Taking the Mono Out of Monogamy

Chronicle of an Open Marriage #4

My husband had a little smile on his face as he sat on the couch and typed on his laptop.

“Are you talking to your paramour?” I asked.

“No. I’m…”

He couldn’t finish his sentence because I was already on him. “The thought makes me so horny!”

What?!? Why?!?

Honestly, I don’t know.

Unlocking the heart and other private parts

It was about a month ago when we were having yet another huge fight and heading straight towards divorce when I suggested my husband seek sex outside the marriage, with men. I wrote about that here and here.

Why men, specifically? He’d been bi-curious as a young man, and I wondered if forming his first relationship with me, a woman, and then sticking with it for 1,000 years had something to do with his moody personality. So I asked him to look into that. He was glad to comply. Also, I was pretty sure I’d feel jealous of other women. (And they intimidate him!)

It was scary for me to take the limits off, sure. But it also felt optimistic and liberating to do something so radical to address our chronic discontent. We also signed up for marriage counseling, a more standard response. But in our case, we had strange new events to talk about, which felt a lot more alluring than re-hashing the stale resentments we’ve been fostering for years.

I thought that maybe having sex with men would unlock something in my husband, something tender and vulnerable and unselfish, something that would make him more capable of loving me. And so far, it seems that I was right.

What I didn’t think it would do was make me horny.

That’s an ironic outcome, considering that 100% of our fights had to do with my “low” level of sexual desire. Couldn’t I just have made myself more horny without the infidelity? Apparently not.

Because believe me, I tried. I labored, I focused, I pretended, I prayed, I undertook every trick in the book. But none of that resulted in good and frequent sexy sex.

Now it just tumbles out of me, unasked.

Finding freedom in funny places

When I wrote about that outcome in my second story, Alan Tegel suggested in the comments that I may have a kind of fetish.

If you find it interesting and enthralling, it is ok too. You would be called a cuckquean. It is an intellectual fetish and it is ok!

According to the Urban Dictionary, a cuckquean is “A female cuckold. A woman who’s husband or boyfriend commits adultery with her knowledge. A woman who enjoys being humiliated by her husband or boyfriend’s sex with other women, or enjoys watching her husband or boyfriend have sex with other women.”

But I don’t think that’s it. I don’t want to watch my husband have sex with other people. I don’t want to hear about it in great detail. It doesn’t feel like a desire for humiliation (though I do have sexual fantasies that are about that). It feels like freedom.

If my husband is getting sex outside the marriage, then the pressure is off me to meet his sexual needs. Sex no longer feels like some kind of marital obligation that I both object to and resent. Our interactions are less fraught, more playful.

“It must feel like a burden lifted,” our marriage counselor suggested. And at first, I resisted that language. Was sex with my husband really a burden? Had it actually been lifted? I wasn’t sure. I’m still not.

What I do know is that we’re having a lot more sex, and giving each other a lot more attention and affection.

She’s the boss

One important element of the new arrangement is that I’m in charge. I’m the one who suggested he go outside the marriage for sex. If he had suggested it, it would have felt like betrayal. I’m not sure why me holding the reins makes all the difference, but it does.

A few random thoughts

A friend told me one time that she would happily live in a polygamous marriage. She’d love to spend time with “sister wives.” She imagined the women would be getting it on with each other. (Does that happen? Maybe? I don’t know.)

I remember looking at pictures of harems in the encyclopedia when I was a child and thinking they didn’t look bad — a bunch of women lying around eating grapes, giving each other back rubs and makeovers and massages, wearing fine silks and rubbing on expensive oils? Sign me up! Once in a while, someone would have to go service the sultan, but if he had 200 wives, or even 20, how often could that be?

But the problem with both those scenarios is there’s a man is in charge, calling the shots, distributing the favors, and generally perpetuating the same old oppressive hierarchy that has been unjust to women for thousands of years. Also, by the way, it’s been unjust to men, since only the richest got wives in those systems, while regular men did without. In fact, that’s exactly the situation in the (illegal but ignored) fundamentalist Mormon sects in Arizona and elsewhere, where the oldest, most politically powerful men get the wives, while the young men get pushed out of the group with nothing.

If we switch it around, though, and put women in charge, maybe something equitable to all parties could be worked out?

I’m not saying I want a harem of husbands. I don’t. But what if when the husband comes into a room full of wives, it’s the women who decide who goes to bed with him? It’s also the women who manage the budget and parcel out the work in a cooperative fashion — kind of like a matriarchal kibbutz.

“I thought that maybe having sex with men would unlock something in my husband, something tender and vulnerable and unselfish, something that would make him more capable of loving me.”

I know men take multiple wives in some Muslim cultures, and from what I’ve read, it’s not all bad. The women share childcare and household duties. Some are better at and happier taking care of children, some cooking, some working outside. The problem, again, is the men lording over them, sitting around smoking and drinking and occasionally fighting (or beating up their wives) while the women do all the work.

But what if the women formed their cooperative alliances first, then chose the men they would allow to join them? The men would have to bring something of value besides a penis, like a willingness to work hard, or to make the women feel loved. I’m beginning to like it!

Unfortunately for everyone, though, I’m not in charge of designing human societies. But in my house, at least, I’m making the big decisions. And that’s a system that’s working for both me and my husband— for now.

I say “for now” because we’re looking at this as an experiment. We’ll pursue an open marriage for six months and then re-evaluate. If it’s working for us, we’ll continue. If it isn’t, we’ll change course. In the meantime, I’ll keep you posted.

Time for stereo?

Both my husband and I come from families where our parents were unhappy. Over the many long years of their marriages, they worked themselves into deep ruts of resentment that they couldn’t climb out of. But back in their day, divorce was uncommon. So they stuck together until the bitter end.

Nowadays, things are different. Divorce is ubiquitous, with more than half of all marriages ending in divorce in the U.S. That’s a big improvement over spending your life with someone you no longer like, but it’s not wonderful, especially for offspring.

What if the real problem with marriage isn’t the people you couple up with, but the whole notion of finding your “one and only” in the first place? How sensible is it to believe one person will meet all of your needs for all of your life? Some say it’s not sensible, which is why the divorce rate is high. But that’s not the only option.

Would opening their marriage have helped my mother and father? Possibly, if they could have shucked off church and society’s condemnation. In their case, it would probably have been my mother who’d go outside the marriage. It could have made her feel more valued, and my father more appreciative…

I’m thinking now of my childhood, when stereo was first invented. Before that, there was only mono. You heard just one track when listening to recorded music or speech. Then someone had a new idea, and it changed everything.

What happened next? Read Chronicle of an Open Marriage #5. Find all of my stories about opening our marriage on the list below, or about sex in general on this one. Get an email whenever I publish. Enjoy yourself!