Part 3 of 4 in a short series reflecting on Polysecure by Jessica Fern

One section of the book introduces a way of thinking about relationships along two axes:
sexual openness and emotional openness.

“Take what helps and dismiss the rest.”
(p.110)

That line reminded me of an Al-Anon slogan, and I liked it immediately. It feels like permission to think, rather than instruction to conform.

But the model itself led me somewhere uncomfortable.

I realised that my marriage was closed – not just sexually, but emotionally.

And perhaps what I am experiencing now is not just sexual freedom, but the recovery of emotional freedom.

“In monogamous couples… sharing deep or romantic emotions with others can be considered cheating.”
(p.111)

That was a revelation.

Emotional monogamy wasn’t something I had ever really understood.

Looking back, I think my mother may have been similar. Faithful in a sexual sense, but emotionally open with others, without clear boundaries.

I recognise that in myself.

I have shared deep emotions with friends. My husband found that more upsetting than anything sexual – and I never really understood why.

Now I think I do.

“A considerable amount of the mono-romantic ideal can actually be codependency in disguise.”
(p.118)

That lands.

Years ago, I read Codependent No More by Melody Beattie and began to understand how entangled I was in my marriage. I’ve described it as feeling like a planet orbiting a volatile star – buffeted by solar storms, trapped in gravity, unable to escape.

But my husband once said something that surprised me.

He felt it was a binary star system. Two bodies pulling on each other. Draining each other. Both trapped.

That… also fits.

“True intimacy does not come from enmeshment, but from two differentiated individuals sharing themselves.”
(p.133)

I lost a large part of myself in my marriage.

Things I loved – reading, writing, piano, even something as simple as enjoying Star Wars or Star Trek – were gradually squeezed out. They weren’t shared, so they became unwelcome.

My interests didn’t belong in the home.

My body didn’t quite belong either.

My gismos, gadgets, and books weren’t welcome… so in many ways, I wasn’t welcome.

Now that I live alone, there is space again. Space for those parts of me to exist.

So I’m left with a question I can’t quite resolve:

Was my marriage codependent?

Or was it simply… small?

Closed in ways I didn’t even recognise at the time.

And if I didn’t recognise it then…

What else might I still be misreading now?