levite

For me, personally, a lot of this comes down to honesty: generally, monogamy dies a very secret death, and I believe in honesty above all in relationships. I would also imagine that, even given fair warning and so forth, I personally would be jealous of my partner's lover, would be envious and frustrated that my partner wanted something I could not provide enough to seek it with another person, and would doubtless be insecure about the relationship, and about my own desirability. Maybe some people could get past those things. I could not. And I'm OK with that.

That said, I know that there are some people who claim to be able to make open relationships or relations of multiple partners work fine, without jealousy, insecurity, or any negative repercussions. I confess that I am skeptical about this. I have known a number of self-professed open-relationshippers, and several polyamorous relationship groups in my time-- courtesy of, among other things, seven years spent living in Santa Cruz, CA-- and the vast majority of them were kidding themselves: you could cut the tensions in their households with a knife, or at least strum them with a dull spoon. Their lives were a juggler's chaos of insecurities, envy, jealousies, and frustration.

That, in turn, said, I did encounter one polyamorous group which seemed to be enjoying a fairly stable and successful relationship. They were very grounded people, very open and honest with each other, and they appeared to really be supportive and mutually appreciative of each other on every level. I do think, nonetheless, it is worthwhile to note that they were an MFF triad, with a fourth who only occasionally lived with them and joined their relationship; and even they admitted that, as much as they loved him (their fourth), it could be a bit much arranging everything when he was in town. I question whether an equally successful and high-functioning relationship could be conducted with four or more constant participants, or possibly even a triad, if it were MMF.

I think human emotions and needs are difficult enough to deal with just one on one: triads might sometimes be just as feasible (at least MFF triads, given that women are frequently more emotionally mature than men, and more able to make complex psychoemotional compromises; also, it helps that women are bi more often than men), but larger groups just seem to me to be destined to be intolerably entangled within their own crossing psychoemotional dynamics.

In regard to the open relationships, I did meet one couple who had a comparatively successful open relationship-- both partners travelled almost constantly for business, and rarely were in the same country, let alone city or house-- but to me, their relations with each other always seemed more like good old friends (except old friends with privileges) and not like lovers, or husband and wife. I guess it was sufficient for them. I can't imagine it being sufficient for me. I did, being completely honest, also once meet a couple whose relationship was open: they were not in a position to marry (for complicated reasons), but were "bonded for life," and considered themselves exclusively partnered to each other. But they both occasionally dated and had sex with other people, just to "keep busy," as they used to put it. It never seemed healthy to me, but then, it seemed to work just fine for them. They never seemed to have any diminishment of romantic desire for one another, and never got jealous, envious, or insecure.

I tend to think that if people are going to have relationships with each other (that is, psychoemotional bonding that is more than just sex), it generally works best in a well-conducted monogamous relationship. I'm not saying that an open relationship or polyamorous relationship can't ever work in a healthy or high-functioning way, I just think that it is so difficult to accomplish, and demands such a unique constellation of personalities and life circumstances, as to not be worth seeking out for most people.

__________________
Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.

(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)