This summer, while monogamous couples emerge bleary-eyed from a year of domestic nesting, single folks are somersaulting ahead into the bacchanalia of Hot Vax Summer. That brings us to the question: what has the pandemic done to marriage? Weddings were canceled en masse. Spouses were stuck inside with each other for months on end, in many cases exposing massive household gender inequality — or, at least, a never-ending parade of sweatpants. And divorce rates shot way up, then slowed down again.
For all the darkness and doomsaying about the institution of marriage, some couples have used this year to reimagine what traditional wedded bliss looks like. Meaning, “honey, I think we should sleep with other people” levels of reimagining. Take Dahlia*, 32, and Benjamin*, 33. The Boston residents met on OKCupid five years ago and got hitched in 2019. After hitting a rough patch early on in the pandemic, they decided to try ethical non-monogamy in April 2021. GQ talked to them about how they arrived at that decision and what it’s been like to open their marriage, just as the world reopens too.
Benjamin: We’re both very independent people. We love that we both have our own lives. When the pandemic started and we suddenly had to spend all day, every day around each other and only around each other, that made the relationship very difficult. It put a damper on the mood between us. A lot of the romance kind of died.
Dahlia: I wouldn’t say the romance died. [Laughing] I would say our sex life died.
Benjamin: Our sex life died and it created a lot of negative emotions.
Dahlia: A big part of what we love about each other is seeing the other person do and enjoy all these things which obviously stopped because of COVID. Our problems started three to four months in.
Benjamin: We weren’t fighting but there were a lot of negative emotions: Why aren’t we having sex? Why aren’t we attracted to each other?
Dahlia: Sorry, just to clarify—
Benjamin: Why am I not able to perform? And that of course brings up a lot of feelings in Dahlia: Am I not sexy enough? Do you not love me anymore? Really scary emotions. And I had similar emotions: Am I not attracted to my wife anymore? Is that dead now? Is this how marriage is gonna be?
Dahlia: We had a lot of open, honest conversations where I was very vulnerable and said, “Are you not attracted to me anymore?” The issue Benjamin was having is that he couldn’t identify what the issue was. He continually said to me, “This doesn’t have to do with you. This has to do with the fact that I’m stuck at home every day all day and I can’t do the things I want to do and I’m not in the mood. It’s just not a sexy time.” I could hear it but I couldn’t internalize it. I would be like, “No, you’re a guy. I’m here, I’m willing and ready to have sex with you and you’re not interested. That must mean there’s something wrong with me.”
Benjamin: I saw a personal therapist and it wasn’t very helpful, but that therapist recommended that I do group therapy instead. So I went and I did the group therapy for maybe two months and that didn’t work. And then the fear heightened: If therapy can’t help me, then what? But at the same time, I started getting a feeling and Dahlia was onboard, maybe what we need is to work on this together. So then I left the group therapy and Dahlia found a couples’ therapist for us to see together. We started seeing her in the fall of 2020.
Dahlia: She was great. She helped us take a step back and get back to the foundation of our relationship. I began to understand that his lack of an erection doesn’t have to do with me.
Benjamin: Before therapy, when the sex life died, it really brought down the entire relationship. It created these negative emotions that were around us all the time. The couples therapy made us really appreciate each other for things beyond the sex life and realize why we were married beyond the sex. That really allowed us to build our relationship back.
Dahlia: Our first conversation about open relationships actually predates COVID. We were driving to Costco, of all places. I like to ask Benjamin random questions and so I brought up the fact that I had this fantasy where I always wanted to hook up with a Scottish guy. I’d been to Scotland twice and both times I had a boyfriend. The second time Benjamin was my boyfriend. And I just felt like it was never going to happen for me.
Benjamin: Specifically, she had a trip planned to Scotland and two weeks before that trip, she met me.
Dahlia: I said that and asked, “Do you have any fantasies that you had before we met?” And he said “Yeah, I always wanted to hook up with a woman with really big boobs.” And I said, “Well, you know, if we ever decide to go to Scotland and we meet a couple where I think the guy’s attractive and the woman has huge boobs, maybe we’ll swap.”
Benjamin: It was one of those, “Haha, oh really?” “No, haha, really?” things. We didn’t want to admit to the other partner but hoped the other one admitted it first.
