Why More Married Couples Are Opening Up Their Relationships
They're married, but they sleep with other people. Do polyamorous people understand love and sex better than you do?
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Kevin and Antoinette, a married couple in
Philadelphia, are out to dinner with their two little girls. Between
inside jokes and bites of chicken fingers and pasta pomodoro, they talk
about their day, about school, about movies. Like any typical family.
But two other adults are with them at the table, a man and a woman.
After settling the check, Antoinette leaves with the man — her
boyfriend, Gary. Kevin says goodbye to them and to the woman, his
girlfriend, Maggie. (Their names have been changed.)
Kevin will take the kids tonight while Antoinette
sleeps at Gary's. Tomorrow, Antoinette will be with the kids while Kevin
stays with Maggie. People sometimes think they're divorced with new
partners, trying to make coparenting work. Nope: "I have a new partner,"
Antoinette quips, "but I kept the old one too."
Antoinette
and Kevin recently celebrated 10 years of marriage. Their open
relationship started when they stumbled into a threesome 15 years ago.
Antoinette, a physical therapist, says she's "the hinge of a V"; she has
a relationship with her husband as well as with Gary, a long-term
boyfriend. Kevin, a writer, calls himself a "relationship anarchist"
with too many partners to count.
If that's hard to wrap your head around, you're not
alone. For most of us, the traditions and limits of monogamy are deeply
ingrained. There's courtship, marriage, and children. Then you grow old
together, faithfully. That's relationship success, right? For those who
aren't monogamous, there's no such road map. And that, they'll tell
you, is a good thing. With fewer rules, there's more negotiation, more
talking.
"Open relationships require so much communication
just to survive," says Kevin. His previous monogamous relationships, by
comparison, were on nonverbal autopilot. "We didn't feel we needed to
talk about things, because all of our lessons came from TV shows and pop
culture. Everything was just on a default setting." Antoinette agrees:
"The moment we chose to step off the relationship escalator, we had to
say, 'Okay, what are we doing?' "
Another married but open couple in New York City,
Sam and Kate, say they'll sometimes share partners and sometimes date
separately. It's at the point where they've had women cold-calling them
for threesomes. The unexpected result: Outside dating brings a new,
appreciative vibe to their relationship.
It
makes sense, says Kate: "We humans love seeing ourselves anew reflected
in someone else's eyes." Sam has been dating an Italian woman who often
greets him by leaping into his arms and wrapping her legs around him.
When he brings home that buzz of confidence, it's a major turn-on for
Kate. "You go on a date with someone and they think you're kind of
awesome," Kate says. "And you go home and tell your partner, and they're
like, 'Yeah, you are — let's go have sex!' "
Would
it happen in your life? Probably not, but these couples are out there.
Reliable statistics don't exist, but "alt" couples are becoming more
common, says Jonathan Smith, Psy.D., a therapist who works with them in
Chicago. It's certainly not for everyone; even Antoinette admits that
not knowing exactly how many people Kevin's seeing gives her pause. But
Smith thinks that someday, open relationships will be viewed as just
another option.
You can view all of this as a titillating fantasy,
or just listen to these couples with an open mind. Start by nixing your
default setting. "We shouldn't be static," says Renee Divine, L.M.F.T., a
sex and relationship therapist in Minneapolis. "We should constantly be
looking at what's going on, communicating what we need, and thinking
about how we can make things better."
For Kevin
and Antoinette, that means not taking each other for granted — ever. "If
I'm not being a good partner to my wife, she can be with someone else
in 0.0 seconds," Kevin points out. "Half the women that I date want to
date her, and they're all so disappointed in her heterosexuality. I
can't pretend that this is just always going to be there."
That
desire to continuously be a better partner — that's where open couples
might be onto something. The lifestyle may not be for you, but their
love lessons could be instructive.
1) Know what you each want.
