First comes marriage. Then comes a flirtatious colleague.
Your Mileage May Vary is an advice column offering you a unique framework for thinking through your moral dilemmas. To submit a question, fill out this anonymous form or email sigal.samuel@vox.com. Here's this week's question from a reader, condensed and edited for clarity:
My husband and I have a good relationship. We're both committed to personal growth and continual learning and have developed very strong communication skills. A couple of years ago we were exposed to some friends with an open marriage and had our own conversations about ethical non-monogamy. At first, neither of us were interested.
Now, my husband is interested and currently is attracted to a colleague who is also into him. She's married and has no idea that he and I talk about all of their interactions. He doesn't know what her relationship agreements are with her husband.
I'm not currently interested in ethical non-monogamy. I see things in our relationship that I'd like to work on together with my husband. I want more of his attention and energy, to be frank. I don't want his attention and energy being funneled into another relationship. I don't have moral issues with ethical non-monogamy, I just don't actually see any value-add for me right now. The cost-benefit analysis leaves me saying 'not now.'
My husband admitted that he's hoping I will have a change of mind. I don't want to force his hand, although I am continuing to say very clearly what I want in my relationship. How do we reach a compromise? If he cuts ties with this woman, he has resentment towards me. If he continues to pursue something with her, I feel disrespected, and while I don't want to leave him I would feel the need to do something.
Dear Monogamously Married,
I want to start by commending you for two things. First, for your openness to discussing and exploring all this with your husband. Second, for your insistence on clearly stating what you actually want — and don't want.
I think Erich Fromm, the 20th-century German philosopher and psychologist, would back me up in saying that you'd do well to hold tight to both those qualities. For starters, radical openness is important because, according to Fromm, the basic premise of love is freedom. He writes:
Love is a passionate affirmation of its 'object.' That means that love is not an 'affect' but an active striving, the aim of which is the happiness, development, and freedom of its 'object.'
In other words, love is not a feeling. It's work, and the work of love is to fully support the flourishing of the person you love. That can be scary — what if the person discovers that they're actually happier with somebody else? — which is why Fromm specifies that only someone with a strong self 'which can stand alone and bear solitude' will be up for the job. He continues:
This passionate affirmation is not possible if one's own self is crippled, since genuine affirmation is always rooted in strength. The person whose self is thwarted can only love in an ambivalent way; that is, with the strong part of his self he can love, with the crippled part he must hate.
So far, it might sound like Fromm is saying that to be a good lover is to be a doormat: you just have to do whatever's best for the other person, even if it screws you over. But his view is very much the opposite.
In fact, Fromm cautions us against both 'masochistic love' and 'sadistic love.' In the first, you give up your self and sacrifice your needs in order to become submerged in another person. In the second, you try to exert power over the other person. Both of these are rooted in 'a deep anxiety and an inability to stand alone,' writes Fromm; whether by dissolving yourself into them or by controlling them, you're trying to make it impossible for the other person to abandon you. Both approaches are 'pseudo-love.'
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So although Fromm doesn't want you to try to control your partner, and although he suggests that the philosophical ideal is for you to passionately affirm your partner's freedom, he's not advising you to do that if, for you, that will mean masochism.
If you're not up for ethical non-monogamy — if you feel, like many people, that the idea of giving your partner free rein is too big a threat to your relationship or your own well-being — then pretending otherwise is not real love. It's just masochistic self-annihilation.
I'm personally partial to Fromm's non-possessive approach to love. But I equally appreciate his point that the philosophical ideal could become a practical bloodbath if it doesn't work for the actual humans involved. I think the question, then, is this: Do you think it's possible for you to get to a place where you genuinely feel ready for and interested in ethical non-monogamy?
It sounds like you're intellectually open to the idea, and given that you said you're committed to personal growth and continual learning, non-monogamy could offer you some benefits; lots of people who practice it say that part of its appeal lies in the growth it catalyzes. And if practicing non-monogamy makes you and/or your husband more fulfilled, it could enrich your relationship and deepen your appreciation for each other.
