Guest Post By Mihka

By some counts, you could say I started young. I was “in love” at 13 and all that entailed. Long term sex 2.0 (conventional) relationships followed from then on, and each time I wanted it to last “forever”! My parents were high school sweethearts. I was raised Catholic.

I thought I should set out to find my soul mate in as few attempts as possible and once I had her I’d “make it work” no matter how hard it might seem! Relationships are “hard work” they say. “It’s not easy” they say.

Challenge accepted!

The 3^rd time was the charm, or so it seemed.  Eight long years spent through the bulk of my 20s working hard to barely maintain the unsatisfying relationship that I thought I wanted. It seemed like such a struggle just to keep the normal, conventional existence I thought I was supposed to want. But I was good at it.

8 years isn’t anything to sneeze at, especially in the midst of your “wild years”, so I had to be doing something right… right?  I never struggled to be fenced. I had no interest in cheating at all. That in itself is a good sign… isn’t it?

1.Make The Change

By the time I was ready to pull the trigger on my divorce I had begun to realize I was going about my relationships all wrong. I realized I was working from a total lack of real world dating experience and if I didn’t want to doom myself to the problems of a serial monogamist I needed to try something different.

I knew I had to remain single for a lengthy period of time in order to give a healthy exploration of what the rest of human interaction had to offer. Also, I had a growing sensation of having “paid my dues” as far as fenced relationships were concerned.

I felt I’d done an exceptional job over the course of more than a decade – certainly better than almost all of my friends had done (ah, capricious youth) – and I stuck to my principals long after they were really relevant to my failing marriage. “Achievement Unlocked!” was the way I saw it.

The world of fenced relationships could stand to miss me for a while.

I still find it odd that it felt like a literal switch inside me had been thrown. Maybe not the traditional light switch… perhaps more of a dimmer switch. One day it was in the fenced position, the next it had started sliding slowly towards unfenced.

2. Reject Fear

I think my subconscious mind was just fed up and making the better choice for me. I knew I had been living in a ton of fear. Fear of loss. Fear of judgement. So many limiting beliefs. These things had kept me stagnant for a long time. I had no idea of my own potential. I had no idea where to begin. But I learned quickly and the more I discovered the more encouraged I became.

Then I met Rose.

Not more than a month after I’d split with my ex I met an amazing woman. I knew it was a relationship unlike any I’d experienced before, but it was heading down that old conventional path of which I was now terrified (this fear having been justified through experience).

I thought I’d have to cut this off at the knees or else risk that same negative pattern I’d lived my life in, especially so soon after my last relationship! I would have to keep my distance for my own sake.

3. Find A New Path

The concept of an unfenced relationships changed my life. Reading Sex 3.0, as well as a few other materials, gave me the ability to put my thoughts into words when it came to my unfenced interests. It re-framed key concepts and provided a sensible explanation of the what’s and why’s of being unfenced.

It gave me enough confidence in my choice to go so far as to claim it AS a choice, and to ask Rose to walk this new path with me. It wasn’t easy at first, and there are still daily challenges like any other type of relationship, but the overwhelming benefits were soon too obvious for me to ignore.

Right off the bat being unfenced “saved” my relationship with Rose. I say saved even though it introduced a source of friction because without being unfenced I would have felt forced to end it to avoid unhealthy serial fenced relationships.

This way, however, I was able to feel entirely in control of my life while at the same time allowing myself to grow closer to, and eventually fall in love with Rose. She fell in love right back (actually she probably beat me there) and by now a few amazing years have passed that I would have been an absolute fool to miss out on.

4. Stop Comparisons and Jealousy

The beginning of my 2.0 (status quo) deprogramming had begun.

Another immediate benefit to unfenced relationships was how it helped remove certain biases and keep me grounded and realistic about my relationships. I never felt like I was comparing people. There was never any balance-scale type measurements going on where I placed the pros and cons of each person in piles and weighed them out.

Why would I have to anymore? I no longer had to choose just one!

The entire thought of competition seemed silly. My capacity for jealousy began to decrease. At the same time I didn’t have to worry as much about confirmation bias or having my brain mislead me or get me over-hyped on one particular person or feature.

Having a larger “data set”, even by just the occasional casual date, gave me enough information to know that when I felt something for someone it was real. It made a person’s appreciable features really stand out and define them as an individual. It also allowed each separate relationship dynamic to define itself more clearly.

5. Stop Resenting

This led right to an overall increased appreciation for the relationships in my life. I felt this not just with women, but with all of my close friends. I had gained a sensitivity to some very subtle but important things. I could now appreciate the little differences in how people communicate, how they choose to spend time with you, how they show affection, etc.

All of the significant relationships in my life began to define themselves in more robust and subtle ways and I was able to have a much greater appreciation for the effort each person was putting into my life.

