Grey's Anatomy

Rebecca and I have watched Grey's Anatomy since the series started years ago. The last episode we watched together had a couple in their mid to late sixties at the hospital. The wife of the couple had terminal cancer. During her stay in the hospital, she was interviewing women to replace her after she was gone. The twist in the story was she was interviewing the women to take care of her lover after she was gone, not to take care of her husband. Her husband was fully aware of her relationship as it had been going on for years. It was explained that both the husband and the wife had other lovers and were more like best friends.

One of the intern doctors in the show made comments to the effect that while it seems strange, the stability and strength shown by the dying lady and her husband is something to envy.

This of course got me thinking about things.

From my perspective, I will always be turned on by the thought of Rebecca with another man. I love the idea of her letting loose and enjoying her sexuality. There is no bigger turn on for me than that. 

The excitement I experienced by just the possibility that she "could" is hard to describe. There were a handful of times when she was seeing G that she came ever so slightly out of her shell and talked to me. And although I thought nothing had happenen yet, it was our little secret and I felt closer to her than ever before.

Of course that all came to a crashing halt with the discovery of what they really had going on, and what she wasn't sharing with me, but I'm mature enough now to know how difficult it would have been under the circumstances, to share something like that. 

But we were oh so close. Our sex life was on fire and I felt closer to her than ever. Not bad after fifteen years of marriage.

The catch was that in order for something like this to work, a couple must be focused on each other, and approach it by being completely selfless to each other. A wife who realizes how much she can please her husband by feeding that sexual energy back into their marriage will light a fire in their bedroom. A husband has to give himself over to his wife and experience his sexual excitement through hers. That sort of reciprocal trust is what true marriage is about.

This doesn't need to make the husband weak in the eyes of his wife. His strength comes from the strength in their relationship and knowing she will always put him and their marriage first. 

Traditionalists will argue that there are several potential pitfalls with this arrangement; that a man and woman should be sexually exclusive. It has worked that way (kind of) for centuries, and it still can work. I agree that traditional marriage can work, but I can also argue it only works half the time, possibly less. Maybe if we were a little more open to these alternative arrangements, there would be a lot more fires lit in a lot more bedrooms, and a lot fewer broken marriages.

Rebecca and I came very close. We both acted very "human", which I believe kept us from making that successful jump. Now we're back safely on the solid ground of our monogamous marriage, and I am thankful for it. Maybe one day, as we both mature, we'll have another opportunity to take our level of trust and communication up a level.