Open: Love, Sex and Life in an Open Marriage (5 page)

I have no desire to be one of many wives, but I agree with this man’s sentiment that having multiple partners invigorates our interest in each of them. Humans crave newness and variety, and having the same thing day in and day out becomes mundane. If I were to eat Italian food for several days in a row, for instance, I might want to go out for Chinese one night, which would only make the next Italian meal I ate more enjoyable. On a more profound level, experiencing other people, either sexually or otherwise, can similarly inform our other relationships.

I can understand not only how Kevin found pleasure with Olga, but also how his time with her made him appreciate his time with me more. Of course, lying and inequity were involved, and I wasn’t afforded the same freedoms Kevin was granting himself. And that was ultimately the central issue for me. I wasn’t mature enough

at that age to wrap my head around the concept of an open relationship, but I do know that the idea of dating other people would have at least pushed the conversation in that direction. And had all three of us been in on the plan . . . who knows? But at that point, I simply had no model for a lifestyle like that. All I knew was monogamy—it was how nice girls did relationships. However, from my adult perspective as someone who’s happy in her open marriage, I’m not surprised at all that Kevin was able to maintain our relationship so well—he was feeling happy and fulfilled all around, and that spilled over into our relationship dynamic. According to the O’Neills, “Outside sexual relationships, when they are in the context of a meaningful relationship, may be rewarding and beneficial to an open [relationship].”
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If you are in a solid relationship in which you discuss openly what you’re doing, other partners can actually improve your coupled life by providing the “otherness” that your original partner can’t.

Bringing another person into the picture can make a static relationship less so. That’s not to say it can make a disastrous relationship suddenly perfect, and it’s not for everyone, to be sure; but you might be surprised by how easy the transition can be, especially if affairs have already, or have always, been part of your marital equation. Admit- tedly, I offer this advice in hindsight, as my initial reaction to Kevin’s cheating on me involved none of this openness toward openness. At that point, I was just plain confused.

What had happened to my Ken, my Prince Charming? This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. What had I done wrong? Surely I hadn’t been enough for him; otherwise I would have been able to keep him all to myself.

heading off to college, I was armed

with four “truths” that I thought were vital to experiencing the new world I was entering: I could be whoever I wanted to be; I could experiment and learn; it was okay for sex to be fun and happy; and I would embrace it not only as good, but also as perfectly acceptable. With this attitude, I felt sure that I’d be able to fall in love, have my heart broken, and still survive. Having a healthy viewpoint about sex enabled me to get what I wanted out of the relationships I pursued without hurting the people I was with or getting hurt myself.

What I learned by approaching college from this perspective was that there were lots of options out there. When I arrived at school, I jumped headlong into exploring my newfound freedom. I made a conscious decision to follow my own feelings, rather than what other people told me I should feel about the unbreakable connection between sex and love. I didn’t feel an urge to “go wild” or prove anything. Instead, I felt content and secure, confident in my sexuality and matured by my personal experience with relationships’ impermanence. I had no idea what I was in for, of course—I still managed to get my heart broken and go after guys who

weren’t interested in me—but I also felt as prepared as a girl could possibly be, thinking for myself, owning my sexuality, and accepting that the best I could do was give it a whirl.

I vividly remember my first day of college. “This is going to be so great,” I said to Ellen, my new roommate. “Zillions of guys on this campus, and no one to tell us when to come home!”

Her apprehensive look surprised me.

“You don’t mean sleeping with them, do you?” she asked. I suddenly felt very uncomfortable. It was immediately clear to me that she and I had vastly different ideas about sex. “Yeah, actually, that kind of
is
what I meant,” I said. “Not with all of them, of course. Just a few.” I hoped my attempt at a joke would help, but despite her nervous giggle in response

to my quip, I could feel the anxiety rising in her.

“I . . . I . . . I don’t believe you should have sex before marriage, that’s all.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know quite what to do with this information, but it was obvious that we might not make the best roommates.

“So, you’re a virgin,” I said. Ellen nodded.

“That’s cool. More for me, then.” I swatted her with a pillow. I would have done nearly anything to break the tension and end that conversation. I didn’t think that moment was the best opportunity to tell her my thoughts on love and sex. I wanted to tell her about my first time,

about what Kevin had taught me, and about how we owed it to ourselves to own our sexuality. Now was our time; this was our chance to check it all out before we settled down. And I did truly believe that I was going to settle down, find the right guy and all the rest. But I also knew that I had some oat sowing to do, and that there was nothing wrong with that. I felt confident that my college years would be my sexual experimentation years, when I would find The One by testing out various scenarios and partners and discovering which of my trial runs I might want to become my lifelong reality. How ironic that being open is supposed to prepare us for a lifetime of being closed.

Throughout college, I had this sense that I was shopping for Mr. Right by trying on many Mr. Maybes. It was the late ’80s and early ’90s, and life for young women my age centered on dating, which focused on finding someone to marry. And most of us made sure to have our fun while it lasted. We felt distinctly that these were the best years of our lives; we talked about what settling down was going to be like, and a lot of us felt confused and conflicted. If we were enjoying our freedom so much now, was it really possible that our lives were going to be even better in the future, as we were told they would?

