Two Relationships, Two Homes, One Big Change
My name is Jacqueline Misla, and this is my story about letting go of my life by default in order to create a life by design.
I am married, and have been with my wife for almost ten years…and I have a partner who I have been with for four years. I split my time between the two of them - moving from one home to the other every other week.
If you want to get fancy about it, we have a parallel poly vee relationship. Basically, it means that I am in a relationship with both of them - and they are not in a relationship with each other - or currently anyone else.
Balancing these two relationships is both the wildest and the most natural thing I have ever done. And I had no idea that this was possible.
My life did not always look like this. I was the epitome of hetero-mono-normativity. I was married to a great guy, we had a big home, a gorgeous daughter, a good job, a hybrid car, and the esteem of family and friends. I had a wonderful life - but it wasn’t mine. It was a life I created based on what I thought I should have. Based on the formula that society said would lead to happiness. And, frankly, based on how I wanted to be perceived by others.
My philosophy was that if I was going to do anything, I should be great at it. So if you gave me a list of expectations - I was going to exceed them. It was my way of trying to exert some control in a world where I felt like I was either too much or not enough.
I played a role for a long time, and worst yet, I don’t think I even realized I was playing a role. I thought that the discomfort that I felt inside was shame. Shame for desiring more.
It wasn’t shame, it was furry. The control I used to fit the mold actually masked my indignation. But I was paying so much attention to exceeding everyone’s expectations that I didn’t realize that in my attempt to play by their rules to win the game of life, I was actually just losing myself.
That was a lesson hard earned. But I learned it. And I would love to tell you how I got there.
i met a guy
I met my husband when I was 21. We were in a college poetry class, and while I explored my trauma and pain via verse, he created rhymes about the Garbage Pail Kids. I was focused, ambitious, and organized; he was athletic, spontaneous, and funny.
We fell in love. We got jobs, went on adventures, lived abroad, and we settled into a life together.
After five years we were married, then three years later we had a baby.
And then shortly after our daughter turned two, it all fell apart.
In addition to the stress of being new parents, the different ways that we saw and showed up in the world began to take its toll. After 10 years of being together, the things that once drew us to each other now pushed us apart.
The structure and ambition that I brought to the marriage eventually started to feel like nagging. And the lightness and play that he brought eventually started to feel like laziness. I wanted him to work harder for our life and harder for our relationship, particularly now that we had a kid and he wanted me to chill out and to not push him so much. And we were both right. We were barely in our 30s. At that point, we still had a lot to learn. Looking back 10 years later, I understand the situation with much more humility and empathy. I’m sure I would do things differently now - but I think that was the best we could do at the time. Neither of us were wrong, and yet it didn’t feel right.
It also felt super cliche. I was the nagging wife, he was the lazy husband, and there was a crying baby, and we never had sex anymore. It was all just so…predictable. And I did not want to live a predictable life, so that compounded my overall state of frustration and disappointment.
Now, one thing that wasn’t predictable about me is that I was - and am - queer and non-monogamous. I just didn’t have that language for it at the time. Those were not words or ideas that were accessible to everyone then. I just knew that I wanted to have multiple connections and never wanted to feel limited. I talked to my ex-husband about this before we got married - about how I wanted to be able to explore other opportunities, and how important it was for me to be open to possibility. And he agreed, I think kind of generally and philosophically. He was like, yeah, sure - because at that point, it didn’t feel like a threat to our relationship. And throughout our marriage, I kept alluding to it. We would both mention the hot girl by the pool in the thong bikini. We would play with the idea of it in our minds, but it wasn't real for him, I think.
Towards the end of my relationship with my ex-husband, I started to build a friendship and an emotional connection with my then colleague, and now - spoiler alert - my now wife. Our connection felt like it was feeding me in a way that my marriage was not. And I think I started to close myself off to him. He saw the signs of a budding connection, and I brushed it off.
