Opening up a relationship is a negotiation—a labyrinthine, unpredictable, and especially horny one. Communicate what you need, listen to what they want, and work out all of the rules before—ideally—writing them down, so you can relay them to the world in a song when it all goes horribly wrong.
Yes, I’m talking about Lily Allen, whose new album, West End Girl, has set the internet alight with its powerful evisceration of an open marriage (her own?) gone wrong. “We had an arrangement,” the 40-year-old sings in “Madeline,” the now-viral track in which Allen addresses the other woman in a relationship. “Be discreet and don’t be blatant / there had to be payment / it had to be with strangers.”
Allen has said the album was inspired by her four-year marriage to Stranger Things star David Harbour, who (unsurprisingly) has yet to comment on its contents. While we’ll likely never know exactly what did or did not happen between them, the album paints a pretty clear picture of a woman opening up her relationship to appease her sex-addicted husband, only to wind up betrayed and humiliated when he breaks the rules they’d agreed on, stashing sex toys in a secret “pussy palace” and sleeping with women she knows.
Uninterested in practicing non-monogamy herself (“I just want to meet your needs,” she sings on “Nonmonogamummy”), Allen’s narrator concludes that opening the relationship was ultimately what ended it—a last-ditch attempt at fixing something that was already broken. It’s a brutal end. But if the album’s popularity is anything to go by, it’s clearly one that people can relate to.
Ethical non-monogamy (ENM) is nothing new. But as society moves further away from traditional relationship models, it has become more common to hear about couples opening their relationships when things aren’t working, to see if sleeping with other people might revive a desire that got lost somewhere between dividing up household chores and sorting out the electricity bill. I know a few couples who’ve done this—some more successfully than others.
Of course, it can work, though it requires partners to be intricately aligned in a way that I think is beyond most of our communication capabilities; you can’t just be on the same page, you have to be on the same line—or, better yet, the same word. You also have to be ruthlessly honest with yourself. I know many women who, like Allen, only agreed to an ENM dynamic to keep their partner happy, a scenario that almost always ends in tears.
“We were going through a really stale sexual patch,” explains Maya*, 29, who decided to try ENM as a way of injecting a little life into her relationship with her boyfriend of four years. “He’d also never really been single before and wanted to explore his bisexual side, while I’ve always been interested in kink and he wasn’t into that.” Like Allen’s protagonist, they set out some clear boundaries (“nothing in our flat, always use condoms, no friends”), but over time, the rules shifted. “I think the sudden adventures were too much for our loyalty, especially when alcohol was involved,” says Maya. “I also really struggled to separate emotions from the sex I was having with other people. Gradually, this morphed into me just not wanting to have sex with my boyfriend at all.”
Then the lines were crossed: Maya slept with one of her friends. She broke up with her boyfriend shortly after. “I think the open relationship sped things along, but the issues were there beforehand,” she says. “I was told at the beginning that becoming open wouldn’t fix the issues already there, but I didn’t believe it until I experienced it for myself.”
For some people, an open relationship leading to a break-up has been a net positive. Take Lavvynder, 32, who began practicing polyamory with his wife several years into their marriage. “It helped us both realize that we had different desires,” he says, revealing he has since gotten divorced. “Being monogamous was limiting my relationships from being whatever I wanted them to be, as I found myself wanting to be intimate with friends. My wife and I weren't the same people we were when we first met and got married. While polyamory definitely led to us ending things, it also allowed us to find new relationships that work for us.”
None of this is unusual, though it does reflect a societal misunderstanding of what non-monogamy entails, and when it can be joyful rather than harmful. “Attempting non-monogamy in a struggling relationship can be disastrous, as it often fails to address core issues like poor communication or mistrust, which may worsen with added complexity,” explains relationships psychologist, Dr Madeleine Mason Roantree. “It can amplify jealousy and insecurity, particularly in an already fragile partnership.” If one partner is less committed to the idea, it can also build resentment. “Non-monogamy’s demands for emotional maturity and time can overwhelm a couple, delaying resolution of deeper incompatibilities,” adds Roantree. Being in an open relationship also just won’t suit some people.
Frankly, I find monogamy too complicated as it is; dating one man at a time is exhausting enough for me. “Non-monogamy may not suit those who value emotional or sexual exclusivity, as open relationships can feel threatening or unfulfilling,” explains Roantree. “The time and energy required to manage multiple relationships can also overwhelm some, while mismatched goals or poor communication skills can lead to conflict.”
In some cases, though, opening up an ailing relationship really can be the thing to save it. This was the case for Yasmin*, 33, who decided to try polyamory with her boyfriend after realizing she wanted to start dating women. Soon, she was in another relationship. “My boyfriend and I went through a lot of growing pains when this happened,” she recalls. “He felt insecure in himself and was scared I would leave our relationship.” She didn’t—and the second relationship lasted for two years. “By this time, my boyfriend had grown really comfortable with our dynamic and even enjoyed that I had that connection with someone else. Opening our relationship has been the single most impactful experience for our communication.”
Whether or not non-monogamy will work for you often depends on the reasons you’re trying it in the first place—as well as the stability of your existing relationship. “It’s about being willing to get things wrong, to readjust, and to stay open to the process, as long as everyone involved still feels good about trying,” says Ruby Rare, author of The Non-Monogamy Playbook. “Without that shared sense of trust and curiosity, things can quickly become painful or destabilizing.”
As someone who has been practicing nonmonogamy for a decade, Rare has simple advice for a monogamous couple considering non-monogamy as a quick fix: “Go to therapy first, get curious about what’s really going on, and decide whether this relationship is still the right place for both of you.”
*Names have been changed