The myth of an open marriage
from Mailonline:
Writer Olivia Fane and her first husband thought allowing each other to have affairs was the secret of a happy modern relationship. Now she has a stark warning for anyone tempted to follow suit.
The first rule was the time limit: two weeks maximum. The second was that the affair should take place far from home, preferably abroad.
The third was that each of us had the power of veto: if we felt even the remotest bit uncomfortable, we could say to the other: ‘Stop!’
And kisses didn’t count. Kisses were just for fun.
These were the rules of my open marriage — rules I followed during the eight years I was with my husband, the writer Adam Nicolson.
And rules that ultimately led to our very painful divorce eight years later.
Of course, anyone reading this will scoff: well, of course it led to divorce. What did she honestly expect?
But to the young 20-something bohemian me — and, it would seem, a surprising number of couples today — it wasn’t obvious at all.
How pleased we were with ourselves, Adam and I. How smug. Only we knew the truth about things: love was for life, sex was for pleasure, fidelity was for the dull.
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