I’m picturing getting home from work and suggesting that we go get something to eat only to be told “sorry I’ve got a date with Bob tonight”. Do people in these relationships ever walk in on their SO’s in intimate positions (not necessarily sex even mundane stuff like finding them both in their pajamas hanging out and that sort of thing)? I remember one female posting that she allowed her Mr. to have a “girlfriend” on the side, and seemed to suggest that she had also told him he couldn’t “be with” other girls due to concerns about VD. Maybe I’m just hopelessly perverted by I find the social dynamics fascinating.
Well, I’ve been in open relationships – yes, not quite what you were asking about, but I think the principles are still applicable – and we didn’t really have set rules about it. What might happen is that he’d basically just come on line afterwards and tell me about it (which I enjoyed.) It wasn’t really structured; it was just, if it happens, it happens, and that turns us both on, so there you go.
I have a friend who is in an “open” relationship. There rules are basically don’t expose the other to embarrasing situations or ridicule from others. So be discreet but not necessarily as open as the OP situation.
His GF recently made out or worse with a common friend… he got to know about it… but was cool. Still I thought it was a bit too public for the rules they say they set out.
I guess open relationships are easier when you don’t live together ? So you don’t actually know what is happening most of the time ?
First of all, every relationship is different. Every relationship has its own “rules” about who, when and how much to tell. I can only speak of mine in any detail. (No, not that much detail - hands where I can see 'em!)
My husband and I do go on “dates” with other people. We occasionally meet or previously know one anothers’ extracurriculars, but not often. It depends, really. But we don’t bring them back to the apartment for sex. If sex happens, it happens at their place or a neutral place, so there’s never a chance of one of us “walking in” on the other. But we do know when the other’s going out romantically. We tried the “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach and it failed miserably. I discovered that it wasn’t whether or not this “friend” he was going to a concert with was a girlfriend that bothered me; it was not knowing if this friend was a girlfriend that bothered me. So now we communicate that clearly, and all is good.
The woman he’s seeing now has been a friend of his for years. She and I get along well, we’ve met about half a dozen times over the years (before she and my husband got “together”), usually at family picnics, religious events, etc. A few times when she was having trouble in her marriage she came over and we chatted over coffee. Now she and WhyDad have found a spark. No biggie. Probably temporary, as she’s going through a really rough divorce and needs a strong shoulder to cry on and a great guy to remind her how beautiful and sexy she is. What better guy to have a rebound relationship with than one who won’t be expecting long-term commitment? It feels pretty safe all around.
My latest fella was also a friend, but one who I’d been attracted to for years. He’s the Benedick to my Beatrice: we’re great friends and verbal sparring partners who alternately want to kiss and slap. I would never, ever want to marry him. A long term relationship with him would be suicide. We’d end up bitter and unhappy. But OH the attraction! It ate me up for years, until finally he proposed we “do something about it!” (It took him that long to be comfortable with my being married and truly accept that it wasn’t a dysfunctional thing.) So we did. Several times. And it was just as amazing as I had always fantasized about. And then it was done.
The thing for me is, there’s always going to be someone I’m interested in. There’s only one person I’m willing to commit myself to for life: my husband. And the same holds true for him. We’ve agreed that our primary commitment is to one another and our family. And to weaken or break that primary commitment due to betrayal for momentary infatuation just seems silly.
I’ve always felt that to expect my husband to be every sort of support for me: financial, spiritual, emotional, sexual, physical, intellectual and familial all at once, all the time, while he’s going through his own growth process as a human being AND while I have to do the same for him is a ridiculous amount of pressure. Sometimes, we’re just not on the same page. And that’s OK. We’re in the same book. Sometimes I’m a chapter ahead, sometimes he passes me by. But in the end, we’re in the same place: a place of honesty and love and compassion for one another as human beings, not as objects to be owned and hoarded.