So after a while of trying to work on my relationship with him and make sense of my feelings for her, I finally dug deep and had a conversation with him to say that I wanted to open up.
He did not want to open up, and he was hurt that I had developed feelings for someone else - particularly because I had been gaslighting him and myself by saying that it was nothing.
He was also angry. He felt like I was trying to change the dynamics of our marriage and I felt like I was acting within our agreement to be open to possibility and opportunity. Neither of us were wrong, and yet…
He admitted that he also had not been happy in our relationship, but that he had been willing to stick it out before - because it was the right thing to do. But now, this request to open up felt like permission to let go of a relationship that was already struggling.
We were heartbroken. We separated and my daughter and I moved to Manhattan. We started the divorce paperwork, and I began dating my wife.
i fell in love with a girl…who fell in love with another girl
My wife is a force of nature, you can probably hear her laughing from a block away. She is charismatic and has a presence that can fill the room. She can be both larger than life and deeply intimate at the same time - she could be speaking to 500 people, but it feels like she's talking only to you.
And if you want something done well, you go to her. She is the only person that I've ever met who could outwork me. We both wanted to change the world, and were going to do that with the help of whiteboards, flip chart paper, and Excel spreadsheets.
I thought that she represented all of the things that I felt like I was missing in my first marriage. And she was also non-monogamous.
Now, I introduced the idea of non monogamy to her, but it resonated immediately. She had a long string of relationships that ended when she would develop feelings for someone else. So the idea of being in a relationship that left room for her to have feelings for someone else was revolutionary to her. And she was in immediately. We dated, we moved in with each other and we got married after five years. All of which was pretty hard for my family. They struggled with me getting divorced, they struggled with me falling in love with a woman. They just struggled. It took a number of years for us to work through it. And now, of course, like everyone who comes in contact with her - my family loves her too.
So here I am, deeply in love for the second time and ready to live happily ever after. But of course, things rarely go that smoothly. A month before we got married, I found out that she was in love with another woman. Turns out that several months earlier a friendship turned into flirtatiousness which turned into feelings and eventually into love. But all of this happened in secret. This was not how I thought we would open up our marriage. This is not what I thought non-monogamy would feel like.
Infidelity aside, which took two years to heal from by the way, I realized that we had very different ideas of what non-monogamy meant. When I thought about non-monogamy, I assumed that there would be hierarchy. That there would be a main relationship and then there would be side connections. Of course that's not my perspective now, but that was my vision at the time.
I pictured traveling to Greece to meet some tan gorgeous person, and having a magical two weeks of engaging in all of the earthly delights. She, on the other hand, pictured being in a committed relationship with someone else and expanding her life and heart to make room for them.
We didn’t go into that level of detail when we talked about opening up. Instead, the conversation went something like this - I want to be open, do you want to be open? You do! Great! Let’s go get dinner to celebrate.
And we had several glorious years of ignorant bliss when we were so wrapped up in each other and in building a life together that neither of us explored anything with anyone else.
Everything was great, until it wasn’t. Eventually her old patterns took over. This is true with many folks, I think. You start flirting with someone and you say - well, I'm not gonna tell my partner about it, because that's gonna bother them and it’s not serious. And then you start to feel something you're like - oh, I don't know if I should tell my partner about it because they might feel jealous, and really there is no reason to be. I’ll be careful, there is nothing to worry about. And then it starts to become more serious or intense. Yet now you feel like it’s too late.
I knew this story all too well, of course. But a grand gesture of cosmic karma, I found myself on the other side of the story this time.
Their connection was building, she brushed it off, and then one day, she realized that they were deeply in love. And remember, it’s a month before we are supposed to get married.
So at this point, I don't have a very good track record with non-monogamy. In high school and college no one I dated wanted to be in an open relationship, and frankly, I was made to feel like a freak for wanting to explore it. Then when I was married. I once again tried to explore non-monogamy and it was the catalyst to our separation and then divorce. And now, when I was finally in a non-monogamous relationship, the first experience that either one of us had in being open started with my wife having a secret love of fear. I had been fighting for this thing my whole life, but I just kept getting knocked down.
