NY Times
By JEANNIE CHOI
Last week, The Times Magazine published a challenging and intriguing article by Susan Dominus that explored marriages that were no longer monogamous, with both spouses’ agreement. For nearly a year, Dominus reported on couples engaged in consensual nonmonogamy (what some involved call polyamory), and returned with a collection of fascinating stories about jealousy, love, desire and trust, all within the loose confines of an open relationship.
In many ways, Dominus assumed the position of the average New York Times reader and approached the topic with skeptical curiosity: “The more I spoke to people in open relationships,” she wrote, “the more I wanted to know how they crossed a line into territory that seemed so thorny to their peers.” Many readers found the concept of an open marriage totally repellent and unrealistic. “I am pretty open, sexually speaking,” wrote one commenter who gave only his first name, David. “But this feels like a long, elaborate case to normalize relationship behavior that rings false to me.”
For a number of readers, however, the stories in Dominus’s article were familiar and true because they had lived those experiences as well. We asked people to share their stories of engaging in open marriages and relationships and received more than 300 submissions. A select group of their responses are below. They were edited for length and clarity.
‘We gradually opened our relationship. This was not always an easy process.’
Several readers shared how they carefully and deliberately opened their relationships. Despite the challenges of an open marriage, the couples felt strengthened by the decision to engage in outside relationships.
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My boyfriend and I have been together for almost five years. We’ve seen each other through some significant health scares, career changes and cross-country moves. Over the course of that time, we were excellent partners and cared for one another immensely, but after a little over a year of being together, our sex life fizzled. It was becoming such an issue that both of us considered ending things, but we didn’t bring it up because our partnership in all other facets of life was so strong.
About two years ago, we were approached by a friend interested in sharing a night with both of us, and we went for it. That led us down a path of actual conversation about the matter, how exciting that night had been for both of us and how unhappy both of us were with the state of our sexual relationship. We gradually opened our relationship.
This was not always an easy process. For a while it meant simply including other people in our shared sexual lives, but it has expanded into the ability for each of us to go do things independently as well. We also have flexibility in the relationship. There are times when one or both of us needs to feel completely supported, and during those times we will close the relationship because we are each other’s most important person and we recognize that there are times when being open doesn’t make sense.
The most important thing this has done for us is remind us that we shouldn’t take each other for granted. Instead, we choose each other over and over because we want to, not because we are simply on autopilot. Crystal A.
My wife and I are 80 and have had an open marriage for 40 years. It started when I had a “secret” relationship and has evolved over the years. I told my wife about a later relationship and suggested that we have an open marriage, never imagining that she would agree. But she did.
I have had one-night stands and relationships that lasted for years. She had several relationships that were very satisfying. It hasn’t all been a bed of roses, though. Our agreement is to tell the other when we are involved with someone, but to not share details.
There have been jealousies, hurt feelings and times when one of us was in a relationship and the other was not. We told our children when they reached college age and they strongly disapproved. Still, I consider the decision to have an open marriage one of the best we have ever made. Watson B.
‘We learned to be more open with each other about our sexual needs … something that our Christian background had always stifled.’
A number of readers in open marriages came from religious backgrounds and had married young. As a result, they felt they had not been free to experiment sexually, and this feeling of deprivation led them to open their marriages.
My husband and I met when we were 17 and were both raised in strict evangelical homes. I had always known I was a little boy crazy. My childhood diaries were filled with details of all the many boys I’d had crushes on. While I was deeply in love with the man soon to be my husband, I never stopped feeling attraction to others. We married at 21 and then slowly left the church.
I felt a part of my life had been stolen — the part where you explore your own sexuality with multiple people in your early 20s. My husband also knew he was bisexual, and that was something he had never followed through on. A few years into our marriage, we decided to open up to casual experimentation: flings, one-night stands, no emotional attachments.
This first stage was a dizzying sexual adventure with many ups and downs, and we felt our primary connection was overwhelmingly strengthened by these other encounters. We learned to be more open with each other about our sexual needs, desires and kinks — something that our Christian background had always stifled within us.
While there have been problems, of course, and it is true that polyamorous lifestyles can sometimes require an exhausting degree of processing and communication, overall I feel like a more self-actualized and fulfilled person through the whole process, with so much love in my life. I guess in some ways I have the evangelical church to thank for all this. Josie J. …