Alice
is a polyamorous woman in Portland, Oregon, with a husband, Sean, and a
boyfriend, Jon. She recalls a spat from her monogamous years when she
spent the day with a guy friend from childhood. They'd hugged and held
hands — an innocent show of affection, she thought. Her boyfriend at the
time thought otherwise. "He assumed everyone thought it was
inappropriate, and I didn't," she says. "We'd just never talked about it
before." Neither of them could get past it. "He felt like I
disrespected the relationship; I felt like I was walking on eggshells."
Lots of monogamous people know that
walking-on-eggshells feeling. If needs aren't expressed, Divine says, a
relationship can crumble. Successful poly people form their guidelines
from scratch and know exactly what they are and aren't cool with.
Conventional couples too often have an unspoken expectation that their
partner will know the right thing to do, which can be damaging, she
says. "With polyamory, that idea goes out the window pretty quick — you
have to tell people what you want and how you feel." Talking about
expectations up front helps cut down on drama.
2) Make a "want, will, won't" list with your partner.
Don't
roll your eyes; experts say this can work. Wants are what you'd like to
get from your relationship (support for your goals, for instance),
wills are compromises you could make (moving for a partner's job), and
won'ts are hard-stop things you can't live with (drug use, say; or
handholding with an old friend). You each write yours down on separate
Post-its and stick them to a board in three columns. Then share and
compare. You can move them among the columns as you come to understand
your partner, Divine says. (If this feels too workshop-like, use a
Google Doc, or at least just talk.) Your priorities will change over
time — and when they do, break out the stickies again.
3) Take time for yourself
Juggling
several partners can, paradoxically, make you selfish in a healthy way,
says Jenn, 25 and polyamorous. (She's a bartender in Toronto with a
Bettie Page look.) It helps you establish yourself as an individual and
forces you to tend to your needs outside the group.
"When
you're monogamous," Jenn says, "you can lose yourself in another
person. I used to be so intense with relationships that they would fall
apart because I wasn't giving myself the space I needed." Now if Jenn's
partners are busy, she's doesn't mope — she's often at the gym, filling
her time with battling ropes, squat racks, and progress photos.
When Alice, the Oregon woman, left her ex-husband,
she says, "I realized I didn't really know anyone who wasn't his friend
or family." Now she has more interests and friends; she'll spend a day
away from her partners hiking. She used to define herself as half of a
couple. "But now I'm an individual who has partners. That shift helped
develop my independence."
4) Agree with your partner that you each deserve "me time."
Then
schedule it and enforce it, Divine says. Therapists call this
self-care. Work together to help each other recharge. Not used to the
extra time? Try a few minutes a day doing something that makes you happy
and relaxed, and then work your way up from there. When you both feel
good, you'll be better partners when you're together.
5) Accept the inevitable jealousy.
Robyn
and Jesus first met in a small town in northern California at a
conference on polyamory (aptly named "Loving More"). Robyn was running
it; Jesus was a rookie. They started dating, keeping things open — Robyn
already had two long-term, long-distance partners, and Jesus later got
another girlfriend too. Now they're "nesting partners" on a farm in
Colorado — Loveland (of course), at the foot of the Rockies. They have a
small menagerie. Idyllic, right? Well, even after years of living a
peaceful, poly lifestyle, they still struggle with jealousy. "Jesus
recently had this hot chick over and took her up to the bedroom, and I
managed to sit on the couch and watch TV by myself, and I was like
'Yes!' " says Robyn. "That's still a major victory for me."
How
do they deal? By admitting the emotion — out loud. And by taking
responsibility for it. "I'll say, 'My inner 2-year-old is having a
tantrum right now. Can we talk about it?' " says Jesus. "I don't blame a
partner for my own issues right off the bat." Smith, the Chicago
therapist, approves of this strategy. "When you feel jealous, it doesn't
mean anyone is doing anything wrong," he says. "Feelings are just
feelings, but they can give you good information."
6) Ask yourself why you're feeling jealous.
