open relationships

Hi guys, welcome back to Model Behavior. I hope you're all having a fantastic day. I'm sorry if you can hear my heat rattling in the background. It is freezing in New York. Actually, it's currently snowing and I live in a very old building. So the heat is pumping. Anyway, I feel like I have unlocked so many new topics to talk about on this podcast now that I'm single. And so I thought I would get into something juicy today. Let's talk about open relationships, ethical non-monogamy or whatever you want to call it. Honestly, not no. I'm not going to say no, I would never be down. I have been in open situations before where we were both very aware that we were together, but also seeing other people. And I'll get into all my experiences shortly, but I would say I am hypothetically open to an arrangement like that, but under very specific circumstances. I think my biggest kind of like hot take on this topic is that if you want to have an open relationship with someone, I personally believe that means you aren't fully in love with them and aren't totally satisfied and don't actually like them that much. And you can totally disagree with me. That's fine. I'm not saying that's 100% always the case, but in general, that's what I believe has happened in most open relationships because that's the only time I've ever considered doing one. I was unsatisfied, I was bored, and I honestly just didn't like the person I was dating that much anymore. And it's always been this step that I have taken or the question I've asked like a few months before we end up breaking up anyway. And I really truly believe that nine times out of 10 open relationships create more problems than they solve. But if you have figured out the formula for success, congratulations, and I'm so happy for you because it seems damn near impossible. However, I have experienced success in a certain type of semi-open, non-traditional relationship before, and I do think that I will most likely continue to follow that kind of relationship model probably for the rest of my life. But before I explain that and get into all my stories of different versions of open relationships I've been in, I just want to talk about them in general. So these days, people are calling it ethical non-monogamy. Emily Ruddekowski is a huge advocate for this, and she has an episode on her podcast about it. And there are just lots of celebrities who talk about it. Will and J. Dismith, Dolly Parton, Brad Pitt, and Angelina Jolie. The list goes on. It seems to be pretty popular among celebrity relationships, which honestly makes sense because so many actors and models and singers and celebrities are hit on by literally half of America every single day. And I'm sure with that many options and so many other beautiful, famous people around you constantly, it's probably pretty hard to keep your eye from wandering and being unfaithful. So sure, maybe having an open relationship instead of someone just ending up cheating and hiding things is probably for the best, but in normal relationships, honestly, I have just never seen it actually work. Every person I know who has been in a serious relationship and then has tried an open relationship has ended up heartbroken, single, or divorced. But with emphasis on serious relationship, I do think it's totally reasonable to be open if you don't take the main relationship that seriously to begin with. Like if you want to date someone and be their girlfriend and go on dates and hang out, but also still want to see other people, I think that type of a casual open arrangement works in that situation with the right people. I'm definitely not opposed to that. But like if my husband of five or 10, 20 years wanted to fully date and be in a romantic relationship completely separate from me, I just don't think I would be okay with that. And I don't see myself ever wanting to do that either. Like if I have a husband one day, which hopefully I will, I don't think I'll ever want to date another man or be romantically involved with any man except my husband. And ideally, he would feel the same way. But also let me clarify about what type of open relationship I am talking about. And then I'll explain the other kinds. So so far in this episode, I'm talking about an open relationship where each person is free to date someone outside of the relationship. Like fully date, romantic, sexual, the full thing, you have a whole other girlfriend or whole other boyfriend, whole other relationship. The European style open relationship is where there are other people outside of the relationship, but it isn't talked about. It's kind of ignored. And it's permitted as long as it doesn't interfere with like family time. Never in a million years would that ship fly with me. But I think that is actually probably the most common type of open relationship. Like there are lots of husbands who work all the time and end up having a girlfriend in another city. And the wife isn't stupid obviously and she figures it out. But as long as the husband is there for the family and like participates in family time and can keep his girlfriend from interfering with family life, then it's fine. And maybe the wife occasionally sees the pool boy when the husband's out of town. And everyone pretends it's not happening and continues as normal. There are also situations where couples agree that they can see other people, but it's like strictly sexual. Most of the time they put rules in place like don't sleep with the same person twice, don't sleep with anybody you know personally, stop seeing them if either person even slightly develops an emotional connection or feelings for each other. But I feel like