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Alternative Relationships 101
One guy comes to terms with what the world thinks of his open relationship.
by Dan Eldridge
As it happens, Carrie’s boyfriend is out of the picture now. He has been for a while. The story you just read took place about a year ago, and in the year since, I’ve had dozens of conversations with all sorts of different people about the open relationship Carrie and I are now exploring together. I’ve talked about it in detail with close friends, and with friends of friends. I’ve even brought it up during totally inappropriate times with random acquaintances, and with perfect strangers.
And while I’ll be the first to admit that these casual conversations by no means qualify as any sort of scientific evidence, I can’t help but think that I’ve unwittingly placed myself in a rather unique sociological position. Because while I certainly wouldn’t claim to be any sort of an expert on the subject of deviant sexual behavior, I will say that I’ve managed to get a pretty decent handle on exactly what it is that we as Americans think about the practice of open relationships, or about alternative relationships in general. And while I don’t mean to put too fine a point on it, what we think, apparently, is this: They are morally corrupt. They are shameful and indecent. To put it simply, they’re just plain bad.
If you think I’ve got it wrong, spend five minutes scrolling through the comments posted at the end of my inaugural Marriage Without Monogamy column. A reader named Anna, for instance, describes Carrie and me as “both desperately naïve,” calls us “worthless pieces of crap,” and says, “I think these people are vile.” Still another reader went so far as to track down Carrie’s MySpace page. He then sent an email to her account expressing his desire that she should forever burn in hell.
But what these accidental voyeurs quite obviously don’t understand is that in the vast majority of instances, those of us involved in open relationships are by no means swinging naked from the chandeliers at all hours of the day and night. We are not diving headfirst into a writhing group orgy every Friday and Saturday after work. We are not necessarily in the practice of shagging perfect strangers in the men’s room of a dark-lit club. And most of us do not regularly snort rails of coke off each others’ naughty parts. In fact, for me, being in an open partnership hasn’t been about random sex so much as it’s been an incredibly intense emotional education. I’ve learned to rope in my feelings of jealousy in ways I never thought I’d be able. I’ve learned to master a great many of my emotions.
In fact, if you’ve read my two previous Marriage Without Monogamy columns, this may come as something of a surprise, but from time to time, being in the relationship I’m in feels strange and awkward and confusing.
I’ll admit: It’s not always easy. And yet neither has it ever been boring. But it absolutely has always been worth it. It still blows my mind to think about how much I’ve learned about myself, and about the way the world works, in such a short amount of time.
One of my all-time favorite writers is a war reporter and travel journalist by the name of Robert Young Pelton, and he explained to me once during an interview that he lives a life of extreme risk and difficulty very much on purpose. “If you’re not constantly learning as a person,” he told me, “then you aren’t growing as a person, either. And if you’re not growing as a person, what’s the point of even being alive?”
Dan Eldridge’s “Marriage Without Monogamy” column appears regularly on tangomag.com. Dan also blogs about sex and relationship issues for the Huffington Post. To learn more, visit his website at PioneerContent.com
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1 Belgie // Apr 13, 2008 at 10:03 am
Calm down, everyone. Don’t begrudge Dan and Carrie their happiness. Don’t assume that open relationships are AT ALL easier than more traditional ones.
PS: he’s great in bed.
2 Susan // Apr 11, 2008 at 9:17 am
wow. I’ve just read these pieces, and wow.
I’m totally confused, as I am with most blog type writings.
What is the point of this? Why on earth did I read it? Why on earth did he write it? Why do I care?
It’s so incredibly self serving for the writer. Which is not to say it’s not interesting or informative for the rest of us. I rubberneck on the highway too, and there, too, as I pick up speed driving away, I wonder why it is that I had to look. And why I looked, trying to figure out why I looked, along with everyone else, and traffic slowed to a crawl - that is always way more interesting than what we were all looking at in the first place. And so it is with this piece, this soap opera.
Seems like this writer. like most of us, loves him some cake, and loves eating cake too. He wants to be both understood and misunderstood at the same time. He wants to tell us all about what he’s doing, show us all how incredibly cool and modern and progressive and shit he is, and for us to stroke his ego and say, wow dan, you’re so incredibly cool and modern and progressive and shit, but at the same time, he knows there’s no traction without friction, so he also wants to get folks all riled up because no way is anyone else remotely as cool and modern and progressive and shit as he is, cause if we’re all as incredibly cool and modern progressive and shit as he is then, well then he’s just like the rest of us, and then he’s got fuck all to tell us about, and folks will just move along, nothing to see here…
Hmm.
Anyway, my favorite part so far is his brief mention of Carrie and her ex’s “rules.” Extremely amusing. I wish I thought he was being funny when he enumerated these: no falling in love? Come on, that’s hysterical, pure comic gold. That’s totally monty python, right there, to paraphrase the australian sketch - Rule 6: No poofters. Rule 7: there is no rule 7. Rule 8: no poofters.
So anyway, bring it on. I can’t wait for the next installment.
3 Al // Apr 10, 2008 at 7:05 pm
It’s tough enough to start a new relationship, without the eyes of the nation upon you. I take off my hat to your courage in making your openness public. Although I got married with the monogamy mindset, almost a decade has changed me. Now I wish I had such a husband. Growth is imperative, both as individuals and as a culture, and I hope you are at the forefront of a wave of increasing acceptance of alternative relationships. Facing and dealing with the instinctive jealousy associated with an open relationship is a self-imposed challenge that would stagger less-evolved people. Wanting one another to be happy is a higher level, I’m convinced. I wish you both the best in continuing smoothly down that bumpy road of personal growth. May you have many happy and fulfilling years.
4 Rebecca // Apr 10, 2008 at 2:04 pm
The venom of that first handful of posts really quite surprises me, though I guess it shouldn’t. I mean, last month I saw a comatose woman sprawled face-first on the sidewalk on Avenue A and anyone that bothered to stop did so to go through her pockets.
Why do open relationships, polyamory, whatever, get people so angry? It seems almost the reflex fury that the subject of gay marriage (or publicly-acknowledged gay anything, for that matter) garners. Are we licentious whores ruining your marriages? (Unless we’re married to you, unlikely, but accomplishing that would be something of a tautology.) Sleeping with your boyfriends or girlfriends? (Probably not, if we’re honest, but even then, it takes two to tango.)
Where does this instinctive hatred for the romantically unconventional come from? Come on, guys, can’t you just be smug and say “well, we’re the ones who get to enjoy broad social approval, pass on our obviously superior DNA, and get tax write-offs”?
5 Quitze // Mar 31, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Quite honestly people, this man is telling his life’s and his partner’s story so we should all listen with an open mind. If you don’t want to know don’t read, pure and simple.
I’m not about to condone or explore his ideas in my personal life but I’m a big enough person to give him credit for being brave enough to explore this idea and post it here for the world to read.
I don’t think the basic principles of love and relationships apply to two people who have consciously and mutually agreed to live a non-monogamous relationship. We should all learn to respect other people’s choices regardless of how vehemently we disagree with them.
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