
photo: frugivoremag.com
Jimmy and Michelle have known they were poly since their marriage, they have been in a blended family with a child together, and each having a child from a past relationship. Until recently, they have lived with their poly partners together as a family of seven. They have just decided to get a divorce.
How long have you known you are poly?
Michelle (M) : We started talking about it seven years ago when we got married, but we didn’t go into it right away. We decided to open up our marriage around October of 2006, five and a half years ago, when Jimmy was deployed to Iraq.
Jimmy (J) : From the beginning we thought of ourselves as poly. We went to one “swingers party” and looked at each other and said, “This is not for us.”
M : The reason we did open up our marriage, when Jimmy went to Baghdad, was we believed that we could love other people, and still love each other. Neither one of us believed that love needed to be limited, right off, from the beginning. I wanted Jimmy to have any comfort and solace in Baghdad any way he could get it. If there was someone he found over there, I told him to please take it. He told me he wanted me to have the same thing, solace and comfort, while he was gone. We knew that being with other people didn’t change how we felt about each other. Love is infinite and not limited by how many people you love.
We have had poly partners in the past who have been single, had kids, and also who had other relationships. At one time we were in an extended long distance relationship where they also saw each other, so essentially a quad.