See
if there are other reasons you're feeling less secure. Maybe you think
your partner isn't supporting you during a rough patch at work. Tell
her, Smith advises. If she's the jealous one, perhaps worried that
you're out with someone, agree to text what you're doing and when you'll
be home. Without this kind of transparency, Divine notes, "we're really
good at making up stories."
7) Welcome change, always.
Open couples and poly groups are constantly
tweaking the boundaries of a relationship — adding people, breaking up
with others. They expect change, which can help the relationship endure
even as partners evolve with age, Divine says. Wanting a change doesn't
have to doom a relationship. "We've always looked at issues as 'how can
we fix this, what can we do?' " says Lilly, a woman in her 20s who's
currently in an open relationship. "It's never been, 'this is the way it
is, or we're going to break up.' "
Asking for a
change can be terrifying, Smith admits. Focus on what's going well
first, and then use the word "and" (not "but") to segue into your
request. Such as: "I'm really happy with how things are going and wonder
if it could be even better if we didn't go out with the same people
every weekend."
If you're asking for a
change in behavior, your keyword is "I," says Divine. As in: "I feel bad
when you get ticked off at my schedule, and I'd feel great if we could
come up with a compromise." This takes the blame off the partner and
turns it into a discussion that you both can tackle. Awkward, maybe, but
Smith says being direct is productive. Give any change a three-month
test run, "the way a corporation might roll out a pilot program," Smith
says. "To actually get any useful data, they need to stick with it for a
period of time, rather than reacting every time it feels off."
8) Be radically honest.
People
don't hold back at Loving More conferences. They get real about their
feelings, sometimes while naked. "After I took my mom to a Loving More
conference, she told me, 'I can't be around normal people now. They
don't talk about anything!' " says Robyn. Mom's got a point. People in
open relationships have unpacked a lot of intimate thoughts--about
desires, jealousies, and interests--that many monogamous couples never
talk about. "You have to give yourself permission to want what you want
and admit when something is bothering you," Lilly says. Look at
repressed thoughts as logs being stacked, says Jesus. "If it catches on
fire, it's going to blow up spectacularly."
9) Keep that stack small.
Stop
censoring yourself. Saying what you mean is worth the wince — and might
just pay off. "Do you really want to be in a relationship where you
can't be your genuine self?" says Divine. So put it out there when you
want your partner to quit consulting her parents about everything, or,
say, try a sexual fantasy. "They could say no," says Divine, "but they
also might surprise you and be more willing to listen than you expected
them to be."
10) Think differently about sex.
Lilly
and her boyfriend James are clothes shopping, in line for the fitting
rooms. They exchange glances and check for security cameras. They're on a
secret mission assigned to them by Dustin, a poly pal of theirs. They
slip into a room together when the attendant isn't looking. As they kiss
and take off each other's clothes, Lilly pulls out her phone and snaps a
photograph in the mirror. They get comfortable and she starts
recording.
"Dustin has a much higher libido
than either me or James, so he'll suggest sexy scenarios we could try
out, and we'll send him videos of us," says Lilly. There was a time in a
theater closet, another in an Amtrak sleeper car. "We've never been
that adventurous before, and it's been really helpful to have someone
say, 'Here's something fun you could do,' " says Lilly. By outsourcing
the creativity to Dustin, Lilly and James found a way to amp up their
sex lives. For many poly people, spreading out the sexual
responsibilities means more sex for everybody. "My sex life with Jesus
gets better when I'm having more sex with another partner," says Robyn.
"It takes the pressure off him to be the only one to satisfy my needs."
This makes sense to Divine: "Less pressure equals more pleasure."
Try actively avoiding sex (yeah, we know) and focus
on intimacy instead: touching, cuddling, kissing. Taking sex off the
table reduces pressure and helps each partner loosen up, Smith says, and
makes intercourse a forbidden and more appealing act. Okay, fine, most
couples who do this end up having sex, says Smith, but that's because
they've put intimacy first and built up desire.
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