Open Relationship

SecretSatisfaction

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hi all, just after some advice. Is anyone in/tried an open relationship? Me and my husband have been together 9 years (married for 6) and have agreed to give it a go.

I’m just wondering how people in this situation find it? Does it work? He’s already had a guy since we agreed to it and I’m wondering do I ask him how it was? I’m a little curious but then not sure I want to know?

thank you
 
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NoodisTX

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Being open is a tricky road to navigate... and every couple is different, so advice you get may or may not work for you.

For me, it's been an evolution. At first - if going solo, it was oral only... and no kissing. After a couple years there, we got rid of the rules. We've been open (though I don't like that term) for about 5 years now...

When I'm out of town, and he goes out on the weekend, I get jealous and anxious.... but when I see pics of the guy and hear about the encounter, it's insanely hot.

But #1 rule that I would HIGHLY recommend is this... Communicate. All the way. Talk about how you feel -- even if you're not sure about how you feel. Is it uncomfortable to hear about his encounters? Does it turn you on? Establish transparency ASAP. If there's sneaking, lying, and other shady stuff popping up, put an end to it.

I'd also strongly urge you both to get to a doctor and get on PrEP ASAP. And get tested for all the nasty STIs often. You don't want to bring that stuff home.

But also --- maintain your own sex life with your partner. Don't ditch it in lieu of outside hookups.
I just got onto my partner for putting too much effort into going out and hooking up while not putting much effort into ME.

Just... talk about it. Be vulnerable with your partner. Outside sex is fun and exciting... but you have to protect your relationship first.
 

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Yes, outside sex can be fun, but as anyone could imagine this can be dangerous to a real love relationship. Sooner or later someone will come into either of your paths that can threaten or end the relationship. The second guy my BF brought into ours, I fell for almost immediately. We've been doing this for over four years and the ultimate blow finally happened to our love relationship leaving it now, nearly dead. In open relationships there are some things, in my opinion, either one simply does not do and now has been done in ours. It's better to just have a circle of friends who play instead of a real boyfriend you love when engaging in this.
 

elklindoxxx

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I'll speak for my situation. For we....

1. Do full swap with other couples, depending on the situation we will host or the other couple will host. There are some couples who have children so they obviously can't host. In that situation we have a small guest room with twin beds where we have sex.

2. Go on individual dates for one on one hook-ups. In that situation we are fully open with each other, no secrets, where we will openly communicate that. In terms of hosting, if the date is single we can either host or the date can host. If the date is married then either we can host or the date can get a hotel. For my partner her safety is very important even though she never had any issues. She mostly goes with younger single men and goes to their apartment. With married men, she will go to a hotel and they will pay. At all times I'll know where she's located.

Always use contraceptives. The married people who we go on individual dates are really really horny. The married guys are premature ejaculators and they always don't pull out. And the married women, I've had certain ones tell me to cum in their pussy. You need to be careful so you don't get someone pregnant or some STD. We are extremely picky so we never contracted any STD's nor has anyone gotten pregnant.

For us, it's better to have an open relationship so we don't out and cheat on each other. Because we cannot be a monogamous couple, it would not work.
 
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deleted18388141

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I have seen 3 friends trying this and i have also seen their relation transform into being roomates then divorce or seperate…
I can t say it s a rule! I just relate the experience arround me
I am curious to see how things will go for uou
 

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hi all, just after some advice. Is anyone in/tried an open relationship? Me and my husband have been together 9 years (married for 6) and have agreed to give it a go.

