What Is an Open Marriage: The Pros and Cons

Generally, people keep asking what is the need for an open relationship. It is almost like living your single life and having different affair with the opposite sex. Why would a couple simply unite instead of staying together and enjoying their marriage as a couple? They also agree to seek pleasure outside their union.

Such marriage may never be safe. It may have many demerits over merits. What then is the need for such union because it is believed that the couples will only get to hurt each other. People also wonder what the children from such marriage would look like and how long such marriage will survive. An open relationship may be rare in existence nowadays but indirectly some couples may be practicing it secretly by indulging in infidelity acts.

What is an open marriage?

It is a marital union where both couples firmly agree to have extramarital affairs with other partners outside their marriage. The extra affair can range from having different intimate affairs with them. So long, the agreement is in existence. Sometimes people would imagine it as cheating but it is not because the difference here is the agreement and the openness.

Cheating can be carried out in secret without the knowledge of the other partner. But with an open marriage, any of the couples are free to have an affair with a third party even in the presence of the other partner. Most people who detest open marriage simply condemn it that: with an open marriage, there is no marriage.

Do people still engage in open marriage these days?

The truth is that every woman wants to have her own man and enjoy her marriage. It is rare if ever it still exists, but there are some religious norms where one man many wives are allowed. Here they tend to be a binding factor against the wives that none of them must ever have an affair with any man other than their husband.

Meanwhile, the man is free to seek pleasure outside and can as well take as many wives and concubines as he chooses. Looking at the condition surrounding this religion regarding marital issues, it does not favor the womenfolk. The women are on the losing side of it. Hence, they are bound by their law, religion, and tradition to stick only to their husband. 

Again, no woman ever wants to have a rival in her marriage. The mere thought that the man is having a mistress outside her union makes her uneasy. So, looking at the whole scenario the summary of it all is that women specifically detest open marriage.

However, everything in life walks side by side, there is always the right side of an issue as well as the wrong side of the issue. Open marriage despite every other thing also has its pros of it.

What are the pros of open marriage?

Open marriage can help each partner to experience different aspects of a love life. It goes further to widen their knowledge about marital issues and be able to ascertain what the other partner is lacking intimately.

Sometimes it seems like a competition so each partner strives to get the other partner more committed.

It can bring about jealousy that might lead to dissolving the marriage. However, envy might also act as a means of getting them more attached to each other.

It might serve as the best where either of the partners is having a sexual dysfunction. Then he or she can extend the activity externally.  

It might also be preferable where the couples are experiencing reproduction issues. The woman may want to get pregnant from the third party or the man may want to have offspring with his mistress.

What are the cons of open marriage?

It might be difficult to maintain their primary relationship especially if one of the partners finds something very enthusiastic from the extramarital affair.

There is a greater chance of insecurity as any of the couples can go emotional when communicating with the third-party partner. This is because they may reveal their secrets to the third person without knowing it.

They both stand the risk of producing illegitimate offspring as they also engage in both sexual and romantic affairs.

As they, both keep having affairs outside their union, the intimacy gap is losing. At a point, they may find each other detesting and unable to continue their relationship.

There is a greater risk of contracting infectious illness by one person and transferring it to the other partner.

In as much as they are not bound strictly by only loving each other, they might face ridicules from people and conflicts from outside their union.

Finally, open marriage is otherwise seen as a temporary coming together of a man and woman in which the motive is to test the compatibility of the couples involved.