An open relationship can be right for a couple if both people really want it and keep renegotiating their agreements. If you open the relationship to get around a crisis or to settle a difference in desire, you often just move the problem somewhere else. So before the first date with someone else, it is worth having an honest conversation about what the two of you are actually looking for.
Open relationship, open marriage, polyamory
In an open relationship, the couple stays a couple. Sex with other people is allowed, by agreement. An open marriage is the same thing between married partners. Polyamory is about more than sex: people have several love relationships at the same time, with everyone involved knowing about it. The umbrella term for all of this is consensual non-monogamy, meaning relationships that aren’t exclusive and where everyone knows.
The lines are fluid. Some couples start out open and find that feelings come into play. Others mainly have sex with other people together, swinging for example. What you call it matters less than what the two of you mean by it.
Why couples want to open their relationship
The reasons are as varied as the couples. Some are curious and want experiences that don’t happen in a long relationship. Others never believed in lifelong sexual exclusivity and want to be honest about it.
The psychoanalyst Hans-Joachim Maaz writes that fidelity is not a law. It can’t be demanded; it has to be agreed on in every relationship. That applies just as much to monogamous couples. The difference is that couples in an open relationship have to make this agreement explicitly.
When opening up is meant to avoid something
In my work, the wish for an open relationship often comes together with another issue. One person wants far more sex than the other. The idea: then one of them gets what they need elsewhere, and the other gets some peace.
That can ease things for a while. Often, though, what lies beneath the difference in desire stays untouched: hurt feelings, unspoken anger, a closeness that has become too tight. With a third person in the picture, it doesn’t get easier to talk about. If what is really going on for you is unequal desire, you can read more under No desire in a relationship.
The same goes for couples in a crisis. An open relationship needs more conversation and more honesty than a monogamous one. A couple who can barely talk to each other right now rarely has that energy to spare.
When only one of you wants it
Often one person voices the wish, and the other hesitantly says yes. Out of love, out of fear of losing the other person otherwise, or because they don’t want to seem uptight. A yes given out of fear of the no blurs your own limits. It usually takes its toll later, as jealousy, withdrawal or bitterness.
If you are hesitating, take your time. Ask yourself what you want, regardless of what the other person wishes for. Your hesitation is information, not an obstacle.
Agreements: what couples clarify
Many people look for a list of rules for an open relationship. There is no such list, because every couple has different fears and wishes. The questions couples discuss beforehand are more useful:
- Do you want to know from each other when and with whom you have sex, or would you rather not?
- Are repeated meetings with the same person fine, or only one-off encounters?
- What happens if feelings develop?
- Are there people or places that are off limits, such as your circle of friends or your shared home?
- How do you protect yourselves and each other during sex, and how often do you get tested?
- Can either of you say at any time that it is getting too much?
Agreements give you security, but they don’t replace trust. And they are experiments, not contracts. What feels good at the start may no longer fit after three months. Plan regular conversations in which you renegotiate, even when everything is going well.
Jealousy is part of it
Even couples who really want an open relationship experience jealousy. That doesn’t mean it has failed. Jealousy shows where you feel insecure right now or what you are missing: attention, reassurance, the certainty that you matter.
It helps to put the jealousy into words without turning it into an accusation. “I notice that last night affected me more than I expected” opens a conversation. “You said it meant nothing to you” closes it.
When agreements are broken
You can be cheated on in an open relationship too. Perhaps someone keeps quiet about a meeting they had agreed to mention, or sees a person who was off limits. Breaking an agreement like this hurts trust just as much as an affair in a monogamous relationship. I describe how couples work through a breach of trust like this under couples therapy after an affair.
Going back to monogamy
Some couples try an open relationship and realise it doesn’t suit them. Going back to monogamy is not a failure. You have learned something about yourselves. What matters is that both of you want to take that step back, and that one person isn’t just going along with it out of exhaustion.
Couples also talk about the wish to open their relationship in my practice. What happens in couples therapy, you can read under Couples therapy in Berlin. Whatever you decide: start with the conversation before you start with a third person.
