Dating Other Men Made Me Appreciate My Husband More
By: Emma Austin
Tags: Polyamory, Self, Dating, Relationships, Sexuality

When you think about it in the abstract, opening up your relationship sounds like nothing but excitement. But that’s not the full picture.

At first, you imagine all the dates you’ll go on and all the people you’ll get to know.

You smile to yourself, realizing you’ll do the kind of bashful flirting you haven’t experienced in over ten years.

You already have the comfortable intimacy of an old relationship. Now, you’ll also have the rush of emotions that come from freefalling in love with someone new.

And there’s all the sex, too.

I’m polyamorous, not a swinger. That means I’m in it for the relationship, the romance, and the emotional connection. But I’m not going to sit here and pretend that getting to fuck someone new isn’t a big part of it.

Sex with someone you relate to in a different way. Sex with someone who fucks in a different way. Someone who has different techniques, new kinks, and a world of things they can introduce you to.

A sex life full of variety excites me, and I can’t think of a better way to have variety than to get it from multiple people.

But then I seriously considered taking that step and it became a lot more real. When I wasn’t just fantasizing about a polyamorous life but actually giving it serious thought, all those promising possibilities came packaged with worries and fears.

Opening myself up to loving other people could be the best decision of my life. But what if it messes things up?

I have a deep bond with my husband. We have a strong relationship and I would never give it up for anything.

I don’t ever see us splitting up. We have a profound love for each other, a family we’ve created together, and enough happy history to entangle us for good.

But I couldn’t shake the thought that I was putting our relationship at risk. That somehow, everything would change.

He might feel emotionally neglected when all I’d want to do is text whoever I’m getting involved with. Maybe he’d get jealous of my new relationship energy and how effortlessly horny I could get for someone new.

Or would he feel a profound sadness when he saw me going through the same giddy, obsessive, electric early romance we had when we first met, knowing we can never relive it ourselves?

If I’m being honest, I tried to focus on his feelings a lot more than mine because my feelings were the ones that scared me the most.

If he had some insecurities about this whole thing, that would just be normal. But what if he had good reasons to be insecure?

Whenever someone in a committed relationship reveals they’re polyamorous, some people assume it’s because they’re dissatisfied with their relationship. Their partner just isn’t doing it for them, so they have to go looking for a more decent match somewhere else.

That always struck me as mononormative nonsense.

But now that I was actually making that decision, I couldn’t help but ask myself if there was some truth to it.

Could I actually lose interest in my husband? He’s dependable, loving, and kind but what if he seemed boring once I met someone new? What if I met someone I connected with so deeply that I didn’t really want to spend that much time with him anymore?

If my love for a new partner was big and bright enough, would my love for my husband start to get duller?

Those didn’t feel like real possibilities, but it didn’t matter. Just imagining them was enough to make me lose sleep.

But it only took a year of trying to meet someone to reassure me that our relationship would be more than fine.

New Relationship Excitement Is Real

Since opening up my marriage, I’ve flirted with a few men, tried to meet some online, and had a fling with two of them.

It was all long-distance, which is ideal given my social anxiety and my chaotic home life. Some of them knew me from my work, which is a mistake I’m going to try not to repeat.

They weren’t fairytale romances. And both of the guys I got tangled with for weeks left me with a heap of heartache.

But for all the trouble it put me through, I still had some really great experiences, even if they were fleeting. I look back on it with some regret, but I can’t deny that there were lots of thrills along the way.

The feeling of being drawn to someone was downright intoxicating. I hadn’t had a crush in years, and going through one breathed new life into me.

My attraction for some of those guys was powerful. I spent hours thinking about them. I looked forward to every email or text. For a while, my life was a series of anticipations and excited conversations.

Seeing one of their names pop up on my phone became the highlight of my day. I could feel myself smiling wide as soon as I heard the notification. Getting some banter going made me giddy, and I would wake up in the middle of the night to see if they wrote to me.

I loved getting to know them in a way that felt fast and deep all at once. I became endlessly fascinated and loved every little detail they shared about themselves.

I also felt seen and desired in a way I hadn’t in a very long time.

I’m not the kind of girl who turns heads. I’m chubby, awkward, somewhat frumpy, and usually surrounded by four loud kids and a stressed out husband who’s helping me wrangle them.

When I’m out, people stop to tell me my kids are cute. Older people will often feel the need to tell me what a great husband I have because he’s holding one of our kids instead of totally neglecting them.

Needless to say, no one hits on me. Women will sometimes compliment me on my purple hair, but sadly it’s never in a flirty way.

That’s fine, of course. But it made the attention I was getting from these guys feel really special.

And I loved the person I was when I got interested in someone new.

When things were going well, I was happy. I felt hopeful and optimistic. I felt like my best self for the first time in ages.

I was horny as hell. My mind was almost constantly on sex. I had such a strong desire for a sexual connection with my flirty flings and I spent a big part of my day thinking of ways I could turn them on the way they aroused me.

If my thoughts were dirty before, they were filthy now. I fantasized about things I never thought I would do. Things that used to turn me off I was now wishing I could do with them.

