Girls, is your current Husband/boyfriend your best ever lover. And.......

It sure seemed implied. The reason why there are no "love stories or diamond commercials" about it is because most of these people involved in open relationships are forced to hunker back onto anonymous forums and whatnot by prudish, judgmental asshats. The mainstream is blocked off to them.

For some people, the extramarital stuff is the risque stuff.

Judgmental, much?

That answers the judgmental question.

Just because you can't, in your heart of hearts, ever come around to the idea that there are couples with open relationships who are genuinely happy doesn't mean that it's truth. You've seen a few in this thread who have said that they're happy with their significant other, yet you seem to insist otherwise out of either ignorance or pig-headedness.

Open relationships are the antithesis of selfish. The couple being free of their jealousy and allowing their significant other to get with other people is more selfless than anything else. Monogamy is the opposite. If that's your thing, cool. I don't see anyone into open relationships on here judging you for that, so much as they're defending their lifestyle against someone too stubborn to accept it as an alternative that makes a couple happy.

And as I reply to you, I'm reading along with it in the reply box. Then I read this last line that you shat out:

You're quite a thing, aren't you.

 

I'm sure she hasn't read every post you've ever made.

This thread has really gone in some strange and unexpected directions.

 

It's mind-boggling how up yourself, self-righteous you sound in most of your posts in this thread. The bolded part right here takes the cake. Like, holy fuck I could fill the Grand Canyon with the amount of arrogance you exude. You are exactly the type.

I think people get it, they're just not agreeing with you at all. Count me in with them.

 

It would be instructive if everyone responding had to list their age, their marital status and if they had kids.

If you could take a poll of only people who were over 35, married with kids as to who's view more represented their own, do you think more of those would agree withe you or I?

I am 50, married with 2 kids. In my entire life I have known one couple in an open relationship, my cousin and her husband. They are disgusting freaks and she was recently hospitalized after she tried to kill herself.

 

How old are the kids? My friend's daughters are now old enough to be out on their own. She didn't do anything wild while she was tied down raising them.

Most such couples don't openly announce anything to all their friends and relatives, so you don't really know for sure.

 

Open relationships, and the variations thereof, are currently outside of the norm. So it will naturally have majority opinion against it. And for your one anecdotal example, I'm pretty sure there's plenty that would go in favor of open relationships if you went along any swingers/hotwife message board and asked "Do you have a loving relationship with your spouse?", I would bet the majority would be resoundingly positive.

 

that's like going into a bar and asking if anyone has a drinking problem.

My kids are 13 and 11.

that is true but almost all the couples I know are my wife's friends and they tell her the most intimate details of their marriages. In fact, I have heard way more than I would have liked to hear. I have heard about infidelity, affairs, impotence and many other things but none of them ever partner swapped and none have an open relationship where both spouses are aware that one or both have other lovers.

Maybe I am just from a different world. Both of my sets of grandparents were married for 50+ years, my parents 44 years (until my dad died). Ditto for all my Aunts and Uncles. In my world you get married and stay married and there is no one else. The sense of scandal and outrage over my cousin is prima facie evidence that this is a unique situation in my family.

I am now getting pretty tired of this argument. The bottom line is swinging, swapping and open relationships are nothing I can understand or want to understand and being with a woman with such a long sexual history is nothing I would want to deal with. I am so lucky to not have to deal with this but sometimes my sense of empathy kicks in and I feel bad for people who are lonely and have to exist in a sexual jungle, not being able to trust anyone or be able to expect someone will feel about you the same way tomorrow as they do today. All I know is the happiest people I know are those who are happily married and who consider their spouse their soul mate and would no sooner have extramarital sex than they would rob a bank.

 

The best answer: "Not yet, but it's not due to lack of trying!"

Same here. Yeah, the world has changed a lot in three generations. Even though my older sister had always had a wild streak, my freshman year of college was still major culture shock for me. It was a tough adjustment to fit in and make new friends, when I was surrounded by hedonists. I did it, and life went on.

This is a tough time to be 100% single, and I'm glad I don't have to deal with it anymore.