But right now, you've got a problem: Your husband is pushing on your boundaries by flirting with a woman even after you've expressed that you don't want him pursuing something with her. And you already feel like he isn't giving you enough attention and energy, so the prospect of having to divvy up those resources with another woman feels threatening. Fair!
Notice, though, that that isn't a worry about non-monogamy per se — it's a worry about the state of your current monogamous relationship.
In a marriage, what partners typically want is to feel emotionally secure. But that comes from how consistently and lovingly we show up for and attune to one another, not from the relationship structure. A monogamous marriage may give us some feeling of security, but it's obviously no guarantee; some people cheat, some get divorced, and some stay loyally married while neglecting their partner emotionally.
'Monogamy can serve as a stand-in for actual secure attachment,' writes therapist Jessica Fern in Polysecure, a book on how to build healthy non-monogamous relationships. She urges readers to take an honest look at any relationship insecurities or dissatisfactions that are being disguised by monogamy, and work with partners to strengthen the emotional experience of the relationship.
Since you feel that your husband isn't giving you enough attention and energy, be sure to talk to him about it. Explain that it doesn't feel safe for you to open up the relationship without him doing more to be fully present with you and to make you feel understood and precious. See if he starts implementing these skills more reliably.
In the meantime, while you two are trying to reset your relationship, it's absolutely reasonable to ask him to cool it with the colleague he's attracted to; he doesn't have to cut ties with her entirely (and may not be able to if they work together), but he can certainly avoid feeding the flames with flirtation. Right now, the fantasy of her is a distraction from the work he needs to be doing to improve the reality of your marriage. He should understand why a healthy practice of ethical non-monogamy can't emerge from a situation where he's pushing things too far with someone else before you've agreed to change the terms of your relationship (and if he doesn't, have him read Polysecure!).
It's probably a good idea for you to each do your own inner work, too. Fern, like Fromm, insists that if we want to be capable of a secure attachment with someone else, we need to cultivate that within ourselves. That means being aware of our feelings, desires, and needs, and knowing how to tend to them. Understanding your attachment style can help with this; for example, if you're anxiously attached and you very often reach out to your partner for reassurance, you can practice spending time alone.
After taking some time to work on these interpersonal and intrapersonal skills, come back together to discuss how you're feeling. Do you feel more receptive to opening up the relationship? Do you think it would add more than it would subtract?
If the answer is 'yes' or 'maybe,' you can create a temporary relationship structure — or 'vessel,' as Fern calls it — to help you ease into non-monogamy. One option is to adopt a staggered approach to dating, where one partner (typically the more hesitant one) starts dating new people first, and the other partner starts after a predetermined amount of time. Another option is to try a months-long experiment where both partners initially engage in certain romantic or sexual experiences that are less triggering to each other, then assess what worked and what didn't, and go from there.
If the answer is 'no' — if you're not receptive to opening up your relationship — then by all means say that! Given you'll have sincerely done the work to explore whether non-monogamy works for you, your husband doesn't get to resent you. He can be sad, he can be disappointed, and he can choose to leave if the outcome is intolerable to him. But he'll have to respect you, and what's more important, you'll have to respect yourself.
Bonus: What I'm reading
This week's question prompted me to go back to the famous psychologist Abraham Maslow, who was influenced by Fromm. Maslow spoke of two kinds of love : Deficit-Love and Being-Love. The former is about trying to satiate your own needs, while the latter is about giving without expecting something in return. Maslow characterizes Being-Love as an almost spiritual experience, likening it to 'the perfect love of their God that some mystics have described.'
In addition to Polysecure, which has become something of a poly bible in the past few years, I recommend reading What Love Is — and What It Could Be , written by the philosopher Carrie Jenkins. I appreciated Jenkins's functionalist take on romantic love: She explains that we've constructed the idea of romantic love a certain way in order to serve a certain function (structuring society into nuclear family units), but we can absolutely revise it if we want.
