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If you’ve been following my dating adventures for a while now, you’ll know I’m fascinated by open relationships. Or ‘ethically non-monogamous’ relationships, as they are now commonly referred to.
Seriously, there’s now a box you can tick on most dating apps that states you are in an ENM relationship or looking for one. That’s how normalised they have become.
As someone who’s wrestled with commitment for as long as I can remember, my ears definitely pricked up when more people started embracing the concept.
Could this be the magic fix? If a relationship was open, would I feel less trapped? Less claustrophobic? Hmm… it’s an intriguing thought.
My therapist’s answer was a cautious, ‘no, let’s work on that fear of intimacy.’ My answer was, ‘This sounds like a fabulous quick fix. Let’s give it a crack.’
Spoiler alert: it turns out I’m far too much of a green eyed monster to let another floozy flirt with my man. Safe to say the claws came out and it was an epic failure on my behalf.
However, it turns out I’m not alone in my curiosity. According to a recent YouGov survey, one in five people have dabbled in some form of ethical non-monogamy. And among Millennials and Gen Z, the interest is seriously heating up.
Nearly a third of Aussies under 35 say they’d consider an open relationship, and let’s be honest, with dating apps basically turning love into a buffet, who’s surprised?
Mail+ columnist Jana Hocking talks open marriages and relationships: can they really work?
Google searches for ‘open marriage’ and ‘polyamory’ are at an all-time high. So it seems we’re all asking the same cheeky question: what if there’s more than one way to do commitment?
‘My hall pass turned into a health scare’
Ellie* gave her boyfriend a hall pass before he jetted off on a lads’ trip to Bali.
‘I thought it’d be a fun way to let him live out a little fantasy,’ she said.
‘And honestly, I had a gut feeling he was going to do it anyway so giving him permission made me feel like I was at least in control.’
When he came back, he was smug and full of stories she didn’t really want to hear the details.
‘I brushed it off, told myself it was fine until a few days later, when I started getting painful blisters in my nether regions.’
Her boyfriend had brought back herpes and passed it on without so much as a warning.
‘I was stuck with a lifelong STI because we made one stupid decision and he made an even worse selfish one by not wearing a condom,’ she said.
One woman told Mail+ columnist Jana Hocking that she gave her boyfriend a hall pass for his lads’ trip – and it backfired spectacularly (stock image posed by model)
‘I couldn’t forgive him for putting my health at risk. We broke up not long after.’
Now, Ellie says the hardest part hasn’t been the breakup, it’s the shame.
‘Having to tell new partners I have herpes has completely knocked my confidence. The stigma is brutal. It’s made me terrified to get back out there.’
Her advice: ‘Don’t open your relationship unless you completely trust your partner to protect you even when you’re not there to make sure they do.’
‘Being in a relationship with two men is happiest I’ve ever been’
Both men know about each other, they get along, and she splits her time between Florida and Maui, living with each of them part-time.
‘We joke it’s joint custody,’ she wrote.
‘It sounds complicated, but honestly, it works.’
She told me she never set out to live this kind of life. ‘I used to think I was pretty traditional. I had only been with five guys, but my boyfriend was really into kink and alternative relationship structures. I told him I thought I might be bisexual and he really encouraged me to explore that, which I did.’
When she met her second partner, she said the connection was instant. ‘It was intense, emotional, and yes, very physical.’ But rather than sneak around, she told her first partner everything.
‘It was terrifying,’ she admitted.
‘But we all went to dinner and talked about it and it weirdly, brought us closer. Now, I’m in a serious relationship with both of them, and I’ve never felt more seen or more supported. I’m not torn between them, it just feels like two different parts of me being loved in full.’
She was clear that it’s not all perfect.
‘It took time, trust, and a lot of honesty to get here. But I wake up every day feeling loved, grounded, and very well taken care of. We all have ‘family calls’ once a month just to check in and make sure it’s still working for everyone, and we all regularly get tested. It’s the most responsible I’ve been in a relationship(s),’ she said.
‘I opened my relationship. Then I didn’t want to close it’
Jules* opened her marriage for a ‘summer of fun’ with her husband after they hired a rental house in Paris for three months. Miles away from their Sydney abode where word was likely to get out, they knew they could steer clear of the gossipmongers.