that's super tricky and I think it's very easy for those kind of rules to be broken accidentally and can very quickly make things very messy. But there are also situations where people only date other people together. Like three sums or they both date the same person together. I think that could work and I have honestly done that before but I'll get more into that later. And then there are situations where you are doing long distance. You don't see each other that often. You still want to be together when you are physically together and emotionally together when you're apart, but when you're physically apart you can see other people. I also think this can work honestly and I have also asked a partner for this kind of relationship before as well. But now I want to get into my personal experiences with open relationships. Okay, the first time I ever realized I wanted something like that was when my high school boyfriend went to college in a different state. I was 18, I'd been dating this guy on and off for a while and we'd known each other since we were kids and it was honestly just like more kind of best friend vibes but we definitely loved each other too and we wanted to be together. But then we ended up in different states so we were long distance for the first time and this was his very first year of college and he was in a fraternity and I just really wanted him to enjoy himself and have the full college experience and I felt like kind of guilty because I felt like I was holding him back a little bit from like having as much fun as he could have been having and by that time I also wasn't super invested in that relationship. I mean I still did want to be with him but I knew we weren't going to be totally satisfied being so far apart for such long periods of time so I kind of wanted us both to have the best of both worlds like still be in a relationship because we love each other and we love talking to each other but also just like go and join college and have fun when we aren't physically together which at that point was most of the time. So I thought that was the perfect situation for an agreement like that where we could both have our cake and eat it too and I honestly I really don't have a jealous bone in my body but most people do so it's obviously not for everyone and he was actually like almost offended that I had asked for this type of arrangement. He was absolutely not down which I wasn't expecting because I assumed that most college freshmen or even just men in general would love a free pass to be in a new town around all these new girls and going to all these parties all the time and keep their girlfriend at home but also be allowed to hook up with other girls without their girlfriend being upset but I don't know honestly I think the reason it didn't work with him was because he was still a little bit more invested in the relationship than I was so he was more committed and just truly did not want to be with anyone except me. So my first shot at an open situation did not work and we ended up breaking up anyway. I also had another kind of open situation with another ex-boyfriend but it was different so I am bisexual I do like women but at this time I was about a year and a half into a relationship with a man and I'm young so obviously I'm curious and I want to explore my sexuality a little bit so I asked my boyfriend at the time if I could go on some dates with girls. I had never actually probably properly dated a woman before and I wanted to do that and see what it was like. So we agreed and made some rules about it. I actually downloaded Hinge on his phone and gave him full access to check who I was talking to on there and he wouldn't like go through all the messages or anything but sometimes I would just like go on Hinge and he would sit next to me and just kind of watch what I was doing and who I was swiping on and like help me talk to girls because I have absolutely negative res when it comes to talking to girls for some reason. So it was fun and cute and whatever for us to do together and he was super supportive and always excited for me whenever I had a date and he would like help me pick out my outfit and get ready which I thought was funny but I honestly only went on like two dates and neither one ended up going anywhere and I think this situation can also be kind of a double edged sword because yes it was nice that he was encouraging me to explore different sides of myself but at the same time it sometimes makes me a little bit uncomfortable when my sexuality is fetishized in a way and not really taken that seriously because some men get a little bit too excited when you tell them that you're bisexual. They immediately expect three sums that's like always where their mind goes immediately and they just don't take it very seriously at all because I know if I were to ask to go on a date with a man he would have lost his shit but because it was a woman he took it less seriously and he wasn't threatened by it at all. That's a whole other topic I could literally make an entire episode about because I really don't think that most men take bisexuality in women very seriously at all and it's extremely fetishized. But anyway that was a like semi open type agreement it never really ended up turning into anything but I feel like it was successful and like I got what I wanted out of it and that's about as open as I've been. But I honestly think that when I'm married we won't ever have a totally open relationship because hopefully we're both madly in love with each other and committed to each other but I do think it's a little different because of my sexuality and I do want to honor and explore my full sexuality