Don't Ask Don't Tell

My first wife Cindy had a lover who was the husband of a couple who were also friends of ours. His wife was also named Cindy. They had a Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) arrangement. Having a wife and a lover with the same name must have been very convenient for him.
It was so awkward for my Cindy and I though. My Cindy and he, my girlfriend Mary and I would go fun double dates.
But, it felt icky to me like we were sneaking around. His Cindy knew he was seeing someone else but not that that someone else was my Cindy. I considered his Cindy as a friend. I left it for them (he and the two Cindys) to work out and it didn't last long. We went separate ways.
I prefer to be open and for all parties to know. I do not like DADT. But, what if your metamour is in a DADT and that's fine with your partner?

Double Dating With a Twist

I have fond memories of double dating “with a twist”. My inamorata Mary and I had dinner at a nice restaurant with my wife Cindy and one of her fellas. This one was another neighbor. He was married with a couple of kids our kids age.

I liked him and we all got along well. This was always an interesting dynamic and allowed me a perspective of Cindy most men never have of their wives. Mary and I were a couple in our own right and since Mary was Cindy’s best friend, it was very comfortable.

I preferred getting to know the metamours and since I already knew and liked this one there was not even a hint of jealousy this evening. It was pretty radical for the early 1980s the decade before the word Polyamory even existed, and before the rules of everybody knowing and consenting were appreciated.

After an enjoyable dinner Mary and I went to my place and Cindy and him went to his. I don’t think she spent the night there. I think early in the morning she came home and crawled in with Mary and I.

The bummer ended up being that he did not have his wife’s permission and she found a condom wrapper. I don’t think she ever knew it was Cindy that her husband was with. If she did, she didn’t let it show.

Compersion before compersion

Urban dictionary defines compersion as, “A feeling of joy when a loved one invests in and takes pleasure from another romantic or sexual relationship.” A Wikipedia definition is, "Compersion is an empathetic state of happiness and joy experienced when another individual experiences happiness and joy, and the term is regularly used by members of the polyamory community in the context of polyamorous relationships. It is used to describe when a person experiences positive feelings when a lover is enjoying another relationship."

I remember feeling strong compersion when wife Cindy and/or our girlfriend Mary were having sexy times with others and even more when we were doing threesomes together. We just did not have the word compersion for these feelings when they were happening in the 1970s.

It gave me pleasure seeing their pleasures. In fact it was hot! In the Book Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá, the authors contend having multiple sexual partners was common and accepted in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness before the advent of agriculture. Cristopher Ryan did a Ted talk on this subject.

According to Wikipedia, “The authors argue that human beings evolved in egalitarian hunter-gatherer bands in which sexual interaction was a shared resource, much like food, child care, and group defense.”

So, perhaps there is a biological precedent for socially acceptable non-monogamy and compersion having once been the norm. Is that why so many folks suck at monogamy? Does having a biological precedent even matter? You may ask, what about love?

To my knowledge Cindy was only sexually, never emotionally, involved with another man when she was married to me. So, I never got to experience her being in full new relationship experience (NRE.) I was both emotionally and sexually involved with Mary. But, Cindy was there for me and seemed to accept my love and NRE for Mary and expressed her own love for Mary in our triad.

Compersion, yea, I think it’s real. It was for me, even before it was defined.

Memories and pain

Memories are fickle and non linear. Memories are sometimes as much a statement of who we are now as of who we were then. We remember with the knowledge of how things turn out, events that occurred when their outcomes were unknown. Memories are not always balanced or fair.

As I write about these remembrances there is surely much I have forgotten. I was young and I cannot ask either Cindy or Mary about their memories, since they are gone. They are my two angels in heaven now and someday I hope to join up with them again along with my current wife. I am sure I will have a lot of questions to ask and some apologies to make.

It wasn't easy. I remember fights and jealousies involving Cindy and I and between Mary and her husband Lenny. Like mothers who forget the pains of labor as they remember their baby's smile. There may be a lot more that I have forgotten because it hurts to remember.

