Many couples say they couldn’t bear the idea, while others say they’re more than a little curious.
Rach Wilson and her husband Kerry are in a successful open relationship. They’ve been married for 11 years and seeing other people for eight years.
The Melbourne couple, both 38, have a 9-year-old daughter together and Rach has a 16-year-old from a previous relationship.
Rach says infidelity and divorce rates could be slashed if people were more open-minded about different types of relationships.
I would call myself ‘biflexible’ or ‘heteroflexible’. I believe that some people are naturally not monogamous. It’s like the bell curve. You’ve got the extremes, and then every other person lands in different places.
There are some people that are absolutely suited to monogamy. They need consistency and routine, but there are a bunch of people that need variety.
They can love more than one person at a time. But our arrangement is that my husband is my primary lover.
There is not one box that all of us can fit into. A lot of society in terms of religion and the media, propagate the idea that monogamy is the way it should be. It creates a struggle for some people.
I think infidelity and divorce rates could be reduced significantly if education and communication about different styles of relationships, and how to make them work successfully, was made more available.
When I got into this relationship, I said, ‘I’m not going to be who you want me to be, I’m going to be who I want to be’.
I’ve been married once before and one of the things that I wish I had done was been myself more. I completely lost who I was because I picked up all of his interests and hobbies.
When Kerry and I first got together, I said to him, ‘I’m a flirtatious, social kind of person and I want to be able to be that person. If you can’t handle that, then there’s going to be an issue.’
And he was relieved, because he was exactly the same.
Both of us in our previous relationships had very jealous partners, and we’d shut that part of us down because we didn’t want to cause pain to our partners.
But in doing that, the second you start to repress or hide who you are, a part of you dies.
Because we were so open and honest in those first few weeks of dating, when the opportunity [to see other people] came up, it was easier to have that conversation and explore the idea.
But it was still a very hard question to put out there. It was me that wanted to open up our relationship. Initially Kerry wasn’t 100 per cent comfortable with it.
I was away at a personal development workshop and I felt a real attraction to one of the other people I was in the group with.
I said, ‘I’d really love us to talk about opening up our relationship because I’d like to be able to experience these things, and I’d like you to be able to experience them too’.
We sat down and said, ‘How are we going to do this?’
We’re only human. We had all the usual fears.
We discussed boundaries and we would do a little debrief after each experience — to share what we liked and what we didn’t like and to be able to discuss that further so that both of us were comfortable.
Clearly an open relationship requires a bit more emotional intelligence for it to be a success. It really does hinge on how good you are at communicating.
If one of us is feeling not right about something, then it’s up to us to bring it up and talk about it. You have to speak up if you’re not feeling comfortable.
When impromptu opportunities come up, we just say, ‘Hey babe, I’d really love to do this. It this OK?’
If the other person is OK with it, then great. If not, we have a discussion.
We could work out a compromise — ‘Could you please be home by a certain hour?’, or ‘Could you please do this nice thing for me?’
Both of us want each other to do what makes them happy, but not at the expense of our own happiness.
It’s a delicate balance. The whole thing is about collaborating with your partner and being flexible with what you want and what they want to do.”
The most difficult time is when both of us are feeling a bit precious and our ability to communicate isn’t as good.
Because we’re human and we don’t get it right all the time. Sometimes we overreact like any normal couple, but most of the time we get it pretty right.
Sometimes we go to parties, or other people’s houses, or swinger’s events. We’ll go to those types of events and end up at an after party.
It depends. There have been times where we’ve had a dinner party, we get the kids baby sat away from the house, and we have the whole house to ourselves.
People think it’s this sordid thing, but it’s just like going back onto the singles dating scene, but this time you’re going it as a couple.
I’m always saying things like, ‘Oh no babe, you can’t wear that shirt! Make sure you put the sexy underwear on. Make sure you put the cologne on. You want to smell good’.
Life doesn’t have to be so serious.
We told my oldest daughter [about our open relationship] a few years ago. We had a great conversation. Now that she’s 16 she’s making choices for herself.
We told her knowing full well she was starting to form her own opinions and we wanted to explain things to her before people’s negative opinions got to her first.
She thanked me for telling her about different kinds of relationships because she feels like now she can make a really conscious choice for herself. And she’s not weirded-out if she wants something different in life.
She loves that she can see we’re extremely happy and we’re extremely connected. What she’s getting to experience is a very happy and healthy relationship.
Some people can be a bit judgmental. Most of the time it’s people questioning the values I’m teaching my child. It’s all a bit too much for some people.
But most people are curious more than anything.
They ask questions like, ‘How does that work? How do you negotiate things as a couple?’. Because I’ve been so open about my life, it’s opened up the door for a lot of other people to explore different types of relationships.
Have you experienced an open relationship? Would you like to try it? Let us know what you think below!
Source: news.com.au
