Hoooooo BOY it's a big one!!! 14th February and guess day it is? Yep, Valentine's Day - the day every couple everywhere (and friends if you're talking about my best friend Jess and I last year) celebrates their love for one another and go on cute date nights and just generally be in love. It's nice! And the story is cool.
But I kinda wanted to do something a bit different and I thought what better time to write about this than now? It's something I've wanted to talk about a lot on the blog but never really known how to go about it, so I thought I would do a little "commonly asked questions" or "myths vs facts" about being in an open relationship, talk about how it started, why we're in it and how I'm finding it and the future. (Hope you're ready for a VERY long blog post)
So for those of you who know me in real life, you'll know all about the background to my boyfriend and I meeting - we met in mid-May 2019, a month after I'd broken up with my ex and a couple months after he broke up with his. Neither of us were looking for anything serious (in fact he was my first date after my breakup and I was adamant I wouldn't be getting in a relationship any time soon after that) and wanted something very slow, very casual but fun at the same time, so we embarked on a sort of friends with benefits/booty call arrangement. If you also know me in real life you'll know it's very odd for me to be able to do this without falling head over heels in love with someone - I am very clingy so the fact I was so chilled with it just showed me that I really didn't want or need a committed relationship at this point. Around July time we sort of started having feelings for each other but decided we wouldn't do anything except acknowledge it and carry on as we are. We liked each other as more than friends (so rebranded as a booty call with feelings) but neither of us liked the idea of not seeing other people or having restrictions on dating/shenanigans with others. I was also very conscious of the fact that I've never really explored my bisexuality that much and I didn't want to be in a relationship where I couldn't do that.
Obviously summer 2019 we spent a couple months apart but when I moved back to Manchester in September we started spending a lot more time together and going on dates and everything else and we started talking about where it was going and agreed that an open relationship would work best for both of us and fit exactly with what we wanted. Open relationships work differently couple to couple but we don't really have any restrictions on who we date or sleep with, it's pretty much a free for all (although I think if he slept with one of my housemates or my sisters I'd have a problem...).
People like to judge open relationships and the amount of "what if" scenarios people bombard me with when they find out (what if he falls in love with someone else? What if you get married, would it still be open? That kind of ilk) is kinda crazy. And the "oh, I could never be okay with my boyfriend sleeping with someone else" is a bit annoying. I think for me, it's a lot to do with my attitude to sex and how that's changed in the last year or so. I don't particularly see sex as a big thing, a relationship to me isn't about having sex - it's more about the connection I have with the other person and the actual emotional relationship I have with them and honestly that's probably why I'm okay with my boyfriend having sex with other girls.
It's also helped both of us be way more honest and open and communication definitely isn't one of my strong points - I get very caught up in not wanting to upset people so I tend to just not say anything at all and this has definitely changed since being in an open relationship. Gus always says too that it takes the taboos away from finding other people attractive and makes jealousy less of an issue and that's really been the case for both of us. I haven't really found myself getting jealous of him since we've been together and he doesn't with me either - if anything, it's kind of fun to be able to talk about finding other people attractive and wanting to sleep with other people and date other people rather than being ashamed of feeling that way and hiding it.
We don't really talk about the future. We don't really discuss the "what ifs" because there's not really any point. If he had feelings for another girl he would tell me and we would talk about it then - it's not like I would be surprised or shocked by him suddenly leaving me for someone else because that just isn't how a relationship like this works - you have to be open to not only other people but communicating with each other and checking in on your feelings constantly. It sounds like a lot of work but honestly, I've had a happier and healthier year with him than I have done in any previous monogamous relationship (which is something my friends have also noticed in me) and instead of being worried about how the future will pan out for us, I'm kind of looking forward to it more than anything.
I LOVE talking about my relationship and sex and all good things so if you have any more questions for me about this please don't hesitate!! I'd love to hear from ya.
Em xx
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