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Wednesday, February 23, 2022

Polyamory Night - Our First Sex Class...


I first made this post in September of 2019.  It would be the first and only class we attended at this particular place, not because we were suddenly experts, but because of distance and later the onset of COVID.  By strict definition, my wife and I are not engaged in what the purists refer to as consensual or ethical non-monogamy, simply because my wife's boyfriend has a wife that at least on the surface does not know about this relationship that has been going on for over a decade.  But, the information was interesting.

My wife and I attended what we expected to be a talk on the basics of Polyamory.  It was listed as providing definitions, some typical rules, encountering work related issues, and jealousy.  Specifically, there was a lot of discussion on consensual non-monogamy and more specifically, ethical non-monogamy.

I must say that when people start talking about ethical non-monogamy, my Catholic guilt kicks in, because if you know anything about the relationship my wife and I have with her BF, his wife is definitely not in the know.  Now we don't care about that, but I learned the hard way on the website, Quora, that if you dare to identify yourself as anything related to Poly, some people there will shout you down unless every single person involved has a signed affidavit stating that they are okay with anything in the relationship.  

It was with this mindset going into the discussion, I was not about to offer any details of our particular situation, if for instance there was one of those moments where they ask you to stand up and talk about your situation.  No that, didn't happen for us, thank goodness.

I have had my education of these types of relationships mainly through listening/reading Dan Savage, Dr Christopher Ryan, and of course interactions with people I have met via my blog.  What I will say is that, the group we met had some slightly different definitions in terminology. 

Let me back up and describe the setting.  I had been in this women focused sex boutique a handful of times before, but had no idea that there was a full classroom through a set of doors I hadn't noticed before.  When we walked in, the woman at the counter recognized my wife and directed us to this room that had couches and rows of chairs set up classroom style.  There was a table to the side with snacks, cheeses, bottles of wine and such.  A guy in the back of the room was getting the projector up and running and when we sat down, closer to the back, we saw the class instructor come in.  

This woman was what I would describe as your typical middle aged housewife or perhaps school teacher.  There was nothing sexual in her appearance, in fact she easily could have come directly working in a bank or a school or any conservative business place.  She was in a pretty flowery dress, and in a million years, I would have not pegged her for having practiced a poly lifestyle for over 18 years.  The man running the projector was her live-in boyfriend. Her husband was at a Veteran of Foreign Wars meeting.  In a way, they actually make the case that you just never know what your neighbors are into, and there is no stereotypical "look" for people into a particular thing.

I counted and including us, there were 30 people in attendance.  I honestly thought there might be us and two other couples.  Boy was I wrong.  I would say that there was maybe less than three or four people under the age of thirty.  Everyone else was between thirty and sixty and there were at least two ladies who had to be well over sixty-five.  The people in attendance looked like, for the most part, people you'd pass in the halls at work or at the grocery store.  

When the instructor came in, she made eye contact with a handful of people who I learned were regular attendees of this class.  She hugged and kissed on the lips, several of these people.  My wife immediately thought these must have been people she had slept with, but as the class started, it just turned out that these people all knew each other for a long time.

While the man was fiddling with the projector to get the slides going, the instructor asked one gentleman in the back to talk about the group.  I seriously thought that instead of being a class, we had stumbled into a meeting of some large swingers group.  And maybe that's really what it was.  At any rate, the man in the back, at least 60, indicated that the purpose of this group was to learn about the various basics of the lifestyle, but more importantly, offer a like minded community to be able to freely discuss things, ask advice, and really just to get to know people.  He also mentioned a local group on FetLife, and he said with much disdain, a local private Facebook page.

It was more and more clear that a lot of the people attend this same event, strictly for that feeling of community.  The man also stated that everyone of the classes is different, so if you come five times, while the slides may be the same, the conversation will not.

The class got going and she gave terminology, explained how there are so many different configurations of things, triads, V's quads, solo poly, open, swingers, closed groups.  She explained Primary, second, tertiary partners and different variations on Hierarchy, egalitarian, anarchy.  It was noting I hadn't been exposed to, per se, but it where it got interesting was when she started pointing to some of the regulars in class and with thier permission, described the type of relationships these people were in.

One man who did speak up on occasion gave a really interesting description of how he has a spouse and a girlfriend and how his spouse and his girlfriend are girlfriends as well.  In fact, he was at the meeting alone because the two ladies had gone on a long weekend trip together, without him. 

There were descriptions of other groups where a husband had two girlfriends but his wife was not involved with any of them, though, everyone was friendly.  The wife had one or two boyfriends, and same deal.  The husband knows the guys, but they don't hang out together as a big group of friends.  What they all apparently do is manage multiple calendars so everyone connected can be aware of people's schedules.  

The way they used "Ethical" was more about open communication, and not being an asshole.  The used ethical to say, I don't own your time, you offer your time to me, and vice versa, you don't own my presence just because we are partners, I offer it to you.  Hearing that did not make me want to jump up and say, my wife's BF is cheating on his wife, but it did give me a sense that these people were not the Quora Poly police.

The class was scheduled for an hour and it ran closer to an hour and a half.  When the presentation was over, several more of the regulars gave testimonials about their particular relationships and a few people asked questions.  One guy asked how he and his wife can look for a Unicorn without coming across as a creepy couple looking for a unicorn.

