Not Strictly Monogamy

I would have always described myself as something of a serial monogamist - before my current girlfriend, I had a string of relationships, none of which lasted longer than six months. Every time, I was head over heels and thought I was so in love. I'm not talking one or two relationships here, I'm talking a nice long string that eventually seemed to turn into the same pattern. Attraction, courting, falling in love, continuing, falling out of love. You can only do the same thing so many times before you realise that there may be a problem. Addiction to relationships? Addiction to oxytocin? Addiction to the chase? In hindsight, I hesitate to call it addiction to love because I think I had a problem with mislabelling my feelings.

I have been with my partner now for over a year, we are blissfully happy and I adore her to death. But here's the thing - we aren't strictly monogamous. We talked about it for months before we ever did anything and we still don't have a strict definition for what we have. It's certainly not an open relationship - but is there a difference between that and a relationship with openness?

I would in no way call myself polyamorous. I don't identify with that desire or lifestyle at all really, not that I don't respect those who do. I very firmly believe that I am completely happy and fulfilled with one person. However no matter how committed your relationship is or how in love you are, whether you want to admit it to yourself or not, your eye will wander and your mind will probably follow. To me, it's perfectly acceptable to desire or fantasise about other people while you are in a relationship - it's what you do about those desires that matters. You can suppress it, forget about it, but that won't make it go away. Or you can talk to your partner about it and use that desire to add something to your relationship.

I think in the past this was part of my problem. There were definitely many reasons why my relationships didn't work before, but I would always feel trapped. Every other relationship I have had has been strictly monogamous. I always felt unable to completely express myself, as if being unable to desire other people restricted. That might not be how everyone sees it, but it's how I felt.

I knew a friend who was very much in love with a man, and after a while they started dating. However, he had a problem in the bedroom that meant their sex life was less than satisfying for either of them. Instead of even talking about breaking up, they talked to each other and came up with a unique situation. She would sleep with other men, but come back and tell him every sordid little detail of her encounters, and he got off on it. No word of a lie, he loved it. To them it was about bringing all her sexual experiences back into their own relationship, and using it to feed the connection between the two of them. It wasn't strictly monogamy, but they were still very committed each other.

Is there a difference between an open relationship and a relationship with openness? To me, an open relationship is about going out and fulfilling your own needs outside of your primary relationship. A relationship with openness is about opening the relationship up enough so that both partners are comfortable, and bringing your sexual experiences back into the relationship to add something extra to it. The distinction being in the reason behind encounters outside of your relationship. Or heck, you could do what my girlfriend and I do, and sleep with other people together, but that's another story!