I’m just wondering how people in this situation find it? Does it work? He’s already had a guy since we agreed to it and I’m wondering do I ask him how it was? I’m a little curious but then not sure I want to know?

thank you

Open relationships can provide an escape valve for sexual tensions that can build up and cause resentments in relationships. In monogamous straight relationships there is often cheating going on that when discovered causes huge amounts of drama. My brother for example cheated on his wife with a married neighbor lady and the drama it resulted was worthy of a soap opera. Gay men take a more realistic approach and realize that sexual temptation can be impossible to resist and should not be a deal-breaker and cause all of this crazy drama. I am in an LTR where we are open and over the years I had some flings with men that were hot. But I have to say that most of the time sex outside my relationship is boring. It's hotter in theory than reality and it's made me appreciate that there is a reason I am with my partner- we have really special chemistry in bed. Having said that I have known situations where someone in an open relationship left their partner for a person they were both sleeping with and it was dramatic but I think that relationship was not strong enough to begin with. There is also the risk of emotional entanglement. One guy I got involved with was a single guy. The sex was monumentally hot, sweaty, steamy, very visceral and physical. I remember he had adorable purplish balls that reminded me of little plump eggplants. I was the first man who fucked him and when I did it felt like I unloaded gallons of cum into him. But he wanted me to leave my partner, which I told him from the beginning would not happen, and he gave me an ultimatum and ended up really hurt. Looking back I see that I had a sexual connection with that guy that rarely happens for me. There were two other guys I messed around with where the sex was really wild, but mostly when I have met up with guys, even ones I think are very hot, the sex ranges from decent to just ok to boring. Now I hardly mess around outside of my relationship, mostly because it takes effort and more often than not it's just boring so not worth the bang for the buck so to speak.
 

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In monogamous straight relationships there is often cheating going on that when discovered causes huge amounts of drama. My brother for example cheated on his wife with a married neighbor lady and the drama it resulted was worthy of a soap opera. Gay men take a more realistic approach and realize that sexual temptation can be impossible to resist and should not be a deal-breaker and cause all of this crazy drama.
I don't disagree with this assessment, but it's a bit euphemistic. Gay men have the privilege of being able to take a more relaxed approach to monogamy, because paternity and sexual access are typically not things that they have to concern themselves with. It's easy to think you're more evolved on a subject when you don't have the same prerequisites in place to get there.
 
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Ahhh Ha

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I don't wanna be negative but an open relationship after a decade of monogamy sound like he want to cheat without receiving any backlash. Personally I would feel some type of way. It be different if you were going into a relationship with a man who isn't monogamous because then it would feel like he know what he wants.
 
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I do agree it's strange that you want to make it open after 9 years together but I'll just give my experience being in an open relationship for 4 years.

When we first met, he was still really new to gay sex and I was really the first person to open him up to it and somehow it turned into an actual relationship. He wanted to make it open since he didn't have much experience with men and I was open to it. We established a few base rules to ensure we still had a level of trust in the relationship:
- no outside dating
- keep it safe and get on prep
- tell each other whenever we do have separate encounters

Honestly, it feels like our relationship has gotten stronger because of it. We don't get jealous of each other or really worry about what we're doing. Anytime another guy tries to get too emotionally attached, we'll just stop talking to them. We're also usually too busy to do things with other guys and prefer to hang out together anyways, so being open is mostly for spicing things up.

My advice is the same as what others have said. You HAVE to communicate what you're comfortable with. If you don't, then you'll just build up resentment and once it's crossed that line, the relationship will end. Think it through and be open about how you feel. You can't stay in a relationship with someone you don't trust.
 

chrisrobin

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hi all, just after some advice. Is anyone in/tried an open relationship? Me and my husband have been together 9 years (married for 6) and have agreed to give it a go.

I’m just wondering how people in this situation find it? Does it work? He’s already had a guy since we agreed to it and I’m wondering do I ask him how it was? I’m a little curious but then not sure I want to know?

thank you
You don't want to know.
You also need boundaries that can't be crossed.
 

Planetofsound

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hi all, just after some advice. Is anyone in/tried an open relationship? Me and my husband have been together 9 years (married for 6) and have agreed to give it a go.

