And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. -A.N.

My husband was in Afghanistan for 6 months and at some point during that time I started to re-awaken. I was watching a very steamy scene on TV and normally I would have felt nauseous but this time my body reacted with warm tingles. Suddenly everything was in working order and I felt like I just might eat a man alive if the opportunity presented itself. After years of feeling deadened and ashamed of my lack of desire and response I felt healthy and alive again. For the first time since getting together with my husband 6 years ago, I felt desire for another man. There is something big that happens to a woman's sexuality after having children. I feel like I own it more than I ever did as a young woman and it no longer makes me nervous as it once did when I would receive unwanted cat calls or attention. I had started seeing a therapist when I went on anti-depressants and he recommended that I look into Anais Nin. I believe he suggested her to me so that I wouldn't feel so alone in some of my thoughts and ideas, so that I had some one to identify with. She was a very unconventional woman for her time and lived a very forward life. I found right away when I started reading her journals that we shared many traits. For a long while now I have been interested in exploring an open marriage. Not for the reasons most would assume though. It's not, for me, about needing or wanting to have sex with other men to satisfy a great sexual hunger or to replace my absent father. Rather I like to imagine having such a strong and solid love with someone that we could allow each other autonomous intellectual and sexual experiences outside of our marriage. Quite frankly I'm not interested in only making love to one man for the rest of my life. I never thought too much about getting married before I did or about what the institution of marriage meant to me. I've had lots of time to reflect on it since marrying and I find it odd that the way we prove and declare love for our partner is to deny ourselves what we desire for the rest of our lives. Now another thing that I have come to believe is that staying with one person and working on and focusing on that one relationship for a long time allows for personal growth that is unlikely if you are always playing the field or spreading yourself around. Once you have allowed yourself to be totally vulnerable and once you feel that sense of security in a relationship then you can focus on yourself and the problems you work through with your partner teach you and help you to grow as a human. I believe in long term and loyal relationships and I want to have that but loyalty, to me, does not mean total sacrifice. What about being loyal to yourself? What about the ways you can grow and learn through other people? What if being lovers for a time with another person allows you to expand in a direction you weren't with your partner or just jump starts your body and mind? Anais had an open marriage and many lovers but her reasons were different than mine. Still it felt nice to feel that she would have understood me and not judged me to be an awful wife.
My husband is not interested in pursuing this type of relationship and it will, at some point, become too great a difference for us to put aside. For now it is not something we speak of. And I understand why. For years he's felt unwanted and insecure because of my lack of desire towards him, like he's going to be ok with me wanting to be with other men. I knew not to push it until we were doing better. About two and a half months into his deployment we decided to separate. There was a lot of back and forth and painful things said that led up to it and the decision didn't hold very long- about three weeks I think. When we decided to keep trying there was a rush of new excitement and energy into our relationship and I felt hope which had been missing for a while. During our brief separation I had started flirting with an old friend online. Nothing overt or indiscreet but provocative, slightly veiled and exciting. My creativity flowed freely again in my emails to him and my imagination ran wild. When my husband and I decided to keep trying I didn't immediately inform this other man because I couldn't stand the thought of not having the excitement of that interaction in my life. The energy did eventually shift back into an appropriate realm but it wasn't really my doing and i knew that if given the opportunity, I would take things much further. My husband and I separated once more about a month before he was due to come back and again we decided to keep trying only this time I didn't feel as much hope and since that time I have felt that I have one foot out the door and can't really, fully invest in us. Upon his return the sex was great which relieved my fears that my newly awakened sexuality wouldn't translate into our marriage and we immediately prepared for a month long trip back to the States to see friends and family.