Open: Love, Sex and Life in an Open Marriage (15 page)

Once it seemed inevitable that Christopher and I would open up our marriage, I decided it was time to seriously broach the topic with Lisbeth. She was almost as flirty with Christopher as she was with me, and when I mentioned the idea of the three of us sleeping together—for real—she was intrigued. We shared our fears and desires about what a threesome would be like. She all but lived with us as it was, and we all adored one another—the physical act of sex was really the only thing missing from the equation. We discussed the fact that a lot of people would consider our dynamic socially deviant, but there were plenty of things

about our shared thinking that went against the grain. I was as honest as I could be, admitting that, as interested as I was in moving forward, I was also scared: scared of losing my best friend, scared of losing my husband. In my mind, the script was already rolling:
Kelly thought it would be fun to invite her best friend, Susan, into their bed,
the voice-over would say,
but Kelly never imagined she’d lose them both . . . to each other.

TV movies and blindly accepted social conventions aside, Lisbeth and I agreed that we both wanted to give it a shot. We didn’t have a plan; we just figured that when the time was right, we’d know it. Sure enough, just a few weeks later, all of the planets seemed to align.

“Let’s do it tonight,” I said to her. We were at my house, watching a DVD on the couch. It was a perfect night. Emily was staying over at a friend’s, and Christopher was due back from a meeting within a few hours. She smiled and gave me a knowing look.

“You sure?” she asked.

“Are you?” I asked back.

“Yeah,” she said. “I am. As long as you are.”

When Christopher came home, he slid onto the couch next to me, putting his hand on my thigh. Lisbeth’s hand was already on my other leg, and within moments, the sexual tension in the room was palpable. It wasn’t but a few seconds before I felt their hands touch under the throw. I watched as they caught each other’s eyes. Christopher’s face didn’t betray a thing, but I knew he knew.

“I’m beat,” he said a short while later. “I’m going to bed.” “We’ll be up after the movie,” I said. He kissed me and

headed for the stairs.

“What about me?” Lisbeth asked. He looked at me first— as if for my permission. I smiled and raised my eyebrows, implying,
It’s your call.
He walked over to her and kissed her long and hard.

Laughing, he shook his head. “You girls.” Lisbeth and I finished watching our movie before following Christopher upstairs. We slipped into bed on either side of him, as if that were what we’d always done. And everything that followed that night felt equally natural.

I couldn’t keep from smiling as I watched my husband run his hands over Lisbeth’s breasts and down her hips. He looked awed, as if this were the first time he had ever touched a woman like that—not just her, but any woman. It was amazing to watch them together. It was hot, but it was also sweet. She was lost in him, and he in her. I was able to see Christopher as a human being for the first time in years—not as my husband or my daughter’s father, but as a man, a sexual being, a person who needed to be wanted. Lisbeth was bossy and aggressive with him, and he listened to her unfailingly. She was also tender, and it made my heart happy to see him so enthralled.

Later, he shared with me that watching Lisbeth and me together was an incredible experience for him as well. She showed him how to give me a G-spot orgasm, a feat that

he’d never managed. It sounds strange, I know, but it was also delightful, even charming, and exactly what I’d been craving. The three of us were the same in bed together as we were outside of it—we talked and joked and played. Before the sun came up, Lisbeth made her way back to the guest room so that she’d be there if Emily got home early.

That morning, Christopher cooked, Lisbeth watched cartoons with Emily, and I marveled at how everything and nothing had changed. After Lisbeth left, Christopher plopped down next to me on the couch, shaking his head. “Wow,” he said with a laugh.

“I know,” I replied. “Wow.” “You okay?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Uh-huh. Wow.” We talked about how much fun, how hot, and how surprisingly natural the experience had been. Christopher confessed to having been terribly nervous, but so turned on when the two of us crawled into bed with him that he figured,
What the hell?
He told me how much he loved me, and how I constantly amazed him. “I never would have been brave enough to do something like this without your prompting,” he said. “Thank you.”

