Finally, after incredible struggle, the manuscript for my memoir The Game Changer is finished and in copyediting. You can preorder it now on Amazon.

Writing this book has been one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. I’ve been thinking of it as The Big Book of Franklin Gets It Wrong, because it tells the story of the most awful things I have ever done, the greatest mistakes I’ve ever made, and the various ways I’ve hurt people close to me in the quest to figure out how to make this whole polyamory thing work. It’s been written and re-written and re-re-written (I went through four complete drafts and numerous smaller revisions and edits, prompted in large part by the incredible support and comments I’ve received from people who looked at the early versions).

Writing this book meant reliving some of the most painful times in my life. Along the way, I had to wrestle with my first-ever feelings of imposter syndrome (“Who am I to be writing a memoir? Who’s going to care about the relationships I screwed up?”), with feelings that I wasn’t good enough to write this book (it is radically different, in style, tone, and content, from anything I’ve ever written before), and with my own inner demons: my guilt and shame over the people I’ve hurt and the things I’ve screwed up.

In the end, I wrote this book because I believe there’s an elephant in the poly living room, a great gray pachyderm we don’t often acknowledge. We like to say that one of the biggest benefits of polyamory is we don’t have to choose; when we connect with someone new, that connection doesn’t have to threaten our existing relationships. Indeed, some poly folks look down on those benighted monogamous heathens, those poor struggling savages who aren’t yet enlightened enough to realize that a new love doesn’t have to mean discarding the old.

But sometimes, we connect with someone new, and that person changes things. Or changes you. Love is not always safe, or tidy, or neat. Sometimes, it’s disruptive. Sometimes, a new love makes us realize that our existing relationships no longer work for us.

These relationships are game changers.

Game changers, by their very nature, create turmoil. Game changers upset applecarts. And we, as polyamorous people, need to be aware that game changers happen.

My first game-changing relationship showed me that for years, the compromises I had made to be with a monogamous partner were damaging to the people around me. I was both easy to love and dangerous to love. I did not think about the consequences of my agreements for new partners who might want to be close to me, and I did not recognize the ways I failed to take responsibility for my own emotions or actions. And so, predictably, I hurt other people—people who loved me very much.

The Game Changer is a love story, but it’s also more than that. It’s the story of how I learned to be honest about my needs, to recognize that other people are human, and to take responsibility for myself.

It’s also the story of things I did very, very wrong.

It is still, years later, hard for me to deal with some of the things I got so badly wrong, and the damage I did to people who loved me. Maybe, just maybe, other people will read this book and be a little bit less wrong, a little bit more compassionate, in the way they handle their game changers.


2 Comments

Max Rivers · April 1, 2015 at 4:59 am

While I continue to appreciate Franklin’s willingness to be open and vulnerable, I don’t think right/wrong thinking is best approach to relationships. Also, as an NVC (Non-violence Communication) based relationship mediator I don’t believe we CAUSE other people’s feelings. People like Franklin who continually learn and change as they love others the best way they know how are wonderful people to love. You know you’re always getting their best and that it’s just going to get better. Really, what more can one flawed human ask from another.

    Emily · April 1, 2015 at 10:41 am

    Max,

    Right and wrong are value judgements. it seems fair to assume that everyone has a value system of some form.

    There are bad relationships, destructive to the people in them and around them. Is that wrongness or badness absolute? I venture it is not – for at the very least the people engaging in those relationships found and/or find some benefit in engaging. There is even the potential for growth with awareness of destructive patterns!

    I agree with Sarah Sloane’s excellent point today: the assumption that what is right for one person becomes intolerable when that person insists it is right for everyone. there is violence in such a one-size-fits-all approach.

    Franklin is not doing that here in this post; he is offering his experience and reflections upon that experience in the hopes that it is helpful to others who practice/preach polyamory.

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