61 - The Point of No Return

I hinted at it last time: our misfired-yet-perfectly-fitting weekend came with one more complication. All I wanted were three uninterrupted days with Leif. The child was taken care of. The mister, somehow, was too—until suddenly, he wasn’t. His sister canceled on Saturday morning. He actually wanted to come home. To our house. The house that, for precisely that weekend, had been repurposed.

We had discussed this possibility beforehand, and I had asked him to please spend the three hours until our departure at the climbing gym. Or with friends. Or doing literally anything that didn’t involve “coming home early.” After all, I had done exactly that dozens of times over the past year—so he could have uninterrupted sexy time. But for some reason, there was just no way through. And I didn’t understand why.

In retrospect, I have to admit: I didn’t really take the time to find out.

So: Plan B. We’d all have lunch together. The men already knew each other. What could possibly go wrong when people sit at a table armed with knives?

Answer: feelings. Those things that ruin logic entirely. Like calories that sneak in at night and secretly tailor your clothes tighter.

It had been completely fine for the mister to meet Leif somewhere else with me. What he liked a lot less, though, was coming back to his house—and suddenly feeling like a guest in it. The atmosphere between the two of them was tense. I could feel how uncomfortable he was, and yet I couldn’t change the situation in the moment.

On Sunday evening, as we sat together in the bathtub—the bubbling, universal truth machine of our relationship—he was finally able to put into words what I hadn’t read between the lines: Just because it’s okay for me to hand over the house for fucking—and the subsequent architecturally demanding relationship management—doesn’t mean it’s okay for him.

And that was precisely what I had assumed.

My inner monologue went something like this: I’ve done this for you countless times—now you can do it once for me. There it was again, that lesson I apparently still hadn’t fully absorbed: You should never assume the other person feels the same way you do. That applies to asses just as much as it does to feelings.

Open relationships aren’t just about rationality, rules, and logistics. They’re about how things feel. And this didn’t feel good for the mister. Not because he begrudged me anything—but because he himself was suddenly insecure. He had only just processed the disaster with Monique, and now the situation with Chloé was also threatening to fall apart for good. In that moment, it became clear to him: this wasn’t an experiment anymore. Not a phase. Not an exciting exception. This was our new reality. And there was no going back to monogamy. Not for him. Not for me. With wet eyes, he looked at me and said:

“You’re so beautiful when you’re poly. I can’t take that away from you anymore.”

I saw how much courage it took him to say that—and how much fear it contained. For the mister, poly is like the discovery of Teflon: It wasn’t planned, but now it’s here. Heat-resistant. Hard to destroy. And very difficult to get rid of again.

But what happens when one person is poly—and the other isn’t? 

I can’t give you a final answer to that yet.

But if I’ve learned one thing over the past year, it’s this: We’ll figure it out.

Together.

We’ve already found my place.

We’ll find his too. 

Not every tear, every doubt, every moment of vulnerability is a step backward. Occasionally it’s simply proof that we’re not just existing—but actually living. Because only when we’re vulnerable can we truly be close.

To ourselves.

And to each other.