Yeah, well. I didn’t actually expect that anything I would say would register, but it mattered to me to reiterate, again, that random raving idiots haven’t got any legitimate claim to define a real relationship with someone they’re not involved with.
I have poor sarcasm control when it comes to incoherent jerks who think they have a better clue about my life than I do, y’know? (There’s a reason I got the giggles when someone suggested I was a peacemaker a page or two back; I’m only able to have sane, rational discussion with people who aren’t frothing at the mouth, which means that I don’t always do well on the 'net. . . .)
I’m going to kinda-sorta agree with Triss, to the extent that he’s saying marriage, in the United States today, is limited to one (1) each man and woman. That’s a fair and common definition, and, Opal, it is of no moment what other cultures or societies may have done in the past or present. Today, here, now, marriage is just that: one man, one woman, legally recognized bond.
However, Triss’s insistence that any relationships outside the marriage destroy it is untenable. Certainly, I assume, he/she would not argue that one affair would destroy a marriage, yes? So would two? Three? One by each partner, at the same time? At what point does the marriage vanish, Triss?
I would never participate in an “open” marriage. It’s not at all my style, even if my other wife were Helen Hunt. Fortunately for me, Mrs. Bricker agrees with my idea of marriage. But for those that choose to, and find happiness this way… more power to 'em.
Been away a bit folks, as I thought this thread had fallen to oblivion. Obviously, I need to visit the pit more often!
Well, Bricker, I could agree with that too, if only that was how Triss defined marriage.
Marital infidelity is also an oxy-moron? More than half of what we all call marriage fails by that definition.
According to the only peer-reviewed research on the topic that I’m aware of, open marriages and exclusive ones were equally stable (which isn’t saying a whole lot, btw). See the Journal of Sex Education, Outcomes of Sexually Open Marriages, 1986. Please enlighten us to information to the contrary.
I’ve actually encountered a goodly number of people who believe an affair is more reasonable, legitimate, and acceptable then an open relationship, because at least the people involved are lying about it.
You’d rather someone lied to you then be honest with you? I’d rather someone to be honest and tell me they wanted someone else then have them lie about it. Hell that did happen to me, my ex-wife lied to me about a lot of things, told me she was at one place when she wasn’t, told me she wasn’t having sex with anyone else yet some how gets an STD and blames it on me though I hadn’t had sex with anyone else in 8 years. Hell she lied in court. And I’m the bad guy for telling her I was unhappy and when I did meet someone else, asked her if she wanted to do things with me, she refused, so I went out with someone else. I even told her before I started having sex with another woman and she didn’t seem to care.
Personally I don’t think I could be in an open relationship, though I had thought about it with the wife. But then again she was never honest with me, it turns out she was cheating on me the entire relationship, even when we were dating. :mad:
I think that Lilairen was saying that some people prefer that, thinking that was rather odd.
Open relationships are not for everyone, definitely. However, given the option of being in a dishonest one where your partner is lying to you or being in an open relationship… I think the open one wins out. Which is sort of irrelevant since if someone isn’t the ‘open relationship type’ they probably wouldn’t stay in the relationship either way.
Agree with OpalCat’s interpretation of Lilairen’s intent - I suspect her tongue was planted firmly in her cheek. Her point followed up on my point that statistics bear out that more than half of the folks who piously claim monogamy actually practise non-monogamy, they are just dishonest about it, or oblivious to it.
Fucking hypocrites, if you ask me (well, the majority of them, at least).
As I said earlier, and OpalCat reaffirms, open relationships are not for everyone. They are hard. If people are more comfortable with apparent monogamy with a greater than 50% chance of infidelity, so be it. But don’t try to grab the moral high-ground.
I was saying that I’ve encountered people whose objections to an open relationship are grounded in the idea that the people involved are being honest about being involved with more than one person. Yes, being honest. If the people involved were lying, they wouldn’t have had the problem.
For example: at one point a friend of mine asked me if I would mind if she were to get involved with my fiance. I didn’t have a problem with it, and told her so; there was a fairly amusing conversation involved that turned into an anecdote when I was hanging out with friends later that week. The following conversation ensued:
“She asked you for permission?”
“Yeah.”
“DH, that’s fucked up.”
