How to handle ENM discussions with family before a wedding?
Me and my primary partner have started talking the past couple of months about our wishes to grow old together and we've been thinking about if we maybe want to get married or have some sort of commitment ceremony some time in the future, and the more I think about it, the more I think I would love something like that.
But if we do something like that, it would be very important to us to honor the ENM part of our relationship in our ceremony. I would want the other people we are dating to be there and I don't want to have to change the way I act with those people to have to be hidden on a day where I would want to celebrate our authentic relationships. I want to be able to interact with my other partners and fwb's the way I usually act around them, aka kissing and hugging them.
But I am very worried that this would cause a lot of problems with our families, and I'm not sure how to navigate that. I think my parents would not particularly like it, but they would accept me and our relationship as it is. I have talked to them before about non-monogamy, and even though they do not get it or agree, they respect me. The people in my family I'm most worried about is my grandparents, who are religious and in their 80's. My grandma can be very judgemental, but she is still an important part of my family and I can't imagine having a wedding type celebration without them.
Has anyone here ever chosen to celebrate non-monogamy in a wedding-type celebration? And if so, how have you dealt with family stuff?