Open relationships... any thoughts?

Right. You’d never consider dating a married man, no matter WHAT kind of relationship he had with his wife. I’m just saying…that kind of slimeball ain’t a representative of a person in a healthy relationship no matter HOW you slice it. :smiley:

i see your point. it just seems as though you’re arguing ‘well, at least it’s better than cheating!’ great…is it better than a hole in the head as well? or perhaps its like arguing that there would be fewer people given tickets for speeding if we did away with speed limits. just seems like an odd argument.

so yes, cheating is bad. the double standard, that says that cheating is still more acceptable than polyamory, is bad.

cmonidareya, when you put forward two choices, and highlight that one of the choices demand that you be secure within yourself, then the implication is that the other choice does not. i hope that you can see that, and i thank you for clarifying somewhat.

and yes, sex is a HUGE deal for most of us monogamous types, and i think that you do us a disservice by dismissing its consequences out of hand. there are a lot of emotions wrapped up in the sexual act, and i don’t like them written off as something you have to ‘grow out of.’

I’m not saying “at least it’s better than cheating!” I’m saying…IF you (generic “you”) find yourself cheating in relationshop after relationship…perhaps monogamy is not for you. If someone were like that, I would have nothing but sympathy for his or her monogamous partners who kept being screwed around on.

I don’t think anyone has made that implication…and if they have and I’ve missed it, well, I can’t say that I approve of what they are saying either. If emotions weren’t attached to the sexual act for me, I would be a swinger.

Some interesting posts, but no-one’s really explained to my satisfaction anyway, why it is that people would want to choose monogomy?

As for other things that have been raised:

Polyamoury. I have some friends who are polyamourous, but I don’t really like the term because it, in Britain at any rate, means involvement in a pretty small community the purpose of which is essentially to enable poly people to meet others. I tend to prefer to let these relationships arise naturally out of my existing social circle and although I have poly friends, I don’t want polyamoury to become my life. There’s a lot more going on in my life than relationships!

Sex. Lots of people seem to have focussed on this. Sleeping with more than one person isn’t, for me at any rate, about “removing the emotional content” from sex. I wouldn’t want unemotional sex. I enjoy sex and sexual affection because it’s a way to connect with people. Some of my friends are people I just talk to, some it feels natural to hug also, some to kiss also, etc etc up until the very few that it feels natural to have full sex with.

Intimacy with more than one person doesn’t devalue your intimacy with any one of those people. (Unless you don’t have much time to spare etc). We all have lots of intimate relationships, with friends, family, children for some, and so I don’t understand why restrict ourselves to one romantic relationship.

A question for the polyamorous/open relationship people: how difficult was it for you, the first time that you or your SO decided to take in a third party, so to speak? Did you battle with insecurity much? Did you need to spend extra time with your original partner to reaffirm the emotional committment you have?

One repeated arguement FOR seems to lie with the misconception that everyone CHEATS!
Not everyone does.
I’m 30 and have many relationships under my belt and have never once cheated. And I am sure there are many other who have never cheated also.
The belief that an ‘open relationship’ prevents cheating or the idea that at least people in an open relationship are more honest, leads me to believe that those people assume everyone cheats on their partners… I just wanted to add that this is often not the case.
Just one faithful persons opinion!!

Sappho, I can understand your position, but it isn’t the same for me.

I simply don’t have people in my life who I want to show affection for in the way that you described.
I hug them, kiss them on the cheek, sit on their laps, fall asleep on their shoulders…and that’s it. There just isn’t a part of me who wants to do anything more.

I’ll repost my own thoughts on why that’s brought up…

I’m not saying everyone cheats. I know everyone doesn’t.I also said:

So…no.

It doesn’t prevent cheating, and people in an “open relationship” aren’t necessarily more honest. I’ve also said that cheating can happen in all kinds of relationships, and the only way to make them WORK is honesty. That goes for monogamous people, polyamorous people, swingers…even for single people, really, if you think about it.