throughout my entire life. But I have a feeling that I am going to end up having a traditional family and a husband and children so I think we will probably end up bringing in a little like girlfriend every now and then and maybe involve my husband as much as we decide to. Probably not post to that and I think that's maybe the best way to kind of find a happy balance of satisfaction and exploration within a marriage when one partner is bisexual. But who knows maybe I'll change my mind by the time I married and never want to sleep with anyone else ever again. I know I definitely could never have a completely separate relationship from my partner and I would really hate for them to have another relationship. So an actual text book open relationship would never work for me and it's not even that I would be jealous. I just think I would want someone's full commitment and I want to give them my full attention and commitment and I think I'm pretty traditional in terms of wanting to belong to each other in a marriage like exclusively. But occasionally having some fun together as a couple, sure why not. Okay, this sounds insane because it is insane but I did actually have a pretty recent proposal for an open arrangement as well. I did not accept this proposal but I feel like I just need to share this story. So I was dating this guy for like a month and he ended up being a complete psycho and basically as soon as we started hanging out he was like love bombing and just being insane and he actually asked me to be his girlfriend on the second date but he said he was non-monogamous and that every relationship he'd ever been in was either open or he had cheated. So he was like serial non-monogamous and so when he eventually proposed this to me he called the agreement a quote unquote contract. And the terms he literally wanted to write it down and have me sign it. Like who does this man think he is? Like fucking Christian Gray and the terms of this contract were absolutely insane. So first the idea was that I would be 80% his girlfriend and 20% free to do whatever I wanted. So basically I was expected to spend 80% of my time being his girlfriend and if I wanted to mess around with anyone else I couldn't spend more than 20% of my time and energy doing that. Basically he said it would be like we were in a relationship boyfriend girlfriend and we could just cheat on each other sometimes and it would be okay. Which like okay weird. Then the next rule was that I couldn't go on any dates or have any dating apps. Like how was that an open relationship if I can't go on a date with anyone and he expected it to just be like hooking up. Like you meet someone while you're out with your friends or while you're like on a work trip and you can sleep with them but you can't go to dinner with them. That was just so weird to me because I just can't like that's just not how I date people. Like I don't just meet somebody and hook up with them without like dating that I don't know I just seem so weird. And the next rule was that I couldn't physically sleep with anyone else. I couldn't spend the night anywhere. So if I were to hook up with someone who I didn't go on a date with I would also just have to pack up and leave right after. This whole thing was so crazy but it gets even worse. He wanted to put limits on the race and religion of who I could hook up with. He told me I'm not even kidding you this is disgusting. He said I could only hook up with white men and men who were not Jewish. That is that shit crazy. This man is absolutely insane like off the walls insane. Not to mention racist and antisemitic so wild to me. So obviously that was not an arrangement I wanted to have at all and I stopped talking to him for obvious reasons. It's just so crazy to me that people are like just walking around out there and that in their mind is their ideal relationship arrangement. Like that just blows my mind that is so so wild and that is just not for me at all. But so far that is pretty much all my experience with open relationships and I just honestly I can't believe how calm it is. I feel like everyone in New York is open in their own terms. It's crazy how many people sleep with each other's friends and it's just so messy in New York. And maybe it's like that everywhere. It's just like people are more open about it in New York but I seriously know like 10 people within a one mile radius that are in like quote unquote open relationships with all their own like terms and conditions. And I feel like when you hear about it people automatically assume like oh my god like you have serious relationships with multiple people and like how do you deal with your boyfriend having a whole other girlfriend but it's not always like that. I mean it definitely is sometimes but that is not the type of thing I would be into. But yeah I'm not saying one thing is right or wrong if a totally open relationship works for you then props to you because that seems very difficult and that's impressive if you got that to work. But yeah I'm sure at some point I will have another open relationship proposal hopefully not as insane as the last one I got because that was a little too far out there. Right now I'm still just looking to date one person. I think that's kind of all the tea and all my opinions on open relationships. It's really fun to talk about topics like this now so I definitely want to get more into like the single life dating topics and if you have any recommendations please feel free to send me a DM and we can get into some juicy stuff from this podcast now. But for now I think that's all I have. I love you guys so much but you know that already and I will see you next time.