VICE
by Jeffrey Leavell
I have been with my husband, Alex, for four and a half years. And our boyfriend, Jon, has been with us for a year and a half.
Before I found myself in one, I resisted the idea of a polyamorous relationship—I made fun of my friends who were in “triads.” I thought the whole concept was ridiculous. But when we met Jon, my perspective shifted.
As Jon entered our life, Alex and I tried to control the situation as best we could. We agreed to only text him in a group, so everyone could see everything we discussed with him, while Alex and I maintained our own separate conversations. Alex and I would confer together on the major decisions of our relationship, and then we would bring the results of those deliberations to Jon.
Basically, we tried to treat a relationship developing between three people like it was developing between two, with Alex and I as one party and Jon as the other. This, of course, is untenable. Equality is essential to making relationships work. If we were really going to do this new thing with Jon, Alex and I would have to change how our own relationship operated. But I had no role models to teach me how to do this thing—a problem I hope to address in writing about our relationship publicly.
People reach out to me with questions about open and polyamorous relationships based on pieces I’ve written all the time. A disproportionate amount of them revolve around jealousy and insecurity: How do you avoid becoming jealous if your partner is sleeping with other men?
I’ve found that if I ever feel jealousy, the root of that emotion almost always comes from not feeling good enough for Jon or Alex. Jealousy always equals insecurity for me.
And jealousy is normal—it happens all the time, no matter what kind of relationship you’re in. It’s part of being human. But at the end of the day, it’s how we react to that jealousy that matters. I constantly have to remind myself to shift the focus of my thoughts back to me: What am I really afraid of? Why do I not believe I am deserving of all this love?
Falling in love with Jon—and watching Alex fall in love with Jon—taught me that there is more love out there in this world than I had ever imagined. But we struggled in the process. Three way fucking is hot; three way fighting is a nightmare.
Once, I received an email from a reader who had started dating a new guy with his partner. The three of them had their first fight, and he felt like his partner and their boyfriend were ganging up on him—had I ever experienced that?
Sure I had. In a relationship between three people, it is almost impossible for someone not to feel like the odd man out. …