To think people in “open relationships” just want emotional safety nets?

[MonogamyScepticWren]

It’s not liberation, it’s insurance. AIBU to think polyamory is often a hedge against rejection, not a higher form of love?

Who said it's a higher form of love? It's just a different relationship paradigm. Also, open relationships aren't the same thing as polyamory.

Take love out of the equation. I don't think a lot of men love, like we imagine. People connect differently, towards sexual partners and their children. It suits some people, we don't have to analyse it. I've always hated the way promiscuous women were branded as having low self esteem. You'd have to have basement level self esteem to stay in some of the marriages I've witnessed. People want to brand others to feel smug. Two people meet, want to share a life, but reject monogamy, as long as both agree, that's simply how it is.

I think it’s realistic and brave. It’s arguably naive and controlling to hope that one person could give you everything you need emotionally.

I wasn’t saying it’s a higher form of love, just that some people frame it that way. And yes, I know open relationships and polyamory aren’t identical. I was speaking about the general vibe I’ve seen in both. My question was more about the emotional motivation behind it rather than the labels.

Edit: Didn’t mean to post. Can’t stand these ThreeWordUsername apps with their wanky nonsense posts.

I think it’s personal as in different people want / need / expect different things but I agree with you myself. As soon as I start wanting to act on an attraction to someone else, I know the relationship I’m in is on its way out. If I found myself regularly wanting to sleep with other people, I’d not be anywhere near as caught up in my partner as I personally like to be in a relationship.

It’s more interesting to me that you seem so intent on reframing ‘liberation’ as ‘caution’ or insurance. I mean, ultimately, so what? You could say exactly the same thing about marriage. Some people see it as bravely and riskily throwing your lot in with one person, some people see it as an act of conventional submission to a form of social contract.