The effect of this was a growing inspiration inside me to be the best friend or lover I could be to them. Now that I could see more clearly what these people actually meant to me my capacity for kindness, understanding, and patience doubled!

I respected everyone more as well as feeling respected myself. I had a new internal motivation to do the right things, be a best friend, allow myself to more deeply experience all the relationships in my life because now I no longer had to be afraid that one of them would interfere with any other, or that I’d be closing myself off to one experience by having another, or that the love of my life would leave me in a bitter, hateful, huff because I simply acted in accordance with human nature.

The cognitive dissonance inherent to conventional relationships was gone. There was no more feeling of love being a limiting factor, and therefore no source of resentment.

6. Stop Judging

Next to follow was the removal of my old judgements of people that I’d once based around sex. I’d always been accepting off all types of people, but I definitely drew some lines as to what I considered “healthy” sexuality, and I let those assessments bleed into a moral judgement of the persons involved.

For example, I never saw all promiscuous women as “sluts” but I did believe that too much promiscuity was a sign of strained mental health. Maybe daddy didn’t hug them enough or there had been some incident in early childhood, and therefore those types of women acted slutty and shouldn’t be trusted!

In fact, I used this reasoning to guide me into relationships with woman that ended up being pretty incompatible with me sexually because I thought that meant they were “safe bets”.

How stupid of me!

Being unfenced forced me to deal with these misconceptions. It also forced me to become more educated on the various theories of human nature and the evolutionary precepts of our sexuality. When I got down to it the entire concept of a slut no longer made sense to me.

So what if she had daddy issues? So what if something happened? So what if she sleeps with lots of guys for whatever reason? As long as it’s consenting and not endangering others who am I to say word one about what another person does?

And who am I to judge someone for their past or to assume it will have some permanent negative effect on their future? Living my life free of slut-shaming or any negative judgement of someone for their sexual activities has been exceedingly positive as well as empowering.

Why would I have to fear expressing my own sexuality now that I don’t condemn others for theirs? I don’t need to fear the haters because now I know there will always be people there to accept me for who I am as I accept them for who they are.

7. Deal With Struggle

During a particular period of struggle, Rose took an indefinite hiatus from me for a handful of months (she dumped my ass! I never said unfenced relationships didn’t have their own challenges).

It was as amicable a split as you might expect of a relationship that only had one point of conflict, but I was crushed. I responded in the typical way, and set about distracting myself with night-life and friends.

During the course of my adventures I met Casey.

Having learned from my experience with Rose I didn’t actively try to keep her at a distance. I did warn her that my feelings for Rose persisted, and to fall in love with me would be setting ourselves up for a painful future, but we both agreed that there was too much attraction at play here.

8. Tune Into The Abundance Mentality

Once again being unfenced enabled me to form an amazing connection with someone who I’d otherwise have had to run from. But it wasn’t long before Rose re-entered the picture. I made the choice to be open to abundance and what came next was one of the biggest confirmations of the unfenced  choice I’d had up to that point.

What I found was the true meaning of abundance. I’d heard people in the past say “love is abundant! Affection is abundant! These are infinitely renewable resources!” But it wasn’t until I experienced this first-hand that the message truly hit home for me.

I was in love with two people at the same time, and it wasn’t hard to do! I was shocked by how much love I actually had to give. I couldn’t believe I could support the emotional needs of two people without feeling drained or exhausted. I was floored to discover that even on my most tiring days my “love meter” was always refilled when I saw one of my girlfriends.

When I thought I’d have no more to give, I always found more was right under the surface just waiting to be expressed.  I must say though, to their infinite credit, that I would not have been successful without the particular make ups of both women and their compatibility with me. But anyone willing to walk down such an unfamiliar path and go so far outside their comfort zone for someone is a very special person. I am eternally grateful to them.

I realized at this point that all humans have the potential for unfenced love because we’re all naturally unfenced in the rest of our lives! Our family, our siblings, our children and friends. We have love for them all, don’t we?

Especially if we define love as “that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own”.

We rarely sit down to address the different relationship dynamics between best friends or loved ones but that’s how we distinguish our feelings for each person. No two relationships are ever exactly the same. It’s those subtleties I was talking about before that allow us to organize our feelings for people.

Having two loving girlfriends was like having two amazing best friends, and telling them apart was a non-issue. In fact, it felt pretty natural. For a guy that once used to spend weeks hoping for a glimmer of real affection from his own wife this was an unbelievable experience.

The lessons I learned about love and healthy relationships have improved my life beyond my wildest dreams. I feel that I’ve made a permanent transition toward being a real man, a caring partner, and human being.

I found myself becoming the best version of myself to date, and it came out of overcoming fear, going outside my comfort zone, and removing the restrictions that I realized had been placed around my ability to love.

I took down the fence and love in abundance walked right up to my door.

Further Reading : Is Promiscuity Wrong?