It’s All fun and games and a Great Idea until someone changes their mind

Let’s open our relationship so that we both can explore sex and sexuality and while we’re at it, let’s open things even more and embrace being poly so that not only can we have sex with anyone we care to, we can love as many people as we can and even make them family and a part of our everyday life; it not only benefits us, but it benefits those who would join with us and more so when being trapped in a monogamous relationship… isn’t working for either of us.

Sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? To many, it sounds insane because social norms and morals have mandated that (1) you be 100% heterosexual and (2) be 100% monogamous in any relationship you enter into and (3) don’t you dare want anything or anyone other than you already have – but if they’re not getting it done for you and they’re even preventing you from being able to grow as a person, well, it sucks to be you. Dump them and start over again and no matter how much it costs to do that.

At some point, it makes no sense to take an otherwise good relationship and throw it away because norms and morality says this is your only recourse… when it never was but taking the steps I opened this scribble with isn’t as easy as it sounds and, as I like to say, I know this is an understatement because it’s even hard than you can ever imagine. I think those of us who dares to buck the system in this was knows that things can change and we kinda expect them not to once things get off the round and running and, as such, we tend to get blindsided when the partner who agree that, yeah, we should and can do this decides, “I don’t wanna do this anymore!”

One of the signs that this is going to happen can be seen when you put this outrageous proposal on the table for consideration and this usually comes up in the “how can we spice things up/rekindle the flames” moment in the relationship and it’s not like two people can’t put their heads together to find things they can do together and with each other in the bedroom because a lot of people… and a lot of people quickly find out that the flame can reignite and gutters out not too long afterward and now you’re right back to where you started from but, okay, babe, let’s be seriously honest with each other and you need to listen carefully to what I have to say – then you can tell me if you think this is a good idea or not.

And the sign that things are definitely going to change is your partner’s initial resistance to taking everything they believe about love, sex, and relationships… and you’re proposing to toss it all away so the two of you can redefine what these three very important things mean and what can be done to, um, kick it up a whole lot of notches that will allow us to explore love, sex, relationships – and sexuality – together and with others who are of the same mind as we are.

Even though that one partner might be reluctant and even speaks to this, sure, baby – what’s it going to hurt if we give this a try? And it really is all fun and games until someone changes their mind and to the extent that they don’t want to be on that same page with you anymore and nothing you can say or do is going to change their minds since, um, they didn’t really want to do this in the first place – and you knew it because they did tell you but you convinced them to trust you in this and trusted them to be right about the great benefits that can be had and realized.

I found that in this… rearrangement of things, the lack of communication is a fatal wound and the beginning of a very slow death of the relationship because while we’re okay with talking about the good stuff going on, we’re not often all that thrilled to talk about the stuff that’s making us unhappy in this new arrangement – rocking the boat isn’t a smart thing to do and you definitely don’t want your gung ho partner to think that you don’t care about their happiness but, damn it, you do need to let them know that you’re sacrificing your happiness for the sake of their happiness and… the walls start to crumble and will eventually fall…

And leaving the partner who proposed all of this wondering, “What the hell just happened?” And then they find out what happened and, again, the initial point of failure is a lack of communication or as I like to say, this is the part of the program where you find that silence is not golden and what you don’t know is going to hurt the shit out of you and everyone around you.

I’ve found that a lot of people who give non-monogamy a try never make it past two years of giving it a try. Being non-monogamous with a side of bisexuality is one of the most complicated things I have ever experienced in my life – and I’ve experienced some stuff, let me tell you! It takes a lot of work, a lot of constant monitoring of every aspect of the revised relationship and if one little thing isn’t right – but such things should be talked about just the same – eh, just keep quiet, don’t rock the boat, it’ll be okay… until it isn’t.

It doesn’t help that we never learn how to be non-monogamous; you can read about it in a book but, yeah, go ahead and give a try and find out for yourself that even though it can logically make a lot of sense to be non-monogamous – and to explore one’s sexuality – the resistance is emotional; it goes against everything you were taught, everything you believe in – and the benefits to doing it isn’t just a lot of mad, crazy and juicy sex – there are some serious financial upside to creating a poly family that is an extension of the existing family.

It’s all fun and games until someone find that this isn’t working for them any longer. It gets worse when the person who is now feeling like is isn’t of a mind to mention their growing dissatisfaction with their partner, who is, likely, still running with things and having the time of their life because the dissatisfied partner already knows that the moment they voice their displeasure and their desire for things to go back to the way they were, shit hitting the fan doesn’t come close to covering it.

Once the thrill is gone, there’s no getting it back and now all of your time and energy is being put into damage control so that, hopefully, the core relationship does not get lost because, obviously, once that’s lost, it’s game over man, game over.

