[Read part I of this story here.]
Sure, fine, whatever. Phase II was my fault. A month after N.’s meltdown, I sat in the sauna as my mind meandered to filth. After showering, I texted N., “I still want to have a threesome.” He said he was still unsure. So I sat down in the locker room, while still in my towel, and fired off a 2,000-word porn detailing what a threesome would look like with us and an imaginary big-boobed blond named Clara. After copping to a boner, N. said, “Let’s sign up for OkCupid again tonight.”
If Phase I was an ignorant, ill-prepared disaster, Phase II was an intellectual triumph. I returned to Good Vibrations and bought the same books, Googled everything there is to know about non-monogamy and watched every damn Dan Savage interview about “monogamish” and even TED talks and random YouTube videos on the topic. One thing I learned is that being ethically non-monogamous requires a heavy load of graduate-school processing — super-unsexy. There is way more talking about non-monogamy with your partner than actual getting down, but it must be done. This is, after all, difficult and highly sensitive terrain. In order to actually do this, you have to commit to constant rigorous discussion and checking in to see how your partner is feeling.
I learned to put a name to my feelings, including “compersion” — the happiness someone receives from their partner getting pleasured by another. I couldn’t get enough of hearing whom N. found attractive and how he’d get it on with them. I started journaling and learned about writing “agreements,” the agreed-upon terms of one’s outside humping. It was as if we were cramming for college midterms.
I thought I had it all covered, and I also thought N. and I were incredibly cool. Rebels, living the dream all the cowards jack off to but never have the balls to do in real life. And that’s when it sucker-punched me: jealousy. Treacherous, hair-pulling, nail-biting, heart-pounding, fucked-up, crazy, raging, irrational jealousy, sparked by N. sending me a contextually appropriate text: “Do you ever walk behind a really hot chick and wonder what it would be like for all of us to fuck?” No, I lied, sensing danger. I asked what it was that he liked to look at. “Boobs, butts, hips, slender waists,” he answered. “Seriously, what the fuck? WHAAAAT?! Boobs?! Slender?! Did that motherfucker just say ‘SLENDER’?!” Irrational panic and rage set in, and I wondered if I’d created a monster. One month before, N. was an innocent creature who masturbated only to thoughts of me (lies, but still). And now he’s trailing women to look at their asses?! What terrible beast has this gentle man become?
Despite all the studying, I wasn’t prepared to be pulled to such agonizing depths of jealousy. My jealousy was visceral — no amount of intellectual reasoning could talk me down. But as I eventually calmed down that evening, I discovered that dealing with jealousy is endemic to the lifestyle itself — unless, as I noted earlier, you’re a sociopath. But the idea is that you work through your jealousy and become a more secure person and also closer to and more trusting of your partner. Supposedly, the joys of non-monogamy would eventually outweigh the growing pains — but would they really?
Meanwhile, we were getting traction on our OkCupid profile and started communicating with an older beautiful woman, whom we planned to be our first. We set up dates with her and another woman, but on the morning of our date with the younger woman, another panic attack set in, this time over my sexual identity—something I had not considered during phase I. The puss: I didn’t want it. And if not, what was I doing? N. was adamantly opposed to bringing in a male third, so it was a woman or no one at all — for now, anyway. How gay am I? I wondered. Why did I think I could be the “straight” woman in this? If you’re getting down with someone of the same sex, you’re just simply not all that straight.
I was so nervous on that first date that I took an Ativan and don’t remember much of the evening, other than the vivid detail of completely cutting N. out of all the conversation. Not intentionally — my nerves caused me to over-talk to hide my discomfort. Also, there were no vibes between the three of us. During the date, sex and relationships never came up. After the date, we cordially bid her farewell and, on the way to the car, N.’s legs buckled from jealousy. Oh, Jesus. His turn again.
When we got home, we abruptly canceled our date with the second woman and killed our three-month OkCupid account yet again — and believe me, this shit gets expensive.
