Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
My belief is that you are either "wired" to accept open relationships or not. It greatly depends on your view of sexuality and partnerships/relationships. I don't think most people understand that an open relationship doesn't make maintaining that relationship easier, it requires more dedication to the relationship from the get go. I've never seen a years long closed relationship move towards an open relationship successfully..... usually the relationship was moving towards the end anyways and adding this additional complexity is a recipe for disaster in an already weak relationship.
However, I've seen quite a few open relationships that were successful but the relationship was framed in that matter from the very beginning.
Yeah the good ol' "relationship broken; add more people" model.
The relationship I know the most about that is very much open/poly like this...I know because I used to date them and we're still very close... They have now been together just over 20 years. It started as him going to swinger events, and then on, they changed what they were doing somewhat and she began dating outside of the marriage as well. Eventually he realized that he also likes to have more involved relationships rather than just sex with others, and now they are just full on polyamorous people.
My opinion of their lives is...mixed? I mean, I adore them. They are wonderful and they adore each other and I'm quite certain that the two of them will last until one or both of them dies. They're great. But just, the sheer level of how complicated their lives seem to me, it's a lot. It feels like more than I think I'd want to deal with, myself. On top of fairly demanding full time jobs and continuing education here and there and very rich social lives (but no kids)... She told me a while back she'd met this man and was over the moon about him. Oh he's just so wonderful, on and on. Very poly guy, very spiritual, so good to her, she was so happy. Never felt this way. Yadda, yadda. Dude was living with a woman for a bunch of years who is...not so comfortable with the poly stuff but loves him and tries to deal as best she can. He has a couple of kids. Mmkay. Then the husband of the original couple (my friends) starts dating this married woman. Then the wife starts dating also the husband of that other couple along with Mr. Dreamy. Then the second couple's wife also ends up dating Mr. Dreamy Guy and she breaks up with OC (original couple) husband and the Guy breaks up with OC wife and there is drama. But OC wife is still dating 2nd couple husband. I hung out with them a bunch last week while visiting Colorado. Ya'll keeping up? Also there's some other new chick now but I have no idea how she fits into all of this. I'm sure she'll be dating somebody or several somebodys by the end of the week.
Second couple husband said in a text yesterday that he so enjoyed meeting me and looks very much forward to seeing me on my next visit. I won't be visiting again until April and while I didn't say so, I told my husband, "wanna take bets on whether he and <friend/OCwife> are still even together then?" Like no wonder the joke is that poly is not so much orgies as it is an intensive in learning how to use shared Google calendars.
Just trying to explain it...like...whew... I need a nap.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Toxic Waltz
I don't know about that. Even for non religious people the game or competition becomes tiresome and stale at some point in their lives. Not all of those people will want to remain single either, and those people will want partners who are also out of the game. Monogamous family units are the keystone of civilized societies. Domestic stability allows more effort to be put in to more productive endeavors. I'm all for tolerating fringe "poly" communities but they should never become the standard arrangement.
I agree with this. I also get pretty irritated when I see clickbait/outrage porn articles calling poly the "future of relationships." Like seriously shut up, it's not. It's fine, nobody needs to worry about it threatening anyone's way of life. Some folks are into that, some aren't, just no need to make a big hairy deal about it.
What I strongly suspect, is that just like various non-het sexual orientations and whatever...it's not that this is becoming more and more "common" these days, it's just becoming something that those who would have always been perhaps open to doing, feel OK to try without being pilloried for it. So it's not that suddenly there's more people doing this or that, it's just less of a dirty secret. I had an aunt and uncle who were swingers. They are/were Boomers...(my Uncle has passed, they did in fact make it until death did them part.) I only found out as an adult when my Mom told me. They were by far the happiest couple in my entire extended family. But for them it was a matter of going on "retreats" and I think they connected with another couple that they'd become close to. Bit of the old spouse swapping going on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth
I wonder if the "study" made it clear to the people being polled, that being in favor of an open relationship meant their primary partner would also be "open" to, and pursuing, other partners. Or did people opt for open relationship for themselves without thinking that it meant their partner or spouse (if they had one at the time of the study) would be free to wander, too. I would think that would make a difference in their level of interest in a fully open relationship.
I wonder that, too. It's the only thing I can think of that could account for more guys than women saying they'd be into an open relationship. Because in the (online and in person) poly communities that I've been involved in, it is most often the wife or girlfriend that brings the guy into it, sometimes reluctantly. Unless they both got together already knowing they were intending an open relationship from the start.
I'd need to know how they are defining these terms in their mind. Are the respondents thinking of it as just sex? Permission to just go have affairs? Openly having relationships with others? Swinging? Unicorn hunting? Sister wives? What?
Also, the women who initiate a lot of open marriages are not just doing so because they know that they can get other male partners easily (as some posters here are mentioning.) A lot of the time, it's an imbalance in the sexual and/or emotional needs of the two partners...where the wife feels like the husband's needs are a lot too focused on her as the only provider of EVERYTHING...and it's exhausting and too much. So she encourages him to get a girlfriend. Crowd source the job a bit.
I dunno, all I can say is that I don't think that any of it...gay marriage, open marriage, any of it...is a threat to traditional monogamous marriage. Traditional monogamous people have been doing a fine job of messing that up all on their own, as my parents' generation showed us when I and all of my childhood peers started running around with our housekeys on chains around our necks.
