A World in Us Page 4

  But in my Internet searches I came across many who did not accept the opinion that monogamy was a choice. Monogamy was, as far as they were concerned, the one — and only —size that fit all. I had been brought up to believe this too. But the more I examined it, the more I came to question it.

  In the discussion forums, there were those who considered monogamy an evolutionary process, an ideal state that could be attained by one man and one woman and which, in conjunction with their religious beliefs, justified the “rightness” of the goal. It was very difficult to argue with their beliefs, as they could not be proved or disproved; a belief is neither right nor wrong — it just “is.”

  But the bottom line was that their opinions weren’t important. My husband’s was.

  So I carried my discoveries home with trepidation.

  “Gilles…” I said, as laid my printed articles out on the kitchen table. “Can you read these and let me know what you think?”

  And in an attempt to legitimise my desire, I added, “A doctor wrote them.”

  Feeble. I moved quietly around the kitchen fixing dinner, on tenterhooks, waiting for an explosion.

  Which didn’t come.

  During those last few weeks, I had come to realise how much my husband loved me. So much so that he was willing to listen to me even in the midst of his own personal pain and shock.

  To my surprise he was smiling. “What were you expecting my reaction to be?” He looked at my anxious face.

  “I didn’t know how you would react. Just because something is written down, it doesn’t necessarily mean you will accept it. No matter what my feelings may be.”

  “Louisa, you never cease to amaze me. I’ve seen you overcome many things, and I knew our marriage would be an adventure. You’re examining values that society has laid down and tossing them out of the window. There aren’t many people who could do what you’re doing.”

  “Or who would be stupid enough to do it!” I said with a rueful laugh.

  “There’s a thin line between clever and stupid,” he said, quoting from Spinal Tap.

  “Exactly. Large bread,” I quoted back.

  “Polyamory.” He rolled the word around his mouth to see how it tasted.

  “Sounds a bit mathematical,” I said.

  “Well, my father’s going to love this!”

  Gilles’s relationship with his father had never been an easy one, and as I watched him chuckling, I thought maybe he was enjoying this as yet another tool to build his barricade of rebellion. Like not finishing his qualifications had been.

  “This isn’t just a way to annoy your father, is it? Is this something that actually appeals to you?”

  Gilles quietened down, but I could still see feathers of excitement floating out from the wicked blue of his eyes. And there I saw the man from almost seven years ago, the man with whom I had fallen in love. He looked happier than he had in a long time. “I’ve been reading today too,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  “Remember Ron?”

  Ron Smothermon was the author of our favourite self-help book, Winning through Enlightenment. In it he bluntly stated that there was no good or bad, there were only acts or consequences, and it was a matter of judgement as to what was good and bad. Pretty difficult to accept when you considered child abuse and murder.

  “I was on chat today with Alex. He asked me what held us together if we weren’t bound by fidelity. So I started reading. What I came up with was this.” He opened the book and pointed to the passage.

  I read: “When there is no choice not to be in a relationship, then there is no choice to be in the relationship.”

  Gilles looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to come to the same aha! moment that he had earlier.

  It didn’t take long. “So the only reason we are together is because we choose to be together?”

  “Right!” he said. “And there should be no other reason. It’s the best reason of all.”

  But once we had started to reflect on opening our marriage, it was difficult to know how to go about it with the kind of respect and honesty that we wanted to characterise our decision. How much respect was enough? If I met someone in a bar, would I have to phone my husband before the first chat?

  The first drink? The first kiss?

  It seemed sleazy to trawl around clubs with the one-liner “I’m married, but my husband’s OK with it,” like some cheating nympho.

  “The thing is,” Gilles predicted gloomily, “that you will be able to score with ten blokes before I can make a move on anyone at all. I’m much shyer than you are, and I don’t have much social interaction outside of home.”

  But that wasn’t quite right. And I said so.

  “You aren’t shy at all. You’re insular, it’s different. You’re fantastic in social situations, when they happen. But if you made an effort to pull yourself away from the computer screen once in a while, maybe they would happen more often. How about the gym?”

  “You don’t hit on women there!” he said, scandalised. “You just enjoy the bums in Lycra!”

  “OK,” I said. “I agree. But there are women there every day. Fit women. Women with whom you have something in common. And women you can make friends with first.”

  Another thought struck me. “You’ve had loads of conversations with girls when you’ve been out with the dogs. They’re babe magnets.”

  Our stab at pre-children commitment had been two black-and-tan dachshunds called Casanova and Cleopatra.

  The bizarre nature of our conversation hit us. And we started to laugh. I was advising my husband on how to get together with other women.

  “Well, how are you going to meet someone, then?” he asked.

  “My guess is just that it will happen naturally. I’m not going out advertising that I’m available,” I said.

  “Yeah, but you always get guys trying to pick you up. And no one actually cares whether you are married or not.”

