The Thing Readers Hate About My ENM Relationship

I recently wrote about how Mars and I are a bit in a lull with the “ENM” part of our marriage. We’re spread pretty thin with two toddlers (and one on the way), and his career as a pilot.

The other day, while our two kids crowded his lap and I was hustling around the kitchen trying to get breakfast ready, Mars cleared his throat to say that he might go on a date with a new woman this weekend. I almost dropped the plate I was holding in surprise. It had been so long.

I was now floating above our domestic scene, and awakened from my domestic routine. I felt delighted and a little apprehensive–was this the rekindling of that side of our lives?

The day of the date approached, and I forced myself to stay cool and not ask too many questions. But then his flight was delayed coming home from a trip. He had to cancel on the woman, he told me, and wasn’t sure if or when they would reschedule. “Just too many things are coming up this month, it’s hard to find time…”

I felt disappointment, but some relief. In our busy lives, it was one less thing to focus on.

Mars said he had met the woman online dating.

Ugh…online dating. I shudder at the memory of that black hole of malfunctioned connections.

Before meeting Mars, I was on three dating apps, and suffering from all the consequences. I stayed up way too late swiping, starting unfulfilling messaging games with men, then finally going on a date and struggling to overcome the disappointment when I knew in the first ten seconds I wasn’t interested.

Not sorry at all to have left that all behind.

Balanced but Different

Our dynamic has always been this: Mars does all the dating. He gets turned on by having the freedom to do this. I don’t date, instead I get turned on by being “owned” by him, and by knowing about his extramarital affairs.

This seeming inequality bothers a lot of readers, because they think I’m being oppressed, that I’m letting Mars “get away” with something, or not living my fullest life.

I just want to see you having your own adventures while you’re young! a well-meaning reader wrote on one of my blogs. A familiar anxiety kindled within me.

Was I wasting these years of my life by not seizing all an ENM relationship could offer?

If Mars were to read this blog, he wouldn’t be surprised, I’m sure, to hear me confess that early on in our relationship I did try dallying with other men. I flirted and kissed a few in secret, toeing outside of the boundaries of our agreed upon dynamic to see if it was something I really wanted.

It wasn’t. I don’t crave sex with many people. It was always a relief to pull away from the guy, and have a reason to not go farther. I was all too happy to take back the time and energy that dating took.

I loved knowing I had someone who wanted me all to himself. I got turned on by the “BDSM-lite” aspect of our relationship in which we played at him “owning” me.

I met Mars’s other girlfriends. We had threesomes. He’d fuck me while showing me their sex tapes. Just knowing he was going on a date with another woman was enough to make my body tingle.

It’s hard to not feel a bit depressed by the loss of all that now. The pause in his extramarital dating has given me space to fully appreciate the labor he had been performing for our relationship.

Emotional and Sexual Labor: Who does it?

There’s a lot of talk in relationship forums about who does the “emotional labor” in a marriage.

But I’ve come to truly appreciate how my husband does the “sexual labor” of our relationship–labor that I think is often undervalued. It’s a role that a lot of couples try to tag-team but then just drop over time. For a long time, Mars kept our sex lives pretty spicy, enlivening my sexual appetite and feeding that adventurous side of my life.

I got those benefits all without having to spend a dime, or a minute of my time coordinating it.

I didn’t have to put myself on the line and sum up the courage to ask someone out.

I didn’t have to play the games of an early relationship, then nurture a longer term relationship.

Ironically, it probably would have been easier if our dynamic was flipped, and I was the one responsible for dating others. Mars is an attractive, tall, athletic man with an impressive career. But he has gotten rejected plenty throughout his life, as he’ll openly acknowledge.

“As a guy you just have to be ready for that. You’re going to strike out nine times out of ten when you approach a woman you’re interested in. That’s just all part of the game.”

As a woman, if I was looking for casual or friends-with-benefits sex, my batting average would be much higher. That’s the nature of women being the choosy sex, and men, the…well, less choosy.

It’s a bit more complicated though, than saying that Mars put in more to the ENM side of our relationship. ENM couples will know that with all the perks, there are major challenges, and internal and external battles to constantly be navigated.

I’d get turned on by his dating, yes, but I also was sometimes overcome with jealousy. I had to hold up my end of the stick and work on my shit, to make our ENM relationship work. That’s some serious emotional labor.

Maybe there is a future where I date.

I sometimes wonder if there will be a future in which I do contribute to the “sexual labor” of our relationship by dating others. Perhaps there will be a phase of life in which that will feel like the right thing for us.

“If you ever get bored with me, I can always try dating other people,” I once told him.

He guffawed, “What? That’s totally not what I want.”

“Now,” I agreed. “But things might get stale, you might not feel the desire to possess me as much. You might feel you need a bit of the excitement of the ‘chase’ to feel interested in me again…”

He looked at me funny and with some amusement. “Are you talking about my needs, or yours?”

I blushed. He was right. We do this all the time with our partners, forgetting to see them as individuals and projecting our own needs onto them.

(We do that as readers, too.)