What do you think of open relationships?

I've never been in one. I'd probably get v jealous though.

You in one?

wait i thought i was asking the question

it's complicated

xpost just trying to stimulate your thread..

i know

yes

they only work if you lay down firm ground rules and follow them.

that usually takes the fun out of it though.

so they rarely work.

Tobias: You know, Lindsay, as a therapist, I have advised a number of couples to explore an open relationship where the couple remains emotionally committed, but free to explore extra-marital encounters.

Lindsay: Well, did it work for those people?

Tobias: No, it never does. I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but ... But it might work for us.

I've been in one for the past 22 years. Works for us, then!

But then, that's gays for you...

Mike, do you never feel a tinge of jealousy? Or competition? Do you openly talk about it or do you just keep quiet?

THey wouldn't work for me at all.

gr8080 basically said what i was gonna say. Open relationships are possible, given the right people. But I'm pretty sure the world is full of people unwittingly in open relationships, too.

uh?

i think the point of an open relationship is the... openness.

so you can't be in one unwittingly.

xpost: Seriously, NO jealousy. Jealousy is a symptom of insecurity, and we're 100% secure. No competition either. And yes, we talk openly about it. If someone has made him happy, then I'm happy. And vice versa.

Having said all that, we implicitly know not to take the piss and abuse the freedom - but that doesn't really involve any self-policing, either. Besides, we're both knocking on a bit now, and don't tend to put ourselves in many situations where the opportunity arises. Wouldn't want to give the impression that were leading madly libidinous existences... quite the opposite!

We've both had crushes, but we're both clued up enough to know the difference between a crush and a serious emotional attachment. So crushes get talked about as well.

I've sometimes thought back on all the people I've had sex with in the past 22 years, and wondered whether any of them would have been relationship material if I had never met my partner. I've never been able to identify even one.

xpost

I think there are 2 different meanings of openness there. At least 2.

xxxpost Yes, you can. It's perfectly possible that both think of their relationship as open (but not tell the otehr, which would be extremely ironic).

xxpost I don't think jealousy is necessarily a sign of insecurity. Sometimes you just want to share, I think. Hmm. Not sure and I don't want to test/risk discovering. But, Mike, I think it's great you can do this! You found the right partner and have a very healthy attitude towards it. Shows me that it's all relative. That's what I never knew (as a young person): you set the rules, there's no fixed rules.

i can't even think of ex gf's with other people. i don't think it could work for me. but good luck to anyone who can really make it work, i say.

open relationship means you both consent to it though, despite the double-meaning. "i'm not having an affair; we're having an open relationship" probably won't fly with most people.

it's perfectly possible that both think of their relationship as open

maybe in ernst lubitsch films.

Well, not necessarily. You can think of yoru relationship as open even though the other doesn't. Of course in the long run it'll cause problems, unless one adapts.

xpost

I was thinking O Henry.

But you're being too strict about the def of Open here I think.

This is probly not a productive area of enquiry.

We've been here before tho. 300 angry posts about the necessity of monogamy by teatime.

Well, not necessarily. You can think of yoru relationship as open even though the other doesn't. Of course in the long run it'll cause problems, unless one adapts.

-- nathalie, Wednesday, June 27, 2007 3:32 PM (15 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

it's not an open relationship if only one party thinks it is! srsly i'm not trying to make a point about relationship ethics, but this is basic dictionary stuff.

Polyamory

which includes dave q's deathless observation that "I've decided to let the girlfriend fuck whoever she wants. Pretty nice of me huh? Especially since she dumped me about 3 years ago"

I do suspect that heterosexual open relationships are much less likely to be viable.

that is vintage q.

I do suspect that heterosexual open relationships are much less likely to be viable.

Even a cursory viewing of Springer should teach us this.

mult. xposts Yes, words have fixed meanings. ;-) I know. I am just reluctant to see these things as fixed. I'm a bit stubborn that way, I guess, and maybe I have a pessimistic/realistic view on relationships.

I do suspect that heterosexual open relationships are much less likely to be viable.

Really? I often wonder why that is. Maybe we like to fool ourselves into thinking this way.

