NerdyPerv is proud to introduce Jane, our featured guest columnist. Jane’s story is unique in that her marriage is based on the concept of mutual non-monogamy. While any relationship comes with its own complications – and certainly marriage is not immune to them – Jane’s soul-searching introspection and brazen honesty is an intimate look at an alternative form of love and respect. Your personal views on all things polyamorous may vary, but it’s our hope that after reading Jane’s first piece, what may be foreign to you might sound a bit familiar in retrospect.

I am honest to a fault. I will correct the record to reflect reality as accurately as possible, even if it means getting myself in trouble or looking foolish. In college I told a bouncer who had let me into a club that I was only 20. I’m that committed to truth.

This means that I’m as upfront as possible in my relationships, and expect nothing less than complete honesty from friends and lovers in return—I couldn’t be in an open marriage without such a policy. It brings to mind the term “ethical slut”—an identifier in the non-monogamous community that is both a tongue-in-cheek nod to our perceived sexual promiscuity and an acknowledgment that such “promiscuity” only works with care, honesty, and respect towards all involved parties. I do my best to uphold my side of the ethical slut bargain.

Recently I had a relationship with a guy I’ll call John. After seven months of sleeping together, John left town to attend a wedding, and in retrospect (it’s always in retrospect, isn’t it?), that was the beginning of our end. I was unsurprised and unfazed when he hooked up with a bridesmaid at the wedding (who am I to stand in the way of taffeta-clad booty?), but upon his return home, he announced his intention of conducting a fully-fledged relationship with that piece of taffeta.

John began referring to his bridesmaid as his “girlfriend,” and the bridesmaid professed her love for him. Neither of these things would have been unnerving, I suppose, if a) they weren’t living 22 hours apart, and b) he hadn’t continued to sleep with me.

It didn’t strike me as a problem at first. Sure, he called her his girlfriend, but when I pressed him, he said that it was a “joke,” nothing to worry about, and promptly put his penis in me. I had sex with him twice before he dumped me, just one week after meeting The Bridesmaid. He told me that he wanted to “make an honest go of it,” and that meant exclusivity and monogamy. Goodbye, Secret Married Girlfriend. Hello, Long-Distance Romance.

I was upset, but I honestly respected his decision: it seemed like one of the more mature choices he had made in his life, to be faithful to a girl. I cried, but championed his emotional growth, and vowed to be happy for them. Two days later, he tried to kiss me, and I kicked him in the balls. Three days later, we had sex again.

“What about the Bridesmaid?” I asked him, lying naked in his bed while his cell phone rang and rang on the nightstand. He glanced at it and left it there. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” he said.

I had become the Other Woman. Never mind that my claim on John had been staked long before the Bridesmaid entered the picture. Never mind that I felt like, if anything, I was the one being cheated on. Never mind that he was clearly a smarmy bastard who didn’t deserve either of us. To the outside world, the Bridesmaid held the publicly-recognized role of girlfriend, and I was some slut lying naked in her boyfriend’s lap while he cooed how much he loved her into his phone. I felt ill.

It should have been simple; I should have stayed away from the get-go. But I wanted John, so I waded through the moral muck: for one thing, I didn’t feel I owed the Bridesmaid anything; she was a stranger, and I’ve never been one for gender solidarity. Furthermore, their relationship really wasn’t any of my business; I couldn’t control what John did, what he told his girlfriend, or even, for that matter, what he told me. So if my policy was simply to look after myself, then I could almost justify sleeping with the fucker.

Then one night, John took a cougar home from a bar. What had seemed like a simple problem of timing—two relationships accidentally overlapping—was clarified as a simple problem of him being a philandering liar. I lit into him. “What you’re doing to the Bridesmaid is cruel and morally bankrupt, and I won’t be a part of that,” I scowled. “You didn’t have a problem with it last week,” he countered. Well. Fuck.

Regardless of my earlier complicity, I knew I was done with John. While we are still friends (and he still makes vague attempts to get back into my pants), things just aren’t the same between us. He broke up with the Bridesmaid after a few months, and continues to sleep with his cougar and a number of other on-again, off-again hussies.

I’m just wondering what my takeaway is. Was I right to end my relationship with John because he was dishonest with someone else? How guilty should I feel for my role in his dishonesty? And, most important, how do I apply this experience to future relationships, where, let’s be honest, other partners could be even more deceptive—or present more morally-fuzzy gray areas—than even John? From the Guy Going Through A Divorce That Never Really Comes Through, to the Guy Who Claims He’s in an Open Relationship But His Partner Thinks Otherwise, to the Guy With the Out-of-Town Wife Who Doesn’t Know Any Better—almost every girl I know has been the unwilling Other Woman at some point, and will likely be again. How do we know what to believe or who to trust?

It’s difficult to slut it up ethically when partners won’t get with the program, and it’s difficult to suss out the liars. Maybe I’m just too trusting. Maybe we all are. Maybe all we can do is keep being honest, listen to our gut instincts, and hope that everyone else will start doing the same.