What Becoming a Throuple Taught Us About Our Capacity to Love

Adding a third caused a total transformation in our marriage.

Three’s company. Three’s a crowd. Pick your anecdote, couple it with a trifecta and it all equals one conclusion: Three isn’t great.

Well, in my case anyway, three was just right.

My husband and I have both had polyamorous relationships separate from each other on and off for the past ten years. He’s had two different relationships with two different women. I’ve had my own relationship outside of our marriage with a man that was not my husband. But, something we never quite saw coming, was the idea that we might both date the same person simultaneously outside of our marriage.

That was until we met Erin.*

Deep down I always knew I was bisexual. However, it would take me years to explore this and even longer to actually fall in love with a woman. I still remember the first time I saw her. It was at a Swingers party of all places. She was sitting on the living room sofa with a tall, dark, and handsome man that could’ve posed in GQ if he’d chosen to. All of his masculinity and exterior ruggedness should have been the thing that drew my attention. Yet, as my eyes glanced over him and then to her, I felt a tingle go up to my spine and almost immediately to my heart. She had the most beautiful shade of alabaster skin, long blonde hair that fell delicately across her breasts, and dark brown eyes that I could feel on me as I watched her in return.

Deep down I always knew I was bisexual. However, it would take me years to explore this and even longer to actually fall in love with a woman.

She did something I never would have had the guts to do, and to this day I don’t know where I’d be if she hadn’t have had the balls to do so- come up to me and say hello.

As I shook her hand, and she did the same with my husband, something magical began that is hard, even now, to articulate. The three of us would go on to talk the rest of that night. While Erin didn’t come home with us that evening, she would spend her first night with us less than a week later.

The sex was so much more than that of a traditional FMF threesome. It was lovemaking to the third power, awakening my bisexual side in more wonderful ways than I thought possible. I firmly believe it was heightened by the fact that my husband was there for all of it, too. He was not just a voyeur, but an active participant.

As days melted into weeks and weeks into months, Erin became a constant in both our lives and our home. A divorcee and single mother of a young daughter, Erin often brought her with her over to our house for overnights with our two children.

The three of us worked hard to give each of us ample time with each other. Wednesdays were my date night with Erin, whereas she and Mr. Black would spend Sunday afternoons at her place. Then, of course, we had lots of time with the three of us all together. Always keeping our marriage at the forefront of our throuple, Mr. Black and I regularly checked in with each other on feelings and changes. Erin was very respectful of this at all times.

The three of us worked like a well-oiled machine. When one would be having a bad day, there were now two others to help pick up the slack. While Erin never did move in with us, she was at our house more than she was at her own.

On an intimate level, Erin helped me discover my love of the female form. She taught me how to please a woman and what true passion could feel like between two females. Mr. Black gave us the room to explore this in each other. The sex between the three of us was always fantastic- a masterpiece of hands, lips, and sacred areas on one bed, working in perfect harmony.

The day came when Erin had to leave. Her ex-husband was offered a job back in their home state. So, rather than keep their child from him, she opted to move back as well. Missing her own parents was another factor in her decision. Rather than trying to make a long-distance throuple work with only two people present, we decided to remain friends and visit when we could.

Erin taught Mr. Black and I of our capacity to love. Not just each other, but another.

Our time with Erin taught us more than we could’ve imagined about life and love. It was a new facet of polyamory that we weren’t sure we would ever achieve. Falling in love with the same woman, who loved us both the same way in return was one of the best experiences of our polyamory journey thus far. The throuple, even though only about a year and a half long, satiated our desire for any additional relationships outside of the entity itself. None of us dated anyone else during that time period, which gave us all a singular focus and created a more cohesive unit.

While Mr. Black and I have since started new relationships with others outside of our marriage, and Erin has in fact re-entered a monogamous marriage, we remain close. We were even fortunate enough to attend her wedding! Erin taught Mr. Black and me of our capacity to love. Not just each other, but another. To share the one person in your life that means everything to you with someone else that you also love in a very similar nature is truly beautiful. While I don’t know if we’ll ever get lucky enough to experience the throuple dynamic again, I always encourage others to explore it, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll get the same kind of fortune out of it as we did.

*Name changed for privacy.