What exactly is an open relationship and what are the bounds?
 

Recently my gf pushed this idea on to me to have an "open relationship". We went from it being ok to flirt with the opposite sex at parties and such to "open relationship". But if you ask me, wtf does it mean? What are the bounds? If two people are in an open relationship should they be communicating whats going on, otherwise isn't that just cheating? Im confused, and sort of dragged into this, I have no clue on what it means and because of that I do not know where I stand on the idea.

The openness of a relationship has to be discussed and agreed with by both parties. I doubt there is a gerneal rule of thumb in such matters. You might have one idea of what an open relationship is and your SO might have a completly different one. If you wish, reach an agreement on what situation suits you both well.

the bounds are whatever the two people in the relationship decide are. This doesn't only apply to "open relationships" but to regular "closed" ones too.

The key to it all is communiction as to what is acceptable and unacceptable. Remember the other person is *NOT* a mind reader.

:thumbsup: We have a winner!

will and Cyn have it right, you two will have to decide for yourselves what is meant by an open relationship. Inform her that you are in fact, not a mind reader and need to know exactly what she means in specific terms.

For myself, I consider and 'open relationship' to be one that is not mutually exclusive. Basically you still do all the bf/gf stuff together, but are allowed to do it with other people as well. This may or may not be what your SO means. Typically this comes into play when one or both people aren't ready to 'settle down'. Whatever the case may be the best thing you can do is ask her about it.

Ok red flag time here.

I'm the last person to be prudish in sexuality, but this seems to be more basic than an open relationship.

The concept of a truely open relationship is one where you are still 'together' but you have other sex partners. Most would say ONLY sex partners with little emotional attachment. From what I can gather, VERY few people are successful at having a happy open relationship. The normal course of action for an open relationship is that one member of the 'couple' falls for one of their fuck toys. The problem as I see it is that an open relationship isn't really about 'US' but 'ME'. Maybe you would agree for the sake of the other person but they are doing it for their own reasons. I suppose if you were the kinda guy who really got turned on by the thought of your wife/gf off fucking another guy could be different.

Now that being said, I think what your GF is asking is, "Hey I met this guy I like a lot and I want to see if it will work out, so I want some time to explore a relationship with him without dumping you first, is that ok?".

While I think the above is the most likely it could also be.

"Hey you are great and all but I want to fuck more people before I think about getting married, so lets pretend we are still in a relationship."

Get out of a relationship with her, perhaps keep a fuck buddie if you are not emotionally attached.

I totally agree with Ustwo. First she wants it to be okay with flirting. Now she wants an open relationship. Sounds like the flirting worked. If she really wanted an open relationship she would have said so at the beginning. Think carefully about what YOU want. This could lead to some serious drama. IMO it sounds like you are her standby guy.

If your girlfriend is pushing you into an open relationship without bothering to talk to you about what this actually means, odds are you're one cock away from a break-up.

I agree with the general sentiments in the thread. If she wanted an open relationship, she would have discussed it at the beginning. I would take this as a warning sign.

Another warning sign would be the fact that you didn't have the communication to what "open" means for your relationship. I suggest a sit down talk. :)

It means your girlfriend wants to sleep with other people and you're supposed to be cool with it.

And on the other side, when you sleep with someone else she'll freak out and call you a whore. Makes sense to me.

What she's "pushed on you" isn't an open relationship, it's sanctioned fucking-around. Unless you discussed it, set your own boundaries, and agreed to an agreement about it, it's not an open relationship, it's a half-assed breakup.

Talk to her. Soon.

I don't know if I have anything original to add here, but my alarm bells are clanging right now and I feel like I have to add my voice to the choir.

I have two concerns here:

1. If 2 consenting adults decide to have an open relationship, who am I to argue? As long as both parties agree that it would make them happy there is no problem as far as I am concerned. However, this is not the kind of compromise that someone can make just to make their partner happy. You would have to clearly define what it means to both of you and be absolutely sure that you would enjoy it. Otherwise it is doomed to fail.

2. If your gf had expressed an interest in an open relationship right from the beginning, that would be one thing. In this case though, she is changing the rules mid-stream and that makes me very nervous about her motives.

Ustwo and Rat already said everything I would've said. I'm just posting to reiterate my support for their analyses.

Maybe I made this thread about 2 weeks to late. I was thinking along the lines of what ratbastid said about the half-assed breakup, and I even told her that when she brought it up. Here I am 2 weeks later and today it finally happened, she broke up with me. She had gone to visit a girlfriend for the weekend, when she got back I did knotice she seemed a bit different and talked to her this morning about it...and thats when she "let me go" (she told me not to say dumped because it sounds bad...ehm, how do you think I feel)...

thanks guys for the input...

Bingo! Definitely a bitch. She wants to make herself feel better by telling herself she's not "dumping" you (and won't hear of anyone else telling her she did, not even you), she's "letting you go", which makes it sound like she's doing it for you, not for her own selfishness, which she IS. She also prepared for making herself feel better about dumping you by doing the open relationship thing, so it looks to an outside observer that she was just breaking off something loose, not an actual "relationship".

Some people have real open relationships. I could never do it personally, but I know people who go for that. But that, my friend, was just something she made up, gave the title of something that exists but not in that form, and used it to make herself feel better for being a total bitch!

I hope you feel better soon. Getting dumped feels terrible, I know, but things will turn around soon.

I don't think that was her girlfriend she visited right before she finally got the courage up to dump you. Just a thought. You're better off without her and her mindgames.