When You Want an Open Relationship & Your Partner Doesn’t

Heather McPherson, a sex therapist and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Supervisor, acknowledges monogamy will never cease to exist, however, we must open up the conversation to make room for the idea of polygamy and the various forms it can take, on Dr. Jess’s podcast, Sex With Dr. Jess. McPherson and Dr. Jess discuss open relationships, ways to approach the conversation, how to deal with and handle partners’ needs, along with helpful suggestions on what to do when one partner does not want an open relationship.

First things first, McPherson suggests diving deep emotionally and sexually to discover your own sexual desires, limits, and comfort levels. The gap between having a conversation about an open relationship plus figuring out how that would work for both partners revolves heavily around individuals not having enough sexual experiences or simply not knowing what we do or do not want sexually. Essentially we must start cultivating our own sexuality first before involving others and their needs. She notes that sex involves high levels of intimacy, connection, and ultimately learned behavior on how to communicate through sex. We must go through some introspection on how we were taught to do this, whether it be through nonverbals or direct verbal communication to see what we like. Sex education is a large contributor to how we learn to communicate through sex, your needs before, during, and after sex. Dr. Jess points out that if you are not engaging in fun and playful behavior before having sex it will be hard to translate that into your sex life.

Following your deep reflection on your personal sexual desires, needs, wants, and kinks, you need to open up the conversation to your partner about having an open relationship. This can happen in multiple ways, but they all revolve around a negotiation process whose goal is to meet everyone’s needs in the relationship. The first option being to seek out professional help from a sex therapist in order to foster a safe environment for this conversation. You should also ask your sex therapist if they are trained in handling polygamy and open relationships. A second option would be to integrate various forms of media, ie. books, podcasts, movies etc, that view polygamy in a positive way so that you can ask your partner what they think and if they would be open to this kind of relationship, or what variations could they be willing to participate in. When you want an open relationship & your partner doesn’t, showing your partner statistics like, 1 in 5 relationships are open relationships, can be an opener into what they think about this kind of relationship. It’s best not to bring this conversation up if you already have eyes on someone in particular, because it can bring up feelings of inadequacy, jealousy, and hurt from a partner not expecting this conversation.

When you want an open relationship & your partner doesn’t, it is vital both partners buy-ins are being met. Buy-ins include sexual needs, emotional needs, and seeing the value in getting kink needs met. It’s important to not take an elitist attitude about your sexual experiences that may cause guilt or shame for your partner; for example, saying something like “I’ve done this so many times in the past, it shouldn’t be a big deal to you” is not a great way to approach the conversation. Even if both you and your partner agree to certain conditions, you should not hold them to this or undermine their attempts to make adjustments to the agreement. You could eat pizza every day in college, then in your 30’s never want to look at it again. The respect and support of personal boundaries and limits is an important part of navigating an open relationship. A mutually beneficial relationship is the goal of any relationship. In other words, life and relationships are fluid and should be treated as such.