Many people that I know have often commented on the double standard that seems to exist in my relationship. I am not denying it exists, both my husband and I are well aware of it, but I do want to explain it’s origin and how we work with it.
To explain its origin, I have to go back to the beginning of our relationship. Not our regular relationship, but the new, open side of it. Back in those days, we were almost convinced we were the same person. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, we did everything together and had lost a little of our own personal identities when we were strictly monogamous. Having always had the same friends, opinions, religious beliefs, musical tastes, political preferences, and etc., it made sense to us that we would react the same to anything this new relationship situation threw at us, right?
Wrong. As we quickly began to discover, we were still very separate people. We shared, and still do share, the same belief system about open relationships, where we want ours to go, how monogamous we really are and so on. What we didn’t share was the same level of tolerance for certain situations. Where, in the beginning, I might have longed for more variety and short term dates, he wanted longer relationships with people. When I would be completely uncomfortable and get emotional / sad / angry with a situation, he would be much more calm.
This was a hard lesson for us. What came of it was the double standard that exists today. There have been a lot of things that I have done that he has been ok with, but I know that if he were to do the same things right now, I wouldn’t be ok with them. Does that make me selfish? Perhaps, yes. However, if you look at the timeline of things, it can be explained with a better justification.
That calls for admission time: During our open relationship I’ve had a few one night stands, sex with girls, sex with girls he’s dated, threesomes, fallen in love, been broken-hearted, been willingly abused, slept with a married man, messed around with a few ‘cheaters’, snuck off for sex and told him about it later, and on his end he’s dated a few girls and shared some with me. Don’t feel bad, it’s not a competition. It is a truth we have noticed that there are more men that are into women in open relationships than there are women into men in the same situation. Plain and simple.
During his tenure there have been some very awkward situations related to the relationships he has been in. Things have happened that have caused quite a bit of marital tension between us, that we have since been able to work out, but have made me a little wary. If the situations that had presented themselves to him had been more frequent, or less dramatic, I do believe I would be on the same level of acceptance as he.
Alas, I am not there. It is difficult to explain to others how I am allowed certain ‘freedoms’ that he is not, without making myself appear like a c*nt. Perhaps it can be explained better using a school scenario. The situations that I have been in, have in turn, given my husband the training he needs to learn how to deal with them; in his own mind, with me and with other people. As he has not been in as many of those situations, I therefore, have not had as much training on how to deal with them, so even though I am well versed in the acts, I am not as well versed in the reactions.
This post is merely to explain to those perhaps going through a similar situation, that it is ok to feel and react differently. We are all individuals and recognizing that you may not be as comfortable as your partner doesn’t make you any weaker than anyone else. With the few couples that I know in open relationships, it is often the women who feel more envy or insecurity. Perhaps that is how we, as women, are programmed, perhaps it’s the individual situations, or perhaps it is merely a coincidence.
Whatever it is, we are constantly learning, and I work hard every day to feel as solid with all of this as my husband always is, and I wish the same for you, in all your relationships.