I was happy and relieved and amazed. Sure, it had been only one night, but it had also been one incredibly normal morning. We were all on the same page. We all felt that what we were doing was perfectly fine because we all felt comfortable—with ourselves and with each

other. I felt like screaming, “See!” at the top of my lungs, but I knew that wasn’t necessary. Getting to this point of comfort and readiness hadn’t been easy, but it had been worth the wait. And so I simply breathed a sigh of relief and smiled as I thought about what this might mean for our marriage’s future. More than ever, open marriage seemed like the ultimate expression of trust in both myself and my husband.

during the next six months, Christo-

pher and I had many conversations about how happy we were, and how well this supposedly “crazy” idea was work- ing out. We realized that we had been living within a con- vention that simply did not jibe with who we were, individ- ually and together, as human beings. We had fallen in love and gotten married because that was what we were sup- posed to do, not because we had thought carefully about the lifestyle that would best suit us. We marveled at how nice it was having Lisbeth around: someone else to cook with and clean with; someone else to play with Emily; someone else to love. It was incredible how loving Lisbeth made us love each other more. We had all cared about one another before we began sleeping together, after all, so the sex became sim- ply another component of our relationship.

Throughout our time with Lisbeth, Christopher and I marveled at how content we felt. He admitted that I had been right, and he was thrilled. He loved watching Lisbeth

and me together, and loved it when I watched the two of them as well.

“She’s so hot,” he would say to me. “Not that you’re not; it’s just . . . she’s hot. She’s young and she wants me and it’s different and nice when we’re all together. And the sex is great.” These comments were like epiphanies. They didn’t make me jealous—I cannot emphasize that enough. I like it when I see my husband happy, and that extends to seeing another person loving him. And, as an added bonus, it’s a turn-on. Seeing someone else so enjoying him reminds me of why I enjoy him, too. I felt like his attraction to Lisbeth was also working to align our sex drives, even though I knew that his libido was likely to eventually wane again. That was the nature of the beast, and of Christopher.

One of Christopher’s friends recently told us that we are the most evolved couple he knows. And that was exactly how I was feeling as we were embarking upon this new journey. We weren’t ashamed of our wants and needs, we delighted in each other’s happiness, and we were honest with each other through it all. We were finally managing to be true to ourselves and each other, even if doing so flew in the face of conventional images of marriage.

“What if you really do have it all figured out?” Christo- pher’s friend asked us that day.

“I don’t know about that,” Christopher responded, “but I do know that having sex with other people—heck,
loving
other people—isn’t going to be our downfall.”

Christopher finally got it. He simply couldn’t argue with his own happiness or mine. Initially, he had said that he understood open marriage, but only in theory. But starting down this loving, honest path with Lisbeth was exactly what Christopher needed to embrace the lifestyle in practice.

After the three of us had been together for several months, my husband continued to sleep with Lisbeth, but I didn’t. It was her choice, not mine. But I respected her interests (or lack thereof). I didn’t mind that Christopher was sleeping with her. It made him happy. How could it not have? She was like the ultimate fantasy fulfillment for him. I missed having sex with her, but it was important to me that she was honest about how she was feeling. As it turned out, she “just wasn’t that into” me, as the saying goes. And nothing is less sexy than disinterest.

My husband’s sexual relationship with Lisbeth ended when she met a guy whom she wanted to be with exclusively. After it was over, Christopher and I had to reassess where we were. We had to rethink—or create, really—the “rules.” I confessed that I might want to sleep with other men, which came as no surprise to him. And Christopher admitted that one of his biggest concerns about that was that he’d walk into a restaurant one night and hear one guy say to another, “I fucked that guy’s wife.”

“I would feel so stupid and small,” Christopher told me, “as if I couldn’t satisfy you myself, and so you had to look

somewhere else.” The funny thing is, my reaction would be quite the opposite. If the situation were reversed, I wouldn’t be able to resist feeling a little smug, smiling at the woman who had said those words and thinking to myself,
He’s amazing, isn’t he?

Because Christopher and I were coming from such

different places, though, it was crucial that we figure out how to “do” open marriage, which, truth be told, is something we are still trying to discover now, three years into our field research.

