Open Relationships: Cost & Benefits

Source: http://www.americanchronicle.com
Author: Marwa Rakha

Open Relationships: Cost & Benefits

Benefits:

It is an ideal relationship because the couple would never get bored of one another, they get to enjoy space and freedom, and that he was open and candid about having other partners, but he would always come back to her. Life was too short! He was very honest with his girl and with all the other girls; it was a sign of how decent and open-minded he was.

So an open relationship is like an open invitation for the man to come and go as he pleased? Who would accept that? Is it like a permission to cheat? What kind of man would have the audacity to demand that?

Does it mean that exclusivity is struck out of the context of the relationship? Why would anyone want to do that? So, could the girl have multiple partners as well? What would that make of her man? Half a man?

If you delete commitment, trust, and respect from a relationship, what would you have left? Sex? Where would such an arrangement leave intimacy, bonding, and partnership? Why even call it a relationship in the first place?

In the old days, men used to tell naïve girls that they were separated.
A series of closed-ended questions should be asked for clarification;

#1. I always started with whether they lived in separate houses
#2. I asked whether they lived in separate bedrooms
#3. I asked if they slept in separate beds.

Most of the time, the answer is "no". I used to struggle as I asked for a definition of being separated, and I was always told that they were separated on the mental and emotional level.

A decade later, men grew wiser and realized that their “I am separated” line is not flying. They used the head on top of their shoulders and voila: a new type of relationships that sounds so politically sound - an open relationship was their proposition! A solution that relieved them of any previously felt guilt. He does not have to lie about his whereabouts or hide his tracks anymore; why should he when his partner gave up her right to object and agreed to become an object in his life?

There are two types of girls who would accept such a deal;

Prototype A is a girl who does not have true feelings and is using him just as much as he is using her.

Prototype B is a desperate girl who consensually gives the man the right to kick her behind whenever he pleased. Aside from the traditional code of ethics, and shockingly enough, I carry more respect for the first type, as opposed to contempt, with no traces of sympathy, for the second.

Seven commandments of a man’s open relationship

(using George Orwell’s Animal Farm model):
1. Whatever goes upon two legs, and asks for exclusivity, is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has no character, is a friend.
3. No man shall wear a wedding ring – married or not.
4. No man shall sleep in the same woman’s bed forever – married or not married to him.
5. No man shall respect women – women were created for entertainment.
6. No man shall commit to any woman – married or not married to him.
7. All people are equal but men are more equal than women.