Open Relationship \(-u-)/

I would not be into this, mainly because I don't like the idea of sharing my partner with another guy. It bothers me at an instinctual level. However, I would be open to the idea of sharing my partner with another female only for sexual purposes, better yet if I could get involved too. I'd be completely satisfied with a monogamous relationship, though. However, based on my knowledge of psychology women tend to be programmed to connect love with sex. Conversely, many men do not need this connection to enjoy sex.

Call me a romantic, but I think if you love someone then you should be with that person alone, otherwise you shouldn't be together at all - if you can think of someone else in that way then clearly it's not meant to be.

If it works for them then that is their business. I don't think I would want to try it as marriage to me is the exact opposite of seeing other people. Another issue I would have is that it removes the whole confidence of a disease free relationship. While probably not at the top of most married couples' list of why they married, isn't it still a nice benefit to not have to worry about STDs?

I think if it works for the adults involved then it's all good. A healthy relationship doesn't always just involved 2 people only, there's a lot of reasons why some people just don't do well with monogamy that have nothing to do with how much they love/respect their significant others. Humans are not naturally monogamous. We're special in that there is more parental involvement with offsprings and thus we socially pair up, but biologically all our drives seem to be towards one goal, which is to insure survival of our genes and that's not as effective with monogamy. I'm not saying monogamy is bad, just that it's difficult and some people just cannot do it. @Nate from what I understand of most non-monogamous relationship... practicers? is that they set ground rules. Like I only share skin privileges "no condoms" with my primary relationship and not the others. That kind of thing. Anyways I think it can work if everyone involved is open and communicating with each other and set rules that everyone follows.

One issue I see that might contribute to this is that a man's sex drive is relatively high through most of their life but many women I know go through more ups and downs. Usually pretty high from around 14-20 but tends to level off or decline, even more so after they have kids. Sometimes can go back up later. Also women get bored easier in bed and need more entertainment then men do. I like to have sex 2-3 times a day but lately I've met more and more women who have much lower sex drives. Back in the day when I dated younger girls, they were just as horny as me if not more and wanted as much sex as they could get.

Well just like how men have to deal with erectile disfunction as they get older, women's biggest problem is indeed loss of sexual drive. Women's sexuality is very complicated and multifaceted, so there's no one answer. But common causes can be relationship problems like with the partner's performance, lack of emotional fulfillment, or having kids like you said. It can also be hormonal since as we age blood levels of androgen drop and then women slow down in testosterone production after the 20's until menopause and that'll drop significantly and that will affect sex drive as well. Stress is a big one that affects both genders, job stress and peer pressure. Lots of reasons which sucks. Especially the testosterone cause osteoporosis is high amongst elderly women though men can get it too.

Also I should point out that it doesn't mean that women past the 20s don't have sex because they most certainly do. It's just that they might not be as interested in it as much as they used to be. But if you're level with your partner, or partners given the original topic of this thread, then it's all good

Ifor me, if I wanted multiple partners, I wouldn't bother getting married. @xueli condoms are one thing, but they aren't the de facto fix for all stds. Don't get me wrong, they stop a lot of things and are a good practice, but they are far from perfect.