Not remembering the pain does not mean it didn't happen. I don't remember ever arguing with Mary that does not mean it didn't happen. I do remember pain and a lot of drama in general. I remember there were tears. I don't want anybody to think this was easy and painless. The best parts hurt less to remember. Sometimes, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

No other word for it

In the mid-70s we had gone full swap, unlimited pass with no real negotiations of boundaries. Finding other partners was easier for Cindy than for me and she did find others. My focus was on Mary who I was falling in love with.

Our only reference point was the standard narrative. To me that narrative implied that to fall in love with Mary I had to stop loving Cindy. But, that’s not how it played out. Still filled with new relationship energy, I was all-gaga over Mary. But, I still loved Cindy. Cindy had other partners but made no outside emotional connections that she shared with me.

I do not want to make this sound easy, it wasn’t. Not only did we not communicate well, we lacked the words to communicate with. So, you can imagine the drama.

We had a close group of friends. We had group parties. These were not hard-core lifestylers who played safe, had rules and boundaries. Cindy would find someone to play with and I always found Mary. I loved seeing Cindy play and I enjoyed playing with Mary, sometimes just us, sometimes with Cindy (FMF) and sometimes I played with Mary and Lenny (MFM).

It was all great fun, but an emotional roller coaster. Lacking nothing else to call it we called it “weirdness.” It all felt weird, fun and sexy but weird. Cindy was moving towards swinging. I was moving towards polyamory. I wish I had known then what I know now. Weirdness was a bad choice for a name. It was followed by another term we did not understand, shaming...

Along came Mary

As Cindy and I were processing the feelings over Cindy’s affair with my brother we had one couple we confided in. That couple was Cindy’s brother Lenny and his wife Mary. Lenny and Mary were in an open marriage already. We discussed the feelings of regret, jealousy over the affair and how that contrasted with opening up our own marriage.

This was a totally home grown idea. For us the idea of having an open marriage was new but we had no real resources, no Internet and nowhere to turn for a role model or to join any kind of on-line group. This was the 1970s, remember. We were young and living in a conservative town. Terms like compersion, polyamory, the lifestyle; etc. did not exist for us. Where were the rules? Where was Reddit when we needed it?

Lenny and Mary listened, we talked, and they talked. They talked about how they rolled their own open marriage. It was sexy. With the help of some rum, some weed and I have long forgot what else, it became clear that some chemistry was developing between Mary, myself and; surprise, Cindy and Mary. Mary was the hinge.

For some reason, I cannot quite remember, I went in to take a shower. As I was soaping up my body, the door opened. It was Mary. Mary stepped into the shower with me. We started kissing. I will never forget how her skin felt, how her body tasted, how it felt to hold her.

Our good friend became our lover that night. She also entered my heart and never left it. She is still there now.

I am sure mom knew

I think she knew, I am almost sure of it!

Because my mom suffered from severe depression at times, folks had a tendency to underestimate her. She had been in and out of institutions at times, she had problems but she wasn’t stupid.

My mom, like me, suffered from chronic insomnia. This was the mid-70's. I was working nights a lot then and my parent’s house had paper thin walls. We were staying at my parent’s house as Cindy cared for my dad and our baby.

Dad was a huge man, tall and over 300 pounds. Cindy was small compared to him. Dad's body slowly failed him and he got worse and worse and became like a huge baby himself. He was determined to die at home. My wife Cindy was the only one willing and able to take care of dad. She took on a huge job caring for him and our baby at the same time. It was a major sacrifice for a 19 year-old woman and she did it willingly out of love.

She was also a very sexual young woman and my 35 year-old brother Darryl must have been an adventurous escape for her from her days. Darryl flew across country twice to visit dad (and my wife, it turns out.) Sometimes I found out later, when I was home and asleep from working long hours, she would go to him in the guest room, and then come back, wake me up and we would make love. I did not even know.

But, I think mom knew and never ever told. I can imagine what it must have been like for mom, laying next to her husband who was dying, knowing she needed Cindy to take care of him and hearing that all going on. Still, like me, mom loved Cindy too and Cindy would be there for mom too, when mom died years later.

I am glad I forgave Cindy. If it hadn't been for what happened the story of Mary would have likely been quite different. Cindy was a good person and I still love her almost 40 years later.

