Been working for me for over a decade. I love my wife dearly, she’s not as sexual as I am, she likes hearing about my encounters with other women, it works for us. It won’t work for everyone, and requires a ton of communication and respect.

As long as both are consenting adults, whatever I think doesn’t matter.

I wouldn’t like it in that situation, no. If you aren’t together and are doing other people but not each other what exactly is your relationship?

The only way I think it really works is if you are so hot together it pulls other people in, and if you are both wired to be turned on by hearing about the sex with other people, and have extremely good communication, like to the point it would annoy most people. It can’t be to fill a hole (ha ha) in the relationship you have. It can be good if you are both enthusiastic about it for sure. I don’t personally know anyone who has successfully used it one sided to manage a libido difference, though the top comment here is a guy saying he does that.

ITT: polyphobia

I’m newly poly and my wife and girlfriend both live in town, but it’s really fulfilling for all of us

that’s “a relationship” just not the one I could understand

Not for me. I don’t do remote either

Completely depends on long term goals. Is it something you’re looking to try?

It seems like an exhaustingly complex set of boundaries to keep and tends to create winners and losers out of third parties if the boundaries are rigidly followed in most cases. I think being that secure is somewhat admirable, but it also seems like a devastating fall to make if things don’t work out. Different folks have different ways of doing things, I think it’s fine, just not for me personally and I definitely wouldn’t want to be the 3rd party to it either.

I would not rule it out, but if I were to guess it’s not something for me.

It can never be as deep as a monogamous one (ceiling, not floor) and idk anyone IRL who would be okay with it in earnest (and not just saying they are not to lose the person thinking about opening it, or access to their resources), so idk. I would say I’m cautious about them, particularly how healthy they can be.

Open relationships are objectively bad for healthy mature people who prize a connection and long-term loving relationship.

However, they are a lot easier for people who prefer to not go deep, who don’t want to work on themselves, and who want to imagine they’re doing something extra “enlightened” or detached. It’s basically something you do out of ego and self-convenience, which is the antithesis of love.

If you’re serious about this life, find one person and go deep with them. Experience the desperation of not always getting what you want, not always being able to have your needs met, not just being able to go to a different person when it gets hard or when you feel deprived.

Like Jung says nobody grows until they reach a problem they can’t solve. Real love relationships are like that; you are eventually tasked with not just loving your own preferences mirrored in another person, which is pure selfishness, but learning to love beyond your own preferences, loving beyond getting what you want; loving just to love. This is the only way a person can learn unconditional love, even having children cannot teach you that because since they are “yours” the condition is always there that they an extension of your own genes. And loving yourself is easy.