Encouraging non-exclusivity? Why?

I was originally going to call this post, "Is infidelity a virtue?" before I decided that title would be way too misleading. And of course the answer to that question, as posed, has to be, "No, plainly not, not if you phrase the question like that." The failure to hold true to something (leaving it abstract), insofar as it is a failure, is nothing to be proud of.

Only I then have to question what is going on in the dark recesses of my mind, when D and I discuss the topic of sexual exclusivity vs non-exclusivity. I mentioned that we talked about it over a lot of wine during our most recent date. And we have discussed it at other times, too. More recently, we exchanged a few e-mails on the subject (though I'll be merciful and not quote them all here). And what I find when I watch myself during these discussions is that it is almost as if I am encouraging D to take another lover in addition to me. I tiptoe around it, and I hope I never say anything quite that bald. But I can tell that in my heart of hearts this is the direction my comments are tending. And I have to wonder why?

I have been mulling this for a while, and I have come up with answers at several different levels. "Different levels" sounds like some of these answers are a charade hiding others, like there are the real answers deep down and then excuses at a more visible surface level. But it doesn't feel quite like that. It feels, rather, like all these levels exist at once, more or less independently of each other -- like each reason is valid on its own, but then there is another one as well. Maybe this is what psychologists mean by calling a thing "overdetermined." Anyway, see what you think.

Generous reasons:

The reasons I offer at first, whenever the subject comes up and I try to say something cheery, are all about her. You have heard them before. One is that her sexuality is so overflowing, so radiant, so powerful and dynamic that it would be swinish of me to hoard it all for myself. In fact, considering how far apart we live, I would be worse than a pig ... most days I'd be a dog in the manger.

A second is that she spends a lot of time alone, and celibacy makes her sad and depressed. Of course we do our best to make up for the long periods of deprivation when we get together, but wouldn't she be happier if she had a lover nearby as well? I have no doubt that she has enough energy for two men, so it's not like she would get worn out that way.

Distrustful reasons:

Then there are reasons that don't sound so kind, and you have heard these before too. One is that I don't want to become D's "one-and-only" because that is too close to being a husband. I've discussed before the question whether D is somehow grooming me for marriage once Wife and I are divorced. And I have explained that I am not interested in that. If she had another lover besides me, she'd be less likely to put all her emotional eggs in one basket, less likely to invest all her hopes and dreams for the future in me. She says she doesn't do that now, but sometimes I have trouble believing her.

Another distrustful reason I have for encouraging D to take a second lover is that I figure she'll do it anyway, sooner or later. Obviously enough -- because we are both adulterers, aren't we? -- the mere fact that she promises me she'll never fuck another man isn't reason enough for me to assume she'll stick to it. But if she ever did fuck someone else, I figure she would never admit it. In the first place, she has kind of painted herself into a corner that way by repeating over and over how she is mine, all mine. In the second place, she is a gifted liar, so I assume that lying about her indiscretions is a way of life for her, ... as natural as breathing. I even wonder if there might not be some level at which she lies to herself about sex. Maybe not, of course -- D does seem to have an acutely developed sense of sin. But she has done an awful lot of fucking with a variety of different men for a girl who also calls herself a pious and devoted Catholic. Does she confess all of her encounters with due sorrow and repentance? I doubt it -- that would mean intending in her heart never to do it again, and I don't credit that for a moment. So how does she handle the cognitive dissonance? We have never discussed it, but I bet her masterful ability to conjure alternate truths out of thin air must be a big help to her in this endeavor. She has even told me, more than once, that if I ever were to fuck someone else, she doesn't want to know about it. I should lie to her, if I have to, rather than say anything.

The thing is, that model for a relationship absolutely doesn't work for me. A relationship based on lying is a relationship based on manipulation: neither one is love, in my book. By my lights, love means knowing and telling the truth, even if it is a hard truth ... it means wanting the other to know the truth and wanting to deal with hard truths rather than resting in comforting fantasies. So if D were going to find it difficult to stay chaste and "faithful" to me, I would rather she accept the discomfort of telling me about it than manipulate me with a lie. Since I take it for granted (perhaps unfairly) that a woman as overpoweringly sexual as D will sooner or later find it tough to stay "faithful" to me (especially as I live so many miles away, so how would I ever know?), I would prefer simply not to ask for "fidelity," rather than asking for it and setting us both up for failure. And I hope that one way to persuade her that she really does have "permission" when the time comes is to remind her of the fact now. (And then hell, if it turns out she has already got someone else too, maybe I can persuade her to own up to the fact.)

Selfish and sordid reasons:

I'm pretty sure you have heard all of these reasons before. I find that I rehash the same themes in this blog over and over. But recently I thought of another reason that hadn't occurred to me before, one more motive behind my encouraging D to look beyond me. I think at some level I want to use her as a proxy, so that she go live out an adventurous sex life that I am too shy and fearful to lead for myself ... quite regardless whether this is something she even wants to do. It disturbed me to realize this last part: that even if she didn't want any other lovers, there is still a corner of my mind that craves the sheer adventure which multiple lovers would entail, and which wants her to go out and have those adventures for me because I am too much the damned timid nebbish to do it myself. It's a highly unsavory thing to realize about myself. I am not at all proud of it. After my high-minded speech just above about the evils of a relationship based on manipulation, it is shameful and sordid to want to manipulate the woman I love into intensely powerful, affecting personal situations that she might not even welcome ... just to gratify my desires and my lusts by proxy, and all because I am too craven to gratify my own desires by myself. Disgraceful.

D says she just thinks I don't really know what I want, or at any rate I don't know what is good for me. That may well be true. But not long ago I had a flash of memory that made me realize I have been thinking about infidelity since long before any of Wife's affairs, back even before I ever had a girlfriend in the first place. I remember asking myself, What would I do if my girlfriend [who did not, at that point, exist] came to me and said she was also interested in someone else? And I remember feeling two distinct responses, superimposed on each other. One was deep anguish at the thought of the two of them laughing at me behind my back. (Compare, e.g., my remarks about being left out in part two of the essay that starts here.) But at the very same time I remember thinking, Well, if she still loves me, then it's better that we continue to love each other than to break it off and lose each other completely.

D says she thinks the problem is a poor self-image on my part, that I don't think I deserve more than a fraction of a woman's attention and favors. She might be right. But if she is, it's not because of psychological damage done by Wife. The thought patterns date back long before her.

It has not been a comfortable line of thought, but it has been an interesting and enlightening one.