Open Marriages Part 2

Following on from yesterday’s comments about Open Marriage, this got me thinking about someone we’ve met who builds catamarans and has become well known for having ‘adopted the Polynesian way of life’.

To me this seems to mean that he has a wife ( a lovely, very intelligent woman) but he became famous for his Other Women, who he took sailing and obviously had sex with. (He has a son by one of them. Oh yes, and his wife stayed at home and brought up the son while the mother went off sailing. Why, I wonder?)

Apparently the Polynesians have lots of wives. The women appear to pander to the men, bring up their children and have a good time. Oh yeah? The children, in turn, are ‘instigated into sex’ by uncles or fathers or whoever from a very young age. Don’t get me started on this topic - but evidently child abuse is unknown, or unacknowledged, in Polynesia.

When this character’s way of life was first mentioned, sitting round over a meal one evening, I was horrified. Unsurprisingly, the men around the table were very envious of this man. Talk about having your cake…

‘Don’t be silly, Pop,’ said my husband with a lustful glow in his eyes. ‘Of course the women enjoy it. That’s what they’ve been brought up to expect.’

I don’t think one qualifies the other, and I shot down his argument pretty smartly, but it got me thinking.

Now I don’t know nearly enough about this way of life, but I know enough to realise that there’s no way I could ever live like that. Perhaps I’m too needy, too selfish. But I need to be able to trust my partner. If he’s off screwing other women, all of whom are people I know, if not my best friends, I won’t respect him let alone trust him. And for me a relationship has to be based on trust and respect. Believe me, I’ve had enough disasters in the past to have learnt the hard way.

So I have no desire to go to Polynesia, or to entertain Himself’s wild fantasies about this way of life. (When he’s sober he would admit to finding one wife hard work, let alone more than one.)

I’m staying firmly in Cornwall. With my husband. In shackles. (Him of course, not me.)

Overload and Infidelity

My mind is buzzing today, like a directionless, demented bee. I have too much to do and can’t decide how to prioritise my workload because I’m waiting for various replies from people. Just to make matters worse, when I sit down and try and concentrate on my course, my mind flits to character studies of the novel that I started doing.

I should be working towards a feature for my next assignment but I can’t get my brain to slow down enough. The words dither around in my head before flying out into the garden where they sit, flapping their wings on the washing that drifts, lethargically, in the breeze. Even the sky is a lazy blue.

Last night we were talking about a friend of Himself’s who, many years ago, had a very Open marriage.

‘He made it very clear that he and his wife slept with whoever they wanted,’ said Himself. ‘He said he always dreaded that knock on the door and someone standing on the doorstep saying Hello Father.’

That never happened (he has two legitimate daughters) but one day Himself and the wife were walking back from the pub when she made it very clear that her current lover was about to move on and she wanted a replacement, and that Himself would do.

‘What did you do?’ I said, trying to imagine a bloated middle aged woman groping Himself - tall, angular, younger man.

‘Shag her?’ cried Himself, outraged. ‘I wasn’t that desperate!’

I only hope he didn’t say that to the husband. He might not have been too flattered.