Browsing: open relationships

It occurred to me today – well, many times, but I only dwelled enough on the subject to write about it today – that the wedding ring, which once was the universal sign for “don’t even try to flirt with me” has lost that aspect of its meaning in my life. How many people do we know who are happily married and also romantically available? I am on that list.

I tend to fall in love fast. Not necessarily hard, but definitely fast. I knew this about myself, but had honestly forgotten until Anne and I got into the lifestyle. After all, we had been happily dating/married for nine or so years before getting into the lifestyle, I was not actively seeking another life partner. I still wouldn’t say I am. Anne initially said she was interested in exploring polyamory if she found someone she had feelings for. I have stated before that polyamory freaks me out and, honestly, it still does.

When you add more people to a relationship, things get complicated. One relationship can be a challenge. Adding more relationships to your life is not only going to increase the joy and love, but also the drama. With each added person, the issues don’t increase linearly – they seem to increase exponentially because there are what I think of as “ricochet effects.” The bullet may have been intended for one person, but the rebound can hit others as well. One person’s or one couple’s drama can infect all. It wasn’t clear to me that it worked that way when we got into a relationship with Julian and Hanne two years ago.

I have seen a few people in my years of being Poly who say or infer that they have a constant need to be told they aren’t being replaced. This tends to be a recurring problem with some newbies or people interested in exploring what the non-monogamous life is all about.

The question is: Do I sit her down and have a little chat about the situation? Something like, “You know that Julian is my boyfriend and Hanne is daddy’s girlfriend. I want to tell you that this is unusual – most people who are married don’t also have a boyfriend or girlfriend. They only have their husband or wife. Most of your friends and their families would think it was strange. You might want to be cautious when mentioning it to them.”

Some readers may wonder: Why polyamory? Well, for us, this came from the understanding that we do not control the other person’s sexuality. We are very sexual creatures and we are attracted to whomever we happen to be attracted to. We were comfortable in our sexuality and our relationship, and through much discussion we came to an understanding that physical intimacy does not constitute infidelity. Deception is infidelity, but what Ally and I do is right out in front of each other. Full disclosure.

There are a lot of gray areas in life, but I’ve tended to live mine in a black-or-white, all-or-nothing sort of way. Standing in the middle requires a lot of stamina and patience. The first I can manage if something is worth the effort, but the second? Um, yeah… Pardon me as I try to shake off a sudden vision of friends and family laughing so hard that they’re gasping for breath.

When someone is asking questions about my lifestyle, the one I get most often seems…

As we have moved through this vanilla phase, I’ve realized just how busy an ethical non-monogamist’s life actually is. Even though we haven’t had the time to actively date, we are still building and maintaining relationships that mean something to us. Some are long-time friends we miss. Some are new budding relationships that have fantastic promise. And some are just fun messages from brand new hotties we haven’t met yet, but would love to find the time to meet.

The short version is that Ark broke a rule. It was an important rule that was there for everyone’s safety and my sanity, but in the heat of the moment, he broke the rule. I felt betrayed, broken—and I was pissed off. I took the time to cool off and think about it and rationalize it, and I’ve done the best I could about it. I