Your thoughts on swinging/open relationships

[Terminal Blue]

You people, all people need to understand about polyamory is that at its very core is that it's based on selfishness. It's very selfish to want more than one person to love or to fuck or to take the time of one person or choose to discard the time concerns or commitments that would usually come with being with another. The trick to having all these wonderful things is to understand and accept the selfish nature of these desires in each-other and work around them.

While you're dropping some very solid principles here, I think the way you're expressing it is probably throwing ammunition to bigots.

All healthy relationships are based on selfishness. Entering a relationship on the principle that you want to do everything for someone else and you don't care about your own happiness as long as they're happy is, frankly, inviting people to abuse you. Doesn't matter if it's monogamous or not, there's a reason why low self esteem is really unattractive because most people don't like being put into the position of being abusers.

We may not like to call relationships "selfish", because selfishness refers to a perceived excess of self-interest. So sure, if you ask people "do I want to be in a relationship that's based on selfishness" they might say no. But, let's phrase it another way. What if we ask "do I want to be in a relationship which makes me happy". That's a self-interested desire, right, but it's an extremely healthy and appropriate one. In fact, it would be quite weird to enter into a relationship without that degree of self-interest.

For that matter, what about all the people saying "the thought of my partner being with someone else makes me upset/hurt/physically ill" and treating that as if it's an reasonable foundation for a relationship. Does that register to you as a selfless response? Is that based on deep and abiding care for a person's happiness, that the thought that the person making them happy might not be you is enough to cause intense feelings of disgust.. is that really evidence that you're motivated by some pure and innocent spirit of compassionate care?

I mean, if you were purely selfish, wouldn't you just pretend to be in a monogamous relationship and then fuck other people anyway? A lot of supposedly monogamous people live like that because it's very easy, it's certainly much easier than having to go through all this bullshit of being really honest and constantly negotiating boundaries, which is hard.

When you want to know why it's so hard or as elusive as a unicorn to see a successful polyamorous relationship, it's because when people ask themselves "do I want to be in a relationship that's based on selfishness?

The term "unicorn" arose to describe the trend of formerly monogamous, heterosexual couples who are new or inexperienced to swinging, threesomes or non-monogamy and who are looking for a third partner (almost always a bisexual woman) but have ridiculous or unrealistic requirements for what this fantasy woman has to be able to do or expect from the relationship. Said fantasy woman is a "unicorn", because like a unicorn she isn't real. Even if the couple does succeed in finding a real person, they will still tend to engage with them as a fantasy and assume they're willing or capable of doing whatever their fantasy woman would do, often with unfortunate results.

Successful poly relationships aren't that rare, and certainly aren't fantastical. I'm aware of three besides my own, which considering my narrow PhD student social circle is pretty good. Yes, we've all seen the horror stories and, much as we might hate to admit it we've probably been the horror stories at one time or another, but it kind of annoys me when people pretend its harder than it is. The thing that pisses me off most about the poly scene is this whole elitist attitude that you need special skills or Zen like self discipline to be able to cope with it. That's not some special or unique thing, all relationships can be difficult at first, my first monogamous relationship was an absolute disaster. You keep trying and eventually you git gud.

Incidentally, while abuse is always something to look out for, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with one-sided non-mongamous relationships either provided it is what everyone expects and wants and everyone is having fun. I know at least one very successful relationship in which one partner is monogamous and the other is not. Some people (not many, but a few) genuinely are okay with that or even enjoy it on some level.

 

[DarkM1nd]

if both partner agree on it then it's okay, but i am against it

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

What consenting adults choose to do with their lives and relationships is none of my business. If people want to have poly-relationships then let them.

I, however, want nothing to do with them. I am strictly monogamous in my sexual and romantic relationships and will not even consider entering a poly-relationship of any kind. They are simply not for me.

I like to give much more than I take in my relationships, I like to accommodate my SO and make them happy as often as I can, but I have some hard carved in stone rules that I will not budge on. Strict monogamy is one of them.

 

[Sceadu]

No.

... What? Do I have to explain? .. Ah fine, I shall do so.

It won't end well. Not once did I ever hear a couple say "Oh yea we had multiple sex partners, and it helped us realize how much we loved each other!" ... Not. Even. Once. Do you want to hear what happens to people like that? Either both people begin to question why they got together, one of them starts getting sexually addicted and makes the other person jealous of being that sex crazed, ooooorrrrrrr .... one of the swingers ends up falling for you or your girlfriend and vice versa. Meaning, one of the partners ends up replacing you or your girlfriend because of the investment. Trust me mate, it doesn't work.

I'm not saying you have to listen and refuse, but just know where i'm coming from. Sounds to me like you guys are both hesitant on the subject and there's a lot of concerns. Well, the reason is because this whole open relationship idea sounds awful and it's going to end up hurting you or her, probably you buddy.

If the relationship you currently have isn't working out, there are other much healthier ways in trying to make it work. If all else fails, this girl isn't right for you ... it's terrible to say, but you're much better off saving yourself from a world of hurt then going with this idea and then it slowly descends into whatever I listed above, the worst being your girl falls for one of her partners or you replacing your girlfriend with another girl during the 'swing'.

Alright is that enough? If not, let me know so we can talk. I'll be here for ya.

I'd agree with all of this, but add that some people are out there (seems like EvilTheCat is one) who do this from the get-go, and enjoy success. Needless to say, nothing about the OP sounds like that kind of good scenario. I don't think that style of relationship is inherently bad, but I think that people inherently tend to suck at them, even more than simpler relationships which we also suck at. The only reason that lifelong romantic relationships appeared to be the norm for so many, for so long, was financial/political/social/religious, but even more than that, a result of short lifespans. It's easy to get in for "Until death do we part" when that's only in your late thirties or forties.

 

[Hieronymusgoa]

I dont know how many relationships I know where the "open thingy" works because I lost count. Most of them are still together, sometimes after over 10 years and counting. If some of these relationships ended it was mostly for the same reasons most relationships end, not the open thingy itself. But of course, like pretty basically everything, that was sometimes the reason, too.

Some stopped having sex together, but still loved each other, so that thing they started to get somewhere else. Some have special sexual interests the partner can't fullfill so they get that somewhere else. Some just like to have a third with them from time to time. What matters is that they all talked about it with the other half.

It might be a (male) gay thing but it seems pretty common around me and a lot of people don't even discuss it that thoroughly because it comes so natural to them. In the end it only has to work for the two (or more) people being together. Saying "it only works like this or that" is just narrow minded. My only long relationship was open as well. I didn't mind it at all because what I liked and only shared with him was watching TV together, going away on the weekend and falling asleep together. Sex is/was just one of our hobbys and the sex we had was quite different from the sex we had with others.

 

[Gengisgame]

I would really not recommend it if the relationship is in any way serious.

Pretend to be school teacher and school girl, police officer, prison warden, animal costumes, just pick her up one day put her on your shoulder and throw her to the bed. These are all pretend.

An open relationship means your partner is f**king someone else, that's not pretend, you can say your ok with it, convince yourself that you are but we where never intended to be ok with that.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

When I was younger it was very much whatever, I had a much larger social circle and it's all sex drugs and rock and roll techno, but back then relationships were more along the lines of "I like drugs, techno and fucking, you like drugs, techno and fucking, let's do those things". These days I really don't think that could work. I can do the sex, drugs and techno, but the sex part at least would have to be as part of an exclusive relationship.