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Open Monogamie
Hét boek voor als je nieuwsgierig bent naar een andere invulling van je relatie.
De monogamie zoals wij haar kennen staat ter discussie. Steeds meer mensen komen ervoor uit dat ze hun relatie — met toestemming van alle partijen — op een andere manier vormgeven; dit kan een open relatie zijn, een relatie met meerdere personen tegelijk, of in een andere vorm dan de traditionele, monogame, een-op-eenrelatie.
Hoe werkt dat en past dat ook bij jouw relatie? Hoe ga je het gesprek aan, en hoe zorg je dat je allebei eenzelfde visie krijgt over hoe jullie relatie er óók uit kan zien? Hoe maak je afspraken, hoe ga je om met eventuele jaloezie en andere vraagstukken?In dit boek helpt relatietherapeut Tammy Nelson je om je relatie, samen met je partner en vanuit de juiste motivatie, op een andere manier vorm te kunnen geven.
De monogamie zoals wij haar kennen staat ter discussie. Steeds meer mensen komen ervoor uit dat ze hun relatie — met toestemming van alle partijen — op een andere manier vormgeven; dit kan een open relatie zijn, een relatie met meerdere personen tegelijk, of in een andere vorm dan de traditionele, monogame, een-op-eenrelatie.
Hoe werkt dat en past dat ook bij jouw relatie? Hoe ga je het gesprek aan, en hoe zorg je dat je allebei eenzelfde visie krijgt over hoe jullie relatie er óók uit kan zien? Hoe maak je afspraken, hoe ga je om met eventuele jaloezie en andere vraagstukken?In dit boek helpt relatietherapeut Tammy Nelson je om je relatie, samen met je partner en vanuit de juiste motivatie, op een andere manier vorm te kunnen geven.
296 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 9, 2024
62 people are currently reading
375 people want to read
About the author
Tammy Nelson
16 books31 followersTammy Nelson, PhD, is a world-renowned expert in relationships, a psychotherapist in private practice, and the author of The New Monogamy. In addition, Nelson is a popular lecturer around the world on sexuality and human relationships and global relational change. She is a board-certified sexologist, an AASECT-certified sex therapist, a licensed professional counselor, and a certified Imago relationship therapist. She resides in the New York City area, where she works in her private practice treating couples who are looking to restore passion to their relationships, recover from infidelity, and create their new monogamy, one agreement at a time.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
December 17, 2024
The ethical slut was mij aangeraden door wat vrienden, maar voelde voor mij net iets te hippie en spiriwiri. Dit boek is voor mij beter te begrijpen en voelt minder niche.
December 14, 2021
This is a practical and inclusive guide for anyone who is considering consensual nonmonogamy or any sort of more open or expansive relationship. Relationship therapist and sexologist Tammy Nelson describes what she refers to as the monogamy continuum and provides guidance on how to develop a well thought out relationship agreement that can be renegotiated over time. She provides plenty of examples from diverse couples she has interviewed. I found it very interesting to learn about the different types of agreements that partners have developed and how they arrived at those arrangements.
Regardless of the type of relationship you want, you are likely to find something of value here. The author provides many questions to help you and your partner(s) identify your values and discuss fears and desires. I loved her discussion of consent, and I think her 3 Ps framework of potential possibilities, problems, and positives can be used in many situations even outside the context of this book.
I was provided an unproofed ARC through NetGalley that I volunteered to review.
Regardless of the type of relationship you want, you are likely to find something of value here. The author provides many questions to help you and your partner(s) identify your values and discuss fears and desires. I loved her discussion of consent, and I think her 3 Ps framework of potential possibilities, problems, and positives can be used in many situations even outside the context of this book.
I was provided an unproofed ARC through NetGalley that I volunteered to review.
July 19, 2025
I’m going to sound like a complete boomer in this review, but I really disliked Tammy Nelson’s approach to open relationships and other non-traditional ways of arranging your love- and sexual life. If nothing else,
Open Monogamy: A Guide to Co-Creating Your Ideal Relationship Agreement
has singlehandedly convinced me that both love and sex is something we think too much and too hard about.
