Personal Story of an Open Relationship, Pt. 1

Usually, when people hear you're in an open relationship, they ask one of two questions. If they're polite, the question is "How did y'all decide to do this?" If they're not polite they ask, "How can your husband let you have sex with other people?" The answer to both questions are more complicated than not, so I'll save the second one for another day. So...

"How did y'all decide to do this?"

I wish I could say that my husband-to-be and I sat down and had a serious heart-to-heart conversation about marriage styles and decided that monogamy was not for us. But if life is a narrative, it's rarely outlined in advance. Ben and I settled for default monogamy like many a couple, and it worked for us for several years. In fact, if not for an odd series of events, our relationship would still be closed.

I had never had sex with anyone besides my husband Ben, and he had only had a single one-night stand, so we were both sexual newbies.  Whether that has any relevance to our open relationship is up for debate.

We were engaged for four years and married for two when the turning point occurred. I had to get up very early for work, and Ben is a natural night owl, so we usually crossed paths for a few minutes every morning. I was in the kitchen making breakfast when he looked at me with a halfway guilty look. "I need to tell you something." I thought it might have to do with him going to a bar during the night and spending too much money on beer, so I wasn't too concerned. Then he said, "I went home with someone last night."

Even at this point my interest wasn't really piqued. He often made random friends at the bar and spent the night at their place in lieu of driving home drunk. I asked him if this was the case.

It wasn't.

He had gone to a man's house and given him a blowjob.

I would have expected to feel betrayed, or angry, or even bewildered. But I wasn't. I was extremely turned on. In fact, my exact words were "If I didn't have to go to work right now, I'd totally bone you." Not exactly the most elegant turn of phrase, but at the time I wasn't planning on this becoming a story.

Ben eventually became good friends with a gay man in his late 40s. We would go over to his house and sometimes they would fuck while I flipped channels on the TV or read a book. Or tried to read a book. The noises I heard coming from the bedroom were insanely arousing. After a time, Ben, his friend, and I would occasionally do MMF threesomes, with the friend and I rarely crossing figurative swords. Ben was the unashamed center of our pleasuring.

What Comes Next

Ben's friend is a very social person, and people often dropped by while Ben and I were there. One day, some friends who were in the process of moving came to visit (and when I say in the process of moving, I mean they were driving a U-Haul filled with their stuff). Conversation flowed easily among everyone, not entirely independent of the booze, and the colored lights of the cheap plastic disco ball gave the foyer and the outdoor space a heady feel. Still, no one was further along than mildly tipsy.

Ben's friend came up to my husband and me and indicated that one of the visitors (I'll call him Michel) was down for a threesome with us. What could we say but yes? That threshold of strict monogamy had already been crossed...

To be continued...