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Top collectors on the island have amassed hundreds of thousands of artifacts — and there are still more being found. Stelios Tripalitakis holds an original rifle used during the Battle of Crete, part of his extensive collection dedicated to preserving the island's wartime history and resistance. Photograph by Demetrios Ioannou The metal helmet held by Stelios Tripalitakis is heavy, with a small hole on one side and a jagged gash on the other, likely caused by a bullet. It probably belonged to a German soldier, Lieutenant Schimkat, who fought and died in the Battle of Crete during WWII. The hole in the helmet, Tripalitakis surmises, was Schimkat's fatal wound. 'I bought this helmet from an elderly man in Daratsos village, about a kilometer from here,' recalls Tripalitakis, sitting in his living room in a village in the northwest of Crete, Greece's largest island. Crete is a rugged place, with a number of historic towns, ancient sites, and scenic beaches. 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Tripalitakis holds a helmet he believes once belonged to Lieutenant Schimkat, pointing out the bullet exit hole that marks its violent history. Photograph by Demetrios Ioannou He managed to identify the helmet through two original photographs, both showing the makeshift grave of the German lieutenant. 'Both photos capture the helmet from the same angle, clearly showing the bullet entry hole, which is identical in size and position to the helmet I have,' he explains. One photo belongs to Dimitris Skartsilakis, a researcher and collector from Rethimno, a nearby city. He owns more than 10,000 photographs, many depicting grim scenes, ranging from local executions and battlefield casualties to soldiers' graves. The other is from a German paratrooper's album of the 3rd Parachute Regiment stationed in the Galatas area. 'The lieutenant's grave is visible with the same helmet, and the name on the cross is also clearly seen,' says Tripalitakis. When he searched the German archives, he found that Schimkat was killed on May 22 in Galatas, shot in the head. A generational pursuit Tripalitakis' front yard resembles a WWII vehicle cemetery, with several pieces of rusted metal scattered on the ground. But it's the room on the first floor of his house where history truly overflows. The 42-year-old has transformed his former living room into what may be the world's most densely packed private WWII museum, showcasing relics ranging from rifles and grenades to rare photographs and uniforms. Tripalitakis is not alone. Collectors in Crete become interested in this history from a very young age and many who had lived during the German occupation were still alive in the 1990s. 'My family runs a pastry shop in Rethimno, and I used to hear countless war stories from our customers, many of whom were around 70 years old at the time,' fellow collector Skartsilakis, now 42, says. 'Both of my grandmothers also shared stories from those years. That's how I first became interested in all this.' Tripalitakis talks about his artifacts with such passion, and so fast, it's as if he's trying to share as much as possible before time runs out. He's had to practice talking fast. He collaborates with at least six travel agencies in Chania that run daily Battle of Crete tours, all of which include a 'strictly one-hour visit' to his museum. Mortar rounds, grenades, and ammunition, recovered by Tripalitakis during more than 25 years of searching the island for wartime remnants. Photograph by Demetrios Ioannou A U.S. Army medical stretcher, used during WWII, now preserved as part of Tripalitakis' collection. Photograph by Demetrios Ioannou According to Yannis Skalidakis, historian and professor at the University of Crete, the Battle of Crete played an extraordinary role in WWII. It was the first—and last—large-scale battle in which the attack was carried out entirely from the air using paratroopers. And Crete "was essentially the only free territory left in Europe,' he explains. Due to the strong local resistance, however, the elite German unit suffered heavy losses, which prevented them from attempting further airborne operations during the war. The relentless opposition by the Cretans was another harbinger. 'The resistance of the Cretan people marked the beginning of armed civilian resistance across Europe against Nazism. The citizens of Crete—ordinary people—were the first to fight back, alongside the Greek and British armies," notes Skalidakis, author of a book on German-occupied Crete. (There is also the disputed theory that the Germans getting bogged down in Crete contributed to the delay of the German invasion of the Soviet Union—a delay which cost them dearly.) A uniquely documented battle Collectors like Tripalitakis can be found across the island, with the Chania region holding the largest share. But you would be mistaken to think this is a mere hobby. 