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The Joys of Polyamory, and Why I’m Monogamous Now
Because apparently I don’t do anything by half-measures, I left my staid, respectable trophy-wife life to dive headlong into a relationship with a flamboyant science fiction writer who already had a passel of lovers.
When I first met this gentleman (I wrote about him in The Ex-Girlfriends Club), he had recently been through some serious medical issues. His doctors believed they’d caught the problem in time, and that he would only need periodic monitoring to be sure. He was young, with a good attitude and a strong support system; they had every expectation that he would beat this.
Sadly, about a year into our relationship, one of these routine scans showed that his illness had returned.
His doctors set a course of aggressive treatment: major surgery, followed by chemotherapy. He would be quite debilitated by this regimen, and would need a lot of help and care.
Our relationship was still long-distance at this point. We talked many times a day but only saw each other every few weeks; the plan was for him to move to my city in several years. This news changed all that. I quit my job, began house-hunting from afar, and embarked upon the dozens of things involved with uprooting a life and moving to another state. Despite my eagerness to get it all done quickly, it ended up taking months…