I’m just wondering how people in this situation find it? Does it work? He’s already had a guy since we agreed to it and I’m wondering do I ask him how it was? I’m a little curious but then not sure I want to know?

thank you
I’m with my partner 14 yrs we’ve had an open relationship about half of that time.. each of us liked something different from it. I found it a big turn on to hear or imagine him with someone else, whereas he preferred not to know the detail. Sometimes we would meet someone together and sometimes separate. It is essential though to communicate, we used the open relationship to help ours along
For example if there was something that wasn’t as great as it used to be like kissing it would come clear from meeting others that this needed improvement and helped bring it back to what it used to be by discussing it and acknowledging it was missing.
If yourself and your partner set the stage so to speak and are able to take some good from it and communicate that to one another beforehand and use it to improve things between you rather than cause resentment then it can be a great thing to do.
set rules like not being on Grindr or whatever talking to others when you are both in the same room or chilling together for the evening.
Also be willing if one person starts to doubt it’s for them both must stop immediately.
this happened at one point for us but once that doubt settled we went back to it.

You never know, it could really turn out for the best….
Before I even met my partner, a person from the other side of the country I had come across on one of the dating apps years ago had always stood out in my mind as a dream outta my league that would never happen as we were both mainly tops (Well known profile on here too & hecka hot)

This guy had moved to our side of the country somewhere along the way and one evening my partner said a new friend was coming over he had met a couple of times….
I couldn’t believe it, it was the same guy that had stuck out in my mind for years & was now sitting across from me in my living room.
It didn’t take long for us all to have fun and have been in a closed 3 way relationship since…
I feel like the luckiest guy in the world.
So go ahead if that’s what you both want, do it with your eyes open and be willing to talk about every aspect with one another.
But be careful for each others sake.
 

GS_PL

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For myself, the open relationship was really an excuse from him to stop seeing me entirely. I genuinely didn't mind whoever else he wanted to see, but then very much minded when I was no longer wanted to be seen by him ever again. He was terrific with covering up his lies, but his partners sure as hell weren't!

I see a perfect example of a couple of porn stars who are the loves of each other's lives, and have been since they met over 10 years ago, who have three and four way sex all the time, so long as they're both there.

I also know of someone who is keen with having "masturbating buddies" when his partner is away, and it's not a secret, so the trust factor isn't put at risk.
 
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HungBtmVegas

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hi all, just after some advice. Is anyone in/tried an open relationship? Me and my husband have been together 9 years (married for 6) and have agreed to give it a go.

I’m just wondering how people in this situation find it? Does it work? He’s already had a guy since we agreed to it and I’m wondering do I ask him how it was? I’m a little curious but then not sure I want to know?

thank you
I've been polyamorous for almost a decade and I love it. Like with any monogamous relationship, honesty and communication are the key. If your partner is having fun with it, but you aren't or vice versa, that needs to be discussed and left to fester. If there's ground rules, those need to be established from the jump. You can absolutely still cheat or be cheated on even in an open relationship
 

Lukesilver

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I've been polyamorous for almost a decade and I love it. Like with any monogamous relationship, honesty and communication are the key. If your partner is having fun with it, but you aren't or vice versa, that needs to be discussed and left to fester. If there's ground rules, those need to be established from the jump. You can absolutely still cheat or be cheated on even in an open relationship
Isn't polyamory and being in a open relatioship two different things, though? I always thought being in an open relationship was about sex and polyamory was about dating more then one person.
 

HungBtmVegas

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Isn't polyamory and being in a open relatioship two different things, though? I always thought being in an open relationship was about sex and polyamory was about dating more then one person.
No, open/ENM is a type of polyamory
 
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woodz

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My BF and I been together for the last 27 years. I'm 48 and he is 54 now. We had some threesome in the past and slept with an other couple but in the last year we discuss the idea that a third person in our everyday life and sexlife is what we are looking for. And we've been seing this 35 year old guy for the last 3 months. He is not giving in easily. He seems tempted and we have been clear about our thoughts and our openness (if that a word I'm french speaking sorry). But he seems to have communication issues. so we,re concern about this. Is he the right one? Anyhow. There's not much about this on the web. I did find a book about polyamourus relationship and it is interesting to which we can relate a lot on how we see things as new polyamourous people.