We opened up

After learning of Cindy's affair with my brother Darryl I went to my mom's house. There I met my sisters. I told them of what I learned and, surprisingly to me at the time, they stood up for my brother. Plus, my mom was sick herself and they said, "if mom learns of this it will kill her." I thought about this. I also thought of other very important things. I love Cindy. I have a family. I am partly to blame too because I had been a jerk. And, yes, we had been talking about opening our marriage anyway.

So, I went back home. I talked to Cindy and that's what we did. We did not do it for my sisters, my mom, or my brother. We did this because it was what we wanted to do, for us.

This was the 70's and this was before AIDS, and after the pill. But, this was before there were terms like sex-positive, polyamory and we were totally ignorant of what is now called the lifestyle and Tristan Taormino was not yet in grade school and her book Opening Up was decades away. With no guides, with no community, with no idea what we were doing we opened up our marriage and did it in a way that would now be called the wrong way to open up.

Of course there was still the issue of my brother to deal with...