Exposing40

Friends. Photography. Adventure.

Tag: Non Monogamy

Friendly Concern

May 15, 2019 / / 33 Comments

Last week I was having dinner with three other women. Not close friends but a group of ex colleagues who I meet up with once every 12 – 18 months. The conversation takes the usual twists and turns of people who’ve known each other for years but see each other rarely. The dynamic of colleague friendships fascinates me; for the period you work together you spend more waking hours with each other than you do your family, friends and partners, you see each other at your best and worst, you spend long evenings in the pub analysing crises and internal politics and then poof! – just like that jobs change and you’re down to a couple of hours every year or so.  Anyway, the conversation went the usual way – asking each other about work, holidays, children, nieces and nephews, common acquaintances.

Then the searching “Sooo, how are the love lives then?” directed at me and one other single woman with the hungry gazes of two women who have been married for years and want you to give them something new and exciting to pore over. As I have written previously, I am increasingly open about my relationships with those closest to me and who I see regularly. Not so much with ex colleagues who I see rarely and whose response I couldn’t necessarily predict. But last week I had one of my ‘fuck it’ moments and I found myself talking more freely and honestly than usual.

The response? Well, one woman exclaimed: “Oh my God, I need another drink!” and promptly ordered a large glass of Rioja. There was surprise, there was fascination, there were some sensible and some annoying questions and there was (happily) very little judgement. But there was also concern. Was I definitely OK with this? Am I being treated OK? Is it what I actually want? Does my partner’s wife know? Is she OK with this? Have I ever met her? Do I like her? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes and yes! What I realised was that while there was little judgement of me the tone of the concerned questioning was loaded with judgement about my partner.

At the time I calmly answered all their questions, reveling slightly in the fact that I’d sent a little shock wave through our pleasant but pedestrian evening. Yes, it suits me really well. Yes, I get many of the nice bits of a long term relationship but with none of the compromise of family Christmases and blended lives. No, I definitely don’t want to ever live with anyone again. Yes, I know her and I was at their wedding (that tit bit always shocks the listener and delights me). I’m off on a gallery day with her and another friend next week actually. Without the bloke? Yes, he doesn’t need to chaperone us.

But on the way home I started thinking about their line of questioning and how frequently people default assume that non-monogamy is something that is done to women by men and that it is something that women put up with because they have to. I started reflecting on other occasions where I have had this assumption projected on me. My best friend: “But you are so sensitive I just worry that you are going to get hurt.” Me: “But the things that hurt me are things that could happen regardless of whether a relationship is non-monogamous or not.” Exhibit A, The Other Livvy and me at an event in my local bookshop discussing a book called Is Monogamy Dead? and a woman asking EA rather aggressively “But what would you think if they had other partners?” and the surprise in the room when I piped up “I do have another partner.”

That last one always causes surprise. People outside of this community never expect me to have other partners. Even if they can just about get their head round the fact that I have an established and happy relationship that will never be more than it is, with a man who is married to someone else, and that is enough for me and fine with everyone involved, then introducing the notion that I have other people in my life just about makes them fall off their perch. My Mum, who now always asks about Baby M, never asks me if I’ve been on any other dates or after other partners who I may have mentioned. It’s like that is a bridge too far.

The more I thought about it the more I found myself getting annoyed by the narrative that non-monogamy and polyamory are things owned by men and accepted by women and that men will be the ones with multiple partners while the woman stays happy with just the one. Even if my friends or a stranger in a bookshop weren’t explicitly acknowledging that assumption it was there in the way they asked their questions. When I mused this point on Twitter last week @kinkynerdy rightly pointed out that the assumed status quo makes no allowance for poly lesbians, for example.

Interestingly, much of my experience with non-monogamous men suggests something contrary to the assumed norm. When I think about the significant men I have met since I joined OKC in 2013 – not the brief flings or one off sex dates, but the ones that turned into something more – I note that four of them opened up their relationships as a result of their wife or primary partner having an affair. Now, I am not advocating this approach to opening up a relationship – all of them came with a fuckton of baggage – but unless I exist in some microclimate or have unique appeal to men who have been cheated on then this wafer thin data suggests that there are many women open to shirking a one penis policy!

