by Kate Johns

Created on: June 24, 2008   Last Updated: July 02, 2008

Having an open marriage just spells disaster. Open marriage screams the whole sixties drug taking, we're open for new experiences thing. People who are married and have an open marriage aren't really married at all. They aren't committed to one another and they aren't committed to making a relationship work. Why not just stay single, and fool around.

So, you want to find out what it is like to have an open relationship while being married. I have a friend that went for the whole open marriage thing. Her husband was on the road working his job that took him all over the United States. When he would come home for several days my friend said he was like a different person. She said he kissed her differently. Sex with her husband wasn't the same. What I'm trying to say isshe knew he was screwing around on her, because he was different in bed.

When she asked him about the new moves in bed, he didn't lie about it. He told her straight out that he was lonely on the road and was seeing other women. He also said that it was okay with him for her to have "boyfriends". And he said, " But we'll stay married and remain a couple." When she told me this, one sunny afternoon as I was playing patty cakes with their two-year-old daughter, I thought I was in some really bad old movie.

And guess what happened? She went for it. My squeaky straight friend that I had known since middle school was going to do the unthinkable. She was going to have affairs, or one-night stands or the whole open marriage thing. And guess who was enlisted to help? Me- the super reliable, strong as a rock, still married friend. She wanted me to go out with her and help her pick up guys!

So, I started going out with her at night to help her pick up guys. Two married women dressed like morons, wearing tons of makeup with really bad 80's hair. I felt like a total idiot. Her husband even gave her advice on how to pick up men! She finally did meet a guy at the apartment complex pool we both lived at. He started a conversation about what a great apartment building they lived at. As I sat there feeling like a fifth wheel, thinking how I'd rather be doing anything else, even scrubbing toilets sounded better than this. After all this was one of the reasons I got married was to get out of the pickup scene.

I vowed out of this strange third party open marriage relationship thing after telling my husband what was going on. He was mad, and immediately started looking for a new place to live. My friend and her husband eventually got divorced. That was after they both had several open marriage relationships. It seems he fell in love with another woman and they had a child together while still married to my friend.

Like I said, open marriage is just another way of saying, I don't want to be in a committed relationship. For the most part, two people end up hurt in this kind of arrangement. Cheating is cheating, and basically that is what open marriage is, cheating on your spouse.

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