"Just sent an email to my parents about us. Keep good thoughts!"
Thanksgiving is coming, and of course my boyfriend's mother said, "I know you've been seeing someone. Why don't you bring her?"
But of course, this prompted some long conversations. Because he has been seeing someone for the last five months. And we are in love. And I've been married to another man for twenty years. We're polyamorous.
It's very hard for me to talk about my life without my husband coming into it. I live with my father-in-law, after all, and my husband's work schedule shapes my life and when I can do what I need to do every day. So while I'd love to meet my boyfriend's parents....do I plan out an elaborate lie, or do we just plan to tell the truth? The truth that says to them again that their son hasn't taken the life path of conventionality that they want for him? Do I duck the problem and claim my own family has the day so taken up that there's no way?
This one, I left up to him. His parents, his decision. And he's decided to send them an email and be honest that he's seeing a married woman, that her husband is fine with the relationship, and that he is very happy.
I'm impressed. I'm not going to be comfortable coming out about this to my own family for five more years, and he plans later to come out about his kink as well. This is causing me to contemplate my own journey out of multiple closets, and my own willingness to live an authentic life.
But I do take courage from what I know about coming out in general; that the way you make people realize that we're just like you is by showing them you're not a word, you're a person they know. I'll take my cues from him, and bring bread and homemade jam, and hope that they will write him back sooner than later, and say "We love you anyway."
And courage like this is one of the many reasons I love him, and my husband likes him.