Why a question about the future can make you reconsider the past.
By Victoria Onken, relationship coach specializing in consensual non-monogamy
Suppose your partner waits until you have put your phone down.
There is something they want to talk about. You recognize the tone and scramble to remember what you’ve forgotten. An anniversary? A dinner date? A new haircut? Then they ask whether you have ever thought about an open relationship.
For a moment, you are occupied with a practical detail: where to put your hands, whether to look at them. Your partner is still talking, explaining what they mean by seeing other people with each other’s knowledge and agreement. You miss some of it.
Somehow, you are thinking about the holiday you took in June.
Were they already thinking about this then?
By the time your partner finishes, you have moved through other memories. The last time you had sex. The evening they said they were happy. You never thought to question it. Why would you?
Your partner may think you are considering their question. You are trying to work out how long you have misunderstood your own life.
Open relationships can be easy to discuss when they belong to other people. Someone else’s arrangement leaves your own mostly undisturbed.
Many of us grew up with a fairly limited cast of characters for lasting love. There was a princess, a prince, and a horse. A second prince would have required an explanation. Nobody was reading us that story at bedtime.
Years later, we may know that people live and love in all sorts of ways. Imagining ourselves among them is another matter.
The conversation changes when the person asking knows which side of the bed you sleep on.
Suddenly, a question about the structure of your relationship can sound like a question about the relationship itself. “I would like to talk about being with other people” becomes “We are no longer enough.” A possibility becomes an impending loss before either person has said what they actually want to do.
In the language of attachment, we might understand this as a perceived threat to a bond we rely on. The person you would usually turn to when frightened has said something that frightens you. Reaching for reassurance becomes complicated.
You may want to move closer and ask them to take it back. You may find yourself speaking with a coldness you had not intended. Or you may ask practical questions because practical questions are easier to get through than “Do you still want me?”
For a man who takes pride in being a good partner, the request may feel like a failure he is expected to explain. Was the sex disappointing? Has he become predictable? He may feel embarrassed by how much reassurance he wants, especially if he believes he ought to meet the subject with confidence or sexual enthusiasm.
A man can be curious about non-monogamy in theory and feel devastated when his partner raises it. He can also want exclusivity without needing to explain that preference as an insecurity.
The painful leap is from “Something may change” to “Perhaps nothing was what I thought it was.”
Once you make that leap, memories become difficult to leave alone. A distracted evening acquires a possible explanation. A tender moment becomes something to examine. You begin looking for the point at which your partner stopped feeling what you were still feeling.
Sometimes there are facts to uncover. A partner may already be drawn to someone specific. They may have concealed unhappiness, or crossed an agreement and now be asking to change it. Those possibilities deserve direct questions and truthful answers.
But a new desire does not establish when it began, what caused it, or what the years before it meant.
Someone may have loved the life you shared and now want something different within it. Someone may be unsure what they want and be bringing you a thought they can no longer settle alone.
Your own response may surprise you, too. After the first shock, you might remember a desire you never mentioned. Perhaps you have wondered about other people and assumed the thought would hurt your partner too much to say aloud. Perhaps you feel curious about the possibility, even while some of it frightens you. You may want to ask more.
In my book, Before Anything Changes, I write about the gap between a partner’s request and what we understand it to mean. Before deciding whether to change a relationship, it helps to find out what each person is actually imagining.
You may discover that neither of you wants to act on anything yet. Perhaps you both want more room to speak about desire without the conversation becoming a plan. Or you may find that your hopes overlap in ways you had not expected.
To me, openness in a relationship begins with being able to talk about anything, including the thoughts you find uncomfortable or dark, the wishes you are unsure you would ever act on. Saying something aloud does not make it an agreement. Emotional openness can exist within a sexually exclusive relationship. Nobody has to touch anyone else for a previously unspoken part of their life to become something they can discuss.
If you were the one who raised the subject, you have responsibilities here, too.
Perhaps you have spent months thinking about non-monogamy. You have read enough to distinguish an occasional sexual connection from another committed relationship. You have imagined how an arrangement might fit around the life you share.
Your partner has had twelve minutes.
You may be relieved to have finally spoken. Your partner may be wishing they could return to the part of the evening before you did. The difference can be difficult to bear, particularly if you hoped saying the words would bring you closer.
Explaining more is tempting: an example of a couple who make it work, a reassuring account of how little would have to change. But explanations can become pressure when you keep offering them after your partner has said they need to stop.
You might say: “I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and you’ve only just heard it. When you hear me say this, what are you afraid of?”
Give your partner time to answer. They may think you have already decided. They may assume there is someone waiting for their permission. Answer what they ask, including the parts that make your proposal harder to accept.
If you are raising a possibility, say so: “I want to talk about this with you. I haven’t decided what should happen.” Then leave room for their answer.
If you have decided that you can no longer remain in a monogamous relationship, your partner needs to know that. Presenting a decision as casual curiosity leaves them responding to a conversation you are no longer having.
If you are the person hearing the request, it can help to put your interpretation into words.
“When you say you want this, I hear that you’ve been unhappy with me. Is that what you mean?”
Or: “I keep wondering whether there is already someone. I need you to answer that before we talk about anything else.”
The answers may reassure you. They may reveal a difficulty you had sensed but never discussed. You may need to hear more before you know what you believe.
Understanding your partner’s desire does not commit you to sharing it. You can listen closely and still want a monogamous relationship. You can need time without promising that time will produce a “yes.” The person who asked does not have to pretend their desire has disappeared, either.
You do not have to settle the difference tonight. When someone is waiting for your response, it can feel as though you owe them a decision before either of you can go to bed.
“I need to think about this. I can’t give you an answer right now” is sufficient.
Later that evening, you may still be sitting beside someone whose words you do not know what to do with. You may also have questions you did not expect to want to ask.
You do not yet know whether you will open your relationship. Perhaps you already know you will not. Perhaps, for now, you want to understand what your partner has been imagining.
Before getting to dates and agreements, there is something to ask:
“When you imagine this changing, what do you imagine happening to us?”