The Pandemic Ruined My Poly Relationship—But Saved My Marriage

I should have expected my relationship with my boyfriend to crumble during quarantine. More surprising is that I fell back in love with my husband.

Illustrations by Kailey Whitman | Story edited by Naomi Zeveloff

My boyfriend, Max, continued to needle me. “I just think it’s a little, you know, pampered of you and your friends, that you can afford to be so … paranoid.”

I bristled, but I let the writer in me reply first. “I think you mean ‘privileged,’ not ‘pampered’ — I’d hardly call this a romp at the spa — but, like, seriously?”

As we talked, I paced the same four gently sloping blocks, the only zone with both reception and relative privacy near the house I shared with my husband and our 5-year-old son — ours an untamed plot of land nestled among the manicured lawns of a tidy and tony neighborhood in Long Island’s eastern North Shore.

I didn’t need to talk out of earshot of my husband, whom I’ll call Ethan (like Max, his name is a pseudonym). Ours was an open marriage; my boyfriend of three years wasn’t a secret. But still, I wanted privacy. Especially now, under the Covid-19 lockdown, when ears and bodies and endless, sprawling projects seemed to have consumed the house.

Tonight’s topic was getting as tiresome as the view: Max felt ready to resume our weekly visits, but in the pandemic I just couldn’t justify it. My husband and I were both working from home and staying in. Meanwhile, Max’s heating and plumbing business was designated an essential service in New Jersey; he was still making house calls, and so to go visit him, a trip of 70-plus miles, would raise my family’s exposure level by several gaping degrees.

“Of course you’re doing the right thing. You always do the right thing — for your family.” Max said this matter-of-factly, but what I heard were echoes of accusations, hints of things left unsaid. “Must be nice … ” he continued. It was hard to imagine that less than two months ago, our relationship had never been better. Rock solid, in fact.

As I paced the neighborhood, I could feel blisters forming on my right foot. In a few weeks’ time, I’d become convinced that they were “Covid toes,” but it was just my sandal’s stiff webbing rubbing in just the wrong way, exactly like this whole situation had been rubbing me for weeks. Maybe it was finally wearing on Max, too, because his standard-issue ribbing had taken on a slight edge.

“As in, it must be nice for you to be able to work from home, or to not work at all if you want, like you and your mom friends you’re worried about. But some of us do have to work, like, in the real world, where people are still living their lives, and guess what? The sky isn’t falling — ”

Just then the line broke up and I strained to hear what Max was saying — or not saying — and hurled obscenities at my phone that I only hoped my neighbors couldn’t hear. I did another about-face and the signal returned.

“Demanding to go visit my lover during a pandemic, when there are people dying right now — it’s sort of a big ask, dude. So is driving two hours out to your place just to wave at you from your backyard.”

The evening’s light was waning now. Suddenly, without meaning to, I found myself saying the words I thought I’d been saving for an emergency: “What if we just put our relationship on hold? Like, until this is over? Consider it part of our civic duty … and then, you know, restart.”

Over the static of the line, Max paused to light a cigarette. I waited for him to fill the silence. When he did, he too sounded tired.

“That’s just it, though. What relationship? I haven’t seen you in six weeks — and we’re easily looking at six more. This is just an idea of a relationship at this point. A hypothetical.” I heard a bottle uncork and a splash of what I knew to be aged, top-shelf rum hit a rocks glass, and I pictured Max there, feet up on his patio table, face stubbled and grim in the dimming light.

Finally I said, “I don’t know. I’ll talk to Ethan. Maybe soon.”

How could a virus so microscopic so quickly destroy the arrangement, through great effort and design, I’d spent the last three years, if not my whole adult life, crafting?