Everything You Never Asked About My Open Marriage
Learning about love, relationships, and breaking boundaries through non-monogamy
Just pretend you’re meeting a friend.
Nervously, I repeated my new mantra to myself as I made my way to my first date in nearly six years.
Nearly six years, and it’s not like I’d dated much before anyway. Nearly six years, and I had no idea what I was doing. And on top of my general gracelessness, I had yet to tell my date that I’m married.
Yes, married and dating. In San Francisco, openness, polyamory, and other forms of ethical non-monogamy are more popular than ever. U.S. Census data cited in Psychology Today suggests that just over one-fifth of American adults have engaged in consensually non-monogamous relationships, and in the Bay Area, it’s been referred to as the “next sexual revolution.” But then again, these concepts aren’t exactly mainstream. So it’s not surprising that my open marriage is a difficult concept for monogamists to wrap their minds around. Even I have trouble wrapping my mind around it most of the time.
It was in the midst of the mind-numbing boredom of complete marital bliss that we decided to take our relationship for a ride.