Weddingbee boards

I'm in the "whatever floats your rubber ducky" camp.  I go back and forth, but can sort of see why two people who didn't feel the need to be sexually monogamous would marry - particularly given the nature of health insurance requirements, etc.  Besides the practical element, sex means different things to different people.  If both people feel that it's a primarily physcial, rather than emotional, interaction I can see why it wouldn't be incomatible ian a marriage where the spousal relationship is seen as the primary emotional bond for both partners.

I can see the point if, for example, you've been married for several years and have children and are both bored to tears with only sleeping with one another.  Are you supposed to just get divorced? 

What if you want to come home to the same man or woman, the person with whom you parent, work, build a life, whatever, but need something else - and so does your partner?  Why should a lack of sexual variety curdle an otherwise functioning, healthy, mutually beneficial relationship?

Granted, I think that would be hard to pull off, but weirder things have happened.  It wouldn't surprise me if more people than we know of have relationships like this, but we don't hear about them because people don't like to be judged and, well, the responses here have been kinda judge-y.  In my experience, most "open" relationships aren't.  One person wants to have sex with other people, the other really doesn't but says okay to keep the relationship alive; or both people sign on without thinking about what the arrangement will entail and are then shocked to find that there's a lot of jealousy on both sides. Heartbreak ensues.

Having said all that, I don't really think I'd be well-suited to this sort of thing.  I likes me some monogamy.

I have a friend who has one.  She and her husband have a great marriage - they're very much lifelong partners.  They're totally honest with each other and I think it's great.  An real open relationship is very, very different from cheating.

I could have one... I don't think my boy, could.  To me, equality and honesty are what's important.  If a relationship was truly open, truly agreed upon, I wouldn't have a problem with it.  It's sneaking around, double standards, hiding things, that bothers me.  It's hard to find two people who are on the same page that way... that are secure and open enough that other people don't get in the way of their relationship with each other.  I think you also have to have a certain mindset about physical affection and what it means.  But it does happen, and I think it's fabulous when it does.

@corgi - That's right. 

Vibrators were first invented for the treatment of "hysteria" in women.  The idea was that by stimulating a woman with "pelvic massage" (application of a vibrator) she would experience a "hysterical paroxysm" (orgasm) and be relieved of her neuroses.

Honestly, if I had to sleep with someone who had no idea how my bits worked, I would probably be pretty sexually frustrated and "hysterical", too.

i think the phrase "open marriage" is an oxymoron.

it defeats the purpose of everything marriage means, a union between two people who vow to love one another in faith and trust and loyalty to their relationship.

if someone wants the option, i say don't get married in the first place!

@missjyc - 

"it defeats the purpose of everything marriage means, a union between two people who vow to love one another in faith and trust and loyalty to their relationship."

Why is sexual monogamy a prerequisite for the above?  And is there only one acceptable definition of marriage?