I came across this blog through my Google alerts and I just love this quote.  Nicole may just be America’s smartest girl.

A polyamorous relationship is HARDER work and requires much more trust, honesty, communication and personal responsibility than a run of the mill monogamous relationship. It is the K2 of dating.

I constantly hear from closed-minded, fearful outsiders that open relationships are just “wanting your cake and eating it too” and “It’s the easy way out for people who don’t want any responsibility”.  But Nicole said it very succinctly, open relationships are MORE WORK than monogamous relationships.  You have more people to contend with than just one.  You have more people’s feelings to contend with.  You have more people to split your time amongst.  It’s more work all the way around, and definitely not for someone who’s just looking for an easy way out of responsibility.  It’s more work and more responsibility than a monogamous relationship.

I know, I lived in a monogamous relationship for 20 years between my first wife and Lucretia MacEvil; and for over five years now Lucretia MacEvil and I have had an open relationship of both a sexual nature and sometimes emotional nature.  Therefore I can say with authority, an open relationship is not for the weak of heart or someone trying to dodge responsibility.  Adding just one more person to the relationship instantly doubles the work and the responsibility, and adding more just multiplies it exponentially.

Link to Nicole’s blog

~ Lucius Scribbens

Yup, you read that right.  Recently I read this exact question posted on an online advice columnist: “My husband asked me for a threesome, is this grounds for divorce?”

Unfortunately this is how many people think.  They are so afraid of their significant others fantasies that they immediately jump to the most extreme response possible.

If I was answering this question I’d of said: “No, his asking isn’t grounds for divorce, but your reaction to his expressing himself is grounds for him to divorce you.”

Harsh?  Maybe.  But this isn’t even really about threesomes.  It’s about a lack of honest and open communication in a relationship, which is the number one issue that eventually leads to anger and resentment and divorce.

This is all due to the lack of a safe and secure atmosphere within the relationship that a person’s feelings and fantasies can be revealed.  All too often doing so triggers insecurity and jealousy and the ensuing anger, hurt and the defense mechanism, belittling, that they get from their partner.  Things nobody wants to experience.  So it’s safer to just not say anything at all.  Eventually the resentment builds and they strike-out on their own, either through divorce or cheating, to fulfill their fantasies and live their life.  The life their significant other is too jealous to live with them, or even listen to.

We hear this all the time, especially from married men that contact us through swinger dating sites we belong to (that might just be because men so actively seek sex, especially through swingers sites). It’s always the same old story: “I love my wife, but she is just too prudish, reserved, doesn’t like sex, doesn’t like the same kind of sex I do” etc., etc., etc. And one of the most read topics on The Swingers Board is the “How do I talk to my spouse about swinging” threads.  Taken a step further, that could be: “How do I talk to my spouse about any sexual fantasy I have without having them reject me and make me feel stupid for having them.”

It’s always amazed me how people will be more open with complete strangers about their darkest sexual secrets then they will be (can be?) with their spouse, the one person they should be able to talk to about anything.

Being secure enough in yourself to not be threatened by your partner’s sexual fantasies is a paramount of a sexually happy and satisfying relationship.  Being open to hearing your partner’s fantasies without judgment or jealousy doesn’t necessarily mean you have to do those things, it just means you have to validate them and not make them feel that they can’t talk with you about them.

Again, lack of communication (and the willingness of someone else to listen) is the biggest cause of cheating and the resulting emotional trauma associated with it when the cheated spouse finds out.

But, until people can get over themselves, this will continue to be a huge issue with romantic relationships.

~ Lucius Scribbens

A tough part about any sexually and/or emotionally open relationship where relationships are allowed outside the primary relationship (i.e. either party can play solo and/or have a loving relationship with someone else not living with the primary couple) is time-share and fantasy vs. reality.  There are many good articles on web blogs concerning time-sharing between parnters, and maybe someday I’ll write one myself, but this entry is going to deal with fantasy vs. reality: the fantasy of a part-time lover vs. the reality of a primary partner.

Secondary partners (boyfriends/girlfriends) that don’t live with the primary couple are fantasy. They are a retreat from reality.  They offer a place where you can go and “chill”, watch TV, talk adult talk, go out on an adult date, have sex for hours on end without interruption, etc.  Secondary partners rarely if ever have to deal with all the stress of “real life” with their lover or with their lovers private issues such as mood swings, getting sick, stress of a job, cooking dinner for a family, etc.

Primary partners (husband/wife/committed relationship partner) are the ones that have to deal with all that and more.  They are the ones that deal with mood swings, PMS, anger, sadness, kids and school and soccer and baseball and football and schedules and money and jobs and bitchy coworkers and broken down cars and never having a minute alone with your partner to talk adult talk much less be able to steal away even 15 minutes to have sex much less an hour or more.

