The previous polyamory post was an introduction to a topic I have known little about until last year. I have lived most of my life around traditional, monogamous-marriage couples and families. It wasn’t until I read Chelsie Guilford’s Facebook post last June that my eyes were opened to how some people are navigating relationships, marriage, and family life through a polyamorous lifestyle. It hit me like a ton of bricks. It shook up all the premises I grew up with and have been around, and caused me to mentally set aside the framework I have lived within in order to seek to understand.
Before I was able to do that, I rolled things around in my mind for months. In the meantime, I’ve had many of my own “life things” to navigate that haven’t presented themselves in nice, neat, predictable ways. I have been processing a lot, and deeply realizing how much we are all in the same boat in general, navigating life’s wild ride the best we can.
While polyamory is not a lifestyle that solves my own personal inner needs, what I believe is that we all come into this world needing the same things – the experience of deep love, mutual understanding, and shared connection. We are born into this life in luck-of-the-draw locations – from Orcas Island, Washington, to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, with luck-of-the-draw parents who can be anything from stable and healthy to troubled and abusive. Then we are given anything from comforts like loving community and caring extended family to harmful situations that rock our worlds with insecurity, loneliness, fear, and trauma. At the same time, the world throws us either safe boundaries or off-kilter curveballs due to religion, culture, peers, junior high, you name it. In the midst of all that, we are figuring out ourselves, our personalities, our bodies, our needs, and our uniquenesses.
By adulthood, we can either have some fairly ingrained ideas and assumptions about how our lives will proceed or we are wondering when the right time will be to rock the boat if we haven’t already. If we are on the path of the former, at some point life can still take a turn and force us to choose what our individual “norm” will be. Will we endure in the methods we always presumed we would, or will we step out into unknown territory as we ponder a new direction that, while scary and the road less taken, is more authentic and necessary for becoming who we know we need to become? If we are on the path of the latter, it can be nerve-racking, anxiety-producing, and depression-fighting to know that at some point we are not going to go with the status quo, and what will it mean for our family relationships, our reputation, how we are seen or judged by others, etc.?
On the other hand, following the norm shelters no one from difficulty. Perhaps that’s why, at the root, some of the people I have reached out to in order to talk about their experiences have chosen to navigate life into what has undoubtedly felt to them at times like uncharted territory – because either way, difficulty will ensue at some point, so why not choose personal authenticity over faking it to make it?
Hearing other people step out of the accepted current and speak about how they are wrestling or navigating or walking one moment at a time into foreign places with unknown horizons is fascinating to me. I love learning the stories of people who decide it’s important to say where they are rather than allow what’s normal or accepted or popular or common to dictate what they should think or do. It isn’t easy to go against the grain, and I deeply respect the courage it takes to do so. Whatever the accepted system is, it doesn’t guarantee happiness, mental stability, or deep fulfillment anyway. So why not see what’s on the other side of the unknown?
Take a moment now to take a deep breath and set aside whatever structure holds you in place in your worldview, or whatever may tell you to judge what is not part of your accepted structure. Remember that you are not who you are because of every decision you made. Had you been born Kiranti in a tiny, rural Limbu village in the Himalayas, it would be normal for everyone around you to be worshipping mother nature and honoring a creator goddess named Tagera Ningwaphumang. Had you been born a boy on the island of Mangaia, adults would expect you to go along with the accepted norm for expressing romantic love, which would be to quietly enter the home of the girl you like and lie down with her without awakening her parents. Had you been born a girl among the Dobe !Kung, or San, in what seem like inhospitable regions of southern Africa, the mongongo nut would be one of the many plant foods you would gather daily to eat, and you would nurse each of your children for years due to having few soft-food options in the natural world around you.
In other words, your regional location, social structure, religious foundation, and resulting mental fabric are not normal, universal, more enlightened, or advanced. You just may believe they are because we are living in the most “advanced” era so far. Just as people born in 1640 were at their time. Just as people born in 2310 will be for their time. Even the word “advanced” is a funny characterization when you watch American children and teenagers enter a new place – they may only know how to post an Instagram video of themselves looking cute there, not knowing anything about the place, how to eat off the land, or its history. How about your own level of advancement – would you survive even one week in your hometown if all of a sudden we had no electricity or grocery stores? I wouldn’t.
All of that is to say that we are all products of our words, our cultures, our regions, our time periods, and our religions. What you may think is normal here might be considered downright nutty somewhere else, and what you may judge as unthinkable might be the norm somewhere else. Each one of us has our own comfort zone thanks to what genes we carry, who raised us, where we grew up, and what ideologies form the accepted structures around us.
What you are about to read is a person going against the cultural grain, even though loved ones, society, and religion may judge her harshly. She has questioned the ideologies her culture expects her to live out and is exploring other ways of doing life. Rebelliousness isn’t the goal. Living the life she designs, free of the trappings of other people’s expectations, is.
I want to introduce you to Chelsie Guilford with her own words from the Facebook message she posted last summer.
