Thoughts on open marriages?

[Houstondisplayname]

It's impossible to unpack an entire relationship within a short post but I will try to give a good summary: I'm in a wonderful marriage, keeping that marriage wonderful is very important to me. My husband is asexual, which has made me feel a large range of emotions, incredibly frsterated is one. Many forums discuss compromise, which has not been successful for us. My husband is very willing to kiss, cuddle, foot rub, but that's about it. He is not able to get erections (we have been to many doctors about this, even pills and injections don't work), really does not enjoy oral (giving or receiving), does not enjoy other kinds of petting or humping. He produces testosterone but in waves, which does away with erections and sexual desire, (hormone treatment is also not an option, because it comes in waves if it spikes too high it could lead to serious health risk, for those of you wondering) I don't like asking him to do things he does not want to do, having someone do things they clearly are not enjoying is not sexy to me. We were able to have a little sex the first year we knew each other, it was bad but I thought it would get better. Then it steadily declined. At my request, he has seen therapist for about 3 years, but our sexual relationship has not been improved. I am caught in-between two parts of me. The part that is married to my best friend, a wonderful man, and the part who has sexual hormones, craving sex despite my efforts to squash it down. 

 

So my dilemma is, would having a sexual partner outside of the marriage work? I fantasize about meeting up for amazing sex and orgasms a few times a month. Maybe with someone in the same situation I am in. My husband understanding the need, having the best of both worlds. Then I think about how wrong it could go. Family finding out and being disgusted and horrified. Developing feelings for the sex partner. My husband saying he's cool but then not be. Scumbags who cheat, give STD's and use you to fulfill their misogynistic power trip. I appreciate thoughts and opinions. 

[Guest]

If you are interested in an open relationship because that is a philosophy that appeals, it can work. If you two are only interested in it as a bandaid, it doesn't tend to work too well. Non-monogamy is a lifestyle, not just a quick fix. Also, the sexual partner is another person, with feelings and needs, so it may involve more than just meeting up a few times a month. And feelings may develop on either side. And, of course, there are the risk factors of health, etc that come with multiple sex partners.

 

Many people are in open or poly relationships, but that's more because it is what they favor. So, if you do have a serious interest, talk to your husband and figure out the ground rules. Then, go from there. There is nothing wrong with it. 

[Houstondisplayname]

thanks for your thoughts 

[NerotheReaper]

It is up to people if they want an open relationship, but as Serran said it isn't a quick fix. It is a lifestyle that isn't always easy. It is possible for the sexual partner to grow feelings for the other person, and the original relationship (you and your husband) may fall apart for them falling in love with someone else. Then there is the whole health factor that is pretty serious. 

 

 Personally it is not something I would ever consider, but if you and your husband believe it can work for you guys without it causing more problems. Talk to him and see if that is an option, or you both could also try couple's therapy and get advice as a couple instead of him trying to 'improve' himself. Sexuality is not something you can really change, but you guys can change the dynamics of the relationship.   It is completely up to both of you though, since it is your guy's relationship not mine. 

 

Hope things work out 

[MrDane]

I feel friendzoned by the woman I love, because she has come to terms with the fact, that she never really wanted sex or enjoyed it that much. This after 10+ years. She still loves me, and I love her. Opening up the relationship, would be opening for the risk of falling in love with someone else or even just falling in love with someones falling for me. It is a brute force and I would fear for the effects on me. 

 

The thougth about a swingerclub or other sexual solutions can be interesting as a fantasy. But what I want is her and for her to like being with me.

[Busrider]

Baby steps and sanity would be my suggestions. 

Read up all the blind dating advice for girls again.

Pick the marriage opening schedule with your husband i.e. maybe do it on his team sports evening?

Don't go too crazy on your quest! - There must be sane lame vanilla guys who'd feel blessed and almost content to donate the rest of their Thursday evenings to you. 

Maybe pick one with a full time dealbreaker trait, so you can get along but don't feel tempted to overdose him?

And please behave like a cheating spouse; i.e. be extra nice to your husband too. 

Sorry if I am not of much help. What I can tell for sure: Don't try to spice up your life with "non-cheating" escapes into cyber-Lala-land! - Its such a time eater... - You'll turn into a cyber-zombie... - Should easily ruin your entire life within a year or three. 

Good luck & have fun!

[Kelsiekate]

1 hour ago, Busrider said:

Don't try to spice up your life with "non-cheating" escapes into cyber-Lala-land! - Its such a time eater... - You'll turn into a cyber-zombie... - Should easily ruin your entire life within a year or three. 

Good luck & have fun!

What do you mean? 

[The Dryad]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Sexuals and asexuals aren't compatible. I'm sorry, but things like this keep happening! People get hurt! I can't sympathize with you because I'm asexual-who's also aromantic, but you guys are in an invested relationship. The most invested one there is. You took oaths in front of God, to support each other through sickness and health and through hardships. Sex is not worth the lack of integrity. Or is it.

 

 

If you're going to cheat on your husband. ..Break up with him. Even if he says he's okay with it, I'm willing to bet that there are very few people who are truly okay with sharing their life partner.

