Every person I’ve ever met who participated in an “open relationship” became the target of profound jealousy, or became jealous themselves.
I think it sounds appealing; 🌈my partner and I love each other but our hearts are too big to only enjoy one person’s company🌈 then their partner sleeps with someone else and they get all shitty and bitter.
My experience has always been “Are you sure your partner is ok with this?” --> “Yes definitely” --> The partner becomes a shitty rage machine. I had a guy corner me at dinner with my friends and yell in public because he was so jealous. He agreed to the open relationship. He was a hypocrite. All three of us suffered because he couldn’t handle it. He should not have been in an open relationship.
That was the worst one but I think it applies to most people. It’s a pipe dream that they don’t have the emotional maturity to actualize.
I’ve had a couple female friends who were at one time in “open” relationships. In order to stay with and make their male partner happy, they had to agree to an open relationship. When they did, the inevitable happened. Another man found them attractive and was willing to have an unshared relationship with them. Their current male partners got jealous, and quickly became their former partners. The women went on to have better exclusive relationships. Their former partners complained that they were taken advantage of even though the women never wanted the open relationships in the first place. Even the gay couple - that were open from the very early stages of their relationship - only lasted 5-6 years before finding someone else each wanted to be with more. One of them is still with his ‘new’ guy. Lost track of his original partner. My takes: 1) unless you know when you are starting a relationship that you want it to be open and put that out there front and center so that the person getting into a relationship with you knows and agrees in advance that it is open, don’t try to negotiate it after the fact. 2) isn’t an open from the get go relationship just dating and not being exclusive? 3) men think that open relationships are their “fuck around for free” passes and can’t believe that their female partners would ever want another man.
Your last sentence is the way I have seen this play out most of the time. Man is restless, wants variety. Says “let’s try open” Cannot find a date but wife has multiple choices of dates. Husband gets mad because wife is living the life he wanted and even if it makes her more into her husband, he doesn’t see that benefit, it’s not what he was after.