You’re listening to the Author Diary Entries podcast — formerly known as Indie Author Weekly. I’m your host, Sagan Morrow, and this is episode #183.
Someone recently reached out and asked me, “Do you ever think being polyamorous is a phase, and that you and your spouse might go back to being monogamous?”
Let’s talk about that! My published novels to date are all polyamorous romantic comedies, so I want to first answer this question and then get into another important question: “Can you write about polyamory if you aren’t ACTIVELY polyamorous?”
It’s important to begin by noting that there’s a difference between identity vs action. For example, my spouse is a cis straight man. He is currently the only person I’m in a relationship with. However, I identify as pansexual. Being in a relationship with a man doesn’t mean that I’m automatically heterosexual.
I view relationship identity vs action the same way: I identify as a polyamorous person, because I have the capacity of being romantically interested and involved with multiple people simultaneously, and my affection for one person does not have any impact or take away from my affection for another person.
Now, some people will take issue with that — they will say that polyamory is not an identity, it is a relationship style. And I agree that it’s a relationship style! It can also be considered as a lifestyle. It can also be considered as a relationship identity.
You always get to define things on your own terms, and that is my view of polyamory. It is a relationship identity. It is MY relationship identity.
My spouse and I haven’t dated anyone else since the pandemic started — we just happened to both end things with other people right before it started, and then for obvious reasons we didn’t start anything with anyone when the pandemic was in full swing. Then we moved to a new city, and two things happened: first, this meant we now live together full-time. Previously, he lived out of the province for two weeks at a time and was home for one week, year-round, which made it very straightforward for us to have relationships with other people when we weren’t physically in the same geographic location. That isn’t the case anymore.
And second, moving to a new city meant forming new friendships with people. We are both extremely introverted people, so our capacity for spending time with people is limited. Friendship was a top priority for me when we moved to our new city, so that’s been my focus ever since. Growing those connections is still my main focus for my social battery.
Right now, I’m not interested in dating people “for the sake of dating.” I’m much more interested in building friendships through my hobbies at this time. And because my social battery doesn’t have much capacity, at this time I’m not sure that even if I DID meet someone I had a romantic connection with that I’d want to act upon it — because I don’t really have much energy for that at this point in time.
Keep in mind that monogamous people do this all the time when they’re single: A monogamous person can choose to enjoy single life without looking for dates or actively dating. They can take a break from dating — it doesn’t mean they’re done with dating, it just means it isn’t a priority at that time.
Polyamorous people can do the exact same thing: they can enjoy a single relationship without looking for more relationships or actively dating. How you identify doesn’t always align with the practice of that identity for all kinds of reasons! Just because I identify as polyamorous, it certainly doesn’t mean I always need to be actively seeing more than one person. It doesn’t erase my polyamorous identity.
This brings us to the other piece of it, which is that my spouse and I didn’t open our relationship because we “needed” to be with other people. We were recently at an event, and someone was surprised we’d been together for 15 years because they thought we’d just started dating, which is pretty cute. They asked us, “Don’t you get bored of each other?” And the truth is, no! We don’t!
We didn’t open our relationship because of anything lacking within our relationship. Rather, we didn’t want to limit ourselves if and/or when we meet other people we connect with on a romantic level — and I simply haven’t had that kind of connection with anyone recently (and again, my introvert energy honestly doesn’t have the capacity for that right now).
You can still identify as polyamorous while appearing from the outside to be monogamous. You can be in an essentially “monogamous” relationship, without “being” monogamous, yourself.
Does this mean we’re closed off from polyamory now? No, but I also have no idea when or if we’re going to meet other people that spark a romantic connection and that we’ll want to pursue. I assume it’ll happen again at some point! It could be two days from now, two weeks from now, two years from now, twenty years from now. Who knows!
This then begs the question: As an author, can you write about polyamory in your novels when you aren’t actively polyamorous?
My answer is yes, of course you can. You also don’t need to identify as polyamorous in order to write about it, even though I DO identify as polyamorous.
I will say that an important factor here, if you want to write about polyamory but you yourself are not polyamorous, is to ask yourself 2 questions:
#1 What are common stereotypes of this that may not be true? This is a question you’ll want to explore especially if you don’t have personal experience, because it’s easy to get caught in the trap of perpetuating unhealthy stereotypes. For example, people only seek polyamory because something’s wrong in their existing relationship.
#2 What is missing in the conversation? For example, when I was first searching for polyamorous romance novels, I found that a lot of them were set in fantasy worlds rather than contemporary society. Similarly, most movies that feature polyamory are more dark or dramatic rather than comedy. This positions my Polyamorous Passions series as a somewhat unique spin, because they are romantic comedy novels set in present day that feature alternative relationship styles.
To sum it all up: First, your relationship identity and your relationship practices do not always need to be one and the same. Second, write about anything you want, even if you don’t have that lived experience; just make sure you’re respectful and thoughtful about it. And third, if you ask me questions about this kind of stuff, I just might turn it into a podcast episode!
That’s a wrap on today’s episode! Find me on Instagram & Threads to share your thoughts on this episode — my handle is @Saganlives. (Or, reach out on those platforms if you have other questions you’d like me to answer or if you have topic requests for the podcast!) As always, you can access the show notes and transcript of this episode at SaganMorrow.com/podcast. And if you are enjoying the Author Diary Entries podcast, please take 2 minutes to rate and review it on your favourite podcast platform.
Thanks so much — I appreciate you!
