My Partner Asked for Polyamory — a Curse or a Blessing?
The shock and betrayal I felt at first led to a freedom and rediscovery of our relationship I hadn’t imagined
Opening a relationship is a mutual agreement, which feels more or less like a natural evolution for some couples. But not always. What might be desired or necessary for one partner could appear shocking to another. After years spent together in a loving, attentive, and caring relationship, hearing that “you are not enough” can feel like you’ve failed and been betrayed by the one you’ve cherished and trusted the most until that moment. After years of unquestioning loyalty, your every belief in societal values is torn apart and thrown into a bottomless hole, with you falling in as well. It can be difficult to understand your partner and avoid building hatred and despair. It might seem impossible to accept the idea of sharing your love, sharing yourself, sharing your partner for the sake of your partner’s and your own happiness.
That is what I felt when the words “open relationship” and “polyamory” were brought up by my partner for the first time. We had been together for 10 years and I felt shocked, betrayed, devastated, angry… I could think of only one word— “nonsense!” It was not even a conversation.
When my partner talked to me about polyamory for the very first time after nearly 10 years being together, I felt shocked, betrayed, devastated, angry…
We were on the beach, walking barefoot along the water. These words put an end to our walk, our relaxed chatter. I refused to listen, and ran away as a strong feeling of anger filled my heart, and tears started pouring. After, it would take 2 years of regular difficult discussions to build the kind of understanding, connection, and trust that are necessary to accept giving polyamory a try.
It was difficult to believe that it was happening for real, that it was happening to me. It was difficult to understand and consider the words I was hearing. It felt as though something or someone had died — was it me, our relationship, my whole life? I didn’t know anymore what my life had been nor what it would become. One thing was sure — it would never be the same.
Later, after a first long and devastating talk, I was sitting and crying alone on the floor in the dark bathroom. My head was so heavy that I couldn’t hold it anymore, I had to place it on my knees. I wrapped my arms around my knees making a tight lock as if that would prevent me from falling apart. My knees were wet from tears, eyes shut, face swollen from all the salt that had gushed over it. I had a vision that the floor of the bathroom was crushing, falling and fading into the bottomless dark hole beneath it. Just one black square tile remained, which was large enough to fit the lump of my body. This tile felt warm, safe, and somehow cozy.
I felt tired, but not tired enough to stop thinking, stop turning the words in my head trying to make sense of them, to make sense of my whole existence. I wanted to stay still and numb, form a cocoon, and hibernate until the memory waned and, whatever this was, it would be over.
He said he loved me
We were together for almost 10 years by then. It started as love at first sight. For me. It was against his principles to admit that it could have been love at first sight for him. But it felt so from the way our relationship evolved, from the three red lights that he had missed returning to me after our first good night kiss. We could not get enough of each other.
It was laughter and fire that lit up whenever we were close, no matter how tired our bodies were. There was something in that indeterminate sсent of each other that bound us and drove us to endlessly explore each other. I knew I was different to him. I knew he was faithful, we both were. Yet he said that he needed to be free. Free from me, from our home, free from our constrained love. Yes, our love was constraining him, trapping him inside a cage, stealing his freedom. He said we needed to make our love free so that it would last.
I knew I had loved him
I knew that we had difficult times and I also knew that every difficult season passes. One just needs to be patient and not give up. I knew I could wait. I did not doubt that he was happy. But, in reality, he was not even close to feeling happy. He suffered. Suffered from being a part of the happy world that I lived in. For nearly 10 years!.. T-e-n y-e-a-r-s … I realized that I did not know him. I lived with someone and loved someone I mostly imagined… I couldn’t go back to our bed and slide under the blanket with a stranger in it. I didn’t know if I could trust him, if I should…
I waited to be exhausted so that the brain would switch off and stop torturing me. How could I have mistaken the reality for so many years without a single clue that there is something so wrong with it? How could I be that blind? I knew that it could have been different. I knew that the world I believed in could have been real and it was real for many others outside there. But not for me.
I felt cursed.
My world was fake
My world collapsed. Most of what I believed in did not exist. I didn’t want to exist in either of the two worlds — the fake one nor this real one that was imposed on me, despite my will. The remains of the old beliefs and values were silently crushing and falling together with the bathroom floor and disappearing into the growing emptiness around my lump fixed to the ceramic tile. It felt so much as an apocalypse scene in a movie. I just needed to stop watching this movie. But I couldn’t find the remote — it didn’t exist. I had no wish nor forces to step into emptiness.
I did not want to leave my cozy spot because I did not want to risk falling and sinking into that bottomless darkness around.
I still did not understand why I had to, why he did this to me… Why me?
I was on the floor, waiting for my brain to exhaust itself… I felt nothing inside. All my interior exploded in a giant big bang. There was just a continuous deafening scream trapped in the shell of my body. I had to mute it by clasping tightly my knees. I had to be silent not to wake up our son. He was six. He was real. He was pure and innocent. He was the only thing that I could trust. He was the only thing that would make me find my new self and help me keep my sanity.
At this moment I knew that this would be over, whatever it was, and I would learn to live and even smile anew.
But first I needed to cocoon in my own arms and hibernate. I was exhausted, empty… and cursed. I knew that after my hibernation I would need to create laws to build my new world from zero using the chaotic energy liberated in my big bang.
One day he said again looking into my eyes, in a low voice: “I love you, I want to be with you, and this will not change. If I love one more person (or two, or three) my feelings for you will not disappear, will not diminish. On the contrary, if I open my heart for MORE love, there will be even more love for you!” There was something hypnotic in that moment, I started to change my mind …or rather opened my mind to accepting the idea of polyamory.
The idea that our love may end and we might have to split apart one day was painful but necessary to feel free and remove the obligation to stay in the relationship for no other reason than love.
He would always say: “I cannot guarantee that I will always be with you — nobody would know that”. The idea that our love may end and we might have to split apart one day was painful but necessary to feel free and remove the obligation to stay in the relationship for no other reason than love. But it also made us value and cherish more dearly the present moment. Letting your beloved free and testing the relationship is hard and even dangerous if there is not enough confidence and trust. It requires a lot of love. Feeling this love and reassuring it again and again is utterly important.
After, it would not take too long to see and feel joy, to feel my heart opening up to find, feel, and give love, and to rediscover the love between us, that got shadowed by our everyday and baby-caring routines.
It would take a few more months to be grateful to my live-in partner for throwing me into polyamory and for unchaining and freeing my inner-self.
I just needed to concoct an improbable recipe to transform my curse into a blessing…
