Fairy Tale Twists

L

LostGirlTink

New member
Once upon a time...
That's how the fairy tales I read as a child began. In those tales, the handsome prince rescued the princess, maybe slayed a dragon or returned her misplaced shoe, he kissed her with the kiss of true love and they lived happily ever after.
The end.

There were no bedtime stories about how the prince might already have another princess in his life.
I never had anyone read me a tale where the princess met the prince, they had a long talk about the importance of communication and then they discussed scheduling.
Not once did I read even a chapter where love was defined as anything but "the one"
In real life there is a stunning lack of dragons, I rarely misplace my shoes outside the house and my boyfriend is married to a woman he adores.

Oh hell, how did that happen?
Well, that's both a really long and really quick story depending on how you look at it, and I plan to use this as my journal/blog/personal fairy tale and talk about exactly that.
I'm Tink, I'm dating and in love with Tolyk, who is married to P and they have an open marriage. They are poly and P is dating as well.
I'm not poly. At least I am pretty sure I'm not, I'm doing my best to know and understand him as well as I can though, his happiness is important to me and I know that he's just wired a bit differently than me.
In addition to the new mono/poly thing that I'm learning about, we are in a long distance relationship. I'm USA and he's Canadian. So we have that piece to navigate as well.
I plan on continuing to do my research, make poly friends who will understand and get to know and understand as much as I can to make this as easy for both of us as I can. Just because my happily ever after doesn't follow the standard script doesn't mean that it's not a better story than the script I was told I had to follow. I tried that road and it didn't work out quite as planned.

I'll write more later.
 
Hi all. I'm Tolyk. Only recently discovered that I was capable of deeply loving more than one person at a time. I'm working on increasing my knowledge on the subject at large. Working on reading "More Than Two" at the moment. Also have had several in-depth discussions with some poly friends.

Looking forward to this journey together with Tink and my wife.
 
Hello, Tink and Tolyk...welcome to the boards!

The Life Stories and Blogs section gets a lot of views, but not too many replies unless you ask for them.

Sometimes the "Fairy Tales" leave out the most interesting parts of the stories - poly, at times, more resembles a "Build Your Own Adventure" series. Best of Luck on your Journey! Read, Write, Love, Share.

JaneQ
 
Welcome to Tink and Tolyk.

We need to look outside the Western tradition for "fairy tales," myths, legends, sacred stories to find non-mono love relationships. The activities of deities reflected what humans did in real life.

In "Hinduism" gods often had multiple partners. This was also true on Olympus, although Hera was a jealous bitch and usually punished her husband and his lovers when he strayed.

Artemis/Diana was called a virgin, but this didn't mean she'd never had sex. It meant she was unmarried or tethered to one man, and could take as many lovers as she wished.

Queen Elizabeth I of England was also such a "virgin." She didn't want to be controlled or enthralled to a man in any way. But it was known she took lovers. So did Empress Catherine of Russia.

Many Western women in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (and later) became nuns, not because of a truly spiritual "calling," but because they didn't want to be enslaved to a human man, and forced to bear a dozen children, and die young from exhaustion. They'd rather marry Jesus, remain childless, and maybe have sex with other nuns if they could justify that in their minds. Of course, they were often raped by monks or priests, but nothing's perfect. Or maybe they had naughty consensual sex with males they came into contact with, but at least they weren't official wives, possessions of one man, the almighty husband.

In Western culture, people stifled and stifle their promiscuous tendencies for the sake of keeping the patriarchy going. In the Hebrew Bible, a man could have as many wives, concubines, sexual slaves, as he could afford to keep. So that was fine for the men! Women were unable to have multiple male lovers, and could be banned (therefore risking starvation for themselves and their children), or outright stoned to death, if they were found to be in adultery. sigh...

King Solomon of Judah's story was extremely aggrandized and exaggerated, but it was written that he was so powerful, he had 700 wives and 300 concubines. And on his deathbed, he was given one more very young slave, to keep him warm in bed.

Hope this helps! ;)
 
I love it thank you.
It’s probably true if I’d spent my life hearing those tales that my perspective might be very different, for now I sometimes still struggle with the “is this how it’s meant to be” thing. Probably my single biggest stumbling block is the way society norms lead me to see a successful relationship as one where it’s “a couple” with all that entails. I’m working on it.
Maybe it’s time to begin trying to have those stories heard.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top