7 good reasons not to open your relationship

Hello, honourable flaxseeds, 

The title made you click? BRILLIANT. 

Let's get the disclaimer out of the way first: who are we to tell you whether or not to open your relationship? That's not our call... What we will do, however, is address the main sticking points worth exploring if you're asking yourself that question.

Opening your relationship — meaning transitioning from an exclusive relationship model to something else (not less structured, we'll come back to that later) — could be compared to making your own sourdough starter at home (hello, lockdown era): everyone has an opinion on it, nobody really agrees on the method (spoiler: there's no predefined set of rules that suits everyone), and there's always someone who has to throw over their shoulder "mmmmh, it usually ends badly".

Here, we're not promoting no-monogamy — we're just knocking down the false excuses that get in the way of talking about it calmly. A quick overview of the "good reasons" we hear most often, and above all what they're really hiding.

1. "We're already super happy as we are"

Excellent news, sincerely. But a couple's happiness is not a finite resource to be protected by sealing it under vacuum. Many partners open their relationship because things are going well, not to fix something broken. Confusing "we have no problems" with "we don't need to talk about it" means missing out on quite a few interesting conversations.

2. "I'd be way too scared of being jealous"

Jealousy is not an absolute alarm signal — it's an emotion, like hunger or stress, that deserves to be listened to, not fled from. The right question isn't "will I feel jealous" (spoiler: probably yes, at least a little) but "what does that tell me about my needs". Ignoring that fear by staying closed doesn't make it disappear — it just hides somewhere else.

3. "That means they're no longer enough for me"

No. Wanting to explore something else doesn't mean something is missing in the other person — any more than enjoying several dishes means you don't love the first one. It's a comfortable (and guilt-inducing) logical shortcut that gets trotted out mostly because nobody wants to open the subject.

4. "We'll never have the time to deal with that on top of everything else"

Let's be honest: no-monogamy requires logistics, conversations, and sometimes a shared Excel spreadsheet (we've seen worse kinks). But "not enough time to communicate more" in a relationship is rarely an argument that ages well, open or not.

5. "Our friends will judge us"

Maybe. Some will. But building your emotional life based on the opinions of your secondary school WhatsApp group is one way to go — just not exactly the most fulfilling one. Other people's judgement generally says more about the norms we've internalised than about the actual strength of a relationship.

6. "Just because it works for someone else doesn't mean it works for us"

Absolutely true, and that's the whole point: no-monogamy is not a universal model to copy and paste — it's a framework to be negotiated on your own terms. The question is never "does it work in general", but "have we, the two of us, actually had the conversation about what we really want".

7. "We were never taught to talk about it"

This one is real. Nobody gave us a guide on how to discuss boundaries, desire, emotional security, and shared schedules without it turning into a courtroom drama. But the lack of tools is not a reason to never open the conversation — it's precisely the reason to go and find them.

In short: opening your relationship isn't for everyone, and keeping it closed is nothing to be ashamed of either. The real question is never "monogamous or not", but "have we, the two of us, actually had a genuine conversation without a ready-made excuse to avoid it".

XOXO