are you talking about a threesome or somthing? if you talking about threesome i am pretty sure couples do that for fun but what about the couples that actually do have feelings for someone else but rather than cheat they tell they tell their wife/husband that they are sleeping with someone else who is not them and that they are not included in that sex act

Well, even in the case of a threesome..It's a totally different situation if the person is sleeping with someone they have 'feelings' for...rather than just cause they think the person's attractive or whatever. If it's a one night stand with the third person, be it in a threesome or as a seperate occasion..as long as it's 'only' for that one time, and as long as both agree to it in the first place..then that's okay.

nah...most people in an open marriage sleep with someone outside their marriage more than once. the have lovers that are more than one night stands outside their marriage hence the reason for "open marriage". an open marriage consist more than of one night stands and threesomes hence reason why alot of couples cant handle a marriage like this. you never know if your wife/husband is sleeping with that person to calm his raging hormones or if he has actual feelings, even love, for that person

See, I dont support 'that'. I support the idea that you can have a bit of fun with someone else..for reasons that 'dont' have to do with feelings. If you're looking at someone in a marraige openly sleeping with someone else they have feelings for..then 'that' poses devotion issues.

Now, I guess some relationships are okay with this..But from my point of view, you'll need to trust the other person a hell of a lot so you 'know' they aren't doing it for alternative reasons. Otherwise..Unless they tell you that they have feelings for this other person, wouldn't 'that' be considered cheating? o.O

I believe that if you're that interested in another person then there'll be some sort of emotion attached to it. In some cases it'll cause a sexual dependency on someone other than your spouse. Or, even worse, it'll cause that person to rethink the marriagae entirely. It just doesn't seem right to me.

well, i wouldn't even ever risk it if i was married but that's just me. i'm not very trustworthy of people, and i wouldn't care who it is they slept with, i'd be jealous and if they're interested in someone, they can just as easily get feelings for them by having sex with them once or twice.

but, if someone else wants to, that's their choice. they're obviously more trustworthy than me, so, let em go.

i'm not sure if i'm for or against it. but if it's what he and his wife want to do, then its their choice.

hmm..that sounds pretty cool. i wanna do that with my future husband if he agrees. it seems very free and its very trusting for the couple.

I totally agree. Let them do their own thing. It's their marriage. Some couples may not approve of it; whereas some do.

no. period.

I'm new here, but I can first recommend to anyone interested in the topic of open relationships to read The Ethical Slut, you can get it from amazon.com. Open relationships require the same guidelines as other relationships, honesty, integrity, forthrightness, perhaps even more so. I have been married seven years, about the last two of which have been open.

People in open marriages (or relationships-for simplicity's sake I'm going to use the term 'marriage') do not value their commitment to each other any less than people in closed marriages, they just view their relationship differently. A lot of closed marriages fail due to dishonesty and cheating. I am not saying open marriages never fail for those reasons, but that's not my immediate point. (Another caveat is:never open your marriage in an attempt to fix a broken relationship, only a healthy relationship should be 'opened'). What I'm saying is: The two people in a marriage are human. Just because you love someone with all your heart doesn't mean you don't still have eyes as well as sexual feelings for others. We're not exactly in a Puritan society anymore; sex is everywhere. Instead of holding on to jealousy, and unrealistically expecting your spouse to only ever desire you, open marriage is about acknowledging that we feel sexual feelings for different people who are attractive to us. You can have a mutually pleasurable sexual experience with someone you are not in a relationship with, without hurting the person you are married to. It requires forthrightness: "Honey, I find X attractive, and I've been having sexual feelings about X, I would like to investigate a sexual experience with X, how do you feel about that?" Honey: "Well, X is an attractive person..." Here is where the conversation takes one of two tracks 1 "...I can understand how you are attracted to X. We have already discussed the guidelines we've agreed on for extramarital 'play', I am okay with you having an experience with X." Or "...I can understand how you are attracted to X, but I feel bothered about that because..." Then you proceed to discuss it and the spouse never has an extramarital encounter without prior 'permission'. It's not begging for sex, it's understanding that people can feel possessive and jealous, and because you are deeply committed to your spouse, who is generous enough to allow you the chance to explore your urges, you do not want to hurt a spouse by indulging in an action that would hurt their feelings.

It is different for every couple. Some couples it's a strict 'no kissing' policy, others, anything goes but no actual sleeping with the third person or spending the night, still others give each partner nearly free rein. The agreement must be tailored to each couple. You must have guidelines hashed out and agreed on in advance so when that spur of the moment opportunity comes, you know what you can and can't do without hurting your partner's feelings.

Honesty is also important. If you are in an open relationship and you lie to your spouse, sooner or later it will catch up to you and someone will be hurt, at the very least. You have to remember that the third party is a person with feelings too, and you have to be sure you have full consent and they are fully informed. It is never ok to deceive someone, married or single, into having sex with you by allowing them to think you are not married. It is also not right for you to cause pain and hurt in their lives due to a sexual encounter, for example if they are married and would be cheating on their spouse. As far as my personal opinion, I don't consider myself responsible for another person's marriage. I feel that as long as I have informed my theoretical partner about my situation, explained my open marriage, and told them that I prefer that spouses not cheat on each other and given them time to consider, then it's up to them if they want to pursue an encounter or not.