[Busrider]

Stick to Real Life and meeting people instead of trying to "live" your fantasies in a virtual reality like for example Second Life the odds to spend way too much time in there are pretty high.

[Guest]

12 hours ago, The Dryad said:

 

 

If you're going to cheat on your husband. ..Break up with him. Even if he says he's okay with it, I'm willing to bet that there are very few people who are truly okay with sharing their life partner.

Open relationships are not cheating ... cheating is violating an agreement. An open relationship is simply changing it, with full consent of your partner. Some people are fine with non-monogamy and it's not up to anyone but the couple to decide if monogamy or non-monogamy are right for them. 

[Icebearpanda]

2 hours ago, Serran said:

Open relationships are not cheating ... cheating is violating an agreement. An open relationship is simply changing it, with full consent of your partner. Some people are fine with non-monogamy and it's not up to anyone but the couple to decide if monogamy or non-monogamy are right for them. 

YES to what Serran said- Open relationships and non-monogamy do not work for everyone but *ethical* non-monogamy does exist and it can be something that works for people. There is nothing ethical about cheating- there are big differences between the two. Before involving anyone else, I really, really recommend that you (or both of you) read one of the books below and seriously sit down and talk about how you both want your relationship to look like. Map it out, visualize it, do what it takes to get you both on the same page, and if you can't get on the same page and get a workable plan, then you need to think about what that means too. Most people seems to read one of these when looking at non-monogamy:

If you like explanations and checklists and questions read Opening Up : A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships by Tristan Taormino (My fave and I'm due for a re-read). Taromino takes the reader through the nuts and bolts of non-monogamy- what it means, what different styles look like, what the labels and lingo tend to be and how to talk about and figure out what type works for you.

If you're more into learning about topics through other people's stories and free form poetry and less of a non-fiction read, try The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures by Janet W. Hardy. I haven't read it, because it's not really my jam, but I have plenty of friends who have read it and it resonated with them

Good luck. 

 

[Lara Black]

2 hours ago, Serran said:

Open relationships are not cheating ... cheating is violating an agreement. An open relationship is simply changing it, with full consent of your partner. Some people are fine with non-monogamy and it's not up to anyone but the couple to decide if monogamy or non-monogamy are right for them. 

 

Well, that’s the ideal situation. If one is facing a choice: “Either I have sex with other people or we break up / I stay miserable for the rest of my life”, one might agree to opening up a relationship, but it still feels like being cheated on.

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, Lara Black said:

 

Well, that’s the ideal situation. If one is facing a choice: “Either I have sex with other people or we break up / I stay miserable for the rest of my life”, one might agree to opening up a relationship, but it still feels like being cheated on.

One might regret / be hurt by changing the dynamic, but if you both consent to the change and it's a non-abusive relationship then... it's still not cheating, no matter how much it may hurt a person who in the end, can only be monogamous. I allowed a little playing around with non-monogamy in one relationship, but the more it progressed to actual acting upon things IRL, the more I knew I couldn't do it. I still chose those things though, so, to imply my partner was doing something wrong by calling it cheating would be pretty harsh. 

[Tarfeather]

16 hours ago, The Dryad said:

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Sexuals and asexuals aren't compatible. I'm sorry, but things like this keep happening!

Sexual here who's perfectly happy in their (non-monogamous) relationship with an asexual. Please stop repeating this untrue statement, thanks.

[Lara Black]

51 minutes ago, Serran said:

One might regret / be hurt by changing the dynamic, but if you both consent to the change and it's a non-abusive relationship then... it's still not cheating, no matter how much it may hurt a person who in the end, can only be monogamous. I allowed a little playing around with non-monogamy in one relationship, but the more it progressed to actual acting upon things IRL, the more I knew I couldn't do it. I still chose those things though, so, to imply my partner was doing something wrong by calling it cheating would be pretty harsh. 

That’s your experience. I felt exactly cheated on, and feeling forced into that for fear of losing my husband didn’t make it any better. From what I’ve read, I’m not the only one to feel that way.

It’s not cheating “by the letter of it”, but it doesn’t stop quite some people from feeling the way they do.

[The Dryad]

9 hours ago, Tarfeather said:

Sexual here who's perfectly happy in their (non-monogamous) relationship with an asexual. Please stop repeating this untrue statement, thanks.

If you were a matchmaker, would you match together a gay person with a straight person? No, you wouldn't. Asexuals and sexuals aren't compatible because they require different things in relationships. How many people had failed marriages due to one of their partners being gay? The fact that you are in a non-monogamous/open relationship proves that point. You are looking for or at least seeking something else that  you cannot get from your partner. Admittedly these non-compatible relationships have had some relative sucess- many people can say that they feel/felt real love or affection for that person, however they still carried problems. Not that all relationships don't have problems, but sharing a life partner is almost always some temporary patch, or a recipe for disaster.

