“A Relationship’s Strength Is Measured By How Well It Survives Trauma.”

My poly relationships are a little weird right now, because they’re defined by absence. My wife is a senior citizen with a heart condition, so COVID is a riskier risk than it normally riskenates, and as such I haven’t physically been with any of my partners in the last seven months.

What’s more depressing is that I really can’t envision seeing them in the next twelve months. Even if a vaccine got approved tomorrow, which is unlikely if we want a vaccine actually guaranteed to work, it would still take at least eight months to be developed and distributed.

I’m not seeing my loved ones any time soon.

And that hurts.

Turns out, my relationships are very much held together by cuddles, kisses, hugs, and orgasms. It’s not that verbal and text communication is worthless, but the reason we’re lovers is because, well, that physical expression of love. There is something about my partners where we said, “We could just be buddies, but God, those kisses.”

Not having those feels like something fundamentally missing from a relationship – something lessened. It turns out that these periods of great loss and longing have been made much more bearable by the promise of future kisses, even if those kisses were months away or even in that nebulous comet zone of “whenever.”

Without that, it’s just longing. Yeah, we can videochat or LOL, but for me, there’s something about seeing someone laugh and then hugging them.

Yet I think of what my therapist said: “A relationship’s strength is measured by how well it survives trauma.” Which I wrestled with for a while – surely that can’t be the only measurement – but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I’d had very intense relationships that crumbled when the first serious argument hit.

It’s not that relationships can’t be worthwhile if they can’t survive trauma.

But it does mean you won’t have those relationships once the trauma hits.

And this is trauma, alas, a big ongoing spinning wheel of pandemic loneliness, where yes I have Gini and yes my partners have their other partners, but our love isn’t fungible – our love is specific in that we want each other, and yes, we have positive things to offset the loss of this person’s presence but they do fill a unique gap.

Yet there is pride.

Because other relationships are crumbling – from people who have found their partners denying the COVID crisis and demanding unsafe risks to their health, to people deciding what’s the point if they can’t see their sweeties, to folks lying.

Mine have largely stayed constant.

And I appreciate them – their understanding that my wife’s health is vital to me, and to them, and to look this ugly future straight in the face and not deny what’s happening.

I’m not fond of the pandemic. I’m not fond of the idea that trauma is a relationship’s measure of strength. But both are unpleasant truths, and right now, my relationships with smart and loving people have been largely bearing up under this trauma because we are strong, and realistic, and understanding.

It’s a rough time. There’s so much skin-hunger going around. And maybe you’re feeling that with your partners.

But you’re feeling that because you’re safe, you’re caring, and you’re pragmatic.

Take some pride in that, at least.