or say if you don’t make the ceremony, you shouldn’t get to come to the party: if it doesn’t sit right with you, then it doesn’t sit right with you. I don’t imagine you’re doing it on purpose, and – in the nicest possible way – I don’t really care why it doesn’t sit right, that’s your own private business, but I’m not enough of a bastard to ask you to sign your name to something you don’t believe in, and I’d ask that you do us the courtesy of not doing so just to please us – trust me, we’d prefer it.
So there you have it: full disclosure. Nobody’s walking into this blind, if I can help it.
Wonderfully put, and well-explained. I don’t think anybody can claim they don’t know, now!
Dear both,
While I already knew about this modus vivendi, I think it’s a great thing that you’ve expounded it in this form.
Your faithfulness to each other may not be in the rigid form as some might expect, it is nonetheless solid and in a manner that makes the most of your deep love for each other while remaining realistic about, excited by (steady…) and alert to the way that we simple souls operate in the world.
I applaud your honesty and your refreshing attitude towards to the whole shebang, and I will be delighted to formalise my affirmation at the ceremony.
Much love to you both
Paddy x