Fantasy… Reality… Fantasy… Reality.

This is something I’ve been thinking allot about lately.  Sometimes I feel short-changed in the relationship department because at this time I don’t have a girlfriend but Mrs. Scribbens has a couple of boyfriends she can spend time with to decompress and relax and have those hour plus sex sessions with.  We don’t have that together.  At least not on a regular basis.  By the time the kids are all fed, pets are fed, homework is helped with and more, if we get alone time (meaning the youngest falls asleep before we do) we’re either too tired to put much effort into sex or forgo it completely just to cuddle and fall asleep.  If we do get the chance, 8 out of 10 times we’ll be interrupted mid-screwing by a kid at the bedroom door.

Now this isn’t a problem that virtually all couples don’t have, because they do.  The difference is that monogamous couples don’t have others they can retreat to to get away from it all – unless of course they’re cheating, which statiscally more than 30% of women do and 40% of men do, so they just don’t have to worry about it because they don’t know about it.

For this reason I’ve been getting not jealous, but envious of Mrs. Scribbens and her lovers recently.  I feel like I get the “reality” stuff and they get the “fantasy” side of her.  I’m sure that if the tables were turned she’d feel the same way, too. Goddess knows I’m not the easiest person to live with, I have my foibles for sure.

So this is something that sometimes is hard to deal with, at least momentarily.  I think to make it work you really have to give that extra attention to your primary partner when you are together, whether it’s directly through making time for sex, or even being more attentive to their emotional needs.  Everyone needs to feel fulfilled for it all to work well.

“Love withers under constraints: its very essence is liberty: it is compatible neither with obedience, jealousy, nor fear: it is there most pure, perfect, and unlimited where its votaries live in confidence, equality and unreserve.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Queen Mab notes

Feeling kind of strange today. Mrs. Scribbens had her first real Dom/Sub training last night, her being the Sub and a good friend of ours being her Dom. It feels different to me. Like it’s one thing with her enjoying sex with someone else, or having intimate feelings for someone else, but having your wife dominated by someone else (being controlled, told what to do, etc.) brings-up a whole different set of emotions. Especially when you’ve spent allot of energy trying to make everything as equal as possible in your relationship.

However I know this type of sexual expression is something that Mrs. Scribbens needs to explore. It’s a part of herself that needs to be recognized and embraced for her to feel like… her. And I have a hard time dominating anyone else in any way. It’s not in my nature. So I have to stand aside, put my personal feelings and fears aside, and support her in this exploration.

But it’s still hard giving-up any or all control in this manner that I may have, real or imagined, to another person. In a way it feels like I am as much a Sub as she is. As much as she’s experiencing the physical and emotional aspects of a Dom/Sub relationship through her Sub training, I’m experiencing an emotional Sub “training” on a different level. It’s as though as much as she trusts and gives up complete control for a period of time to her Master, I feel I am also being submissive to her Master in that I have no control over it either. I’m giving-up complete power to her Master because I do love her and she does live with me.

And it’s not something I can do for her, therefore maybe there are some feelings of inadequacy creeping in where they shouldn’t be.

This isn’t like having feelings for someone else and being sexual with someone else within the realm of common sex. It’s not like common intercourse or oral sex that anyone can do, albeit some may be better at certain things than others, or at least you enjoy the differences in technique even as both are just as good as the other. A Dom/Sub relationship is on a whole other level that not everyone explores, and it has a specific mindset and there is a certain thrill and emotional satisfaction from either having total domination over someone else for a period of time, or giving-up total control to someone else for a period of time. And unlike good oral sex, I don’t know if I could ever provide that to Mrs. Scribbens. So this is as much an emotional release or loss of control for me as it is for her, just in a different manner. For her, she relinquishes control for a period of time than takes it back, but I’ve given it up and am not getting it back. Where it seems from my point of view that for her it is role playing that lasts a few hours, in supporting her to go there I have given-up that aspect of “us” forever and entrusted it to another person.

I know though, that this kind of play for her is important to release and express what needs to come out. That this is something she needs to do to be a healthy, happy person. That this is therapy for her ever-present need to control her surroundings in her daily life and her sometimes overwhelming frustration because she can’t.

What it really comes down to, though, is that I need to work on my own issues and feelings about relinquishing this part of our life to someone else, because my issues of loss of control emotionally are mine and mine alone. It’s part of growing emotionally and spiritually, and growing can be painful sometimes. But in the end it’s always worth it.