Our whole process has been about redefining terms and renegotiating parameters, and that changes every time one of us meets someone new, or anytime one of us wants to discuss something we haven’t tried before. An open marriage is a scary proposition. It calls into question nearly everything we think we know and accept about sexuality, sensuality, and marriage. But there are plenty of compelling reasons why it works for Christopher and me, and why it was worth taking a shot at revolutionizing our union. My sexual rights are just as important to me as any number of my other civil rights. I have no interest in taking away my friends’ husbands, or converting people to the idea that open marriage is a better option, but I just know this for myself: I need more.

For those of us who feel that way, three challenges lie along the road to rectifying our situation: We must disentangle sex and love; we must consciously engage our

own sensuality and longing for touch; and we must let go of our fears of being unaccepted or alone. I continue to be intrigued by the question of how we might live if we followed our desires. And that is what open marriage allows us to explore.

Chapter 6

having our cake and eating it, too

Figuring it all out took a lot of talking, but the couple was happy. She experimented here and there when she was out of town. She slept with other people and felt more connected to her husband. She slowly began to accept that she was okay, that her choices were right for her, and that her husband was onboard. And that was all that mattered.

in the months after our relationship

with Lisbeth ended, as we began laying out some ground rules for our burgeoning new lifestyle, I realized that I didn’t want to wait months or years for another Lisbeth to come along—and who knew if we could even find someone else like her? I sure didn’t want to go back to the way things had

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been before, either. I wanted to have other partners. I wanted to “date,” for lack of a better word. I wasn’t just looking for a warm body. I was looking for someone smart and funny and, yes, attractive. I was looking for someone who could slip into the role of “insta-boyfriend” (or girlfriend), with whom I could spend a night (or several) and have great sex, yes, but also connect intellectually or emotionally. I didn’t leap into the relative unknown of open marriage just so I could have a one-night stand with some drunk guy. Hell, I could hire someone if I wanted that—and it’d be easier, and likely safer. No, I like to be courted, if only for one night. I get turned on by connecting. I get turned on by being seen.

In
Against Love,
Laura Kipnis explains this concept beautifully: “The new beloved mirrors this fascinating new self back to you, and admit it, you’re madly in love with both of them.”
1
There’s no question that falling in love has a lot to do with seeing what the other person sees in you, and loving yourself more because of it. I’m not ashamed of wanting to see my best self mirrored back to me. I like how I look in a lover’s eyes. And no matter what, how a new lover perceives us is invariably different from the way we appear to someone who’s loved us for years, and who’s seen us through all of the ups and downs of a long-term relationship. Both visions can be equally amazing. When I see the way a new lover looks at me, it reminds me why my husband fell in love with me and why I fell in love with him. It makes me aware that I’m still that person, and that

understanding can reinvigorate our relationship and help me value what we have.

As you can imagine, what I’m looking for is not easy to find. I am open, not promiscuous. I am not simply looking for more of everything; I am looking for specific things: positive, happy experiences; something that will complement, rather than compete with, my marriage. In
The Ethical Slut,
the bible of many polyamorists, authors Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Liszt write, “One-night stands can be intense, life-enhancing, and fulfilling; so can lifetime love affairs.”
2
The fact that it’s possible to have both types of relationships may seem contradictory, but in fact they’re remarkably compatible. I have found great joy and satisfaction in both. It’s only our own social baggage that tells us that the two must be mutually exclusive.

One criticism I’ve heard time and time again from people who oppose open marriage is that it seems like a selfish free- for-all. In the aftermath of writing my article “Portrait of a Marriage” for
Tango
magazine, I marveled at the comments people posted about my piece, which, interestingly, they were still making more than a year and a half after it was published. Here’s one example of a fairly typical remark: “I think it’s sad—she wants her cake & to eat it too. We’d all love to have sex 24/7, but the realities of life and the realities of relationships don’t always permit it. Grow up.”
3
The writer implies that an open marriage is a self-indulgent copout somehow, an easy way to deal with a relationship