Your bag is empty.
To say I went into it blindly would be an understatement. My now ex-girlfriend—let’s call her Primary—and I clicked on every level, especially the physical. Our sex was passionate, weird and frequent. We made out in public, and in private we explored each others’ darkest fantasies (over-the-knee spanking, anyone?). But one year in, my eyes began to wander.
I was 29 years old when we met; before Primary, I’d only slept with two other women, one of whom I had been with for a decade during my vital, oat-sewing years. I wanted—no, needed—to sleep around before settling down again. So, I decided to break things off with Primary.
But the sex was mind-blowing and we were sickeningly in love. So even though we agreed to move on by dating other people, we kept ending up between each other’s sheets. Without discussing it, we were suddenly back together—but the door was left ajar. Yep, we were in an open relationship.According to researchers at the Kinsey Institute, as many as one in five Americans have participated in an open relationship, otherwise known as consensual non-monogamy. Google searches for the term open relationship have risen steadily since January 2006, and on television, they’ve been depicted in shows as varied as Portlandia, Gotham and Audience Network’s You Me Her. So why the uptick in interest and acceptance? Did I stumble into an effective compromise between my biological desire for multiple partners and the standard narrative of eternal monogamy which so often leads to infidelity? In other words, can open relationships work?
In 2016, The New York Times published an exposé on open relationships tied to Oscar-winning actress Monique, who speaks openly about her non-monogamy with husband Sidney Hicks. In it, Dr. Helen Fisher, a revered anthropologist, claims open relationships “never end up working long-term.” The article went viral, in part for Fisher’s candor, but research dating as far back as the 1980s contradicts Fisher’s comments. For example, one longitudinal study of 82 couples published in The Journal of Sex Research found that statistically, open marriages are no more likely to end than closed marriages after a five-year period.
Open relationships pit biology against the human social condition.
In the end, the chances of an open relationship succeeding may be the same as the chances of any relationship—gay or straight, monogamous or poly, long-term or long-distance. Their success, according to sex educators, depends on a variety of factors including a range of personality traits like neediness, personal views on casual sex and level of sex-positivity. And as sexual neuroscientist Debra W. Soh wrote for Playboy in 2016, “It can take a good amount of trial and error to figure out what works. Negotiating (and renegotiating) boundaries and rules are necessary to succeed.”
Surprise, I didn’t read any of that research prior to opening my relationship with Primary. But from experience I can tell you that last bit is absolutely true. Rules are imperative to navigate and protect against the inevitable feelings of fear, resentment, jealousy and insecurity that come with non-monogamy. Negotiating our boundaries was a game of emotional Minesweeper. Hearing about my first extracurricular date unnerved Primary. Stray hair ties, condom wrappers, a sext on my phone—all of it triggered vicious arguments. So one of our first rules was Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. In bed one night, however, Primary began to probe for specifics about one of my dates. “What did she look like? Did you go down on her?” I stayed mum —fool me once—but she persisted. So I caved. “She was curvy. Yes, I ate her pussy.” Primary grabbed my hand and shoved it down her panties. She was dripping wet. Many agree that non-monogamy can actually advance intimacy in an open relationship, but sometimes it is short-lived. For instance, when I decided to tell Primary about a future date unprompted, we fought like meth heads in Black Mirror fan fiction. Afterward, we amended the rule to Only Tell When Asked.
But even with clear rules, open relationships can be difficult to navigate because they pit biology against the human social condition. In one anthropological examination of human sexuality, Sex at Dawn, Christopher Ryan and Cecilia Jethá argue that non-monogamy is ingrained in the DNA we inherited from our closest primate ancestors. Try reconciling that with the centuries-old cultural mores of marriage and eternal monogamy. Nothing can protect your open relationship 100 percent from this very real struggle.
Take, for example, the time I was driving with Primary from Los Angeles to San Francisco in rush-hour traffic. A text popped up on my phone from another woman, and Primary read it. Our Cro-Magnon brains went to combat. We said things that could not be taken back—things that landed us in couples’ therapy. Therapy helped us sort through some wreckage, but that fight damaged us in ways we never bounced back from.
Still, that fight wasn’t why our open relationship ultimately failed. Nor was it due to our lack of rules or some difference in our views regarding casual sex. The reason was simpler. A couple of months into our experiment, Primary slipped a note under my door with her keys to my apartment. She’d had enough of our “absurd arrangement” and she wanted me out of her life. But I was both still in love with her and not ready to be monogamous, so I did something terrible. I argued her back into the open relationship.
Don’t do that. Ever.
Almost every article on polyamory will tell you it’s not for everyone. Make no mistake, if you have to argue your partner into an open relationship, it’s not for them. The fact was, Primary never wanted an open relationship from the start. She agreed to it because it was what I wanted, and she was in love with me. A lot has to line up for non-monogamy to succeed but more than anything, it has to be mutual. Without that, every argument rests on the subtext of “I never wanted this” and your union is destined to crash, burn and smolder with resentment long after its end.
Soon after I pushed her back into non-monogamy, Primary put her foot down. This time, I sold my furniture, moved in with her and recommitted to an exclusive relationship. Things soured quickly; two months later, she broke up with me. A mere few weeks later, she slept with the very friend who helped me move out—a guy I’d known half my life. When I called her on it, she slipped a piece of hate mail into my storage unit with an exhaustive inventory of things I had done during our relationship that angered her. To be fair, I gave her a wide variety of reasons to resent me. But dead center on the list? “Open Relationship.”