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WHEN Polish student Angelika Kluk, below, went missing in Glasgow last month, her boyfriend, Martin Macaskill, was the first to raise the alarm. When she was found brutally murdered, both Mr Macaskill and his wife laid flowers where her body was discovered, and his wife later attended a memorial service.
The press and public were confused, assuming that the couple were separated or that Mrs Macaskill was unaware of her husband's girlfriend. There was, however, another explanation.
Last weekend Martin's wife, Anne, spoke out, saying that the three of them had practised polyamory - a lifestyle whereby more than two people are involved in a loving relationship, with the full consent and knowledge of all involved. "What Martin and I have, and what Martin and Angela had, was all about love," she said.While polyamory may work for some, for others, trying it can be disastrous.
The Scotsman spoke to one woman whose marriage was destroyed after her husband suggested that they become polyamorous.
Louise, 27, recently moved to Glasgow following the breakdown of her marriage.
"I first heard the word polyamory at home, when my husband asked me to come upstairs and look at the computer. He showed me some websites he had been researching. They were all about polyamory. He said he wanted to start seeing other people, and that polyamory was part of his identity.
"I was stunned, angry and incredibly hurt. I had had an inkling that there might have been a situation in our past that led him down that road, but I had no idea he had been looking up polyamory and learning about it on the internet. About a year before the issue with polyamory was raised, before we were married, we had had a threesome. It was one of those situations after a party, where everyone had had too much to drink. She was a friend of mine, and I wasn't comfortable with it, but I thought it was just sex.
"We were due to get married in six weeks. I was completely distraught that I'd let myself do this, but my partner just told me that, because we'd been working towards our marriage for ages, I just had to get on with it. At that time I didn't think it was going to rock the foundations of our marriage. I didn't know he was falling for her.
"After our wedding we started seeing the girl who had been involved in the threesome as a friend. I never thought he would end up falling in love with her, but he did. It was then that he got into polyamory, because he obviously thought the three of us could all live happily ever after together.
"When he first started talking about polyamory, and saying that he was sure this was part of his identity, I did try to understand it. I read The Ethical Slut - which is a book all about making polyamory work - and we talked extensively about it. I thought that maybe he was seeing this as a way forward in our marriage, that it could be different. At times I really thought: 'Well, maybe this could work.'
"But to tell you the truth, there's nothing that can [teach you to] deal with jealousy. My husband kept saying that he didn't agree with jealousy. He's very much a rationalist, but everything was rationalised to a point where it wasn't even about feelings any more, and to me, that is what relationships are about.
"We got to a point where we realised that's the difference between us: he's a rationalist and I'm, well, human. I'm emotional and I can't leave my emotions aside; I don't want to, either.
"We went to relationship counselling, and the counsellor helped us identify that we had different views of relationships. It also helped us to see that [my partner's] ease with the idea of polyamory came from the fact that he had had relationships before that had been open. I knew about that, but he knew I wasn't very comfortable with it. It had never really come up before in our relationship, and we'd been together for eight years before we got married.
"It was incredibly difficult to make the decision to leave him. My whole world had fallen apart. We're still on the phone most days, and we still love each other. I get the feeling he's just waiting for me to come round to his way of thinking. He just doesn't get it. I honestly think he thinks I'm going to come round to it. It's such a selfish perspective. Essentially, in his eyes, it's all about him.
"It breaks my heart, but how on earth were we meant to go on? I don't think I could be with him again because I'd never feel secure. I couldn't be with someone and have them tell me they were infatuated with other people. I know he aspires to an honest relationship, but for me it just won't work. He was always trying to portray himself as being on the moral high ground, because he was being entirely honest about his feelings rather than going behind my back, or not telling me about it. In his view, polyamory is a more advanced way of being, a more rational and open way of having relationships.
"I read a lot of things on the websites my husband showed me, and you read about couples where one person is polyamorous and the other person is not and it just doesn't work - it's insane. It's really just hurting someone.
"In my view, you don't hurt people that you love. It all falls apart when it comes to jealousy. You're advised to 'keep yourself busy' if your partner's out on a date, and I just think: 'How on earth are you meant to do that?'
"I think I would have felt differently if he'd gone out and cheated on me in a one-off situation. There's a big difference between a relationship and a one-night stand, and the whole idea that the person who I want to be with wants relationships with other people is a lot more serious and destructive than going on a night out with the lads and making one slip-up.
"I don't know if my husband's still seeing the other girl. It's the one thing I feel I can't ask him, and I've never talked to her about it. He went out with her a few months ago and didn't tell me about it, basically so as not to upset me, but then he came back and said he wasn't infatuated with her any more. They didn't have a relationship, it was just something that he was considering. It was all hypothetical rather than something that he was actually doing. To me that's just torture.
"If he wants to live his life that way, then that's fine. But I cannot be hurt that way ever again."
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