5 - The Hangover of Relief

Do you know that feeling?

You’ve wished for something with all your heart. The wish finally comes true—and instead of joy, you feel oddly unsettled. That’s precisely how I felt when my husband told me he was ready to try this experiment. All I could hope now was that it wouldn’t turn into a reality show called “How to Ruin Your Marriage in Ten Days.”

The setting where this conversation took place won’t surprise you—yes, our bathtub again. Two weeks had gone by without either of us bringing it up. Not silence, but space. Room to let the words sink in and do their work. Which is why I was stunned when, between champagne bubbles and steaming water, my husband said to me: 

“You are my wife, but you’re not my property.” 

It was the most beautiful declaration of love I had ever heard—and the start of the most honest conversation we’d ever had.

Because if you’re thinking: Great, finally an open marriage—straight onto the charming Swiss guy or off into some wild adventure! —You're forgetting that it had been fifteen years since either of us had slept with anyone else. That may sound trivial, but in reality it was both thrilling and terrifying.

With your partner, you know you’ll be accepted as you are. With strangers, there’s no guarantee. Each of us carried our own insecurities and doubts, which we laid bare to one another.

My husband, for instance, worried that as a man it would take him much longer to find someone than it would for me—and that this imbalance might create frustration between us. That naturally led to the question of whether I already had someone in mind. I nodded, drew a deep breath, and said his name. My husband was only half surprised. His face told me he had suspected as much, and yet it still startled him to hear that name.

That Sunday evening, I stepped out of the bath with an overwhelming sense of freedom. I could picture us twenty years from now, and I could breathe. I saw us woven into a network of relationships with people who mattered to us—people we didn’t have to hide. People who inspired us emotionally, intellectually, and sexually. People who helped us grow both as a couple and as individuals.

The next morning, I could hardly believe this was really happening—that after years of speculation and philosophizing, the starting shot had been fired. While my husband rushed off to create a Tinder profile, I remained stuck at the starting line, paralyzed.

It felt like reaching the final hold on a never-ending climbing route. And instead of letting go, trusting the rope, and allowing my partner to lower me back to the ground of reality, I clung on tightly—unable to let go.

To show you how serious this was: that Monday I called my best friend. Normally, she heard everything—from the badly digested pea to my latest sex experiment. And now I held back the most exciting story of my life.

Before I could face the world’s reaction to our decision, I had to overcome my own emotional hangover from the sudden rush of freedom. Sometimes freedom doesn’t arrive with fireworks—it comes with a pounding head and an overload of feelings.