I believe that if you meditate on new possibilities, unforeseen brilliant solutions can come to you. I yearned to have a transformation in my marriage. Hank was a beautiful tender lover but we had a different pace around sex. On a recent vacation we had made love after a romantic dinner then soaked in a hot tub. In the morning I wanted more sex—it was time for our daily devotion. Hank wanted to go to a museum, and who could fault him for that?

I did not want to have an affair or get a divorce. But I really wanted more sex. I made a pact with a close friend to “wait for the miracle” and not settle for less. Several months after making this pact, I went on a spiritual retreat where another friend told me she was working with her husband to open her marriage. She wanted to sleep with a woman —and she told her husband about it. The earth tilted on its axis when I heard this.

The idea of simply talking to Hank about my desires had never even occurred to me. There had been a tug of war in our marriage over our different sexual appetites. It had become an inflamed ongoing disagreement. We had gone to therapy, discussed the issue at length, and tried to institute date nights. This had worked somewhat but there was no denying we had different rhythms and different needs sexually. I was tired of viewing either of us as wrong. We had disparate yearnings, was there a way both of us could be satisfied? And keep our family intact? The idea that we could both get what we needed if we opened our marriage was exciting to me. I began to read everything I could on polyamory. Hank agreed to see a counselor to explore possibly opening our marriage.