The thing that bothers me most about the common narrative is that it is taking away women’s agency in non-monogamy. It is suggesting that women may be passively accepting something that is somehow second best. Do people really look at me and my life and my business and my travel habits and see a woman who is ‘settling’ for a life because that’s all she can get? Do they think I am lying when I say that I don’t want more than I have? I also hate the way it pitches women against each other. The subtext of people’s questions can be that women who are in a relationship with the same man see each other as enemies or a threat when in reality we are connected through a shared affection. There is deep joy and camaraderie in sharing a small joke or knowing smile about a mutual partner’s habit. I have written a letter to a woman I have never met who lives 4000 miles away, expressing sympathy for a terrible event, not because I had to but because it seemed inconceivable not to extend a kind word to the wife of someone who meant something to me. For me, one of the greatest joys of non-monogamy has been discovering a completely new kind of friendship and respect that can exist between women.

That non-monogamous relationships are becoming more accessible through dating apps and normalised through mainstream media delights me. Six years ago I didn’t even really know what non-monogamy meant; now my mother asks after my partner’s five-month-old. I once worried there was something wrong with me because I didn’t want to settle down, now I have meaningful relationships that nourish me without stifling me. Sex is back in my life. That people might look at everything I have and somehow think I am being short changed distresses me. Did I spend my thirties explaining that ‘no, I don’t want children and I am happy to not be married’ only to have to spend my forties explaining that “yes, non-monogamy really works for me, I am very happy’. Must women always have to justify their choices?

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Language Matters

March 2, 2019 / / 6 Comments

“She had a shotgun wedding.”

“She’s living in sin.”

“She’s just his bit on the side.”

One late September Saturday in 1983 around 100 of my grandparents’ friends and family gathered for a 50th wedding anniversary party that my Mum and her siblings had organised. It remained a surprise until the Friday afternoon when my Aunt told my Nan that there was a hair appointment booked for her on the following morning. On hearing the news my Nan broke her heart crying and revealed a secret that she’d kept for 49 years. You see, they hadn’t married in 1933, they’d married in 1934, just six months before their eldest child was born. For almost half a century my grandparents had been lying to their children and friends, hiding the shame of their ‘shotgun wedding.’ In the face of this very public celebration the mask finally crumbled and my Nan confessed that we were celebrating a year early. But she swore that Aunt to secrecy and the rest of her children only found out five years later when their parents died within a few months of each other.

Almost 80 years to the day after that 1934 wedding I was sat in my local pub chatting to a then partner about the news that had come out of his country that day; America’s Supreme Court had allowed same sex marriages to stand in five states meaning for the first time more Americans lived in states where these unions were legal than not. That evening he stated his view that “non monogamy is going to be the next relationship structure to come into the spotlight and upset the status quo.” “What makes you say that?” I asked. He argued that people have always gossiped about and judged other people’s relationships and that as each one becomes more socially acceptable (and disparaging the people in them becomes less acceptable) it paves the way for something new to bear the brunt of judgment. “Think about it,” he said. “Having a child out of wedlock used to be the worse thing that could happen, but imagine calling a child a bastard now? And living in sin – you’d never say that these days.” His view was the legalisation of same sex marriage marriage would mean another paradigm shift and the door was now open for non-monogamous couples to out themselves and ‘enjoy’ a period of being the object of fascination and fear.

I can’t really decide whether he was incredibly astute or over simplifying things and bloody lucky in the timing of his statement, but it’s undeniable that in the last five years ethical non-monogamy and polyamory has been enjoying its moment in the spotlight. There’s an increasing amount of coverage in the mainstream media, some of the most popular dating apps have introduced the opportunity to declare your non-monogamous status and more people are coming out about their relationship structures to family and friends. And, as he predicted, there’s backlash.

