I'm ethically non-monogamous with my wife.

What is erhical non-monogamy?

In short it's a relationship where partners engage in romantic or sexual relationships with multiple partners with the informed cosent and knowledge of all involved. You can actually break it down further than that, which this graphic helps explain:

My wife and mine's relationship is that of an open relationship, though we have discussed polyamory before and the idea of bringing a third into our relationship. That can get quite compolicated though, and is something that would need lots of careful thought and discussion.

We are allowed to have sexual encounters outside of the relationship within set boundaries that we have agreed (more on that shortly). In truth, neither of us have had that many encounters outside of our marriage for a variety of reason. We have had a few encounters and I've certainly flirted plenty, and had what I suppose you would call 'online flings', but I've only had a couple of direct sexual encounters outside of our marriage. I have found myself more wanting to fuck other women lately though, helped in no small part by a friend of my wife who has awoken something in me! I desperately want to fuck her (and I'm pretty sure she wants to fuck me too!) It might happen. I want it to happen, though she has ... complications ... with her marriage to deal with. I'm certainly allowing myself to flirt outrageously with her and let other things happen though, if not direct sex.

When people who are not in-the-know hear of non-monogamous relationships, they tend to think it's cheating and a recipe for disaster. Firstly, it's not cheating by very definition. A true ethically non-monogamous relationship is done with consent (side note - I'll admit to sometimes fantasising about cheating. It's not something I condone and fantasies can remain just that - an imagined idea. But the though of fucking someone who is cheating on their partner can be a bit of a turn on. It's dangerous. But that's also part of the thrill of a fantasy).

Seondly, the idea that it is a recipe for disaster is questionable at best. While there is no detailed study on relationship problems in monogamous vs non-monogamous relationships, there is some strong evidence to suggest that ethically non-monogamous relationships can be more stable and less prone to break-ups than traditional monogamous ones. I think there is probably a few reasons for that:

1. Communication 

You may well have heard it said that communication is key in a healthy long-lasting relationship. If there is one thing that ethically non=monogamous relationships tend to be good at, it's communication. 

TBC ...