Dear Afraid of Both Answers,
Updated: 3 days ago
Dear Norm,
My partner and I have been together for 16 years.
We've built a life I'm incredibly proud of. We own a home, share a dog, have mutual friends, and have weathered more than I ever thought a relationship could survive. Through it all, I've never questioned that we were in this together.
A few months ago, he told me he wants to explore having an open relationship.
He says it has nothing to do with loving me less. He says he still wants to grow old together. He just misses the excitement of meeting new people and having new experiences.
I wish I could hear it that way.
Instead, all I hear is that somehow I'm no longer enough.
The truth is, I don't want an open relationship. Not because I think they're wrong. I know couples who make them work beautifully. It's just not what I pictured for us.
But here's what scares me.
If I say no, what if he leaves?
If I say yes, what if I lose myself trying to keep him?
I've spent 16 years building this relationship. I don't know if I'm protecting it anymore, or just protecting the idea of it.
How do you know when you're compromising... and when you're abandoning yourself?
Signed, Afraid of Both Answers
Dear Afraid of Both Answers,
I read your letter three times.
Not because it was confusing.
Because buried inside it was one sentence that quietly broke my heart.
"If I say yes, what if I lose myself trying to keep him?"
That's the question.
Not whether open relationships work.
Some do.
Not whether they're wrong.
For some couples, they're exactly right.
The question is whether the two people in the relationship are choosing the same future.
Compromise and sacrifice are different.
A compromise says, "This isn't exactly what I wanted, but I can still recognize myself in the decision."
A sacrifice says, "I'll become someone else if it means you'll stay."
Those two things may look similar from the outside.
They feel very different on the inside.
Your partner may genuinely love you. He may genuinely believe opening the relationship would strengthen it. Those things can be true.
It's also true that you may genuinely need something different.
Neither of you is necessarily wrong.
But neither of you gets to decide the other's boundaries.
Love doesn't erase them.
It reveals them.
Before you decide whether your relationship should be open, ask yourselves a different question.
Can we be completely honest without trying to convince each other?
Can you tell him, without anger, "I'm afraid this isn't about opening our relationship. I'm afraid of closing the door on the relationship we've spent 16 years building."
Can he tell you what he's really looking for beyond sex? Is it novelty? Freedom? Validation? Adventure? Is there something missing that the two of you can create together instead of searching for it separately?
Those are harder conversations than simply saying yes or no.
They're also the conversations that determine whether a relationship has another chapter.
And one more thing.
Don't let fear become your decision-maker.
Fear has a terrible habit of convincing us that agreeing is the same thing as saving something.
Sometimes it is.
Sometimes it's simply postponing a different conversation.
Whatever happens, make sure the person who walks away from that conversation is still you.
Because a relationship is meant to make room for both people.
Not require one of them to disappear.
There's always a place for you on the porch.
Who gets to decide what's normal, anyway?
Life has a way of asking questions with no easy answers. Dear Norm is where we talk about them. "Norm" is short for normal because, around here, we believe normal isn't something you fit into; it's something you define for yourself. If you're wrestling with love, family, identity, faith, friendship, or anything in between, we'd love to hear from you. Submit your question, and let's start the conversation.
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