  I frowned. That wasn’t how I saw polyamory. I was already a convert in less than twenty-four hours. “But that’s not part of the deal,” I said. “I want them to care about me. And I want them to be friends with you, Gilles.”

  “’Cause that’s not going be weird!” he said, grimacing.

  I tapped the article. “It says here, ‘If you can’t invite your wife’s lover round to dinner then it probably isn’t polyamory.’ That means we all have to be friends.”

  The enormity of what we were looking at threw us once more. How on earth were we to go about it? In this instance, the problem would arise when I wanted to be open about it and introduce my new boyfriend to my husband. The concept of openness would frighten people away, whilst cheating in private was considered relatively acceptable. Oh, the irony! Even less likely would be a situation where we could maintain the two relationships if the new person was not fully prepared to go through some jealousy battles of his or her own. They would need to accept that our marriage would continue and be prepared to share each of us, as we would have to share their love and time as well with any new partner.

  “What if you fall in love with someone and decide to leave me?” I spoke rhetorically, in that I was afraid of what the answer might be and wasn’t sure I wanted it answered.

  And when his answer did come, I didn’t like it.

  “I can’t know what will happen. We just have to trust that we love each other enough.”

  “I know I love you,” I said. “God knows after the past three months of hell, I know that much. But no one knows what will happen. Maybe we’re bat-shit crazy.”

  “What’s the alternative?” he asked. “Do we go back to monogamy? I’ve had close encounters of my own, you know. There was a girl once…” he trailed off, looking at me uncertainly.

  It was a moment. A moment when I felt my heart rise to my throat. It was also the moment that, des
pite my own infidelity and my own guilt, I knew…there was no going back, for either of us.

  “Go on,” I said, holding my breath. Was this going to be what polyamory felt like all the time? Like I was on the edge of a precipice?

  “I didn’t do anything,” he said hurriedly. “But I felt a lot for her. I worked with her, but I was confused about my feelings. I still loved you. I still love you.”

  I sat for a while in silence. I waited for the hurt to subside. And found what I was looking for. Gratitude. Gratitude that he was able to be honest with me. Gratitude that he too was human.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Is that sarcastic?” he asked nervously.

  “No,” I replied genuinely. “Thank you for telling me. I love you. You are human. And thank God I am not leading you somewhere you don’t want to go. Tell me, do you think it would have made you happy to be with this girl?”

  “I think so, yes,” he said uncertainly.

  “Would it have made you happy to know that I would have been happy for you to be with her?” I continued.

  “Yes,” he said. This time it was sure. The lights came on in the street below our apartment. And our world brightened.

  He grasped my hands, and we felt a searing exchange of love pass between us. How amazing it felt to be able to have this kind of conversation together. I felt like crying out of sheer joy and relief. In one bound, my love for him tripled.

  This journey was together.

  4

  When my husband and I wrote our wedding vows, we tried to define what we meant by our love and commitment. This is what we said to one another:

  “Real love is more than the yearnings we feel; more than the warmth and glow, the excitement and romance. It is also caring as much about the welfare and happiness of the other as you do about your own. It is about taking risks: risking telling the truth; taking responsibility for oneself and for one’s words and actions; risking being open and vulnerable; risking and accepting honest com­muni­ca­tion and working together towards common goals.

  Love is not total absorption in each other; it is looking outward in the same direction — together. Love makes burdens lighter, because you divide them. It makes joys more meaningful, because you share them. It makes you stronger so that you can reach out and become involved with life in ways that you dared not do alone.”

  That night we read them again and both agreed that what we were doing was in accordance with our original agreement. To love one another and to embrace life with honesty and responsibility, despite the risks.

  But our risks were not anyone else’s and shouldn’t be. Unless they too embraced those risks with joy and recognition of a truth that we thought could be the reward. Neither of us wanted anyone to be misled by our situation, nor did we want to cause unnecessary hurt.

  Although our concept was to build multiple relationships, we had no idea how this was going to be possible. Our def­in­ition of polyamory was the freedom to love where we chose. We supposed that one-night stands could spark off the connection as well as long-time friendships, even if there was no one on our radar at that time. The talking hadn’t stopped by the time we got to bed that night.

  “But if we open our marriage, then we shouldn’t set limits,” I argued. “Otherwise what’s the point? Limits shut doors.”

  “Yes, but there are degrees of ‘open,’” he said. “I don’t want you just jumping random guys for the hell of it.”

  “I don’t want that anyway. Polyamory is about respect,” I said. The expert after reading two whole books on the subject. “And that goes for you too. You’re my husband and I respect you.”

  “How are you going to handle this freedom?” he wanted to know. “Are you in the right place to make non-destructive decisions?”