I think that's how you know that something is deeply a part of who you are. When it makes no sense to do it. When it will cause discomfort if you do it. When your life will get harder if you do it. But something deep inside just knows that you have to do it.
I knew I was non monogamous, I knew I was a very sexual person, I knew that I did not want what everyone else had. But that was something that was shamed out of me as a kid from my parents and religion and culture. So I pushed that down and followed all of the rules. I got the husband and the kid and the house and the job and all the things. Everything that they say will bring you happiness. And I was not happy. Finally, when the unhappiness overpowered how I wanted people to see me - I deconstructed everything and rebuilt my life in order to be happy.
Instead of pushing myself down, I pushed other people’s rules aside. I quit my job in order to consult, I started embracing my sexuality. I married a woman and had a non-monogamous relationship. I had put forth the effort to live other people’s vision for me, and so I decided that I was going to continue to put the effort into manifesting my vision for myself and my relationship with my wife.
And it took effort, because not only was there emotional infidelity, but she had every intention of continuing her relationship with this other person. Imagine that.
Generally when there is an affair, and one person finds out about it and confronts their cheating partner, the affair ends in order to focus on and repair the marriage or primary partnership. But because we were open, that was not what she wanted. Essentially she said - I realized that I hurt you, and I am sorry about that and will work to rebuild your trust. But we are open, and I don't want to end my relationship with her. That was like a punch in the stomach.
You know, the first time with my ex-husband, I initiated the change. But the second time around with my wife, the change came for me. It took me a minute to regain my balance - but just like the overachievers that we both are, we stayed and worked to heal what had been broken. And it took a lot of work to get back to a place of trust, to make room in my life for this woman that she loved. Because at the end of the day, philosophically, I did want to be in an open relationship. That structure, that dynamic, that freedom, that autonomy - it did speak to me.
The whole thing consumed the next two years of my life. Two years before I was able to rebuild an emotionally safe relationship with my wife and redirect my attention to life outside of my marriage. Two years before something started to shift inside of me.
I realized that the more full my life was, the more I was focused on my joy and my pleasure. And frankly, the busier that I was, the less that I was paying attention to what my wife was doing. I started running, I went out with friends, I would go on solo dates to museums and restaurants, I took boudoir photos for my birthday, I caught up on movies that my wife never wanted to watch, I went on adventures with my daughter. And there were days where I would just wake up and say to myself, what is it that you want to do today? Which is not something that I ever remember asking myself before that. And then I would go and do that thing. And that was when I was finally able to sign up for the dating apps, and go to the Open Love NYC and Curious Fox events, and finally start dating.
i swiped right
Cut to New Year's Eve 2018. I'm on OkCupid, and I see this profile of a hot woman, with this “you can't define me”, non-binary energy. Her profile was clever and sweet, and so I swiped right, and it was a match. We started texting each other, and I jumped straight into it. At this point, after being on the apps for a while and going on a number of dates, I had refined my language about me, my open marriage, and what someone could expect of me. By then, I had realized that despite my vision of wild and free tryst on the beaches of Greece, after being in relationships since I was 16 years old, I actually only know how to be a girlfriend or a wife.
This became embarrassingly obvious when a guy who I was really into broke it off after a few great dates because I was unknowingly girlfriending him. I was texting good mornings and good nights, calling him after doctor’s appointments to see how things went, and essentially - to no one’s surprise - not being chill.
So after that, I drafted a few paragraphs that described exactly what someone could expect from me. I told my new OK Cupid match all about my girlfriend tendencies and my non-monogamous marriage and she was still interested. So we met up at a Brooklyn poly event.
It was like a movie; it was actually one of the only times in my life when the fantasy in my head took place in real life. Everyone else disappeared and we just…kissed.
