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The One That Got Away
What happens when an open relationship suddenly becomes closed?
by Dan Eldridge
Carrie and I hadn’t even been on the highway for an hour when the fighting started. We were in my little Honda Civic hatchback, puttering along I-76 East, en route to Baltimore. She’d been giving me a stone-faced version of the silent treatment, and even though I’d tried everything to get her to open up – begging, pleading, cajoling – I wasn’t having any luck whatsoever. Occasionally I would get a sarcastic comment in response, or a mean-spirited laugh.
I almost blame myself for what happened at the rest stop. I was opening the Honda’s hatch to look for a sweater, and as I leaned deep inside the car, Carrie caught a quick glimpse of my boxers – specifically the elastic waistband that was peeking out from underneath my jeans.
She told me later that the underwear was what really set her off. It was underwear we’d gone shopping for a week or so earlier, and I’d only worn it once or twice before. When she noticed I was wearing it, as opposed to one of the stretched-out, ripped up pairs I’d been wearing almost every day for years, that was apparently all the evidence she needed.
Once we were back on the highway, she told me that as far as she was concerned, the fact that I was wearing new underwear was a clear and obvious sign that I planned on having sex with my friend Nancy later on that evening.
I rolled my eyes, and let out a long, exaggerated sigh, as if to suggest that Carrie was being completely insane. But of course she was right: I was planning on having sex with Nancy, and I figured a fresh pair of underwear wouldn’t be the worst place to start. How incredibly wrong I was.
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1 Agile Cyborg // Jul 28, 2008 at 10:21 pm
@Jess,
A woman should do exactly what to insure an optimal level of self-respect in regards to open relationship issues that may arise due to the husband actively seeking this type of arrangement?
Divorce the husband for his wickedness?
You propose that a committed relationship would fail due to the rigors of an emotionally-taxing marital openness.
I would suggest that the foundations of commitment and emotional stability found within some marriages can be removed with far more precision through the action of divorce.
Unjustified fear is the lifeblood of superstition and relational control mechanisms.
2 sdfkads // Jun 28, 2008 at 1:09 pm
You seem way too immature to be in a relationship. You need to re-evaluate your needs, this article basically talks about how you really hate your fiancee. I find it sad.
3 Interesting Thought // Jun 20, 2008 at 11:53 am
Something about you really bothers me and I’ll make it a point to stay away from your articles from now on. See, I’m a genuinely happy, monogamous person in an incredible relationship. Still, I find other people’s lives and beliefs, even if they are different than mine, to be fascinating. After all, we all - with our different relationships, religions, political affiliations, etc - live together in this world. So, I enjoy learning about other people’s lifestyles even if they live differently than I do and/or I don’t agree with their lifestyles.
But when I come across sentences like
“I guess I was pretending that both of us were bigger and better people for not being in a monogamous relationship.”
and
“There we were, two supposedly superior beings, acting like a gaggle of bratty, snot-nosed children. ”
I can’t help but think that people like you are the ignorant people that make this world what it is. You can live your life the way you’d like, but when you think that you are “bigger” and “better” and “superior” to those who don’t live the way you do, that’s when you cross the line. Why can’t it be that you just live DIFFERENTLY and not BETTER because you choose a non-monogamous lifestyle?
I’ve read the comments on Tango and I see that many people vehemently disagree with and judge open lifestyles. For the most part, I don’t think what turns them off is the actual lifestyle… I think it’s the attitudes of the actual members of the lifestyle that turn them off to the idea of “open.”
See, I don’t mind reading about open relationships even though I don’t live that way. What turns me off about it is people like you in open relationships that think themselves superior to those that are monogamous. THAT is where the problem lies.
Judgment and hate stem from ideologies of superiority. Well, I for one will tell you that you, Dan, are NOT better or more superior than I am just because I’m monogamous.
In fact, I’d argue that I am more evolved and bigger and better because I, unlike you, respect people of all lifestyles and think of them as my equals in this world.
We all live DIFFERENTLY… NOT BETTER OR WORSE than anyone else.
4 Dan // Jun 17, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Thanks for your comment, Jess. I always appreciate hearing from readers, no matter what they think of my (admittedly unusual!) situation. And by the way, if you’d like to read the other five essays from this series, just go to: tangomag.com/marriage-without-monogamy
5 Jess // Jun 17, 2008 at 3:07 pm
I think open relationships are wrong. I have nothing against gay marriage and am in an interracial relationship, but this type of relationship is too taxing on the emotions and the foundations of a commitment and is not something I can support. Just look at Johnny Knoxville - his open marriage still failed. Just because you let your husband f*ck around on you doesn’t mean he won’t leave you. I think women in this type of arrangement should have some more self-respect.