I'm reluctant to attempt theories, as this would quickly involve some awkward generalisations... but one reasonable generalisation might be that gay men are more liable to separate their emotional and physical desires, hence casual shags are easier to compartmentalise. (That's over-simplified, but it will do.)

will it now

gay men are more liable to separate their emotional and physical desires, hence casual shags are easier to compartmentalise

gaymen are more liable to separate their emotional and physical desires, hence casual shags are easier to compartmentalise

this is my way of saying, from the vantage point of 17 years heterosexually married, that mike t-diva's theory is OTM

Mike, what if you both know the person - a mutual acquiantance or even friend. Is that off limits then?

No, but it's less likely. The flow tends to happen in the reverse direction; several of my dearest friends are former casual shags.

Mike has many gay friends in town.

I'm in favor of it in theory, but I have a hard enough time just finding two people attractive at the same time.

there's got to be a better way of wording that.

I dunno, it's good enough!

my thought: whatever floats your boat. (but not mine so much)

funny, i have trouble getting two people to find me attractive at teh same time.

Couples I've known who are in open relationships are either ideal models of self-confidence and companionship -- the kind that lets a relationship have the same expectations as we have with our friends (i.e., we're individuals, we're not preoccupied with what our friends are doing when they're not with us) -- or they're denying their gut feelings and are going to end up blowing up like William H. Macy in Boogie Nights.

But as someone who gets emotional and creative energy from a range of people instead of one, I could imagine that working in a physical way as well.

http://www.movieactors.com/freezeframes-77/BoogieNights19.jpeg

"I don't have a girlfriend, I just know a girl who would be mad if she heard me say that"

Has anyone tried an open relationship with kids? And no - stop typing right now R. Kelly, I mean two adults who have kids, in an open relationship. I think that would be very confusing. When single, I think it's OK, but the kind of partnership required for the family dynamic seems incompatible with an open relationship.

yeah i basically agree -- just can't see how it'd work.

xpost

A friend's older sister is in that situation. She and her husband each have other partners and his girlfriend lives with them and their child.

Am I going to come across as a raging conservative if I say that I think open relationships are a really, really bad idea? Especially with kids involved, wow.

Wow that's interesting Ms Misery.

Is it 'The Red-Headed Stranger' himself? I could see him working an open relationship. Is the girlfriend Carla Bozulich?

OK so seriously here's the problem I see with that. When you're a kid, you form really deep attachments to people in your household. If the girlfriend doesn't have a deep attachment let alone a legal attachment to the kids, there is every possibility of that relationship being torn asunder in a way that the kids won't understand. No?

we're individuals, we're not preoccupied with what our friends are doing when they're not with us

otm

'The Red-Headed Stranger'

Willie Nelson!? He doesn't strike me as the free love type.

Children grow up with lots of different types of families other than one man, one woman. I think as long as whoever is in their life loves them and protects them, it's a good thing.

we're individuals, we're not preoccupied with what our friends are doing when they're not with us

otm in some instances, but marriage is like a marathon, and you're trying to run and lift weights at the same time while getting a handjob.

xpost.

Yes, but when the people in their lives are constantly shifting and disappearing, is that a good thing?

humansuit, i don't really understand your point!

We're all human really.

tim i didnt say "insecure" absoultely! i said "insecure enough to be in an open relationship"! it's totally possible to be secure in your closed relationship and still be too insecure to open that relationship up--in order to know that your sig o is having sex with other people, you need to be sort of phenomenally secure about yourself and your relationship, in my opinion moreso than youd need to be in a healthy relationship otherwise

ok, i still don't think it's necessarily an issue of insecurity at all, though, if you happen to be in love to the extent that your partner becoming involved with someone else hurts you.

then id ask why you felt hurt, though.

because you want something complete and transcendent in your love.