It can and does happen to the best of us and if you learn nothing from this, it’s that nothing is forever and it’s almost inevitable that somewhere along the line, someone is going to wake up one morning and it hits them that… they don’t wanna do this anymore and they want to go back to the way things used to be… and is that even possible? And even if it is – and, honestly, I tend to think that it really isn’t – now you’re right back to where you started… and with a partner who is, once again, unhappy about being just and only heterosexual and monogamous and…

Oops.

I knew, the night I got hit with our marriage going from open to poly, that my wife was going to be the one to change her mind even though she was the one who wanted this and, might I say, argued eloquently and logically for it… but I knew her and knew that all it would take would be for something to not go the way she expected it and… time to put on the foul weather gear. From my perspective, it wasn’t a question of whether or not I could deal with this major change – it was could she deal with it and, ultimately, she proved to me that she couldn’t, and a 32-year marriage went down the drain but not for a lack of trying to save it:

She didn’t want to do it anymore because it wasn’t going the way she wanted it to, and she changed her mind. Once you get a good taste of living and loving this way, oh, my – you do not want to go back to the way it used to be but something that was complicated and complex from the moment it was proposed gets even more this way when someone changes their mind, doesn’t want to play anymore, and wants everything to go back to the way they were before – and the way things were that got all of this started to begin with.

I admit that I made my share of mistakes in this; I admit that after the first week, I was seriously considering changing my mind about agreeing to this because I immediately saw how complicated this was going to be – and the two of them had dropped this in my lap and said, “Handle it and handle us…” and no help was coming from that direction… but I wasn’t going to quit or give up and, yeah, once I got that taste of it? No going back to being monogamous or just being open – being poly is, hands down, the ultimate relationship albeit one that makes being married and monogamous look stupidly easy.

And I’m not the only one who’s learned the lesson of what can – and will – happen when someone changes their mind and wants to take their ball and go home. We lasted just over 20 years as a poly family and that’s quite the accomplishment but doesn’t take away from the fact that our fall from grace came when she changed her mind and, sometimes, I think that, invariably, there’s always that one person in the relationship who just cannot stand or hold up to the amount of work it takes to be in an extended family and one that has the sexuality component firmly in place or, really, try to convince your man that it’ll be okay for him to find out what it’s like to suck cock when, eh, that just might be something he fantasizes about when he’s hiding in the bathroom and jerking off – and you just proposed to him that not only is this possible but many more possibilities exist and like having sex in ways you never dreamed to be possible.

And do not ever kid yourself into believing that the sex that is possible isn’t important because it sure as fuck is… but at some point, someone could very well change their minds about that and unless it gets spoken and some in-depth communication takes place so that things can keep going, that change will inevitable become more pronounced and… it’s all fun and games until someone changes their mind… and there will be no changing it back.

In a lot of ways, this failure is society’s fault because we all get shoehorned into a state of existence that, for so many, is untenable or, as I’ve read, humans weren’t meant to be monogamous and that being this way is abnormal for us – and there seems to be a lot of evidence to support this. It might be an “easy” thing to agree to but it’s an even harder thing to actually do and, yeah, you might go into this thinking that you’re not going to change your mind and go back to the way it used to be… until that change happens and there’s no telling what’s going to make you change your mind – and remaining silent about is, ultimately, not a good thing.

You just might succeed in taking things “back to the beginning” but that also means finding yourself with a spouse or partner who doesn’t want to be back at the beginning and in a condition where their needs are no longer being taken care of; you gave them the keys to the city… and took them back, locked them back into the cage you didn’t really want to leave in the beginning and now you’re locked in there… with a very unhappy partner.

Social and moral norms set us up to fail in these things. The good news is that a lot of people – and couples in particular – are finding that not being monogamous – and being able to openly and freely express their sexuality – is a good and smart thing to do… but it takes a lot of work to keep the ship afloat and working well and communication is the key and if you fail in this, well, I’m sure you know what’s eventually going to happen, don’t you?

Nothing is forever. We like to believe that love conquers all but in reality? No, not really, not when someone finds themselves trying to exist in a situation and set of conditions that might have sounded good on paper but it’s not working all that well for them and on the real and now, they’ve changed their mind; they don’t wanna do things like this anymore and why can’t we just go back to the way things were before?

Maybe you can. Maybe that’s not going to be possible. It is not my purpose to scare anyone away from wanting to change the rules so that they can, with their partner, make their relationship the best it can be instead of expecting it to take care of itself and having us believing that we’re wrong for wanting more than what merely being heterosexual and monogamous can bring to the table.

This is me sharing with you something that I learned and that our site founder learned: It’s all fun and games until someone changes their mind and now, they want everything to go back to the way it used to be or they’re willing to throw it all away…