SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am going to vent in this thread so sorry upfront but I have seen this over and over on SI and I think we need to change.

Everytime that we have a BS post on JFO that has a background from an open marriage several people start posting responses that are not helpful. They begin to comment on their opinion on open marriage and turn it quickly into a blaming the victim type of argument. Do you really think that is helpful to someone in need? Did your mother not teach you if you don't have something nice to say to keep your mouth shut?

These are people who are hurt that are looking for help and you just essentially told them in was their fault and they got what they deserved. If that is the best advise you can give them please don't post on that thread.

Now if you want to debate open marriage, go ahead and do it here. Have at it - it doesn't bother me at all - all I ask is you don't go blasting someone who just found out and is likely confused about the hurt they are feeling.

I do realize that often it is newer members that partake in the blaming the victim and they too are hurt and likely not thinking clearly. It doesn't make is right still though. So I ask those who are longer, more understanding members of SI to help quickly stop these type of attacks when you see them.

Thank you for letting me vent on this issue.

YES EXACTLY ReunitePangea!!! Thought the same thing. Poor woman's first post and it's anything but about the issue at hand.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

I agree with you RP. I don't get the whole open marriage thingy, but I do understand betrayal. I understand that people in open marriages can and are betrayed and they are no more to blame than people in a "closed" (?) marriage.

I agree. I did post in the thread you're referencing.

I think that open marriages can be a trigger to some. The thought of allowing the very action that has destroyed their marriage as they knew it, and broken their hearts and spirits, can be overwhelming and completely not understood. I get that, I really do.

However, a marriage is nothing more than the agreements made by each party. If those agreements are broken, regardless of what they are, it hurts as we all know. We don't have to agree with the vows to understand the pain.

I love SI. I love the support, the friendships, the willingness of the members to share their own experiences to help others. It really is an impressive forum when you think about it. That's why it's hard to see new members called out for their own choices. They need the same support and advice we all do/did.

People in an open marriage are not WSs. They aren't saying monogamous marriages are negative. They are simply choosing to allow the other to 'act' on the attractions that are felt for others. Yes, this isn't a choice most want to make, but it doesn't make open relationships any less of an emotional commitment.

Also, I see a lot of 'well, you were inviting trouble'. I don't know the stats on betrayal in open relationships, but I know that infidelity affects over 50% of all marriages. With that statistic, any one of us could be told "well, what did you expect?". The answer, obviously, is that we expected honesty and respect from those that we love and that claim to love us. We expect our relationship, whatever the structure, to be honored by all parties. We expect our partner to behave in ways that meet the standards we agreed to in our marriage. So even though the odds are against fidelity, we expected it. People in open relationships should have that same expectation, and when betrayal occurs, the pain is just as real for the betrayed regardless of the relationship.

Thanks, and sorry to sound so preachy. As a person with a great many gay friends, I get passionate about any relationship being judged because it's 'different' than the standard 'one man, one woman' that we are all comfortable with.

:)

I agree! thanks for starting this post. Some people need to realize marriage is a agreement between two people. whether they they are different from your means nothing. betrayal is betrayal.

ReunitePangea I don't go into JFO forums, I find a lot of the posts to drenched in pain for me there. I've missed what you are talking about, but I wanted to thank you for this. There is no one way to marriage happiness. It's said that judgmental people want to blame the victim and I love the idea of a thread to debate the open marriage issue with out t/j someone's call for help.

Thank you.

I saw what happened in the JFO forum. I hope the woman comes back.

Remember what this site is about-surviving infidelity. It shouldn't be about surviving getting reamed for your first post.

I completely am in agreement with you, ReunitePangea, and I do fear this woman may not come back...I hope the other posts outweigh the bashing ones.

No debate to offer on open marriage whatsoever. I know a couple who have one, and they've been together for over thirty years...they have rules and boundaries, and they are very happy. They also respect our closed marriage - which could also be up for debate for proponents of open marriages or polygamist marriages. No one is right or wrong here. What is wrong is betrayal...

Thanks for your post!

RP, X1000. Different strokes, different folks but dammit the pain remains the same.

Thank you for your support and understanding, it is much appreciated.

I saw what happened in the JFO forum. I hope the woman comes back.

I do too. Sadly, this isn't the first time I have seen this and most of the time they do not come back.

I don't get the whole open marriage thingy, but I do understand betrayal.

Exactly right!!! There are things that I see on here that I do not understand or relate to, but I do understand betrayal.