“. . . would it have been less fucked up if she hadn’t asked and just gone out with him anyway?”
“Well, yeah. That’s not fucked up.”
Okay. I owe Lilairen an apology for casting aspersions on her statement that she knows of several open marriages, etc. Lilairen, I sincerely apologize for coming that close to calling you a liar. What I should have said (not that you will like this any better necessarily) is that the statement sounded suspiciously glib. But, on re-reading it, I see that my whole first post to this thread could be called ‘glib’… and…those who live in glass houses, etc. Therefore, I am truly sorry for being an offensive fuckhead.
Furthermore, I have also been guilty of failing to make my “position” (yes, I flatter myself, why do you ask? ) on the whole subject of marriage a least a little more clear. It certainly seems to me that everyone in this culture should be aware of what the commonly accepted definition of the wedded state is. Allow me to add that IMHO, marriage is much more than a simple legal contract although it can certainly be reduced to such for convenience sake or whatever. Marriage (IMHO) is also a declaration of the intentions of two people to live together and experience life within a certain restricted framework, the very nature of which is or can be extremely demanding, therefore having the potential to yield personal growth proportionately. To demand that this restrictive form of living together provide fulfillment “or else!” seems immature and delusional. Given this, I conclude that those who are married yet choose to live as if they are not, are at the very least not “really” married. As feebly expressed as this admittedly was, I have lurked enough on this board to know that there are very few people here who cannot understand this. So bite me.
If my husband screwed around on me, or me him, I would consider that to render my marriage invalid. At which point either one of us would be free to leave or re-negotiate with all the unfortunate attendant drama in either scenario. Same goes if he approached me seeking permission for an open marriage. I personally can’t see myself ever seeking an affair for the simple reason that I have long ago lost any belief in the “grass being any greener” sexually and especially emotionally. I value the emotional investment I have in my marriage and, I wish to honour the intent of marriage because I think it is worth the aggro frankly. If one enters into a marriage with fuzzy intentions, then however legally valid it is, it is not the state of committment which we all know it is intended to be.
Now as far as not reading the whole thread, I have also lurked here long enough to know that just about everyone else is guilty of skimming and that opinion is fairly well divided as to whether or not this is always unacceptable. My perception was that it IS indeed acceptable in the Pit, if not so much so elsewhere. I wish I could promise I will always read every word of every thread, but this would be bullshit so I won’t bother.
It’s taken me almost an hour to get on this fucking server to post this and further endear myself to you all, so don’t accuse me of totally not giving a shit. Thank-you
Thank you for your apology. :} (And I commisserate on the fucking servers. Jehosephat.)
I would note that I do live as someone who’s married. My husband and I are committed to each other, our partnership, and all of that good stuff; we listen, we resolve our differences, all the sort of stuff that being married is all about, y’know? I’m a goddamn housewife, how much more traditional d’you want, hey?
You’re still arguing from the point of view that marriage necessarily includes sexual/emotional exclusivity, which is just plain wrong. It wasn’t in my vows, it wasn’t in the discussions I had with my husband before or after, it’s not in my marriage. You don’t get to call my intent to spend my life with this person “fuzzy” because it doesn’t include something that I consider optional.
It’s a commitment. It’s not a commitment to what you’d want, but it’s a commitment to what I want, and what he wants. And my commitment to my boyfriend is no less real because we can’t put it down and have it respected as a marriage by law.
. . . my husband just called me. He found a Christmas present for my unshoppable-for mother in the store his girlfriend took him to, and wanted to know if I agreed with it, and told me he was getting new cushions for the couch. I asked him if he was planning on getting a new suitcase to bring all this stuff home; my boyfriend suggested that he borrow one of theirs, and then he could use it to take home the stuff he got while visiting me. Which we’ve decided is not only a plan, but funny.
This is my family. We’re going to grow old together. My intentions aren’t fuzzy on this at all, and I’m damn well living married.
Or, as one member of a triad put it when someone was trying to hit on him: “I am more married than you can possibly imagine.”
Thank you for your apology. :} (And I commisserate on the fucking servers. Jehosephat.)
I would note that I do live as someone who’s married. My husband and I are committed to each other, our partnership, and all of that good stuff; we listen, we resolve our differences, all the sort of stuff that being married is all about, y’know? I’m a goddamn housewife, how much more traditional d’you want, hey?