We didn't stay around to offer any clues about our situation, but when we left and stopped by our local Mexican place for a nightcap, we had a lot of really good talk about us, our situation with JD, the situation with he and his wife, and the fact that more an more, my schedule has been conflicting with his schedule which means that I either come in at the tail end of their sex, or I miss it all together.  She even sad that I needed to communicate more with JD to let him know that I'm still good with things when I can't be there.

I'm not sure that we'd pay our $10 each to go to this same class again, but I would say it was well worth the money and time.  Seeing the environment has opened up the possibility of attending other classes there, so who knows.

Friday, February 11, 2022

Am I Living on Revolutionary Road?

I first posted this little rant in January of 2010, over 12 years ago.  I'm shocked at how relevant it is to me today.  A week or two ago, a friend and I chatted and she asked me why we don't just get divorced already.  That just isn't going to happen for a number of reasons, but a lot of it has to do with the same reason many couples just drag it out until death.  When I wrote this piece, that's when I should have divorced.  I'm currently doing individual counseling and eventually, we will get to these sort of feelings.  In the mean time, I enjoy reading this one from 2010. (I have not checked the links).

The other night my wife and I watched that movie Revolutionary Road, the story of two really angry people. From the very beginning of the movie it was clear that the wife just had some serious rage bubbling down inside, and the husband was making an effort to keep her from boiling over. And not five minutes into the movie, the yelling and screaming begins. It isn't horror movie; it's life.

My wife and I don't get into shouting matches and all out arguments are rare. But I so connected with the husband in this movie; one minute his wife is absolutely thrilled with their life and as happy as can be, then seemingly without a trigger, she is hating the world and it is all his fault. And he is not without blame. Underneath the smile and efforts to tip-toe around whatever her latest complaint is going to be, he is seething in anger about it all. Where we differ is, I simply don't respond to it anymore.

I often feel for my wife. I feel like an ass for simply not caring. I know there are times when she just needs me to hold her or pay attention to her, but I simply can't flip the switch the way she does. I have never been one to let arguments linger. If a co-worker and I disagree over something, I'm quick to move on from it. Life is too short. But over time, if there is a constant tone of negativity, surely even the most forgiving of people are impacted.

Imagine a guy getting up in the morning and just kicking the shit out of his dog, over and over again all day long, but every few hours, tossing the dog a little treat, followed by more kicking. And then at night, the owner wants the dog to come curl up in bed. I feel like the dog in this scenario quite a bit, yet I feel guilty about it. Go figure.

Like the couple in Revolutionary Road, the husband is not without guilt. He is no husband of the year and I accept that I would not win any such awards. My mind wanders endlessly. When we drive, beneath the sound of the radio, the non-stop chattering of my wife who can't stop talking, I am lost in thought only picking up on a few key words here and there. Where most people engage in conversation during a drive, I pretend to listen but rarely even grunt any sort of response. If you had a tape recording of a trip to the store, it would sound as if if my wife were practicing a monologue on her top ten complaints of the day.

When I get home from work, I don't get even a minute to myself before the flood, the total fire hose of one sided conversation comes pouring out of her. You would think that I would at least nod my head or try to engage but I learned a long time ago that there is no winning in either agreeing or disagreeing with what she has to say. My wife literally argues with me when I agree with her, so what is the point? She can't take yes for an answer and she can't take no for answer, so why choose?

I can't tell you how many times a conversation goes just like this:
her: "Hey, Honey, why don't we go eat at Chili's?"
me: "Sure, sounds great. Let's go"
her: "Well I got this coupon and if we don't use it before the 15th it will expire and I am really tired of us getting these coupons and wasting them."
me: (silence)
her: "And not only that, I am not making anything for dinner, so if you want to eat, you better take me out."

Another favorite:
her: "I really want to go to Chili's."
me: "Sure, sounds great. Let's go."
her: "Or if you want we can go someplace else."
me: "Chili's is fine."
her: "We could go to Applebee's or Bennigan's."
me: "I thought you wanted to go to Chili's?"
her: "Well, if you have your heart set on it, I guess we can go there, but next time I get to choose."

These conversations are just irritants. When I get to be old enough to have a hearing aid, I'll look forward to being able to turn the volume down and simply ignore her. The conversations that have left me crawling further and further into my own world are the ones that revolve around put downs and complaints about me personally. I don't think I am a thin-skinned person, I'm just tired of being the dog. And of course, if I was the only target, I would think that I must really just be a mess. But no, we can never have two good kids. There is always one bad kid. My children, thankfully adults and no longer living at home, can never both be in her good graces at once. And there is no rhyme or reason to when the switch occurs. Ditto for her family members.

So look, I could go on and on about this but why bother? Life is too short to lose one's mind over these so insignificantly small things when there are so many people who have real issues to worry about. We live a comfortable life. We aren't hurting for money and in spite of that anger beneath the surface, we aren't at each other's throats. As Melvin Udall might say, what if this is as good as it gets?

If you haven't seen Revolutionary Road, I don't recommend it. It was depressing and sad and just full of yelling. But it might put your own marriage into perspective.