Which is more mentally healthy and neurotypical for long term purposes:

  • an open relationship, or

  • cheating on your partner sometimes and not telling them

It is unethical, but I believe the latter is ironically more sustainable. “It’s just sex” is easy to say if you do that, and then continue to go home and treat your partner perfectly well. Your partner might also do the same. Open relationships break a bunch of the “rules” of romance that people seem to prefer:

  • Most people prefer sex to be spontaneous. Putting it on a schedule can hurt things. In a similar way, I think writing down when it’s okay to sleep around with others is part of what makes it uncomfortable.

  • Talking about exes is enough to give lots of people the ick. Talking about actively sleeping with others even more so.

  • People hate cuck treatment. I believe treating someone well and making it so that they couldn’t even tell you’re talking to others would be more sustainable than actively obviously replacing any of your time together. If they would be able to even notice that something is off, then that’s already probably a mood killer compared to a more “normal” presenting relationship.

I believe open relationships are doomed to fail. If I were to wager which household a child should grow up in, I’d say the cheater would be more stable than polyamory.