Having an open marriage is interesting enough…

But when your husband encourages you to have an affair, as long as you don’t tell him about it… between the stigma around cheating and affairs, and your own fear that you’re breaking the sacred trust in your relationship, things can get a little more complicated.

The stigma of infidelity… MUST we call it an affair? 

Cheating is not the cause of relationship problems, but rather a symptom of significant relationship issues. People who are happy and content in a relationship – emotionally, spiritually AND sexually, do not go outside the relationship to "cheat". It just doesn’t usually work that way. 

There are situations however in which one person can’t meet all of their partner’s needs… leaving that person longing for more, whether it’s emotionally OR sexually. 

But if another person is brought into the relationship to meet those needs, is it truly cheating or breaking the trust, or merely breaking some more commonly accepted societal norms around what a marriage or relationship "should be"? 

What if your partner CAN’T have sex with you? 

For whatever reason, often health related issues, some people feel they can no longer have sex. Or maybe they just no longer WANT to have sex.

But in reality, they realize even though they no longer have sexual needs, their partner still does. At this point, the relationship will begin to suffer, since there are unmet needs, and those needs intensify as time goes on. Something eventually has to give, and if you’re not careful, it’s going to be the relationship that collapses under the strain.

Do you really want or need to divorce? Is there maybe another way?

So do you really need to divorce or separate, or is there maybe another way?

What if you were to consider an open marriage, or an arrangement by which another person could meet your partner’s sexual needs, while still keeping your marriage, or your relationship, intact?

Certainly this would require even much more trust and communication than a relationship normally does, but it COULD work. At the very least, wouldn’t it be worth trying as a last ditch effort before letting the relationship crumble and deteriorate?

If both partners are willing to approach this situation from a place of true love and acceptance – as opposed to ownership and jealousy – then the relationship may have a chance to survive this challenge.  

Love, honesty, and devotion are very different from sex

Many people confuse love, honesty, and devotion to a partner with sexual contact. Those are very different things.

Millions of couples worldwide enjoy the swinging lifestyle (formerly known as wife swapping in previous generations), and they are often brought closer together for sharing such an experience. Rarely does swinging break a couple apart – unless they’re doing it just as an excuse to have sex with other people, and to mask deeper relationship problems.

While swinging only involves sharing your partner with others for sex, many couples engage in polyamory, where there is an actual love relationship between multiple partners and couples. It’s easy to forget sometimes that not all cultures today or throughout history have practiced monogamy…

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