When you have spent the bulk of your adult life in a tumultuous marriage it is very hard to understand its toxicity, until it’s over and you’re out the other side. For me, falling in love with a man who was not only kind but communicative, caring, and concerned about my feelings was such a shock to my system that I became both euphoric and furious. I was no longer with a man who knew exactly what to say to tear me down but, instead, went out of his way to lift me up and listen.
My relief and gratitude were transcendent. But within that was the trigger for a new kind of grief—one that was rooted in self-hatred and just as paralyzing. I had gone most of my life trying to be the right kind of woman for the wrong kind of man. And as relieved as I was to have found the opposite kind of man in a life I got to build from scratch, I was also ashamed that I had spent so many of my years normalizing abuse.
I apologized to myself. To my children. I was terrified that I had modeled acquiescence to my daughters and rage to my son. I was relieved to have a man around them who wasn’t like their father. But saying those words out loud was too painful, so instead I said things like, “this is the only kind of man I will allow into our home from now on.”
I didn’t believe that men like Jake existed. That someone would want to explore the kind of open, nonmonogamous relationship I knew I needed. And I certainly didn’t think it would happen this fast—six months into my post-wife life.
Compersion is when you feel joyful for a person you love when they are feeling joy and love with someone else. It goes against everything we’re taught about “cheaters” and “jealousy,” but to me, it is beautiful. Generous. Sacred. It contradicts every patriarchal, traditionally pushed ideal. Perhaps this is why it felt so equitable. Loving. We were making up rules up as we went. We were also breaking them, changing them, learning how to live without them within social circles that upheld them mightily. Together.
With Jake, honesty was met with reward as opposed to shame. And during a time when I felt so alone with my strange, indecipherable grief, this was a revelation. I was a free woman who was also in love with a man. I felt brand new. A woman thriving in the open air of second chances where the rules of others did not apply.
It was possible to have it all. Holy f***ing s**t.
Sex and love had found a way to cohabitate in this new realm. I could experience deep love for someone without limitation. And, by some miracle, he felt the same. We would each go out with other people and come back to each other, our bodies learning to do things they never knew were possible. Communicating about every pleasure and pain, every want and need.
Jake and I made plans to have dates with other people on the same nights so we could come “home” to each other, our fingers smelling like the sex of other people. I found that there was nothing in the world that turned me on more than tasting another woman on his face after reuniting. I was ravenous for him after he went out with someone else in a way few people understood. But he did. And that was all that mattered. Jake’s was the kind of love that made me feel safe, enabling me to push and pull in equal measure. If I didn’t like something, I said so and so did he. Communication made it possible to experiment with different types of people and scenarios. Sometimes we pushed it too far and we’d have to redefine our boundaries, but it always resulted in a deeper closeness and better understanding of ourselves and each other.
When you are afraid of someone, you cannot tell them what you want and how you feel. But when you’re with someone who makes you feel safe . . .
“This is intimacy,” he told me, as if I needed to learn. Because I did. No faked feelings. No holding back. For the first time in my life—emotionally, sexually, spiritually—I was able to let go. On our own terms, we had created a relationship that was as defined by our security in ourselves as it was with each other. Our desire for others could exist without envy. We had built a world where supporting each other’s explorations, together and separately, was the deepest expression of love.
There was no turning back.
From ALL OF THIS: A Memoir of Death and Desire by Rebecca Woolf and reprinted with permission from HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright 2022.
All of This is available from Amazon and Bookshop.
Read our interview with Rebecca Woolf on non-monogamy, bisexuality, love, marriage, parenting and truth telling.