Open Marriage: A New Life Style for Couples

Rating:
Summary: May change your (and her) life
Review: A very beneficial and good book, although somewhat boring at places (especially the early chapters). The ideologies and points of view presented just make so much sense! And it's easy to find corresponding cases from your own life (to know what they write about). I'd recommend this to _any_ couple, at least for me it seemed to do the trick.

Rating:
Summary: A great informative must read. Not just for open marriage.
Review: I feel that this book can apply to every romantic pairing. This is not just a book for those contemplating an open marriage. This is a book that can give you great ideas regarding space in a relationship. It expands on the idea that just because you are part of a couple does not mean you have to give up yourself. It promotes the idea of still mainting and developing new ideas and hobbies about yourself. It really has so very little to do with sex and more to do with keeping your own life exciting and not expecting the marriage to solve all your fulfilment needs.

Rating:
Summary: Good for a laugh
Review: I heard about this book, so I wanted to read it to see if it was as funny and stupid (unintentionally) as I heard.

I was not disappointed. Few things in life are free, and sex is defintely not among them.

The perfect coda to this book is that the couple got divroced several years after publishing this book. You can't make thsi sutff up.

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Book about Open Marriage - NOT Swinging!
Review: The title of this book has become misleading only because the meaning of the words "Open Marriage" has changed over the decades.

This book is an excellent guide for people interested in all the aspects of attaining and living in an open marriage, which is an overall way of life, not just sexual freedom. Everything from sex to doing the dishes is covered in this book. Some of the language may sound dated since it's original printing, but then again, so does Shakespeare.

This the best book I have ever found to learn about ALL aspects of your marital relationships (not just the sexual ones) and discover the ways in which people try to control and eventually destroy each other as individuals within a marriage.

If you want a book on "swinging" (a/k/a recreational, non-monogomous sex) then this is NOT the book you are looking for. But then again, Open Marriage is leaps and bounds beyond just swinging. This book guides you through making this a way of life in a wonderful way, changing the traditional marriage views in ALL aspects, including non-monogomous sex, but not JUST sex.

How do I know this? I've been living this way for 15 years and still going happy and strong. My first "traditional" marriage lasted 3 years.

Rating:
Summary: Outdated & overripe
Review: This book reached its "sell before" date about 25 years ago. Better books have been written, but haven't been hyped so thoroughly, so it keeps getting reprinted.

The "open marriage" concept has -- REPEAT AFTER ME -- absolutely nothing to do with sexual nonmonogamy. Rather, the authors examine the problem of what another author has called "the couple front," where couples feel they must act as if they're surgically joined, & end up feeling confined & eventually hating each other.

If you are NOT interested in nonmonogamy, then read ANY book by Harville Hendrix & you'll find thoughts that are much more practical.

If you ARE interested in nonmonogamy (group marriage, polyamory, etc.), then start with Intimate Friendships (Ramey), Polyamory (Anapol), Honest Sex (Roy & Roy), or Group Marriage (Constantine & Constantine)... or even The New Faithful (Nearing), or Three in Love (Foster).

I usually see ten copies of this book at any thrift store. That's somehow fitting.

Rating:
Summary: Not sure about the title
Review: This not a "how to" guide to "swinging" (or whatever people call it) but in fact much more a book that addresses the question of being together and growing with a partner while retaining individuality and seperatedness within a relationship of honesty, trust and openess. I felt a lot less cynical and much more positive about the institution of marriage as a result of reading this book.

I thought it was excellent and I feel it's a book that would probably appeal to many more people if the title was different. But then again it was because of the title that I found it. Highly recommended for any relationship whether or not marriage is a part of it.