REAL TALK: OPEN RELATIONSHIPS DON'T WORK AND ANYONE WHO THINKS OTHERWISE IS TRICKING THEMSELVES INTO THINKING IT'S PROGRESSIVE.

that said, i have mad respect for the dudes who actually convince their gfs to let them bang other broads. that's a pretty sweet set-up if you do it right

xpost: right--and when your partner is with someone else (either physically or emotionally), you feel insecure abt the completeness or transcendence of your love.

altho i think looking for wholeness and transcendence in one's relationships is misguided & generally futile

maybe you and i are operating under different conceptions of security/insecurity tho?

it's not a question of looking for wholeness and transcendence. sometimes you just experience it - you're in love and you don't care about anyone else. and when your partner does, yes, that can hurt. that doesn't mean you're "insecure!"

right but you feel hurt b/c you think that transcendence and wholeness is gone, right? which is to say that youre insecure about its continued existence.

i used the term "completeness," actually. and, yes, it actually IS, by definition, gone.

i wonder if an open relationship would fail if one person got a lot more tail than the other....

also, this thread is crying out for a more practical/economic definition of what a "relationship" consists in.

xp but if your relationship is based around "completeness," and that completeness is gone, then your relationship is no longer functioning, right?

theres a weird disconnect here--if your partner is involved w/ someone else, either theyre still in love with you or theyre not, right? so if they are (and therefore your relationship is still complete), and you cant handle it, its because youre too insecure to trust that love; if theyre not still in love with you (and the completeness of the relationship is gone), insecurity is a moot point because youre, like, not really in a healthy or functioning relationship anymore

that's a different use of the term "complete" than the one i was using. my example was the person in love to the extent that they're not interested in others. a relationship with a sense of completeness would be two such people.

and again, i maintain that when one person is emotionally invested in a relationship in this way (not necessarily by choice or by decision or because that's the way it's done in our society by merely by the extent of their feelings) and they find that their partner is not, the pain has nothing to do with insecurity.

because they feel as though their partner should also have no desire to go outside the relationship?

also id argue that a relationship where one person is more emotionally invested than the other, or emotionally invested in a different way that hasnt been discussed or thought about, is a relationship with much deeper and more extensive problems than the question of "openness."

i guess id say that a relationship where both partners have vastly different conceptions of "emotional investment" is an insecure relationship, period.

or at least, where both partners have vastly different conceptions of "emotional investment," and where those differences havent been covered or thought about or discussed

max i think it's curious that you'd suggest that people who are comfortable in open relationships have a higher degree of security, because i think it's pretty clearly a way of avoiding intimacy. you're extrapolating from yr experience of trying to maintain a long-distance open relationship, but the conclusion you're getting from it is weird. wanting to be in an open relationship doesn't mean someone just has a lot of gusto, it means they're emotionally incomplete.

i dont see how a person could be comfortable in an open relationship and not feel totally secure in their partner's love & attraction for them! i mean, if youre not secure in that youre always going to be wondering if the people they're meeting are better than you in a variety of ways, and that youll be left for another person!

also wanting to be in an open relationship doesnt necessarily indicate "emotional incompleteness," whatever that might mean--they just might want to fuck other people.

because they feel as though their partner should also have no desire to go outside the relationship?

No! It's certainly doesn't have to be a matter of wanting to impose something on the other person. The pain is because the person's love feels transcendent and complete so this person naturally desires a relationship with that other person that is also transcendent and complete.

Whether they want to continue with the person anyway if it's not is a matter of choice, obviously.

theres a weird disconnect here--if your partner is involved w/ someone else, either theyre still in love with you or theyre not, right?

Going back to what I was saying earlier today about friendships being the more ideal model than relationships or family, who knows which of our friends loves us and which do not? Is it really a binary thing?

The pain is because the person's love feels transcendent and complete so this person naturally desires a relationship with that other person that is also transcendent and complete.

yeah the problem here is that i would call that insecurity, and you wouldn't.

