The Press offers you a weekly testimony that aims to illustrate what really happens behind the bedroom door, in privacy, far, far from statistics and standards. Today: Laurence*, 49 years old.
Everything “tumbled” during the pandemic. Laurence, married for 30 years and so far a little “straight”, had a sudden and violent desire for something new. Let’s say it was served.
She arranged to meet us in a cafeteria in the northern crown, one midday in mid-February. Hey, it’s Valentine’s Day. She also wears a pink jacket. No doubt, our interlocutor, who will be 50 next year, flashes. And it suits him rather well, because his story is just as surprising.
It all started between two confinements, at dawn on a Sunday morning. She saw her husband and it got inside her: “I don’t feel like it anymore. And I started crying…”
Pandemic reflection? Middle age crisis ? “I can’t imagine living the last 30 or 40 years of my life with the same man…”
It must be said that Laurence did not have many men in her life. “He attracted me a lot by his side bad boy, she recalls, recalling their early days. I come from a family straight, he listened to metal, he had a motorcycle. »
In bed, it’s “interesting, very interesting”, especially in the beginning. They speak at the time of the idea of opening up their couple, “to see elsewhere, out of curiosity”, but it does not materialize. “We had children and we ran out of time! »
Thirty years later, therefore, this famous Sunday morning, Laurence comes to this conclusion: “We are the best friends in the world, accomplices, we have a super nice relationship, but, but it lacks…! »
I’m approaching 50: does it suit me, does it stimulate me, do I need anything else?
Lawrence
“What if I needed intellectual stimulation? »
At the same time, and by pure chance, she meets someone at work. A colleague, yes, a woman, and Laurence is not attracted to women. Except that there is a “chemistry”, a “connection”, in short, she saw a “professional love at first sight”.
Her husband does not take offense, because it is a woman, precisely. On the contrary: he teases her about her “crush” and even encourages her to see her.
Except that the woman in question is polyamorous. It’s not a detail. It is even fundamental, because this meeting will transform Laurence. “But I am stuck up, she said, laughing. I was judging her […]I told myself that polyamory was not viable […], that was impossible! »
Now over the months, and even if technically, nothing happens in the sexual sense of the term, relationally, they experience something. It’s a revelation.
I realized that I could love two people without one harming the other.
Lawrence
Second revelation: “I also realized that this was not what I needed […]but I wanted to bring another man into my life! […] I didn’t want to be just a mom or a lady anymore, I felt like cruising, seducing, making efforts for me, living a little! »
It is here that indeed, it “tumbles”.
It’s because Laurence doesn’t want to leave her husband for all that, “because we’re knit tight, tight, tight”, so, and allow us to sum up, she exposes everything to him, monsieur brags, but she nevertheless convinces her to accompany him to a polyamorous gathering, “in discovery mode”. And what had to happen happens: she meets another man there, talks to him, falls under his spell, over the head. “Like a teenager, exhilarated, pissed off, in a state, a big crush. »
What turns her on? ” THE thrill “, she summarizes. The guy in question, let’s call him the lover, is polyamorous. He has a panoply of girlfriends, and now, “everything that is out of the ordinary, that [la] branch “.
So she takes a “calculated risk” with her husband and insists again: “I want to see where this will take me. “Many negotiations later, he accepts:” It’s so strong, what we have, he’s a super good guy, he wants me to be happy. But yes, it’s insecure for him too, ”she says.
And then ? She ends up finding herself in the lover’s bed. The relationship (because it is one) even stretches for several months. “It’s fantastic, brilliant, different, kinkyyounger. […] He really gets me out of my zone. Really. She beams.
For his part, the husband also meets another woman. “And it rebalanced the forces”, summarizes Laurence, who discovers here a whole new way of life, where love multiplies.
With the lover, the story ends abruptly, due to various complications in his other relationships.
Speaking of complications, hang in there, because it’s getting more complicated for Laurence too. It is that following this adventure, she starts going on dates again, and meets another man. Re “crush”, but cubed. “Whew. We are elsewhere, she sums up. We talked for 10 hours in a park […], I called him my love the first day. It was sick. And reciprocal. All before their first kiss, it should be noted. And then ? “And then it’s been six months and he lives with me, with the husband and the children! adds Laurence without warning or transition.
Quite a turnaround for the “straight” mother that she was. Six months ? All together ? Concretely, we understand that it is a kind of arrangement, which the children apparently appreciate. If you want to know everything about how they work, she only shares her room with the lover, no longer makes love with the husband, but he still sees his girlfriend.
But that’s still not all. “I was thinking of going mono again[game], declares Laurence, the lover fulfills me so much, I don’t need 22, he is attentive, funny, destabilizes me. Except that by yet another chance, she saw the lover again. Realized that she still loves him, explained everything to the lover, and since sees him (the lover), weekly.
You follow ? “Sometimes I have three men in my kitchen, it’s completely unrealistic,” she giggles. Today I got roses from my lover, I’m dating number one [l’amant] tonight, and the husband just texted me! »
The secret of this particular balance? “We talk to each other so, so, so much,” she replies. With the lover, I have an incredible complicity [..]husband, comfort, stability and family life […]the other, […] no constraint. »
Of course she knows it probably won’t last. “I will have to make a choice at some point. I can’t live like this all my life, believes Laurence. But to choose is to give up…”
* Fictitious first name, to protect his anonymity