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[quote=Anonymous]I've had friends who cheated on their spouses (and shared that info with me).

I've also had friends in open relationships where they and their spouse both date outside their marriage.

I'm old, so I'm looking at like 30 years of experiences have friends who are married, and I've thought a lot about the ethics and implications of situations like this and what makes sense for me, based on personal experiences. Here's what I've learned for me:

- I'll never lie for a cheating friend or do anything to support their cheating. Their AP is not welcome in my home or life, and I distance immediately if I become aware of an affair. Partly because I don't want to be a party to the betrayal of their spouse, and partly because I think people in the mindset of cheating (which is something people like to justify to themselves a variety of ways) are apt to behave unethically in other relationships as well.

- But I have welcomed friends back after the cheating ended via divorce. People can change and do better. I have one friend who destroyed her marriage with an affair, then had the relationship with the AP blow up, then later settled down with a new marriage and a baby and just generally figured her stuff out. We are now very close. She made a mistake in marrying her first husband, and in cheating on him, and in her choice of AP. But she learned and will never make those mistakes again. I trust her as a friend.

This is the part that might piss some people off, though:

- Open marriages suck for friends of the couple. It creates logistical complications that impose a burden on friends, and as a result I now also distance from most friends who open their relationships.

- The only time the open marriage doesn't become problematic is when the couple fully compartmentalizes the outside relationships. I do have one friend in an open marriage whose boyfriend lives in another state and she just visits him periodically. Her husband knows and everyone is consenting. It doesn't impact me because the BF is elsewhere, so it's not a big deal.

- But in every other situation, it creates problems. For instance, when a friend wanted to bring her BF to my wedding instead of her husband, but my spouse and I didn't know her BF and actually wanted her husband there. There have also been multiple situations where the open relationship was consensual at first but led to conflict later (usually because one spouse was becoming very emotionally involved with someone else, or due to the amount of time the side relationships took away from the marriage and household, especially with kids). So then you are dealing with friends who are upset with each other but still married and that drama. It just sucks.

- I have personally never had a friend in an open marriage that was actually drama free. I've gotten to the point where I just think people who are interested in polyamory or ENM are drama-seeking and not really the right people for me to be friends with. I'm middle aged and these arrangements just feel like teen/20-something immaturity to me. I think that's actually part of the appeal. Live and let live but keep it far away from me. Good luck.[/quote]

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