The main idea that Nelson wants to put forth in Open Monogamy is that the monogamous relationship isn’t working and that we should explore the open relationship, where we’re able to invite people to join in the now breached duality. Be that by loving other people than your partner, fucking other people than your partner or by rethinking the entire concept of a partner in its entirety.
But there’s also a general guide on how to act within a variety of non-monogamous relationships, as well as how to ascertain if you or your relationship is ready for inviting new people to join the relationship.
Now, all that is well and good, but the way that Nelson contrasts monogamous and non-monogamous relationships is extremely weird and concerning to a certain extent. Engaging in monogamy is basically framed as a psychological flaw in Open Monogamy. Being in an exclusive sexual and/or romantic relationship with one partner at the time is basically considered an expression of a Freudian trauma or as a lack of positive qualities. Have you considered that you wanna go steady with only one person because you lack empathy? That’s a question that’s almost verbatim asked by Nelson, and it’s honestly really uncomfortable to read.
There’s obviously nothing wrong with people being non-monogamous, but there’s also nothing wrong with being monogamous. But when Nelson talks about open monogamy as a better, more evolved version of the common two-party relationship, then one does take up a better place in Nelson’s discourse. The only reason you’re not fucking around with people other than your spouse, is because you, your spouse or both of you are either traumatized or not enlightened enough. It’s honestly a pretty disgusting way for Nelson, who’s a therapist that works in sex and relationships, to talk about people that just don’t fit into what Nelson considers the ideal relationship structure. It’s reminiscent of how open relationships were and are talked about, but reversing the principal partner arrangement doesn’t make it any better.
And as seems to be the case with every modern book on relationships, it’s filled with therapy-speech. It’s one of the few things that I truly loath in a book (or any other media) about interpersonal relationships. I’m obviously not saying that being able to vocalize your feelings is a bad skill to have, nor would I consider it ill form to notify others about your inner life in a meaningful way, but what therapy-speech truly opens up for is a sort of privileged communication. Something that no relationship of any kind deserves. If one party in a relationship is better at therapy-speech, then that person’s feelings and needs are more valuable in Nelson’s system. And is that really how you want to value the emotional life of people? By how well they can phrase it within a very particular discourse?
Coupled with the way that Nelson compared monogamy and non-monogamy, I can only see a toxic cocktail, where one party on a relationship is given all the tools and privilege to pressure the other party, if the two parties are at odds about engaging in an open relationship. Nelson rightly states several times that an open relationship should be based on the explicit consent of all involved parties, but once you’ve prescribed therapy-speech as a framing for the relationship, the inevitable power dynamic that follows will lead to a questionable consent. If one person is able, with a copy of Open Monogamy in hand, can say that the other party’s lack of consent is down to trauma, them the ability to give consent is completely screwed up.
And just to put a strange bow on this point, when it comes to being in an open relationship, Nelson is all for setting boundaries and knowing your limits. So, just for the ones of us that always sat at the back of the class, when your boundary is to not engage in an open relationship, that is an expression of trauma or psychological lack, but when you’re in an open relationship and have boundaries, that is a question of personal integrity. Again, a privileging of non-monogamous relationships.
I guess Open Monogamy is a good book for people looking to engage in an open relationship, but as stated above, I don’t think the tools the book give you are good or even moral. Honestly, have whatever kind of relationship you want with all the consenting adults that you want, but don’t you ever dare make anyone feel or think that the reason they won’t engage in your open relationship is due to psychological problems.
Reading through Open Monogamy basically made me feel like we don’t need to let our understanding of relationships evolve. Maybe we just need to live through monogamy, be it singular of serial. Just find one person you like, stick with them, rot together in a leather couch in the suburbs , cheat on each other like crazy, get divorced and repeat the process with the next person you like.
