How to Talk to Your Partner About Starting a Relationship

Have you ever thought about sleeping with someone who is not your partner? Ever acted on this? You already know you’re not alone: ​​almost half of all marriages end in divorce, and 20% to 40% of those divorces are caused by infidelity. Maybe then the key to a happy relationship is to leave room for the little fool without penalties?

Before asking this highly philosophical question to your partner, here’s what you need to know about asking him to open up your existing monogamous relationship.

First, ask yourself a few questions.

Excitement is human nature, so the answer to the question “Do I want to get into another person’s pants?” It might be an easy yes for you, but according to dating coach Adam Lyons , there is something else you need to ask yourself before taking any other steps: Am I willing to lose my partner over this?

Because you could, and you need to be ready for it. Some people do value monogamy, so your partner may not say yes when asked if they want to sleep with someone else. Opening up a relationship can eliminate a lot of dishonesty and strengthen your partnership, but it can also work and destroy it.

Even after you ask the initial question, you are not entirely spared the possibility of being dumped. As one 29-year-old girl who asked to be called only Vanessa told Lifehacker: “Some people say they are ready and not.”

She talked about how she started talking to a guy who said he was in an open relationship and that his girlfriend was cool with him stalking her, but his girlfriend named from their relationship after figuring out what he really put move on other women, even though they agreed that it was allowed. This put Vanessa in an awkward position: feeling guilty about their breakup and generally nervous, she ended up not promoting in any relationship with this guy, which meant he was starting to think he was going to sleep with two women, but finished asexual.

“Before diving into an open relationship, be sure to establish a strong dynamic with your partner,” explained Roy, who is in an open marriage. “It’s a cliché, but it’s true (at least for us): Communication and trust are the keys to a fulfilling and healthy relationship. If you don’t have that, an open relationship won’t fill those holes, no pun intended. ” (Roy isn’t his real name, by the way.) This is a personal subject, and while outsiders will likely know they are banging their boots with someone in a unique arrangement, it’s not uncommon for people outdoors. a relationship for storing this information on a need-to-know basis. In Lyons’ experience, someone in an open relationship “can compete with their partner for transparency, but they don’t want the world at large to know what’s going on.” So the next question to ask yourself is: do you want to do it discreetly and is it even possible for you.

If you live in a small town or have a curious family, you may need to explain why it’s actually okay for someone you know to find your profile in the connect app. What’s more, when asking your partner to open up a relationship, you’re also asking them to potentially face the same issue – or worse, become the subject of rumors.

The last question to ask yourself is: is your sex on the side of putting yourself and your partner in the hands of people who, at best, do not need to know about your sex life, and at worst, they may be unfriendly to it. … (There is also the risk that it may cost you more than your friends – your job, for example .)

Ease of conversation

Once you’ve weighed the risks of losing or embarrassing your partner, if you still want to ask him about starting a relationship and he agrees, you have plenty of time to act on your fantasies and impulses. No need to hurry. Ultimately, you do it because you value the existing relationship and don’t want to end it.

As Lyons pointed out, if you didn’t care about your partnership, you would just be cheating. Since you’re not cheating, you both need to make sure that you both are comfortable as you move forward with this conversation and, assuming it’s going well, into the new phase of your relationship.

Lyons, who has been teaching and advising on consent since 2007, has advised getting permission from your partner to have a potentially awkward conversation, perhaps over a good dinner. “It’s important to get permission for anything – not just sex,” he says.

Once you have permission to bring up a topic, prioritize their needs and wants. Create a hypothetical scenario and leave room for play for them to express themselves. Thought Phrase: Be honest with me – since we were together, have you ever had the idea of ​​sleeping with someone else, even in fantasy?

If they say no, at least you know how to adapt your half of the conversation to the next. Just be honest.

Sometimes, as with Roy, the transition to an open relationship can be a little more organic, but it depends on your unique situation.

Roy explained that he and his current husband were each other’s first same-sex partners after both of them had previously dated women. After five years of solid relationships, they slowly began experimenting with a volunteer male friend who spent many late nights at their home, then delved into threesome and foursome sex with interested friends, and finally actively engaged in group sex on apps. Progress continued naturally, and eventually they began to talk about the game separately with other men.

In the midst of it all, they got engaged and got married. So take heart: it might work, but only if you’re both on the same page.

Set tough rules

Roy mentioned that the main problem he and his husband faced early in the open phase of their relationship was figuring out “how to go down the path of having sex without developing feelings for a third party,” which “required a lot of difficult and transparent conversations. about what each of us expected from each other and from open relationships. “

If you think you’ll get away from the initial conversation about discovering things by providing a free pass to indiscriminately jump into bed with strangers, think again.

“An open relationship isn’t just ‘We can have sex with everyone and we’re whores,’” Lyons said. “[A successful] open relationship [with] someone who is willing to be open to the rules of the relationship and define unique rules that suit [them].”

Roy and his husband have a rule against developing feelings for other parties. Some people in open relationships tell each other stories of their sexual exploits, while others have rules against disclosing features such as names or dates. Obviously, you need to set rules on how to keep yourself safe. Roy and his husband, for example, take PrEP, which he says reduces a lot of anxiety for them. Be honest with your partner about your expectations about condom use and forbidden behavior.

“The original rule was that we had to open up to each other before or after we slept with someone,” Roy said . “ Over the years it has become less of a requirement and more of a proposal. We now only really disclose information if we plan to meet someone when we would otherwise be at home (based on our normal pre-pandemic work schedule), just so we know we don’t expect the other to be Houses. on time, so we don’t worry about them. For the rest, we don’t talk about it too much. We trust each other and don’t really want to know the details. “

You already know what we’re talking about: communication is the key to success. “It has to come from impeccability and a common goal of making each other happy,” Lyons said. But, he added, communication also means expressing and acknowledging that “justice is not always equal.”

In other words, if one of you is really into casual sex, and the other is not, but you agree to an open relationship, then it is fair for a casual sex lover to satisfy his needs and reciprocate, making sure that the one who does not do it also satisfies your unique needs, whatever they may be. It’s the same for both of them to have casual sex, but it doesn’t work when one partner doesn’t want to, so a rule that simply says you both can have casual sex may leave one partner’s needs unmet. And that can lead – you guessed it – to resentment … and a breakdown in the relationship.

Discussing what is fair, what is equal, what is acceptable, and what is an obstacle to a deal are some of the most important elements of making an open relationship work. If you can’t be honest about your rules and expectations, the first thing you need to do is check to see if your relationship is truly healthy.

Stick to the plan

During the initial conversation about opening your relationship, in all subsequent conversations that you will inevitably have about the status of that relationship, as well as in all of your extracurricular meetings by mutual agreement, remember why you went for it in the first place: you care about your partner and want what’s best for both of you. You don’t want to lie. You don’t want to cheat. You want your needs to be met and their needs met so that you have the healthiest connection.

Don’t be dishonest even when you have awkward conversations, because you are from a good place here. And don’t break any rules. If so, admit it.

“I’m not really sure how we ended up where we are now, but I think the most important thing was to communicate openly and never hide our feelings,” Roy mused. “We trusted each other, and even when we inadvertently hurt each other in the process, we knew the intentions were good and [we] were willing to overcome the growing pains to be in a place where we were both sexually satisfied and in our marriage … “