You’re still arguing from the point of view that marriage necessarily includes sexual/emotional exclusivity, which is just plain wrong. It wasn’t in my vows, it wasn’t in the discussions I had with my husband before or after, it’s not in my marriage. You don’t get to call my intent to spend my life with this person “fuzzy” because it doesn’t include something that I consider optional.
It’s a commitment. It’s not a commitment to what you’d want, but it’s a commitment to what I want, and what he wants. And my commitment to my boyfriend is no less real because we can’t put it down and have it respected as a marriage by law.
. . . my husband just called me. He found a Christmas present for my unshoppable-for mother in the store his girlfriend took him to, and wanted to know if I agreed with it, and told me he was getting new cushions for the couch. I asked him if he was planning on getting a new suitcase to bring all this stuff home; my boyfriend suggested that he borrow one of theirs, and then he could use it to take home the stuff he got while visiting me. Which we’ve decided is not only a plan, but funny.
This is my family. We’re going to grow old together. My intentions aren’t fuzzy on this at all, and I’m damn well living married.
Or, as one member of a triad put it when someone was trying to hit on him: “I am more married than you can possibly imagine.”
"Given this, I conclude that those who are married yet choose to live as if they are not, are at the very least not “really” married. "
I live as if I was married. In fact, I doubt that anyone who knows us who we haven’t told that our marriage is open would ever guess in a million years that there was anything unconventional about our marriage. We go everywhere together. We are deeply in love. We are a happy family. I stay home, he goes to work.
The thing that gets me in all of these discussions is that there is sooo much that goes into making a marriage… let’s give it a number… how about “100”. One of the things that makes a traditional marriage is exclusive sex. So then we have 1 (sex) and 99 (other things)… and it seems to most people that the sex is the deal-breaker. Something is or is not a “real” marriage, not based on all of the things that make up a marriage, but based on the sex. To me that is twisted and unhealthy. I’d say that most marriages don’t have all 100 (keep in mind this number is drawn out of a hat). Maybe most marriages have about 80. Many have a lot less. Under 50 and the marriage doesn’t last, perhaps. But so many people, when open marriage is discussed, seem to think that when you balance the 1 (sex) with the 99 (other things) the sex weighs more.
Triss, we have people on this board who believe Catholics aren’t “really” Christians, and I think we’ve got at least one who doesn’t think Democrats are “really” Americans. All I can say is as someone who spent a long time on the phone the other night with a very dear friend whose wife was in the hospital after a mild stroke (she’s OK, thank God), you cannot tell me this man is not “really” married because of the steps he and his wife took to save their marriage. As I’ve said, they have as much love, strength, honor, respect and commitment in their marriage than a lot of people I know, and I honor them for it.
I don’t require that people believe as I do, and I’d be rather horrified if they did. I just ask that people accept differences. Like I said, a few years ago, I would have agreed with you. Then I met people who were in an open marriage and, after a lot of soul searching and indecision, I realized that while I remain as firmly against adultery as ever, I have no objection to a true open marriage and that there is a difference. Thank you for your apology, though
I’ve tried to explain this concept before with very little success because I tend to become emotional and start sputtering.
This is the best explanation I’ve seen of why so many arguments AGAINST polyamory (or whatever you feel like calling it, whomever you may be) seem completely ridiculous to me. The only way I’ve ever been able to put it, is:
“If being married isn’t all about the sex, being divorced shouldn’t be either.”
) on the whole subject of marriage a least a little more clear. It certainly seems to me that everyone in this culture should be aware of what the commonly accepted definition of the wedded state is. Allow me to add that IMHO, marriage is much more than a simple legal contract although it can certainly be reduced to such for convenience sake or whatever. Marriage (IMHO) is also a declaration of the intentions of two people to live together and experience life within a certain restricted framework, the very nature of which is or can be extremely demanding, therefore having the potential to yield personal growth proportionately. To demand that this restrictive form of living together provide fulfillment “or else!” seems immature and delusional. Given this, I conclude that those who are married yet choose to live as if they are not, are at the very least not “really” married. As feebly expressed as this admittedly was, I have lurked enough on this board to know that there are very few people here who cannot understand this. So bite me. 
)