The Great Risk of Non Monogamy — Sometimes You Can’t Help Falling in Love
What happens if you fall in love with someone else?
When I decided to become non monogamous, I wanted to have sex with other men. The last thing in the world I was looking for was to fall in love with another guy. In fact, it was my greatest fear and one of our rules: No falling in love. But then it happened.
Have you seen the movie “Before Sunrise” with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy? It’s the one where they meet by chance while he is traveling through Europe as a young man. The whole movie describes their entire relationship — from the getting to know you stage to falling deeply in love. They are together exactly 14 hours from start to finish. Over the course of their night together, walking the streets of Vienna from sunset to sunrise, they reveal to each other who they are. Like, who they really are. They are uninhibited, showing the deep parts of themselves. We the viewers feel like they understand each other implicitly and completely. They are completely uninhibited. Living completely in the moment (at least until sunrise).
When I saw this movie, way back when I was in my twenties, I distinctly remember thinking “fuck, I have never had this feeling”. And until very recently I hadn’t.
The beginning of my “Before Sunrise” moment
I met this guy, I’ll call him Special Guy, on Tinder. He didn’t really have anything particular going for him and didn’t actually fit any of my usual criteria. He was one of many blue collar-type single guys in his early forties with pictures of his motocross bike on his Tinder profile. I usually don’t think I have much in common with those guys — they seem too rough around the edges for someone like me. Plus there’s a lot of that type of guy in my city and it’s hard to tell them apart from their profile descriptions. So, typically I just swipe left. The only thing that set Special Guy apart was that he had lots of pictures of water — the lake, the ocean — and for some reason it was enough to get me to swipe right on him.
We matched and texted back and forth for a bit — not long because by this time I had learned that it is a waste of time to spend a lot of time texting. (The time spent on a first date is worth not spending oodles of time texting with a guy that you have no chemistry with.) Special Guy was not a good speller — like terrible — so communicating over text was challenging. But he had this warmth and sincerity that came through and I was interested enough to agree to meet him for a drink downtown. What I liked about him even more was that he agreed to meet me without seeing a picture of me first. I figured he was probably a nice enough guy to have a drink with me even if he thought I was butt ugly.
I had an idea of what this water-loving guy would look like (he had profile pictures), but it’s always amazing to me how different people look in real life even if they have several pictures on their online dating profiles. Special Guy was a case in point. I found him attractive but not capital A attractive when I saw him waiting for me. He was a short, broad-chested man with a limp. His long curly hair hidden beneath a ball cap. He was nervous. Over the course of our first-date getting-to-know-you conversation, he told me he had 5 kids (so many!), was recently separated from a very long-term monogamous relationship and that I was his first date in 20+ years. We had one beer together, walked around the downtown park and then called it a night.
To be honest, I wasn’t totally sure if I was interested in seeing him again at that point. He was nice, but there wasn’t anything crazy exciting about him.
Would it surprise you if I fast-forward six months and tell you that this became my “Before Sunrise” experience?
You might ask, what the heck happened between the so-so first date and falling in love? And wait, wait, wait, wait, wasn’t falling in love against your rules?
Yeah. There’s a story here.
The greatest fear of us opening up came true: falling in love
Like many couples, when my husband and I decided to open our relationship, we were really scared of something terrible happening to our relationship. And, for us, we thought that falling in love with someone else would cause our relationship to fall apart. We were convinced that it would draw too much attention, energy and desire away from our relationship and spell its doom.
To try to avoid falling in love we tried to protect ourselves from letting it happen. Like I’ve written about in a previous post about our non monogamy rules (see here), we included a rule about “no falling in love” and insisted that if one of us started feeling strong attachment towards another person that the relationship had to end before it got too far. We also included statements in our online dating profiles to the effect of “looking for casual friendships” and “not looking to change my relationship or yours”. Our intent was to avoid falling in love because we didn’t have confidence in our ability to navigate that in our relationship.
And then we started dating. And I met Special Guy, and unexpectedly everything changed.
