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Post by baza on Jan 19, 2023 0:40:33 GMT -5
There is nothing stopping one having a go at an "open marriage". In my jurisdiction it is not illegal to persue this option, if that's what you want to do. Of course if one does decide to have a go at this option, it is not "risk free". It could blow things up big time and spin the situation in unintended / unexpected directions up to and including ending the marriage. It is not an option for the faint hearted or the ill prepared as the outcome one gets may not bear much resemblance to the outcome one was hoping for. Sister saarinista notes - "There are not a lot of great options out there" and that's true. There are NONE that are risk free. There are NONE that don't involve consequences.
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Post by saarinista on Jan 19, 2023 16:52:41 GMT -5
baza is correct-there are no risk free options for life in general. And ever action or inaction invokes a reaction.
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Post by Apocrypha on Jan 19, 2023 22:24:17 GMT -5
Interesting. However, apparently that legal view is based partly on the concept that people should be begetting children and fulfilling their "marital obligations." Not exactly the most enticing reasons to have sex, IMHO.... Also, in most places you don't have to have "grounds" any longer to divorce, do you? I just wish open marriage was more sanctioned. My spouse for example is a kind and decent man. The last thing I'd want to do is upset his life with financial and legal procedings. I like him. I care about him. Those parts of the marriage are fine. It's the sex that is lacking. But throwing out a whole marriage to have sex-it seems like overkill to me. There are not a lot of great options out there! I've been down this road with my own marriage, which we opened for the reasons you described. What I learned from that was that you can still have sexual intimacy in your life, visiting it like a vacation, but the place at which you live leaves you feeling unloved. This feeling may even be emphasized when you compare what your married partner offers vs the treatment received from someone with less time and effort invested. And then, eventually the iceberg emerges from the fog and you consider the full size of your problem. You begin to realize the absurdity of weighing marriage against sex (marriage is a uniquely intimate relationship that includes sexual intimacy - it's not one vs another). As you try to untangle that knot you look upstream from the lack of sex with your partner and realize that your partner has a reason for not having sex with you, and that is that they don't want to. Maybe they did before, but not now. You realize that it's not indifference to sex that you are facing, because when staring down a divorce and the dismantling of your whole lives, you'd think "why not have sex then?" would be preferable. No, this is someone who really, really, doesn't want to have sex with you now, when at one point maybe they were attracted to you. At that point, when you start to think through your own experiences having an attraction switch to a massive aversion, and what caused you to feel that way maybe with a prior relationship that you ended or avoided entirely. Usually, it's a severe loss of respect, of understanding, of empathy, a feeling of deep, deep anger or disgust on a level that changes what you thought of that person. It's a feeling of being trapped with someone - of having made a terrible mistake. And on some level, you KNOW deep down this is how your partner is reacting to your existence in your own home, in your own bed. So it's not that you throw a whole marriage out to have sex; but rather "Do you really have a marriage at all? (as opposed to a different kind of intimate relationship - such as a cooperative ex-spouse and co-parent?), and it's about choosing to live with someone who feels a level of disconnection and antipathy toward you so intense that they will (as far as you know) override their own sex drive and risk the dissolution of your household and family, to avoid touching you. It's not a small thing at all, when you consider the antipathy that's upstream of the celibate outcome (that being no sex). You can open the relationship and seek sexual adventure with other people, but that still doesn't change where you LIVE and with whom. That still stands, sometimes in stark contrast to what's offered elsewhere. And THEN, in an open relationship, you find that your partner wants to do it too - just not so much with you. This is simply a preview of what most people will discover post-separation, which is that their asexual partner has been cured and can somehow find the joy in banging other people. That's a harsh toke. If it's happening within marriage, they likely STILL will resent your participation in it - because it's not even about the sex. It's about them not wanting you to eroticize them in any way (even for your own enjoyment), and they don't like knowing about or being associated with your erotic intimacy in any way. This is what I found from my own wife, who also described our relationship as otherwise loving, from a woman who seemed otherwise kind and decent and who seems to be a good mother. And, some version of this - I've found in the dating world when newly single women describe the death throes of their marriage and how they perceived their waning libido.
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Post by baza on Jan 20, 2023 0:37:24 GMT -5
Adding to Brother Apocrypha post above. If you end up choosing to go down the "open marriage" path, that carries no guarantee whatsoever that a great sex life for you will be the outcome. All opening the marriage does is open the marriage, it won't - in and of itself - produce a lover out of thin air. 'Funny' things can happen in the open marriage scenario. I can't remember the members name bu he recently declared his marriage opened and his missus agreed to the proposal. In fact his missus hit the ground running and had a lover sorted and in action within weeks. As far as is known, our ILIASM sibling isn't even up to the starting gate. I think if one is going to "open the marriage" then a by product of that single issue is also opening a can of worms.
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Post by mirrororchid on Jan 20, 2023 7:33:57 GMT -5
By Apocrypha's description, the open marriage accelerated the realization of the nature of his marriage. This strikes me as a very good thing. If dissolution must happen, what's the point of waiting? Sure, the college plan or a terminal illness may provide an easier exit worth waiting for, but realizing the inevitability is a great improvement.
