Ruminating on non-monogamy.
Listening to Lily Allen’s West End Girl (on repeat) bought me pondering about the time I believed opening up a relationship would put it aside, and the way improper, but unusually right, that intuition was.
I’ve solely ever tried to open up a monogamous relationship as soon as. It was a number of years in the past, with my second boyfriend. We’d been collectively for some time, half of it spent in lockdown, and I began to really feel suffocated. I couldn’t pinpoint what was improper or if something actually was. So, one evening, I requested him: “What are your thoughts on being in an open relationship?”
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“I’m not totally against it,” he stated, in a voice that stated in any other case. We talked about it for weeks, circling the identical factors. Me, curious. Him, cautious. I believed opening up was the answer; a method to be happy once more.
What I used to be actually craving was an evening out consuming cocktails, flirting shamelessly with the new bartender, who I’d later make out with furiously within the toilet. I wished to placed on a good gown, new heels and massive hoop earrings. I wished to be observed and adored, I wished to drink one too many free drinks.
My craving for self-destruction was acquainted; I used to really feel this want for sexual expression each few months after I was single. Society would possibly name this behaviour ‘debaucherous’ however for me, it’s at all times been therapeutic and empowering. Not that I might inform any of that to my boyfriend on the time.
Loud sexual want typically arrives after I doubt myself – after a friendship breakdown, a rejection, or a tricky household speak. It’s my physique screaming to precise itself. In this specific second, after I was certain that opening up my monogamous relationship would save me from feeling suffocated, it was truly an indication that I used to be trapped within the improper relationship altogether. But we’ll get to that.
Lily Allen’s file speaks to the messy nuance of what can occur when monogamy goes off script, with out the true honesty required. Her album feels like a scream that’s been making an attempt to flee for years however retains falling on deaf ears. It’s her unravelling realisation that she’s been residing inside a construction that was by no means prioritising her.
I can’t assist however discover that so typically, opening up a relationship is definitely a symptom of one thing that’s actually damaged. Whether it’s an individual within the relationship or the connection itself, each scenario is totally different.
Lily’s lyrics make it clear that she didn’t need openness; she simply wished issues to work. She most likely thought David was the love of her life, and she or he wasn’t able to see the pink flags but. Maybe she believed that the ‘brownstone with four or five floors’ was the life for her, regardless of her preliminary discomfort.
But when she went to London and he requested her for an open relationship, it uncovered all the problems that have been already there: inside him, inside her, and their dynamic.
My principle is that the will to destroy one thing often comes with the information that it’s destroying you. My physique knew earlier than my thoughts: I didn’t need to have intercourse with my boyfriend anymore however I did with virtually everybody else. I didn’t know but I wished to interrupt up, I simply knew I didn’t really feel attractive for him, or linked to myself. I do know now that it was my physique imploring me to cease having intercourse with a person who didn’t look after my well being or wellbeing.
I misplaced a chunk of myself in that relationship, and within the depths of that loss, I knew I wanted to reconnect with myself intimately. I believed that the quickest, best method to obtain that – with out instantly breaking any hearts – was to ask to open our relationship.
My ex in the end stated no, which is smart to me now. I’m certain he felt as if he was dropping me already. We weren’t having intercourse. I’d stopped opening as much as him. He didn’t need me to go and do all of that with another person, which was a good response.
Ultimately, his refusal ended us, however it could’ve occurred both method. If he’d stated sure, I might’ve slept with another person and realised I wanted to go away. He should’ve identified that, too.
I’m not saying that open relationships can’t work. I do know {couples} who’re thriving in them, who’ve lived in different dynamics like polyamory or moral non-monogamy, and began their relationship with their present associate that method. It’s extra of a private life-style alternative than an emergency monogamy escape route.
An open relationship dynamic must be correctly understood earlier than it’s entered into. Why does it must exist? What do you hope to get out of it? How are you able to be sincere and constant to your associate whereas nonetheless honouring your wants? And, most significantly, perceive what these wants truly are. Is it about wanting exterior the connection, or is it about wanting inside your self?
West End Girl is an unimaginable piece of inventive storytelling that exhibits us the ugly facet of other dynamics: how they are often misused, how they’ll turn out to be a device for individuals who need to have their cake and eat it too, how they’ll supply short-term reduction from the reality.
When I believe about it now, I don’t really feel ashamed for wanting extra. I simply want I’d understood what that impulse was actually saying. Desire by no means lies; it’s a compass. But earlier than you observe it, ask what path it’s actually pointing.
For extra on opening up your relationship, attempt this.