Playing with nonmonogamy
I came across a post or two in the archives where you mentioned the logistics of casual sex in tension with a committed relationship. This caught my eye since I've been dealing with that very issue a lot lately. I've been in a serious relationship with my girlfriend coming up on four years now. I'm nearly 22, and we've moved in together after years of commuting between nearby cities. Recently, we realized that we had never done much of anything, sexually, with other people. Were we missing out on anything? Were there vast secrets of sex which were entirely lost to our naive conceptions? With these considerations in mind, we decided to give one another leave to mess around with other people, because hey, we're open-minded and "hip," right? So that's been working out moderately well, we've explored a bit and learned things and had fun. Trouble is, we both seem to sometimes get the predictable instances of nagging jealousy. I know each of us, when hooking up with another person, is fully aware that it's in no way serious, emotionally - but as a third party to the transaction, it can be difficult conceiving of that hookup occurring, and what it means to one's own lingering competitiveness and possessiveness.I was wondering whether you had had any similar experiences, perhaps in the early stages of your ... casual sexperiment, as it were. Have you ever run up against these issues, or was it always an easy thing - I'm unattached, sex is fun, I'll go have some? How have the social constructs of sex and love impacted you, or your partners, if at all?
I love this set of questions, but, wow, what a can of worms! Fortunately, I'm not writing for a newspaper, so I can go on as long as I want, or until Law & Order distracts me too much.
First, you won't be surprised to hear that I think it's great that you've decided to check out what else is out there in the world of sexual experiences. A partnership based on affirmative choice is necessarily stronger than the same partnership chosen by default. Not to mention that there is something to be learned, technique-wise, from a variety of partners. For example, I learned to do this thing with my tongue recently that my past lovers will never get to enjoy. But I digress!
I hope, though, that you're not doing this because it's hip. Is nonmonogamy hip? I don't even know. There are plenty of good reasons to play with it, but that's not one of them. But you're a smart guy, so you know that, already.
Jealousy? This is obviously par for the course. As a rule, when I have a regular partner, I don't have any trouble with the partners they have in place when I enter the scene, but I frequently struggle with people who come on board after I do. If I could apply logic to my feelings, I would be able to say that the more clear my partner's commitment to me is, the less insecure I feel when my partner finds someone new. Unfortunately, this isn't the case, so I'm not going to tell you that since you and your girlfriend have a solid relationship and clear communication, this shouldn't be an issue for you. Are there ways to eliminate jealousy? If there are, I haven't found them.
I'm least likely to feel jealousy in very light relationships, obviously. The less invested I am, the less it matters if my lover has other things going, because I don't feel possessive of my time with him or my place in his life. I'm most likely to feel jealousy in a longer-term relationship that wants spicing up that I can't do, because that's something I can't do. I hate things I can't do for someone I love a lot.
Things that help me include talking to my partner and getting reassurance from him that he wants to be with me. That might mean spending extra time together or simply being sure that the time we spend together really "counts" (that is, doing whatever makes me or us feel connected, whether that's sex or reading to each other or working on house projects or walking in the woods or what-have-you.) This can be a good time to check our relationship for lazy spots (Do we spend a lot of our time together both of us IMing with other friends? Are we in a rut that's not taking us anywhere interesting?) and reaffirm our choice in being together. Or it might just be a time to have him hold my hand (or for me to hold his) and say, "Yes, this thing we're choosing to do is hard sometimes."
It may be useful to identify the details of what's happening. Rather than, "I'm jealous when you're out with him," you might examine more closely what's going on. Are you hanging out at home alone while she's out having fun? Do you spend a lot of time mooning over your new lover? What, specifically, gives you pause? I often find that focusing on the little things helps me work through my difficult feelings. After all, I'm not insecure about the big stuff, so even though jealousy feels big, it's often simply a reaction to small things.
There are a lot of things I love about being nonmonogamous, and I could go on and on about it, but far be it from me to suggest that it's the right thing for everyone, and jealousy is one of those things that just about everyone runs up against. That doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong, and the main thing I can suggest for dealing with it is to communicate clearly about what's happening.
Tomorrow, I'll talk about sex and love and how that relates to nonmonogamy for me.
