Advocating ENM
03 Sep 2022My ENM activity was uncovered recently by my church community.
I think a major concern around my continued belonging in that community is whether or not Kate or I intend to encourage other Christians towards ENM–to actively “recruit” or evangelize other Christians.
The short answer is “no, but we will offer information and support to anyone interested”.
She and I have landed in different places around ENM, so there’s a little more to say about it.
Kate’s Values
Kate’s journey with ENM ultimately gave her access to a wonderful new relationship, and also helped us finally arrive at our separation.
It achieved those things for her, but she ultimately didn’t come away from it with ENM as her identity, or a desire to continue practicing it, or to join the ENM community.
She is a sex educator, and her aims there are to offer information and support, including to those interested in ENM, but that’s not the same as actively encouraging people towards it.
New Community
As for me, I drank the Kool-Aid, and I’d say I’m still all-in. I’ve made a big shift in my values and morals around sex and relationships, and I’m looking forward to continuing to explore those topics with others in the ENM community.
My church community has served me very well, for a long time, in my identity as “Ryan & Kate”–as a couple, and as a family.
My journey this past year has shown me a lot about myself, though, and highlighted how our church is a less ideal fit for “Ryan”. My values and interests are a little scarce there, especially among the male half of the community. Not a whole lot of introverts, creatives, nerds, or men that like to talk endlessly about mental health and self-work and relationships.
All of these seem much more common in the ENM / Poly community, and so I’m planning to focus on pursuing new friendships and community there.
Faith Practice
I feel like many of the new ways of thinking I’ve adopted this past year have lead to a lot of healing and growth, and so ENM and Sexual Health culture have been the dominant voices in my life for a while now.
However, I also started to see some unhealthy trends in myself towards the end of last year–I was noticing a fair amount of envy, vanity, and self-centeredness. That prompted me to work towards re-connecting with my Christian identity and the practices I’ve always found helpful there–prayer, reflection, studying the Bible, and Christian community.
I’ve found meditation and prayer especially helpful lately as I’ve been navigating this big transition in my life.
I think many of the insights from this past year have definitely grown my character, but there are plenty of important things that you need to find elsewhere. Cultivating your spirituality and connection with God, and growing in virtues like faith, patience, self-denial and generosity. Not that those things are necessarily absent from my new community–it’s just that they’re not part of the focus or discussion.
All of this definitely gives me a desire to maintain some Christian community in my life, but there are some interesting challenges there I’ll have to navigate.
Promoting My Values
One of my highest values and interests in life is to share openly and honestly about my experiences, just as I am on this blog. Even though I’m mostly just sharing, not preaching, so far I’d say ENM has had a very positive impact on my life, so my blog’s hardly “neutral” on the topic.
(I think all of that does make me more of an advocate for it, but I have a hard time picturing myself trying to “rope someone in”. There’s a term in ENM culture for people who behave that way–”Pushy Swingers”. No one likes a pushy swinger. 😝)
A Past Example
Kate and I had the opportunity to support some friends around this topic. They were trying out what you could frame as a light form of ENM, without having that language or familiarity with that concept. It was fun to be able to share with them about our adventures and what we were learning about how to do it ethically and well.
At the time, I think we saw going further with ENM as something that had the potential to address some challenges in their relationship, and it’s probably fair to say that we encouraged them towards it (though they ultimately chose not to pursue the idea).
I’ve come to appreciate the reality, though, that there aren’t many issues that ENM or Poly can “fix”. If a relationship isn’t serving the people in it (such as mine with Kate), despite lots of effort to make it work, then the healthy answer is to end it, not try to add on the missing pieces.
My Church Involvement
The challenge ahead is that many of my morals and values are significantly out of line with the organization I’ve belonged in. I think our church has a right to uphold its values and morals, and to have some wariness around whatever influence I might have against those.
I hope Kate and her partner and our kids–who all still highly value our church community–are still warmly welcomed.
If I’m open with my identity, then I could see needing to limit my own involvement. I’m really not sure yet–this will be interesting to navigate!