Chapter 25: Megan’s New Partner

I loved tossing relationship questions at Greg, probably as much as he liked challenging me with detailed questions about the Cessna Citation. He was thinking. I repeated my challenge to him, “So, what would it feel like to live in an open partnership with somebody?”

He started slowly to respond, “My eyes are opening up rapidly in this discussion but let me try. There wouldn’t be the possessiveness I’ve felt in some relationships. I’d feel we were working towards some mutual goals yet I’d have my own goals and my partner’s encouragement to pursue them. They’d have goals and I’d support and encourage them, and we’d have some together. There wouldn’t be any jealousy, only support and encouragement. We’d both share a lot through conversation – share what we’re doing, how we think about things and other people, what we want from life and our plan for getting it. If there was a friction point, we’d address it right away and search for a way to eliminate it.”

“Go on,” I told him, “You’re doing well with your list.” I got in a few bites of my dinner.

He grinned and continued, “There wouldn’t be any ‘head games’ – like one of us trying to ‘one up’ the other. There’d be no secrets or sacred cows in terms of conversation. Consequently, we’d align on some pretty realistic expectations about our lives together. There’d be no myths we’d be trying to propagate and no wishes or fantasies we’d be trying to hide from the other.”

I nodded to Greg and he went on, “We’d be equals in the relationship. We’d be two independent people that are more because we’re together. That wouldn’t mean we’d exclude others, to the contrary because that would be how we’d grow and bring interesting things we learn back to the relationship – or even bring the people back to the relationship.”

“What about privacy?” I asked.

Greg thought for a minute as we sipped our sodas. Finally he said, “You could have too much ‘together time’ in a relationship. It’d be good to go out on your own – to be alone or to have a private time with someone else perhaps. Sometimes, you can be in the same room with someone but you need some psychic space to chill your mind and that would be okay. The other partner wouldn’t feel they were being ignored or dismissed.”

The waitress brought our dinners. I could see Greg appreciated the break from the intense drill I’d been putting him through. I actually thought I’d made him think harder about relationships than he had me on the Citation’s hydraulic systems.

I asked a question in the area we both carefully avoided so far; “Greg, we’ve not mentioned sex or intimacy so far. How’s that fit now that we’ve laid this foundation?”

He pondered the question and sipped his drink. He finally said, “It’s almost irrelevant. By definition an open partnership has a deep intimacy in it so the sex must be fantastic.”

“Is it a monogamous relationship?” I asked.

He thought again and said, “Not necessarily – in fact, I guess thinking about the way we talked about trust, sharing, reaching out to others, growing and evolving through each other and with others, that it’d be unusual if from time-to-time others weren’t involved in some intimate way – sexual perhaps but not a requirement.”

“Would the other people you brought into your open relationship be just with you or with the ‘couple’?” I asked.

“Either,” Greg said. “Or both or just one of the two.”

“Two?” I asked.

Greg frowned, “I don’t understand the question.”

“Does your partnership have to be restricted to two people – your relationship?” I asked.

“Wow,” Greg said. “No. No, it wouldn’t have to be would it. You could have three, four, or more people in an ‘open relationship’ couldn’t you?”

“Yes. I’ll give you an example; Josh’s sister Fiona got married last May to a really nice guy – Ray. The two of them had long before formed a relationship with another woman that they both love dearly and in every way you can imagine. Her name is Stacy and she’s pregnant with Ray’s child and Fiona is jumping around like an expectant father too.”