Reasons For Avoiding An Open Relationship
Many couples consider open relationships, but choose not to follow through with the idea. If a person attempts to approach their committed monogamous partner about starting an open relationship, the monogamous partner may convince or force them to either stay monogamous or pursue a new partner. There may also be concern that when beginning an open relationship, a partner may become only concerned in their personal development and pay less attention to their partner.
Jealousy is often present in monogamous relationships, and adding one or more partners to the relationship may cause it to increase. Results of some studies have suggested that jealousy is the problem in open relationships because the actual involvement of a third party is seen as a trigger. In Constantine & Constantine (1971), the researchers found that 80% of participants in open relationships had experienced jealousy at one point or another.
Cultural pressure may also dissuade switching to an open relationship. There is a commonly-held societal stereotype that those involved in open relationships are less committed or mature than those who are in monogamous relationships; and films, media, and self-help books present the message that to desire more than one partner means not having a "true" relationship. Desiring an open relationship is also often claimed to be a phase that a person is passing through before being ready to "settle down". The logistics of an open relation may be difficult to cope with, especially if the partners reside together, split finances, own property, or parent children.
Read more about this topic: Open Relationship
Famous quotes containing the words reasons for, reasons, avoiding, open and/or relationship:
“Here we also see: what this divinity lacks is not only a sense of shame—and there are also other reasons for conjecturing that in several respects all of the gods could learn from us humans. We humans are—more humane.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
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—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
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—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Our mother gives us our earliest lessons in love—and its partner, hate. Our father—our “second other”Melaborates on them. Offering us an alternative to the mother-baby relationship . . . presenting a masculine model which can supplement and contrast with the feminine. And providing us with further and perhaps quite different meanings of lovable and loving and being loved.”
—Judith Viorst (20th century)