Keira's polycule...this page is in the process of being updated due to a trip to Atlanta in early 2020!
Please check back soon for more content.
Keira at home with husband Mike and girlfriend Lindsey (and dogs Jarvis and Bell)
Keira
Hometown Oakdale, NY
Place of Residence Atlanta, GA
Occupation Personal Trainer
Keira lives with her husband Mike and her metamour Angela. She currently has 5 partners. Mike, Anthony, Sean, and Lindsey are all local to the Atlanta area; Kevin is a long distance partner who lives in Chester, PA. She also has a number of big loving platonic friendships including with Julian.
Keira and Mike have been married for 7 years, and have lived with Angela for 5 years. Keira has been with partners with Anthony, Sean, Kevin and Lindsey all for over a year.
Kissing Mike in his office
Keira: I think one thing people forget with polyamory is that boundaries can change over time. You are allowed to renegotiate how your relationship is. It's not like, “Well we have these five rules and they're never going to change.” When Mike and I first started seriously having conversations about what non-monogamy looked like for us, we had rules. We wrote them down in a Word document and everything. I don't think any of those rules still apply. Because we've evolved. We've adapted. We've learned from our mistakes. We've learned from our experiences.
Angela and Mike at home
Keira: So, one of the best parts about living with this particular metamour is that the chores that I hate, she loves, and the chores that she hates, I love! So separating the day-to-day house cleaning chores is super easy because I don't have to do the stuff that I don't like, and she doesn’t have to do the stuff she doesn't like, it’s perfect! Obviously that’s not how everyone’s going to work. But like it's interesting because what it ends up doing when you're living with someone that your partner is dating but not someone that you are dating, it adds a layer of relationship that you maybe don't expect with a metamour. Because if I have a metamour that I’m seeing once a year I don't need to care...I mean, I care, but I don't need to be worried about what's going on in their lives. Where as someone that I live with... She goes to school. So if she needs to get out of the driveway for class and I'm behind her, I have to take into consideration that, “Oh, I need to move my car.”
Three adults can add to difficulties because everybody has different needs: time management needs household management needs, and so negotiating boundaries and making everything work smoothly, It takes a lot of conversation, it takes a lot of leeway, and being flexible with other people. For the most part it works really well. I mean, we have issues, but everybody has issues.
With Kevin at his home in PA
Keira: So the simple answer is, I've always been non-monogamous. I definitely remember stories with my Barbies where it was a triad, and they all had kids. My Barbies were entirely non-monogamous. So I mean realistically I've always been that way but then when society tells you, “Monogamy, Monogamy, Monogamy”, you end up going down that path, whether or not that's the actual path you should be going on for yourself.
And so once I started dating as a teenager, I was monogamous but it was really bad at it. The relationship I have with my husband now is my third long-term relationship. The other two: one was in high-school and I was with him for five years and the other one I was with for two years. So the two long-term relationships I had when I was trying to be monogamous, I cheated on them. And then the relationships I had in between those were never really serious. It was just a bunch of me discovering myself essentially.
Out to breakfast with Kevin
Keira and Julian in their shared hotel room for Poly Dallas
Julian: Keira is one of the most important love relationships in my adult life.
I started identifying really strongly as a relationship anarchist last year when I got with my partner (who I live with). His name is Damian and we have a cat name Kieran, who is somewhat named after Keira. I used to be very, VERY hierarchical. I was the patriarch of a poly family for several years. And the older I’ve gotten, and the worse our political situation has become, and the more active I’ve gotten for fighting for our rights, the more of a relationship anarchist I’ve become.
Keira and Julian in their shared hotel room for Poly Dallas
Kissing Lindsey goodnight
Keira: I have a depressive disorder. Specifically, I have dependent personality disorder. It’s one of the 9 major personality disorders that…it goes along the lines of bipolar disorder and narcissistic tendency (whatever it’s called) disorder. But essentially, everything that you think of in the inside the box, perfect submissive. When you’re a kinky person, and you picture this is what a submissive person is “supposed to be”. That’s what dependent personality disorder is, in a nutshell. However, dependent personality disorder affects you negatively. It affects your life in a negative way. And that’s why it’s a disorder and not, “Well I’m just a submissive and I’m having fun”.
The big way that that intersects is that, sometimes I tend to be needy and clingy which sometimes is hard for partners. Especially because sharing is a big part of being polyamorous! I can’t expect to have all of my partners’ time, and I wouldn’t expect that, and I wouldn’t want to. So, learning to adapt my DPD with being polyamorous has been an interesting venture.
Keira with Jarvis and Bell