One of the reasons Scott and I chose to structure our relationship as non-monogamous is because we knew we would eventually encounter a marriage void. And we wondered if either of us would have the energy or the fortitude to fill it.

It happens in most relationships, I would venture to guess. It is close to impossible to maintain a constant flow of excitement, levity, interest, and passion for someone over a long period of time. In many ways opening up our marriage was an easier route to circumventing complacency, because instead of tending to the tediousness of what might have eventually threatened our own relationship, we were able to shift our focus, at least temporarily, on what was happening outside of it. Filling the potential void. Now, this could have happened anyway. In fact, I would bet that our void filling might have played itself out in other ways – I might have gotten even more into knitting (yes, it may be difficult to believe, but I was super crafty once upon a time and knitting was just one of my interests). Knitting was what I once called my Zen time, but to which my sister-in-law referred as my Check-Out Time, because as soon as I’d begin, I would immediately morph into a hobby zombie brandishing wooden needles and a perfect knit stitch.

Scott probably would have started spending more time watching football or basketball or some other ball, and things would have continued along the status quo. We may or may not have discovered that we weren’t all the way happy, or that were filling any proverbial intimacy voids. Or, for that matter, we may have been completely happy and void-less, it’s difficult to say. But my point is that I am sure we would have each found some other way to fill the emotional holes that so often occur in long-term relationships.

The fact is that much of the reason people in long-term relationships decide to choose non-monogamy is that yes, love and intimacy and sex are all natural extensions of ourselves, and something that we long to share with other people. But also because caring about someone else or sharing our bodies with another person is a way to feel those feelings all over again. Feelings like those we had for our long-term partners in the beginning of our courtship with them. The intensity of our affection and desire for the person we once felt so deeply that it poured from our fingertips like water from a well? That fades over time. And so we found a way to experience the beautiful highs of longing, of need, of craving – with other people. And in the process, we form connections that we hope will be fortuitous; connections from which we can learn something about ourselves, about them, about loving, and about living.

Is this manipulative? Consumptive? Maladaptive? I don’t like to think so. But maybe to an extent. But I also think this is a natural response, even if it’s not a culturally accepted one. We all seek out adventures that bring us pleasure, and a burning desire to rip another person’s clothes off and push their genitals into one’s mouth is certainly adventure-seeking, pleasure-producing and endorphin-generating.

The trick, I suppose (and the one we are having to learn) is understanding the depth of the void we are contending with. And to understand that any other outside adventure, be it knitting, watching sports, or fucking other people will only add a superficial filling to that void. That the emptiness needs to be remediated in other, more productive ways, like going on dates together as a couple, so that we are able to recall the desire from long ago, that is still there bubbling at the surface. It just needs accessing. And like curling up on the couch and watching a movie together. Like fucking in the rain. Like, being together, really and truly together. Because if our holes get filled, then naturally, the smoother the surface of the structure.

And then all we’ll have to do is skate.