To think that consensual non-monogamy is usually a recipe for disaster?

I know one couple well who decided to open their marriage. The woman had a history of being abused and was clearly very vulnerable. I met a few other women through her that were also in open marriages and they were also obviously very damaged from their past. I don't think well balanced people with healthy boundaries who are in a good place do this.

It's not easy.

But if you're in a club, for example, you're mixing with people and many of them will have a similar attitude to you, a similar outlook etc. Like any other hobby or social group. So that makes it easier to get chatting, find common ground and then find more that is an attraction

It's not the same as in your neighbourhood at home where the only thing you may have in common with people is where you like.

You only need elements of trust with the people you are getting involved with, not the hundreds of people at a club.

It's not, contrary to what some media parts would have you believe, a massive free-for-all with people having hundreds and hundreds of different play partners regularly.

Marriage certainly has its drawbacks! But it’s not as though our only two options are monogamous heterosexual patriarchal marriage until you die, and polyamory.

Plenty of people are in relationships and don’t live together / get married, have a number of 1:1 relationships throughout their lives, have FWB situations and casual sex while not in committed relationships, have relationships with men and women. All this variety is possible (and common) while just happening to prefer to be involved with one person at a time.

That's not opening a marriage. That's cheating.

Yes, our love for our children is a very different kind of love than our love for a spouse or partner. It is, or should be an extremely selfless kind of love, where the parent expects and wants to be the one who gives more and sacrifices more. There's always a selfish element to romantic and sexual love- if one partner takes more than they give, it erodes the connection and leads to resentment, anger and eventually, it can destroy the relationship and even lead to hatred.
I know that I will love my son forever, and no matter what he did, I would love him, even if I hated his actions. Not the case for the STBXH at all! Love for our partners/spouses is always conditional and too much selfishness on the part of one of them will always destroy the love, even if they don't split up.
Even if you end up being estranged from your adult children, you'll always love them and want to be able to reconcile, so long as you're not character disordered that is, but I'm talking about the majority of parents.

In many cases of marriage breakdown, one of the main pre-disposing factors is that one of the spouses HAS "opened" the marriage, but without the other spouses knowledge at first, and definitely without their consent.

I wouldn't want it , that's for sure!
I've always suspected one partner wanted it more than the other, or that maybe one partner didn't want it at all but was so afraid of loosing the other, they went along with it.
I only know of 2 "open" marriages though; both couples split because one went off with someone else and in the case of the 2nd couple, ended in tragedy. I won't give the details because it's not my story to tell but it was terrible and so very sad. When I got over the shock and the sheer sorrow of it, one of my thoughts about it was "These things never seem to end well!"

I am not suspicious of people in an open marriage but am suspicious of people who make a big song and dance about it. Same as I am suspicious of people who make a song and dance about anything really. Always conceals some kind of problematic behaviour.

@KateMiskin

There are many cultures in which you don't marry the person you want to shag but instead the person most suitable in social standing, income, family , profession and so on. Marrying the person you want to shag is a very Western contract.

Indeed and a fairly recent concept in the West at that. Which is why the older I get the positive I feel about arranged marriages. Whatever you think about them (and certainly they are open to abuse), they are designed for the legal protections to come into their own once the sexual attraction wears off. As opposed to being built to celebrate a kind of Homecoming Queen wish fulfilment which collapses when the first kid arrives.

Utterly absurd to think you can create contract law around sex. And it really disturbs me that society in all its forms, from the church to the wedding industry, promotes this total confection.

Totally agree with you OP.

Usually driven by the man. Just look at Neil Gaiman - I knew he was a wrong 'un years ago when I heard he and Amanda Palmer were in an "open" marriage so the current allegations weren't a shock to me!

Huge red flag IMO.

There are many cultures in which you don't marry the person you want to shag but instead the person most suitable in social standing, income, family , profession and so on. Marrying the person you want to shag is a very Western contract.

Agree with pp above who said she finds most people sexually repulsive or neutral. So do I!

Marriage is a legal and financial contract—originally created to control women's reproduction—with some fancy language about love and god often added.

Recognising that it's perfectly normal for people to want a change after the child-rearing years would be much healthier all round. If people wanted to stick it out to death, that's fine, but they'd be rare.

What marriage needs is the sentimentality taking out of it.

I totally agree with this. The attempt to graft romance onto an ancient and misogynistic institution for codifying the behaviour and reproduction of women has always struck me as laughable.

Lots of people will be along shortly to say marriage can protect women and they are totally correct. Marriage in its practical application can be a very useful insurance for women who can’t or don’t want to make their own money.

But building the legal and financial framework of your whole life around binding you to the person who you most want to shag in your fertile years is ludicrously outdated. It’s laughable that this is still considered the best way to structure society.

Its an absurd conflation of an outdated morality with religious overlay and modern contract law.

We do need to get to a contractual framework which incentivises a couple to stay together for the years they raise children and disincentivises one partner leaving the other unsupported, but stops with the absurd fiction that it’s normal to stay with the same person for 60 years.

I think people compromise because of insecurity and low self-esteem etc vulnerabilities that lead them to those situations.

I relate to this.

I met a polyamorous guy who has a longterm partner ...who is married.

Polyamory was a new concept to me so l read the Ethical Slut book too and really liked what l read and how it promoted trust, openness, boundaries, communication - all the things my lover said were important.

Except it didn't work out that way as he didn't actually keep to them - if he had I'd have been happy.

In this case polyamory wasn't the problem.... but the person promoting it.

I'm still really interested in the concept of it.

I know of someone , a woman, who had a consensual affair of sorts and has now fallen in love with the other man and he her. She's still with her husband but God only knows how long the marriage will last now. Sounds like a disaster.

I am mystified and kind of jealous that there are people out there who can easily find so many people they want to sleep with.

I feel at best neutral and at worst actively sexually repulsed by the majority of people I see around me. 😕 I’m sure it wasn’t always this way. Maybe I need to move to a sexier neighbourhood.

Ah, I se. Makes sense to take it seriously. If you have 3 partners who have other partners who have other partners... well, seems to heighten risks. But I know nothing of this lifestyle so interesting to hear how that's managed.

And with regard to STIs - i know one swinger who contracted an STI.

I know four monogamously married women who contracted an STI thanks to their cheating husband...

That documentary was as much a documentary as any reality tv show...

Lots was scripted, several people have said afterwards the pairings were set up, and they chose all couples who would be controversial/tricky/easily upset etc.

It wasn't a proper documentary. It was a tv show made to have talking points. Very different