Open Marriage
Love, Sex and Parenting in an Open Relationship
Courtesy of Seal
"This is the story about a girl who grew up believing what many girls believe -- that one day she would fall in love with the man of her dreams, marry him, have kids, and live happily ever after. Yet as she grew older, all she felt was confused ... "
This is how Jenny Block, author of the up-close-and-personal memoir "Open: Love, Sex and Life in an Open Marriage," launches into the inner-workings of her love life. In her book, she describes how she bought into the whole "monogamy thing." She married the nice guy, moved to a nice neighborhood, had a baby and then lost the magic. She eventually had an affair with her best friend, Grace. When she revealed the affair to her husband, a whole new chapter in their marriage opened up.
AOL Health had the opportunity to speak to Block about her feelings about monogamy, what it's like to share a lover with her husband, the ability to love and make love to two different people and what her 10-year-old daughter thinks of Block's long-term girlfriend Jemma.
AOL Health: Why do you think monogamy isn't for you?
Jenny Block: The simplest, light-hearted answer is what my father always says, which is that I'm a lot. I'm just a lot. I have a number of different jobs, I have lots of different hobbies, I always have a lot of different friends that are all very different. So in some ways it would be really, kind of crazy for me to just pick one person. I tried. I figured everybody else does it. How special am I? Am I such a rarity that I need more than one person? But [now] I don't think I'm a rarity. I think I'm just about as typical as it gets in the needing more than one person part. It's the honesty part that I think makes [my husband and me] unusual.
AOL Health: What do you think the rest of us are being dishonest about?
Block: If we think about the way our society works, it's very couples-oriented. It's very marriage-oriented. It feels like a falsehood that we're hanging onto, because in reality, people have other partners. In reality, [many] marriages end in divorce. It's a massive fairy tale that we're all clinging too.
AOL Health: So why didn't you just decide to stay single?
Block: I didn't know any of this stuff. I was as, (I hate to use this word) as brainwashed as everybody else. I was told that there was one way to do things: You meet this nice person that you want to spend the rest of your life with. I'm not so crazy as to think that I would somehow live a different way. That was just what you did, so that was what I did.
AOL Health: After a couple years of marriage, what about sex with your husband wasn't satisfying anymore?
Block: He and I have mismatched libidos. That's the only way I've come to describe it. I had a moment [where I thought], "I guess we don't belong together." I'd heard of people getting divorced because of sex and I thought, "What a bummer." We're great partners and great parents and we're great at it when we do it, we just want different quantities of [sex] or different varieties of it. Is that really a reason that people should throw the entire life away?
AOL Health: You had several monogamous relationships before your marriage turned into an eventual open relationship. Can you explain how you progressed toward this?
Block: It was so messy. I ended up having an affair with another woman three years into our marriage and she ended up telling her husband and he called me on the phone and said I had to tell my husband or he would. So I told [my husband]. He said, perfectly calmly, "How could you lie to me like that?" What he [was] really upset about was the lying. He didn't say one word about sex. I spent the next few years "behaving myself" because I didn't want him to leave me. I loved him. I wanted to stay together.
Then I finally approached the subject with him. I said, "I've done a bunch of reading and a bunch of research and we're really not that strange. People have open relationships. People opt to have other partners." My very sweet husband said, "Theoretically you could do that, but there are feelings and emotions and realities of life." We went back and forth for probably a year at that point. [We asked ourselves] "Does this really work? Are they these crazy people who are not like us, so it would never work?" We had this do-or-die moment. We invited my friend [Lizbeth] to join us [in a threesome] and it worked and she hung around for about six months and the three of us dated. We all kept looking at each other saying, "Is this weird? Should this be weird? Is it weird that it's not weird?" It's kind of like going to summer camp for me. I used to go to summer camp every year and and everybody got along. This is how life would be if ... people just lived the way they wanted and loved other people, and did what they felt was right and what worked for everybody and was fair and honest and open.
AOL Health: What do you get out of having an open marriage?
Block: More than anything, I get a sense of peace. I don't ever have a sense of, "What if there's something else out there?" It's exciting to be with someone new.
AOL Health: What do you think your husband gets out of it?
Block: He always tells me two things. One, for him it's about the freedom too. He hasn't had a girlfriend since that first one [we had together]. But he likes the idea of going to a basketball game or a bar and buying some girl a drink and hanging out and not feeling like I'm going to walk in and say, "What the hell is going on here?" It's fun to be attracted to other people. It's fun to feel sexy, after having me barking at him about chores. It's nice to have some pretty girls not yelling at him and see him as a person, not as a husband or a father, but as a person. That feels nice, that feels good. It's that and he feels like a success. When he and I were having troubles, he felt like he was a failure. He wondered what was wrong with him that our marriage wasn't deliriously happy? Now he feels like a success. Because I have everything and he has everything and everybody's happy. A happy, healthy marriage, family and household -- that can be a grand measure of success.
