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Portrait of an Open Marriage. Take Two.
A husband and a girlfriend? An unconventional arrangement that works.
by Jenny Block
“I want you to kiss me,” she said. Funny she should use those words when they so closely echoed mine more than ten years ago. “I want to kiss you,” I had said to my then best friend Sophie Anne. “Me too,” Sophie Anne had said to me then. “Are you sure?” was what I said to Jemma, the girl who was now requesting that I do something that I imagined could change a lot of things for a lot of people. Of course, I never could have known then just how much change it would mean.
I met Jemma at an art gallery. She was curating a show that I was reviewing for the paper. “Can I help you?” she asked. I was standing in front of a massive canvas, taking notes as I took in the colors, textures, and designs. I introduced myself and told her why I was there. “Let me get you a catalog,” she said. When she came back she invited me to the official opening and lecture that night. That was the first of many outings we would go on together. As friends, of course.
She had told me she was straight. “Very straight. I don’t have a problem with it. I just can’t imagine ever being with a girl,” she said when I told her one day that I identified as bisexual. Between that and the fact that she was eleven years my junior, a work contact, and not my type, I never gave a moment’s thought to us ever being more than friends. But after about six months of spending time together, we went away on a weekend trip. I do some travel writing and sometimes can take someone along. It was on that trip that she asked me to kiss her.
“Where is this coming from?” I asked. I couldn’t have been more surprised if she had asked me to rob a bank with her. Here was this straight-laced, adorable, intelligent, young blonde asking me to kiss her. Part of my shock stemmed from the fact that we spent so much of our time together talking about everything, especially about sex and love and relationships. She had been through some rough stuff in that department and had come to me to talk about much of it. So, you would have thought I would have had at least an inkling. But I was as blindsided as a girl could be. Honest to goodness.
“I don’t know. I just know I want you to kiss me,” she said. And I did. That was one year and seven months ago and she has been my girlfriend ever since. I’m still married, of course, and adore my husband, Christopher, as much as ever. But since that very first kiss, I not only haven’t had any other lovers, I also haven’t wanted any either. After my husband and I opened our marriage about five years ago, I had a handful of other lovers. It was fun. And it was exciting. But it was never love. After just a short time with Jemma, I knew it was something different.
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1 Agile Cyborg // Sep 30, 2008 at 3:28 pm
My spelling sux when multi-tasking late afternoon. Forgive the wizzy grammar, folks, in my previous statement (found in the second sentence).
2 Agile Cyborg // Sep 30, 2008 at 3:24 pm
JJ,
I swear! Don’t be so thick in the cognitive section. The point of my posts were to exactly to create some schism by being dual-toned and poking some debauched fun at the unbendables. I am hardly critical of Block’s lifestyle.
Not that I have to defend myself against you, but next time perhaps apply some mental agility to what has been posted.
Now that you’ve received my feedback to your comment reread my posts and you’ll see exactly what I was engaging in…hehe.
3 JJ // Sep 19, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Attention all of you who are spewing hatred and judgemental comments - grow up, or get off-line! Nobody, sent you junk mail, banged on your door, or spammed your email trying to get you to read this.
Agile Cyborg, do you realize your comments completely contradict eachother regarding one’s own inner satisfaction, while condemning someone for doing so????
And James, read most wedding vows - it’s more about loving and cherishing the person, not the title of “wife” or “husband”. Do you have kids? Brothers? Sisters? Parents? Do you not love and cherish ALL members of your family, or do you just think the kids or mom and dad are just “okay” and not so cherishable?
I’m not advocating everything Jenny is saying, but c’mon - it’s not like she is espousing the notion that everyone should be like her! She is simply sharing her thoughts and experiences should anyone find themselves in the same situations. Please, if you are going to post on this site, try to first be educated, open-minded second, and third compassionate as a flipping human being.
We preach so much about how the “religious fundamentalists” cause terror in other countries, when we haven’t realized how close we are to being able to say the same about the fundamentalists in our own.
So in summary, if you can’t stand the conversation…please leave the chatroom. There are those of us who wish to have a broader perspective on the human experience.
4 Agile Cyborg // Aug 23, 2008 at 11:03 am
@James
Let us define this further shall we? Jenny Block is not only an adulteress she is also a criminal, since in many states adultery is a crime.
So the precision of law and relationship statutes must infer that Tango here, in fact, may be slightly complicit in a crime spree.
This isn’t a stretch at all. Do some research and you will find that the Scarlet Letter stills scowls from nearby shadows.
5 James // Aug 14, 2008 at 5:55 pm
I feel that people like this woman shouldn’t marry. I mean why would you fool yourself into taking an arbitrary oath to another person if you know that at least one of you is breaking it? I just think that the argument is nothing more than a justification for having sex with many people. If you want to have simultaneous relationships with two or more people, I don’t get the desire to be married. Is it a security blanket? Is it a false image that has been created…something this woman feels she needs to be a viable member of society? It isn’t that I completely disagree with the lifestyle; my argument is against such people entering into a false marriage to another soul. I believe the legally correct term for such actions as this woman describes is adultery.
Read All 17 Comments on Portrait of an Open Marriage. Take Two.