It's disappointing how many people answer in a negative way, that it's not a real relationship, or that it's stupid, etc. People just can't seem to think outside the current norms of their society.

Love isn't about possession and restriction, and that's exactly what exclusivity is about. You fear losing their affections so you don't allow them to have any relations with anyone else on the side even if that's what makes them happy. And your ego can't take that maybe someone else is as important to them as you are.

Today's paradigm of relationships is basically a trade: each person is looking for the other to offer them happiness, rather than being in a relationship with the other just because they want to express all the love they have for them. This is why most relationships fail: coming from this mentality each person puts too many unreasonable or at least unrealistic demands on the other. The idea of possessiveness and putting restrictions on your partner's love life and/or sex life goes right along with this common incorrect basis for romance.

People are saying an open relationships lacks commitment or is just a fling, but I don't see why you can't have a committed open relationship. What it lacks is not necessarily commitment per se but mutual restriction of each other's freedoms.

I'm sure somebody will argue that if you really love your partner then you won't *want* to have any kind of romantic or sexual encounter with anybody else, but just stating that as if it's a fact because it's convenient and sounds good isn't enough. What if it's simply not true, or at least not true for everybody?