I met a guy at a bar, he had a ring on, but insisted on attempting to chat me up, and man was this guy boring, anyway I digress, so I said: "nice try, but you forgot to take your ring off, butter luck next time", to which he said: "oh my wife knows that I am out, we have an 'open' relationship".

'Open' relationship! what the deuce?

A lot of people say they have "open relationships" but that usually just means they are cheating on their partner, and they don't know it yet.

Some people try to have open relationships but it rarely works out. Someone always winds up feeling jealous, or have their feelings hurt.

An open relationship is when people have a "official/stable" partner but both partners agree to have others "non-stable" partners as well, usually one night only ones. In order to be a really opened relationship both partners must be aware that monogamy is not mandatory between them. Usually, it works until the female partner finds herself a non-stable male partner. In this very moment the stable male will decide monogamy is not that bad at all

flambeau : if that is the definition of an open relationship than i think that it cannot work, because i am a stable partner and i expect my partner to be stable and shouldn't even be looking at other guys.. (kinda far-fetched but a man can dream)

why would you want to be with me and we are in a good relationship but then you suddenly are attracted to another persons appearance and decide you want to date them too, just break it off with me and go ahead, evidently you weren't the one for me

Totts : Well, I don’t know if you’re being theoretical here or if this actually happened? In my opinion the concept of “Open” relationships can be a bit misleading and those who partake in such more often then not end up hurt in one way or another when all’s said and done.

Some people take relationships for granted and sometimes don’t appreciate how fortunate they may be to have someone when others either are not as fortunate or, squander what ever relationship they may have by treating their other half badly and or, cheating on that person.

There has to be an element of trust in order for a true relationship to work. Sometimes a relationship doesn’t boil down strictly to romance necessarily as much as it may boil down to whether or not that person you love will be by your side no matter what. That is really what it’s all about, or at least that’s the way I feel about it. I admit I can be at times sentimental but I feel some things are more important than a mere physical attraction and that the person who will be at your side no matter what may happen and someone you truly connect with is more attractive than the mere physical part of it.

Those who tend to partake in “Open” relationships or lack there of for that matter seem to focus strictly on physical attraction and more often then not relationships that start based on physical attraction and only based on physical attraction are doomed from the start.

bvd1022 : I was going to post on here but bvd1022 really hit the nail on the head. If there's anything that I would like to add it's this: Love and romance is a pretty new addition in relationships. It sounds strange nowadays but for quite a stretch of time in human history, the things that relationships were based on were economic stability, family names, etc. Personally, I believe that many people resort to having open relationships for : 1) even more sex and 2) because they want their cake and eat it too. It seems to me everything out of Hollywood, popular music, romance novels, and things of that nature all paint an unrealistic portrait of what we should expect in a life partner and marriage. Such high and unrealistic expectations only lead to unhappiness and loneliness in the long term. I believe that this is a large part of why divorce rates are so high.

This means that you are in a relationship with someone and you can kiss and make out with other people, kind of cheating as you can see. I would not like to have that.

An open relationship means that you're sort of in a relationship, but you're also allowed to explore dating other people.

I say they're always a bad idea. You're either in a relationship or you're not. One of my friends tried an open relationship. After a few months, he was starting to develop real feelings for her. She reached a point where she wasn't really interested in him anymore. It hurt him a lot when they broke up, but since it was an open relationship, she didn't think it was a huge deal. They're still friends, but I can tell he wishes they had more.

I know some couples (all of them "older" people) who are married but despite that they are "swingers"- they sleep with other people besides their spouse and their spouse knows about it and is fine with it. This may only work for some people, I certainly wouldn't consider it personally. But what they choose to do in the bedroom is their decision and I won't judge them for it, seeing as it's completely honest and nobody is getting hurt. It might sound unorthodox and crazy to most people, but for some couples it's definitely been known to work.

That being said, if you are not in a committed stable relationship like a marriage or similar to a marriage, and you are in "open" relationships with multiple girl and boyfriends, I think that feelings are bound to get hurt. Love triangle situations could easily happen. When things become too complicated it's never a good thing. It's too messy.