I don’t know that it is really a choice. There are a lot of people who are wired to be with ONE PERSON. That’s not a flaw, any more than being wired to be with more than one. It’s just another state of being. There are couples out there in which one member is monogamous, and one member is polyamorous - one member doesn’t want anyone else in their romantic emotional life, and the other does. That can work too, believe it or not. Relationship mechanics aren’t static.

Cuckoorex: The biggest problem, obviously, is battling insecurity. At least, I think it is. In a polyamorous couple, there really has to be the rock-solid knowledge that your partner still loves you and wants you and wants to be with you as much as they ever did. “Then why would they want someone else?” I don’t know. “How do I know they won’t love the other person MORE?” It’s not about “more.” I have three kids. I love them all tremendously. I can’t imagine NOT having had the third one because I didn’t want to “take love away” from the first two. “But marriage isn’t the same!” Not the same TYPE of love, perhaps…but it applies. “I can’t imagine being emotionally involved with more than one person!” Some people can’t imagine having more than one kid. Hell, some people don’t have kids at all, and some people honestly don’t feel the need for ANY long-term relationship. I don’t look down on the childless, or those with one child, or people who don’t have relationships, or people who have one, or people who are in such massive marriages that you can barely fit them all at a banquet table.

I don’t think it is a flaw, it’s just a state of being that I don’t really understand. What does being monogomous add to a relationship?

On another note… people have talked about “maturity” a bit. My feeling is that to make any kind of relationship work, you need maturity. If monogomy/polyamoury isn’t to be based on insecurity of one kind or another, everyone involved has to be emotionally mature.

Okay. I am monogamous. I can list three reasons.

Number one: I am insecure. I wouldn’t say our RELATIONSHIP is, but I am. I would feel very uncomfortable if my boyfriend were with other women for that reason.

Number two: I’m not quite sure where this falls, but I’m also pretty possessive. Not in the “he can’t go out with his friends” kind of way, but I do want to be his only romantic interest. I like him so much, I want him all to myself :slight_smile:

Number three: I think this is what Hama was explaining, and the truth is that even if I were not insecure and possessive, I only have so much of myself to give, and it’s all being given to one person. There is just no room in my emotions and thoughts for someone else, really. And maybe you can’t understand this because you don’t feel this way, but I can assure you that I do.

To your satisfaction? What are you looking for? What do you want us to say?
By suggesting that you simply can’t understand why people would want to be monogomous despite the fact several people have posted their reasons makes it sound like you’re belittling us for being so blinkered and having limited ourselves when we can have oh so much more.

I don’t want more. I am extremely happy and fulfiled with what I have. Too many cooks an’ all that… :wink:

What does it take away? Sex and/or similar emotions with other people? I don’t want to do that anyway, so how am I losing out?
Why does it need to add something? Why can’t it just be the state some people are happier in?

I have found someone who AFAIAC others cannot/do not compaire to, why would I want to be with someone else, who would not only be inferior, but would lessen the amount of time I have to spend with my man?

i devote myself completely to my wife, and she to me. i can’t conceive of being able to develop a relationship as deep and nuanced as the one that we share with multiple partners. of course, YMMV, but it seems that given the amount of time and energy that goes into a relationship, multiple ones will not be as ‘deep.’ however, the trade-off between depth and breadth of relationships is up to the individual.

on a larger, societal level, there are a LOT more benefits to monogamy (especially in matters of law). property law, inheritance, child custody and support, divorce, etc. all rest upon a monogamous society.

i am confused a bit by the nature of polyamorous relationships simply because so much of it seems to be in your heads, independent of your behavior. you may say that your husband/wife is the most important person in your life, but how do you show it? if you can share yourself with multiple people, then what makes the marriage? just being good friends? and, since we are getting into the whole poly v. mono thing, how does one differentiate a truly secure person in multiple relationships from a truly insecure one? i knew plenty of girls in high school that were physically available to anyone. i’d not argue that promiscuity is a sign of emotional fulfillment.

