To say open relationships are bullshit

[Thingsivesaid]

Im in my 40s and nearly everyone around me now seems to be in open relationships. They are just full of crap! Can anyone really honestly say they are in one and no one is getting hurt? Honestly?
I've watched a former friend bordering on neglecting her child in the throws of a new side-relationship. Another one was pretty much pressured to be in one and now she has to pretend shes having fun. I was just pursued by a man who seemed super nice and genuine just to find out he actually has this 'arrangement' with his partner.
I think if you are going to do this bullshit, at least leave us single people out of it and partnered people just can go get off on each other. I cant think of anything more gross than the idea of having sex with someone and them going back home to their wife. 🤮

No I don't think fidelity or exclusivity is the pinnacle to UK relationships. It's safe to say that monogamy is a norm in the UK. But it isnt safe to say that exclusivity is central to British relationships. Things like respect, compassion, consideration, co-operation, joint goals, affection, healthy sex, those things are core.

Quite.

The stories that miserable people will tell themselves are incredible.

'I’ve never known anyone in an open relationship but I have known a few swingers and they are all very odd people with messed up backgrounds.'

Tbf this is also my experience of swingers. I dabbled briefly and left that world behind sharpish. Not the most cerebral group of people.

Don't you tell me what I mean.

You're totally wrong anyway.
Women may turn a blind eye to their husbands having sex with other women IF they're good husbands in other regards but I've never met any woman who wants her fecking nose rubbed in it.

Don't ask, don't tell.

I don't see how any man with self-respect could be OK with his wife getting shagged by somebody else. I really don't.

That is true at least in British culture where marriage is seen as romantic in nature and not about duty to raising a family and owning property.
With the exception of the aristocracy.

Other nations do have a firm boundary between family and duty and fun and never the twain shall meet.

I know two couples that do it - theyre not super open about it to everyone, but they are happy, and the kids are not neglected (we have kids same age)

It's more about what the young folk would call amatonormativity or something like that. Where they assume that everyone wants or should be in a certain type of relationship with a certain path of progression for that relationship to be valid.

So to them, alm they can envisage is a heterosexual married woman, probably with a young family, whose husband has insisted on an open relationship or he Will leave his jobless wife and children penniless in a homeless shelter. The idea that a woman might have the autonomous inclination to seek out a non-monogamous relationship and a partner compatible with that lifestyle is being them. Women are just oppressed, vulnerable creatures at the mercy of the man to whom they were betrothed at their russel group uni graduation.

@QuintadosMalvados

I don't see how any man with self-respect could be OK with his wife getting shagged by somebody else. I really don't.

That's your view/opinion which is your right. However, there are people who don't mind that, and some actively encourage it. Different people have different views/attitudes.

Some men don't see their wives bodies as their property. More like it's her property and this she gets to say who she shares it with. They don't see relationships as ownership in the same way you do and they prioritise other values like respect, compassion, etc over sexual exclusivity.

And guess what? Some people are even aroused by the knowledge of their partner with other people.

I think maybe forget all these ideas about macho respect and "grrrrrr not mah woman!" A lot of men have moved past those archaic ideas. That's not to say they are all into ENM, but just those ideas that they have to be territorial over women and control their interactions to maintain self respect are extinct in modern, decent men.

There are plenty of forums where you can interact with polyamorous women where they can assure you of their capacity and general mental wellbeing.

Polyamory.com is one.

This has been my experience too.

I live in a very liberal area with lots of relationships like this and I have yet to see an open relationship that hasn't ended in absolute carnage.

One of my best friends had one, and even with firm ground rules they had all sensibly agreed upon, it didnt work. There was jealousy and resentment and arguing about whom spent more time where and who was the "favourite". The original couple are now divorced and none of them speak to each other. There is a lot of residual bitterness too.

I think people underestimate the emotions involved and that its not as easy to compartmentalise as you imagine it to be.

If you think open relationships are bullshit then don't have one.

Judging other people's open relationships as bullshit just makes you look a bit dim. Some are healthy, some are unhealthy (just like monogamous relationships!). I've known examples of both.

