Opening up marriage

We spent some time closed then opened up.

Threesomes were never part of the motivation. We've had one with a mutual friend (the two guys focused on me) and I'd consider it again but wouldn't actively seek it out. We've always dated separately.

Issues were mostly about time management. We live far from our extramarital people, so phone time can get quite high. But it's less of an issue now, even if there are some times where phone use is high.
 
OP, I'd just like to point out that by asking married people on a poly forum, how many of them opened their marriages and sucessfully transitioned to poly, you're going to get a VERY skewed answer, because the people who successfully opened are going to be the majority of the people still using the boards.

However, I'm going to guess there are plenty of non-married people on the boards who have dated someone from a marriage that opened and failed (either the marriage dissolved or they didn't stay poly), or you're just not going to get responses from all the people who stopped being poly and so wouldn't be on the boards.

I myself, just recently had a 2 year relationship with a partner end because the wife struggled the entire time to find a partner, didn't address her feelings and issues in a healthy way early on, and let things build to a point where she basically had a breakdown and demanded that the marriage close. I'm also fairly involved in a rather large poly network in my local community, and I'd say that in my observations, very FEW marriages have actually survived opening beyond the first few years. And of those that have survived, many have survived because they're holding it together for kids, holding it together for financial reasons, or holding it together because they've become comfortable with a platonic marriage and are more friends that still have a different sort of love for each other that isn't really the romantic love that they feel for other partners.

Those marriages that are doing well with open, the majority are still in the first few years of being open and there have definitely been lots of rocky parts.

The last small portion of people that I know that seem to be thriving with poly while opening a marriage, are the ones that maybe weren't open from the start, but that the idea had been something discussed from the start so it was intentional even before the marriage, OR they're just some of the lucky few that have actually made it work and made it last, and I've been able to witness that all parties involved are very good at communicating and handling their shit.


Not trying to be a debbie downer here, or say that everyone who is married and opens is doomed. But I'm also painting a realistic picture here that the reality is that people who have a serious, long term, monogamous relationship for many years often struggle greatly to accept how opening basically completely reshapes the relationship into something else. It's also often common that 1 person wants to open more than the other, and that the desire to open is tied to some incompatability that just becomes further highlighted after opening. I see VERY few people who just both happen to be on the same page with "wow, we super love each other and already have a satisfying love life too, but we just wanna spread that love to others!" and that everyone is having a grand ole time. Part of that is just optimism of really wanting the thing to work and not lose all that history. Part of the struggle is that people in general (married, single, whatever) are by and large somewhat crappy at communicating with each other well.
 
My husband and I might be in the "first few years" category, since we opened in spring 2013. I don't foresee the marriage ending because of poly--then again, who does?--but I'm aware we're an exception rather than the rule.

Some of the things that I think helps us work in a poly situation:
1. It was my husband's idea--but I'm the poly one. We are very different people in a lot of ways, and he was unable or unwilling to meet some of my needs. His suggestion was that I find other people to meet those needs, while we stayed married. So he didn't suggest opening because *he* wanted to find someone or had found someone, and I didn't suggest it at all.

2. Despite the incompatibilities we ran into, we are compatible in a number of ways, including (for the most part) sexually. If anything, the sexual aspect of our relationship has improved since poly started, because through exploring with other partners, I've learned more about what I want and have become more comfortable expressing it, and he's become more willing to compromise instead of doing "paint by numbers sex."

3. We've always communicated fairly well anyway, and poly has improved our communication skills because we have more to communicate about, and I've learned new skills and ways of communicating from my other partners, which I've put into practice in communicating with Hubby.

4. He believes in full autonomy. While he believes it's important for a married couple to keep each other informed of what's going on, he also believes in the philosophy of "If it harms none, do what you will." He also believes it's wrong to prevent someone from being who they innately are, and has told me that he will never ask me to stop having other relationships, because to him it's part of who I am.

5. He's a very self-contained person. One of the incompatibilities we still have is that he prefers spending his free time alone and is content just knowing I exist, whereas I need actual interaction with partners, whether that's going on dates or eating dinner together or whatever. While his tendency not to do any of those things with me is still sometimes a source of conflict, it also means that it doesn't bother him to have me off spending the night with someone else, because he still knows I exist and knows I'll be home at some point, and for him that's sufficient.

6. He's very secure. He doesn't (at least that he admits) experience insecurity or jealousy about my other relationships, because he's secure in who he is and in *our* relationship. Going along with that, he's also hyper-analytical; I sometimes call him Mr. Spock because he approaches everything from a rational, well-thought-out perspective and rarely if ever lets emotion have any input in his thoughts and decisions. And from a rational perspective, he recognizes that my other partners aren't/haven't been a threat to our marriage, so to him that means it wouldn't make sense to feel insecure or jealous about them.

