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what do you mean by 'legal'? an open relationship just means a couple is open to seeing other people while they are together. i dont believe theres any legality to it.

Wikipedia - An open relationship is a relationship (often between two people) in which the participants are free to have sexual intercourse with other partners. If the couple making this agreement are married, it is an open marriage.

im not sure what you mean by 'multiple' open relationships...its generally a blanket term that will cover all of the relationships. but yes, technically, i suppose you could have multiple open relationships.

Sweet.

Quote from: Master KChief on June 23, 2009, 12:56:09 AM

im not sure what you mean by 'multiple' open relationships...its generally a blanket term that will cover all of the relationships. but yes, technically, i suppose you could have multiple open relationships.

Sweet.

A.K.A "An excuse to do what you want"

Its another way to disguise the biblical term adultry and fornication..The real meaning is your opening yourself up to a relationship with Satan.

Haha.


In all seriousness, the way I see it is that I don't enjoy girlfriend relationships; however, I do enjoy friendships with girls. Since I'm straight and not a monk, the happy medium seems to be the open relationship: the mean between friend and girlfriend. I also feel that it has more room for honesty, which is to me the only thing that really matters in a relationship.

I disagree with the concept of the "open marriage". A relationship, however, is not a marriage and, in my opinion, the open relationship skips lies, drama, and heartbreak as well as being ideal for people who are uncomfortable with long commitments.

You might define it as that, but if you told someone you were in an open relationship, that is not what they would think.   with CountFount.

What would they think, and does what they think have any direct negative effect on the relationship?

Also, what are the moral confines that regulate Christian dating? For example, does infidelity in a dating relationship hold the same weight as in marriage? Is infidelity in a "dating" relationship sinful?

Quote from: Cameron the Conqueror on June 23, 2009, 10:16:48 AM

You might define it as that, but if you told someone you were in an open relationship, that is not what they would think.   with CountFount.

What would they think, and does what they think have any direct negative effect on the relationship?

They would probably think that you're sleeping around with various women.  And regardless of whether this hurts your relationships (which I think it would), it would definitely hurt your witness as a Christian (if you claimed to be one).

Also, what are the moral confines that regulate Christian dating? For example, does infidelity in a dating relationship hold the same weight as in marriage? Is infidelity in a "dating" relationship sinful?

Christians should only date someone if they think that person might be the person who God wants them to marry someday.  And if they are in a dating relationship with someone, they shouldn't date someone else before ending the first relationship.  As for infidelity (if you are speaking of sex), a Christian shouldn't have sex with anyone unless they are married to them.

.  A "committed" relationship is exclusive.  A series of dates without deeper commitment doesn't need to be "defined" since you are still getting to know each other.

An open relationship tries to have it both ways, the deeper intimacy of a committed relationship, spending time together, becoming physically affectionate, perhaps even living together.  But at the same time, if you want to hook up with someone else (or more accurately, if I want to hook up with someone else, well, we're both adults, and much too sophisticated to restrict ourselves to arcane and obsolete social norms.  Marriage is just a piece of paper anyway, and all them married people get all them divorces, and we should just be free to love anyone we want any way we want.

I have friends who engage in open relationships, some of them intimate, so I understand that they are just doing what they believe comes naturally to them.  But actions have consequences, and like it or not, even outside of marriage people can form physical, emotional, even spiritual ties to other people that are not easily broken.  And usually, when those are broken, they leave a scar behind.

I believe people should be very careful about even getting into an exclusive relationship outside of marriage.  If you want to be with a person that badly, you should marry them; the marriage covenant is designed to meld two lives into one, and people need to understand beforehand what they are committing themselves to do for another person, without reservation.  If you don't know someone well enough to marry them, then that's what dates are for, to spend time with that person and learn who they are.

Getting into committed relationships outside of marriage limits both your options and that of the person you're with, and that puts unfair restrictions on both of you.  And if that person takes it as an emotional commitment, but you decide to move on, well, you've just ripped out someone's heart.  Claiming an "open" relationship just allows one more selfish act: attachment without commitment.  The problem is that attachment stems from committing yourself to something deeper.  And committing yourself says that you're gonig to stick to something and not back out.  It peels away all of the things that hold real relationships together.  It goes from hammering two boards together, to snapping Legos together, and then from snapping Legos to stacking blocks.

Marriages are faltering in the United States not because marriage is flawed or obsolete, but because people have been treating them like Legos instead of nailed boards.  Disillusioned people are going the other way and reducing relationships to stacked blocks.  That works well enough for its purpose, but clearly, you're settling for something that's not on the same level, and I would argue something that's not as deep and fulfilling.  The way to restore marriage, however, is to train people to understand that marraiage is nailed boards, and to show how that differs - for good and ill - from Legos and blocks.  Different relationships require different building materials.

It's a casual relationship... a friends with benefits type of thing. It's actually pretty cool

It's a casual relationship... a friends with benefits type of thing. It's actually pretty cool

It's cool if serving your own desires is more important than serving the desires of others.

This is the poison that is contaminating meaningful relationships in modern society, marriage or otherwise: approaching them from the standpoint of what I get out of the deal.  A godly life is one of service and sacrifice, and godly relationships are built upon the way in which the best interests of the other person are the number one priority in your mind.  As much as this applies to all relationships, it applies more so to romantic ones, and infinitely more to marriages.

Loving someone enough to want to be with them isn't really all that hard.  I wonder how many people reading this post have ever loved someone so much that they would fight for someone other than themselves.  Someone better.  Someone deserving.  That's commitment.

It's a casual relationship... a friends with benefits type of thing. It's actually pretty cool

Then I assume you were joking about the "cool" part.  Unless you mean "cool" as in "the Frosty and bone Chilling emotional response from my partner when I tell her that I want to hook up with other chicks in a non-commital type of way."  If that is the case then, yeah, an open relationship is "cool"

He assumes that because your previous two posts seem to contradict each other.  One of them would likely be sarcastic, and his assumption stemmed from the hope that your true feelings were more closely mapped to the sentiment that was concerned about the feelings of other people.