Open Relationships in Action: Mariah Freya

With this interview, I start a series of articles on women and men who are experimenting any kind of open relationships. My intention is to understand different models of love, by hearing the experiences of those who are living them. We start this collection of real life stories with Mariah Freya, a yogini and blogger who shares her knowledge on Orgasmic Discourses, an amazing blog on sexuality and relationships.

Fragments of Evolution: Can you tell me something about yourself, your profession, your interests?

Mariah Freya: Hi! My name is Mariah Freya. Professionally, I’m a blogger and I also work in a website agency. What I do in my spare time is mainly practicing yoga, dancing, and consciously connecting with my body while I move! I also enjoy sharing my stories and research on sexuality on my blog, Orgasmic Discourses.

FoE: Great! As you know, this interview is about relationships. What is your current relationship status?

MF: At the moment, I am in a committed relationship to one partner; we have been together for 6 years. We started as a monogamous couple, and then about 2,5 years ago we began exploring the possibilities of open relationships. Since then, our relationship has gone through different phases; now we are still in a committed relationship but with an experimental and curious sexuality, open to other people and adventures. If I had to give a definition, I would say that we are somewhere in between monogamy and polygamy, or polyamory. We do experiment with others, but our relationship remains committed and we don’t have the same kind of commitment to anyone else.

FoE: In your primary relationship, are there any boundaries that you and your partner are not allowed to cross?

MF: Because we are in a kind of “open monogamous relationship”, one boundary is very clear: we are not committing to anyone else. We like inviting other people into our space, but we are not leaving the present relationship to hop into another. Right now, for example, we have sexual encounters with others only if our main partner is also present; but that could change in the future, and it has been different at times in the past.

We have discovered that for one of us to really fall in love with an external lover is more than our primary partner can take at the moment. Thus, we decided to take it easy when it comes to falling in love, because in the first moments it often happens that you start losing the commitment to your primary partner. We have learned through hard experiences how important it is to maintain the compassion to your committed partner, and not just let yourself be carried away by the hormones! Of course, the possibility of falling in love with someone else is still there. You cannot really control love, can you? 

FoE: Hmm, I guess not! So, in the current situation each partner is always fully aware of the sexual activities of the other, right?

MF: Yes, we’ve always had transparency as one of our main tenets. We learned this in Tamera, a community in Portugal which has conducted extensive research on open relationships, and we really incorporated it into our life. However, we also found that the best thing to do while being transparent was to share as much as the other partner was willing to ask. For example, after a date I would share with my partner whether I had sex with the other lover or not, but I wouldn’t go into details unless he was explicitly asking for it.

FoE: Can you tell me a little bit more about the process that brought you to open up your monogamous relationship?

MF: We firstly approached this subject on a theoretical level when we visited Tamera, There we learned a lot about how to deal with open relationships, and especially how to be transparent to each other during the whole process. When we finally decided to open up, after 4 years of monogamy, at the beginning we were really relying on the tools we had learned there: lots of talking, transparency, methods to bring up all the internal issues that inevitably come up whenever you step into this kind of lifestyle.

One of the tools that helped us most was the “emergency button”: whenever one of the two was having a really hard time, he could press the button and the other partner would come back from any other relationship. Of course, you could not press the emergency button all the time!!! This tool provided us with a very important safety line. If we weren’t ready yet to handle the jealousy and insecurity that one situation was creating, we could use the button to freeze everything and recover our sense of security in the couple.

FoE: What were the main challenges that you have faced during the process of opening up?

MF: Well, for example, I had never been really jealous for most of my life, but suddenly I was in the situation in which my partner was on a date with another lover, and I found myself erupting in an aggressive jealousy that was totally unknown to me! Personally, what always triggered my jealousy the most was knowing that my partner was having a lover that was very advanced in Tantra, and that she could teach him a lot. That really used to trigger me! For my partner, I think the hardest moments were when I was actually falling in love with somebody else; that was the biggest challenge for him, to think that I could love someone else in the same way I loved him.

Emotionally speaking, the whole process was really a roller-coaster: we went through difficult phases in which one of the partners was challenged, and the other one had to try and balance the situation. We were lucky to start from a very strong basis, because we were already a couple and there was a lot of trust and love between us. Somehow, this evolution in our relationship became a spiritual path in itself, because we were constantly facing challenges and being open to overcome them.

FoE: It seems like it has been a really intense, at times difficult process you have gone through. Why did you do it in the first place, why didn’t you stick to your initial monogamous setting?

MF: For one thing, my partner was really straightforward in telling me that he wanted to experiment with others. Moreover, all the ideas about open relationships were really appealing to us, they really made sense. In the end, it only felt natural to go towards these new experiences and to enter into this transformation process. As I said, we talked about it a lot before we actually went into it!

Another reason, is that we knew perfectly that, after 4 years of living together as a couple, a certain stagnation was inevitable. Opening up our relationship helped a lot in that respect, and I’m glad we saw it coming! The abundance, the opportunity to work on yourself, the feeling of expansion of your love – all of this chased the boredom away. For example, whenever I came home after a date with another lover, I felt so connected to my partner – and we had the best sex ever!

The polarity and attraction builds up more and more and you stop taking your partner for granted; it also helps to see that other people find him or her attractive. Sure enough, as I said, there is also a risky side to it – especially in the first occasions of falling in love with somebody else; you can become very selfish and forget your commitment to your primary partner. We’ve had to learn this the hard way.

FoE: Did you ever get any negative feedback or criticism from society?

MF: I wouldn’t say criticism, but I’ve definitely felt astonishment around me. Many friends of mine say that they could never imagine living in the same kind of relationship that I do. Most people are curious about it, but they would never risk it in their own personal life. It does take a huge leap of faith!

FoE: From all the experience that you have gathered in this transformation, what advice would you give to somebody who is in a similar situation? Let’s say, to a monogamous couple that is considering opening up to other lovers.

MF: First of all, I would suggest – try to read a lot about it, study the theory! You can do this by reading books, talking to people who’ve had similar experiences… or visit Tamera. They have been studying free love and free sexuality for over 30 years, and they even do courses on these subjects. So, first try to wrap your mind around these new concepts, it will help you get rid of many fears and misunderstandings.

My second advice is – do it in a transparent way. Talk as much as possible about everything that is happening, the emotions that come up, the rules and boundaries that you need to set. These rules and boundaries will likely appear as you start experimenting, since quite often you don’t know them from the beginning.

Although this is probably not to everybody’s taste, I also recommend inviting someone in your space as a couple: have a threesome or foursome. You could be surprised: seeing your partner kissing somebody else can actually be really beautiful. It’s good to have this realistic picture of how this situation looks, because you’ll anyway have lots of fantasies about what your partner is doing with his other lovers!

Finally, try to cultivate the idea of unconditional love: a love is not limited to one particular person but is instead universal. In the end, love is always inside of you and you don’t need anyone in order to experiment it.

Ah, and one last advice: take it really easy – don’t rush it!!!

FoE: Well, I hope that this article will be part of the “theoretical readings” that some couples might do before deciding to open their relationship. Thank you so much Mariah for your honesty and kindness!

Don’t forget to check out this other article by Mariah – Orgasmic Enlightenment.

photo credit: Koshyk via photopin cc