So, let's say I have a wife who wants the two of us to be monogamous. But, I want to be polyamorous, so I start dating another woman. My wife has full knowledge of this, and it makes her deeply unhappy, but she doesn't divorce me, so that means she doesn't mind too much, so I'm not cheating, right?
Suppose my wife gets more and more upset about it, and finally she does divorce me. Well, after that, I can continue to date the other woman, and it certainly won't be cheating then, since I have no objecting wife at home. So, as long as I don't hide the affair, I can't possibly be cheating, can I?
This was more or less the situation when I sort-of-dated my sort-of-ex. He said that he wanted to have his freedom, while she wanted them to be engaged and live monogamously. He said that he appreciated her loyalty and her fending other (intrusive) girls off, but that he felt that she could not really decide for him in this matter (he was influenced by Osho, by the way. She was too, hence her dillemma). The problem was, of course, that they had not really discussed this. He had never told her that by the logic of his own philosophy, she was also allowed to have others - and I suspect that was because he did not want her to have others, but that did not fit with the philosophy and also she was not inclined to want others, so he just let the question remain foggy. On the other hand, he had not really gained her permission to sleep around. She had expressed some sympathy of what she - and on some days even he - saw as his weakness, that he was prone to aimlessly flirth with other (and sometimes younger) women. She saw herself as the aid for his impulsive wound, and he sometimes expressed things in those terms. I think together they created a sort of understanding that he had to, or should be allowed to, flirt a little bit as long as he was relatively descreet about it. The problem was of course that the very idea of her controlling him upset him very much. Wheras she felt like he would go kiss another woman just to spite her, possably not even because he was horny that much. So in a way he was using his sexualty as a sort of weapon in their fights and power struggles. And she felt a sort of safety in the fact that he more or less announced when he was going to sort of date another woman, she would not have to guess and it usually was just some kissing and fondling anyway, and he soon lost interest in them.
Then he met me, fell in love and stayed in love. She felt very hurt by it and the fact that he did not withdraw from the situation. At the same time, she got very much into getting to know me, possably to find out what attracted him and try to mimic it. For instance, she got her ears pierced like me and she started wearing my type of makeup. But of course what he fell for with me was my inability to be the pleaser. He hinted I should dye my hair, I did not do it, he gave me career advice and I did not take it. It went on for more than four years. Weird situations happened, for instance she would sometimes be very happy to see me, tell me we should record songs together (and later she let me temp for her job, and rent out her flat)... I often felt like she needed me to cheer him up, but in a way that did not make it too obvious. I don't know... Once when I swam in the sea in the fall she recorded it on video. I sort of slept with him once. I think part of her really hated me, but that she also sort of needed me because she knew he would be unhappy without me. So that he would be more happy with her if he also had me.
Was he unfaithful to her? Looking back, I think he was sort of unfaithful to both of us, because he never really wanted to have the kind of talk where you really go into what is happening and what are we going to do about it. He never really went deep into the discussion with her and said, listen, we want very different things! How can we work through that as a couple. And that also made things more difficult for me, because she wore an engagement ring and talked about their monogamous love and he still claimed that he could do as he pleased - and was shocked that I have a husband that knew about it and accepted it. It was like in his eyes it was better to get a half-concent like he had than having an open discussion about where the dicks, fingers and mouths were going and who is ok with what.