And, for us, the rule is condoms, condoms, condoms with every single extracurricular person, every single time. With one another, we don’t use condoms. We also get STD tests every six months, just in case. And so far, we’re both STD free.
When we decided to become pregnant, I stopped seeing anyone for three months before our planned conception date, because it’s very important to my husband that he be the genetic father of my child, and I didn’t want to give him the slightest worry or doubt. (I don’t get this genetic imperitive myself, but I don’t have to “get it”. I simply have to understand that it’s a need he has and respect it.)
All of this, every word, is IMHO, applies only to my relationships, void where prohibited or restricted, YMMV, not everyone is cut out for an open marriage, stunt doubles may have been employed, no animals were harmed in the creation of this relationship, end-user accepts all responsibility for product malfunction.
Nice to read about such advanced relationships as yours WhyNot…
The problem I guess is people recognizing how outside temptations can be dealt without spoiling the relationship. I’ve had plenty of problems with wanting to experiment and having outside affairs. I think of myself as quite liberal… but I’m not sure I’d be able to do something as mature as you and your husand do. Congrats.
I tend to believe that the relationship described by WhyNot would probably only work among “upper class” type individuals. I believe that the socialization process ingrained in us “lower/working class” types would preclude a certain degree of emotional detachment that would be necessary for this to function. That is to say at the working/ and middle class levels (especially among those who consider themselves conservative) finding out about an extramarital relationship tends to be very caustic.
Note that we touched on this in Sociology several years ago. It was presented that in “lower/working” class situations the men and women tend to segregate by sex. However, among upper middle and upper classes opposite sex interaction (and presumably intimate interaction as well) is much more common. Note, that I think my model is far too simplistic and needs elaboration and refinement.
It’s an interesting theory, Ronald, and one I’d welcome seeing actual data points on. From only my own experiences and observations, I’d have to say it doesn’t pan out. I was raised barely upper lower class, not even middle, really. My mother was a single mother working as a schooteacher. While she worked very hard, there were times we’d barely scrape together enough money for milk this week. Vacations were out of the question. I personally think we’re as “classy” as can be expected, but looking at it realistically, we lived about like the Connors on Roseanne, except there were only two of us. My husband was raised with slightly more money, and attended Catholic high schools and colleges, but both his parents needed to work full time to pay for it, and he still has over $50,000. in student loan debt. If I was to identify his “TV family” in terms of socioeconomic standing, it’d be the family on Family Ties, except that his parents are ultra-conservative Republicans, not old hippies.
Together, we make less than $50,000 a year, have tons of credit card debt, rent an apartment that costs $1200 a month (that’s bare bones minimum - cracked plaster, peeling paint - in this neighborhood) because we can’t afford a down payment on a house, and I shop at Aldi most of the time. We’re in the lower class end of an upclass college town. Most of our friends are, to put it as nicely as I can, white trash. Those who aren’t are neo-hippie freakazoid protester vegan types. We certainly meet your “tend to segregate by gender” criteria for lower class. I wouldn’t lay claim to even “middle class” to describe our income or lifestyle.
The only person I know of middle class who’s in an openly open marriage is my dad. Ironically, I knew nothing of this growing up, and it wasn’t until I met my husband and decided to embark on my own first poly relationship that I found out that my dad and stepmom’s “roommates” were slightly more than that. Still, I think lots of the values they and my mother taught me about loving people as individuals and thinking outside the societally imposed box certainly had much to do with my coming to the decisions I did.
The only other open marriages I know are all among lower class neopagans that I meet at festivals. However, I suspect that a lot of “upper class” marriages are open in that there’s extracurricular activity going on, and both spouses have consented, but **appearances **of monogamy must be kept up. Think Bill and Hillary Clinton. It seems fairly widely assumed at this point that they have or had some sort of “arrangement,” that didn’t quite include him getting caught with his pants down.