i have not ruled out the possibility that we are working with very different definitions of love. i tend to think that love + sex = romantic love…and that is reserved for 1 person at a time, whatever your other friendships may be. as for a definition of love itself, it’s a very personal thing, and i don’t know that i could articulate it if i wanted to.

so, for those in open relation ships: does polyamory add to or subtract from your ‘main’ relationship? or do you contend that one has nothing to do with the others?

thanks for the responses. this is somewhat of a new concept for me, and i am trying to work past my initial ‘wtf?’ and figure out motivations, etc. please don’t take anything i’ve said as a condemnation of your own path.

Eh, I’m such a bastard that I’m surprised one woman can put up with my ass, much less two.

My old standard reply kind of applies here–I don’t give a damn what you do, as long as you don’t do it with my wife.

Would I personally ever be in an “open” relationship? Been there, done it. Would I do it again? Never.

My two worthless coppers.

:slight_smile:

These are some reasons to choose monogamy. They are not universally compelling reasons, and they are things that can be worked around: by listing them I am not trying to argue that monogamy is a better choce: I’m merely pointing out that it does have a set of advantages: polyamory also has a set of advantages ,which others have listed and will list. Each individual chooses what advantages mean the most to them, and then negotiates these things out with the other people involved.

I do want to repeat Stonebow’s excellent remarks about monogamy not being any less “mature” of a choice than polyamory: I am firmly monogamous, and I hope I have built up enough ethos over hte last few years that no one wants to accuse me of being mature enough to handle a more advanced relationship.

  1. Children. This is less of an issue in the last generation or so, as birth control has become more and more reliable, but it is still an issue. Heterosexual coitus carries the possibility of making a baby and babies complicate things. If my spouse and I share resources and he (or she) has a child with someone who I have no relationship with, then our mutual resources will have to go to support that child (and perhaps be diverted from our mutual child(ren). Furthermore, while it is possible to be secure that your spouse wouldn’t form a sereous emotional attachment with their sexual partner, it would be foolish in the extreme (and unfair) to expect them not to form an emotional attachment to their own child, and as would the child’s other parent. Even if I choose to develop my own emotional attachment to that child, the child has two parents and my own involvment would be at the discression of both those parents: I could only be a third parent to the degree that my spouse’s child’s other parent allowed me to be.

  2. Time. Relationships take time to maintain, and there is a finite number of signifigant relatinships that can be maintained on “active” status at any one point: if you don’t spend at least a few hours a month talking to someone, the relationship decays. Sometimes they can be picked back up again after a hiatus, but doing so is always problematic and usually has to invoilve both some sort of catalystic event and an opening up of time in your own life by the collapse of some other relationship or by some other major life change. Furthermore, new relationships involve a signifigant outlay of time: you have to actually get out there and meet people.

The number of active relationships a person can maintain at any one time varies from person to person: My own number is, I suspect, rather lower than average, just because I need alot of alone time (and dope time!). I can’t be good friends with more than about seven people at a time, and that includes my mother, my sister, and my husband. If I were to take the time to cultivate new relationships on top of that, I’d have to cut out some of my long standing relationships, which I’m not willing to do.

In the same way, I’d be jealous if my husband’s other relationships infringed on the time we spend together. I’m not clingy, but we don’t see much of each other as it is: He’s in Grad School, I teach school and work 60 hours a week. If, in addition to all the other things we both do, he had a date one night a week, I’d be jealous not just of the other woman, but of the fact that I simply didn’t have enough time with him.

A corrollary of this has to do with sex, which is not the everything of a relationship, but which is certainly an important part of a relatinship. Just as the supply of time is finite, the supply of sex is finite, too. I’d be pissed if I came home and wanted to get laid and my husband wasn’t in the mood because his girlfriend had been over earlier.