I think that open marriages can be a trigger to some. The thought of allowing the very action that has destroyed their marriage as they knew it, and broken their hearts and spirits, can be overwhelming and completely not understood. I get that, I really do.

painful past - thank you for your support. You post a very interesting comment above. This will sound strange but I think that for myself, having an open M has helped me deal with the huge betrayal that my WW committed before we were open. I have not had mind movies like some BS have had to deal with, I am not even bothered that my WW had sex with another man. The "very action" in my case was not the sex as you suggest above. The "very action" was the lying, deception, cheating and double life that she lived. My open M did not allow that "very action" that you may be thinking it did. Some BS say the sex is the bigger deal than the lying and deception, I just view it different is all.

I love the idea of a thread to debate the open marriage issue

I would love it too - I think some of the problems I have indicated come from a lack of understanding. Unfortunately, I doubt those that are so quick to want to beat up on someone posting for the first time what to come debate the topic here.

When someone posts for the first time on here it takes an increadible amount of courage. This is not easy to deal with and many BS want to just hide in the corner. We should always be as encouraging as best as we can to those in JFO who post for the first time.

I love the idea of a thread to debate the open marriage issue

The problem with this though, is that it still opens it up to the "open marriages are bad".

What should be debated is what a marriage is at its core:

* It is open and honest. There are no secrets. It promotes trust and truth.

* It is itimate and loving.

* It is a partnership, with common goals and interests, and plans to get you to them.

* It is a place of shelter from any storm. A solid core that stands against any life issue that comes up against it.

* It has bounderies and values in place that are agreed to by all partners.

I don't care if you are in an open marriage, a Dom/Sub marriage, a poly marriage, a gay marriage, a straight marriage, or a in a committed relationship.....The who is not the deciding factor in what cheating is defined as within that relationship. The cheating is defined as a broken basic marital concept.

If sleeping with someone outside the rules of the pre-set agreed to thing in the open marriage, then that is cheating and the same healing rules apply to her as a BS and he as a WS.

A similar thread is open in JFO, so I am going to copy-and-paste my contribution here as well.

(I wonder if this might make for a good I Can Relate sub-forum?)

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Hello,

Had to chime in on this one.

I don't want to judge, but:

This was the beginning of the end to my marriage. Ex and I decided--mutually and enthusiastically--to open the door just a bit, for a little while, to spice up our sex life. There were strict rules and assumptions. She breached them all immediately and left our family for the OM. (Long awful story short, obviously.)

I "did my time" blaming myself for my role, and while I still don't absolve myself utterly, in hindsight--given WW's FOO issues and history of infidelity in every relationship--I am absolutely certain it would have happened eventually anyway. She was a ticking time bomb.

Still, I will never do this again; the whole experience terrifies me and traumatized me. If you are two adults who can "handle it," I guess go for it. I myself remain extremely leery and skeptical.

Abbondad

I have ready all of your threads - and I believe fully that your ex-wife would have cheated on you regardless of you agreeing to open it up.

The only difference is that she did it openly rather then secretively.

The question is not if an open marriage automatically 100% ends with cheating - the question is that if rules are broken and vows are not upheld, then what difference does it make if it was open or monogomous?

As I posted in the original thread, I was once involved in an agreed-upon open-style relationship pre-marriage.

My experience was that there was actually MORE communication and understanding of boundaries than a "traditional" relationship - but this all depends on the honesty and integrity of the persons INVOLVED in that relationship. To be honest, I don't find that many people have the ability to be that candid. It doesn't mean that open relationships DON'T work - I was in one that did, we broke up for other reasons (mainly distance and diverging life paths) - but it does mean that it takes extreme honesty for them to work successfully. If that makes sense.

I hope that the original poster returns, because I'd hate to see her feel that she had to bear the pain of infidelity all alone. It's bad enough when you have a support network.

Good post RP.

I saw that thread too. About 5 of the first 10 replies by my count were more critical of the M arrangement than helping and supportive.

It is my impression that the majority of the members here are from "traditional" closed, 1 man, 1 woman marriages, and yet we are all here due to betrayal. That indicates to me that the betrayal is more about the people involved than the aspects of any specific relationship.

atsenaotie

I am somewhere where Abandondad is, but absolutely agree that the specifics of someone's marriage agreement do not in any degree come into play with betrayal. Support is needed and should be given without any judgment at all.

