Open Relationships: Can they really work? – By Sarah Gill

'Write what you know’ or so the saying goes. I have been in an open relationship now for 6 months and have experienced the ups and downs of trying to make it work, so what better a topic to write about than that?

A little about me:

Myself and my boyfriend decided to embark upon an open relationship following a heart to heart about our relationship, whether we were happy and what we would both like to change. We soon discovered that we both desired a little more excitement and variety, so following the drafting of some stringent rules and regulations; we decided to change the status of our relationship to ‘open….ish’. I can honestly say that it is the best decision we have ever made! We are both making much more effort with each other to please the other party and to look like we have made an effort at all times. We feel more able to be open and honest about our feelings, we no-longer feel trapped and we have a greater feeling of freedom and liberty. And most importantly the sex between us has never been better, more frequent…or kinkier! I would say we are far more in love now than we have ever been…
All in all, being in an open relationship has done both me and my boyfriend the world of good. I have a happy, loved up, stable and searingly hot relationship at home with him where the sex is blow-your-head-off amazing. But I also get to go out and chat up/play with/shag other men as and when I want to. It’s a win win situation…at least for us.

Positives and negatives:

However, there are many positives and negatives which I feel I should include here before anyone decides to go running off to their partner with a request for an open relationship. I guess the main positive aspects are everything mentioned above plus the fact that an open relationship is far less likely to get into a rut than a closed one, both parties will be more sexually satisfied, neither party feel that they are ‘owned’ by their partner and for some people thinking about their partner shagging someone else can be a turn on! It certainly is for me, which in turn improves sex within the relationship! The main negative has got to be the jealousy aspect. If either one of you are the jealous type, and open relationship really is not going to work for you. There is also the issue of one party deciding that they would rather go the whole hog and be single, or even of one party falling for someone outside of the relationship. Some people also have the opinion that an open relationship is just a way of cheating without the consequences. As far as I am concerned they could not be more wrong as all open relationships need plenty of rules and regulations, far more than a closed relationship!

Rules:

The single most important aspect of embarking upon an open relationship is to set down ground rules before you begin. I cannot stress enough the importance of having both parties on the same page when it comes to what is and what is not allowed. Myself and my boyfriend have a page of rules which include: no sex with exes/close friends, no sex with others in our home (unless part of a threesome), the sex must be safe, no discussing our encounters and our relationship must take priority at all times. Each couple will have different things which they consider important, so work it out between the two of you and don’t be afraid to abandon the idea if it doesn’t appear to be working. Another very important aspect of our rules is that I must feel like the queen bee at all times. This removes any feeling of jealously that occasionally try to rear their ugly heads when I know that my boyfriend has got lucky with someone else. It is so vital that both parties feel that they are number one and that no one else could possibly take their place. Lucky, this is exactly how we both feel! All in all, I would say our relationship is ‘sexually open, but emotionally closed’.

Tips:

So below I will write my top 5 tips for a successful open relationship, but before I do there are two final things I want to say and both of them are facts: 1) Men (and some women) have a natural ‘hunter’ urge to spread their seed far and wide, and to try to deny this is pointless. And therefore: 2) 50% of marriages end in divorce, clearly the monogamous relationship just isn’t working.

Sarah’s 5 open relationship tips:

* Discuss, discuss, discuss – you must set down ground rules!

* The lady must feel like queen bee at all times to avoid jealously

* Make time for the primary relationship above all else!

* No sex with exes or people who are close to the relationship

* Do not discuss any sex had outside of the relationship

I hope you enjoyed reading my post and please leave me a comment if you liked it!

-- Sarah