While it would seem inconceivable in 2019 to make asides about ‘shotgun weddings’ or ‘living in sin’, comments like ‘she’s his bit on the side’ still prevail and they carry the same weight of casual thoughtless judgement. I read something recently where someone talked about poly men “pretending to be enlightened and sex-positive and forward-thinking when really it’s just them wanting to stick their dicks into as many women as possible.” A couple of weeks ago LoveLustLondon tweeted an OKC comment where someone’s blanket message to non-monogamous folk was “don’t even think about messaging me and good luck catching an STD.” Comments like these are not prejudiced on the scale of homophobia or racism, but they are prejudiced nonetheless and can be deeply hurtful to non-monogamous people. And they are lazy. People who make them are invariably lashing out and making no effort to understand or respect the dynamic and hard work that goes into successful open relationships.

Of course, there are some people who are using the increasing profile of non-monogamy and tick boxes on apps to behave in an entirely unethical way. Tech can facilitate in a far more efficient way the same poor behaviour that drunk Saturday nights with mates or late nights at the office used to pave the way for. Humans have always and will always behave like arseholes sometimes. A while back a few of us got involved in a Twitter chat defending poly in light of someone claiming that it’s being evangelised. Exhibit A said at the time: “The pseudo-poly guys and opportunists on dating apps are assholes, but ‘it seems to be all over the media and it’s the evangelical ones who shout loudest’ is exactly what people used to say about homosexuality: “why do they need to shove it down our throats, etc”.
To extrapolate the point Exhibit A made, to those people who make snide comments about poly being trendy or poly people just wanting to fuck everything that walks, I would suggest they replace poly with ‘gay people’ and check whether their comments stand up to scrutiny. If your comments are stigmatising someone and how they are honestly and consensually living their life then you may want to interrogate your attitude rather than their lifestyle.

Last weekend, knowing this post was in the pipeline, I asked Twitter what their experiences were. I could have written this post just sharing people’s responses. I think the one that made me saddest was The Curious Mermaid who said: “The more I read of these tweets, the more I feel that I’m right to still be in the closet about non-mon as far as work acquaintances and parents are concerned.” I hope in time it becomes as acceptable to talk about your different partners without raising eyebrows as it is to now say you’re moving in with someone. I’m unlikely to ever experience the half a century of shame that my Nan did when she became pregnant with her first child, but I also look forward to the day when describing me as someone’s ‘bit on the side’ becomes as unlikely and unacceptable as discussing that someone is living in sin.

This was meant to be posted in time for the fear prompt last week but time ran away with me. Here it is a week late!

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A Love of Photography

November 18, 2018 / / 37 Comments

“The show’s aim ultimately is to look at the couple as a catalyst for creative dialogue. What Modern Couples seems to suggest is that if love was the catalyst, it was often the photographer’s darkroom – that liminal, womb-like space – that incubated and protected creative fulfilment in its early form.” British Photography Journal

Some of you may have seen on Twitter or Exhibit A’s Sinful Sunday post last weekend that he and I went to see the Modern Couples exhibition at Barbican last weekend. Those of you who know either or both of us will undoubtedly know that photography is in the DNA of our dynamic. In fact I would say it’s the red thread. Before we’d even met he’d send me his photos for feedback or occasional editing before posting; his early Sinful Sundays are woven in my mind with memories of our earliest interactions. The first time I photographed him was only the second time we’d met.

Looking at that quote above, I would invert it for a more accurate commentary on us. Love was not a catalyst for creativity, but photography incubated and probably, at times, kept alive a friendship that over time has given way to a deep and nourishing affection. There were times in the early days of knowing each other that we didn’t always behave that well towards to each other but somehow we always stayed connected through the photography. We could sit and argue at his kitchen table in North London and 10 minutes later he’d be naked on his balcony and I’d be talking through an idea.