It all started so quietly
The first shift with Special Guy was a chance meeting with him about two weeks after our first date. I had dropped off a kid at a hockey game. Being the antithesis of a hockey mom that I am, instead of watching my kid playing his game I went for a long run. I had just gotten back to the rink in time to watch the last minute of play (cursing myself for not having timed things better and enjoyed another minute of running instead of sitting on the sidelines). I was sweaty and gross. My hair was a complete and total mess.
And fuck me, I saw him get out of his car right in front of me.
I tried, I admit, to duck my head down, hoping he wouldn’t see me. But he did. And he told his kids to run ahead, did a double-take and walked over to me. He had a brilliant smile. He was happy to see me. And completely unfazed seeing me with bright red cheeks (50% due to running, 50% due to being so embarrassed), sweat dripping from my forehead, and wearing ugggggly sweatpants.
We talked for about five minutes. I don’t remember of what. All I know is that after this chance meeting I felt something. A little buzz of attachment. A weird connection with this man who, on the surface I had nothing in common with. But that little buzz was enough to go on a second date with him.
And it was wonderful. We talked. We had a drink. And then talked some more.
Our first kiss was okay. Our first time having sex was okay.
Can’t help falling in love.
But then we had a sleepover and it changed everything.
(Some context to what I’m going to share next: I just need to back-up a bit and explain that I have had sleep anxiety ever since I had babies. None of my babies slept through the night until they were after 2 years old, so I was extremely sleep deprived for six years in a row. Since, I have a weird anxiety about getting too tired and not getting enough sleep. So I tend to panic when I don’t get to bed at a “reasonable” hour, and fret if I think that I am going to lose any precious hours of sleep for any reason).
My first night with Special Guy was awful sleep-wise. Neither one of us slept a wink. It was the height of summer and we were in a room with no A/C so it was hot as hell in the bedroom and we were both uncomfortable.
BUT. OMG. This is such a big BUT. It was the most magical night. Because throughout that sleepless night I had a connection with this man. We barely spoke, but every time I moved, he was there, holding me, cuddling me, calming me. He was happy and you could feel it radiating from him. He was comfortable. I could sense he liked being next to me even while I tossed and turned. He wanted to touch me and be connected. And instead of freaking out about how few minutes of sleep I’d had, I was happy to have spent that whole night awake. With him. Just being together.
And I think, just like that, I fell in love with him.
It took me months to realize what had happened. I denied it to myself. I denied it to my husband. And I didn’t use the “L word” with Special Guy for the longest time. But deep down I knew that something had happened that night.
Yeah…Falling in love with another man was as tough as we had feared
When it all came out, and everyone knew that I loved Special Guy, we entered brand new non monogamy territory.
My husband, I think you might be able to guess, had a hard time dealing with my revelation that I had developed strong feelings for Special Guy. In part he was hurt that I hadn’t warned him that it was happening — felt almost blindsided. The thing is, there was no straight path to falling in love with Special Guy. It was progressive, quiet, and just kind of happened. One day I simply realized that I wanted, desperately, to have him in my life. No doubt I could have been a bit more open with my husband as the first niggles of falling in love appeared. I could have been a bit more clear about my “before sunrise” sleepover and how intimate it had been. But I didn’t know for sure at that time what I was feeling. So I kept it from him, and from myself, for a long time.
Once it was out in the open, my husband, being the fair guy that he is, took a while to process the news. I think on a fundamental level he knew that I was capable of loving more than one person. I think he knew that I was still committed to our relationship and our life together and as a family. But he was jealous. And felt insecure about what the “other guy” was giving me that he couldn’t give me.
And I don’t blame him one bit. I know that if he had fallen in love with someone else it would have been incredibly hard for me. In fact, I dread it happening because I am not sure I will be able to handle it as well as he did.
So, am I polyamorous?
