Fluffybiscuits: Monogamy Gaspipe

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Open marriage.

Could it save your relationship?

Fluffybiscuits writes:

Author Dossie Easton in her book “The Ethical Slut – A Guide to Infinite Possibilities” opines

“One of the most valuable things we can learn from open sexual lifestyles is that our programming is changeable.”

Social mores are much more relaxed than they have ever been in Ireland. Where once a man married a woman for life and was contracted to such an arrangement, relationships come in different forms to the standards that once applied twenty or even ten years ago. The attitudes that constrained us are now faltering .

I spoke recently with a young couple I know and asked about their relationship. Both have been married for nearly 20 years and have two kids. Their modus operandi is each other is an emotional anchor bound to each other. Their emotional bond outweighs any physical attraction they experience.

As the wife had said to me:

“there has been once or twice in twenty years I might have questioned what we have after I met men, I come home every time though as I love my husband.”

A research paper from Dublin Business School (they do have a psychology department one would be surprised to know) looked at the topic. In a paper titled “A Qualitative Study of Individuals Engaged in Consensual Open or NonMonogamous Relationships” –

The study took a small sample and interviewed four participants in the study. It concluded:

” The current research highlights the importance of the discovery in which deeper understanding of oneself is achieved through the experiences of engaging in consensual non-monogamy.”

Open-marriages can provide the oxygen for marriages where one partner feels suffocated. Older couples can lose that spark in the marriage, snuffed out after 40 years of monogamy. A wife or a husband can seem like they are wearing the same clothes for decades, yet this does not speak to the emotional side and the love for each other.

As with the discussion above and the conclusion from the DBS study, these marriages, in which both consent to a non-monogamous relationship, do so through detailed discussion, boundary laying and a sense of attachment that runs more profound than some other relationships.

Worthy noting that open relationships are distinct from polyamory which I want to cover in another column sometime in the future. A distinction that is important is that polyamory is about multiple relationships, however open relationships are more about the sexual liaisons, letting people avoid being caught in flagrante delicto.

Open relationships were the standard bearer of relationships rather than the standard monogamous model we seek and value so highly today. Left with a wife at home, men in Sparta took a younger man for liaisons to encourage bonds between military units. Greece never really suffered from the same complex, judgemental prudish attitude that hangs about Irish society.

Commentators, I would be interested to know what your experiences are in reviving the spark that was lost physically in a marriage or a relationship. Did counselling bring matters to the fore? Were you engaged with people otherwise in liasons with the permission of your other half and found this made the relationship better or made it worse?

Previously: Fluffybiscuits on Broadsheet

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19 thoughts on “Fluffybiscuits: Monogamy Gaspipe

  1. Paulus

    There are ‘Sheeters both virile and glamorous:
    Will research like this make them clamorous
    To lose ties that once bound them
    Then go riding all round them
    And declare themselves now polyamorous?

    1. fluffybiscuits

      The idea of poly may make those ashamed,
      Of an idea rarely claimed,
      To take an extra partner or two,
      For an additional screw ,
      Could instill a fear of being named

  2. Redundant Proofreaders Society

    Was in conversation with a friend of a friend at a party, who, imbibed with wine, chose to divulge that she and her husband had an ‘open relationship’ and only stayed together under one roof (separate bedrooms) for the kids.

    Many affairs have been had. No-one should judge. But she still remains profoundly unhappy. Marriage can lock people into situations they feel they can’t release themselves from – because of economics, the house, child-rearing, in-laws, habit. Separations and divorce allow people to embark on new chapters in their lives, to wipe the slate clean and enjoy the freedoms of a single life. ‘Open relationships’ sound like a purgatory.

    1. Hank

      That doesn’t really sound like an open relationship. Sounds more like they’ve split up but just haven’t made it public.

      1. Redundant Proofreaders Society

        Indeed. People could be quite possibly describing their marriages as ‘open relationships’ when in fact they are already over.

  3. Darren

    Purgatory! Hah is that the shame bit popping out? Not to mean anything personal… everyone’s a stranger you don’t yet know… but I do wonder about the arrival at a likening to purgatory. That definitely has religious overtones which probably reiterate that open relationship is not for everyone .. just like not everyone is open to being in a relationship. DBS are surely taking the pee but on the more mature side.. owning your relationship as opposed to it being something that has happened to you.. That’s all it is isn’t?

  4. Fergalito

    I’m told all sorts happens in North County Dublin off the N1, or used to anyway – never mind keys in the fruit-bowl, it’s aching, yearning middle-aged bodies in the wheelie-bins, shuffled by an “umpire” and you make your choice and take your chances after that. Honest – someone someone told me … ;)

    Good Lord, how do people have the energy for this chicanery? Seriously?

    Sex and trying to get it was all I thought about for about 25 years of my life and in or around the 40 years of age mark the blood suddenly re-diverted from the John Thomas region and back to the brain which, unfortunately, had lost its charge and had been ravaged, a wasteland, from lack of use and esoteric stimulation at that stage.

    I’m not writing myself off, just yet …

    I’m reminded – as i meander off on this pointless tangent to nowhere and know it must end somehow – of these two poems (or one poem?) by Adrian Mitchell (deceased) ..

    “A Puppy Called Puberty/A Dog Called Elderly”

    It was like keeping a puppy in your underpants
    A secret puppy you weren’t allowed to show to anyone
    Not even your best friend or worst enemy
    You wanted to pat him stroke him cuddle him
    All the time but you weren’t supposed to touch him
    He only slept for five minutes at a time
    Then he’d suddenly perk up his head
    In the middle of school medical inspection
    And always on bus rides
    So you had to climb down from the upper deck
    All bent double to smuggle the puppy off the bus
    Without the buxom conductress spotting
    Your wicked and ticketless stowaway.
    Jumping up, wet-nosed, eagerly wagging –
    He only stopped being a nuisance
    When you were alone together
    Pretending to be doing your homework
    But really gazing at each other
    Through hot and hazy daydreams
    Of those beautiful schoolgirls on the bus
    With kittens bouncing in their sweaters.

    And now I have a dog called Elderly
    And all he ever wants to do
    Is now and then be let out for a piss
    But spend the rest of his lifetime
    Sleeping on my lap in front of the fire.

    1. Paulus

      I sympathise with the state of your phallus
      And have no wish here to sound callous.
      But this very condition
      Used to gain some remission
      Through the viewing of Debbie Does Dallas

      (Well, back in the day anyway).

  5. SOQ

    I spoke recently with a young couple I know and asked about their relationship. Both have been married for nearly 20 years and have two kids. To each other?

    Either way, they are not a ‘young’ couple- they are at best mid-forties and have 2-3-4 fighting over the bathroom before college / work.

    Unless they are sitting in a bedroom smoking grass and gambling on crypto currency. You can get an IDA Ireland grant for pegged crypto currency now btw.

    https://www.trusttoken.com has new offices in Clanbrassil Street, Dundalk- only eight remote employees but pretty sure IDA Ireland knew what it was doing,

  6. SOQ

    I spoke recently with a young couple I know and asked about their relationship. Both have been married for nearly 20 years and have two kids.To each other?

    Either way, they are not a ‘young’ couple- they are at best mid-forties and have 3-4 fighting over the early bathroom before college / work.

    Unless they are sitting in a bedroom smoking grass and gambling on crypto currency. You can get an IDA Ireland grant for pegged crypto currency btw.

    https://www.trusttoken.com has new offices in Clanbrassil Street, Dundalk- only eight remote employees but pretty sure the IDA Ireland knew what it was doing.

    This is a screen grab lads.

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