That I am more often than not the one behind the camera mirrors one of the objectives of the Barbican show, which is to subvert the notion that it is always the woman who is the muse. It would never have occurred to me to call Exhibit A a muse, but maybe he is. I certainly rarely think of anyone else first if I have an idea of how I would like to photograph a man, despite me shooting other partners since I started this blog. He’s a willing model if an idea seizes me and is up for many things that others wouldn’t be. A busy lido on a hot sunny day in July? Sure! I’ve messaged him on a weekday morning in February and 45 minutes later he’s been naked in his garden balancing on one leg. And when I’ve wanted him to be the one behind the camera he’s never really batted an eyelid at my rather random requests, whether that’s ‘make my belly look as fat as possible’ ‘can you make a 50 in stars on my back’ or‘I want to balance this mirror on my throat.’

Of course, he means much more to me now than just being a willing photography partner in crime. We’ve got a mutual love of the Manics and a strong Spotify and ‘one for the road’ game too! Seriously though, there’s much I don’t recognise about either of us from the early days. His circumstances were very different, while I was reactivating a long dormant sex life (I’ll write about that one day!) and primarily interested in the physical. I was deeply and vocally averse to any suggestion of a more committed connection – with anyone. Over time, and largely through this community, I have learnt how relationship structures aren’t quite as black and white as I had always thought and I have realised there’s much on the spectrum between fully blended lives and friends with benefits.

That photography is still a big part of how he and I look, despite all the ways we’ve both evolved over last five years, makes me happy. I am probably biased, but I think our photography has got better as we have got better together. And this adventure has brought photography back into my life in a more significant way than it’s been for years. In my business I lead on production and writing – it’s my business partner who’s behind the camera. For years my relationship with photography was as an exhibition goer and travel snapper rather than anything more creative or thoughtful. I love that meeting EA and setting up my blog brought this part of me back.

While the “liminal, womb-like” darkroom (oh, how I miss those days!) may have given way to computers, the intimacy of the developing process has not been superseded by tech. The joy I feel at diving into the editing process is just as it was when I passed through the light-resistant revolving door into the deep red light of the darkroom at university. Last Sunday, flicking through my camera, EA looked at the original of the image below and commented that it hadn’t worked too well. ‘It’ll be fine in the edit,’ I said, because I knew the light was falling just right for me to realise the image that was in my head. The inspiration for the photo below was one we saw at the exhibition.

Writing about Modern Couples The Art Fund talked of it “charting how the concept of a ‘couple’ has evolved, along with society’s approach to marriage, family and gender, it showcases the way in which a variety of intimate relationships – traditional, famed, short-lived and fixational – have resulted in experimentation and, at times, subversion of the status quo.” I like this. I like that the couple is in inverted commas! And I like that I was at the exhibition with Exhibit A. I like that it showcased a multitude of relationship types and celebrated those where art was the lifeblood of them, not a by-product.

Last Sunday was a good day. It was also a funny day. Will he be a Dad next time I see him or will Baby Liv-EA keep them waiting and grant me and him another (closer to home!) meet-up? Who knows! But as his Uber was on its way I said ‘I am looking forward to the next chapter of us.’ And I really am. With all the other changes that will unfold there’s one thing I am sure of – there’ll definitely be photos!

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Invisibility

June 21, 2018 / / 38 Comments

“So I just told them how it all works. I didn’t want to keep it secret because I am really proud of how my relationships work.” Me to Exhibit A, a few weeks back.

I have become friendly with a group of neighbours in the last six months or so. Things started with typical chat about taking in parcels and cleaner recommendations, then someone decided to host Christmas drinks. I thought it would be a couple of hours of small talk, pleasant but not memorable. I wobbled home at gone midnight after an evening of copious wine, raucous laughter and chat that ranged from women’s health in Africa to local running routes to one neighbour confessing her husband tells her off for being an exhibitionist when she stands naked in their bedroom window. Basically, a crowd of people who are right up my street – literally and metaphorically!