Trust is everything. I used to trust no one but my closest female friends.

That brings us to one more category of people, the couples who really need to get divorced and find somebody else, because they're with the wrong partners now. You know there are plenty of them out there, and they make up a big percentage of those having affairs, open and otherwise. If they really need to make a change, they may as well get on with it. Time is not their friend.

 

Your polling solution is no better, considering you'd be asking people in general about open relationships. The majority of them aren't into it, have no experience with it, and wouldn't be able to give a good answer as to whether couples in open relationships are happy or not. The only people fit to judge whether they're happy or not are the people involved themselves.

There's your problem. Why did you even pick a dog in this fight if all you wanted to do was call these people depraved, debaucherous and diseased? You presume so much about that kind of lifestyle, yet you accept no views to the contrary.

 

im a guy and i wouldnt mind my girl telling me i wasnt the best she ever had. if she loves me n i love her ill tell her lets try new things n make are sexual live better.

 

I was so socially inept when it came to females that I was a virgin until 21. I lost my virginity to a woman who was 24 and then spent the next 9 years living with her. After we broke up I ended up in a horrible rebound situation where I ended up marrying someone I didn't really like, let alone love. That lasted all of six weeks until I ran away to NYC and hooked up with an ex-gf of a college friend, so at age 32 I had only had 3 sex partners. In my entire adult life I have only been single for the year before I met my wife. It must be the kind of women I am subconsciously drawn to because the pattern for me over and over was; sleep with a woman once, she asks me to move in with them, I agree. The only exception to this was mid 1995 to mid 1996 when I had a few casual sexual encounters and visited several prostitutes which was an unfulfilling way to get sex.

My wife and I talk constantly. We both agree that trust is THE most important part of a relationship, followed by respect. Without these two you cannot be at peace with yourself.

I agree 100%. I see people in unfulfilling, loveless marriages, I see infidelity and horrible selfishness everywhere. Last night I asked her what other couples besides us she thought were happily married and she could only come up with one. It took me a long time and several failed relationships to find my wife. I consider myself to be incredibly lucky, she is everything I could ever hope for; beautiful, sexy, a great mother, my best friend, she is a great cook, keeps a nice home and our love making is amazing. I truly, honestly wish everyone could have what I have (with someone else, not with my wife )

 

It was 18 for me, 16 for my sister. Can you believe people used to say I was the 'nice' sister?

Everybody's story is a little different, or a lot different, which makes it so hard to know what somebody else should do. Every experience you have becomes a part of you and changes you in some way.

I quickly found out that I could handle sex a lot better than I could handle serious relationships. Sex is a lot simpler and easier to find. It took me a long time to get a handle on the relationship side of it and find the right guy. I'm glad I didn't move too fast and end up divorced multiple times. I did move in with guys, two different times, and also lived with my husband for several years before we got married.

Everywhere I look, I see people who claim to like the opposite sex in more than just a physical way, but they don't show any honest signs of it in their behavior or conversations. And they don't appear to have any clue how relationships work. They just keep making the same dumb moves, over and over. I want no part of that shit.

And then there is the Italian traditional model, where the wife and mistress personalities and duties are separated into two different women. I played the mistress for a while. It was fun while it lasted, but there was obviously no future in it. I accepted that from day one.

The problem is, no two people are exactly alike, so your exact combination will never happen anywhere else.

Time keeps moving on, and society keeps changing. One more recent trend is for more young single women, especially roommates, to become fuck buddies. They are no longer worried about a social stigma or of any risk of turning into stereotypical hardcore lesbians, and it's an easy opportunity for sex without fear of pregnancy.

Some older women are hearing about what they missed out on, and wondering if they should try it now with a friend. I think it may be a good option for some of the women in this thread who are not getting everything they want in bed from their men. A dildo technique might be discovered that could be passed along to a husband, since women tend to be more in tune with each other's physical responses. And most guys don't consider it cheating when their wives are fucking other women. It seems to be more of a turn-on than a concern.

Just a thought.

 

Oh, I know. My wife is perfect for me, probably not for other men, just like none of my's friends' husbands have any appeal to her and none of her friends would be a fit for me.