Dahlia: We timed out the conversation when we got to Costco. But that conversation turned us both on a lot. And we had really good sex after. That was in February of 2020 and then COVID happened. I think that planted a seed.
Benjamin: I thought a lot about it, but one thing we always understood from the get-go is you can’t use poly to fix a bad relationship. It’s a way to strengthen a good one. During the middle of the pandemic, there was never a good time to bring it up, because we were in a bad place.
Dahlia: Late 2020, we were probably two months into couples therapy and feeling a lot better about our relationship. I started doing research on ethical non-monogamy. I started reading articles and listening to podcasts like Multiamory and Live Your F*ck Yes Life. I bought Ethical Slut, the bible of polyamory. This is how my brain works, I need to be prepared.
Benjamin: We were having a tense conversation on the couch and you actually mentioned it. I was really shocked. Wow, she brought it up again. I was afraid to broach it because of the state we were in. Because I was afraid it would just be interpreted as an excuse to cheat on you.
Dahlia: And I get that too, because any time in therapy when you brought up the idea of novelty, it was very frustrating for me. I was like, “I can’t be novel to you. I’m your wife, we’ve been together for almost five years, there’s nothing about me that’s gonna be novel.”
I think COVID pushed us into having the kinds of conversations that we needed to have in order to open up our relationship. We read the Esther Perel Mating in Captivity book before COVID because we knew, Okay, we're married now. We need to make sure we're not one of those married couples who as soon as they get married, their sex life dies. We didn't want that. COVID put us in this worst case scenario. It accelerated the conversations we needed to have in order to be able to open up our relationship.
Benjamin: I was scared that we would try it out and then it wouldn’t help. I was concerned that I would feel a lot more jealous and that I would find it an excuse to just not be around Dahlia.
Dahlia: There were two things we really needed before we opened our relationship. We needed to be fully vaccinated, which happened at the end of April. Our original couples therapist, while she was very supportive of us, didn’t feel like she could support us professionally. So we found another therapist who is very involved in ethical non-monogamy. She herself is poly, and teaches workshops on this. She knows what she’s doing. I actually found her on TikTok.
I was like, “Okay, we have the therapist, we’re vaccinated, now I feel like we can do this.” I remember it was April 22nd … whatever the Wednesday of that week was. That’s when we both joined OkCupid. Again.
Benjamin: Let’s talk about what happened just before that. Which is we were floating the idea of just doing it and I was like, “I wanna fuck you right now.” And we went upstairs and it had been a long time since we had sex. That’s when I think it really clicked: Not only are we okay with this, this could actually be a positive thing between us. It could create this excitement between us.
Dahlia: Once we started talking about it more seriously, we started having sex more often.
Benjamin: I remember we were talking about “Honey, should we go on the apps?” “It’s a little soon.” We go upstairs, we have great sex, you come out of the bathroom and go, “I think we should go on the apps.”
Dahlia: The parameters have changed since we first opened our relationship .
Benjamin: Dramatically.
Dahlia: There was probably a 3-year period between my last relationship and Benjamin where I was single and dating and I did not hook up with guys just for the hell of it. I was very intentional about who I had sex with, mostly because I just wanted a long-term relationship.
Benjamin: I think I had one like a hookup in college. But, I'd always felt like there were a lot of experiences that I'd never had. I'm, in general, not just with relationships, a guy who feels the need to try everything in the world. And I feel like sexual experience really falls under that umbrella too. There's so many wonderful people out there, all different shapes and sizes and personalities and things to talk about. I want to try it all.
Dahlia: I was like, “I’m gonna have a lot of casual sex and that’s all I want and it’s gonna be great.” And now, I’ve connected with people.
Benjamin: When Dahlia first said, “I just want to hook up with guys,” I laughed. I was like, “no way, you’re gonna find someone who is friendly and attractive and who you connect with and you’re gonna want to be in a relationship.”
Dahlia: I also didn’t want to know anything about Benjamin’s situation, who he was dating. And now I help him with his profile and look at matches with him.
Benjamin: It is incredible and so ironic how being married makes you better at dating. It’s just hilarious. We should all have that when we’re single. Now that I'm married, I get flirting advice from my wife.
