Non-Monogamy Isn’t an Easy Ask
It would be better than cheating, but I’ll never get there
This one comes up sometimes, and it hurts a little if I’m honest. I’d love to have it all, and cheating has let me flirt with that. Yet, the axe is always overhead, waiting to fall. As a cheater, I know I’m only as good as my last lie.
“Monogamy is just seen as the default even if it isn’t working very well for someone in the marriage.” Traditional expectations more powerful than personal needs, to the point people would rather see you sexless and untouched than cheat. Relationships are not one-size-fits-all, but why can’t they be adaptable?
Honesty in relationships is “the standard,” but most of us aren’t honest with ourselves enough to be honest with anyone else.
“You can be completely honest with your wife. Can’t and won’t aren’t the same thing.”
Sure. These glib little bits of internet advice are pretty much as useless as “The sky is blue except when it isn’t.” Can’t and won’t are the same thing when the impact of the “honesty” will entirely destroy your life as you know it.
Is an open or non-monogamous relationship easy? I doubt it. I very much have no issue with me having sex with someone else. I’ve proven that time and again over five years. But could I let hub go? I had a hard time when my affair partner was seeing other people, so why would this be different?
Note: if my hub could have sex. For me, it’s hypothetical because he can’t, so any “openess” would be one-sided, but if he could? How would I react?
“It was a struggle the first 6 to 8 months until she found a good guy.”
Perhaps once the other partner moves into something lasting, the insecurities go away. Marriages, in many ways, are like business partnerships. Can you have the main partnership and still take on side-gigs?
“Have you never been completely honest with her before about how you feel about the state of your marriage?”
God. Again with this. I wouldn’t even know where to start. How do you tell someone you haven’t had sex with in the last 14 years that you miss it? How do you tell them you missed it so much that you started looking five years ago? We have a good relationship. We’re friends and friendly, and if pushed, there is love there. Love of what we have built together, of our kids, and for each other. Honesty? I’m not sure what that would even look like.
“We’ve had many talks over the years we’ve been together. Both one on one and in counseling.”
No this, we’ve never done. Everything is unspoken. His mother is a very cold women. She’s not unloving or unkind, but she’s emotionally closed. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree, but every so often there’ll be a pat on the bum when I’m leaning into the fridge, and I’ll wonder, what’s that all about?
“Nearly 13 years of zero marital relations, but I cannot even dare speak as to an open marriage???”
I’m not the only one who feels this. The conversation about alternatives is off-limits. When you know someone, you know. But what if…?
“Refusal of intimacy (on an ongoing basis) is grounds for adultery.”
Ha! There’s some wishful thinking. When you get caught, no one will give a shit about how long you waited or how shitty you felt about yourself. They’ll think you’re a weak piece of shit who deserves to be destroyed for your betrayal. Grounds for adultery in Western or any culture? There are no grounds for it. You might as well tattoo a scarlet letter on your forehead.
“I would love for my husband to have sex with someone else if I’m not doing it for him.”
I feel the same. If I knew I couldn’t provide for him, I’d tell him to go and find it. I wouldn’t want to know the details, or when and where it was happening, but I’d want that for him. It would be hard for me, but what I didn’t know, along with forced incuriousness, would see me through.
Before I cheated, I read a story of two couples who cohabitated in a three-bedroom house. Each debilitated spouse had a room, and together, the healthy spouses took care of them. The healthy spouses took care of each other in the third bedroom. It seemed ideal.
The only problems were I was in my late 40s, not mid-60s, like the people I read about, and my hub doesn’t need that much care yet. In fact, you couldn’t tell most days beyond the memory issues. One doctor told him he expected he’d be in a wheelchair, having seen the MRI pictures before first meeting him. News that was both scary and good. Scary it could happen, and good that it wasn’t, yet.
Life is too short to be sexless — I know that better than most. Accepting non-monogamous relationships is something more. Something different. As the quotes show, there are no easy answers.
But what if? I’d be so happy if he let me go, but it would break his heart if I asked, and I won’t do that. I’d rather lie in the hope of protecting him for as long as I can than be honest and destroy him in an instant.
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© Teresa J. Conway, 2023
