“Me, I didn’t want to look elsewhere and I ended up comparing myself”: when her first boyfriend offered to open their relationship to her, Roxane accepted out of spite, because he had, she says, a greater libido than his.
“I had the impression that his other associates were all more open-minded than me,” says the young woman.
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If there are not, strictly speaking, good or bad reasons to open the couple, the difference in libido between the partners does not generally lead to good results, notes the sexologist Malicia Hotton. She adds that non-monogamy should be seen “as an addition and not a compensation for shortcomings in the couple”.
“If the person feels obligated or is driven by fear of losing the other, it won’t work. As soon as you experience this kind of discomfort, you have to discuss it with your partner,” she emphasizes, while emphasizing the importance of enthusiastic and informed consent from both members of the couple.
Non-monogamy still taboo
Because Roxane was not keen on the idea of opening up her relationship, she asked her boyfriend not to tell her about the other people he was seeing.
“He was talking to me about friends. I suspected it was more than that, but it was never said. It started to take a lot of space between us and I was worried about STBBIs. I didn’t know who he was seeing and if he was getting tested,” she says.
She and her boyfriend finally decided to leave each other. Looking back on her experience, Roxane regrets not knowing how to navigate an open relationship. “I had never seen an open couple around me. I didn’t know if the discomfort I was feeling was normal or not.”
The stigmatization of non-monogamous relationships can indeed have an isolating effect, points out Malicia Hotton. People who try it for the first time often choose not to tell their loved ones so as not to be judged, she adds.
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Needs work on yourself
When Charlene first attempted non-monogamy, she was coming out of a four-year exclusive relationship.
“I had been left for someone else and that hurt me a lot. I felt like doing this [la non-monogamie]I would no longer be abandoned,” she recalls.
She then started dating someone with whom she decided to form an open couple.
“With hindsight, the two of us used the open couple as a crutch for our personal traumas, confides the young woman. It was toxic!”
When the other person she was in a relationship with started dating someone else more seriously, it was too much for her. She began to feel anxious and left out, before realizing that the person she was in an open relationship with was in another monogamous relationship.
Despite the disappointment of the failure of this first non-monogamous experience, it does not definitively close the door to open relationships. “I would like to try the experience again, but I think I would need to solve some problems in therapy first,” she says.
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A couple’s project
One of the secrets to a successful open couple is communication, insists Malicia Hotton.
Do we want to open the couple, do polyamory or rather debauchery? Are we looking for new sexual or rather romantic partners? Do we want to be kept informed of the adventures of his or her partner? Are there any gestures that cannot be done with other partners? These are questions that couples should discuss early in the process, according to the sex therapist.
“The couple’s contract must be redone in an explicit and clear manner so that all parties consent to it”, specifies the sexologist, adding that the arrangement does not always please the first time and that adjustments are sometimes necessary.
“We will have to have several discussions and let our feelings mature. A couple is a living entity that changes and grows. For that, you have to communicate with honesty and trust each other, ”she concludes.
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