Because I’m a hopeless romantic, I also spent a lot of time fantasizing about the kind of future we could have together.

Truth be told, it’s more about anxiety than romance. I’m a chronic planner, so I like to think ten steps ahead. That way, when I’m moving things along, I can feel confident that they at least have the potential to go somewhere.

If this turned into a long-term thing, what kind of living arrangement would we have?

Would it ever be realistic for them to move in with me? Is my house big enough or would we have to move? Could they handle the Canadian winters or would they grumble whenever they had to brush snow off the minivan?

Would it make more sense for me to just fly over to spend time with them once a month? Would that kind of jet-setting double life feel sexy or just inconvenient?

One question kept coming back to me whenever I thought about settling down.

I had been worried about how my husband would feel about the guys I was introducing into my life. But how would they feel about him?

Not because they fell short in any way. Not because I couldn’t see myself being happy with them — I could, at least while things were good.

It’s just that I started to see how Mr. Austin and I were so deeply compatible.

I Found My Perfect Match

I never felt comfortable with the idea of a soulmate until I started dating again. Now, it makes perfect sense to me.

When I stepped out of my housewife bubble, I liked a lot of what I saw. But that didn’t make me appreciate my husband less. It just made me realize how perfect we are for each other.

I told myself I wouldn’t compare the people I’m dating. And to some extent, I stuck to that. I didn’t turn it into some kind of competition where I weighed the pros and cons of each person or ranked them or anything like that.

But I couldn’t help but notice some things.

I saw how different each guy was. How they made me feel certain ways. How I was drawn to them for their unique reasons.

I fantasized about different things depending on who I was thinking of. Each of them inspired me to think of a different kind of future and to want different kinds of sex.

And that made me see my husband differently. All the things I loved about him, all the things I got comfortable with, and all the things I took for granted became obvious to me again.

Like all the ways that we’re eerily similar.

We can make each other laugh like fools because we have the same sense of humor. I never have to worry that he won’t get my jokes, and no one can make me laugh as hard as he does.

We even have the same shitty background. I was raised by an emotionally distant and narcissistic father, and his mother’s basically the same. We get each other’s damage and baggage because it’s more or less the same.

And his sex drive might be more active than mine, but we both have a very high sexual energy, the same dirty minds, and the same fascination for all things sexual.

I often joke that we have ESP because we’re so often on the same wavelength.

I’ve even developed a wanking ESP — I can tell how long it’s been since he last jerked off and I’m right about 87% of the time.

There are differences between us, but most of them are complementary.

Our sexual chemistry is off the charts because he’s basically a daddy dom and I’m a middle who likes to submit without pain.

He’s into shy, chubby girls who wear glasses and I fit that bill.

I’m into slim guys with nice beards who can rock some plaid. And that just happens to be precisely who he is.

I mean, okay, the beard was my idea. But still, it suits him.

I also started paying close attention to the role he played in my life. When I was dating other guys, he wasn’t always the one I was the most excited to talk to. But he was the one I wanted to share my joy with.

Talking to him after I spent time texting or talking to someone else really felt like coming home. They might have given me the butterflies I craved, but he gave me the comfort and safety I needed.

And as much as I desired the phone sex I was getting from someone else, fucking my husband made me feel deeply connected to him — and got me off with extreme satisfaction.

I had a really strong urge to get closer to the guys I was dating, and that helped me realize why I didn’t feel the same way about Mr. Austin. It’s because we were already as close as we could be.

Falling in Love Again

A few weeks into my first semi-serious fling, I was sitting in bed crying my eyes out.

Nothing bad had happened. In fact, everything had been going really well at that point. My flirty exchanges were fun and this situation I found myself in felt promising.

And that scared me.

Before I started dating, I was worried that I would get bored of lying in bed with my husband, watching YouTube videos while he cuddled me. Part of me thought our mundane little life couldn’t compare with all the other exciting lives I could lead.

Now I was in tears realizing that I might lose some of it.

A new partner would mean a lot of great things, but it would also mean sacrificing some of the time I had with my husband. And that was bittersweet at best.

The sorrow I felt made me realize that I was sometimes bored of my routine, I occasionally wished I had someone else to have deep conversations with, and I fantasized about a more varied sex life — but none of it was because I wasn’t satisfied with my husband.

Getting involved with other people made me see that I’m not in love with my husband because he’s my husband. I don’t feel stuck with him or in our marriage.

It reminded me of all the reasons I fell in love with him in the first place and all the reasons I love him even more now.

There’s still room in my life for someone else. But looking for that someone else taught me that I want to create new connections, take in new experiences, and enjoy bonds with others.

It’s not about dissatisfaction at all.

It didn’t work out with any of the guys I met. But I learned some important things from them.

I learned about some dating red flags that I unfortunately overlooked. I learned that the flirty, eager, horny girl I was as a teenager is still part of me — she’s just buried under routine and responsibilities. I learned how awkward it is to get to know someone when you’ve already put so much of your life online.

Mainly, though, it showed me just how lucky I am. I’ve found my soulmate, and that’s something I’ll never take for granted again.