What does it take to be a polyandrist?

I just read the book Only Pack What You Can Carry by Janice Holly Booth.  While this autobiographical book was primarily about travel and outdoor adventures like canyon rappelling, I felt like it was also encouraging me to find my own path based on what I wanted to do, and then to have the courage to do my own thing.

For me, the decision embrace a lifestyle of polyandry took strength and courage.  At the beginning, this was just a joke that I made - "maybe if I'm too much for one man, I should have two."  It was difficult for me to even think that this could be a real relationship model.  I don't personally know of anyone who openly practices polyandry or polygamy.  (But to be fair, I am "in the closet" to my friends and most of my family.)  I feel like I am forging a new path, entering into a relationship that is based on meeting each others' needs, not on an formula that was handed down from a generation that live in a very different society than we do now. 

So far, I have faced less opposition than I expected.  My men, Trevor and Devon, were happy to "change the rules."  My parents are happy.  They said, "we just want you to be happy, and you have a unique situation with Devon that calls for a non-traditional relationship."



The following are quotes from the book, and what I was thinking about my own life as I read this book.

In her book Only Pack What You Can Carry, Booth says on page 51, "Ultimately, though, commitment is really about not settling for a life that is less than what you want for yourself.  I am not referring to material wealth, which is meaningless if you are not fulfilled.  I'm talking about living a life full of vigor and energy and courage, a life that inspires you and others, a life that makes you feel you are not simply biding time, waiting for the next best thing."

I wanted a life that included Devon, but where the parts in my life that were still empty got filled.  At first I thought that I had to give up Devon, my soulmate, in order to find someone to hang out and eat dinner with.  That idea squeezed my soul out until I felt empty, and life felt meaningless.  I wanted to stop biding time and waiting for Mr. Right, when I knew I had already found him.  I know that finding someone to replace Devon would have given me a life that was less than I really wanted.  My changing the rulebook I have created a way to make it work.


Booth talks about fear on page 66, "What I learned in that moment was that there are two kinds of fear-the kind that keeps you from stepping off the edge of a cliff when you shouldn't and the kind that keeps you from stepping off the edge of a cliff when you should."

I had to determine what kind of fear I had about straying from the norm - and determine who's desires were more important - mine or "monogamous" society's rules and judgments.  I thought about it a long time, and discovered that I was no longer happy living by "society's" rules, because they weren't producing the results I wanted in a fulfilling relationship.  I'm also not sure if other people are playing by those rules anyway - society seems rather pseudo-monogamous these days.


On page 159, Booth talks about packing light, "I thought back to that moment on Tomales Point when I realized I had too much baggage, and what the promise to pack lighter has ultimately meant in my life.  Through my expeditions in solitude, I've dropped the rough stones of regret, blame, grudges, unnecessary worry, and unrealistic expectations.  Not only had I been carrying too much with me on the path to a destination that didn't exist-a perceived happiness that was tied to another-I didn't even know I was lost."

It's difficult to pack light - when I try to simplify my life I still find myself bringing too much baggage with me.  I try not to, but in weak moments I keep grudges against my men, blaming them for not being my everything and my Prince Charming.  I worry about my future, and if I'll have made the right decisions.  I have unrealistic expectations that I've learned from romantic comedies, about how I'm supposed to find Mr. Perfect and fall madly and truly in love, and have butterflies all of the time, and never be let down. 

Logically I know that relationships take work, patience and forgiveness, and nobody is perfect.  Happily Ever After with Prince Charming is the "destination that didn't exist."  How many happily married couples do I know that still each think the other is perfect?  Probably no one.  Ignorance is bliss.  When you don't know someone that well, you can imagine how wonderful they are in every way.

I don't think that I am too picky.  I actually fall in love easily.  I don't know if that's a good thing.  I've dated four different men (including Trevor) that at one time I thought I would be happy to marry and start a family with.  My frustration has been that even though I was ready to accept them pimples and all, they were the ones looking for Miss Perfect that makes them feel ecstatically in love at all times. 

I've been told several times, "you are a really great girlfriend, so don't be offended, but in order to commit to marriage I just need everything to be just right.  But I would like to keep dating you..."

I know that everything will never be perfect - that is too high of an expectation.  My big piece of baggage that I still can't seem to lose is frustration and hopelessness.  I do want children to be a part of my future, and very soon, I'm already 33 years old.  Both Trevor and Devon have offered to be my co-parent in the future "when I'm ready."  In other words, we don't have any sort of agreement yet, but they want to be my first sperm-donor choices.

Co-parenting is a child-custody and financial support contract, much like what couples agree to after divorce.  The difference is that there is no divorce, and hopefully, none of the animosity that comes with divorce.  It's a business arrangement with the well-being of the child at the focus.

My frustration is that they both say they want to father and raise children with me, but neither one wants to be committed to being my husband at this time.  That's what is holding me back now.  I don't know if I'm ready to give up the ideal of raising children with someone because we love each other, not that we just chose each other as breeding stock and signed a business contract!  I guess some people would say that a co-parenting contract is not very different from a marriage contract anyway.  Some days I believe that.

Of course, now that we're in a polyandrous relationship, the "rules" have changed.  It may be difficult and/or unnecessary for me to marry either of them and maintain our relationship(s).  Having children or not can be a decision I make independently.  I need some time to accept alternate paths to the same goal.


On page 237 of the book Booth talks about transformation, "Next to the caterpillar frame was an interpretive sign listing a few interesting facts about butterlies.  While in the cocoon, the pupa has to liquefy before it can transform into a butterfly; scientists aren't really sure why.  I smiled: here was another one of nature's unfathomable mysteries, not meant for us to know but simply to ponder in amazement.  And there was the epiphany: No transformation comes from a place of comfort.  No meaningful change happens just because you want it to.  In order to move from one reality to the next, you have to be willing to take risks wherever you find them in life-and sometimes you have to go looking for them.  There are the kinds of risk that really unnerve you, that shake you to the core and make you wonder what you're made of, that melt you like iron ore and then hammer you into something new; the kinds of tests you can't study for."

I'm still struggling with polyandry being a real relationship type.  I am the caterpillar in this scenario.  I think if I am able, it will be a wonderful transformation where I learn to be less judgmental and more accepting of myself and my men the way we really are.


Booth talks about her mother, Katie, finding and exploring a new relationship on page 257, "Katie said yes instead of no and her life changed.  While there, she reunited with a man she'd met at her 25th reunion.  They had become soul mates then, and now he was widowed.  He and Katie were free to explore a new kind of friendship that would sustain them through their later years.  Having spent a long time thinking about the life she wanted, Katie is now able to make her next decision based not on infatuation or repeating the lines of an old, outdated script, but on a foundation of understanding who she is and what will content her in the last years of her life."

I like that last sentence.  It inspires me to make my decisions not based on a romance script where I am a princess needing to be rescued by a knight in shining armor, and instead make my choices based on what will make me happy.


At the end of the book on page 261, Booth talks about how to keep your spirit alive, "For me, the loneliest place to die is not a desert or a mountain-top or a cave.  It's in your heart, your spirit.  It's the place you arrive after years of apathy, of refusing to live your life like a gushing faucet, a crashing wave, an avalance.  It means never being satisfied with stasis, resisting arbitrary rules, setting down your baggage and grabbing at life with both hands and an open heart."

Thank you, Janice Holly Booth, for the inspiration to resist the idea that there is only one way to finding happiness, for reminding me to let go of past hurts, and to live like life is an adventure.