'In reality,' asserts Skartsilakis, who is currently collaborating with the Historical Museum of Crete for a temporary exhibition, 'if it weren't for us, much of this material would have ended up as scrap and been lost forever.' Since Tripalitakis started collecting in 1999 he estimates he's spent more than €100,000 on artifacts, and nearly €50,000, maybe even more, just on fuel. 'I work several jobs and invest everything into this," he admits. Guided by history books, local testimonies, and intuition, Tripalitakis has scoured the island's battle sites by land and sea multiple times. Most of the collectors also scan the web for important findings. That's because Crete might be the most photographed battle of the war, the historian Skalidakis contends. 'Almost all the Germans had cameras with them and captured many moments of the battle, both before and after it, resulting in an extremely rich visual archive that doesn't exist for other battles.' The regime did it for potential propaganda purposes. The collector Skartsilakis has used photographs to find objects. 'It's sometimes astonishing to see that, even after 80 years, shell casings from the battle are still lying on a wall where I have a photo of soldiers positioned during the battle,' he shares. Tripalitakis examines a selection of original wartime photographs from his collection —some costing him around 300 euros. Underneath are displayed personal items such as buttons and belt buckles found in the islands' battlefields. Photograph by Demetrios Ioannou It should come as no surprise, then, that these photographs can fetch lofty sums. 'I've bought a single photograph on eBay for €300. Especially the ones showing paratroopers with full gear in the midst of battle are extremely expensive,' Tripalitakis shares. 'A paratrooper's full photo album, can go for as much as €5,000 and may contain 150–200 photographs.' Under Greek law, items from 1453 and earlier are considered antiquities and are automatically state property. Anything found that dates after 1453—the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans and the end of the Byzantine Empire—is not considered ancient and can be legally owned as collectibles. Weaponry and ammunition that are still functional must be officially registered with the Greek police. Small arms require a permit and must be deactivated. 'I handle that myself,' Tripalitakis says. 'I'm a reserve officer in the special forces, in the paratroopers, but I knew how to handle explosives like these long before the army." In total, Tripalitakis owns around 200 weapons, though not all of them are complete. Other items include uniforms, gas masks, field telephones, mess tins, motorcycle goggles, ID tags, cutlery sets, first aid kits, cooking pots, buttons, pocket watches, and unit insignia. Much like Schimkat's helmet, each item in a collection carries its own life story. 'We have found many personal belongings of soldiers, such as wedding rings with engraved initials, some of which we've traced back to their owners,' says Skartsilakis, who recently made a particularly rare discovery. 'I found three wooden crosses from graves at the Battle of Galatas. A local had them to support the roof of his stable.' From screws to barrels the entire island is dotted with repurposed WWII relics. Some became flower pots or water troughs. 'I've seen a raki still made from a German fuel barrel," Skalidakis laughs. Photograph by Demetrios Ioannou But don't mistake the ways they've been repurposed to mean they aren't valued. After all, many in Crete have family lore about ancestors who fought and died to stop the Nazis. 'You should know,' Tripalitakis concludes, 'that everyone has objects like these in their homes. Some people consider them family heirlooms and don't want to part with them.' Given the island's riches, Tripalitakis's former living room isn't the only stop for aficionados. One of the first private collections to open to the public was the War Museum Askifou at Sfakia, created by collector Georgios Hatzidakis and now maintained by his son Andreas. 'My father started this when he was 16, a few years after the war ended, in 1946,' says Andreas, who inherited the collection after his dad passed away in 2007. 'He was a young boy during the war. The Germans killed one of his sisters, and my grandfather was in the resistance,' he says. Today, they own thousands of artifacts and exhibit them at their home at Askifou village, which is open to visitors daily. Andreas continues the tradition of searching for relics with his younger son, who is now the same age his father was when he started the collection. 'I am trying to teach him the history of our place', he says. 'It's important for the older generations to remember, and for the younger ones to learn'.
