I have been in exclusive relationships almost all of my life. Of those relationships the one that stands out in my mind as being the sweetest, is one in which an exclusive agreement was not actually ever spoken.

I was fourteen when I met that man. My mother had arranged for us to meet. He was tall, good looking and sweet as honey.

I met him at the County Fair. We started dating that year and continued off and on for eight years. He was my high school sweetheart.

It was a long distance relationship and it was a summer time romance. He lived in Denver during the school year. I lived in a small farm town in Nebraska. Maybe that is why it was so easy.

The other day I was thinking about my high school sweetheart and I realized that we had given each other a gift in the relationship. The gift of freedom. We weren’t married and we didn’t act like we were.

I wondered how I could replicate that in my current relationships.

In the recent past I dated a man for several years who said he had wanted to marry me from the first date.  He failed to buy a ring or propose. Yet I was held to a commitment level that even my married girlfriends did not have to give their husbands.

I created a new term to describe this kind of relationship. The term is “pseudo marriage.”

He wanted to be exclusive from the start.

I just wanted my freedom.

I continued to date other men during the first six months of our relationship and then finally gave in.

He had a lot of good qualities and one of them was that he was very good to my children. I was willing to sacrifice my happiness for the sake of my children and his supposed happiness.

He kept talking about marriage but after four and a half years of talking he hadn’t produced a ring.

I finally confronted him about this. During the confrontation I realized  what he wanted me to give up to be with him was more than I was willing to give.

I broke up with him on that day.

After much reflection I wondered how I could construct my future relationships in a different manner.  I decided that I needed to be honest and frank with men from the start.

The quality of men whom I have dated  deserve that. They have all been amazing.

So I have a frank talk with men on the first or second date, dictating the terms of the relationship. They have the right to enjoy my company and spend time with me. I guarantee it will be fun.

I retain the right to date other men. If I fall in love with them, and they with me, then we can talk about being exclusive.

I may even entertain a talk about marriage.

Sometimes freedom is the greatest gift you can someone.  If you allow someone the freedom to walk away and they choose not to, isn’t that greater love than forcing them to stay when they want to walk away?

I released this post in 2013 but I think it may still be relevant in some measure to my audience. For the record, I decided to walk back into the relationship with the man I had dated for so long.

However, I have learned to stand my ground and stick to my principals.

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