I cannot even count the number of friends on Facebook who are jokingly “married” to their best friend or “in an open relationship” with their platonic friend of the opposite sex. Many of my other friends are also “in a relationship” with their legitimate significant other. However, just because they are officially in a relationship does not mean they are monogamous.
We all joke about our relationship statuses on Facebook, but I think that the way we view relationships today is somewhat of a problem. Monogamous relationships are something that many people claim to be in, or think that are in, but often times both partners are not on the same page. So many of my friends have been cheated on by their boyfriends or girlfriends and have been completely shocked upon discovering their significant other’s indiscretion. Disturbingly, some of my friends know their boyfriend or girlfriend cheats on them and do little, if anything, to stop it.
While infidelity is something that has been going on since we have been a species, it is not something that is usually condoned or without consequences. However, recently many people claim to be in real “open relationships.” These relationships have different terms and conditions, but in short, they mean partners can be intimate with someone other than each other. At first, this idea seems like a perfect solution to the problem of cheating, but these types of “agreements” don’t come without a price.
When I googled the term “open relationship,” the first result was “How to manage jealousy in an open relationship.” People willingly participating in open relationships may claim that they are alright knowing their partners are with other people, but the feeling of jealousy is human nature. Clearly, by my Google search, this human instinct does not go away, even with both partners’ consent to be intimate outside of the relationship. So obviously jealousy is still going to be a factor in most open relationships, but do they at least eliminate feelings of mistrust?
For example, many people say that, when they are cheated on, they are more upset about the lying than the actual act of cheating. This is not true in all cases, but from talking with many people, and from personal experience, this is definitely the case. With an open relationship, lying would not necessarily have to be involved if your partner knows about the “infidelity.”
Lying seems to be omitted in these relationships, but I do not think this is absolutely true. By giving your partner the ability and outright permission to cheat, you are opening up an entirely different set of problems. Do partners have to tell each other every time they are intimate outside of the relationship? Do they have to tell the other partner if they felt more than just a physical connection? These are all questions I know I would ask if I were involved in such a relationship. An open relationship may seem like a good remedy for mistrust in a cheating relationship, but this lack of trust will always be an issue if both partners can’t be honest.
This new idea of open relationships points to a greater problem going on today in regards to monogomy. We have all heard that “relationships aren’t easy” or “marriage is tough,” but nowadays it seems like people just don’t want to work as hard or be responsible for their mistakes. This may seem pretty harsh, but the “open relationships” remedy just that. Jealousy and mistrust are still present regardless of whether or not the other partner knows about the infidelity.

— Ali Griffin is a junior in journalism and electronic media. She can be reached at sgriff10@utk.edu.