My exWBF and I had an open relationship for the first six months that was difficult for me at times but that I really thought we could handle. It was his decision to become monogamous (although I wanted that too and in hindsight I wish I had asserted my boundaries more strongly), which he then immediately went back on secretly. As I have more distance I know that the issue wasn't really how we started--it's who he was and is. His character traits of selfishness and entitlement were what doomed our supposedly closed relationship, and his lack of courage to discuss his thoughts, feelings, desires in the open instead of just acting on them while carrying on an act with me about the life I thought we were living.

The experience has made any unorthodox agreements pretty triggery for me now and I do not for see myself being comfortable with an open arrangement in the future, unless a lot of water has gone under the bridge and my healing is miraculously total without leaving any vulnerable places. But I don't think it's wrong to have a non-monogamous partnership, and I certainly understand that it is very possible to be betrayed within one. It is no more the fault of the BP in that situation than it is in any other.

I'm new to SI but I agree with RP's vent. I'm glad the poster came back and is getting some support from the group.

Betrayal is betrayal no matter the type of relationship. It's been almost 5 years since I found out and the pain is still there. I've dealt with and have moved on to a better, more loving relationship than I have ever known.

Okay, ReunitePangea, you did say this particular discussion is open for different viewpoints.

Icecold:

Some people need to realize marriage is a agreement between two people.

This is your view of M and I guess it is a legal view, but my view is that in ALL marriages I have ever been witness to, the couples vowed to be true and faithful to each other. Nothing was said about “agreeing to have sex” with others with specific agreed upon rules made for their “open situation.” (Perhaps those take place somewhere but I have never seen it).

In fact I believe most of them decide to make their M “open” after they have been married with the assumption of monogamy for a while, but they got bored and wanted to “spice things up. It is legal and their choice, and in the eyes of the law they would be no less married than anyone else, but no, that is not my definition of marriage and I don't "need to see" or have anybody else's morals and viewpoint forced upon me. I also don't want to force my morals on others, other than to point out, lying and adultery are somewhat equivalent on the sin scale to some of us. It is not automatically morally far worse to lie and betray someone than to simply have casual sex with lots of people, even if the ones involved all "agree to it."

I think those who have different morals that include assumption of monogamy in Marriage deserve respect for our views, too.

I see no need to debate open marriage.

We're about surviving infidelity - infidelity = betraying voluntary agreements.

My W & I are pretty traditional - 1 man, 1 woman, married in the eyes of the state and of our religion - so sexual contact with anyone but each other is a betrayal.

WRT committed couples, the commitment is the key - breaking a commitment around emotions and sex brings them here, and it makes perfect sense to me that the gender of the BSO and/or WSO doesn't change the betrayal one bit.

An open M may be harder to understand, but the principle is the same - open Ms are based on agreements, and violating one of the agreements is infidelity. An open M/relationship has BS(O)s and WS(O) if the WS(O) violates an agreement.

I don't think anyone here will debate that - and debating other aspects of open M would, I bet, have to get onto religion and politics very quickly. That'll hurt all of us.

IME, people in open Ms have by and large received the same respect everyone else here receives. I'm sorry that didn't happen today, so I'm glad you posted, RP.

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We have a very diverse membership, and I'm tremendously grateful for that. I do not want that to change. (Thanks, DS & MH.)

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Note: IIRC, at least in the late '60s, some people did in fact publicly commit to open Ms - though not in traditional houses of worship, to be sure. We read some of the material and decided it was a great ideal, but we weren't evolved enough and never would be.

Which was another reason I couldn't believe my W was having an A ... she never told me she had grown so much she could love 2 people simultaneously.... sarcasm icon +

[This message edited by sisoon at 4:11 PM, April 11th (Friday)]

Bobbie_sue - thank you for your post. You are on post 5500+ and the person that posted on JFO was on post #1. It takes a lot of courage to post for the very first time with this difficult topic of infidelity. Was someone posting for the very first time really forcing their opinion on you?

I think those who have different morals that include assumption of monogamy in Marriage deserve respect for our views, too.

I 100% agree. It goes both ways though.

IME, people in open Ms have by and large received the same respect everyone else here receives. I'm sorry that didn't happen today, so I'm glad you posted, RP.

Sisoon, I think you are right that the vast majority of people here have shown respect on this topic. However, this is the not the first time that a JFO post on open marriage goes this way. Unfortunately, it just takes a few to pile on and scare away a new BS looking for support.