If I were to make my own hypothesis, I’d say that in our culture, successful open marriages are made more often by highly intelligent and creative people who have excellent communication skills. We’re the ones who are seriously able to question society’s assumptions about what love should look and feel like. We’re the ones who can look honestly at ourselves and one another and determine what works for us as individuals. We’re also the ones, frankly, who can effectively communicate what isn’t working for us, and can change the “rules” when they no longer serve, so that an unsuccessful open relationship is changed or ended.
How does this work? I assume that there aren’t that many open marriages/relationships out there, right? So how do you convince single folks that when you say “I’m married but it’s cool – my husband/wife doesn’t mind” that it’s not just some scam? Do you carry around a piece of paper which you’ve both signed and notarized?
Heck, while I’m asking, are there any sexual acts that are purely limited to partner or non-partners? (sort of like the condoms thing)
I second this question… and I set another one:
Is your husband your best “lover” ? If he were not how would that affect your open relationship ?
That’s actually a very good question. It can be tricky sometimes. If there’s not a level of trust between me and the other person where he’ll take me at my word, than frankly I don’t want to sleep with him anyway. Although, from a practical standpoint, I have been known to gently suggest that WhyDad have a quiet word with him to ease any fears. I’ll often give a girl a hug and say something like, “I just want to let you know that I’m really happy WhyDad has you in his life right now, and everything’s cool, OK?”
There’s several types of people when it comes to this sort of thing, and it’s been my (mis)fortune to run into all of them:
- Ones for whom, open or not, they’re not going there. My reaction? Ok, that’s cool.
- Ones who don’t really hold to the “open” idea, but say they do for one reason or another. Usually because they’re horny. I’m getting better at recognizing and avoiding these.
- Ones who honestly think they’re open to the open thing, but really deep down, they can’t handle it in practice. Sooner or later, jealousy and bitterness arise. This is, unfortunately, the most common.
- Ones who are more than happy to share in the beginning, but somehow thought I wasn’t serious when I said my commitment to my husband is lifelong. These are the ones who expect me to be won over to them heart and soul and make them my primary or even exclusive partner. Ain’t gonna happen.
- Ones who honestly and truly are into it, are open and honest and respect me, my husband, themselves and all our relationships. These are, unfortunately, a rare specimen.
Not officially for us. Although WhyDad isn’t into anal or toys, and I suppose if it came up with someone else I’d be happy to go there. We don’t go into graphic details anyway, so I’m not sure how either of us would ever know.
I have trouble ranking people in such a way. Nearly everyone is adequate, lots of them are wonderful. The lousy ones don’t last. Do I orgasm more with him than any other person? Not always. Is it more exciting with him? No. Is he my physical ideal? Nope. I’m not his either. Is it different with him? Absolutely. He touches me emotionally and energetically like no one else. If I was forced into monogamy, I’d choose him over anyone else.
Well, this has sorta turned into a “ask the chick with the open marriage” thread, hasn’t it? Sorry to monopolize, Roland, but it seems the other poly folks are having a more interesting weekend away from their computers than I am! Jump on in any time, guys! 
Thanks for answering my previous questions. IIRC you’re preggers, so have you and WhyDad discussed how this subject is broached eventually with Why(YesIAmA)Kid?
Heh! It’s not that last so much, WhyNot, as it is that being gay in an open relationship seems to be much less unusual than being straight in an open relationship.
supervenusfreak and I have an open relationship, with the option for it to become fully polyamorous, should the right person(s) enter our lives. It’s been that way since the day we met and it’ll be that way until the day we part (whether through death or misadventure). The only jealousy I’ve ever felt was more about having wanted the person supervenusfreak ended up sleeping with and feeling kind of unattractive because HE got him instead. But that was only in the beginning and only a couple of times. supervenusfreak has people up during the day while I’m at work (he has an irregular work schedule as a private duty nurse’s aide) as well as when we go away for the weekend to various bear events. I’m much more active at these events than I am at home because of my work schedule and because I’m more shy about having people here with super’s family around than he is.