‘We agreed to one rule: no sleep overs and all dates must be communicated with each other,’ she said.
‘At the start it was like we were in our twenties again, flirting and going out with new exciting people. There were some good dates, and some not-so-good dates. But I found I loved the freedom. I thrived. I felt hot and wanted again.’
One woman told Jana she loved opening up her relationship. Her husband? Not so much
Her husband, on the other hand, not so much.
‘He tried, but it triggered all his insecurities,’ she said. ‘He wanted to go back to how things were. I couldn’t.’
She told me, ‘I’ve always been more physically attractive than him and I think it didn’t help that I was getting more dates then him.’
They eventually had an amicable split. ‘Oddly, opening our marriage helped me realise it was over. Since then, I haven’t looked back ever again to monogamy. Since that relationship I’ve been non-monogamous forever and it’s going to stay that way.’
‘He said he was okay with it. He wasn’t’
When Mel* floated the idea of opening her relationship with her husband after ten years together, he hesitated but ultimately agreed. Or so she thought.
‘It was fine while nothing was actually happening,’ she said. ‘But when I met someone and started glowing with excitement, things turned sour fast.’
The jealousy, silent treatment and emotional distance crept in.
‘Eventually, he admitted he hated it and felt like I had emotionally left the relationship,’ she said.
‘We separated three months later, and I’m now with the guy I originally met, in a monogamous relationship. Turns out I didn’t need to open my relationship, I needed to escape it to be truly happy.’
‘We were poly. Then he fell for her’
Another DM that hit a nerve came from Georgia*, who had been in a polyamorous relationship with her boyfriend James* for two years.
‘We had rules. We communicated. We even double-dated,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t a free-for-all but it was structured and kind of exciting.’
They’d started exploring polyamory not because things were broken, but because they were curious.
‘We loved each other deeply, but we both had strong flirt-with-everyone energy,’ she joked. So they agreed on a set of boundaries: honesty above all else, no secrets, and nothing serious with anyone else.
And for a while, it worked. They had flings, a few short-term situationships, and even hooked up with the same woman a few times. But then James met ‘her’.
One woman said she and her partner had ‘rules’ for making their polyamorous relationship work, but after a while she started to feel like the ‘back up option’
‘She was supposed to be another casual one,’ Georgia said. ‘That’s what he told me. But within a few weeks, it was obvious something had shifted. He was texting her constantly, cancelling plans with me to see her, always bringing her up in conversation.’
Georgia tried to stay cool. ‘I kept reminding myself that this is what we signed up for. I can’t be jealous, I agreed to this.’
But deep down, she was spiraling. ‘I started to feel like the backup option.’
They went to therapy. They tried to ‘recalibrate’ the arrangement. Georgia even attempted dating someone new herself to even the scales.
But the damage was done. ‘I realised I was okay with him sleeping with other people. What I wasn’t okay with was watching him fall in love with someone else in front of me.’
Eventually, she ended things. ‘I felt like I was screaming, «Pick me», and he didn’t. He tried to stay with both of us, but I couldn’t unsee how quickly I became an afterthought.’
She doesn’t regret trying polyamory.
‘It taught me a lot about myself. About communication, about boundaries, about what I can and can’t tolerate,’ she said.
‘But mostly it taught me that I’m not as emotionally detached as I thought. I want passion, adventure but I also want to be someone’s first choice. Not just their safe place.’
‘We had a threesome. It became a triad’
Ben* and Marco* had a spontaneous threesome with a man they met on a dating app. They told me it’s super common in the gay scene.
It was supposed to be a one-time thing, but chemistry had other plans.
‘We all fell for each other in different ways,’ Ben explained.
‘It turned into a polyamorous relationship… with shared calendars, joint holidays, even meeting his friends and letting it all hang out in the open.’
So… does it actually work? Honestly, it gave me anxiety reading some of these stories, but there’s no denying that sometimes couples in open marriages and relationships can thrive.
For some couples, opening things up turns into the ultimate aphrodisiac. For others, it cracks open insecurities they didn’t even know were lurking. There’s no neat answer, and definitely no manual.
But if you’re going to swing open the door to non-monogamy, just know this: you can’t control what (or who) walks in. Or who your partner might walk out with.
Tread carefully… and maybe grow a pair of balls made from steel. You will need them.
*names have been changed
