Yesterday’s post on the APW blog has been buzzing through my head since I read it. More so, the responses have. I read about people whose partners had sex with someone else and how that discovery destroyed their relationship and their trust in each other.
I just don’t understand.
It’s not a lack of experience that makes me not understand, either. I know my first partner cheated on me (he admitted it. Our relationship was monogamous). I think my third (long-term) partner cheated on me, since he came home with crabs, but I’ve never been entirely sure. We were monogamous. I know the fourth partner had sex with other people somewhat regularly. This is where it gets interesting, because we had decided to not be monogamous. But he still cheated. And that wasn’t what destroyed the relationship. Faulty power dynamics did. Maybe the cheating was related, but I’m not sure.
How cheating-while-nonmonogamous works? When we started dating, he told me he did not wish to be monogamous (“for me”, he added, but I figured that was just stupidity, not malice. Silly me). I told him I had no experience with consensual non-monogamy, but I would agree to it on the condition that he would let me know in advance if he planned to date or sleep with someone else. Also: safe sex. Obviously.
The very first time he decided to sleep with someone else, he didn’t tell me. When I called him the next morning to ask what was up, I found out he’d spent the night with someone old enough to be my mother and had decided not to tell me because he felt I would worry about it too much. I was miffed about him taking away my right to decide what things I could or could not handle and wanted or did not want to hear. That he had sex with someone else? Mweh. Alright, I was a bit squicked when I saw him and he greeted me with a kiss and I suddenly realized “Who did you last kiss with those lips?”
Obviously, I should have left him then and there. It’s only obvious in hindsight, though, because, he was thirteen years my senior and presented himself as very experienced in all areas of life I had interest in. I was also appreciative of his protective urge (which was WRONG! 1) He wasn’t protecting me, he was protecting himself because he was too weak to be honest 2) By convincing me I needed protection from the truth, he made me weak. Which I am not. Just sayin’).
Anyway. I did not leave. And he had sex with other people and did not tell me. Or told me months later, before getting angry when I asked why he only told me now. He told me he was not looking for new contacts, but started sex-chat profiles with nude pictures of himself (that I never got to see, until I found them online) and requests to contact him. And every time I asked him why he lied, he would get angry and tell me that I had failed the test, that I had again proven I could not handle the truth about his non-monogamy. I don’t think there is anything that messed as much with my head as that little game did. A good second was being refused for sex regularly (and subsequently guilt-tripped for my high sex drive) while he would have sex with other people.
When that relationship ended in a messy morass of tears and desperation that I slowly slithered my way out of, I decided I’d had enough. Any person who would tell me that they needed sex with other people aside form me, could stick a splintery broomstick up their arse and ride it all the way to hell.
Which is when I met Beloved. With whom I talked about non-monogamy on one of our first dates. To whom I told what happened in the years before and how, while I knew from experience that the world would not end if he had sex with someone else, I absolutely refused to accept ANYTHING that was not discussed beforehand.
A few weeks later he told me he was hoping to meet an old friend. But, he said, last time they had met – well before he knew me – there had been some tension. He wondered if it was okay for them if “something happened”. My heart sank. I kicked it back up thinking I might just as well find out what this guy was made of soon and said “Okay”. Then I said “Please call me soon after she leaves”. He sent me a sweet text half way through the night. I, as expected, spent the night worrying, envisioning them having hot, sweaty, perfect sex with hourly simultaneous orgasms. It took him until the next morning to call. Once he called, he told me they had cooked a meal and ate together. She was extremely excited to hear he had found someone he obviously thought was awesome and they had talked and had a great time and shared a brief hug, contemplating further intimacies, but deciding it didn’t feel right. Then she went home. But it was late and he assumed I’d be asleep, which is why he waited til now.
Sweet relief! He was honest, he kept to our agreement and even did a little extra by texting me, and – best of all – he did not downplay the likeliness that something would happen between him and his friend. He finished it up perfectly by assuming that if I said I was able to spend a night alone in my apartment while he met up with her, I would in fact be able to handle it. He treated me as someone who knew her needs and could articulate them. Turns out I need to be treated like that (and who doesn’t?).
In the mean time, we’re a few years along. We’re still not in a very monogamous relationship even though we’re married. We’ve had a threesome with someone we both love and cherish and still see regularly for hugs and cuddles and kisses. We attempted a foursome with people with whom our needs clashed, leading to a cooling of the friendship (so too bad!). We’ve made out separately or together with people we knew well, or hardly, and occasionally Beloved goes out and finds himself a one night stand after which he comes home, takes a shower and crawls into bed with me to tell me about it.The sex is safe, and so am I. I get to be more-monogamous as he is less-monogamous and our relationship gets to reflect that.
We have pillow talk about friends we would maybe, under certain circumstances, possibly, if the stars are right, in the future, consider welcoming into our intimate spaces. We wonder what our love life would be like if we weren’t both working like beavers in a virgin forest.We’re realistic. Having more lovers is pretty low on the priority list. Our life plans and ambitions don’t seem to allow much space in the foreseeable future for developing relationships alongside our own, leaving polyamory a less likely option. It’s possible that, as two introverts, the stimuli that come with high-intensity interaction with a third lover will always be too much to handle alongside all other things in life.
We’ll see. It’s why we agreed everything can always be renegotiated.
