How to Have an Open Relationship

How to Have an Open Relationship

Relationships can be complicated, especially when we are talking about open relationships. Kissing someone that is not your partner or having sex outside of your marriage are reasons for which people end a relationship. However, people in open relationships don’t necessarily consider these acts as cheating or betrayal. Under a mutual agreement couples may allow for engagement in sexual or even romantic experiences with other people. Open relationships are built on trust, communication and the understanding of limits.

In this OneHowTo article we explain how to have an open relationship.

Define your relationship needs

One of the most important elements in any relationship is open communication. Not only will this help you understand your partner better , but it will help you find a common ground on what you want to get out of the relationship.

It is possible that both of you have different opinions of what an open relationship is and how you want to proceed with seeing other people. For some people, sex is out of boundaries but kissing is allowed. Once you set up what it is that you are looking for in an open relationship it will be easier to make decisions without affecting your partnership.

Don’t hide your current relationship

As you may start seeing other people, it is important to be transparent about your current situation. Not everyone is comfortable with entering an open relationship and you may not want to rise up the hopes of other people if you are only looking for a short fling.

While open relationships are on the rise, there is still a strong cultural belief that relationships should be exclusive and that seeing a third person is becoming disloyal. Not everyone understands that there are many ways to work on relationships and be perfectly happy.

Keep in touch with your feelings

Despite being comfortable in an open relationship, this doesn’t mean that you may be immune to your feelings changing. At the beginning you might find it fairly easy to start seeing other people, but as time goes by you might find that this situation is not working for you anymore.

Many people engage in open relationships because they find themselves living in different areas of the world. Once the close contact decreases, you might see your feelings changing. It may be that seeing other people when in a long distance relationship, actually made you rethink about how comfortable you are being in an open relationship.

Keeps some elements exclusive

When you may be open to seeing or sleeping with other people, it can be fairly simple to forget what attracted you to your partner in the first place. For this reason, it is important that you decide on what aspects of your relationship you want to keep between each other. You still have to remember that you were first in a relationship with this other person and that your decision to open up the relationship should not be working against it. Make sure to set up your priorities straight.

If you want to read similar articles to How to Have an Open Relationship, we recommend you visit our Sentimental relationships category.