My partner and I have been together for six years. At the beginning of the relationship we talked about monogamy, he’s never been in an open relationship but likes the idea of being in one, as he’s cheated in the past.
I understand how love and relationships are never black and white. My partner has brought up the possibility of opening up the relationship on and off and reminds me he’s always wanted to explore this.
While I can understand why he wants this, I am having a hard time emotionally. He has sexual desires that I am not into and he would never pressure me to try to participate.
Opening the relationship up would be more about him going out to fulfil those desires than me also satisfying my own needs, so it feels a bit one-sided. But saying no to letting him explore that side of him makes me feel like a drag and a bad partner.
What should we do?
Eleanor says: Truly, what is it about sex? Many of us don’t blink at the possibility that our partner would find other people funnier, smarter, or kinder than us, better at cooking, or conversation, that they might prefer those people’s company to ours sometimes. But once sex is the domain of comparison, suddenly it feels like such catastrophic distress. For a lot of us that’s just the fixed point from which a relationship has to proceed.
We can ask good questions about whether sex should have this big a role in our lives. Some people are able to de-throne it: to say that sex should be unrestricted, not because it’s so significant and serious and deserving of angst and poetry, but precisely because it’s not. They’re able to get into a relationship with sex more like sharing a laugh with someone: not worth tears and rules.
Does that sound appealing to you?
Crucially, the answer can be “no”. Don’t feel pushed by your partner – or by the fact that the question has been posed – into needing to give a rational vindication of monogamy. “That just doesn’t feel good” is an adequate answer. This discussion will be about each other, not who has the Best Unifying Theory of Sex.
One question to ask is how this might feel good for you. You mentioned it would feel one-sided. Like any big relationship decision, that makes for a big risk of resentment. Is there a way to make it more even? Not all open relationships are about casual sex or kink. Is there anything exciting to you about the capacity to explore sexuality, to have crushes or be allowed to flirt with strangers, to feel attractive in particular ways? Sometimes we so internalise the rules and restraints that we forget what we’d be like without them.
If not, though, and this is solely a favour for him, you might first explore other ways for him to access his desires. And that will be important. In the same way that you’d want your preferences accommodated just because they’re your preferences, he can ask for the same kind regard. But there’s a big spectrum of stuff between no access to desires and all-out participation. (Perhaps, too, some of these halfway options would let you explore without crossing a point of no return.)
One word of caution: whatever you decide to do, it’ll be important not to constantly feel like this is an open question. Some degree of negotiation is important in a relationship. But for the really important things – where do we live, do we want children, do we have sex with other people – you don’t want those to feel as if they’re on the agenda forever, like you haven’t so much made a decision together as you’ve temporarily hit pause on a disagreement.
You’ll need to be able to call this question closed. Otherwise it’ll feel like you’re each constantly needing to re-justify your preference, to remake the case; like the rest of your relationship takes place just offstage from the spectre of this still-unsettled thing.
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