I'm uncertain the home environment needs to seem so sterile though. As I recall, Mrs. Apocrypha was zesty in pursuit of extramarital encounters but could not cloak her jealousy whenever Apocrypha had some intimacy as well. This need not happen in every scenario. In "kitchen table poly" lovers share bedrooms in the same house as a spouse and they are cordial to each other. Nothing prevents spouses from coupling later if the mood strikes them and absent the pressure to make it happen, the optional activity may have appeal once in a blue moon.
As said many times before, opening a marriage is a serious threat to a marriage's survival, regardless of whether the opening is secret, informed, or consensual. Apocrypha's observations about denial of the other flaws of a partnership being revealed strikes me as a scary, unpleasant benefit of opening anyway. If the flaws are revealed, they can be addressed and potentially fixed, or the realization of dissolution being a good idea becomes obvious enough to act upon it, hopefully with conscious common cause to make the process cooperative, fair, and beneficial.
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Post by Apocrypha on Jan 20, 2023 11:14:23 GMT -5
Adding to Brother Apocrypha post above. 'Funny' things can happen in the open marriage scenario. I can't remember the members name bu he recently declared his marriage opened and his missus agreed to the proposal. In fact his missus hit the ground running and had a lover sorted and in action within weeks. As far as is known, our ILIASM sibling isn't even up to the starting gate. Generally, women are at a massive, overwhelming advantage in online dating and especially when seeking sexual intimacy without the full responsibility of a marriage. Dick is cheap and plentiful for women. Even couples seeking women are plentiful. It's an embarrassment of riches for any woman of even moderate attractiveness. For men, it's a different story. Far, far, more competition, and competition from single men. Not to mention, a lot of women - even those seeking casual encounters - find it creepy or untrustworthy if the guy is seeking someone. When my relationship opened, it was a matter of a couple months for Mrs Apocrypha to find and vet someone, but it took me over a year. This is normal.
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Post by Apocrypha on Jan 20, 2023 11:23:02 GMT -5
By Apocrypha's description, the open marriage accelerated the realization of the nature of his marriage. This strikes me as a very good thing. If dissolution must happen, what's the point of waiting? Sure, the college plan or a terminal illness may provide and exit that gives you an easier exit, but realizing the inevitability is a great improvement. I'm uncertain the home environment needs to seem so sterile though. As I recall, Mrs. Apocrypha was zesty in pursuit of extramarital encounters but could not cloak her jealousy whenever Apocrypha had some intimacy as well. This need not happen in every scenario. In "kitchen table poly" lovers share bedrooms in the same house as a spouse and they are cordial to each other. Nothing prevents spouses from coupling later if the mood strikes them and absent the pressure to make it happen, the optional activity may have appeal once in a blue moon. As said many times before, opening a marriage is a serious threat to a marriage's survival, regardless of whether the opening is secret, informed, or consensual. Apocrypha's observations about denial of the other flaws of a partnership being revealed strikes me as a scary, unpleasant benefit of opening anyway. If the flaws are revealed, they can be addressed and potentially fixed, or the realization of dissolution being a good idea becomes obvious enough to act upon it, hopefully with conscious common cause to make the process cooperative, fair, and beneficial. Ya - to clarify - or underline. My cautions around this aren't intended as a criticism of the format in general, but rather the subsection of people within it who are seeking it as a solution to something missing at home. I do indeed advocate for seriously presenting the open relationship terms as an alternative to certain divorce, with the caveat that the conversation itself may move the relationship to dissolution, or encourage an affair on the partners' side. In my case, we had already agreed to split and had spoken to lawyers when she changed her mind and pitched an open relationship. Presenting such dilemma to a partner in a celibate relationship is a gambit. Example "We can split now, or we can stay married but I'm going to bang other people and we can negotiate parameters about how you want to go about that, and how involved you want to be - but I won't accept a pattern of sabotage. If you don't like it, or are uncomfortable with those two choices, the remaining choice is that you actually deal with whatever is driving this disconnection between us and take it as seriously as I do. Clock is ticking - and the default choice is that I'm going into town, instead of staying home this time, so it's on you." Mrs Apocrypha's spectacular failure to accommodate my own extra-marital adventures with a paramour (comparably tame, less frequent, and coming after a year of her own), were largely based around the issues she had with me and marriage occurring upstream of our own sexual aversion. More specifically, the result was that the complexities of navigating an open relationship simply became a new battlefield in which she waged her passive-aggressive expression of anger or disgust with me, in addition to marriage and any other forum. It didn't solve the problem that was resulting in the initial lack of sex, and she made damn sure that my participation in this adventure was known to be as unappreciated and unworkable as the rest of the intimate relationship.
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Post by sweetplumeria on Jan 23, 2023 1:02:04 GMT -5
I am a medical coder started working from home 3 years ago. Thanks for this suggestion!!!
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Post by sweetplumeria on Jan 23, 2023 1:21:17 GMT -5
apocryphal, thanks for adding those insights. I do think that they are on point but also adds a longterm perspective, that I hope helps any new arrivals
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