How I arrived at non-monogamy & how it affected my marriage

I made it look easier than it actually was.

I think I always felt insecure about the fact that I had never dated anyone seriously before meeting Dan, my husband.

I wanted so badly to be wanted and desired in ways that I couldn’t for myself, so I kept “accomplishing” and “achieving” things in my career, relationships, health, and life.

To prove to the universe that I am desirable.

God, I was so fucking “ambitious,” though that word wouldn’t entirely be accurate. I was just more like “blind” because I had absolutely no idea what I wanted. I didn’t want sex, I didn’t want marriage, I didn’t want anything but I wanted everything.

I made no attempts to find any language around what “everything” meant for me and simply followed the relationship escalator, where you date, live together, get married, and have kids.

“That would get me somewhere, somehow, probably,” I thought. And over the next decade or so, I would keep wondering what the hell that void is and why it was happening but also ignore the shit out of it because it was scary and annoying.