My relationship with Special Guy made me rethink and question a lot of what it was I wanted from my non monogamous relationships. My husband and I had definitely not planned to go down the whole polyamory road. We had a clear rule about “not falling in love” with our other partners. But Special Guy changed all that. Because I discovered, as did my husband, that emotions are hard to control. Sometimes, when you’re least expecting it, it just happens.
In the past I had always equated being in love with having a “traditional” relationship. Meet someone, fall in love, go out for a while, move in together, get married, have kids and stay together in sickness and in health type of relationship. With Special Guy, I wanted none of those things. Whereas I loved his quiet way of being when I saw him, I was quite sure that it was not the pace of life I would want to live with on a permanent basis. It took me a while to realize that just because Special Guy didn’t fit into the mold of what I considered a “normal” relationship, didn’t mean that I didn’t want him in my life. Not every relationship needs to follow the same path.
I was also a bit relieved to find that my love for Special Guy didn’t lessen my love for my husband. But, I have to admit, it did make me need and want my husband a little less. I needed less from husband because my bucket was being filled by someone else. And my husband could feel it. Could feel that I had split my attention, that I was less dependent on him than before to fill my bucket. And I’m not sure, even now, whether that’s okay.
I also felt like loving someone else brought an incredible richness to my life. And, like love expands when you have more than one kid (and doesn’t divide like the jealous older sibling might think when a new baby is brought home), I felt capable of loving more than one man. But the logistics of loving more than one man were tough. Splitting my time and energy between them, my children, my job, and the other parts of my life made me feel stretched thin. Over time I started to feel like I was giving so much to them all (kids, husband, job, Special Guy) that I was no longer giving myself any time.
So what happened?
As you may have deduced from my use of the past tense, Special Guy and I are no longer together. Special Guy wanted more and more from me. I knew that I couldn’t give him the whole of me that he wanted. I made the very hard decision, but a decision I wanted to make, to re-focus my energy on my husband and kids. And, to be honest, on myself.
It’s been several months since I last saw him and I still feel a piece of my heart is missing. I miss him, I miss his body, I miss his love. And I may miss it for the rest of my life. But I also feel more settled and more present in my life. Not as divided and stretched thin as I had been feeling.
Perhaps the best thing that I have discovered since I broke things off with Special Guy is that I am grateful to my husband. I probably haven’t told him this enough, but I am incredibly touched by how caring he has been towards me throughout this whole experience. Although it was hard for him, I think he fundamentally understood that I could love him and someone else. And he was there for me when I cried about ending things with Special Guy. Now that’s love.
Would I do it again?
Not sure.
One thing I’ve now realized is that the relationship I had with Special Guy was disproportionately protected from real life. With him, I could escape from the stresses of life. When we were together, it was just the two of us, enjoying focussed, intimate, one-on-one time together. His kids weren’t around. We didn’t talk about work or car payments. It was just us in a quiet cocoon of love. In contrast, my husband and I share all the good and bad parts of real life. Being with my husband is real — kids, work stresses, logistics about who needs to drive to hockey practice, dirty dishes, the mundane chores of daily family life (the laundry!!), mortgage payments, etc.
It now seems to be a bit unfair that Special Guy was benefitting from way more focussed and calm attention from me than my husband. My husband sometimes just shares my space as we whirl around each other trying to get through life. In a sense, it makes me better understand why I enjoyed (and sometimes craved) my moments with Special Guy. It wasn’t just being with him that was special, but being away from “real life” too.
To be honest, I am not too sure what to do about this realization. Perhaps, for now, it is sufficient to acknowledge that I am now aware of how different the contexts of the relationships were. And perhaps, if I ever fall in love again, I will be a bit more careful. I will try balance more equally the focus and calm between my husband and my new love. In the meantime, I now acknowledge that I need to escape from real life a bit. I need restorative moments in my life. So I am now searching for ways to do this both by myself and, increasingly, with my husband.
So perhaps I have to thank Special Guy for that too. Not only did he give me my before sunrise moment, he also made me realize that I have the opportunity to seek out lots of sunrise moments with my husband too.