Even as we continued to question this notion’s validity, we still somehow believed that everything would unfold naturally—that security, well-being, and someone who would “complete” us were waiting just around the corner. In a very

Ozzie and Harriet
sort of way, I was bizarrely focused on the classic mores of finding someone to spend my life with, yet simultaneously enjoying dating lots of people, and finding it the most sexually liberating experience I’d ever had. By day, I was marching on Washington, lobbying at the General Assembly, and taking classes in women’s studies; by night, I was making dinner and playing housewife for whichever boyfriend I had at the time. And though this way of being conflicted with my desires for freedom and individuality, no other behavior occurred to me. I was conditioned to believe in acting a certain way with my boyfriends, and not until years later did I realize that that behavioral mode was not my only option.

my first college boyfriend, Travis, was

a guy I met in my honors English class. He was an intellectual. We’d stay up late into the night, smoking Camels and arguing about abortion rights and feminism and Dante. We had great sex. We talked dirty and tried things I’d never done before. He helped me build even further upon the security about my own sexual habits and curiosity, and the acceptance of others’ sexual habits, that I had begun developing in my relationship with Kevin. He admired my attitude about sex and wasn’t put off by my ownership of my sexuality. We never talked specifically about monogamy, but I know that neither of us slept with anyone else while we were together. I didn’t need or want anything or anyone else, and when we broke up six months later, it was mutual.

I learned a lot from Travis. He made me take myself seriously as a person, as an academic, and as a sexual being. Because of my deep connection with him, the next couple of guys I dated were barely blips on my radar. I had a few other boyfriends, relationships that would last a few months and then die away. Despite the brevity of those connections— or perhaps because of it—an agreement always existed (sometimes discussed, sometimes simply understood) that we wouldn’t see other people. When I was involved with a man, I automatically expected that he would be my guy and I’d be his girl. It never felt like a sacrifice or a compromise, though, because these relationships ultimately weren’t serious commitments. And because they were not particularly serious, the issue of cheating simply never arose. People cheat because they want to continue their current relationship (whether for love or convenience or otherwise) while indulging their desire. If that were not the case, people would simply leave their primary relationship rather than cheat. Since I wasn’t involved in relationships that either my partners or I were deeply invested in, we simply broke up, as opposed to seeing other people on the sly. Outside of marriage, it’s normal and possible and expected to date this way as long as both parties concur. Within a marriage, though, the options are much more limited if you want to see other people: Either you’re open or you’re committing adultery.

Back then, I didn’t even consider that so many marriages might be adulterous. I didn’t personally know couples who

were cheating, because I was still a kid. I simply accepted at face value the party line I was being fed at every turn, about finding the perfect man and riding off into the sunset with him toward a lifetime of wedded bliss.

Outside of the more committed relationships I was pursuing, I did have a few experiences that taught me about the type of freedom I craved in sexual relationships. Having partnerships in which the parameters of both parties’ expectations were clear from the get-go, with no question about what each person wanted, made for very fulfilling sex, regardless of emotional connection. In a September 2007 article for
Glamour
magazine entitled “10 Sex Questions Every Woman Should Ask Herself,” author Hilda Hutcherson, an ob-gyn in New York City and a clinical professor at Columbia University, writes, “Sex is always better and more deeply satisfying when your motivation for doing it is simple and healthy.”
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One great reason to have sex that Hutcherson lists is: “You’re horny, pure and simple.” By the time I got to college, I believed that sex for sex’s sake was okay. And as much as this idea felt good and right to me, I now think, in retrospect, that I was also hoping subconsciously that these feelings would just go away, because I didn’t want to confront what those beliefs could ultimately mean—that I might never be satisfied in a monogamous relationship.

The message I got growing up had been that sex is only good when it happens in a relationship between

two people who love each other. But what I discovered instead was that love, sex, and relationships—or any combination thereof—could be good or happy or successful when the participants’ expectations were shared and understood. What marked the difference between sex in a relationship and a singular sexual experience were time and commitment. Otherwise, the sex could be remarkably, similarly satisfying. I enjoyed the range of experiences I had—the committed and the noncommitted ones. I was exploring as opportunities presented themselves, partaking in the ones that suited me and bowing out of others. I was exercising my ability to choose, a right I had been raised to appreciate and claim.

Finally, my junior year, I did meet a guy who seemed like the type of person I could settle down with and marry. My parents had never told me specifically that I had to settle down with a nice guy someday, but all cultural signs sure seemed to be pointing me in that direction. The messages were all around and constantly whispering in my ear:
Meet a guy, capture his attention, fall in love, get him to propose, and marry him.
As E. J. Graff writes in her book
What Is Marriage For?
“Trained from birth to ask ourselves what we want to be when we grow up, how can Americans be expected to guide our marital and sexual hopes and lives by anything but that same inner voice?”
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My own inner voice was practically drilling a hole through my skull by the time I met Clark. Something about

him made me feel like he could be
that
guy. He was steady and mature, and he seemed to embody everything I was supposed to want in a man. He looked like a Ken doll— handsome and preppy in his Ralph Lauren sweater and Weejun loafers. I certainly didn’t see it then, but I sure do recognize it now: He was my Ken doll and I was his Barbie. I’m sure I looked the same to him as he did to me—like someone who could fit into this whole “real life” thing. I had to pick someone eventually, right? So why not him? Despite all of that “trust your own experience” stuff my parents had raised me on, and the four “truths” I thought I was following to a tee, the real truth was that I was completely blinded by social conditioning. Its voice was crystal clear, and it was saying,
Pick one already.

Clark made me feel as if I
wanted
to be his Barbie, too— the “perfect” girl to his “perfect” guy. He likened himself to the architect character, Michael Steadman, and me to the loyal housewife, Hope, from the TV show
thirtysomething,
and we both took to our roles frighteningly easily
.

Susan Faludi writes about
thirtysomething’
s antifeminism in her famous manifesto,
Backlash.
Of one of the show’s numerous scenes that depicts Hope in her happy- homemaker persona, Faludi writes, “The good mother . . . was bathed in heavenly light as she floated about the kitchen, rapturous over breastfeeding.”
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The irony of it all was not lost on me. I wasn’t missing the show’s overarching message. Quite the contrary—not only was I