drawbacks of an open marriage

6 comments

1. With the effort you put in your texts an open marriage won’t get you laid either, if that’s what you hope for. Make up your mind, explain your hopes and doubts and people will gladly help you. Maybe try r/polyamory instead of r/sex though.

2. r/nonmonogamy is another good place to ask this question and if you read through the posts there, you’ll find plenty of experiences of the drawbacks.

   Many couples who want to open their marriage are doing it for the wrong reasons. Like they’re trying to fix a problem (often mismatched libido) or one person has already met someone that they’ve developed feelings for and are using the open marriage so they can sleep with that specific person. There is a ton of preparation, communication and emotional labor that goes into opening a relationship and that is often skipped. The results are usually pretty harmful in those cases.

3. Let alone open marriage, I don’t understand the need to be married in the first place. If there are kids involved, then it’s a totally different ballgame and I understand why marriage is needed in that situation. If it is just a couple, why should there be marriage? After all, marriage is a contract, and has practical utility only when some property dispute is involved. It is best to keep all of that separate, and be in a loving relationship for as long as it lasts. If one of them feels the need to leave at some point, then so be it. You move on with your life.

   Polyamory has the immediate consequence of making the partners feel jealous. Netflix has a show titled “Easy” where the couple tries an “open marriage” that too after speaking with a therapist. In the end, the wife who initiates this idea ends up feeling jealous of the husband’s lover. It’s a story/fiction but I can believe it if someone told me that this actually happened in real life.

   My personal opinion about polyamory is that it is best for single people not emotionally involved with their partners. If emotions are involved, I find it hard to believe that the couple can resist feeling jealous when their lover is shacking up with another.

4. Well then assuming it’s hetero marriage

   First opening a relationship that wasn’t open from day one and it not crashing and burning is usually the exception.

   Second she’s pretty much going to have an endless parade of partners, if she wants to. Most men won’t really have any Hang-Ups having sex with a woman in a open relationship. Watching your wife step out for a date every night if she wants while you struggle to even get a match does not so great things to the male psychology. This is normally the part where she says no take backs, and then it ends in divorce.

   3rd the obvious issues of dating for men. Even if you would otherwise be successful most women have zero desire to be a perceived side piece. Enough that every dude being ENM is a common complaint on female dating forums.

   4th if you have kids bringing them into this dynamic could best be described as destabilizing.

5. I could do an open relationship and many of the drawbacks are purely a matter of personal opinion except 1.

   I love knowing I could call my wife at any time ever. She will drop everything for me if it’s important. It may only be a tiny window but your SO is not dropping everything if they are in some one else’s bed.

   Seems stupid but it really is a huge advantage of monogamy for me.

6. Husband of the the wife I was fucking had a stroke. Obviously it ended it but it’s always forever. Till it isn’t.