What I meant is that I have someone I trust, respect and admire and that I am very attracted to. We have a nice, unbroken history together and two beautiful kids.

I just wish everyone could feel safe and loved and happy to be with someone else.

20 years ago, after my failed quickie marriage I ended up with a woman who was intellectually my equal and great in bed. I know she loved me deeply but she had major commitment issues and she cheated on me and dumped me several times. After a few months she would call me and tell me how much she loved me and wanted to make it work this time. I kept going back because the sex and intellectual stimulation was unbelievable. Ultimately, it failed because I stopped trusting her and she couldn't stay faithful. She literally made me crazy and brought me to the point of suicide. For awhile afterwards I could only have sex with prostitutes because I feared getting hurt again. I was young, good looking, living in the East Village of Manhattan. I had lots of opportunities that I never pursued because I was so crazy for my gf. It was an exciting time and I am glad I experienced it but I would never want to live that again. That feeling when she walked out the door that I didn't know if she was going to fuck someone else made me crazy. When I met my current wife I was very guarded and it took me a long time to fall in love. Now I wouldn't trade what I have for anything, not even if Beyonce landed in a helicopter in my back yard and stepped out naked with ten million dollars in cash if I went away with her.

You see, I simply cannot imagine seeing my wife with another man's cock inside her. That would destroy me and I would walk in front of a speeding semi truck on the NYS Thruway if I did, I simply would not want to live any life other than the one I have now. Likewise I could not get naked with another woman, my whole world view would shatter like a glass house.

My wife makes my life magical. I owe her everything and I would give her anything including my life.

 

I'm with him here.

At first I'd be a little disappointed but I'd rather that because then I'd be determined to be better. It would give us both opportunity to talk about our desires, reevaluate our techniques and explore each other all over.

 

That's great, for you, but there's other couples out there who don't mind the thought and are actually turned on by the thought of their SO with someone else. It doesn't mean that they're depraved, or that their relationship is unhappy, or whatever. It just means what it means - that it's something that they get off on and enjoy.

 

ok but that is not normative behavior.

Here's how I look at another man fucking my wife;

imagine a big, fat, smelly, obnoxious creep walked into my house, tracking mud across the carpet and sat in my favorite chair; smoking, faring and talking loudly. Then he raids my fridge, eats all my food then drinks my best Scotch. Then he goes upstairs, takes a big shit in my toilet which he doesn't flush and manages to plug up. Then he passes out in my bed which he procedes to pee into. When he wakes up he jumps up in the bed, breaking it. Finally he leaves but he badly scrapes the side of my car backing out. A few hours later I log onto Hip Forums to find out that this guy somehow got a hold of a private diary of my wife's which he posts and then also posts my credit history.

Multiply that experience by, say INFINITY and that's how I would feel about another man fucking my wife.

 

That's fair just don't be condescending towards others who don't share that view. They've made their choice and you've made yours.

 

If you think there is one standard definition for this and most people still follow it, you're living in a fantasy world. Mostly, this bullshit comes from religious leaders and talk show hosts. You would benefit from spending a week or two in San Francisco, immersed in a culture where the 1955 American 'normal' means nothing.

At least you've gotten beyond name calling and verbal abuse of those who have different views. That's major progress.

 

So in your estmation, what percentage of married couples swing, engage in spouse swapping, have open marriages or engage in any other pattern of non monogamous sexuality in which both spouses are aware of the arrangement ?

 

A much smaller percentage than the number of couples where one or both partners cheat on them secretly. That may be considered more 'normal' and mainstream, but the results (in my opinion) are likely to be far worse than anything that is done honestly and openly. Lies and disrespect kill a relationship faster and better than anything else.

And if we really want to hold people to traditional definitions of 'normal' sexual behavior, that leaves no room for homosexuality or bisexuality, or for unmarried straight people playing around with threesomes or other forms of group sex. In this state, in 1955, it wasn't even legal to have oral sex or to marry a person of a different race.

We had to throw out 'normal' because it was bullshit.