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Are Open Marriages More Successful?

August 24th, 2007 by SexyGal

To many, “open marriage” is a phrase so laden with 1970s nostalgia that the idea can’t be considered without imagining its practitioners leering at each other across shag-carpeted conversation pits, their chest hair spilling out of maroon polyester leisure suits.While many of today’s adherents are aging swingers from the old school, a new generation — well organized and committed to legitimizing a lifestyle — continues to push traditional notions of marital fidelity by having sex with people other than their spouses.

But do marriages — fragile institutions traditionally built on the fidelity and sexual intimacy of two people — work when the doors of the bedroom are thrown wide open?

open-marriage “That’s like asking if monogamy works,” Deborah Anapol, a psychologist and author of “Polyamory: The New Love Without Limits” told ABC NEWS.com. “Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t. It depends almost entirely on the people involved and their willingness to tell the truth and do the work.”

“Polyamory,” which literally means “many loves” is a new name for an old practice.

“There were a few studies on open marriage in the early ’60s and ’70s, but the phenomenon seemed to die out and it was just called cheating after that,” said William Doherty, a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota.

“It resurfaced as polyamory, and some groups have imbued it with a spiritual side. They see it as a pathway to personal development. They see it as a high road; it’s not cheating, it’s growing their relationship,” he said.