My husband and I were young when we got married. I was six weeks shy of my 18th birthday on our wedding day in 1973, and my husband had turned 23 a month earlier. We got married with some conventional, tacit ideas about what our marriage would be like. It was unspoken but assumed that we would be sexually faithful and monogamous. After all, that's how decent and moral married couples behave.
But what happens then when the young wife starts to come to grips with her bisexuality? When I first started to become aware of my fluid sexuality, I was a sophomore in high school. I didn't have a name for it then. I didn't know how to put it in perspective. I didn't know what it all meant. I didn't really think that I was a lesbian, but to be honest, that thought scared me when I was 17-years-old in 1972.
By the time I had been married almost a year, my feelings made more sense to me. I tried on the label bisexual to see how it fit, and it felt pretty comfortable. I started talking to my husband about these feelings, which came as no surprise to him since I told him about my sexual relationship with my high school best friend before we were married.
He was supportive and accepting. He was insecure, tentative, and a little scared at times when I actually started dating some women in my early 20s, but at no time did he deliver any ultimatums or force me to make a decision about either being married to him or dating a woman.
Oh, I thought plenty about it for both of us during a couple of those years in my early 20s! There was some part of me that was convinced that a person couldn't really be attracted to both sexes, that a choice would need to be made. And I knew I didn't want to give up the pleasure of being with a woman! Ergo, I must really be a lesbian and I should just get it over with and file for divorce, thus freeing my husband to be with a woman who could love him without ever thinking of anyone else and I could find my true fulfillment with a woman.
I couldn't do it. I had plenty of people trying to convince me to do it, but deep in the core of me I knew that getting a divorce wasn't the solution. I could project at that time what would happen if I got a divorce. First of all, he and I would probably end up back together because the truth of the matter is that we really like each other and enjoy each other's company. We always have. We share a lot of interests in common and have a similar set of values. I love so many things about him. I've never loved a man the way I love him, either then or now. I didn't want to live without him as a part of my life!
If I divorced and fell in love with a woman and we decided to live together, what then? I knew that I still found certain men attractive. Did I want to live the rest of my life never having that experience of making love with a man again? I didn't really think so.
The experience of making love with a woman and the experience of making love with a man are two different things for me. Granted, there are similarities. And each experience depends on the individuals involved. But generally speaking, being sexually intimate with a woman has a much different feel, flavor, texture and aura to me than being with a man. They each have their own set of attributes, and one is different from the other. I enjoy them both for what each one brings to my sexual and emotional fulfillment.
Dave did not ever insist that I choose between those two aspects of my sexuality. Instead, he offered me the opportunity to explore those aspects without fear of losing his love and his place in my life. Some ground rules evolved, although they were never formal in any sense. Again, they arose from our shared set of values: caring for ourselves and our relationship, concern for the wellbeing of others, the belief that sex should be a part of caring, loving relationships and not a careless, haphazard activity. Our marriage is very important to us, and there is a strong commitment to it for both of us. I put him first in my life, and I always want him to know that. My sexual relationships with women must work well within the framework of my marriage or I simply don't go there. That has become my Number One rule when considering whether to get intimately involved with a woman or not.
And we communicate. He knows how I feel about who I am, what I'm doing, who I'm seeing. He is NEVER out of the loop. If he has concerns about anything or anyone, I want to hear it. We'll hash it out.
Polyamory was a word that didn't exist in my vocabulary back in the earlier years of our marriage. Since that time, I've seen a lot of textbook-type definitions of what it is. Those definitions don't mean a lot to me. What means something to me is the reality of my 35-year marriage. That marriage was built on respect, trust and love. It grew in intimacy because of the sharing of hopes, fears, and desires. What polyamory means to me is the recognition of desires that go potentially beyond the scope of what a single relationship can provide. It is the flexibility to see more than one answer to the fulfillment (or denial) of those desires.
What polyamory doesn't mean to me is that there has to be more than one person in my life sexually. That isn't a compelling, burning need. I was monogamous with my husband for a 17-year period in our marriage and was content with that during those years. I was still bisexual; I still talked openly about those feelings and embraced them. It just wasn???t a need during those years to pursue other relationships.
My working definition of polyamory includes the freedom of choice, the freedom to include another relationship as part of our lives if that's what seems to be the most fulfilling path to take. It is the antithesis of ultimatums, control, demands, and threats. It has been a concept borne of love in this marriage in many ways.
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