POLYAMORY: Deepa Paul shares lessons from 10-year open marriage

It was only two months ago that Deepa Paul, a Filipina writer and book author based in The Netherlands, broke up with her boyfriend of six years.

On the verge of tears, she shared with DAILY TRIBUNE that she has found strength to navigate through her heartbreak, thanks to her constant ally: her husband.

Yes, Deepa is married and has a daughter from that marriage, but at the same time, she dates other people, a setup she and her husband have agreed to for 10 years now.

“We always knew that it was going to end because he wanted to have a wife and kids,” Paul said of her ex. “And I said, ‘No, I’m already a wife, that’s not going to be me.’ So, it’s time to part ways… I was very lucky also that I had a lot of support from my husband. It’s really a luxury problem to go through a breakup while you are in a relationship with someone else who loves you.”

How it began

Deepa narrated how she and her husband arrived at the decision to have an open marriage.

“There are other people doing this already… we’re not inventing anything new.”

Ten years ago, she and her husband began setting up their Tinder profiles together.

“Basically, I’ve always known that I had a different view of love and relationships from what was, you know, normal in the Philippines, like as we were growing up. So, for example, I would look at people who were married and see that marriage had this very ideal facade of a happy family … but I would also see a lot of secrets like mistresses and second families, and I would always wonder why the secrecy seemed to be one of the ingredients of a marriage that’s considered successful. And I never really agreed with it,” she explained.

“I was also very curious about different experiences that I could have. But it seemed like as a girl growing up in a Catholic school, that, you know, being curious about relationships and sex and my body wasn’t normal, or like, it wasn’t really a done thing.”

When she moved to Singapore with her husband, she encountered a website for personal ads, including for open marriages. 

“It was a surprise for me that all of these different experiences existed, so I became very curious about it. And when we moved to Amsterdam, that’s when I really started, bringing it up to my husband and saying, ‘Hey,’ I think we were 30 at the time, I said, ‘You know, we’re here living in Europe, and it feels like a big adventure for the two of us. I would like us to explore these different things as well, while we’re still young and hot and before we start a family’,” she shared.

“So basically, I took my curiosity underground and just explored on my own, but I realized exploring on my own wasn’t the thing that I wanted to do. I wanted to really have this adventure with my husband. Yeah, it came from the desire to have different experiences, that I wasn’t able to have when I was living in the Philippines, growing up in the Philippines.” 

She admitted that, at first, her husband did not welcome the idea.

“For him, of course, because he also came from the same kind of conservative Catholic upbringing. He didn’t see why we should be exploring different kinds of sexual experiences as a couple… It was really more difficult for him in the beginning because I think he had to question his ideas of, you know, what makes a good man: ‘Am I less of a man if I allow my wife to do this?’ He eventually realized, as he worked on himself, that what makes him a good man isn’t how he sees me as a property of his. It is actually recognizing that I’m an independent, autonomous person… so with him, I was just really patient and I just kept reassuring him that even though I’m meeting other people, he’s still the only person I would build a life with…” 

Family and friends’ reactions

When Deepa told her sister about her new dating status, her ate, who is five years older, asked her: “What does this mean? Are you still in love with each other? Are you not in love anymore and you’re just staying together for your daughter?

“So she was very concerned. At the time, I think my daughter was around three or almost four years old. And so I explained to her; her reaction was very understandable because it’s a concern for us and for our daughter,” Deepa recalled.

She then assured her ate: “No, it’s not that. We’re still very much in love. We know that we are life partners, but we just want to be able to explore these kind of different experiences together. And I personally wanted to learn more about my sexuality.”

But Deepa and her husband are not only welcomed by their “open-minded” friends at Amsterdam.

“Three years ago, I told my mom about having an open marriage. She was surprisingly very understanding and she believed that we go through different phases in life… She said, ‘So this is just another chapter in your life, and as long as you and your husband are happy, as long as your daughter is happy and she feels loved and taken care of, and as long as your relationships help you become more of yourself. Then you know I understand…”