Darryl

I called Darryl and tried to have a heart-to-heart and, he lied. He said the affair had never happened. He said Cindy was making it up. He said she was crazy.

Looking back I can see that he was afraid. He had a wife and a family. The truth did not come out of his mouth until after Cindy was dead.

Of course when I told Cindy what Darryl said, she was even more livid than I was. I was angry with my brother and still processing that the affair had even happened. Cindy, in her mind, had to confess because of her guilt. Now she also felt betrayed by my brother, her former lover. Considering how she had cared after his and my father, this was especially searing for her. I told her I believe her and was there for her as she and I processed a raw bundle of emotions.

We went through a difficult period. As for me it took me over a decade and a half before I would have anything to do with my brother. Cindy never did. There was a permanent rent in our family that has never fully healed. That decade and a half later, when I decided to forgive my brother even though he had never asked for it, my forgiveness of him helped drive Cindy and I apart.

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...

Judgement or not

When you read what follows I know it may, or may not, make you think less of me. I can't help that. I hope it does not make you think less of Cindy. She was a sweet girl, only 19 at the time, I was 21.

According to Wikipedia, Open Marriage was a best selling book 1972 by Nena O'Neill and George O'Neill. It was on the New York Times best-seller list for 40 weeks. Cindy and I were readers. I can't remember if we read the book, but we may have. We certainly were aware of all the media hype then surrounding the book.

We talked about it and were even titillated by the idea of having other lovers. It was a fantasy we shared while we were having sex sometimes. Cindy was attracted to other women. She shared that fantasy too. She had at that time never had that experience.

When we became lovers, I was Cindy's second or third lover and she was my third. In the 1970's our country was in the middle of a sexual revolution. Please read the upcoming blog posts on Mary and Infidelity before passing judgement. We all make mistakes. But, was this a mistake or just a reaction to circumstances? Looking back I think maybe it saved our marriage.

Still it was not well timed or well thought out. We were in a very stressful situation and I was not helping. In 1977 Cindy had her affair with my brother Darryl.

Darryl lived out of state, thousands of miles away. He would come to visit our dad and, as it turned out, Cindy too. He was 35 and married with kids. At one point, perhaps during one of our conversations about open marriage, I seem to remember Cindy saying she felt attracted to Darryl and asking if she could have sex with him. I said no, it was not a good time for us to open our marriage. I did not know she had already done so.

In the summer of 1977 dad died. I quit the railroad. We moved to the state capitol. Sometime after that Cindy told me of her affair. She wanted to admit her guilt and unburden herself. I was crushed and left, I went to my mom's house.

A Difficult Start

About five months after we married, Cindy tested positive on a pregnancy test. Number one son was on his way! I was working at the post office, I think, when we found out Cindy was pregnant. Thankfully this was a period of time when our state had good social benefits. My post office job was temporary and benefits were limited. I have good memories of this time, I don’t remember too much negativity. We had gotten our first apartment. Shortly after this I got a job on by the railroad. Cindy's pregnancy was a pre-existing condition not covered by the railroad's health plan (America, what a country!)

Cindy was a great cook and I had been morbidly obese for much of my childhood. I lost most of my weight during the summer between High School and College, before I met Cindy. After we married I started putting weight back on. I had always yo-yoed with my weight. By the end of 1976 I was getting obese again.

After the baby came, we continued living in our apartment until my father's health deteriorated.

Sometime in the winter of of this year I was injured on the job. Early the next year things started changing, not for the better, in Cindy and my marriage. After a month I went back to work. Then, my father got very sick. We moved back in with my parents to help my dad. I was getting a lot of pressure from my sisters to do this. I was dead set against doing it. I thought it was too much. I was 21, my wife 19. This was about a year into our marriage.

I felt my siblings should share more in the burden of taking care of my dad. Cindy, who was 19 at the time, took care of my dad with almost no help. She and I started fighting a lot. I was very angry. I did not appreciate how much she loved my parents. She really took on a lot. She did it out of love. I just made her life more difficult.

Remember, we had a baby too. Our child had his own health problems. In addition, unbeknownst to me at the time, Cindy, and my oldest brother Darryl, started having sex. This was about 15 months into our marriage.