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Portrait of an Open Marriage. Take Two.
A husband and a girlfriend? An unconventional arrangement that works.
by Jenny Block
So, it only makes sense to me that some people would choose monogamy and others open relationships where only sex is involved and others polyamorous relationships where love plays a role as well. Science tells us that we’re not a monogamous species. (See David Barash’s The Myth of Monogamy if you want an expert’s take.) Choosing non-monogamy seems to me just as valid as choosing monogamy. You know, I wouldn’t dare prescribe my lifestyle or any lifestyle for that matter to anyone else. I only know what works for me, for now.
I have a husband and a girlfriend and I have plenty of love to give them both and I can say without a doubt that they both have plenty of love for me.
Jenny Block writes for a number of regional and national publications, including the Dallas Morning News and American Way. She also blogs regularly for huffingtonpost.com. Her essay “On Being Barbie” appeared in the anthology It’s a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters and her essay “Portrait of an Open Marriage,” originally published in Tango magazine, is scheduled to appear in Rebecca Walker’s upcoming anthology Walk This Way: Introducing the New American Family in the Fall of 2008. Her new book, Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage is due out June 1 from Seal Press.
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1 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.
2 JAXGIRL6681 // Aug 11, 2008 at 3:54 pm
She didn’t “vomit all the gory details on us”, she wrote about her life and you chose to read it.
3 lillylovey // Aug 6, 2008 at 4:54 pm
WHAT an egomaniacal freak this woman is! Let’s see what happens when “Chris” finds the real woman of his dreams and leaves her. Why does she have this need to vomit all her gory details to us whilst bragging about having not one, but two people who are madly in love with her? Does she think everyone will admire her and think she’s so wonderful? The reality is, she’s just NASTY, in looks AND all she is doing is flaunting her dysfunctional sexual problems. NOT healthy!
4 Agile Cyborg // Jul 7, 2008 at 2:13 pm
No one needs to understand anyone. As if this is a prerequisite for a mentally healthy and quite short 80-90 year life span here on the blue marble. No, the prerequisite to healthy living is to find personal meaning and robust inner satisfaction which literally can be translated far too many beautiful ways to be pegged down in the staunchly dichotomous fashion preferred by zealous and inflexible adherents to iron-clad moral fundamentalism.
5 skeptical // Jun 3, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Courage? Hardly considering that Julie is clinging to the security blanket of marriage in case things go sour with her lover(s).
For all her profess open mindedness, I would bet good money that if her husband ever fell in love with another woman, Ms Block would be singing quite a different tune.
Read All 13 Comments on Portrait of an Open Marriage. Take Two.