Open relationship can have unintended consequences

* My wife of three years has suggested that we have an open relationship.

She says that she has met someone and would like to have sex with him, but only if I agree. She also says that I can see other women for sex. At first I was devastated (I always thought our sex life was fine), but I don’t want to lose her. Is her proposal realistic?

>>No. If polyamory was a realistic option it would have burned through the dry brush of long-term commitment like wildfire. But when it comes to relationships, we have an instinctive firewall. None of us actually needs to be monogamous to have sex — or even children — yet monogamy continues to be the overarching definition of a committed relationship. There are many complex reasons for this but they all boil down, in one way or another, to our being very bad at sharing.