"Everything I knew about these relationships seemed like some kind of wh*ring around"

When my husband and I started dating, it turned out that several of my friends practised polyamory and blogged about it. I knew these people personally and enjoyed reading them, but I had no plans to try it. It was like "I don't understand a thing, but it's very interesting."

At the same time, we celebrated our wedding at a sex party: we didn't interact with anyone, but we watched the action and various practices. The topic of sex and the sex-positive community really resonated with me.

At first I didn't want to hear anything about any "open relationships," even though my husband already had some experience before me. Everything I knew about that experience seemed like some kind of wh*ring around to me. I didn't allow for anything like that for myself.

Almost a year after the wedding, a psychologist recommended a workbook for couples to us, "Eight Dates." We argued a lot, I demanded much more attention than my husband could give me, it was a hard time.

The first chapter of the book is about trust and fidelity. I said that cheating was unacceptable to me, because it's a lie, but if I don't know about it and I'm getting enough attention, then fine, that's your problem. If I find out, I'll leave. My husband said he was in favour of an open relationship, because there's no guarantee that after 20–30 years of marriage he won't become interested in someone else. But if it mattered to me, then okay, it would be monogamy.

We agreed on one thing: we both really dislike lies, especially in a relationship.

A week went by, I again wasn't getting enough attention, and I caught myself thinking that this was starting to look like abuse on my part. My husband was giving me everything he could, and I was shaking him by the collar, yelling, "Come on, give me more!"

I was the one who went to him and suggested we try an open marriage. We talked through up front how it would work.

1. We come first; other partners are secondary. If my darling needs attention and asks me to cancel a date, then I cancel it.

2. Sex with other partners only with a condom. And test results, naturally.

3. We both know where we are and who we're with, so we don't worry.

4. If someone feels hurt or jealous, we talk about it.

5. We can end the open relationship; it's an experiment. In that case we also sit down and talk.

6. The open relationship works the same way for both of us: we have equal rights.

Afterwards I also discussed the topic with a psychotherapist. By the way, he confirmed that he has cases where people live like this for decades and love it. There's a phenomenon: a person's love for and attraction to their partner grows when they see that the partner is in demand with the opposite sex.

All in all, we started our experiment a year and a half ago, and so far we have no plans to give it up.

I've become much calmer: I get enough attention now. At the moment, after a forced emigration, the need for other partners has gone away. At the same time, I have my darlings, whom I've been with for about a year now, and they are very close, dear people to me. There's no sex with them right now, but there's a lot of mutual support and help. My husband has also become much calmer and more comfortable.

The main thing is to keep to your agreements and listen closely to the person you love.