Monogamy isn’t for everyone, even the betrothed. Here’s how polyamory can open up your options, from the people who are making it work.
Dame Magazine
by Rachel Kramer Bussel
In the pilot of the FX comedy Married, wife Lina suggests to her husband, Russ, that he have an affair, not because she’s looking explore polyamory per se, but because she, as the mother of three kids, is too tired to deal with his sexual overtures. His attempt to sleep with another woman goes disastrously awry (his buying her a puppy is the least of his mistakes). And, as it turns out, Lina didn’t really mean it: She becomes jealous when she catches wind of his potential extramarital hookup.
A similar situation happens early on in the new memoir Wide Open: My Adventures in Polyamory, Open Marriage, and Loving on My Own Terms by Gracie X. When X and her husband Hank first got together, they settled on this agreement: “If one of us became attracted to another person, we would allow ourselves one sexual encounter. But after that we were to shut it down and bring our focus back to the relationship.” As it turns out, once wasn’t enough for her. She wanted more than just a quick roll in the hay; instead, she longed for a romantic and sexual connection with someone. The book recounts the story of how, after going back to an unsatisfying (for her) monogamous relationship, they successfully began an open marriage that allowed her to get her needs met—but not without tackling some of the deep-seated issues around their differing libidos.
I wanted to find out what makes open marriages work, especially since we live in a society that is highly skeptical of the prospect. For example, when Margaret Cho and her husband, Al Ridenour, announced they were divorcing, gossip sites asked whether their open marriage was to blame, even though she’s spoken highly of the practice, calling it “more respectful to my nature.” We assume the non-monogamy is to blame when the marriage doesn’t endure because the openness goes against the deeply ingrained linking of marriage and monogamy in the public imagination. Yes, sometimes open marriages end—but many not only survive, but thrive. In fact, those in open marriages often credit polyamory with strengthening the marriage and making each of them better spouses.
Open marriages come in different forms
The first thing to know about open marriages is that there’s no single way of conducting them. Some couples have rules; some don’t. Some couples have a live-and-let-live attitude, of the “as long as I don’t find out, it’s okay” variety, while others, like erotica author Malin James, want their primary partners to meet their other lovers, and vice versa. James even had her girlfriend as one of her bridesmaids when she married her husband. There’s a whole lot of variety and options when figuring out the type of open relationship that might work for you.
Some may not even call theirs an “open marriage,” per se, but still practice selective non-monogamy, as did actress Jada Pinkett Smith, who addressed the nature of her arrangement with husband, Will Smith, in a Facebook post, stating, “Will and I BOTH can do WHATEVER we want, because we TRUST each other to do so. This does NOT mean we have an open relationship … this means we have a GROWN one.”
Rather than both partners being gung-ho about polyamory from the start, one partner’s interest in opening up their relationship may sparks the initial inquiry into it. This happened for my friend Lola, who’s been married for eight years, and with her husband for 13. Prior to meeting her husband when she was 20, she enjoyed having more than one partner, and said, “I fully intended to just live my life loving multiple people and hoping they’d be okay with that.” But falling head over heels made her question that intention. “I figured all of my indecisiveness was because I was waiting for the perfect person.”
When she was about to get engaged, she reconnected with her first love, and realized she still had feelings for him. They began an affair. She brought up the idea of polyamory to her now-husband of polyamory, but “he didn’t understand that me being in love with someone else didn’t mean I loved him less. He couldn’t wrap his head around it.” She agreed to set aside the idea, yet it stayed with her. Two years into their marriage, she began exploring her inclination toward submission and BDSM online, with his reluctant blessing. He still wasn’t fully on board, but knew this was important to her. Lola calls this transition period a rough one, admitting, “There were times when he was spiteful and mean and there were times when I hid things because I didn’t want to deal with him, but we got through all of it mostly intact.” …