{"id":10337,"date":"2021-10-28T18:51:32","date_gmt":"2021-10-28T17:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/life360\/?p=10337"},"modified":"2021-11-01T06:45:39","modified_gmt":"2021-11-01T06:45:39","slug":"story-of-a-polyamory-pioneer-an-intimate-case-of-love-and-personal-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/life360\/story-of-a-polyamory-pioneer-an-intimate-case-of-love-and-personal-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"Story of a Polyamory Pioneer: An Intimate Case of Love and Personal Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A man\u2019s journey from monogamy, through cheating, to honest non-monogamy and a life of multiple lovers in a time when few had heard of Polyamory.<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 1990, 24-year-old Russel* sat in a car, surrounded by a picturesque landscape. He was accompanied by a beautiful local woman from a country he was holidaying in. There was erotic touching. It was a thing from the romance novels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She wasn\u2019t his girlfriend. His girlfriend was in fact visiting her parents in the same city. Young Russell didn\u2019t think he cheated since there wasn\u2019t any intercourse. He lied by omission. \u201cI just didn\u2019t tell my girlfriend about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The old Russell looks at that incident differently. \u201cThat was my first infidelity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Little did he know he is on a journey from monogamy through cheating to ethical non-monogamy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn’t know that I was polyamorous in my teens. But I’ve always had the capability of having really close connections with other people and I’ve always loved women,\u201d said Russell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After that foreign holiday, he started cheating and having relationships with other women. He said that there were many one-night stands, quick \u2018festival fucks\u2019 and drunken snugs behind pubs post that affair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russell, who is extroverted and calls himself someone who is full of life, said that his girlfriend didn\u2019t like going out that much and wasn\u2019t very social. That way, she could not find out for a while that he was cheating on her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo I had opportunities to have sex with other women and have intimate times with them. And somehow, in my cannabis-addled and alcohol-user brain, I kind of thought it was okay. Looking back on it, I know very clearly that it was immoral and wrong. I don\u2019t respect myself for it,\u201d he said with his calm face, eyes looking straight at me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it is worth mentioning here that Russell\u2019s discovery of being polyamorous involved multiple such episodes of cheating. He had had four years of monogamy with his girlfriend and then two and a half\/three years of what he called \u2018playing around\u2019 before he finally embraced ethical non-monogamy – where there is no cheating, no lying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interestingly, he wasn\u2019t exactly honest with his girlfriend back then. She found out of his infidelity when one of his friends told her. When confronted, Russell accepted. That is what ended things with her finally. That is also officially what ended his life of monogamous relationships and ironically started his life of honest non-monogamy. This was 1994.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A year before, in 1993, he had met another woman who he was having an affair with and was getting closer to. This was an important year of his life. He said they were great friends and that since his girlfriend had mental health problems that he had difficulty coping with, he often offloaded his emotional burdens on to this other woman. They went to festivals together and in 1996 started living together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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