I’m pleased to learn after all these years that #eldiablo311 reports that, despite the predictions of many naysayers, his marriage remains strong despite the asymmetry of his and his wife’s ENM relationship. It’s perhaps a good example of the aphorism that no one can truly know another couple’s marriage.
Some of those commenters have likely seen marriages where attempts to establish an asymmetric ENM relationship have gone badly. And I’m sure that happens, just as it sometimes does for couples who both participate in the wide variety of ENM relationships that exist, including swinging. Not singling out the board members who commented here, but I wonder if what informs their perspective is an internal conversation, perhaps outside their awareness, that goes like this: "I couldn’t have a relationship where my partner was having other sexual engagements or relationships when I didn’t, nor would I be comfortable having sex with others if my partner were not also. And I think other people are generally like me." That last sentence is the problem. It should read — and some commenters have essentially acknowledged this — "Even among the small minority of couples who are swingers or engaged otherwise in an ENM relationship, there are additional challenges in having one partner play while the other doesn’t. But for some folks it’s quite workable."
Full disclosure; I have been in an asymmetric ENM marriage for the past 20 of its now 33-year duration. Naturally, I see such a relationship as quite plausible, and I may well not fully appreciate how challenging this would be for other couples in the lifestyle, whether new to it or longtimeers revising their "rules of the road".
My wife and I are both in our mid-70s and agree that our marriage continues to thrive. I attribute our success to a number of factors: neither of us is crazy; we were friends for almost 20 years before we became lovers; we support each other through thoughtful division of household tasks; we have made sure we spend less than our income — she was a personal finance journalist 😉😊 — and we have remained blessedly free of financial strain. But to my mind the most important reason we’ve been able to successfully maintain a happy marriage where I have other sexual and affectionate relationships and she does not, is that we both sincerely want the other to have as full and rewarding a life as possible. And we have both been willing to make accommodations to facilitate the other’s fulfillment. I don’t mean to imply that there have never been conflicting matters, sexual and otherwise. There have been. But when they have occurred we have negotiated a solution that (thus far, touch wood) is acceptable to both of us.