Continuing from yesterday, there is nonetheless a bit of fear when one first opens up a relationship. Intellectually you know it’s silly, but on an emotional level there’s still that hesitation, that worry that you’ll lose the one you love. It’s a lot like the first time you’re going to jump off the high diving board into a pool. At some point you just gotta trust your reasoning and jump.
One of the biggest steps forward in my current relationship was when I wasn’t scared of losing my SO anymore. Like, she can go and have fun, and I know she loves me, and I don’t worry about losing her to anyone else. They might be a fun lay, but they aren’t me. I’m not worried she’ll leave me for people she enjoys shopping with, or gardening with, or whatever. This is just another activity, and I’m not gonna lose her to someone else she does it with from time to time either. Having that trust is really what makes it easy.
The thing is, the openness is what builds that trust. The first time you don’t really know, right? You have faith, because you love the person and you think they love you back. But it’s just faith, it isn’t knowledge. And then once it happens a few times and you still love each other and the world didn’t end, that’s when it really sinks in. “Oh, yeah. This is real. I can totally trust her, and she’ll stay with me anyway” It’s kinda cool.
The level of comfort that sort of trust brings is awesome, and it makes the relationship better in every other aspect. The guarding, drama, and fear/uncertainty of monogamous relationships? Ugh – no. Would not buy again.
6 Responses to “Open relationships are stronger”
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Enjoy being a cuckold, make sure to tell us when she leaves you so no one can be surprised.
Heh. :) We surely do! And it does go both ways.
I fully expect the relationship to end eventually, certainly before one of us dies. If you aren’t growing than you might as well be dead, and it’s very rare for two people to grow in exactly the same way over an extended period of time. I will of course blog about it when we do branch off, and I hope no one is surprised as we continue to be good friends and occasional play partners.
I can’t help but laugh. Monogamous people have such strange ideas of how poly will work. I would be interested if either of you know of any statistics to back up your beliefs though.
Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, there’s been very little actual research into the subject. In no small part because people tend to still be quite closeted about it. Everyone out there knows at least one open couple, but the vast majority of people don’t know that they know. I always smile at the stories of people in their forties discovering their parents have been open their whole lives and never knew. It’s part of the reason I’m open about it here. Hopefully we’ll get more data in the near future, it seems to be coming out of the dark a bit.
I think you refer to this as an “N of 1” problem. Opening your relationship may have made it stronger, it does not make all open relationships inherently stronger, nor are monogamous relationships inherently guarded, drama-filled or fearful. How can you expect anyone to respect your relationship choices if you don’t respect those of others? What is wrong with just sharing a personal anecdote and that it works well for you without jumping to “and everyone else should make the same choice, because it’s just plain better”?
Aye, you make some good points. I do respect others decisions to be monogamous, I just think it’s an unfortunate decision. But I really do feel that the societal-norm mono relationships are guarded/drama-filled/fearful, by design.
I’m about to No True Scotsman you, which I acknowledge and apologize for in advance. But…
A “natural” monogamous relationship, where two people are monogamous because they both really desire it and don’t really feel much attraction to other parties, are great and wonderful things for the people involved. I have heard such humans exist, and I’m happy for them! However in practice these relationships are identical to how I view open relationships – both parties trust each other implicitly, feel happy emotions at the thought of their partner being fulfilled/excited/enjoying-themselves, and don’t get upset when their partner is interacting with an attractive member of the opposite sex (or their preferred sex). Both partners simply don’t ever have any desire to sexually interact with anyone else.
Monogamy as it’s actually practiced in society is nothing like this, because most people aren’t like this. The monogamy I see is people who DO have hang-ups about their partner interacting in a sexual way with anyone else, and generally because those hang-ups have been instilled and encouraged by a fucked-up puritan society.
So when I say Open Relationships Are Better, I don’t mean “Go out and fuck other people!” I mean “Reject the socially-instilled paradigm of fear, insecurity, and guarding.”