NYT Article on Open Marriage

[Anonymous]

I don’t believe there is anything wrong with consenting adults doing whatever they like behind closed doors. The problem I see, as a health care clinician who is politically liberal…It isn’t working and people are not happy and secure in long term poly relationships. It DOES make me think from an attachment theory lens we aren’t wired to be cool with it and my non professional, anecdotal opinion is that it is championed by people with attachment/abandonment issues. My concern for it is that many couples choose it thinking it will help their faltering relationship and I have never seen that to pan out in the end. I worry about the sex, power and financial imbalance most women find themselves in when “consenting”.

[Anonymous]

Can’t relate at all. I’m divorced and love living alone. I don’t even want to be in a relationship with one man, let alone several. And writing publicly about it with your face attached?! Could not be any less interested in any of that BS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Call me old fashioned, but the only open marriage I’m willing to be in is if my husband is rich enough to keep a young mistress in a Paris apartment without me knowing.

Lmao, right? Make enough money and I won’t see a damn thing. As nature intended

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you know basic psychology, its not hard to understand that among polyamorous, polygamous and swingers, some people have more power and others have to go along because they aren't the dominant ones.

If you know non-basic psychology, you understand that some men are super into the idea of their wives sleeping with other men.

So two wrongs don't make one right, just two wrongs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you know basic psychology, its not hard to understand that among polyamorous, polygamous and swingers, some people have more power and others have to go along because they aren't the dominant ones.

If you know non-basic psychology, you understand that some men are super into the idea of their wives sleeping with other men.

Yup and same people are super into idea of becoming swingers or polyamorous.

[Anonymous]

Humans have a tendency to defend and justify their bad choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t believe there is anything wrong with consenting adults doing whatever they like behind closed doors. The problem I see, as a health care clinician who is politically liberal…It isn’t working and people are not happy and secure in long term poly relationships. It DOES make me think from an attachment theory lens we aren’t wired to be cool with it and my non professional, anecdotal opinion is that it is championed by people with attachment/abandonment issues. My concern for it is that many couples choose it thinking it will help their faltering relationship and I have never seen that to pan out in the end. I worry about the sex, power and financial imbalance most women find themselves in when “consenting”.

They're not going to come to you if it's working.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a mother that is “erotically charged”. DH is also erotically charged, I sought that out. Magic how that works.

I feel the same way.
Also, I found dating exhausting. I have no interest in doing that again. I like just being with the person I’m with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I saw a comment to the effect of “Polyamory is the enjoyment of torturing [or being tortured by] your partner. The inflicting of pain is a part of the fetish.”

Emotional sadomasochism by the world’s least hottest people on display. Please go back behind closed doors, we are begging you!

Yes, this is what it’s always sounded like to me. Even with cheating the victim can claim they were wronged and be justified in feeling jealousy, resentment etc. The author discusses battling feelings of betrayal and jealousy as though they shouldn’t be felt and are something to simply “get over”.

These couples are tormenting themselves, it sounds so depressing and anxiety inducing. If I wanted to have sex with multiple partners I’d get a divorce. Sex with multiple partners is not worth destroying my self esteem and mental health. Living this way sounds like a constant uphill battle and an exhausting display of self deceit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Women are finally enjoying what men have always enjoyed. I don’t about some of you, but it’s common knowledge that my dad has his mistresses and of course my mom turned a blind eye. Men have always had open marriages but it was only one way. Now women are at least being “nice” and asking their husbands for an open marriage.

My great grandma had 2 kids from a different father in the 1910's. I found out through DNA.

I guarantee you she didn't have an open marriage

[Anonymous]

She's an 8th grade english teacher? I wonder what her students and their parents thought when this story dropped.

[Anonymous]

The article doesn’t speak to me in terms of the “solution” they have found for dealing with lack of sexual fulfillment in marriage.

But the recognition of the state of the modern marriage is interesting. I just wish the treatment of the question “where do we go from here” was much broader.

I think Esther Parel gets much closer to a humane answer to the question(s), but even she doesn’t provide a compelling answer (give each other space and the opportunity to see one another at your best and doing things you are good at/love).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in the seventies as a small child surrounded by couples with "open" marriages. It was a lot more like wife swapping, really. A lot of people did get hurt. Some parents I know even got AIDS... but that wouldn't be my concern now, my concern now is, marriage and kids works as a partnership. No matter how stable you think your open marriage is, it's never that. Without the binary of just having a self and an other, there's a lot more to balance. I also grew up in the seventies as a small child surrounded by people who couldn't stop talking about how progressive and wonderful and cool they were for having their open marriages... meanwhile we kids were thrown together and torn apart by whom our parents were or weren't sleeping with. Nothing like telling the school counselor, "Beth isn't my mom, she's just my dad's girlfriend. But yeah, she has permission to get me from school."

Thanks for sharing the perspective of the now grown child. I think adults get lost in their own worlds sometimes, with all sorts of things (work, marriage, divorce, drama, trauma - anything). It’s helpful to see this narrative.

Agreed.

People who want to live this way shouldn't have kids. They are too selfish.

The world would be a better place if many immature adults just skipped having kids and did what they really want to do...live for themselves.

I kinda agree, but biological and social influence is real. As a woman who’s kids are now older elementary age, I feel myself reawakening as it were.

My kids are awesome and I love them, but now that my hormones are changing and the kids are smelly and opinionated I’m…restless.

I’ve read enough books to know I’m not alone. There’s a million books, drugs, etc to try and suppress or overcome.

Or I can engage in discreet, consensual extramarital relationships with likeminded people. I’m a happier person and therefore a better wife and partner.

Or you're doing the marital equivalent of snorting fentanyl for the thrills. What will you do if you blow up your marriage? What will you tell your kids?

"Oh, mommy wasn't fulfilled so she decided to become a park slope cliche."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She's an 8th grade english teacher? I wonder what her students and their parents thought when this story dropped.

I’m willing to bet that they already knew she was kind of crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in the seventies as a small child surrounded by couples with "open" marriages. It was a lot more like wife swapping, really. A lot of people did get hurt. Some parents I know even got AIDS... but that wouldn't be my concern now, my concern now is, marriage and kids works as a partnership. No matter how stable you think your open marriage is, it's never that. Without the binary of just having a self and an other, there's a lot more to balance. I also grew up in the seventies as a small child surrounded by people who couldn't stop talking about how progressive and wonderful and cool they were for having their open marriages... meanwhile we kids were thrown together and torn apart by whom our parents were or weren't sleeping with. Nothing like telling the school counselor, "Beth isn't my mom, she's just my dad's girlfriend. But yeah, she has permission to get me from school."

Ugg. I foresaw this for my kid and that is mostly why I ended my open marriage. It worked just fine before kids, but at this stage of declining energy, libido and a million competing priorities, I just wasn't comfortable with it anymore.

-- someone who was poly for 20 years.