But, like I said, gay open relationships are a dime a dozen for frequency, so they’re not really as interesting.
What would you do if you discovered that the baby was not Whydad’s? Birth control is not 100% effective… Or assuming that this one is beyond dispute, what would you do in the future if you got pregnant by someone else? Or what would you do if Whydad got another woman pregnant?
Don’t either of you worry that one of your ‘dates’ will fall into true love, and the marriage will split up?
I’ve known several people who were into ‘open’ relationships. At the time, they couldn’t stop talking about how great it was. But in every case, it ended badly. Not one of those relationships survived five years. What happened in every case was that the open relationship chugged along fine while both partners had regular ‘others’ outside the marriage. The trouble developed when one of them lost or gave up their ‘outside’ partner while the other wanted to keep the outside relationship going, or when one started showing a little too much affection for the outside partner. Keeping a relationship balanced is tough enough without the complexity of outside romances.
It seems to me that even for people who are very comfortable with an ‘open’ marriage, this is a lifestyle that is risky. Constantly bringing strangers into the relationship, potential for disease, accidental pregnancy, or conflict seems high. What will you do if one of your dates decides he loves you and can’t stand the thought of you going home to your husband?
I’m not a prude or anything, and if you’re happy, great. But it seems to me that there’s a good reason why we enter committed monogamous relationships, especially when children are involved.
As for children, do you intend to keep your dating lifestyle going as your children grow up? If so, how do you explain to them why Daddy didn’t come home last night?
I don’t mean for this to sound like I’m grilling you - as I said, if it works for you guys, great. It’s something I can’t even imagine doing - the thought of my wife ‘dating’ other men would tear me up, and I can’t imagine having a relationship away from my wife. But others are different. I’m just more curious about the practical aspects of it and how you manage the added risks in your life.
I’m curious how a poly couple handles it if one of the partners ends up with an STD. I mean, I can appreciate that safer sex precautions are used, but just like the previous question about pregnancy, accidents can happen. How does that change things, or does it not at all? I imagine you and your husband get regular checkups?
(I am curious and not making any judgments because my feeling is that it is no business of mine how other people conduct their relationships.)
If receptive people are rare, that means a lot of breakups. How do those go? Had any stalker-types that couldn’t let go?
Where do you meet these people? Because it sounds like you are meeting them casually as friend or acquintances. Wouldn’t it be safer meeting people through Adult Friend Finder or something? (If anyone actually uses that service)
My wife is somewhat obsessive about planning in advance, so any dates either of us has with others is something we both know about well in advance. And odds are I’ll be going along with her anyway. Although with us relationships outside each other are pretty rare - one of us might end up sleeping with someone else maybe once a year or so.
The one thing that seems to work well for us it total openness and honesty when it comes to relationship issues. Not just with each other, but with anyone either of us might be ending up dating or sleeping with. Everyone involved has to know the rules before anything can happen. Anybody either of us plans to sleep with has to be specifically Okayed by the other beforehand. And we’re very careful about STDs and jealousy issues.
Part of the reason our open relationships are few and far between is that it’s rare to find someone that we both trust, who is cool with the rules that we’ve worked out, and who at least one of us hits it off with well enough to want to sleep with - but who also understands that it’s not going any further than that.
We have a son (mine biologically from a previous relationship) who is 12. WhyBaby’s due in June. As far as I’m concerned, it’s none of their business until they become mature enough to ask about it. That happened for me, asking my own father, when I was 24. He has been in an open marriage since I was 7, and I had No. Idea. Whatsoever. Like all issues, when I am asked, I will be age appropriately honest. If this happens when they’re young, they’d get lots of kisses and told how much we both love them and also love other people. If it’s when they’re adolescents, same thing, with an addendum about safer sex and emotional responsibility. WhyKid hasn’t asked, even though his good friends live in a household with two dads and a mom, so my guess is he’s still pretty clueless.
We’re never out overnight. We’re occasionally out until the wee hours, but we always wake up as a family.
