I Tried Being The Third Person In An Open Relationship. It Was A Spectacular Failure.
Polyamorous relationships aren't for everyone.
Liza Summer | Canva It was a few years ago when I met him. A friend asked if I could give his friend a place to crash because this friend-of-a-friend needed somewhere to sleep for a couple of days.
People-pleaser that I was, I said “yes.” My friend also told me that this guy had a girlfriend in his hometown and was just passing through for a while. There was something different about the guy who crashed at my place, though. I had this indescribable, undeniable connection with him.
We had the same interests, and the same tastes and I got along better with him than I have with almost anyone else. A couple of days at my place turned into a month and he went from sleeping in the spare bed to staying in my room.
At first, we would make excuses for sharing my bed, like “We must have fallen asleep watching that movie.” Never mind that there was a television in the family room we could have used instead of the one in my room.
Eventually, we expressed our feelings for one another. To my surprise, he explained that he was in an open relationship with his girlfriend. In other words, both he and his girlfriend agreed that they could date other people, too.
I shouldn't have been that surprised. I was always hearing about people trying to open their marriages. (According to a YouGov poll, a quarter of Americans are interested in being in an open relationship.) I gave it a shot.
I tried being the third person in an open relationship.
I had never spoken to his girlfriend, but I trusted his word. I assumed that after I had spent the day in and day out with him, surely he wouldn’t lie. Soon, he did tell his girlfriend that he and I were dating and I began dating a couple. She wasn’t thrilled, but she agreed to the open relationship.
He and I continued to date, but our relationship got messy. He would talk to his girlfriend and I would feel jealous. My jealousy reared its ugly head more frequently than I’d like to admit. He and I regularly argued about how jealous I was.
Even when we fought over something extremely small and simple, I’d respond, “I bet she would let you get away with something like this, right?”
Volodymyr TVERDOKHLIB / Shutterstock
Most of our arguments simply revolved around the fact that there were more than just the two of us in our relationship.
I would constantly question my value. I compared myself to every girl he looked at and wondered if he would choose them over me. Every time I thought about his other girlfriend, I felt inadequate to the point of sickness. Over time, my constant comparison to other girls drove me back into depression.
Relationships are meant to make our lives easier, not harder. In unhealthy relationships, people risk a higher chance of developing depression, research from the National Library of Medicine tells us.
Once I ended the open relationship, I realized that I needed to value myself enough to stop comparing and give my heart to one person. I still fully support polyamorous couples and open relationships, but I also know that being part of one doesn’t work for me.
If you’re looking to be the third person in an open relationship, make sure that you know the challenges you could face.
Before you enter an open relationship, make sure that jealousy and comparison won’t get the best of you. If you focus on your relationship and no one else’s, you are far more likely to have a happy ending in your open relationship.
Skylar Jones is a writer and frequent contributor to Unwritten who provides a voice for women on topics of heartbreak and relationships. Her work has been featured in The Gospel Coalition and Carson Now, among others.