I "get" open relationships on a rational level and emotionally I'd have no issue with one - I don't really get jealous. But practically speaking I'm too lazy and introverted and enjoy my own company too much. I remember a poly friend extolling it all to me and I looked at her in horror and asked when she ever had time to herself? And she looked at me in horror and said she hated spending time by herself. That's kind of when the penny dropped for me - it's for people who can't stand to be alone.

I was in a very long marriage and I really loved my husband but found menopause so awful it did affect our sex life. I decided to turn a blind eye to his indiscretions becsuse infidelity in a long marriage isnt something Id get hysterical about in the scheme of things but then he started going to fetish clubs and wanting us to go swinging which is a big fuck off from me. Im not tolerating that.
Trouble is he just went too far so the marriage was over.
Im very angry he couldnt have just had the odd affair and been discrete about it.
Now here I am heading for retiremdnt alone and kissing goodbye to all the great things we'd planned to do and Im ANGRY.

'Women are just oppressed, vulnerable creatures at the mercy of the man to whom they were betrothed at their russel group uni graduation.'

😂😂😂

Yeah. These types usually become particularly upset at the absolute revelation that people are different to each other.

I don't see how any man with self-respect could be OK with his wife getting shagged by somebody else. I really don't.

Because not all men think the same way?

Because not all men are proprietal over their wives' bodies in 2026?

Well I'm not single but if I was I would want absolutely nothing to do with ENM with the I e exception being if he and the primary partner were completely sexless that would be understandable.

Based on my (albeit quite limited) knowledge of people who have chosen this route, and my more general understanding of human nature, I think the number of people who could flourish in this kind of set up is far, far smaller than the number of people persuaded to participate in it.

Were all the “flourishers” involved and nobody else brow beaten or shamed (“don’t be such an old fashioned prude” kind of thing) into it, I’d have no tosses to give. But it doesn’t seem to work like that in real life, and I’ve seen some humans really hurt by their inability to genuinely be on board, despite everything they say and do about it being alright by them. The mental and emotional gymnastics were hard to watch.

This is a really interesting view and I agree. I actually think in very long marriages that have become essentially platonic that I don't judge either partner for having affairs in this don't ask, don't tell manner especially if emotions aren't involved. Not that it's my business anyway but I actually think that's likely to have a better outcome overall than an open marriage.

Ok, interesting! Please share a little more. How do you manage it in a way that everyone is happy and no one gets hurt?

I'm talking about previously monogamous couples who open up the relationship.

Ok. It isnt that I disagree but I think that goes for many decisions. For example, a friend who did or didnt want kids is now with someone who does or doesn't want kids and now your friend seems to have changed their mind on the matter.

How much are you allowed to freely change your mind for a relationship to work without your partner being accused of coercion? The answer seems different depending on sex.

Who do you envisage getting hurt?

It's very telling that you don't expand on your claim, but answer back with a question instead. If you can't tell me a successful example where every party is happy, then i stick to my own eye-witness account of it all being a shit-show all around.

It doesn't need to be "managed" because we ARE just naturally happy and not hurt by the same things as you might be.

Maybe it helps that we all came into our relationships seeking non monogamy. None of the relationships I'm involved in started as exclusive although we all were in monogamous relationships previously.

Time isn't split equally and there is no rota. Each relationship flows depending on what we're all doing or want to do. It all balances out.

No one ever cancels plans with one person to be with another but again that's just basic decency and not a rule that we live by. I don't think any of us have ever wanted to do that anyway.

Im my monogamous past the beginning of each relationship felt like an ending. Knowing I was in a relationship made me feel like I couldn't breathe and that the path of my whole life had been decided. I loved my partners and they were good people but monogamy made me miserable.

I think when we hear of couples opening their relationship and suffering for it they were just trying something. Something to hopefully save a relationship which has run its course. For non monogamy to work you have to be a non monogamous person. You can't manage or plan your way into it.

But do you understand that your "eye-witness account" only comes from one, very limited perspective ie being briefly persued by someone in an open relationship? Do you not understand that people who are actually in open relationships probably have a better understanding and lived experience of how it all works in practice?

Some monogamous relationships are a shit show, is all monogamy nonsense?

Not for me but to each their own, why let what doesnt affect you bother you.