THE TRIAD FAMILY
- LOVE IS LOVE -

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Last year, at a Christmas Party, I had the pleasure to meet The Triad Family, a polyamorous family. We stayed in touch and they asked me to do family session of them and Lukas, their son. They are the sweetest family and so fun to be with. I admire them for being outspoken about their relationship and spreading the word. There’s so much stigma and pre-concept ideas about polyamorous relationships, so I wanted to write a blog post about it. Everyone’s story is worth telling, and this is a really special one. Love is love. I couldn’t tell it better than themselves, so the answers below were all written by The Triad Family.

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1. Tell me a little bit about your story.

Katie is from the Bronx New York, Luis is a Baltimore native, and I am from Burke, VA. Katie and Luis met in 2002, and were best friends from the start. They got married in 2006 after dating for 3 years. Katie and I (Raquel) met at a baby shower back in September of 2012. She was the photographer and I was there to celebrate my friend. We instantly became friends and hung out all the time. Weekly hangout sessions turned into weekend sleepovers where we'd just stay up and talk for hours. Luis, Katie and I developed a bond, and it was honestly just a friendship at that point. We just loved spending time together with no second intentions. In 2014 for my 21st birthday, the both of them threw me a little shindig. We went to the bar with all my friends, and my best friend at the time told me that a guy was offering us a free drink if her and I kissed. I knew there was nothing between that friend and I so I did it. I got my drink and ran away haha Katie witnessed the whole thing, and laughingly approached me and asked "What the heck just happened??". I tell her the story and say "the kiss meant nothing! See?!" I go in to give her a kiss and we instantly both felt a connection. She told Luis immediately, and he had always known she was bisexual, but because of our conservative Christian upbringing that was something that Katie repressed. Since she had never explored that part of herself, Luis asked Katie if that was something she wanted to explore. He expressed that was something he would be okay with as long as some boundaries were set. So on July 24, 2014 Katie and I went on our first "out" date, and that was the beginning of our "V" dynamic, meaning Katie and Luis were one relationship and Katie and I were another, but me and Luis didn't have anything deeper than a friendship (not because we couldn't but because I just wasn't attracted to him in that way at that time). In November of 2014 we found out that Katie was pregnant, and we had to really decide if this was something we wanted to continue with. It forced us to have lots of hard conversations, but we knew we loved each other and wanted to go on the journey together. On July 24, 2015 Lukas was born, and I knew I wanted to and would be his mama, and so we three embarked on the journey of parenthood together with our newborn. In 2017, we organically transitioned from a V dynamic to a true throuple. It took us time to get there, but it honestly organically happened, and so now we find ourselves completely in love with each other and doing this lifetime together with our little Lukas.

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2. What is polyamory?

Polyamory is ethical and consensual non-monogamy. It is when a person has more than one partner/relationship and all give consent to it.

3. What are the best parts and most challenging aspects of being in a polyamorous relationship/family?

The best part of being in a poly relationship/family is that you get to share your heart, love, time and experiences with more than 1 person that you have a deep bond with. There is double the amount of transparency, love and hands to help. Because life can be challenging and a load in itself, it's helpful when you have more than 2 people to share the load with.
The challenging aspects of being in a poly relationship is that there are different mindsets, habits, ideas, etc that you have to come together with, and it may not always be easy. Communication can be tricky as you may have to repeat yourself twice if one person is out of the loop. Because communication is key, it is even more important to really be transparent and honest with how you feel. There is no space to hide anything, and so it forces you to have hard conversations that can at times be messy but also lead to breakthroughs. Although transparency can be challenging, this leads to having a deep level of trust between you and your partners, and that in itself is beautiful and rewarding. Lastly, we lost our community because of our diversity. People we once called family and friends completely shunned us and turned their backs on us saying nasty and hateful things like "you are going to hell, you are disgusting, you are an abomination, Jesus doesn't want Lukas in a family like yours, plagues will fall over your home, you guys will not be blessed, Jesus wants to save Lukas from a family like yours, and you are raising him to be a homosexual". Luckily, good came out of that because we learned to be confident in who we are, lean on each other in deeper ways than ever before, and we also found a community of people who accept and celebrate us for our diversity!

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4. What do you want people to understand about your relationship?

We want people to understand that this isn't centered around sex as many people sexualize polyamory. In fact, we find ourselves having more conversations about feelings, thoughts, emotions and intellectual things more than anything. Sex is just a product of the love there is, but unfortunately people see three people and automatically think "threesomes". Secondly, we want people to know our dynamic organically happened. There was no second intention to stealing someone's spouse, meddling in the middle of something, or even just trying to be different and looking for a third- this is just how it happened for us! We were three besties who ended up falling in love with each other. We are in this because we truly do love each other. If it weren't for our strong foundation of love, we could easily walk away from all of this because of the bullshit that comes with it.

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5. Is there anything else you'd like to share?

We all come from conservative Christian backgrounds, and reconciling our faith with our dynamic was really tricky. It forced us to deconstruct the teachings we were taught in church through looking through the Bible and learning its history. We learned how the church used this beautiful book that is supposed to encourage us to love one another, but instead was used to oppress and instill fear in people. We became informed, progressive and provocative thinkers because of this. We still consider ourselves followers of the teachings of Christ because we love who Jesus is. He was a radical free thinker in his times, stood up for justice, loved on everyone and welcomed all to be with him.