One Saturday in April someone pinged the WhatsApp group to see who was around. Remarkably, we were all free! A few hours later we were round a table in a local restaurant, feasting on charcuterie and planning a street party so we could meet even more of our neighbours. Fast forward to the second May bank holiday and we’re having a planning BBQ to finalise party details…

It’s the weekend after Exhibit A and I have been to Luxembourg and the neighbours are asking about my trip. I don’t know if there was something about the way I was talking (I definitely didn’t talk about photos and fucking in musty tunnels!), or whether some penny dropped by chance, but the face of the-neighbour-with-the-big-house-who-always-hosts fell and she exclaimed: “Oh my God! I am so rude. You have a partner and I have never invited him to any of our get-togethers!” I laughed and reassured her it was all fine, thinking it was easier not to get into detail of why he doesn’t regularly rock up to events as my plus one. Then she asked if he would be coming to the street party and I just thought ‘fuck it’!

“I don’t know, I will mention it. I know he and his wife are planning quite a low key weekend but they might want to come.”

Nobody flinched but I could see questions behind eyes so I clarified. It’s ethically open, Livvy and I are friends, I was at their wedding, he loves meeting new people so if any of our street get-togethers happen to coincide with when we have plans I’m sure he’d like to come. Simple statements of fact, a chorus of ‘oh wow’ and ‘that’s cool’ and then onto deciding what games we would put on for the kids. But that straightforward explanation of relationship status when you’re not in a traditional set-up is still relatively rare.

I have written before about being a very happy second and everything I wrote then still stands. I still have zero interest in the trappings of a full time cohabiting relationship. And I still recognise that I thrive from having the security and affection that comes with a partner who means more to me than a fuck buddy does (although I love my straightforward sex dates with fuck buddies too!). But something I have found myself reflecting on over the last year or so is the issue of visibility when you’re a secondary partner living in a society that still doesn’t widely embrace non-monogamous set-ups.

A lot of the time you have to be pretty invisible and it can occasionally make you feel wistful. You have to modify your behaviour, think about what you say, and occasionally lie. Last summer Exhibit A and I went to see a friend of mine do a reading of his work. At one point when EA was looking at his phone my friend mouthed over ‘Is that your chap?’ and shot an ‘appreciative eyes’ look at me. ’No, just a friend,’ I mouthed back. What I really wanted to say was ‘Yes! And I know – hot, eh?!’, but I knew that my friend is friends with EA’s sister. When someone asks how you know them at a party (or a wedding!) you hide your affection and say you used to work together. You spend a lot of time being aware of your actions. I am the most ridiculously enthusiastically tactile person but I once asked whether I could touch EA when we in a pub; he looked at me oddly so I reminded him that we were in Livvy’s sister’s neighbourhood.

Of course, in the sex blogger community there’s no need to hide anything and outside of the community some of my closest friends and a couple of family members know. But broadly speaking a partnership I really value remains largely invisible to the outside world. Nobody is doing anything wrong or intentionally trying to hurt anyone; for many people in non-monogamous relationships it’s still easier, for numerous reasons, to keep things quiet in their wider lives. My situation is in no way unique.

Although I reflect on this from time to time, I don’t dwell on it. I spend enough time overthinking the things I can change without overthinking the things I can’t! But for my own processing of feelings I allow myself to acknowledge that having to hide something that you put work and emotional energy into, and that you’re really proud, of isn’t always easy. Which is probably why the conversation with my neighbours felt like a little victory and why I relayed it with such delight!
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Always Coming Second

April 16, 2017 / / 46 Comments

March 2016 and the early days of a new partnership. We’re talking around the headlines of each other’s lives; comfortable enough to talk about the bigger picture but not yet talking about the finer details.

“So, he is your primary partner then?”

It was phrased as a question but his assumption that the answer would be yes meant he delivered it like a statement of fact.

“No!”

