99% of the time it's a lie

Anonymous wrote:Many women consent to open relationships due to the unequal balance of power in a marriage.

Many men are forced to accept it as well unless he wants to lose half of everything he as worked for.
When there is a stay-at-home spouse that person has all the power because they have contributed little to the finances but they will be considered by the Court to have a 50% stake in all assets. Also if there were kids then the stay-at-home can use that to say they are more involved with the kids and therefore should get more than 50% custody which means more $$

Many women consent to open relationships due to the unequal balance of power in a marriage.

Years ago my husband and I had an open relationship with another couple at a time when it was called swinging. We weren’t the instigators of the relationship and it just happened over time as we traveled a lot together and partied pretty hard. It ended when they moved outside the country and we just decided that once was enough and we wanted to start a family. That was over 25 years ago and monogamy has worked just fine for us since then.

Anonymous wrote:Ethical means both people are on the same page and are also honest with their prospective non-primary partners. Non ethical is the scenario where you are a cheater and a liar.

When I was in college I had a fling with an older married woman. She claimed to be in an open relationship but I never dug in or checked. In hindsight, I probably should have.

I'm in an open marriage. It works for us, but most certainly doesn't work for a lot of people. And its ethical for us because all parties involved understand the situation and have consented.

Anonymous wrote:Ethical means both people are on the same page and are also honest with their prospective non-primary partners. Non ethical is the scenario where you are a cheater and a liar.

No morals. Loser.

Ethical means both people are on the same page and are also honest with their prospective non-primary partners. Non ethical is the scenario where you are a cheater and a liar.

Anonymous wrote:It's ethical as long as everyone, including the person being brought into the situation, is aware of the situation.

+1 I dated a guy in an open marriage when I was single. I talked to his wife right off the bat to make sure it wasn't BS, and we had a great time. No strings for me, no hassle for him.

The thing is, inside of their relationship it was constant (and exhausting-sounding to me, if we're being honest) open communication and renegotiation and ensuring everyone was 10000% okay with everything that happened on each other's dates. It's nothing like the "declare the marriage open!" guy wants to believe in his fever dreams about all the free love he's missing out on. You have to have an extremely healthy relationship to make it work, which is why a lot of people who go "open" as a last-ditch effort to save their marriage end up divorcing anyway. Not because non-monogamy is inherently wrong, but because it won't work inside of, and certainly can't fix, a marriage with communication problems.

What about consent?

it's only ethical if the other spouse can support themselves, otherwise it's coercion.

It's ethical as long as everyone, including the person being brought into the situation, is aware of the situation.

Ask to met the wife and discuss the issue. Sex is very personal, even with protection. Wouldn't she want to know where her husband's mouth is?

Because everyone involved is fully aware and is happy with the situation.

Not everyone has the same value system as you. I know a couple who are like this. Married. The husband also sleeps with men casually on the side. The wife is completely aware of this, and fine with it - this has been the case from the beginning of their relationship. It’s not a hypocritical situation. He would be fine if she had other partners, but she has no interest in that. They have a very healthy sex life and are very happily married, almost 20 years now.

Surely you can see that ethically, the husbands other sex partners are in a much better situation that the partners of someone who was sneaking around behind his wife’s back!!

I see this a lot on tinder where a lot of people are in open marriages or relationships. It doesn't make sense though. How can being with one person and sleeping with others be ethical?