Please open your heart, listen without judgment, and seek to understand the root of her story. Set aside the need to agree or disagree, and just be here with her. We have been taught to see sexuality in very culturally and religiously prescripted ways, but if you allow yourself the freedom from your own structure to connect with her, which may be scary at first, you may realize that you share more in common with Chelsie than you may have first assumed…
“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.” ― Andre Gide, Autumn Leaves
Since childhood, this quote was carried close to my heart and evolved into my life motto. As many of you know, I’m going to be running this Fall as a Commissioner on the Health Care District. To help put to rest any rumors that might be out there about me, I want to be upfront about who I am in the most authentic way possible.
I’ve shared with many of you my journeys over the last few years; improving my physical and mental health, building my career, and becoming actively involved in the Orcas community. At each milestone, I wanted to be my authentic self. This June, in honor of Pride, I continue that practice in sharing a very personal part of myself. I am a bisexual woman, and I am polyamorous.
I’ve spent years living in fear and anxiety wondering how to tell people. Worrying about being judged or cast out of my family and community. But the more vulnerable I am, the more I attract the type of people I want in my life. I’m done hiding. It’s liberating to realize I have no control over what others think of me so I might as well be myself. I can’t change who I am, and I don’t want to!
So what about me and Israel? Many of you might be wondering. Israel and I are still together and so much in love. We’ve spent the last 17 years navigating what we want our relationship to look like based on our own terms and grown closer as a couple. Being polyamorous doesn’t mean anything is missing in our relationship; this relationship style is what works for us! And our commitment, communication, and relationship health is stronger than ever. Come have coffee with us! We are not afraid to speak our truths, especially about topics that may be considered scary or taboo.
When it comes to our children – oh my sweet boys! – If you’re worried about them having polyamorous parents, ask them how they feel about it. We don’t hide ourselves; teaching our kids critical thinking skills, while showing them that love is not restrictive. If you spend even ten minutes with my boys, you’ll find that they are loving, deep-thinking individuals. That comes from a lot of hard work and encouraging them to be their true selves, knowing they will never be shamed for expressing themselves authentically.
There are many misconceptions around polyamory, and I want you to know you can ask either myself or Israel questions! Additionally, as I continue to lean into this most authentic version of me, you will probably see more writing and speaking that includes this amazing part of my life; both directly and indirectly. I won’t hide in fear, and I know my incredible support system will be showering me with love, encouragement, and validation as I process all of this.
However, if you are averse to this real version of me, then you know where the unfollow button is. I won’t accept being harassed or vilified. I’m a genuine person that just wants to be loved and accepted like everyone else. I’m not gross, dirty, reckless, or dumb because I live differently. I’ve spent the last three years being very intentional in telling the people closest to me about my true self. Now is the time to publically state who I am. We all have one life to live and I’m not going to spend my one life being afraid of other people’s opinions, especially when I know my story can help others feel even more love and acceptance.
Here I am. Chelsie Guilford, the queen, her majesty, full of vulnerability and authenticity. Take me or leave me, because I don’t need anything less than amazing in my life.
For those of you that are curious and want to know more here are some resources.
Podcasts: https://www.multiamory.com/#gsc.tab=0
Polyamory and parenting : https://www.todaysparent.com/…/polyamorous-parenting…/
Websites : https://www.lovingmorenonprofit.org/…/new-what-is…/
(this is a good educational website but please try to look past the cheesy pictures and remember polyamory can look differently for everyone. Just like monogamy looks different for each couple.)
You can also ask me or Israel questions. We’re not here to hide in fear anymore.
Thank you, Chelsie, for being so open. I so appreciate your willingness to share your experiences.
Chelsie wants to give special thanks to Israel’s other partner, Courtney DeVries, for her writing and editing help in the above post. Chelsie also thanks both Courtney and Chelsie’s other partner, Ian, since they are big parts of their family. (Courtney is not in a relationship with Chelsie, and Ian is not in a relationship with Israel.)
Because I love to learn vicariously through other people and I always want to know more about what makes others tick, I asked Chelsie and her husband Israel if they would be open to being interviewed about their journey with polyamory. They kindly agreed, and we reserved a room in the library several weeks ago to talk about it in depth. That will be the subject of the next “Navigating” article in the series on this blog.
I have one final thought to share with you…
I understand this topic may be new and perhaps even deeply alarming for some of you. It was for me last year, and it took months for me to come full circle and feel that the deep root of it is actually something I share with Chelsie, not something about which we differ – that we are both navigating this wild ride called life, and some of the parameters and structures handed down to us aren’t any less flawed than some of the other options we might choose. The structures we hold dear are sometimes even the hardest on us.
This article is not meant for you to decide whether you agree or disagree. It is meant for you to set that completely aside and love one another. Loving one another will matter infinitely more than anything else we do. No matter what ideas or religious precepts guide and guard you, I imagine that loving one another is the highest goal of what you have been taught or what you have chosen to believe – the pinnacle of your faith in action. You may not choose what others choose, but you can seek to understand the deep reasons why people make those decisions, and there you will find yourself as well. Like peeling an onion down to the middle.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.
—Martin Niemöller (a German pastor who, after World War II, “openly spoke about his own early complicity in Nazism and his eventual change of heart,” according to the Holocaust Encyclopedia)
We are not ideologically one love that lives itself out practically as fractured, judgmental factions. That is nonsensical. We are to be unified in love – period. We all need to take care of each other.
All photos are courtesy of Chelsie and Israel Guilford
