Who Needs Monogamy?

Not these three people.

Reported by Sarah Mirk, illustrated by Matt Bors

Love in America means monogamy. Think about it: The pursuit of a soulmate, the bride and groom, the idea that’s there’s a “special someone” out there just for you. But if we’re honest, relationships are a different story—few people can honestly admit that they’ve never cheated on a partner, or at least wanted to cheat on a partner. Open relationships offer an alternative to the basic assumption that monogamy is necessary for long-term, stable, happy love. Instead of cheating on partners, people in open relationships try to honestly explore the choppy waters of jealousy, sex, and attraction by considering the idea of getting intimate with more than just one partner.

The mainstream image of nonmonogamy is that of a ‘60s swinger, decked out in beads and ready to party. But open relationships look all sorts of ways, from bisexual individuals who maintain two or more concurrent relationships to buttoned-down straight, married couples who each have a separate boyfriend and girlfriend. Many people are in successful open relationships today—they just don’t often talk about them publicly. In this piece, three people practicing nonmonogamy talk frankly about the logistics of navigating nonmonogamy.

Ben Williams, education specialist, 30

My husband J. and I started having an open relationship because we were fighting a lot about sex. We have mismatched sex drives and he would start to feel pressured about sex. This led to a long spiral into a place where the more he felt pressured, the less he wanted to. He finally told me to go have sex with other people because he felt he couldn’t satisfy me.

At first, neither of us took it up, because as soon as we were open, our sex life skyrocketed. Like, as soon as he didn’t feel pressured anymore, it became something he wanted again.

We close and open our relationship depending on how we feel about the idea and our relationship at any given time. It’s very flexible.

Then I met S. three years ago and I could tell, “This is great, I want to spend every waking moment with him.” J. likes to hear about everything and so they met up and hit it off straight away. We called S. up totally high school style and asked if he wanted to be our boyfriend.

My poor mother, I’ve had to come out to her three times: First as an atheist, then as gay, then as open.

We close and open our relationship depending on how we’re relating to each other. When things get tense and we fight, we often close it again. It’s very flexible.

S. lives an hour away, so we drive down there together or on our own and stay with him. We’re all on equal terms. He has to be okay reopening or closing the relationship and give his okay on people.

Everything we’ve done, we’ve made it up from scratch. You don’t have to know what’s going to happen. There are no real rules, it all depends on the people involved. If you’re committed to each other, you’re committed to working it out.

Allena Gabosh, sex activist and educator, 59

I was raised a fundamentalist in Idaho. We were raised to be looking for the one, when it came to marriage and relationships. This makes me gag. I feel that if you’re not looking around for the one, you don’t have to waste your life. Since I was 18, I dated more than one person always, but with marriage as a goal. I kept trying to be monogamous. I’ve been married four times. I like weddings and being the center of attention!

When I first got married, we opened up our relationship a year into it. I had more opportunities than he did and that became a point of contention.

My rules were: Don’t have sex with anyone in our bed. And the number one agreement: No surprises. No, “Oh, I’m dating three new people!” No, “Oh, I didn’t use a condom!”

My third husband fell in love with a friend of mine and left me for her. But what really broke us up was the fact that he had expectations of a relationship that were not realistic. We can’t give our partners everything; we can’t be everything for everybody. Now, for me, my partners fill lots of niches.

The closest person I have as a primary is Mac, who I spend most of my time with. However, I’ve got other partners who are equally important and who I see as often as possible.

Jealously is normal. What you can control is how you react. Jealousy is being afraid that someone can take something away from you. But I don’t own my partners. I always say to be gracious, warm and welcoming to your partners’ partners.

People are more okay with me being kinky than me being poly.

My poly lifestyle gives me so much support. I recently had cancer and I never, ever, had to go to the doctor alone. My chemo days were parties, we called them tiara days.

Wendy O-Matik, writer, 45

At 23, I met the guy I stayed with for 13 years. He was 20 and I sat him down. I said, “I’m crazy about you. I love your band. I love your music. I love you as a person. But, I have to tell you: “I’m bi, I’m always going to desire other women. I don’t know how do relationships the way other people do it. So, I need to be free. And if you call yourself an anarchist, if you call yourself a feminist, if you believe in the empowerment of women, then you need to uphold my right to be free.”

In about our fifth year of being together, he started asking me to marry him. I said no for five more years. I never wanted to be owned by someone. If you’re in a poly relationship, it means you’re always kind of single, if you want to be. So the idea of putting a ring on my finger and signing a legal document, what kind of message does that send to people? He just kept being patient with me and we eventually got married, just a really simple thing in the backyard. I wore a silver prom dress.

It was the most painful relationship to lose, because he was my soulmate. I chose to be open and so he met someone and wanted to be with her, and she wasn’t into polyamory. She was into monogamy, and so she gave him a choice: Her or me.

When monogamous relationships break up, no one in their right mind says, “Oh my God, I knew monogamy didn’t work!” But when an open relationship breaks up, people say, “Of course he’s going to meet somebody and of course he’s going to leave you.” It’s a terrible double-standard.

The best part is when we did break up, I still had other lovers who were like, “I still love you, I’m going to show up, I’m going to make you dinner, we’re going to heal your heartache.”

And that’s why I call myself the “Radical Love Warrior.”