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"Pick me. Choose me. Love me."
Fans of the long-running medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" might recall Meredith Grey pleading with Derek Shepherd to choose her over his wife Addison Montgomery in this iconic scene from season one.
It's a scene that bookends the start of Shepherd's struggle to choose between Grey and his wife — a struggle that continues into the following season.
It also brings to mind a question: Can you love more than one person romantically?
Shows and movies often portray romance as a special bond shared with the "one true love". If there are more than two parties in a relationship, it typically erupts in a scandal, tears, or an explosive confrontation.
But what if Shepherd could date both Grey and Montgomery? What if he opened up a conversation about having a relationship with both women and they agreed to it?
Well, that's what Gabe and Elle did — minus the drama.
Gabe and Elle
Image courtesy of Denise Tan.
You see, both Gabe and Elle share a polyamorous relationship. The couple connected on a dating app four years ago.
"We dated each other for six months before we officially called each other girlfriend and boyfriend," Elle said.
They live together and have met each other's parents. It seems like any other romantic relationship — except that it's not.
The two are currently are dating and seeing others outside their relationship.
"At some point of time in between my (previous) relationships, I wondered about the limitations of dating one person at a time and thought about the question of 'Why can’t I have my cake and eat it too?'"
Elle was referring to the idea of wanting to love more than one person at a time, which is very much outside the norm of what most Singaporeans define as a relationship.
Gabe, on the other hand, had never been in a relationship before Elle. But, he knew he wanted to love and have a relationship with multiple people.
When they found each other, they knew that they were both in the same boat and shared the same perspective, but they were unsure about what they wanted their relationship to look like. Gabe said:
"We actually kinda knew we were already non-monogamous but we didn't understand which umbrella we fell under, what it was and how to practise it very well."
In 2018, both Gabe and Elle attended a forum on polyamory and immediately connected to what was being shared.
"After the forum, when we went back, we did our own research and realised it wasn't a one-off thing. But it really did speak very deeply to us and we related to it a lot," Gabe said.
Speaking to the couple, I learned that, just like a conventional relationship, communication is key. The couple spent a lot of time discussing the practice of polyamory, and through that grew together as a polyamorous couple over the years.
Gabe is currently a sensual massage therapy practitioner and Elle is a freelance designer. On the side, they conduct relationship workshops, where they talk about love and relationships.
They answered our burning questions on polyamory and shared how they make their polyamorous relationship work.
Being with multiple people
Q: How would you define a polyamorous relationship?
Elle: Polyamory is a form of ethical non-monogamy and it can be practised in many different ways. To us, it basically means we have the capacity to love more than one person and choose to do so. There has to be informed consent from all parties involved.
Q: Why do you choose to date more than one person?
Elle: Not every partner may meet (your) every single need. Because we're also different individuals, right? There's no way one partner will be able to meet everything.
Gabe: Having that freedom and option to be able to love whomever you want and to customise your relationships to your wants and needs.
It is not an open or casual relationship
Image courtesy of Gabe.
Q: What are some misconceptions of a polyamorous relationship?
Elle: Often polyamory is mistaken for open or casual relationships. In polyamory, there is a deep level of commitment and love to partners. There is also consent and a set of ethics shared between partners.
Polyamory is not a green light to ‘cheat’ or rationalise one's fear of commitment. We do commit (to each other) and communicate expectations for the relationships and do try our best to meet the needs and wants of our partners.
Gabe: It is to have deep meaningful relationships with others.
Q: How do you achieve this "deep meaningful relationship"?
Gabe: There's a term "relationship escalator" which defines how things progress because it's a life script where everybody just goes through the same steps. (e.g. a relationship timeline from dating to partners to marriage to buying a home to having a kid.)
We didn't want to just necessarily fall into the kind of life script where it's just one thing after another. So when we look at our relationships, we look at it with a lot of purpose, a lot of reflection: "Is this really what we want? What can we share with each other or with other people?"
Q: What are your tenets to having a polyamorous relationship?
1. Clear and open communication
Elle: So for us, we practise open communication. We are pretty unfiltered (when communicating with each other). We have a space for each other to just talk, be vulnerable with each other, and just work together to solve new problems.
Open and honest communication is a must.
2. Stay committed
Gabe: Commitment to one another or to whatever that we are pursuing. It's not like a 'flash in the pan' kind of moment. There is a lot of time and energy that we invest in each other.
Beyond all of those things, it's the idea that we just want to be able to share love and to impact people's lives positively. So, for every person that comes into our circle, we just want to enrich them for the better.
3. Self-awareness and self-growth
Elle: As we are both individuals who are ever growing and changing, so are our boundaries and expectations.
Every once in a while for the past three years, we’ll check in with one another to realign our goals. It’s to stay mindful of our actions and interactions and to be updated with each other.
We try to come from a place of understanding and empathy and keep our communication channels open and honest as much as possible.
Managing time and jealousy
Image courtesy of Gabe.
Q: How do you manage multiple partners?
Gabe: Love is infinite, but time is finite. Obviously, with time, we have to schedule things better. Google Calendar is our best friend. We live and die by our calendars. We'll just cross-check our schedules and we plan for stuff. It's a very mindful approach to time cause we realised that if we are not mindful about it, and allow the days to go by, the days can go by really really fast. So it's a mindful approach to how we want to spend our time, and who we want to spend time with.
It can be exhausting, it's a lot more communication than normal relationships. Because now, it's like two times the emotional work you have to do.
Emotional bandwidth and money are also finite, so it has to do with capacity and choice. If someone travels for work every other week, they may choose not to practise polyamory.
It's really about capacity (how much time and effort one can put into the relationship) and choice.
Q: Can you love all your partners the same?
Gabe: It's not like it's a zero-sum game, where if I were to date someone else, and then she gets less love. That's not how that works. All partners are equal.
Q: Do you meet each other's partners?
Gabe: The people that we date don't necessarily need to be dating everyone else as well. Everybody can sit around a table, have a meal, and be friends with one another.
It's a bonus if we're close but it's not a requirement.
Q: Do you get jealous of each other's partners?
Elle: Sure we do, But, you need to have plenty of self-awareness to understand that even though jealousy is a valid emotion to feel and go through, it’s usually for something deeper.
Are there needs not being met? Are you having insecurities about something? It’s not easy working out these feelings. It’s a lot of emotional work to go through and you can only do so much on your own. By providing a safe space and a listening ear, Gabe helps me understand his point of view and is always there to reassure me.
Q: Can you cheat in a polyamorous relationship?
Elle: Yeah, why not? When you start to lie and cover-up, when ethics are being crossed and it goes against the expectations and boundaries that were previously established.
Polyamory Vs Monogamy
Image courtesy of Denise Tan.
Q: Do you believe in The One?
Gabe: No, I don't believe in The One. Firstly, love is a choice. Secondly, people are very different.
Q: What do you think are the pros of a polyamorous relationship?
Gabe: I do think that polyamory does allow you to examine relationships in more granularity. You can really zoom into one of your relationships and examine why it matters, why it's important, what needs are to be met.
Of course, you do it in monogamous relationships, but there really isn't much of a need to think about such things because, they're already packed into one person.
Elle: For us, how we lead our polyamorous relationship has more or less been - I do my thing, you do your thing, we go out and have our fun – but we are still a team at the end of the day.
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Quotes were edited for clarity. Top images courtesy of Gabe and Denise Tan.