Community Blog: Open Marriage Isn't Easy
Even if you believe in and have a wonderful open relationship, they can be stressful and downright frustrating. Here's how it's going for me...
My wife and I opened our marriage a few years ago. Monogamy never really made sense to either of us; we'd both been taught that you had to make "that level of commitment" to show show how much you respect and value someone, but this had never felt right -- it really seemed like control, ownership or perhaps mutually assured destruction disconnected from our deep respect, esteem and commitment.
We could hardly have picked a worse time to work through this transition, even though we were both on the same page it was incredibly stressful to re-frame our marriage. (This also happened to coincide with a number of other major stressors, some of the details are amusing but may be another story for another time).
I've read a great deal about open relationships, but I haven't seen any discussion quite like what I'm trying to write now. Two things I read here on this site precipitated this writing: one is the following bit from Portrait of an Open Marriage. Take Two"
Discussion
Well, as a long-term monogamous person, I have to say that it's not about control and ownership unless you see it that way. It's about recognizing the jealousy is a natural human emotion and accepting yourself. It's about knowing what you want in a relationship. Mostly it's about loving someone enough to not want to hurt them.
And I can't help mentioning my biggest concern about polyamory - I think a lot of people read about it, think it sounds great and decide to try it. They don't realize how difficult it can be and don't know what to do if they have problems. So my advice would be, if it's stressful, maybe you should think twice about going forward. Make sure it's really what you both want. Keep the communication honest. Give yourselves a way to pull the emergency cord if you discover it doesn't work. If you still want to do it, but now isn't the right time, well, wait a bit.
Having said all that, I think you've come up against reality. You can be free to have affairs, but that doesn't mean you can have them. Erma Bombeck wasn't completely joking when she titled one of her books "Too Tired to Have an Affair." Working parents don't have a lot of time for affairs. Add to that that despite the images we see around us, most people don't have a lot of casual sex. Plus most people are trying to be monogamous and aren't going to want to get involved with you. As a man, you're even less likely to be able to find someone who just wants sex.
I think as a society we have a false image of singles with wild sex lives. On average, married people have more sex than single ones. Married men are more likely to get oral sex. Married men (and women) are more satisfied with their sex lives. Being free to go looking for sex doesn't mean you're going to get it.
I suspect that if you really want to have sex outside of your marriage, eventually you will figure out how to find someone. I'm not sure you'll be able to get to a Penthouse letters lifestyle.
Yep; I've read a lot about communication and managing jealousy in open relationships and some describing how it's mostly "just life" much the same as most families, not a non-stop sex party, but nothing about the fact that sometimes the greatest difficulty is the *lack* of a reason for any jealousy to cope with :-) Since that aspect was the focus of my essay, it sounds like I'm a lot more dissatisfied than I actually am; really it's a "good problem to have" and sooner or later something will come up. In the meantime I've become much more comfortable talking to women and flirting than I have ever been, I'm getting better at it and I'm having fun with that. I make active choices about how I spend my time and I don't regret them.
I also wanted to say even with that frustration, I believe it's the right thing for us and even without the concrete benefit of other intimate relationships, I believe it's well worth it; I'd like to write more about that side of things sometime.
