NY Times Piece on How to Propose Non-Monogamy to Your Partner

[PeterJ 960]

This non-judgement how-to article is currently up on The NY Times website:

 

New York Time Magazine: How to Propose an Open Relationship

 

Don’t report me for copying and pasting the text so you won’t have to deal with the paper’s paywall.

 

“Don’t bring it up during an argument,” says Terri D. Conley, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan who studies sexuality. If you’re in a monogamous relationship and want to explore making it nonmonogamous, raise the topic gradually. Conley doesn’t drink, but she thinks these exploratory conversations might benefit from the loosening effects of alcohol. Start hypothetically. For example, ask your partner to name the most attractive famous people. “You could then say, ‘Oh, that person is so hot, if they propositioned you, I’d be fine if you had sex with them,’ ” Conley says. If your partner looks horrified at the suggestion, it doesn’t bode well.

 

Once you decide to make your case outright, be explicit about what you want, and say it clearly. Listen carefully to what your partner wants. To make what sex researchers call consensual “extradyadic involvement” work, you need to be willing to communicate often and with empathy. Monogamous couples move into nonmonogamy for all kinds of reasons — unmet sexual desire, boredom, illness, curiosity. Open arrangements tend to work best for couples with lower inclinations toward jealousy and, in the case of heterosexual pairs, less rigid gender norms. Just the suggestion of romantic permutation can be stimulating. The psychotherapist Esther Perel has found that when monogamous couples discuss the possibility of nonmonogamy, it often increases sexual desire between them. “You’re asking yourselves, ‘What would our relationship look like if it changed?’ ” Conley says.

 

If you can afford it, take this negotiation to couples’ therapy. Be sure to choose a provider who is amenable to the notion of open relationships; Conley’s research suggests many are not and that some core psychology theories of attachment, commitment and psychosocial development presume monogamy as the ideal. Since Conley first began publishing academic papers on nonmonogamy more than a decade ago, she has been attacked by other researchers in the field. Their anger confused her. “It was like I shot their dog,” she says. Her methodology wasn’t the problem, she says; it was that she’d dared to suggest that nonmonogamous relationships could be healthy and satisfying.

 

If both parties appear willing to try an open relationship, give yourselves a trial period. “If your partner is still miserable after two months, it’s probably not going to work,” Conley says. “In which case you need to decide if you’re going to stay with that person and be monogamous or leave.”

[adamgunn 1,461]

“Don’t bring it up during an argument,” Duh!

 

“In which case you need to decide if you’re going to stay with that person and be monogamous or leave.” If you're not committed, you shouldn't be having this conversation.

[Newandnaughty 3]

This non-judgement how-to article is currently up on The NY Times website:

 

 

Conley doesn’t drink, but she thinks these exploratory conversations might benefit from the loosening effects of alcohol.

 

If you can afford it, take this negotiation to couples’ therapy. Be sure to choose a provider who is amenable to the notion of open relationships;

 

If both parties appear willing to try an open relationship, give yourselves a trial period. “If your partner is still miserable after two months, it’s probably not going to work,” Conley says. “In which case you need to decide if you’re going to stay with that person and be monogamous or leave.”

 

This, my friends, is why the NYT is considered an absolute joke anymore.

 

The best way to discus and decide on swinging with your partner is to get a bottle of tequila, get shit bag drunk, tell each other which celebrity you think is hot and commit to being swingers.

 

If you can afford it, see a couples therapist first. This advice coming from a sex therapist ?

 

Give swinging a try! If you hate it, try again, and again, and again for two months. If you’re still miserable and neither of you has killed the other in a jealous range, come see me again for more therapy.

 

I’ll get my advice from these threads right here. People that have actually been through every scenario and didn’t get their “swinging experience” from a textbook.

[SW_PA_Couple 4,026]

My appreciation, PeterJ. The article is interesting. If you find others, do not hesitate to forward them. I did chuckle when I read "if you can afford it."

[EastInWest 1,524]

“You could then say, ‘Oh, that person is so hot, if they propositioned you, I’d be fine if you had sex with them,’ ” Conley says. If your partner looks horrified at the suggestion, it doesn’t bode well.

 

I had to laugh at this amongst all the bad advice. We spent a year or two playing our own "what do you think of them for a threesome" game.

[ViSexual 1,008]

The article mentioned talking about what celebrities each of you would enjoy. There was an episode of 'Friends', where Joey and Rachel each picked three people that they could have permission to be with if the opportunity afforded itself.

 

The funny thing is that Joey actually had an opportunity with an actress he'd wanted for a long time but he hadn't chosen her to be one of the three. He suggested that they, he and Rachel, could make changes and he dropped one of his and added the one he had the opportunity with. When this one found out she wasn't one of his first choices, she dumped him.

 

I just tried to find that episode and couldn't. I remember after my wife and I watched it, we both made our lists. It was fun.

 

But for someone wanting to bring the subject up with a spouse, watching that episode would be a great way to open the conversation.

[adamgunn 1,461]

And then there was the time on How I Met Your Mother when Robin was invited up to The Frozen Snowshoe's place to see his collection of Harvey's Trays and offered to do the Old King Clancy with him.