I mean, here are two questions. Are we responsible for keeping our friends happy? Are we responsible for keeping our partners happy?

eazy id like to think that i know which friends love me and which dont--and there are friends about whose love i feel insecure, and those friendships are obviously not ideal friendships!

these are all just retarded rationalizations dogg. there is a spectrum of healthy human behavior, and this doesn't fall under it. just because someone is compelled to something and because they are comfortable with it doesn't mean that it's healthy! "they might just want to fuck other people" is one of a million retarded rationalizations in this thread, as is the idea that the level of comfort is from... their undying faith in their partner's love??? that's a really concrete way to approach this!

cankles bro im not arguing for open relationships! i think most people who are in them are fooling themselves, just like you--but i think its silly to assume that its totally impossible for two well-adjusted, secure & happy people to be fucking others on the side (see the several examples of happy & functional open relationships on this thread)

Here's the thing: is there any behavior we would not want our good friends to engage in when we're not in the room with them? Maybe stuff that is: disrespectful of us (dissing us and sabotaging our lives); appearing in a way that is dishonest and/or duplicitous to the way they've earned our respect and love (i.e., behaving in a way that makes the friendship a sham); or in a way that is self-destructive to them.
Does any of this have to do with feelings of possession? Not really.

The pain is because the person's love feels transcendent and complete so this person naturally desires a relationship with that other person that is also transcendent and complete.

yeah the problem here is that i would call that insecurity, and you wouldn't.

-- max, Thursday, June 28, 2007 4:56 AM (19 minutes ago)

So one is, BY NATURE showing signs of "insecurity" in ever wanting this in a relationship?

yeah see dude, i think we're pretty much on the same page, it's just where you say it's theoretically possible - all the pps i've known in open relationships (some of them fairly long term) have been as smart and confident and basically well-adjusted as anyone i've known, so the anecdotes about happy & functional open relationships aren't like shocking to me, but i question the level of intimacy present in these relationships. but hey, there's always an outlier i guess.

yeah i really dont think security plays into it at all. what tim's talking about in his own faggy way is just the nature of intimacy, and wanting a relationship that has built-in barriers to it probably means that you cant handle it. i had an example in my head just now but i forgot it :'(

i think the real issue here is that the men who pull this off are to be commended, it seriously is the greatest scam in the world.

waht about the ladies who pull it off?

whores

I don't know what Tim means by "complete" (unless he means "satisfied and content", which is different). Life is too various to be completable.

That open relationships thread is interesting in theory, and I wish it could solve some problems. I am really, really envious of the people who are in open relationships, not because I want to be in one for the extra play--not at all that--but because the guys (and girl) I've known who are in them seem to live pretty much without jealousy. They get a really good deal--a marriage or long-term relationship or whatever, a chance to scratch the 7-year itch, plus best of all an apparent security that comes from knowing that that person loves you and you love them and not even fucking someone else can touch it.

In my relationships we were never allowed to step out, but we did have 3ways on occasion, and I honestly don't think that contributed to the deterioration of the relationship, and there was never ever jealousy from them.

The point is that I have problems with jealousy. If I lost track of my boyfriend for too long I would start obssessing and if he went out to a bar without me I would wonder if he was picking up someone else. I hate it and would gladly trade my jealousy in a mostly-monagamous relationship for lack of jealousy in an open one.

I don't mean complete in some ultimate sense or for forever. I'm just talking about being in love to the extent that you don't think about wanting other things.

And as I've been saing, I don't think wanting a transcendent relationship because of the extent of those feelings should necessarily be construed as this idea that you're "insecure" or even (Jesse, if this is applicable in your situation) that you "have problems with jealousy."

Ah, ilx. As winter turns to spring, our thoughts turn to sexing. As spring turns to summer, our thoughts turn to sexing somebody else.

and the whole year around, our thoughts are hopefully in places other than whatever kenan is posting about sex

this whole process is easily complicated by the LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIP

also zing xp

oh noes, zinged again

you know what I really like? Small children.

II hate it and would gladly trade my jealousy in a mostly-monagamous relationship for lack of jealousy in an open one.

but yeah, that can nevertheless be a real desire.

deej OTM re LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIPS

Ah, ilx. As winter turns to spring, our thoughts turn to sexing. As spring turns to summer, our thoughts turn to sexing somebody else.

-- kenan, Thursday, June 28, 2007 9:36 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

File under: Excelsior

I happened to be reading Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf: Zen Poems of Ryokan on a bus on the way out on the town tonight and came across something that sums up how I feel about relationships:

Who says my poems are poems?
My poems are not poems.
When you know that my poems are not poems,
Then we can speak of poetry!