The Trade-Offs of Open Relationships

I want to share with you what you don’t get when you enter into an open relationship, but also what you do get. The things you do get are incredibly wonderful and successful. The things you don’t get in an open relationship may or may not be detrimental, but I think they’re positive, and I’ll show you why.

Lack of Societal Validation in Open Relationships

When you enter into an open relationship, you don’t get the validation of entering into a relationship with someone with a standard model. You don’t get the validation of your peers, your parents, or your friends. Most people follow the standard model relationships, which I’ll go into in a little bit. The standard model being, I’ll grant myself to you in exchange for your granting yourself exclusively to me, and we’re sexually exclusive, at least publicly.

The Pressure of Conformity

Remember that many people who are not into the standard model of relationships are in it because of what other people will think—what their parents will think, what their peers would think. A lot of gay people who are not into the opposite sex are in relationships with the opposite sex because of what other people would think. You will not get the validation of your peers for getting a husband or a wife. That’s incredibly important to point out and for you to realize that a lot of people get a husband or a wife not because they think it’s the right thing to do but because it’s what people say is the right thing for them to do. Think about that.

Security Versus Freedom

The other thing that you don’t get is the security of an arranged relationship. Now, most people don’t think of a monogamous relationship as arranged, but essentially, what is arranged in the relationship? Even though no one else arranges it for you, at least in modern times, you presume the relationship is about love. But in the old days, which is not that long ago from modern times, most relationships were arranged, and that actually worked because people presumed it was arranged, not about love. But now, people presume relationships to be about love while still following the old model of a relationship, which is arranged for a reason. Marriage was an arrangement; it was a deal, a business deal, so people could gain power, increase their wealth, and increase their land. Do you understand? Increase their family, increase their reach, increase their network. That was why relationships were arranged, and it worked because they didn’t presume it was about love. But now, relationships don’t work quite well because they still follow the model of the arranged marriage but presuming it to be about love.

Redefining Relationships for Personal Autonomy

Let me put that in a different perspective. If you’re going to presume your relationship is about power, relationship, and network, then it makes sense to partner, create a partnership with somebody who has more power, more money, more wealth, more reach, more network, and then you increase your reach because of that. And then you build your legacies around that. Legacy being your offsprings. Now, Legacy, I’ll talk about in a different video, but developing a legacy with your offspring is a significant thing. And this is why people become incredibly selfish because they know that their child has to be their own because all their life’s hard work is going to be inherited by those things. Leaving that alone for now, think about that.

Choosing Love Over Arrangement

Now, if you’re going to presume your love, your relationship is about love, then you really have to consider what has to be in place so that you can have a persistent relationship based on love rather than based on a partnership to increase wealth, power, network, land, and reach. Do you understand? Because they’re completely different. So, I want you to consider that. What is my relationship about? Is it about love? And if it’s about love, you must come from the premise that it is about love and build your relationship based on that.

The Incompatibility with the Standard Model

If you’re a free individual who likes to be independent, this is something you really have to pay attention to. You cannot follow the standard model relationship because the standard model relationship is based on security; it’s based on a business deal, a partnership to increase wealth, power, and real estate.

The Risks of Traditional Arrangements

So you don’t get the security of an arrangement. The arrangement being, let’s make an arrangement. I will grant myself exclusively to you in exchange for your granting yourself exclusively to me for the rest of our lives, and we will take care of each other’s families. Now, this arrangement doesn’t take into effect, doesn’t take into account whether or not we love each other at that time, whether or not we like each other. They don’t, in other words, let me put that in terms you could understand, they don’t say that if we no longer like each other, we no longer love each other, we must divorce. That is not in the contract because that contract of sexual exclusivity never had that in mind. It had in mind the forever aspect, for the rest of our lives, we will be intertwined with each other, contractually, legally. Do you see where the dilemma of that is?

The Benefits of Open Relationships

Now, it also comes into effect the death of the relationship, the death knell of every loving relationship is being and feeling taken for granted, the inevitable outcome of being granted. So, leaving that alone for now, what are the three things that you do get when you enter into an open relationship, which is the reason why open relationships can be long-term, despite what most people think?

1. Unconditional Love: You get unconditional love, which is your genuine wanting for your beloved’s happiness, intrinsic to your own. Intrinsically to your own is, in other words, inside you. What is the most important thing to you, arguably the most important thing to you, is your happiness. You want that for your beloved, so there is no jealousy if they want to pursue something, even if it’s with someone somewhere else where you’re not involved or you’re not involved in the same bed in which they’re sleeping. You still want that for them because you love them.

2. Non-Judgmental Acceptance: You get to have non-judgmental acceptance. You accept the person for who they are, the man that they are, the woman that they are, or the person with the individual desires and boundaries and non-desires and preferences that they have, whatever genitalia they have.

3. Open Communication: You get open communication. You can genuinely openly communicate, and you encourage open communication because there’s no blackmailing, there’s no emotional or psychological or even physical blackmail for their being themselves, communicating them as they are.