More on open marriage
Well, even I think my last post crossed the line from rant-with-a-point to rant-with-spittle-dribbling-down-chin. Oh well. There's a point buried in there sometime, maybe I'll drag it out when I feel less rushed. Classes start next week, my syllabi aren't done, I have a huge grant proposal that I have to finish by Thursday, I still haven't tackled that stupid article that's 90% written already (just print it out and put it in a damn envelope, gah!) and I feel like puking. Oh, and I'm having the same semi-depressed feeling that maybe I just am not cut out for this job--otherwise shouldn't I be at least sort of looking forward to classes? In the past I've liked teaching and I'm good at it. And shouldn't I be writing the stuff I want to write? I really am interested in it. And yet I put it all off and off and off, and I don't even have anxiety as an excuse this time, just a sense of ennui. Maybe it's place. Maybe not. Dither, dither, dither--that I had most of last year, then lost over the summer (when, in fact, I did get some work and research stuff done). And now it's back again. I suspect it's because the new semester signals yet another year here, where I don't want to be.
Anyway, blah. I don't want to talk about or even think about that stuff. But I did want to link to a really good Salon essay on cheating, one that I think says a couple of things that I have found to be true, and that violate the conventional wisdom about extracurricular sex.
First, this phrase: "in anchoring him to its comforts and constraints, his domestic life gave him the very energy he needed to defy it." In other words, being married gives one a lot of confidence and a lot of sexual experience; it also makes the non-married sex a lot more meaningful (and fun). Probably this is just as simple as the lure of the forbidden, and/or the stuff I talked about earlier--the sense that one has nothing to lose with the "extra" partner, b/c one has the married partner waiting, as it were, in the wings, so go ahead and take some crazy risks. But I think there's also something more there, about the additional layers of meaning brought to a relationship when the context of the relationship is more complicated. It forces one to think about sex and relationships and affection in new ways, and it makes one aware of the really pretty vast landscape of possible variations on the theme.
The essay also concludes with what I think probably happens a fair bit, if the people involved are honorable types: the unmarried partner (in this case, a woman, much younger than her married lover) isn't damaged or heartbroken over the affair. Her lover doesn't use her and throw her away. Instead, he provides an opportunity for her to learn some new things, and then when she's learned them, she moves on. And he gets a little hurt, but that's the way it is because he's the one with the marriage and the kids. I think that's really true: the person with the constraints is the one who (should) end up, well, running into those constraints, while the person without them gets to the edge, realizes that the constraints aren't their problem, and moves the hell on.
Of course, it doesn't always end this way. But I think that more often than is often acknowledged, in affairs where one is sleeping with a married person, the unmarried person has a lot more power. And I also, as the married person in that kind of situation, think that's exactly as it should be.
Anyway, blah. I don't want to talk about or even think about that stuff. But I did want to link to a really good Salon essay on cheating, one that I think says a couple of things that I have found to be true, and that violate the conventional wisdom about extracurricular sex.
First, this phrase: "in anchoring him to its comforts and constraints, his domestic life gave him the very energy he needed to defy it." In other words, being married gives one a lot of confidence and a lot of sexual experience; it also makes the non-married sex a lot more meaningful (and fun). Probably this is just as simple as the lure of the forbidden, and/or the stuff I talked about earlier--the sense that one has nothing to lose with the "extra" partner, b/c one has the married partner waiting, as it were, in the wings, so go ahead and take some crazy risks. But I think there's also something more there, about the additional layers of meaning brought to a relationship when the context of the relationship is more complicated. It forces one to think about sex and relationships and affection in new ways, and it makes one aware of the really pretty vast landscape of possible variations on the theme.
The essay also concludes with what I think probably happens a fair bit, if the people involved are honorable types: the unmarried partner (in this case, a woman, much younger than her married lover) isn't damaged or heartbroken over the affair. Her lover doesn't use her and throw her away. Instead, he provides an opportunity for her to learn some new things, and then when she's learned them, she moves on. And he gets a little hurt, but that's the way it is because he's the one with the marriage and the kids. I think that's really true: the person with the constraints is the one who (should) end up, well, running into those constraints, while the person without them gets to the edge, realizes that the constraints aren't their problem, and moves the hell on.
Of course, it doesn't always end this way. But I think that more often than is often acknowledged, in affairs where one is sleeping with a married person, the unmarried person has a lot more power. And I also, as the married person in that kind of situation, think that's exactly as it should be.
