Open relationships - yay or nay?

If what they're doing doesn't hurt anyone, I don't see the harm in it. However, I hear that jealousy is very common, unsurprisingly...

So for me, at least... I went to a single-sex school, was bullied to boot, and so didn't really start having sex until I went to university. From there, I basically went from one short-to-long term monogamous relationship to another, before finally meeting my now (much longer term) partner. She originally asked if I wanted to do the open thing waaaaay back in the beginning, but I was far too nervous about losing her to even think about doing it; she was cool with either though, so we went forwards monogamously.

As the years passed, my love for her didn't change at all; she is attractive, intelligent, and wonderfully cynical to boot... but I was always attracted (and wanted to have sex) with other people, too. I mean, that's fairly standard, right? Very few people can say they are never attracted to anyone else (and I'll go out on a limb and say that a good percentage of the people who do say it are lying ;P)... and the more I thought about it on an intellectual basis, the less sense necessarily linking love and sex made to me. I mean, there are a couple of friends (for example) who I care about just as much as my partner, for whom I would sacrifice a hell of a lot, but there's no sex involved there. There's older couples I know who are very much in love still, but no longer want to have sex. There's plenty of gay and lesbian couples I know (always fashionable and future oriented, right? ;P) who have been doing non-monogamous relationships for years; they definitively love each other--some of them were on the forefront of marriage equality battles, who got married on the first day that it became legal--but they didn't see their bodies (or the physical act of sex) as being necessary to that love.

I mean, obviously, caring about someone can make sex even better - and loving that person? If the sexual passion is there, that's just the best, but it's totally not necessary... sex is very fun all on its own. ;P The things that I realized set an intimate pair bond/long term relationship/marriage (the things that love is made of) apart from sex... at least for me... are:
- trust
- honesty
- respect
- (at least some) shared interests
- personal space
- core personality similarities (I don't believe in that whole opposites attract stuff)
- a perennial desire to TALK to the other person and SHARE your life

Sex didn't enter it. I realized that, even if I could never have sex with her again, I'd still stick by my partner... and because we already had these things, I felt free to tell her the direction in which my thoughts were moving, and that I was interested in talking about the open relationship. I didn't want to cheat on her, and told her that if she wasn't up for it then we would just shelve the whole topic, and so we just continued chatting about it over the course of the next month. We found other people who'd done it and talked to them; she read books like 'The Ethical Slut'... and eventually we decided to give it a go. We set up a few basic rules (no more than two dates per week, always try to make it home after a date, always use protection, be scrupulous about keeping each other up-to-date about plans, etc) and off we went. Two years later, and things are still pretty sweet. I mean, it totally doesn't work for everyone, but then again neither does monogamy (look at the number of cheaters!) - the way I see it, if you can/want to, isn't it just better to be honest about our drives and desires, instead of covering them up, and letting them mess up a good thing?

Older couples, I've found, tend to transition like we did. A lot of the younger poly/non-monogamous people I've met (I mean, I'm 30, so hardly ancient, but like the 20-22 year olds) just started out that way - they set out looking for other non-monogamous people, or just dated widely (and told their partners what they were doing, eventually settling on one they particularly liked as an actual boyfriend/girlfriend). This is of course easier to do in more cosmopolitan/progressive areas/countries, but it is definitely a growing trend.

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Also a response to a couple of the things other people have posted:
"I can't see it working" = I know people who have been in open relationships for decades. I mean, it totally doesn't work for everyone, but for some people it really does work very well. The people I know who have been doing it for ages... I mean, they could still break up, for sure, but that happens with "normal" relationships too.

"Pussy isn't as easy to get as dick" = This is partially true, but this is often--having chatted with many women--because a lot of guys can be pretty crap at actually approaching women. The longer I have been dating, the better I am getting at doing it. There are, however, guys who get into the whole open relationship thing and then regret it (because their girl ends up getting all the action); most of the time this seems to me to be because they just aren't very good at upping their game. I am by no means the most attractive dude on the planet, but I am always critiquing my own actions and attempts, and make sure to keep on getting better - and so far it has paid dividends!

"I don't see the point." = I mean, sex with every person is a little bit different. People like different things, they want stuff done a different way, and they look/feel different. You also learn things from different people that you never would have found out from just one person... and it's not even just the sex. Constantly going out and meeting new people is great - I've made friends from failed dates, have met people from all over the world, and am slowly but surely growing far more confident than I ever was before... not to mention all the interesting things I've learned, and the stories I've heard.

"A bit of jealousy is good - shows the person you care" = I prefer to show the person I care by telling them, and performing actions--small and large--to demonstrate that care. If you do the whole thing sensibly, as well, you'll still be spending the largest amount of time with that person; traveling with them, cooking food together, chatting at the end of a day, laughing with them, sharing with them, etc, etc. If you can do all of that, does jealousy really add anything?

"How is an open relationship different to FBW?" = So an open relationship means you are in one permanent relationship with one person. They are the person you love, and may even be married to. You share a house with that person, you may even have children together, and in general you stick to them like you would if it were a closed relationship. FBWs are just that - friends who you occasionally screw. There's none of the additional commitment.

"Sexuality is possessive by nature" = Having studied history at the graduate level, there are many communities (for example Native American nations) who actually practiced open relationships before the Puritans came along (and they are not alone). Sex can be possessive, but that (to me) is an unhealthy attitude; nobody should be possessive of another human being; they are subjects, after all, not objects.

But again, to each their own. My attitude has always been: live and let live. Any other questions, OP, let me know.

I don't like sharing.

Can it go wrong? Totally... but 50% of marriages end in divorce, and others end up being unhappy marriages that should have ended - and that's not even counting all the relationships that don't make it that far at all... so it's not like closed relationships have a great track record, and I know plenty of open couples who have been together for years/decades. Does it work for everyone? Of course not, but then again there is no one-size-fits-all for anything in life (and anyone who tells you there is is probably too deeply buried in their own worldview).

Overall, people aren't any happier today than they were before the sexual revolution, but the number of STDs has risen significantly since then. If you can be in an open relationship and still trust that your partner (and their partners) get tested and use protection, fine. Otherwise, it's much easier to keep track of STD testing with a 'traditional' relationship.

Now, you see, I'm a traditionalist. Find a partner and stick to them, that's what I say. I know what you're all thinking - "Old fashioned uncle Len, doesn't know what he's talking about", but I tell you, sunshine, why on Earth would you go around sleeping with strangers when you have a loving partner waiting for you back home? Makes no sense to me, but then again old Len actually has morals and values, which the vast majority of the millennial generation are sorely lacking.

Only crazy people have sex without protection in the first place; it's a basic tenet of open relationships that you use protection and get tested. No worries there.

Aw because it hurts your ego?

We get it, you're a cuck.