Would you like to have an open marriage, if just for a year?
Robin Rinaldi had great sex with her husband. After 16 years of marriage it was regular enough at once or twice a week, would sometimes last 45 minutes and end in “joyful tears”.
But at 44 she felt something was missing. Her husband didn’t want children and had a vasectomy. With only four lovers throughout her life, Robin felt she hadn’t experienced enough passion. Things started to feel stagnant, so she asked her husband if he would be OK to road-test an open marriage for a year. She put her foot down, and he agreed.
Read more: Sex confession: For Jenny, an open marriage was the key to living happily ever after.
So Rinaldi, a journalist and editor at San Francisco’s 7×7 magazine at the time, moved into her own apartment and began exploring not only her sexuality, but answers about why she felt she needed to. She put it all down in her new book The Wild Oats Project: One Woman’s Midlife Quest for Passion at Any Cost.
Top Comments
Clearly she was frustrated and bored in her marriage (no judgement meant, totally understandable that we often like to spice things up) but instead of having the guts to walk away, she wanted to keep her husband on standby to go back to eventually. Of course he left. I hope it was worth it. Surely this only works if both partners agree.
She moved into her own apartment. That is a separation, not an open marriage. I would love to hear her poor husbands perspective on this. Why couldn't she just do the honest thing and ask for a divorce? I have read many accounts of open marriages and they never end well. She wants the best of both worlds. Instead of saying her marriage has failed, she chooses, in a way, to blame her husband.