Next: Parenting, Safe Sex and Avoiding Jealousy in an Open Marriage
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polysupport2009 06:18:02 PM Aug 13 2009
Part two: Darn, I had a lot more on that comment. Oh well.Anyway, it was basically talking about howmany people accept mediocre sex lives, which is a huge part of a happy marriage, because they're too afraid to buck the trend.
polysupport2009 06:09:12 PM Aug 13 2009
There are two things I'd like to comment on here.1) Polyamoury is generally NOT a sexually based lifestyle. It is actually unfortunate that this woman's reasons for opening her marriage were to solve a problem, as most poly relationships are NOT created for that purpose. Most poly couples I know cite a real desire to share their love that they already find so wonderful. They are confident, secure couples who see no need in restricting their love to only one person, and as both partners are fully on board, there is no harm in this. It's not because things aren't working out and they're trying to fix things (this is a quick way to fail).2) Aside from this, iis it really so terrible that this woman wanted to be satisfied sexually? She is right, one of the leading causes of divorce is not being sexually compatible. Yet she admittedly still loves her husband. Why lose this great relationship if there is a way to make it work? How many of you negative commenters have cried yourself
CanyaTuima 09:36:28 PM Aug 04 2009
I love my husband, I'm coming to love my NavyBoy very much, and he is very much becoming a part of our family, as is Hubby's girlfriend. Think about how many people you love in your life. Your boyfriend/husband, your best friend, your mother, your child. Why is it that we can love more than one person when it comes to friendship and family and whatnot, but we cannot broaden our view of romantic love in the same way?
CanyaTuima 09:34:47 PM Aug 04 2009
Wow, all these hateful comments! Speaking as a married women in a polyamourous relationship, I have to tell you guys~ its not about whoring around, or just wanting a sucker to support you while you go off and **** everyone who comes your way~ its about having a loving and supportive relationship with someone, or multiple someones. My husband has a girlfriend, a girl I care for deeply. She and I are not sexual together, but my husband and her are. I have a boyfriend, and he and my husband get along rather well.As long as everyone is very clear in what their limits are--emotionally and physically, it works out fine. It requires a lot of hard work, but what relationship doesn't?And to TNQ55~ Even if you love someone, you don't want them ALL the time. You don't need them ALL the time. Sometimes they drive you *crazy* and you need to get away. It doesn't mean you don't love them enough, it just means you are human. The same goes for when you have multiple loves in your life. I love my husba
HarmonicLilith 11:48:39 PM Aug 02 2009
Part 1 Before commenting on Monogamous vs. Polyamorous relationships, I'd like to encourage the reader of this message to keep an open mind and an open heart to the points I am going to touch on. I'll open my message with a quote: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."Throughout the course of history, humanity has gone through many significant changes. Some have been productive, positive, and progressive, while others have been annihilative, venomous, and catastrophic.
HarmonicLilith 11:48:16 PM Aug 02 2009
Part 2 When I read the hateful comments of those that have read this article, I cannot help but remember the annihilative, venomous, and catastrophic times in history that we are still recovering from to this day. To name a few: Salem Witch Trials, Native American Trail of Tears, African American Lynching (Slavery, Racism), Nazi Germany. These events occurred because of a large hysteria produced over fear and panic of the unknown, of something different that they didn't understand. The interesting aspect in the case of Nazi Germany and Black Slavery is specifically that neither the Jewish Population nor the African American Population assaulted their enslavers prior to enslavement.
HarmonicLilith 11:47:49 PM Aug 02 2009
Part 3 This means that Hitler enslaved the Jewish population because of a prejudice against a specific race for reasons such as "They don't have blue eyes and blonde hair" or "They don't believe what I do." Is either of these reasons a good excuse to torture an entire population? Some may sarcastically and spitefully reply "Yes," but the rest of us intellectual beings will answer with a clear and firm "No." This being so, does it give anyone of us any right to persecute a population of individuals that make the choice in their own lives to keep their intimate relationships open instead of closed? No.
HarmonicLilith 11:47:14 PM Aug 02 2009
Part 4 While we do have every right to disagree with the decisions that people outside of our lives make, we have no right to raise hell in the lives of people making the decisions we don't agree with, AS LONG AS their actions and decisions aren't physically hurting anyone. I'd like to invite the readers to remember when the Gay and Lesbian Rights Movement first appeared. The GLBT community was simply trying to gain acceptance, compassion, understanding, and recognition from the rest of the human race in a very peaceful manner. However, those that disagreed with their lifestyle choices (even though their choices caused no one physical harm) decided that hated them so much for being different that they raped, attacked, and even murdered people from this community.
HarmonicLilith 11:46:41 PM Aug 02 2009
Part 5 Can anyone find the irony in that situation? I can. Most of the people who assaulted and still do assault the GLBT community, are Christians. While the Christian Bible does briefly discuss same-sex marriage being a sin, the Christian Bible also states that it is a sin to kill. That does not mean that it is a sin to kill unless you have a just reason. It means it is a sin to kill... period. Jesus, the most praised individual in the Christian Religion, preaches tolerance, and understanding. Jesus befriended prostitutes, criminals, the homeless, and many more outcasts of society.
HarmonicLilith 11:45:16 PM Aug 02 2009
Part 6 So, before you let hatred creep into your heart, please consider this.Also consider that not everyone believes the Christian doctrine. The Christian religion is very young in the sense that it is only 2,000 years old whereas many other religions are thousands and thousands of years older. It is okay to have different beliefs; it is okay to disagree; and it is okay to have friendly debates; but has never, is not, and will never be okay to intentionally assault another individual physically or emotionally for a difference of opinion.