She has a warmth and an energy that makes you feel like you’ve known her forever. She is incredibly thoughtful and caring. She is an incredible cook. And she can make me feel weak with just the raise of her eyebrow.
Now, four years have passed and we are still together.
I should stop and say that, yes, I am very aware that this is exactly what I said that I did not want out of non-monogamy. There was no trip to Greece, no sex on the sand. But when it came time to listen to my inner compass - it pointed to her. She brought the lightness, playfulness, fun and freedom that had been missing since my marriage with my ex-husband ended.
Finding her was like finding the missing piece of the puzzle. It was the balance that I didn't realize I needed.
See, my wife and my partner are very different. I’ll give you an example.
The last vacation I went on with my wife before covid, we went to Holbox, Mexico. It probably took us 8 hours to get there. Going to Holbox requires a plane, a bus, a ferry, and a car. But the hustle was worth it because it was gorgeous. It is this beautiful little place with art on almost every wall and beaches that restore your soul and the most incredible sunsets that I have ever seen.
Whereas with my partner, we actually have not gone on vacation together and have opted instead for staycation activities. One of which included turning our living room into an indoor campout. Complete with a tent made out of bed sheets, a roaring fire on tv, twinkle lights for stars, and s'mores on the stove top. It really was one of the most magical nights of my life.
My relationship with my wife is filled with big dreams, deep conversations, a drive to change the world, and the work work ethic to manifest all of it.
And my relationship with my partner is filled with spontaneity, ease, play, and the desire to enjoy the deliciousness of simple things.
I need and want both. I think that too much of either wouldn't be good for me. It is the balance that has helped me to feel fully seen. And I have also learned not to rely just on them to feel fed. It is actually a lesson learned from my first marriage: it is not the responsibility of one person - or even two people in my case - to fill every need. My romantic partnerships cannot be my everything. It takes a village to love a Jackie.
I need friends, colleagues, family, flirt buddies, and all of the people in my beautiful, complicated world to tap into all of the parts of me that want to feel fully expressed. And that also includes plenty of time on my own.
the not-so-great parts
Which is actually a beautiful transition into the hard things about being in this relationship construct. It would not be fair of me to highlight all of the lovely parts and leave out the parts that suck.
First of which is, it is really hard to find time for myself. While my wife and partner both get a week on their own to do their own thing, I am always living with someone.
So this is how it works - every other week my daughter switches between my house and her dad’s house. He lives a few blocks away - we are friends and co-parents - and so each Wednesday she switches from one house to another. And when she switches, so do I. On the weeks that she is with me, we are in our home with my wife. And the weeks that she is with her dad, I go to my home with my partner.
Just a side note for those who are blown away when I say that I move back and forth each week because I love two people - that is exactly what millions of divorced children do. Back and forth from one parent to another, and for good or bad, that has become normalized. So maybe my situation is not that abnormal.
So as my daughter packs her bag to be away for a week, I do the same. And going from partner to partner means that I am rarely alone. This has forced me to learn how to pay attention to my needs and name when I need some space and time on my own or with friends. And while both my wife and partner are very supportive of this, it is still hard. I feel guilty sometimes because I know that they already only get part of my time and time on my own carves into that even further. I want each of them to feel loved and prioritized and connected.
missing each other
Which leads me to another difficult aspect of this structure - everyone’s always missing someone. Everytime I say goodbye to either of them it is hard. I thought that feeling would go away in time, but it’s been four years and it still feels hard. And awkward. I know that is mostly in my head, but even after all of this time, it still feels strange to say goodbye to one person knowing that they know that I am going to see the other.
Now, they each have a great deal of respect for each other and for the relationship that I have with the other person. While they are not friends, I would say that they are friendly. We quarantined together for a few weeks at the start of covid - which is a story unto itself - and they hang out during events like my annual Halloween party. But honestly, that's about it.
Our lives and my time with each person are very separate. In some poly relationships, everyone hangs out with each other regularly and have brunch or go on vacation. That is not the case with us. So because everything is so separate, I have to make it a point to reach out via text, phone, or video with whomever I am away from so that we can still feel connected.