Dahlia: Whenever I had sex when I was dating and wanting a partner, the first time I had sex with someone I saw any kind of future with, I was immediately filled with anxiety. Are they going to dump me now? Do they find me attractive? Do I find them attractive? Was that sex even good? I couldn’t enjoy sex just for sex. The first time I had an ethically non-monogamous experience, the sex was great. It was with a guy who I knew I never wanted to be in a relationship with. When it was over, I could just lay there and be naked and talk about whatever and not care what I was saying and it felt so liberating.
Benjamin: Even if it’s more than just a hookup, you can enjoy somebody for who they are and not worry if they fulfill every single need. It’s taken a lot of pressure off our relationship.
We actually both got our first dates on the same night. I went out with this woman who is Brazilian and she'd been ethically non-monogamous for nine years. She turns to me and she goes, "And how long have you been poly?" I went, "My first date ever." Spoiler alert, it didn't work out in the end.
Dahlia: The night did, though.
Benjamin: The night was great. But immediately once she realized that I was brand new, it turned from a dating dynamic into a teacher-student dynamic. Which you can see how that wouldn't work out so well for dating. Imagine if you went on a date with somebody, just regular traditional monogamous dating, and the person was, "I've never dated anybody before. Can you teach me how to date?"
Dahlia: I’ve met a lot of guys who’ve been hibernating and now are just ready to get out there. Benjamin and I have had pretty different experiences with dating based on gender norms. For me, it's been weeding through the mess to find quality people.
Benjamin: And I'm, "Hello? Are you going to talk to me?" It's the stereotypical dating dynamic of men and women on dating apps.
Dahlia: The guys that I've been with have wanted to learn more about what we're doing. They're very curious. A couple of guys have said, "I could never do it. I would be way too jealous." But I don't think they think any less of Benjamin.
Benjamin: We talk about our experiences with each other. We appreciate each other and instead of resenting each other, it's fun to talk about the dates we've been on. It's back to the novelty thing. It just creates this passion between us. And when Dahlia talks about having sex with a guy, that makes me hot for her.
Dahlia: It really has helped our sex life. I've learned things about what I like through these experiences that I've had with other men. So, there've been tips that I've picked up. When you're with someone for a long time, you kind of get into a routine of the way you have sex. And it's changed that for us.
Talking about things I never thought I would feel comfortable doing … we're having a foursome tomorrow.
Benjamin: Don't jinx it.
Dahlia: We’ve used a session with our therapist to kind of prepare for that and talking through it with her, talking about the worst case scenario and preparing for what that could look was so helpful to make me feel less anxious and more excited.
Benjamin: This therapist asked us, "What is your worst case scenario for that foursome and what are you going to do? Don't try and wing it when things get bad. Be ready."
Dahlia: The guy that I went out with last night was really curious and was asking me lots of questions and at one point he asked me, "What's your big fear with this?" And I said, "Well, it was fear of abandonment and fear that Benjamin would come home one day and say, ‘I met someone I like more than you. I want a divorce.’" And I don't fear that anymore because I know that if Benjamin came home and said, "Hey, I met someone I kind of like more than you,” we’d talk about it.
Benjamin: Poly forces a level of communication that monogamous relationships don't. Because when you're monogamous and you date somebody monogamously, you don't need to have discussions about, "So what are the rules on seeing other people?" It's laid out for you. Monogamy has a blueprint.
Dahlia: For the most part, we've told pretty much all of our friends. Our close friends were all really supportive and thought it was really cool. I have a lot of friends who are having babies right now. And so I tell them about it and they're just so shocked in a good way. "Wow, your life is so different from mine right now” and “I love to live vicariously through you."
Benjamin: Yeah. It's been the same with my friends. The responses have been anywhere from, "Cool" to "That's awesome." Nothing negative.
Dahlia: I joke that we're on a mission to normalize. Which is why it’s really hard for us to not tell our families. Down the road we would like to at least tell our parents, but we're waiting until this sort of lasts for a while. Both of us are open books, in pretty much every way possible. So to keep this major thing about our lives secret from our families has been really difficult. Literally yesterday I was talking to my mother-in-law and she was like, "So, what's new?" And, it's like “There's so many things that are new that I cannot tell you.”
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