  I assured him — and myself — that I was. But all the same, doubts flapped around us in the dark. How much could we open our relationship without losing it? Blinded by the overwhelming possibilities of our future, the subject in itself was daunting. Exciting but scary. We needed a framework.

  In the land where there were no rules, we got to define them.

  This is what we came up with.

  Rule number 1: Any newcomer had to be fully aware of the situation.

  It was about consent. It wasn’t fair for someone to get involved with either of us if they didn’t know about polyamory or had misconceptions about it. It wasn’t a free-for-all. It was complex and difficult. A challenge for everyone involved.

  Privately, I thought if I announced our philosophy during a casual bar conversation, it would be enough to send anyone screaming to the hills. But on second thought, it was probably a good test of the type of person I myself would appreciate. Someone who, like us, would be slightly awed by the idea and interested enough to consider the possible ramifications. And not someone so scared of society’s opinions that they would be prevented from pursuing what we considered to be a giant leap for mankind.

  Rule number 2: Protection, protection, protection.

  Not second in importance, obviously, but surely second in sequence of time. If we were opening our relationship to more than one person, then above all we loved and respected our partners enough to make sure we were safe. But how safe was safe? Could we indulge in oral sex without protection? Was it the same for men and for women? We carried out endless debates and research before we came to our final conclusions. Condoms were a must during full sex, but otherwise not. At this point we paused for thought. Condoms could break. And result not only in disease, but also something potentially more life changing: a baby.

  Legally, my husband would by default be the father of any offspring that I produced within our marriage unless he denied paternity. To deny it, he would have to sign a legally binding document saying that the conception had taken place without his knowledge or consent. Which would be untrue. Even more complex would be the issues that arose for him if he fathered a child with someone other than me. A whole new era of in­secur­ity and jealousy would emerge. For whilst I was not jealous of his emotions, a child would take up a lot of his time and leave me out of the loop. And that was only the start of it.

  Rule number 3: The relationship should not be harmful to either of us.

  My husband therefore had the right to closely vet my possible amorous interests as to whether they had any harmful effects on me, caused him any direct distress or seemed to undermine our marriage.

  How was harm to be defined? The pain that we had just gone through had in the final analysis provided growth and learning. Was all pain worthwhile from this perspective? And if we were allowing each other freedom, did having a right to veto prospective partners negate this and objectify them?

  Our rules, far from settling the issues, opened up a world of new possibilities. I signed up for email lists in the hope that others had considered these issues before us. Some groups were closed, and I waited for permission to join the email lists, which came begrudgingly and slowly from the group members. It appeared I was entering into a cliquey world where new polyamorists weren’t welcome. Despite all our reading, we had no practical field experience. We asked stupid questions. And were attacked. I was in the minority. The lists I joined included polyamorists who were part of other groups — crossovers from the bisexual groups — and who had at least two different partners of different genders.

  When my terribly excited introduction was attacked by the members, I retreated. Far from being open-minded, many wondered what on earth a heterosexual couple with no in­clin­a­tion towards kink or bisexuality could want from them.

  This was not what I had been led to believe. Polyamory, as I understood it, represented open love with respect and integrity. And unsure of where to turn, I wondered for the zillionth time whether this was all a hideous mistake.

  But the thought had barely formed in my mind when I received an email from a couple livi
ng in England. Once swingers, they had discovered their inclination towards polyamory by chance with another couple. Their relationship had not worked out. But they dreamt of endless possibilities of communities and relationships. Just like us.

  All along I had been careful to differentiate my desire for love from my longing for a purely sexual thrill. Falling in love was a one-in-a-million chance. Falling in love with another couple was a one-in-a-billion chance. Or so I thought.

  5

  When I first got their email, I sighed. Swingers. Yet another misalignment with my vision of utopia.

  “Are you going to write back?” asked Linda, my chief bridesmaid, whom I had just told about our new philosophy.

  “Of course I will,” I said. “Not to do so would be impolite. But honestly, how on earth do they think it’s possible that we fall in love with them both?”

  “His name is Morten,” she said thoughtfully. “That doesn’t sound British, does it?”

  “No, it’s Swedish I think. Aren’t A-ha Swedish? I love A-ha.” Suddenly, I imagined myself in the video of “Take on Me.”

  “I think A-ha are Norwegian,” she said. “But similar. They’re all terribly liberated up there. Just look at their mixed saunas.”

  Images of bronzed, naked Swedes with enormous blond moustaches swam into my head. Doing unspeakable acts in hot wooden huts.

  “Let’s see the pic again,” I said.

  We both peered at the photo of Morten and his wife and decided it was definitely not Morten Harket of A-ha fame. Pity, I would have gone for him any day.

  “But you can’t really tell anything in photos,” I said. “They don’t capture movement or depth. God, I feel like I’m preparing for a bid at auction: ‘For sale, one couple. Will travel!’”