I could tell from the look on his face that he was taken back by the force with which I’d answered. “I don’t have a primary partner,” I added. At that point his look of surprise turned to confusion: “How can you not have a primary partner?” For him, married with children, it was quite clear that our fledgling relationship was a secondary partnership. That I would be coming to things with the perspective of not having a primary partner momentarily destabilised his notion of what we might become. “I don’t want a primary partner,” I clarified, keen to allay any unspoken questions or concerns he might have of the ‘well if he’s not your primary partner are you expecting me to become that?’ kind. But he couldn’t really understand that I didn’t want a primary partner, or rather how I could be happy being a secondary partner when I didn’t have my own primary partnership. As I tried to answer his questions I realised I didn’t really know all the answers myself. Not because I thought that what made me happy was wrong, just because I’d never really thought about why it worked for me. I started this post about two hours later.

My mind has wandered to it every so often since then, but I have never felt compelled to finish it. In truth, I didn’t think I ever would. I occasionally reference partners in written posts and on these pages you’ll find photos of them, of me taken by them, of us, or even of their wives taken by them, but I’ve never written about how my relationships work and never felt the need to. While I hadn’t really expected to publish this post, thinking it through over time helped me process my views, why I respond in the way I do to some things and how I want to label my relationships so they make sense to everyone involved and help me articulate my expectations. Earlier this year, I was answering some questions @19syllables had and I heard myself say “I have a half written post on this. It’s got a great title!” “Oh, write it! I would love to read it,” she replied. Then this Twitter chat happened last week. And so I find myself putting a structure to various musings.

I guess my starting point should be why I don’t want a primary partner. Happily, I don’t have any horror stories that influences this, just a very average roll call of mid-teen obsessions through to lovely late-teen and early twenties boyfriends. Then in my mid-twenties I moved in with a boyfriend. He was brilliant, we were in love and we’re still in touch. But I felt trapped and I felt lonely. I rarely, if ever, feel lonely when I’m alone, but it’s amazing how lonely it is to be with someone when it’s not a situation that suits you. Where some people find security and warmth in a shared home I found claustrophobia. I wanted to travel, he wanted marriage and babies young. I detest routine and our habit of going to the supermarket every Monday actually made me miserable. To this day I cannot bear to be in a supermarket with a partner. I rounded the corner of an aisle in my local Sainsbury’s a couple of years ago and spotted a guy I occasionally fucked and I actually backed away. Seriously! Not because we’d fallen out or I looked rough but because the idea of wandering round a supermarket with a partner rang such Pavlovian Bell of misery!

Was my response to my relationship with Nik because we weren’t right for each other or was it because fulltime relationships genuinely don’t suit me? I don’t know for sure. Maybe there is someone out there with whom I’d happily blend my life, but nothing about the thought of it appeals to me. In my early thirties I made efforts with traditional online dating, not yet admitting to myself even that I didn’t want what all my friends were embracing. The truth is the idea of shared diaries, family events, planning holidays together – all sources of joy and security to many people – make my shoulders go up. Finally accepting that a more flexible and (as far as is possible when you’re an adult and running a business!) commitment-free life is one that best suits me was a great relief.

For a while what that did leave was a life with little or no sex. There was lag time between me ceasing the joyless task of trying to meet ‘the one’ and the point at which I realised I could have relationships that worked for me. I know I’m not interested in casual sex or informal ‘friends with benefits’ arrangements that only mean occasional sex. I want the benefits of a regular partner or partners. I want to learn about someone’s body and they to learn about mine. I want the connection to improve over time as we get to know each other and to have the confidence to suggest and try new things, which I don’t think I would have with casual partners. I like the relaxed intimacy that comes with knowing someone well. I want partners who understand my insecurities and know how and when to reassure me. For a while I assumed all that security was also tied in with a larger commitment to a ‘proper’ relationship and that I couldn’t have one without the other. Not wanting commitment or casual sex meant I just checked out of the dating game altogether for a while.

