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I’m a pretty quiet Midwestern woman currently wracked by a guilty Catholic conscience. My last
boyfriend and I were in an open, long-distance relationship. We were together for a year and a
half, and things were great fun. We considered each other our primary partners, but I met his oth-
er partners and felt fine about most of them, and I got to have some fun playtime back in my own
city. Then I finished grad school and wanted to talk about moving to his city. He simply refused
to have that conversation, and we broke up. It hurt—a lot—but we resolved to stay friends, and
we are still close. A year later, he was diagnosed with cancer. I went to visit him at his request and
cuddled him at night as he was wracked by chemo nausea and fatigue. There was some touching
(boobs and butts help with nausea, apparently), but mostly I just spooned him and fetched him
tea. That same weekend, I met his new, much younger girlfriend (19 to his 28). She is sweet and
caring, but she was clearly uncomfortable with my visit, and I belatedly realized that either they
aren’t doing the open thing or they haven’t talked much about it. I suddenly felt a little jealous
and a lot like an emotional intruder. Not everyone understands the sort of relationship he and I
had, but I’m lost on how to be a good friend/former girlfriend to him now. Am I jeopardizing his
romantic life by staying his friend? Is it possible for us to stay close without making his current
girlfriend jealous? Did I just help him cheat?
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Good on you for going to see your ex-boyfriend, AHW. It was absolutely the right thing to do.
As for his current girlfriend: It’s possible that your presence made her uncomfortable, AHW. It’s also
possible that she’s socially awkward and you misread her signals. Or perhaps she’s never had to in-
teract with a partner’s ex before. She’s still a teenager—the whole concept of exes remaining on good
terms and being there for each other during a crisis may be new to her.
If you and your ex are close enough to spoon during a health crisis, AHW, you’re close enough to ask
him a direct question or two about his current relationship. Is it open or closed? If it’s open, are we
talking open in practice or open in theory? If it’s the latter, you may be the first “non-primary” part-
ner—or the first ex-primary partner—with whom this girl has ever had to interact. Meaning: She may
have been more comfortable with You, the Idea, than she was with You, the Person.
Another question to ask your ex: Will your being around screw up his current relationship? Your ex
may still want you around even if the answer is yes. His current girlfriend is very young, and (provid-
ed I’m reading the timeline correctly) he’s been with her for less than a year. Right now the support of
his old friends may be more valuable to him than this new girlfriend.
So don’t disappear on your ex because you have a hunch his new girlfriend might be jealous, AHW.
Talk to him, let him make his own choices, and be there for him.
I consider myself one of the lucky ones: happily married for decades, with a long-term girlfriend.
GF is at this point part of the family, and while it hasn’t always been an easy arrangement to sort
out, it has worked for over a decade. Recently, I’ve been talking with other nonmonogamous folk
and find myself wondering whether I have any responsibility to publicly admit details about my
multi-partner lifestyle. Though it’s probably obvious to those we interact with regularly (GF is
routinely part of holiday family functions and picks up kids after school, etc.), we have never
been directly ASKED, nor have we told. On the one hand, I want others to know that workable
long-term nonmonogamy isn’t just a pipe dream, but on the other, the details of my personal
life are nobody’s business. I’m certainly no role model, but am I crazy to feel guilt for not being
openly poly?
Nonmonogamous, Utterly Normal, Yet Apprehensive
Not everyone who’s poly can be out, NUNYA, just as not everyone who’s gay, bi, trans, kinky, or poz
can be out. But the only way to dispel myths about poly people and poly relationships—poly people
are all burners, poly relationships don’t work out for the long term, all nonmonogamous relationships
ultimately fail—is for poly people to come out when and where they can. So if you’re in a position to
be out, NUNYA, you should come out.
And while your poly relationship isn’t anyone’s business, it’s not something you should have to hide,
either.
I am a straight female who has been in a relationship for the last decade. We are high-school
sweethearts who lost our virginity to each other. We are now engaged, but for the last few years,
we have been having a recurring issue. He wants a three-way desperately. He thinks about it
all the time, and it seems to come up in almost every conversation we have. I feel that this goes
beyond just a fantasy. We used to have a great sex life, but now I feel as if I have to beg for it. He
wants this to happen NOW. I think it should just happen naturally if it is going to happen. I don’t
think there should be any pressure on it. We tried going to a swingers club, met a couple, and
fooled around. He started to have sex with the wife, and it was okay. The wife was not interested
in me at all, though. I agreed to all of this because I have always been bi-curious, but I never had
the opportunity, so needless to say I did not enjoy myself very much during this encounter. My
fiancé was not satisfied, though. He still keeps bringing it up. I think it is a deeper feeling that he
missed out because we got together so young. I have repeatedly told him I am fine with taking
a break so he can go get some other ass before we get married, but he will not listen. I am com-
pletely satisfied. We are both happy and love each other. I just constantly have guilt about being
the reason he can’t have what he wants. Is there anything I can do? Please, help.
Not Enough For Him
When a person says she wants something sexual to happen “naturally,” NEFH, what she means is
“spontaneously.” Three-ways don’t happen that way. An opposite-sex couple that wants to have a
three-way is gonna have to make an effort, NEFH. You’ll have to take out personal ads, go to swing-
ers clubs, and approach trusted friends or exes and carefully broach the subject. (A gay couple that
wants to have a three-way? They just have to leave the house. Pretty much.)
So your fiancé is right: This won’t happen if you don’t make it happen. But your fiancé is also being
a douche. If three-ways are all he can talk about, and if he’s so obsessed with three-ways that he’s
not interested in two-ways (with you) anymore, then he’s consciously or subconsciously sabotaging
your relationship. Offer him a deal: So long as he makes the two-ways happen, you’ll help make the
three-ways happen.
On the Lovecast, Dan and Janet Yassen from RAINN talk about recovering from rape: savagelovecast.com
MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET • @FAKEDANSAVAGE • THE SAVAGE LOVECAST AT SAVAGELOVECAST.COM
eugeneweekly.com • November 13, 2014
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