I was dating this person through most of 2018. It was quite a lovely relationship in certain ways. She certainly was loyal, and loving, and she was a giving lover. But something about the situation just wasn’t coming together for me. I think the main problem was that I’m just not into monogamy.
This is a difficult conversation to have with people who are into monogamy. The fact is that they will never get it. They will never consider your feelings or your point of view to be anything but bullshit, nor you to be anything other than an asshole.
This is more or less how things went for me. It was a big internal struggle for sure. I had definitely been in open relationships before, and they had been either totally fine, or they had been a huge messy drama. Usually they had been the latter. Maybe I like big messy dramas. Maybe stability bores the fuck out of me.
Anyhow, I’ve also been in monogamous relationships. I always respected the rules and stayed faithful. Why did I agree to these deals when I’m probably not that monogamous a person, you ask? Life is complicated. Depending on where we are at, psychologically speaking in any given year or era, we may feel more like being faithful. Maybe over time our feelings change. Maybe a love that was once abundant suddenly suffers from a drought.
Sometimes women who want monogamy are so spectacular and fascinating that one seriously has to consider the deal and take it. Maybe I really am an asshole. Who knows?
Long story short, I had to end the relationship because I had this sickening feeling that while I was sleeping, happily in my self-imposed marriage bed, somebody was secretly locking the doors and latching the windows all around me. I remember that I quite casually made a comment one time about some couple I had met that I suspected was trying to wrangle me into a threesome.
I thought this lady would find it funny or charming. I thought maybe she would even tell me that if I really wanted to pursue that I should just go do it. However, and as I suppose you might expect, she was absolutely scandalized.
“That’s never going to happen,” she said sternly, “because you’re with me now!” I felt the window latching behind me. I felt the door clicking shut. I knew in that moment—despite her being so loving, despite her being so loyal, despite her having my back, despite it all—I had to run.
Maybe I am an asshole, but it would have been disloyal and dishonest of me to stay with her when we had uneven feelings in her hearts. My heart was a tethered ship tugged by every passing current, longing for whatever open waters its prow could find. She was a safe harbor, no doubt, but I was destined for the open sea.
It was painful to go. She was full of tears, and I was full of doubt. But I did it, and I think it was right.
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