Then in 2012 a colleague pointed me to OK Cupid and a whole lot changed. I’ve learnt so much about myself and what my expectations are in the years since. One of the most significant is my shifting notion of what constitutes a relationship and becoming comfortable with referring to what I have with partners as relationships. It’s really only in the last year or two that I’ve stopped saying I don’t want a ‘proper’ relationship. It was a conscious decision to stop saying that. Something not being ‘proper’ suggests that it isn’t important or that I have no expectations. I want to engineer what makes me happy by being more vocal about my expectations, believing I can find people to meet them and that I am worthy of having them met. And I decided I no longer wanted to undermine what I have with people who are important to me by suggesting they are not ‘proper’ just because they’re not fulltime or traditional. Why would I suggest that what I have with someone who has been in my life for more than three years, introduced me to this community and has at times listened patiently while I work through my ‘theories of me’ isn’t proper? Why would I downplay the man who I’d only see once a month when he taught me so much about my body and what I enjoy and with whom I started to see some of my partnerships through a structure of polyamory? He met me within days of meeting another woman. He spoke immediately of his desire for a long term committed relationship, saying he could see that developing with either of us. I definitely didn’t want that; she did. “Would I still like to invest in our romance by being his secondary partner?” he asked. Aside from thinking the use of the word romance was charming, this was new label for me. That was my first experience of someone developing a more committed relationship while still ensuring I knew I mattered. With him I discovered that I love to hear about partners’ more significant relationships. I also started to recognise that I only feel vulnerable in my relationships if there’s a not a plan of some sort in the diary. He and I would periodically get our diaries out, look ahead a couple of months and get a couple of week nights and a weekend day in the diary. I don’t like planning more than a couple of months ahead but I also need to know that there is time that will be mine. If I have that then my equilibrium is pretty sound; I’m not someone who needs daily contact or any of the support structures you can expect in a fulltime relationship.

Over time I’ve come up with my own label for how I describe what I look for and that’s ‘partner light’. I can’t really type that without giggling since a friend quipped “well as long as you’re happy with your relationships sounding like an incontinence pad, I guess that makes sense!” but to me it’s the most simple way I’ve found to describe the balance of what I’m looking for. More than friends with benefits, less than fulltime committed partner. And to bring this back to @coffeeandkink’s original tweet, that is why I thrive on being a second.

Over the last five years I’ve had five partners who in some way were or are significant. Of them only one didn’t have a primary partnership when I met them. I have always felt more secure in the partnerships where there were wives, partners or in one case a cohabiting parenting partnership, which meant there were or are people and things that must be prioritised over me. Their need to fit me round the structure of family life or their primary relationship means there is an imperative to plan well, which makes me happy. I find deep reassurance in knowing they have chosen to place me alongside much bigger things in their life while never needing to worry that they will one day want more from me than I am prepared or able to give. And as for the partner who wasn’t in a committed partnership when I met him in 2013? Well, most people in the blogging community don’t need an introduction to what’s happening in his life! Happily, I’d say I don’t really recognise how we are now compared to before. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say I don’t recognise myself in that partnership? I don’t know. But I do know I feel more secure in what we have now. How much time I have with him hasn’t really changed. In fact, as much as I may need reminding of this if I’m being grumpy, I probably see more of him now. Or certainly more in terms of quality time and plans made in advance which keep me happy. I never worried with him about needing to give more than I could but I frequently had a self-destructive degree of insecurity about thinking there were women more exciting or better or hotter than me. As his life has changed over the last two years and I’ve recognised my desire to keep him in my life, my confidence in articulating what I want or what I am worrying about has grown. I no longer pretend I am comfortable with winging it, I make sure we have plans instead. And the upshot is rather than feeling diminished or threatened by such a significant change in his life I actually feel more secure; I more clearly understand that I am valued when time is made for me and what we have continues to exist and evolve alongside something that is so magnificent and so much bigger than us.

I don’t really care how partners label me. They can call me a second or a partner or a lover. The label doesn’t matter to me as much as knowing I am valued and being able to see my place. For me, having the commitment of partners who choose to see me regularly and build me into their lives without there being any expectation of a deeper commitment or more formal blending of lives is where I feel at my best.

If you enjoyed this post (and it’s my most read post ever so I think people are liking it!) then why not head over to The Other Livvy and read another take on the same subject. 

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