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Open Marriages For me, the point of being married is to be with just that one person. That is what marriage is all about. It is a sacred union between two people. For some it is just a piece of paper, a legal obligation, a business arrangement or something entirely different. There are those who argue that human beings are not meant to be monogamous creatures, other mammals are not monogamous. Yet some other creatures do mate for life. I think most people that argue about monogamy just don't want to be tied down or they use it as an excuse not to be faithful. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for sex, I like sex. I have enjoyed sex with more than just one person in the past, I sure wasn't a virgin when I got married. I took the opportunity to sow my wild oats before settling down in monotony... I mean monogamy. Seriously, I knew what I was getting into when I said "I do" and the vows mean a lot to me. I've been around enough to know I'm happy with what I have. Plus I'm an only child so sharing is not something I do very well. What's mine is mine. I know to some sexually liberated people that may sound quite horrible no one owns anyone else, blah, blah, etc, etc. Yeah, I know but my heart doesn't. Thankfully my husband feels the same way. So I don't see any threeways or swinging parties in our future. Anyway, recently I found out some friends of mine are discussing having an open marriage. Actually she's discussing it, he's not happy about it. It seems before they got married 20 years ago they agreed to have an open marriage. Well up until now neither has ever acted on it. Now she has met someone she wants to have sex with and was honest enough to tell her husband about it. He's freaking out. I can see things from both their view points. He is happy with their marriage, all these years they have been together I suppose he thought they were past the ideals of youth and beliefs of sexual freedom and openess. To her defense though, she was a virgin when she met hubby. He's the only man she's ever been with. Now midlife approaches and she's wondering what she's missed out on. I just wonder if sex is worth losing all that they have built together for the past 20 years. Maybe there's more too it though. There is always two sides to the story and I've only heard one. It just makes me think about the whole open marriage thing. My husband and I are friends with another couple that also have some sort of open marriage. With them it makes more sense. He's a truck driver and never home. They have four kids and now he's had a vasectomy and she had her tubes tied. They gave each other the freedom to do whatever. I know for the longest time it was just him doing the whatever. Now I think she finally decided to get in on the game. I just see these people with all this sexual freedom but they don't seem any happier. Actually it seems to be quite the opposite. The more freedom they have the more miserable they are. I think they lack the bond that a normal married couple share, they lack intimacy, they lack the sacredness of the marital union. Another thing is that it seems to me like it is always one partner that is more into the open thing than the other. It's like one really wants to experiment and the other goes along to keep the first one happy. With an open marriage or swinging lifestyle, whatever you want to call it - both people need to be equally into it. I think you also have to be lacking the jealous gene (which I seem to have double of). I sometimes think that those who participate in an open marriage maybe aren't as in love with their partner as they claim to be. In the past I've done some wild things sexually, things that involved more than one other partner, but I didn't love that person. I wasn't emotionally attached. It was just fun. I was willing to share that person with someone else because it was no big deal. The one time I tried that with someone I did care about it went horribly wrong, touchy feely emotions put a damper on all the fun. I don't think I could ever watch my husband be with someone else, and if he cheated on me... let's just say things would end badly for everyone involved. Hell, maybe I just haven't been married long enough to understand. Some might consider my marriage to still be in the newlywed stage (under 5 years of marriage, under 10 years in a relationship). Perhaps in another 15 years I'll want to impliment an open marriage clause into the relationship.
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