[MrDane]

34 minutes ago, The Dryad said:

If you were a matchmaker, would you match together a gay person with a straight person? No, you wouldn't. Asexuals and sexuals aren't compatible because they require different things in relationships. How many people had failed marriages due to one of their partners being gay? The fact that you are in a non-monogamous/open relationship proves that point. You are looking for or at least seeking something else that  you cannot get from your partner. Admittedly these non-compatible relationships have had some relative sucess- many people can say that they feel/felt real love or affection for that person, however they still carried problems. Not that all relationships don't have problems, but sharing a life partner is almost always some temporary patch, or a recipe for disaster.

@The Dryad as a matchmaker, I would not put two people together who had mayor issues/dreams going in different directions, but sometimes life is different. I love my wife and she loves me. I had hoped, that we were going to get better at sex and romance as time went by. So did she in the beginning. She found out, that she had already put so much strain on herself in trying to live as most people expect most people to be. I still want to evolve our sex life and our ways to show romantic feelings and make it better and she dont want that. For her, better means less or at least simpler, for me better means more and a variety of different ways to do it. 

 

Back to the question about open marriage! Best case scenario for me would be this:

Everything would be the same in my family, but without the sex between my wife and me. We would still love eachother and could maybe even touch eachother more, as the sexual undertone would be gone. I would occasionally leave the house to have sex with someone who likes to have sex with me. I would return and be in my happy place, both in my head, my body and my home.

 

worst case: tearing up my family, making everybody miserable, still feel lonely, still no sex, missing her, getting a disease or still feeling the same though I have more sex with others. 

 

 

[Guest]

On 6/10/2017 at 1:02 AM, The Dryad said:

If you were a matchmaker, would you match together a gay person with a straight person? No, you wouldn't. Asexuals and sexuals aren't compatible because they require different things in relationships. How many people had failed marriages due to one of their partners being gay? The fact that you are in a non-monogamous/open relationship proves that point. You are looking for or at least seeking something else that  you cannot get from your partner. Admittedly these non-compatible relationships have had some relative sucess- many people can say that they feel/felt real love or affection for that person, however they still carried problems. Not that all relationships don't have problems, but sharing a life partner is almost always some temporary patch, or a recipe for disaster.

The gay/straight comparison is really not a good one. Most gay people have their romantic and sexual orientations line up. Meaning, the marriages are nothing but platonic and often a way to simply pretend to not be gay, because they are scared to admit it to themselves, or just don't know that about themselves yet. Whereas, an asexual can be very romantically attracted and attached to their partner. It's not the same, at all. 

 

In most cases, mixed relationships will not work, I will agree with this. But, that's because it's like any other major relationship incompatibility. I could never be with someone who needed to have kids of their own, for example, because I don't ever want to get pregnant. I can't fulfill certain needs of certain people. 

 

And, some people are poly by nature and would be non-monogamous even if with the "perfect" sexual partner. It's just how they are. And that is how they are happiest. And polyamory, if the people involved are naturally inclined to that, is not a recipe for disaster or a temporary patch. It's a lifestyle. And some people would never be happy in a monogamous relationship, no matter how awesome their life partner was. 

 

On 6/9/2017 at 4:48 PM, Lara Black said:

That’s your experience. I felt exactly cheated on, and feeling forced into that for fear of losing my husband didn’t make it any better. From what I’ve read, I’m not the only one to feel that way.

It’s not cheating “by the letter of it”, but it doesn’t stop quite some people from feeling the way they do.

Feelings cannot be helped and are of course valid, so if a person feels the same as if no consent to it was given, that's fine. However, my issue with calling consented to non-monogamy cheating is, it's saying the person who did what they were told they could, is doing something ethically wrong. It's saying they are at fault. "Cheater" is almost a dirty word, when used against a person, since it's got such heavy negative connotations. I could never do that to my ex, cause he didn't actually do anything wrong. He did what I told him that he could. He never went beyond the opening up of limits I allowed. So, even though his interest in other people ended up completely destroying whatever feelings I had for him, he didn't actually do anything wrong. He did everything right. We just weren't right for each other.  

 

If the OP gains consent from their spouse for an open relationship, that is the best they can do. They can't be expected to know if their spouse is hiding their true feelings, or giving consent even though it's gonna hurt. The spouse might not even know if it's going to hurt, honestly. They might think they're OK with it, until it happens, then be devastated. But, gaining consent before doing anything is the right move. And means they are doing the right thing. So, to call what they're proposing, cheating, is saying the OP is trying to do something "wrong". Ethical non-monogamy is not wrong, even if it ends up hurting a monogamous partner, because of an incompatibility. Any more than being sexual or asexual is wrong, just because the incompatibility ends up hurting people. 

[C-Tab]

I'm asexual, and I'm married to a pansexual woman. What we have is... not exactly an open relationship. Before we got married, we talked fairly extensively about what we both needed out of a relationship, and what lines we would not be okay with being crossed. The arrangement that works for us goes as so:

 

She can sleep with anyone she wants, but they don't get to stay for breakfast.

 

Which is a tongue-in-cheek way of saying that sexual relationships are fine, but emotional relationships would be cheating. Dating someone else would be crossing the line, but her sleeping with a friend? Totally okay, as long as the relationship stays sexual and not romantic, because that is the point where we both feel like it becomes cheating. Communication is an important thing here; all this happens above-board with everyone knowing what's going on.