She Loves me More

At some point, who remembers when, Kate and I were having one of our conversations. It was about James, her boyfriend, and how he and that relationship flows into and around ours. Kate is always mindful of me and my feelings, sometimes to a fault; she’ll project from time to time. Anyway, during this one conversation she said “yeah, but I love you more”. In the moment it was absolutly hysterical…..anyway…..

Kate has a way of holding the male (and female) gaze. She might not be the first woman you notice in a room, but before much time passes, she’s the one your attention is drawn to. She has an inviting mix of elegance, unaffectedness, grace, female curves, and warmth that when you see it, you instantly know it’s rare. She’s real. Her style is airy and comfortable in her own skin; she’s a master of knowing exactly where to have a tight bit of fabric, where to have flow, and where to leave bare flesh. She’s effortlessly feminine, seductive, and sexual; it pours off her in a welcoming, never threatening way.

By way of an introduction if you’re reading us for the first time……Kate and I are a married couple in our 50’s whose relationship is Ethically Non-Monogamous (ENM). We’re swingers, our marriage is open; we have sex with other people. We’re in a committed relationship, and somewhere on the polyamorous spectrum; Kate has a boyfriend and is a Hotwife. It’s neither of our first marriages. We met in an AA meeting; we’re each more than a decade sober now. If you’re curious about how this all works, we talk about our relationship in varying degrees of depth in other posts. We have an email address listed in our “about” page if you would like to contact us.

Like all of us, I grew up with a steady drumbeat that preached pair bonded heterosexual monogamy. There wasn’t much else on TV or in pop culture. If there were humans involved in any way, there was the hetero pair bond, or reference to it in the character’s past. The Walton’s. Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham, Frank and Hotlips, The Cosby Show, Leave it to Beaver, countless others. Rarely there would be a token snuck in for spice; Barney Miller had a recurring gay couple, and I think everyone in the 3rd Grade wondered what was going on with it ALWAYS being Freddy, Thelma, and Daphnee going off together.

(Upon further review…..While re-reading this just now, a day after posting the article, it dawned on me that Frank Burns was indeed married; Google verified this. His wife was Louise, and he was cheating with Hotlips.)

I grew up in a middle-class section in an old northeastern city. I was raised Catholic, and the majority of families in the neighborhood all went to the same church. The adults socialized together. I have no memory of anyone being divorced. Widows and Widowers, but no divorce. The only divorced person I can think of was my girlfriend’s mom. She was the woman who introduced me to Baklava, so she’ll always have dear place in my heart.

I have no memory of there being a cheating scandal that was whispered about either. In fairness, that’s a long time ago, and my drinking days did poke a hole or several into my memory. Still, nothing jumps out. There was a vague sense of swinging though I didn’t know that’s what it was called. It obviously wasn’t overt, but especially now that I’m a swinger, I’m pretty sure there was something going with some of the parents. It was the 70’s after all.

There were “bad girls” in high school, the girls who would “put out”, or who “got around”. I dated one for a little while. I wasn’t anywhere near ready for her, and she moved on pretty quickly.

My first marriage stayed in the lane I grew up in for the most part. I cheated a couple times over the years, opportunistic while traveling sort of thing. Nothing systemic or an affair; my ex didn’t know. I couldn’t tell you if she did or didn’t cheat, and the statistics seem to be a wash, so who knows.

Nothing in my lived experience prepared me for Kate. The only thing that prepared me for her, was her.

I got to know Kate slowly, platonically, and very organically over the course of several years. We were sober buddies and the extent of the time we spent together was in meetings. I was absolutely smitten with her, as were most guys in our group; I gave her a box of Hello Kitty Fruit Roll Up’s at one point. She’s one of those people who lift you up just by being there. Sure, she had good days and bad days, days when her head was on fire, and days she was lower than whale shit. That never took from the core decency that Kate has, her humanity, her spark.

There’s a way Kate has of holding contact with you, she locks onto you, it can be a bit off putting at first, it’s that intense. It’s like the universe has been reduced to just you and her. Kate perpetually gives more than she receives, and that I suspect plays a role in her being non-monogamous at her core. No one person can match her energy, she needs more than one connection to balance herself.

You’re as likely to see her planting flowers with a grandbaby, sitting in meditation, helping an addict out of hell, or locked in eye contact with a new lover. She’s equally at home with high born old money people as she is a homeless family; her empathy and humanity are constant. She’s never cruel; she gently scoops moths up and puts them back outside when they come in.

As easy on the eyes as she is, you notice the other things almost as quickly. There’s no air of distance, remoteness, or unobtanium; her aura is warm and inviting. Compassion and empathy in equal measure with her physicality and sensuality. She’s got pheromones in spades; she has her own gravity and pulls people to her.

Interestingly enough, my sponsor, (who’s helped Kate arguably as much as he has me, and has been sober since the Carter administration), has the same qualities. People flock to him; he and Kate are the most giving people I know. He’s got the strong pheromone game as well. He doesn’t wear that part as comfortably and effortlessly as Kate does tho; recovering Catholic that he is, his guilt game is equally strong.

By the time our relationship morphed into a romantic one, I knew Kate pretty well. It was no surprise to me that she was bi, no surprise to me that she’d never had a monogamous relationship. I knew that however this went, it wasn’t going to be just the two of us.

Our path along the poly / ENM spectrum hasn’t always been smooth, there have been fits and starts for sure. There was a good deal of fear on my part early on. I knew what a special thing it was to be intimate and connected with Kate. Despite knowing she’s just not a one man woman, it took me a while to accept that. That her being her authentic self, sharing herself with others, took nothing from me or our relationship.

It’s been the opposite; it’s brought positive energy into our bond. The intimacy, vulnerability, and trust we share today in no small part stems from her being with others. Turns out that fucking other people can be a secret to a successful marriage instead of being the cause of its demise.

People seem to get wrapped up on their perception of an imbalance in our relationship. We don’t keep score, we’re different people with different needs. I don’t have the need for variety that Kate does, I have the need to give someone that space it seems. There’s balance there, as well as an ebb and flow.

We’re on a loosely Buddhist path. We treat it in a similar manner to how we do most of our lives; take what works for us and leave the rest. We’re not lockstep with it, nor do we worry about being lockstep with any label pertaining to our relationship. One of the things that we’ve taken with us is the philosophy that something can be both, and they don’t need to be in conflict. You can love your kid and be made one breath short of insanity by their terrible two’s behavior; they’re not mutually exclusive.

Kate and I are each non-monogamous in our own way, with our own needs, and our home base is our relationship with each other. Our time together gives us the space to be with others; being with others fills our relationship. It can be both.

Thanks for reading!! Be kind to yourself, and to others!!

Sam & Kate