  1. This is more personal than practical, but I hated dating, (as did my husband). I hated meeting somone and sizing them up as a potential sexual partner, and feeling as if they were sizing me up as a potential sex partner. I hated wondering if someone was interested in me sexually. I hated the early stages of a relationship, when you don’t know each other well and you are worried about making a good imporession. I hated worrying about other people’s motives. I hated worrying about my own motives. It made me anxious and miserable. I wanted to skip right ahead to the living-together-in-domestic-tranquility part (which is what I did with my husband. The idea of wanting to continue dating when I have a partner with whom I have happy and satisfied boggles my mind. Not having to deal with dating is one of the main benefits of marriage: to me saying “I don’t want to stop dating just becuse I’m married” is akin to someone saying “I don’t want to get a paycheck just because I go to work everyday and do my job”. It jsut makes no sense. Obviously, this isn’t true for everyone, but the fact that it’s true for me says nothing about my security in my relationship.

I guess monogamy adds the happiness of being monogamous for people who prefer monogamy.

As the title suggests, you’ll want to take this with a large amount of salt. :slight_smile:

But, I think my viewpoint here may have something of value to add to the discussion. See, I’m 19 years old, and I’ve never been in a romantic relationship. Ever. Variety of reasons, but if I’m going to be honest, they all boil down to a lack of nerve, confidence, and sophistication. I find it very difficult to tell a woman I find her attractive, (which ties into the confidence thing nicely), and I don’t really understand how relationships (or even normal social interactions, sometimes) work. Obviously, most people on this board are more clueful than me :), but I wonder if this may be a factor in the preference most people have for monogamy.

Well, obviously it is - several advocats in this thread of polyamory and monogamy have mentioned the “security” issue. But I tend to think that even in a “secure” relationship, where both partners felt comfortable and open with each other, the knowledge that they were intimate with other people would be mighty uncomfortable. I know, for example, that when I do finally get in a romantic relationship - I’m going to be pretty awkward at it for a while. No great shakes in the sack - but beyond that, I’m just going to have a hard time figuring out the parameters, how a relationship works. I’ll catch on fairly quick - I like to think I’m a reasonably intelligent guy, and I’ll have a heck of an incentive - but the habitual, nagging fear of “something going wrong” will probably always stay with me, at least to some degree.

As I say, I’ve never been in a relationship, so maybe I’m way off here. But I think most people are like that. And if I were in an “open” relationship, I’d find myself asking “what if she likes him more? What if he’s a better listener, better in bed, funnier, smarter, kinder? What will she need me for than? Why will she want to be with me then?” And even if I were in an open marriage, and I knew beyond a doubt that my wife loved me, and I loved her, it would still hurt to hear her talk about how wonderful this other guy was - I’d feel like the implication was that I was less awesome.

Obviously, I’m at least partially wrong here. There are people posting in this thread for whom polyamory works wonderfully - and to them, I have nothing to say but “Mazel tov!” (congratulations). But I think there’s more that’s needed for that then just security and trust in a relationship.

I’m glad that there are open relationship people who do feel this way.

I have no desire to have an open relationship. But I’ve had some people who did believe in that lifestyle “insult” me for my choice in some really weird ways.

One guy said that people who didn’t share their bodies and have sex with their friends couldn’t really ever be trusted.

What does being polyamorous add to a relationship?

Let me guess, it makes you happy to be able to express your feelings like that, and that happiness makes you a better partner for your primary. Well, monogamy makes me happy, and that happiness makes me a better partner for my only. It’s as simple as that.

Why does monogamy make me happy? Well, I can’t really say, except that I don’t have romantic and sexual desires for other people, and I prefer that my husband feel the same way.

Asking people why they prefer monogamy or polyamory is like asking people why they’re attracted to men or women. You don’t know why, you just know that that’s the way you feel.