Maybe it's because LGBT people tend to be more open to talking about open relationships but I have known multiple friends and even come across some acquaintances that are willing to talk about their open relationships. From this, I have found that they come in all sorts of "flavors" each with their own rules. Some are monogamish, like generally committed but occasionally together or apart the partners give permission to engage in someone outside the relationship (like maybe on vacation or while long distance for a period) while others are more regularly engaging with others. Some are "don't ask don't tell" where both partners have agreed to be open but they never want to know or hear about what the other partner is doing while others tell each other everything or participate together. It certainly seems preferable compared to having one or both partners cheating without acknowledging what they are doing.
That said, I could have been among the people who would have responded that I would consider an open relationship if asked. But for me, that means that in general and definitely at first I want to be the only intimate person in my partner's life. But I acknowledge that situations change as relationships mature and a time could come when the one that I love, or who knows maybe even myself may need something different. In that case I *might* consider an open relationship as a way to work through a problem. But I wouldn't know if that could ever feel right until that time were to happen to me. Hence I would answer I "would consider"; that does not at all mean it's what I prefer.
I mean, I feel it would be weird of me not to say that yes, I'd "consider" an open relationship...since I've actually been poly in the past. And on an emotional level if not a sexual one, I'm still far less monogamous than most traditional monogamous folks I know. Found out, I don't need to have sex with other people, but the words, "emotional affair" need to never even be a thing here. I love a lot of people and I won't be changing that.
But having had the chance to make the choice, I turned away from having sexual and labeled "relationships" with others and bonded more strongly with just one person. It felt like the right choice for me to make. It still does. I don't expect that to change.
What is a little odd is having a poly man be all flirty with me last week and thinking about how to respond to that. Back in my old, strictly monogamous with a jealous husband days, I'd just say that I was married and if he thought I'd cheat, I'd get mad and heck if it came to it, the wrath of my husband could be held up as a deterrent. That's just not how it is now. The only answer I have to give for, "why not?" to this man is, "I don't want to." And I want very much for that to be enough but the part of me that grew up dealing with..."normal guys"...expects his reaction to be, "well, you clearly like me so now I just have to change your mind." I hope that I never have to deal with him being persistent like that, but my conditioning expects it. I can like all sorts of people, even love them, it does not mean that I want to have sex with them. My desire has found a home with my husband and I am happy and content with it being in his keeping.
In the end it was not even about monogamy or polyamory...it was just about me and him and what feels right for us.
But I've never really been all that hung up on defining my identity with a bunch of labels, anyways.
One day if we ever change our minds, we'll talk about it. And maybe something might come of that, maybe not...but I just don't see that happening anytime soon.
I'd need to know how they are defining these terms in their mind. Are the respondents thinking of it as just sex? Permission to just go have affairs? Openly having relationships with others? Swinging? Unicorn hunting? Sister wives? What?
As I was reading the survey results the thought that was going through my mind is that millennials was the first generation that was essentially brought up in an environment of pretty much as much free porn as they wanted to consume, while likely having less actual relationships with actual living people versus previous relationships. There is a huge difference between the sex fantasy of a threesome versus the reality of being turned down by both of your girlfriends for sex or just having an additional set of inlaws to deal with at the holidays or just getting stuck trying to deal with low level quarels with one or both girlfriends about say what to eat tonight for dinner or who is supposed to deal with the cat that is sick. Introducing more people into your relationships often just makes them more complicated, so I am thinking a lot of the people who are saying that they are open to the idea of an open relationship might not be equally open to the reality of an open relationship.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork
Also, the women who initiate a lot of open marriages are not just doing so because they know that they can get other male partners easily (as some posters here are mentioning.) A lot of the time, it's an imbalance in the sexual and/or emotional needs of the two partners...where the wife feels like the husband's needs are a lot too focused on her as the only provider of EVERYTHING...and it's exhausting and too much. So she encourages him to get a girlfriend. Crowd source the job a bit.
I dunno, all I can say is that I don't think that any of it...gay marriage, open marriage, any of it...is a threat to traditional monogamous marriage. Traditional monogamous people have been doing a fine job of messing that up all on their own, as my parents' generation showed us when I and all of my childhood peers started running around with our housekeys on chains around our necks.
I kind of suspect some people are just inately less monogamous than others. There are a couple of different versions of the genes that code for both vassopressin in males and oxytocin in women. There is also just some variances in a lot of these other hormone levels as well. I think monogamy and nonmonogamy are probably easier and harder for different people, so if the people who are inately less monogamous want to get together and try to make this work out why not?
The girlfriend/boyfriend dynamic is dying... this is just more proof.
Yeah.
Even Bible is OK with open relationships
Rehoboam had 18 wives and 60 concubines. They bore him 28 sons and 60 daughters.
And Solomon in the Old Testament talks about his 300 wives and 700 concubines
In fact, many biblical heroes practiced non-monogamy.
Most Western countries decriminalised adultery. I read somewhere that 80% of people surveyed agree life is too short, and don’t consider infidelity an unforgivable sin – and more often than not, even if it is – it’s worth the risk
One quarter would consider it, one half wouldn’t, and one quarter doesn’t know they’re in one.
Haha that sounds about right.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
