the price of open (and closed) relationships

Sorry, I didn't get lovely or nuanced at all from the piece.

"Marriage isn’t the place to sample and explore, as I did in college. But even here, romantic love is more complicated than in the old children’s rhyme. It’s still an experiment — in trust, understanding and communication. Like any experiment, it could fail. There are no guarantees. As a wife and now a mother, I see that giving my heart to just one other person may be the riskiest way to love of all."

It's pointedly pro-monogamy. She infers that open love relationships are immature and OK for experimenting college kids, but truly courageous adults opt for mono love.

:confused:
 
It's pointedly pro-monogamy. She infers that open love relationships are immature and OK for experimenting college kids, but truly courageous adults opt for mono love.

But then there's this:

I had fled an open relationship, opting for the safety of a closed circle. But the wreckage of monogamous relationships lies all around us. The notion that they’re somehow more stable than open ones is an illusion. Not because monogamy is unsafe, but because all romantic love is. It’s powerful and thrilling. It’s also terrifying.

And, to put the quotation you pull out in some context:

Marriage isn’t the place to sample and explore, as I did in college. But even here, romantic love is more complicated than in the old children’s rhyme. It’s still an experiment — in trust, understanding and communication. Like any experiment, it could fail. There are no guarantees. As a wife and now a mother, I see that giving my heart to just one other person may be the riskiest way to love of all.

So, no, it's not a pro-polyamory manifesto, but neither is it simply pro-monogamy. It leaves open the possibility that risk is irreducible, and the choice to be monogamous is no less risky than the choice to be open.

That, at least, is the nuance I saw in it.
 
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"I see that giving my heart to just one other person may be the riskiest way to love of all."

Isn't that a bit like implying it takes more guts to be monogamous, due to monogamy's higher risk level?
 
Re:


Isn't that a bit like implying it takes more guts to be monogamous, due to monogamy's higher risk level?

Yeah, that's what I got from the article - that loving one person is more heroic and more mature because you've placed all your bets on one horse, so if you lose, you lose big. I guess that's courageous, according to the author, and also implies that love relationships become diluted the more you have. Her premise is that additional relationships "save" you from the pain of losing another because you're not as emotionally invested as you are when you just have one.
 
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"Yeah, that's what I got from the article -- that loving one person is more heroic and more mature because you've placed all your bets on one horse, so if you lose, you lose big."

Oohhhh ... now I follow. (Though there's always serial monogamy to consider)

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"I guess that's courageous, according to the author, and also implies that love relationships become diluted the more you have."

True in the sense of time and energy getting spread out thinner. But, then, some people are happy with "diluted" relationships and that's ... okay.

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"Her premise is that additional relationships 'save' you from the pain of losing another because you're not as emotionally invested as you are when you just have one."

Not as emotionally invested? That's another matter. As one of the legs of a V, I'm quite sure that Snowbunny (the hinge) is 100% emotionally invested in each of the two guys. I'm quite sure that she'd be 100% devastated if she lost either of us. So there's one case in point!

I know I'm preaching to the choir and I don't mean to argue with you FA; it's the article/author whom I pick at.
 
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