That night we decided that non-monogamy is for sick assholes who don’t understand the beauty of everlasting love. We told each other we were an above-it-all, deeply-in-love couple who treasured their relationship far too much to ever jeopardize it for (three-way) sex. The refrain was, “What were we thinking? Wow, we were so insane!”
At least that’s what we told ourselves for the next month, until the inevitable struck again. Because once you definitively decide that monogamy is outdated, it’s hard to revert back to where you were before. “Why do you still have all the books and the condoms from phase II?” I asked N. “Because I figured we’d change our mind again.” After feeding ourselves puritanical lies about our beliefs, we were back on it like a motherfucker.
“The love of my life is out on a date with a superhot woman who’s 12 years younger than me, someone we met on Tinder,” I wrote in my journal a week later. “I’m excited. I wish he would text me.” Since the plan was for me to watch more than partake, we decided N. should go alone on a date with the woman to see if they clicked. They did click, he texted me. And they would be coming home after having another beer. Holy shit! It’s really happening!
I sat waiting, anxious, wondering what they were talking about and continued journaling. “I love him and wanted him to experience other women — and he finally is,” I wrote. However, I can’t lie — jealousy hit me again. But instead of going off the deep end, I pulled out the Threesome Handbook and read the chapter on jealousy, which saved me. “Consider using your threesome adventure to become a warrior — to practice bravery, to learn to communicate clearly and openly and to navigate unfamiliar territory.” Thoughts of being a sexual warrior pumped me up. Fuck yes, I can do this — I think.
After the car pulled up, I could hear them laughing outside as they smoked. I decided to stay upstairs so as not to seem eager, and I envisioned my Bette Davis–esque walk down the stairs so I could feign surprise after they walked through the door. “Oh, hello,” I said coolly a well-timed 15 seconds after they entered the house.
She was cute, fully tattooed and way sexier and experienced than either of us. She naturally became the ringleader as we sat on the couch talking about our expectations and limits. I asked them to kiss. They began to make out as she grabbed his dick through his pants and quickly put his member in her mouth, a position that would occupy much of her throat throughout the night. It was fantastic. I felt zero jealousy, just happiness. Trust me, nothing is more surreal than watching your partner fuck and get fucked by someone else. And I did end up hitting the puss — which was kind of a boring letdown, to be honest.
The day after our four — make that five — hours of sex with our third partner, N. and I talked fondly about our threesome experience and about how we felt like a real team, partners in crime. “Remember how you had your entire hand in her pussy and the weird look you gave me when you were moving it in and out superfast?” I asked. “Oh yeah!” he said. We marveled at how comfortable we were talking about this — the old us would never have been able to handle reminiscing fondly about my boyfriend practically fisting some other chick.
And never had N. appeared to me more devastatingly appealing; sharing him with another woman made me love him even more, which is pretty bizarre. He felt similarly: “Emotionally, I was more in love with you at that moment than ever,” he told me. “It was like love on steroids, a surreal bond that you and I had, and she was there to witness it.”
Our formula for getting the threesome to happen was simple. In addition to the touchy-feely stuff — we were honest with ourselves and each other about why we wanted a threesome — we also used Tinder instead of OkCupid. We had better luck with — ahem — curious “straight” women on Tinder than with out bi women who were looking for love. But most important to our success was that we finally admitted that non-monogamy was something we believed in. For us to deny it at this point would be like saying, “I believe in freedom — wait, no, I don’t.”
In my reading, I was most moved by the passages in Esther Perel’s Mating in Captivity that address inviting the third into your relationship: “It’s been my experience that couples who negotiate [including the third] are not less committed than those who keep the gates closed. In fact, it is their desire to make the relationship stronger that leads them to explore other models of long-term love.” Instead of letting it pull us apart, all the jealousy bullshit forced us to our dark places and helped us emerge more mature, self-confident and deeper in love. We realized that we’re emotionally monogamous but that sex can be just plain fun — so why limit it to just us?