Integrity is a big issue with open relationships too. You and your spouse must decide on mutually acceptable guidelines. For example: Kissing is ok, oral sex is okay with a condom, vaginal sex is okay with a condom, anal sex is never okay, no sleeping over, no interactions other than strictly sexual play (no dating, no hanging out), the spouse who 'played' will always tell the other spouse briefly but exactly what happened, there will always be a safety system in place... There are a ton of circumstances to consider and prepare for, and if the couple does not have the maturity or inclination to deal with these issues before entering into an open relationship, then they do not have the maturity for an open relationship. Integrity means when you get into the situation where you as a spouse are with that third person, alone, you follow those guidelines you agreed on with your spouse previously, even if it's tempting not to, or your partner would 'prefer' not to, and you could 'get away' with forsaking those guidelines.

Integrity and forthrightness together means you don't endanger your marriage because of a prospective third party sexual encounter. If your spouse and you agree that you do not have sexual encounters with people you have emotions for, then you do not secretly harbor a tendresse for someone and then have a sexual encounter with that person.

I agree with the post earlier that an open marriage is not cheating. Generally. I still think you can cheat in an open marriage, a sexual encounter that violates the agreement is an infidelity, a breaking of trust.

I think in our society, one of the few 'off the cuff' reasons for immediate divorce is extramarital sex. I think that's unreasonable too. While I think it is unreasonable to cheat on my spouse, I think the definition of cheat is to break faith, to break trust, to deceive, not: to have sex with another person. Who is to say that, for example, if two people get married and the man is 190 lbs. and the woman is 135 lbs. on the wedding day, then the woman balloons to 275 lbs in five years (for example's sake let's say without having any children), isn't that breaking trust? Clearly the woman doesn't care about herself, her health, or her husband any more, isn't that a valid reason for divorce? She has broken faith. Or what about a couple who, on their wedding day have all their finances in order then five years later, the man has gambled them into poverty and debt. Isn't that a valid reason for divorce?

Too many people think inside the box. An open relationship isn't about not being committed to your spouse and it's not about casual sex, it's about loving someone with all your heart, acting like a rational adult, (eg letting go of jealousy and false expectations) and realizing that we are all human.

In summation, I would just like to say that I am glad the government cannot control this aspect of people's lives, it's none of the government's business. For those people who do not approve of open marriage, don't open your marriage. For those people who are neutral, fine, for those with open marriages, fine for you too, but always be ethical, with each other and with your third party. In general, the 'open marriage' crowd is a discreet one, not wont to flaunt their status, as far as morality, that's a whole 'nother can of worms, but it is ultimately their own business, not everyone else's.

Open marriages do work, and they are more common than you think. If it's not for you, it's not for you and you shouldn't feel pressured to change. A lot of people say 'Well, I think most people prefer a 'normal' marriage.' I don't agree with that, I think a lot of people say that because they don't have the inner honesty and integrity and courage to try anything new or different. If your spouse loves you, a sexual encounter with another person will not change that. If you love your spouse, allowing your spouse some variety will not lose that love nor will you cease to love your spouse.

What is that tired old adage: If you love someone, set them free; if they do not return, they never loved you to begin with, if they return, they are yours to love. ?

If a couple agrees to this open marriage then what is the problem? If it works for them, hey good for them it was a sucess and both are happy. If they find they are just digging themselves deeper into a grave then the blame is on them, it was their decision from the begining. I could never do it, but that is just me and how i feel. The couple themselves have the choice and no one else need care whether they see it as right or wrong. But who knows probably someone like Bush will interfere and try and make that illegal too.

I do not support it. Why the hell did they get married in the first place?
Marriage is a commitment to eachother. I wouldn't call it commitment if they're going around having sex with other ppl/

I have been in an open relationship for about 6 months or so. I have my moments where I think that it's not a great idea but most of the time, I like it because I'm not obligated to have sex with my boyfriend. We still love each other and have discussed getting married. If we end up staying together and never getting married, I can deal with that because we love each other. Even if we did get married, our relationship would remain an open one because both of us are bi-sexual, so it's hard for us to remain tied into the whole "one person only" routine.

My point is, it's hard to judge what you'd do if confronted with this situation, since most of you haven't and probably never will be. It's easy to sit there and type "I think it's wrong, it invalidates the whole point of being committed/married to a person" if you've never been involved in a relationship where being "open" has become an issue.

In my case, my boyfriend and I knew early on that sex between us was not a good idea. There's too much emotional baggage with the both of us, each person struggling with their own sexual issues for it to work. So I gave him permission to seek sex elsewhere with people that I knew, and that he knew were safe and he did the same. We've been together and much happier since we've came to that agreement. I'd rather have him in my life and be happy and have a stable relationship than have him in my life and be unhappy and fight all of the time because we were both sexually frustrated all of the time.