7. I don't hide anything from him, unless it falls under the boundary we've established for "too much information" or unless it's something that would violate someone else's privacy. I tell all of my partners what my usual amount of info-sharing is, and ask them to assume that I'll tell my husband most things unless they specifically ask me not to, so there are some things they ask me not to share and some things that common sense says to keep to myself, for example if it involves one of my metamours as well as my partner.

8. I respect and observe his boundaries. There are really only three things he's asked of me in all of this. I consider all of them completely reasonable, and two are things I wouldn't do even if he hadn't set them as boundaries.

There are probably other factors, but those are the ones I can think of right now that I believe are why Hubby and I have successfully (so far, at least) opened a monogamous marriage, and are successfully operating in a poly-mono model.
 
Re (from ninjagirl):
"Did the husband have difficulty adjusting?"

It actually took almost a year of negotiations (between him and his wife) before he was ready to say yes. Also we (all three) had a few rocky years in the beginning of our V. But things are pretty smooth now.
 
breathemusic wrote:
OP, I'd just like to point out that by asking married people on a poly forum, how many of them opened their marriages and sucessfully transitioned to poly, you're going to get a VERY skewed answer, because the people who successfully opened are going to be the majority of the people still using the boards.

This does seem to be the case. Although there was some discussion as well, I believe that 16 posters indicated whether they had opened up their marriage (or came into a marriage open) - and whether it started with the "3-some phase". I wrote down a few notes as I went through the posts - so apologies in advance if I misunderstood anything - or missed something.

14 indicated that they had opened their marriage. This includes Kevin, who joined a couple who opened their marriage to include Kevin as a second husband. It also includes Vinsanity who stated that they had been CNM when first dating, but were mono by agreement when they married, but opened up later.

I believe Mags was the only one who indicated that the marriage ended after opening up. Sexyserb has returned to mono. Lunabunny indicated that she did not open up her marriage and the marriage ended later. Breathethemusic did not indicate that she had opened up a marriage, or that she is currently married. So, if I understand the posts correctly, of the 13 currently married individuals who replied, all opened up their marriage after a period of monogamy (again, including Vinsanity and Kevin's somewhat different situations).

Mags was the only one who indicated that they went the "open up the marriage with a FMF triad route" (which failed). icesong did indicate that they had a non-romantic triad during their path from swinging to poly. Others have had occasional 3-somes along the way. Al
 
breathemusic wrote:


This does seem to be the case. Although there was some discussion as well, I believe that 16 posters indicated whether they had opened up their marriage (or came into a marriage open) - and whether it started with the "3-some phase". I wrote down a few notes as I went through the posts - so apologies in advance if I misunderstood anything - or missed something.

14 indicated that they had opened their marriage. This includes Kevin, who joined a couple who opened their marriage to include Kevin as a second husband. It also includes Vinsanity who stated that they had been CNM when first dating, but were mono by agreement when they married, but opened up later.

I believe Mags was the only one who indicated that the marriage ended after opening up. Sexyserb has returned to mono. Lunabunny indicated that she did not open up her marriage and the marriage ended later. Breathethemusic did not indicate that she had opened up a marriage, or that she is currently married. So, if I understand the posts correctly, of the 13 currently married individuals who replied, all opened up their marriage after a period of monogamy (again, including Vinsanity and Kevin's somewhat different situations).

Mags was the only one who indicated that they went the "open up the marriage with a FMF triad route" (which failed). icesong did indicate that they had a non-romantic triad during their path from swinging to poly. Others have had occasional 3-somes along the way. Al

I'd like to point out that my marriage didn't end because we tried poly. That was one of the reasons, but we had other serious incompatibilities, and I'm pretty sure we would have divorced anyway.
 
I'd like to point out that my marriage didn't end because we tried poly. That was one of the reasons, but we had other serious incompatibilities, and I'm pretty sure we would have divorced anyway.

Thanks for the clarification, Magdlyn - I definitely didn't mean to imply that poly caused the divorce.
 
Late to the conversation but...

My relationship/marriage with MrS has never been monogamous - I ID'd as poly going in. We have had successful sexual threesomes with good friends, FWBs, metamours etc. but wouldn't say we were angling for a triad per se Until Dude we had a de facto OPP - by mutual understanding.:rolleyes: On the other hand we also don't really have a need to "define" our relationships in the ways that some people do so...
 
We opened from a mono marriage, and dated separately from the start of opening. A FMF threesome was only very briefly discussed, but any threesome ideas were taken off the table mutually for two reasons: both of us are strictly straight, and neither of us are turned on watching the other have sex with others. So honestly it wouldn’t be fair to the third party to enter what would essentially be an experiment with people who were not turned on by the idea. We are currently just us right now after each of our breakups with others. We’re not currently interested in actively pursuing other people due to time and family schedules. Again, it wouldn’t be fair to anyone, as we have so little time for just ourselves and kids...trying to divide up that time further would cause great stress, so we recognize our limits for now.
 
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