Sometimes that’s just sending heart emoji’s back and forth whenever we are thinking of the other person, sometimes it is scheduling a call or video chat with them, and sometimes it is leaving little messages on post-it notes around the house that they can find when I’m away and be reminded that I love them. Which, of course, is also difficult, because I try very hard to be fully present wherever I am. It is challenging to balance being present with the person I am with, staying connected to the person I am not with, and making time for myself, while not taking on anyone’s disappointment.
The only way through it is with love, trust, and communication. We have created space for each person to honestly share when their cup does not feel full and to figure out what we can do to pour into our connection. For example, at some point a year or two ago, my wife shared that she wanted more alone time together. Because of the way we scheduled things, I was only home with her when my daughter was home. And while she loves my daughter and having family time with the three of us - she also wanted child-free time with me. So we chose some weekday nights that I would stay with her when my daughter is with her dad and decided that of the two child-free weekends I had a month, I would spend one with my wife and one with my partner.
And of course that was hard for my partner, even though she understood and was supportive. I am mindful of the fact that due to the nature of my marriage and number of years with my wife, my partner can sometimes feel like she gets the short end of the stick. Holidays and summers are hard because my wife and I both have big families so there are holiday parties and summer vacations. Apart from it being a scheduling nightmare - trying to move days around on the calendar so that no one feels short changed - it is also just a reminder that it can feel like I am a full-time partner on a part-time basis.
And while my wife is envious of the child-free, couple-focused time that my partner and I have together, my partner is envious of the fact that my wife is my wife. My partner and I will not be able to get married, and I know that is hard for her. We had a ceremony with each other and exchanged rings, and we share a home and bills and health proxys - and still I understand that it is not the same as being married.
There are so many emotional mindfields to navigate within a polyamorous relationship - especially when it comes to jealousy.
sex
From the beginning, there was tension around physical intimacy in my relationships because, frankly, neither person was thrilled about the idea of me even sleeping next to someone else. It was hard for me to get used to the idea of being with someone else. I remember the first time I ever stayed over my partner’s house, it felt so weird. I kept wondering how my wife was feeling and processing my own feelings around it. And then thinking about how my partner felt when I went back home to my wife.
In this instance, time has been the only thing that made things less awkward. Sometimes you just have to sit with discomfort of it all; just give space to the feelings and communicate concerns, desires, and needs.
Now, no one’s really ever asked what happened on the other side, and I did not force them to talk about it. I’ve simply focus on making sure that both my wife and my partner feel seen and loved and sexy, and I work very hard not to try to fix it and instead to let people feel their feelings…including me.
money
Money is another source of tension.
My wife and I share a bank account and mortgage, we have retirement plans and life insurance, and have detailed plans for how we would like to invest in our home and our future.
My partner and I split the expenses for our Brooklyn apartment, and have a joint debit card to pay the household bills. We buy each other gifts, spend money on activities, and discuss what we want our life to look like in 5 years and how we will fund it.
When I transitioned from sleeping over my partner’s house occasionally to officially moving in and splitting costs, it resulted in lots of difficult conversations with my wife about money. It was one thing to spend money on dates or gifts, but another to make a financial commitment to another home. (Particularly because I was splitting the expenses but only there part of the time.)
We had long conversations about our feelings around money, our shared values and commitments, and how to design a system that prevented resentment. We created financial tiers - first our income would go to our shared financial commitments like our home, health insurance, car, retirement, etc. Then we would put money towards our shared goals including renovations, vacations, or family activities. And then we would each have personal, commitment-free money that we could do with what we pleased. When my wife was in partnership with someone else, she used that money for dates and gifts. Now, she uses the money for excursions with friends, or new clothes and gadgets. And I use my personal money towards my life with my partner.
