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Dear Breakup Girl,

Here's the situation: I took the virginity of a summer fling, and we ended up falling in love. But, being open-minded, flirtatious, and fairly footloose college students (as well as both acknowledging our disastrous past results with relationships), we decided to keep it an open relationship. So, time passed reasonably happily, with our talking up the openness but never really acting on it. It wasn't until I actually slept with someone else that he realized he couldn't handle it.

So he broke up with me. Here's his side: "My love for you was based on the fact that I didn't want or need anyone else, despite all my empty talk. I assumed it was the same for you. By having sex with another man, you destroyed that perception, and I now want and desire other people. I also don't want to risk the possibility of being hurt again."

As you can imagine, I am not particularly happy about this. I love the guy desperately. I would definitely not have acted as I did if the situation were different (i.e.: if I were not in what I perceived as a condoned open relationship), but I don't know how to prove that to him. He says, "How can you love me and sleep with someone else?"

I keep trying to explain that my perception of love and sex are very different than his. For him, sex equals love and vice versa. I've been through the whole game a few more times, and for me, sex is just sex. Also, my love for him has nothing to do with my desires or his desires; it has everything to do with who he is and how he is. Sleeping with someone else could never touch that. But even if he understands that intellectually, it doesn't change the way he feels.

I would have been willing to be monogamous (for him, I would have been willing to do about anything), except I thought that he really wanted other women, since he talked about it so much, and I didn't want to take that away from him. In the brief time period between the sex and the breakup, after I saw how much it hurt him, I'd made it very clear that I had no intention of ever doing something like that again, open relationship or no. Of course, once bitten, twice shy, and on top of that, he's got the whole male ego thing telling him not to take another risk.

And now, I just want to be with him, even if he's going around screwing the entire campus. I love him enough that I would be with him in any form just to be with him. I would like to try again; I would like to start over; I would like to see if we can base our love on something besides the fairly impermanent desire to only be with one person. (I'm not saying another open relationship, but honestly, who doesn't have at least brief moments when they desire someone besides their partner? No one out there fully completes you.)

He's the first person I've met (in an unbearably long line) that I'm actually willing to settle down with (if the timing were different, I would have without question married him -- terrifying, isn't it?), and I'm not willing to give him up without quite a fight.

So how can I fight? I can't just lay down and let this one go over a misunderstanding.

--Morgan

Dear Morgan,

A word or two about "open relationships." I'm not saying they can never work. But I'd argue that -- contrary to the logic in your first paragraph -- they might work best for people with strong hearts/track records. Because often, people agreeing to an "Open Relationship" are really having a dialogue that goes something like this:

PERSON 1: "I am open to the idea of my seeing other people."

PERSON 2: "Okay. I am going along with this only to appear cool and open."

Result: what's really open here is a big huge can of worms. Seven or so deadly ones, if I may mix my metaphors. Lust, Anger, Envy, whatnot.

What does all this say about you two? First, him. It is fair for him to not realize how much he didn't want something until he had it. And it is fair for him to want more of something he didn't have until he, um, had you. But it is not fair for him to blame you for having followed instructions, even / especially ones that he now says he didn't really mean. And his resulting "If I can't have you, everyone can" position is slightly creepy.

See, I would argue that you two actually have more closely convergent views of sex than you think. At least in the big game he talks, for him, sex is just sex, unless someone else is having it with his Mistress St. Pauli. For you, sex is just sex, unless it's with the person you are so in love with that you're willing to pretend it's just sex.

Morgan, if you are going to fight this one, I will not stop you. Perhaps the serious miscommunication that brought us to this point even demands it. But how? Well, don't get bogged down arguing over definitions, rehashing the past. Been there; so have the worms. Don't do a "back then..."; do a "now what?" Tell him you want to be together, period; you want to start fresh.

But whatever you do, Morgan, do not go into battle as Person 2. Do not "be with him in any form just to be with him." Unacceptable. At this point, that's not enough. At this point, an "open" relationship with him will shut down your spirit. Remember, Morgan, you fight standing up. Not, um, lying down.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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