American woman told how she lives with two husbands
'13.12.2018'
Source: Inosmi
In the “modern love” column, The New York Times introduces readers to a kind of “confession” by an American who decided to rethink the concept of family, adding a third party to her marriage. Together they live in a house under construction and raise her child.
They agreed that she could find a lover on the side, provided that her husband would not know about it, the source quotes Inosmi. And then she fell in love.
Two guys in the backyard rattle building materials - build a workshop. One of them is thin and dark-haired; the other is a stocky one with a short gray beaver. Through the noise of the air compressor of a nail gun, I hear their laughter. The walls are slowly covered with plating.
They began this work over a year ago. Most homeowners would be unhappy with such a pace. But I am not. They build for free. They build it for me.
I bring them water. I kiss one for the night, the other for no. One of them is my boyfriend, with whom we have been dating for ten years. The other is my husband. In fact, my husband and I consider ourselves divorced, but we have never signed any official documents. We still love each other, just not romantic love. All these years we have been living together under the same roof, although we sleep in different bedrooms.
And this is what happened: once 15 years ago I woke up in the middle of the night, woke up my husband and told him: "I need you to allow me to have a love affair on the side."
By that time, our two-year-old son had just moved from his parents' bed to his own bed. My husband and I were once again alone with each other, but in the place where there should be a passion, there was a gaping void. We tried to return the former feeling, turning to specialists for consultation, we resorted to the help of intimate therapy and underwear. I needed a lap dance under the table. I needed shameless greedy kisses. As a result, we came to an agreement.
“I don't want to know anything about this,” he said. “Everything must remain outside this house.” This went on for several years. I met men in hotels and in their homes in the hills of San Francisco.
Until I met a new guy in the same bar in the Mission District (Mission District) - the perfect meeting place for people who are looking for a partner for one night. Only at that very moment, when he handed me a red gerbera, I fell in love with him without memory. Fell in love with a cleft between his teeth. I touched his arm, pretending that I wanted to examine a ring that he had made from a bicycle spoke. We liked the same alternative music.
A few days later, we were waltzing on Berkeley pier, and my gloves were sticking out of his breast pocket, depicting a scarf. He made a rabbit from a mop to clean windows and towels, and I could not help laughter when he was crafting his stunts.
On the day when I decided to tell my husband about everything, our yellow kitchen was flooded with sunlight. The son played in his room in the designer with the heroes of Hogwarts.
“We did not agree on this,” he said. The conversation took place in a calm atmosphere. Some of us mentioned a divorce. Then someone said: "Then we need to disperse?". And again there was a long pause.
My parents divorced when I was a kid. Coming from school, I did not find anyone at home. My mother worked an hour away from home and returned no earlier than six. Sometimes on Sundays I saw my father. He took us to car shows or bought fish for an aquarium. I don’t think he would like to have children at all. He was not interested in discussing books or cheerleading with me. Once, he jokingly threw me over the side of the boat, saying: “That's how you learn to swim!”.
My brother and sister were crazy people who secretly ran out of the house to parties in the forest. In fact, I grew up alone. And she dreamed of a family with whom it would be possible to travel or throw jokes at dinner.
Now I had a family. We built cities of Lego, played musical instruments, sang by notes. When we went to visit my relatives in San Diego, we stopped to have some pancakes with laughing faces. On the plane, we took up a whole series of seats, creating our own happy little world with snacks, cartoons and various surprises that we prepared for our son.
I could not imagine that I was waking up in the house where my child was not, that I needed to carry him to my father, that I could not kiss his sleepy cheeks every evening. I needed my family. And I needed my lover.
When I offered my husband to live together in different rooms, he did not object. I grabbed the idea like a life raft. We ordered another bed and made the second bedroom from the husband's office. I was not sure that a new type of family could be created, but, like a child who is experiencing the limits of what is permitted, I wanted to try.
A few months later, I said: "I want to introduce him to our son." “If you bring someone here,” said my husband, “we will have to leave. I do not want to meet with him. "
Several weeks passed. And one day my husband said, “Wild Side West Bar. Wednesday at half past five. "
I do not remember with whom I was going to this meeting: with my husband or with my boyfriend. But I clearly remember how we sat in a beer garden outdoors, and I had sweat on my forehead.
We formed a small triangle: my husband sat motionless, and my boyfriend leaned back, as if wanting to give us more space. I sat down on the staggering chair. With the same success, we could sit in a lawyer's office and draw up documents.
There was a question about the child. We talked about who we are for this boy. Who will we be for him and for each other? What is the degree of our mutual trust?
We agreed to meet at the playground next week. We, three adults, carefully planned everything. I will play with my son on the bar. At this point, my boyfriend will do, and I will introduce him as my friend.
When he appeared, he had in his hands an old radio and some tools. In our conversations, he remembered that my son likes to disassemble electronics.
My boyfriend juggled with two screwdrivers and a wrench, and my son laughed. He smiled back and said, "Hey, buddy, do you want to make out this thing with me?"
When it all began, we still lived in a large apartment in the Mission area; on those nights when I had my boyfriend, we had some privacy. At first, everyone felt awkward, but years passed, and we spent more and more time together - preparing, playing board games.
Twice a year, we all together, including my husband's parents, went to my mother in Ohio and spent two hectic weeks there, playing cards, throwing water bombs and arranging long feasts.
Then the owner of our apartment decided to sell it and offered us a huge amount to buy out our lease term. In most places, this money would be enough to buy a house. However, in the bay area they would not be enough for the down payment. The only thing we could afford was an apartment, half the size of the previous one. There was no room for the home office, for most of our furniture, or for my boyfriend.
In the new house, my boyfriend made a special platform so that I could keep the mattress under the desk, but I never felt comfortable there. It was not at all cool to sleep with him under a pile of papers and in the light of a computer screen saver.
One day, when we were lying on our improvised bed, staring at the disorderly interlacing of cords, he said: "But let's build a studio for you." But I had no money.
“We could get everything we needed,” he said. “Maybe if we start with the foundation, everything will get better with time, even if now it’s hard for us to imagine how it will be.”
When he began to dig up the backyard, he was a messy mess with a bunch of broken bottles and rusty scrap metal. He patiently set about clearing it. One day, my husband put on work gloves and also jumped in there. When we finished building materials, our husband did not stint and bought new ones. For many months, until the frame was erected, our Sundays were held under the hammer, sounds of music and laughter, which merged into a single noise.
My husband taught me to use a pistol for screwing in screws. My boyfriend took pictures of me when I nailed an avocado-colored outer skin. I have a selfie where the three of us are standing in dust masks covered with scraps of fiberglass and smiling - on that day we laid the walls with insulating material.
The two men carefully laid the layers of drywall, again and again pulling their hands to the ceiling. Before they closed the last stretch, I hid gold dollar coins and a photograph of three generations of people next to a ledge, which are connected with each other in such a way that it is impossible to describe in words.
They left one massive ceiling beam uncovered. When you enter the workshop and admire the honeyed light and warm oak floors, this crossbar immediately catches the eye. Every time she reminds me of our love for her son.
We wanted our child to grow up in a happy family. And this frame symbolizes our loyalty to our own ideas. It is like a dream to which I returned countless times: as if I found a room in my home that I did not know existed.
Now it is our life. We build a family without a preliminary plan.
