On open relationships

My man and I have an open relationship. I'm sure I've said that before. Since our relationship is online, most of that openness is too. Aside from the over-arching rule of honesty, the only other rule about this part of our relationship is that if there is someone significant, we will tell each other.

I take him at his word and will happily chat, flirt, or play with lots of people. He knows about the few that I consider friends, but I rarely sit down and outline everything I did or said with every person I talked to. If I'm having a day off, there could be 3 different guys even on a slow day. That's not to say I play with them all but there would probably be some flirtation. But as soon as I've signed off, there names and the conversations are almost immediately forgotten.

He, however, is better than his word. He tells me about everyone. It doesn't matter if they talked for two minutes or two hours. He tells me jokes that he made or ideas that he came up with or fantasies that they discussed... whatever.

This has never concerned me in the slightest... until yesterday. See, when he tells me about his jokes or his ideas, it's because he wants to share it with me. He wants to hear me laugh or comment or take pride in him. And I do. When he tells me about the fantasies, he wants to see what piques my interest and what doesn't. He enjoys the time he spends with other women, but sometimes it feels like he enjoys it because he has something to bring back to me. I never expected that, but it's a wonderful thing.

Yesterday I asked him how he spent his new year and he told me he spent it chatting with a new girl. And suddenly I heard something I'd never heard before. He had a smile in his voice. Not because of a joke or fantasy, but because of a person. So I was intrigued.

He told me that they had talked for hours and hours, played a couple times (sorry, I should probably specify that I say "play" to refer to all forms of sex, cyber, phone, or real), talked about their lives, arranged for him to call her the next morning when she was getting off work, etc... and then the next morning he woke up to a picture of her topless.

I felt like my head was going to explode. Was that silly? Their play time was no big deal, and neither was him getting a picture. He was coming back to me and telling me everything that happened. She knew about me and our relationship. So why was I so weirded out by this?

I didn't say anything until I knew what to say. It took him awhile to hear that anything was wrong. Actually, I just sort of ran out of the ability to say anything. And then he asked what was on my mind.

I told him as much as I could. And after much consideration, I think it's the phone thing that bothers me the most. He and I live in two different countries. I have his number and he has mine but we have only ever talked on the phone twice. And neither time was spontaneous. We met online and arranged to make the call. We don't text either. It's just too expensive and neither of us are in a position to afford it right now.

But suddenly there's this new girl who he clearly likes who can call him or text him any time she wants. He is potentially always available for her. And the only time he's really available for me is when he chooses to be. I didn't cope very well.

But we've talked. And while I don't think there will be any change in how he interacts with her, he knows how I feel and where the sore spots still are. Some issues were discussed and gotten over, others were discussed and will still be minor issues. I guess nothing can be perfect.