On the other side, my partner and I have created our own agreements around money, budgeting, and financial commitments. We are both on the lease for our apartment, we have savings together, and we are working towards our goals around travel, real estate, and retirement.
To pay for all of this stuff, I’ve had to work a lot. While my wife is a workaholic, for a long time, my partner did not like how much I worked. She was annoyed with my late nights and weekend projects. And then I was annoyed that she was annoyed. I felt the need to take on any work that I could because I felt the pressure - and guilt - of contributing to two households.
I have made changes to my business and have stopped undervaluing my work, so now I can afford to have a healthy work schedule - and it can still be hard to shake the worry and stress of paying bills in two places.
Non-monogamy - at least in the way we are practicing it - takes privilege. And I want to name my privilege. Multiple bills, multiple birthday and holiday gifts, and so many groceries! I know that I could not afford to do this if I was worried about my next paycheck, or if we were in debt because of healthcare costs. I grew up in a home where we worried about money. I remember my dad staying up late into the night with his notepad and calculator trying to figure out how to make the numbers work, and my mom saying that she wasn’t hungry and only buying food for myself and my siblings to eat.
And because of their sacrifice and their focus on me getting a good education and starting work young, I probably make more money in a year than my parents combined made in 2 or 3. And even though I’ve worked like hell to be able to get to a place to make decent money, sometimes I still feel like that 10 year old kid who is digging through the couch cushions looking for coins in order to get a snack at the corner store.
It was only a year ago that I stopped carrying a suitcase back and forth because I refused to buy two sets of things, and thus had to cart my makeup, skin care, running shoes, office supplies, podcast equipment… It was my wife and my partner who had to sit me down and tell me how ridiculous that was, and who finally encouraged me to buy two sets of the things I needed for each home.
All of this has helped me not only heal wounds around scarcity - scarcity of time, sex, money, love - it has helped me role model different behaviors and mindsets to my daughter.
She has bore witness to this evolution in my life and relationships, and she is paying attention.
She has watched as I have learned how to take care of myself as much as I take care of others. How I have made budgets and worked towards financial goals. How I have communicated with my wife and partner and worked through conflict with love and respect. And she has watched her mom - who by all accounts looks completely normal on the outside - build a life that is anything but.
And I am grateful for the love and support that my relationship design has brought to her life.
The relationship between my partners and my daughter is equal parts love and sarcasm. She does not see either of them as a parental figure. They are just important adults in her life.
kids
My wife plans adventures for the three of us around the city, brings flowers to every dance reticle and school play, and role models partnership and love in the way that she cares for me.
My partner and my daughter obsess over dogs, laugh at ridiculous jokes, and delight and commiserate about their ADHD brains - which is incredibly helpful for me as a neurotypical person obsessed with tasks lists, organization, and schedules.
Her family - as well as the number of birthday and Christmas gifts - has grown because of my open relationships; all of which makes her very happy.
a life by design
And so we come full circle. I followed society’s formula for happiness and it left me feeling like a stranger in my own life. So I allowed myself to deviate from the path and built a life that I had no idea was even possible. And it is the first time in my life where my outsides match my insides. It is the first time where all of the things that I wanted, but were too afraid or ashamed to ask for. The things that I wanted from life and from my relationships that I wrote in my journal and then scratched it out because it felt too audacious to even dream of it. The first time when those secret things do not have to be a secret anymore.
I listened to my inner compass, had a lot of uncomfortable conversations, messed up and tried again, and started to live in possibility. The evolution of my life has allowed me to trust myself and embrace the freedom of not knowing what is going to happen next. And it feels scary as hell. But what feels scarier is ending my life without having fully lived it.
And so I think all the logistics and complications and disappointments and conversations - it is all hard. But the life I was living before was hard. Suppressing parts of myself to fit in and appease others was hard. Watching my life happen without living it was hard. And so frankly, it is going to be hard either way. I would rather it be hard and have peace of mind and have a sense of freedom, then it'd be hard and feeling unseen and unfulfilled.
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