My husband and I have an open marriage. These rules ensure it works

When I was a little girl, my grandmother taught me words that she learned from her grandfather, words that she believed would protect me. She called them prayers, except they weren’t like the prayers I learned in school: not like the rosary, with its murmuring repetition that could be hypnotic or tiresome depending on the time of day; nor like the Lord’s Prayer, with its simple supplications for the essentials of life.

No, Nanay’s prayers were special. Instead of the Sign of the Cross, in which our fingertips grazed the head, heart and shoulders as we chimed Father, Son and Holy Spirit, she taught me a different sign. Her wrinkled fingers sketched a map where God dwelt in our bodies; touching the belly with gentle reverence, she taught me to bless Diyos Ina, God the Mother.

Her words were different from everything I had learned. I never dared utter them out loud in school, where the nuns might hear, or around other people who might not understand, but whenever I felt most afraid, ill or lost, it was Nanay’s prayers I whispered to myself. I learned early in life that what is different has its own power.

Our marriage may have been open, but our marital bed was reserved for us only.Credit: Getty Images

It is my grandmother’s prayers that come to mind when I think of the agreements that my husband, Marcus, and I made at the start of our open marriage journey. An invisible map which sketched the areas that were sacred to us, marking the vulnerable places in our marriage that we wanted to protect. They diverged from the words everyone else said, the promises everyone else made, so we said them to no one else but each other.

They were agreements, but in the beginning we called them rules. We held fast to them, believing they would protect us, or at least make the unknown safer as we navigated it. And up to a point, they did. The most obvious was the easiest rule to put in place.

Safer sex, always

As kids of the 1990s, Marcus and I had grown up accustomed to the phrase “safe sex”, and figured that was all it was. Upon our re-entry into the arena of dating and casual sex as adults, we discovered that the conversation had changed. The innocent “safe sex” of our youth had given way to “safer sex”, underscoring awareness of the fact that no sex with another person is ever 100 per cent risk-free. Accepting this risk was implicit in our agreement.

Always let me know about your dates in advance

We would talk about a date first; then, once agreed upon, schedule it in a shared Google calendar along with dentist appointments, school holidays and kiddie birthday parties. Planning allowed us to be aware of how much time we spent apart and together – and, if needed, to shift the balance towards the latter.

Later, for reasons of personal safety, this rule would include: Always let me know where you are, and with whom.

A WhatsApp message with an address and a first name would suffice. We would also add a performative aspect to this rule, making a point of informing our dates that we were sending their name and address to our spouse. “My husband knows where you live” seems to be a useful deterrent to shady business, especially for men – or at least it has been so far.

You can ask me to change my plans or cancel a date. I can also say no

We agreed that we would always consider each other’s feelings and wishes over and above plans made with strangers. But any requests to change plans would simply be that: a request, not an order, requirement or ultimatum. No was still a valid answer.

No sexual partners in our home

To protect our daughter and preserve the boundaries between family life and dating life, we agreed we would not bring sexual partners home. On the rare occasion when we happened to date other people in open marriages or living with children, who often had the same rule, we would accumulate an encyclopedic knowledge of the sexiest hotels for trysting in Amsterdam, in every neighbourhood, at every price point, with the bill split by both consenting adults.

No coworkers

We agreed that the subtitle to this rule was: Don’t shit where you eat. Marcus worked in a conservative multinational corporation; this was simply self-preservation.

It was more complicated for me. Since I was a freelancer, I didn’t have bosses, teammates or colleagues, but could potentially end up working with anyone in the city. Later on, I would have lovers who wanted to hire me (and some did) and would end up sleeping with several people I had met through freelance projects.

No friends

Marcus and I agreed that we could sleep with our own friends, but that sleeping with each other’s friends would only invite trouble. I’ve since had only one lover who started out as a friend; I still prefer to let platonic relationships remain platonic. Real friends are too important, too rare; I don’t need to ravage friendships for sex, which can be found elsewhere.

No sleeping over

The intimacy of waking up next to each other was something we agreed to reserve for our marriage.

No explicit sexual details, unless requested

Marcus had a visceral aversion to specifics. By not volunteering particulars, we could be respectful of each other’s moods and feelings; whoever asked could control the flow of information and stop when they’d had too much.

So we agreed: Only tell me what I need to know, unless I ask.

Me? I liked to ask. Hearing details fed visuals into my imagination, which was exactly what Marcus wanted to avoid. Details fanned the flames of my lust, but extinguished his.

One date a week, max

We argued about the frequency with which I dated. At the time I wasn’t aware – and I don’t think many people are – how easy it is for women to find dates online. It’s a numbers game: there are simply far more men than women on dating apps. This could cause friction and drive us apart if I wasn’t careful, so we agreed to cap dates at one a week.

These were the rules we started out with. Some would shift and relax over time, others falling away altogether, as we grew in confidence, trust and experience.

Looking back now, I find myself surprised by how much we never thought to cover with explicit agreements. Our wedding vows were made much in the same way; there’s a lot of fine print that “to have and to hold” doesn’t cover.

For example, we never actually came to an explicit agreement that we would never fall in love with anyone else, although some rules were designed to prevent that from happening. I suppose at the time it seemed like such a remote prospect that it didn’t even occur to us to promise the obvious: that we loved and would only love each other, and that, despite giving up the privilege of sexual exclusivity, our first and only emotional loyalty was to each other.

I also find it ironic that neither of us ever promised not to keep secrets, although honesty was a fundamental condition of the whole exercise. Instead, we defined boundaries around what we didn’t have to tell each other, based on our comfort level around sexual details. For all the rest, it was a given: we would be fully transparent.

Otherwise none of this would work.

Edited extract from Ask Me How It Works (Penguin Random House) by Deepa Paul, out now.

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