How common are open marriages within swinging?

[Male_23]

Just for the sake of this post I am going to seperate open marriages and swinging. I know of a few couples that have open marriages and have sex with other people, and I dont know how they do it. I know that it can be done, but for whatever reason I wouldnt feel comfortable with my wife dating. However I see swinging as an activity for us. I think there is a big difference here and by having the other person involved we are not trying to "get away" with anything, just out having fun. I feel with an open marriage my wife would become attached emotionally to someone like she is me and I feel that our love is the most important part. I am willing to share the sex, just not the love.

[hytril]

Originally Posted by Male_23

Just for the sake of this post I am going to seperate open marriages and swinging. I know of a few couples that have open marriages and have sex with other people, and I dont know how they do it. I know that it can be done, but for whatever reason I wouldnt feel comfortable with my wife dating. However I see swinging as an activity for us. I think there is a big difference here and by having the other person involved we are not trying to "get away" with anything, just out having fun. I feel with an open marriage my wife would become attached emotionally to someone like she is me and I feel that our love is the most important part. I am willing to share the sex, just not the love.

I have always been of the opinion that you can not control who you fall in love with, only your actions.

[stoutgatte]

This is an obvious risk to open marraiges. If you spend too much time with someone he/she may become your primary emotional partner and the relationship will fall apart.

Back to the definition of an open marraige, there is an agreement between both partners that they may see other people in whatever way they choose. Obviously as with swinging there are different levels of this and the people involved must trust each other significantly. I find it harsh to claim that by having an open relationship, you don't care for your partner. This is similar to vanilla people saying that swingers don't care for their partners and is only looking for easy sex. Most people can't fathom the idea of an open relationship, but yet we are only a whisker away from it.

In my view solo swinging is a small sub-division of an open relationship since you do see and have sex with other people without your partner being present, but as others have said, you share in the activity by talking (well... not only talking ) about it afterwards.

On this board there is not a lot of support for open marraiges, many people seem to think it a bad thing. I'm curious as to why this is...

[Miss_Piggy]

Originally Posted by stoutgatte

On this board there is not a lot of support for open marraiges, many people seem to think it a bad thing. I'm curious as to why this is...

I was wondering the same thing myself.

I'd sort of thought of the set up Kermit and I have as bordering on 'open relationship' style simply because we play apart and together.

That doesn't mean that we don't care about each other. We chare all the details later and everything. Everyone knows about everyone else.
However, there is an underlying philosophy that we don't own each other and have no desire to tell each other what we can and can't do.
(That said - we do try to persuade one another and tend to listen to each others advise simply out of trust and respect).

Sorry if that got a little confusing. I feel like I'm babbling a bit.