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Four Steps To Opening A Marriage
Opening a relationship is no simple task, Jenny Block explains.
by Jenny Block
From the book Open by Jenny Block. Excerpted by arrangement with Seal Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group. Copyright © 2008.
As time went on, she realized that several key elements make a successful open marriage, and though those factors involved the community of people she surrounded herself with, it was mostly about how she chose to act and react, and how to be in her relationship and her own skin. Having come this far, she more than realized that it was never going to be easy. She was always going to need to protect her daughter. Things couldn’t always be exactly as she wanted them to be. But she was doing it, and she knew she wasn’t alone in her journey.
Being in a successful open marriage is about four things: 1) finding the support you need, both within your marriage and from the people around you; 2) accepting that jealousy is a manufactured emotion that, with enough conscious effort, you can learn to let go of; 3) treating an open marriage as you would a “traditional” one—that is, normalizing it as a choice for everyone; and 4) overcoming people’s fears and misunderstanding of open marriage and its supposed consequences on society at large.
Despite the fact that few people who are in open marriages talk about it either publicly (in the media, for example) or openly (that is, within their own community of friends and family members), open marriage—in any number of forms, and going by a variety of alternate names—is becoming more and more common. Oprah has featured couples in open marriages, and it’s the subject of a variety of new books and articles, from Tristan Taormino’s book Opening Up: Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships to Em and Lo’s article in the June 2007 issue of Glamour magazine, “The Secret Sex Lives of American Couples,” which featured a couple in an open relationship. In other words, if mass media is any indication, it’s increasingly treated as a viable lifestyle choice (though only in more progressive areas, of course).
Unfortunately, I don’t live in a particularly forward-thinking part of the country, which means I have to live less openly than I’d like to. That is, although I don’t hide the way I live, I don’t announce it, either. I introduce my husband as my husband, and my girlfriend as my girlfriend, and answer any questions that might arise. But unless friends and neighbors and colleagues read my work, they might not have any idea about the way I live. We are neither out nor closeted. In a way, it’s terrific that it then is no big deal, because why should it be? By the same token, it would be nice to be surrounded constantly by like-minded people with whom I could discuss freely the ins and outs of living openly.
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1 Monogamy Is Good, And It’s Here To Stay // Oct 24, 2008 at 5:01 pm
[…] “Life In An Open Marriage: The Four (Not-So-Easy) Steps” (also excerpted on YourTango), prompted one HuffPo commenter to say, “I’m exhausted just reading about all the […]
2 jplatna // Oct 11, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Its seems to all be about sex,true love is about sacrifice,and looking past someones flaws and ignoring your own worldly wants is part of that. There are more powerful satisfactions then sex,a and if you don’t understand that i feel sorry for you.
3 vzn // Aug 9, 2008 at 10:47 am
hi jenny, you go girl. have been reading of your exploits for several months now.. hope to get your book soon. may write some more. I sent an email to tango asking to write a blog but didnt hear back from them. I guess Im not qualified, wink..
hey the following two paragraphs are ripe for some major elaboration & psychoanalysis. I could write a lot, but Ill try to cram it into this little box.
below you say you felt “betrayed” when your husband had sex with a woman he had already had sex with, with your understanding that its ok. then you say, you wanted him not to do it one night after the connection was already established, and when he didnt do exactly as you wanted, you felt “betrayed”. hmmm. yeah that doesnt make any sense to me either. (ok I admit it– Im a man).
you also say, you remind him of his feelings about being hurt when you slept with a new gf. but from what I can tell, the two situations were completely different and “asymmetrical”. he felt betrayed about an entirely new relationship you were having.. was it your first one that opened up the marriage?? then he figures out how to go with the flow, “turnabout is fair play”, and you “freak out”. ok I dont have all the details, but I think you should elaborate on this very revealing episode. clearly it also has a lot to do with lisbeth rebuffing you and going for your husband!! surprise!! who would have thought!! what a blow to your big [sexual] ego!! sex happens, wink :p
“blatant disregard for the boundaries we had set”. HAH. the instantaneous, arbitrary boundaries YOU set at any nanosecond of the gyrating female mood swing…. :p ….
“stumble”?? yeah I think you stumbled into JEALOSY and your husband stumbled into a great encounter. its all about “framing” right? “our open marriage was just starting” and you suddenly encountered a first– your husband sleeping with your exgf who no longer was going for you!! yeah I guess polyamory is “open” to all kinds of wild surprises huh!! who’d a THOUGHT!! astounding!! mind blowing!! :p
ps how about your comment on the edwards affair which as I write this, is splashing (oozing??) all over cyberspace….
—
So, back to the things you need: Number one is support from your spouse. Open marriage is productive only if both partners are onboard. And because the rules can morph and change, it requires ongoing attention and communication. I remember when the need for Christopher and me to support each other, unconditionally, first became abundantly clear to me. It was after our first major “bump,” which happened early on with Lisbeth. It was after she decided she no longer wanted to sleep with me, but did want to continue sleeping with Christopher. I specifically asked him not to have sex with her one night, but he did it anyway. I was crushed. His explanation? He thought my request was silly. I was astounded. His behavior showed a blatant disregard for the boundaries we had set. And what’s the point of setting boundaries if they’re going to be so casually dismissed? Without at least some sort of guidelines, our open marriage simply wasn’t going to work.
When I found out that he had specifically ignored my very simple wish, I felt compelled to leave him—not because he’d slept with her, but because he’d betrayed me. My anger and frustration weren’t about sex; they were about trust. I reminded him how betrayed he had felt when Grace and I were together, and with that, he was able to see my perspective. He apologized, but I still felt torn. It was obvious that he was genuinely sorry, but I was also incredibly upset. The bottom line was that we were just beginning to navigate how our open marriage was going to operate, and it dawned on me that the only way it could work would be if we caught each other when we stumbled, even if that meant supporting each other in what seemed like unusual ways. I had to juggle being the hurt wife and the friend to the guy who’d hurt his wife. It wasn’t easy, but it also turned out to be a very deep way of better knowing someone I already loved.
4 jstnut // Aug 7, 2008 at 4:14 pm
My wife and I are in the early stages of having an open relationship. It has made us closer than ever and we have been together for 20 years. It can become somewhat tiresome
all of this talk, rules,feelings etc.Some days I just want to hide for a little. Which may be another rule. Rule # 47 no talking about our new life.haha