I am certain this child is WhyDad’s as I menstruated three times without having intercourse with anyone else before we concieved. Ultrasounds confirm my conception date. I follow FAM at all times, and am very regular in my ovulation and fertility cycles, as well as using birth control effectively. HOWEVER, you are right. It’s still not 100%. And we have decided that should I become pregnant by another man, we will raise the child together as our own. Should he get another woman pregnant, we will pay child support and seek joint custody or visitation, or sole custody if the mother doesn’t want it. I’m not saying it would be easy, emotionally or financially. But yes, we have discussed it.
Far less than I used to worry that my boyfriend would find someone better and dump me for her. The fact is, if he’s going to leave, he’s going to leave. Monogamy doesn’t change that. I don’t believe people leave a spouse because someone else is better - I believe infidelity and break-ups are a reflection of pre-existing problems in a relationship. These problems happen in both monogomous and polyamorous relationships. The difference in a poly relationship is that we don’t automatically disband the marriage and hate each other for what turns out not to be “the one”. Yes, perhaps one day one of us will find the perfect partner and want out of the marriage. I sure hope not, but it’s possible. Same thing’s possible in monogomous marriages, only the break up and divorce bears the added stigma of infidelity.
I agree with you 100%. But I also think that far more people are in this type of situation and don’t know it, thinking they are monogomous but having a cheating partner. That is why I don’t think *any *relationship should be entered into without careful thought and consideration and a certain amount of maturity and respect - both self respect and respect for each other. Communcation skills simply cannot be stressed enough. This goes triple for a poly relationship, because the cultural understanding and support is generally lacking. Sometimes, the two of you have only one another to confide in. My husband is, as I wish every husband was to his wife and vice-versa, my best friend before he’s my lover.
Call my husband, my two largest male friends and the police, but maybe not in that order. Seriously. That’s deranged and psychotic, not polyamorous.
Yep, like I said, we get checked every six months. We’re both fine. And, like the pregnancy issue, it wouldn’t be easy, but it would be dealt with. I’ve had “monogmous” friends who had untreated STDs because their boyfriends cheated on them and were too afraid to tell them when they started leaking discharge. At least I never have to worry about that. If it happens, it will be treated quickly and honestly.
Nope. I’m pretty picky about my friends, much less my boyfriends, and the clingy stalker types always set my alarms off really quick. Always have, even when I was a “normal monogomous” dater.
I meet them the same places I’ve always met boyfriends: friends of friends, religious or recreational events mostly. I camp a lot at Grateful Dead-style festivals, which are a great place to meet like minded people. I’ve never used a service because for me, sex is something that evolves out of a connection with someone. It’s not something I seek for it’s own sake.
The thing is, the potential is always greater than the actual amount of action. In the six years we’ve been together, I’ve had 4 other partners. WhyDad’s had more, probably about 8. Which corresponds exactly to our previous patterns: when we first got together, he’d been with exactly twice as many partners as I had. We’re not exactly frequent flyers, if you know what I mean. We’re really pretty boring and normal most of the time!
This is fascinating and I regret that we are dealing with only a few “data points” since the experiences above may or may not represent the “norm” in this area. After reading and thinking about the above posts, I still have these questions and observations:
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How does this subject initially come up in a relationship? If my wife proposed something like this I think that my initial reaction would be to cry because it might make me feel inadequate. I’m trying to picture the first few conversations where this type of life style was “agreed” upon. For instance did one of you say something like "I saw a show on open marriages on Oprah and frankly I think it sounds down right interesting, what do you think honey?
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What is the distinction between open marriages and “swinging”. I am aware of the various subtypes of swinging where the couples stay together (while having sex) and those where they branch off to have sex with another person in private. Obviously, there is huge difference between “one night stands” and the long term relationships associated with open marriages. I am more concerned with the differences in the personalities, socioeconomic status, and cultural attributes that characterize the “typical” swinger as opposed to the typical “open-marriage person”. What makes one couple consider an open marriage to be an option, but to be mortified at the thought of swinging while a different couple feels just the opposite (in other words they think swinging is okay, but that an open marriage would be out of the question).
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I would think having to wear condoms all the time might be an issue for the man in such a relationship. I don’t think that women lose much when the man wears a condom (although I do recall reading a study that suggested that actually having the semen in the vagina may result in more satisfaction for women than sex with a condom, but it may have been a case of correlation rather than causation). However, for many if not most men sex is considerably less pleasurable if he has to wear a condom (I would say in the range of 5 to 30% depending upon many variables). Also, Why Not said that she didn’t have sex were her boyfriend for a considerable period before getting pregnant (and presumably while she was pregnant although this may not have been the case). How do the “side relationships” react to such long periods of abstinance (understanding of course that they may very well have other relationships).
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I think that swinging (and possibly open marriages as well) may be underreported. For example we joined (but have never acted upon) a national free swinging website. I was floored when I did a search of other couples within 50 miles of our home. I found THOUSANDS of listings. What amazed me was that I found at least 30 couples listed in our relatively rural town of a population of around 24,000 (several of which I recognized by their photos). I found this shocking because whenever the subject is broached on this website (which is probably much more “liberal” than our area in the bible belt of Indiana) it is greeted with a largely negative response.
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Don’t you ever want to hear about the sexual encounters with each others sexual partners? I sometimes ask my wife to go through intimate details of the 40 plus men she has slept with in her life. I find this exciting (then again if she were currently sleeping with them I’m not sure that this would be the case).
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What happens when one person finds a “side partner” and the other does not? Or maybe both have a partner and one losses their partner. Does the other person have to “stop” until new playmates are found? If not has this caused additional emotional tension? Indeed, I would wager that when these types of open relationships are present that you will find that both partners are more attractive than average (on average cetarius paribus). That is because more attractive people can find new partners easier, and thus the above scenario is less of an issue.
This is so true… and its hard to contain the curiosity when you have a stable partner… but other women tempt you.
In a way you've taken out those silly temptations that make monogamous men wonder if they could get some action leaving their marriages, when in fact they are perfectly happy (but want variety in sex).
Sorrry to be repetitive… but I’m in awe that people actually live in such a mature and open way.
In our case, the subject was first broached after my wife had been chatting with a guy on a text-based online game we run. I knew her well enough to know she liked him, and it came up as they were chatting that he was a virgin. I somewhat jokingly suggested she go down and fix that. This then turned into a serious discussion of open relationships (we weren’t yet married at the time) and we found we were both cool with the idea.
It helped that we were both fairly open about such things beforehand, and been friends for a long time before we started dating. And neither of us are the jealous type.
The way I think of it is that in an open marriage you have long-term relationships outside the marriage, while in swinging you’re having everything from long-term things to one-night stands with near-strangers. We’ve talked about swinging and decided it’s not for us. Neither of us is interested in havign sex with people we don’ already have an emotional connection to. And knowing someone for a while before sleeping with them is much safer.
I have to wear a condom all the time anyway, since my wife is allergic to sperm - for her, sex without a condom is painful. This same condition makes her inable to concieve normally, so pregnancy isn’t an issue.
They have to know from the start that what they’re having is an occassional side thing. One of the rules my wife and I have set is not to break any hearts - anyone either of us gets involved wth has to be fully informed that my wife and I are each other’s first priority, and any side relationship is only going to be an occassional thing. And they may have thier own other relationships before.
When we have threesomes, I’m there to see it in person. When she is with someone by herself, I still want to know what she’s been up to. But I’m a bit of a voyuer.
In our case, my wife has a guy who we see maybe once or twice a year, and I don’t have any side relationships at the moment. Now, while I certainly wouldn’t mind having a side relationship, it’s not a major issue. IMHO, you shouldn’t be havig an open relationship unless you’re already satisfied with your partner.