The main idea that Nelson wants to put forth in Open Monogamy is that the monogamous relationship isn’t working and that we should explore the open relationship, where we’re able to invite people to join in the now breached duality. Be that by loving other people than your partner, fucking other people than your partner or by rethinking the entire concept of a partner in its entirety.
But there’s also a general guide on how to act within a variety of non-monogamous relationships, as well as how to ascertain if you or your relationship is ready for inviting new people to join the relationship.
Now, all that is well and good, but the way that Nelson contrasts monogamous and non-monogamous relationships is extremely weird and concerning to a certain extent. Engaging in monogamy is basically framed as a psychological flaw in Open Monogamy. Being in an exclusive sexual and/or romantic relationship with one partner at the time is basically considered an expression of a Freudian trauma or as a lack of positive qualities. Have you considered that you wanna go steady with only one person because you lack empathy? That’s a question that’s almost verbatim asked by Nelson, and it’s honestly really uncomfortable to read.
There’s obviously nothing wrong with people being non-monogamous, but there’s also nothing wrong with being monogamous. But when Nelson talks about open monogamy as a better, more evolved version of the common two-party relationship, then one does take up a better place in Nelson’s discourse. The only reason you’re not fucking around with people other than your spouse, is because you, your spouse or both of you are either traumatized or not enlightened enough. It’s honestly a pretty disgusting way for Nelson, who’s a therapist that works in sex and relationships, to talk about people that just don’t fit into what Nelson considers the ideal relationship structure. It’s reminiscent of how open relationships were and are talked about, but reversing the principal partner arrangement doesn’t make it any better.
And as seems to be the case with every modern book on relationships, it’s filled with therapy-speech. It’s one of the few things that I truly loath in a book (or any other media) about interpersonal relationships. I’m obviously not saying that being able to vocalize your feelings is a bad skill to have, nor would I consider it ill form to notify others about your inner life in a meaningful way, but what therapy-speech truly opens up for is a sort of privileged communication. Something that no relationship of any kind deserves. If one party in a relationship is better at therapy-speech, then that person’s feelings and needs are more valuable in Nelson’s system. And is that really how you want to value the emotional life of people? By how well they can phrase it within a very particular discourse?
Coupled with the way that Nelson compared monogamy and non-monogamy, I can only see a toxic cocktail, where one party on a relationship is given all the tools and privilege to pressure the other party, if the two parties are at odds about engaging in an open relationship. Nelson rightly states several times that an open relationship should be based on the explicit consent of all involved parties, but once you’ve prescribed therapy-speech as a framing for the relationship, the inevitable power dynamic that follows will lead to a questionable consent. If one person is able, with a copy of Open Monogamy in hand, can say that the other party’s lack of consent is down to trauma, them the ability to give consent is completely screwed up.
And just to put a strange bow on this point, when it comes to being in an open relationship, Nelson is all for setting boundaries and knowing your limits. So, just for the ones of us that always sat at the back of the class, when your boundary is to not engage in an open relationship, that is an expression of trauma or psychological lack, but when you’re in an open relationship and have boundaries, that is a question of personal integrity. Again, a privileging of non-monogamous relationships.
I guess Open Monogamy is a good book for people looking to engage in an open relationship, but as stated above, I don’t think the tools the book give you are good or even moral. Honestly, have whatever kind of relationship you want with all the consenting adults that you want, but don’t you ever dare make anyone feel or think that the reason they won’t engage in your open relationship is due to psychological problems.
Reading through Open Monogamy basically made me feel like we don’t need to let our understanding of relationships evolve. Maybe we just need to live through monogamy, be it singular of serial. Just find one person you like, stick with them, rot together in a leather couch in the suburbs , cheat on each other like crazy, get divorced and repeat the process with the next person you like.
Read
February 6, 2023That five percent are in open monogamy and LGBTQ is about five percent of the population.
They did mention how 60% of women were effected by Covid with losing there jobs. And how most families are not having children because job security in there future cause they don’t see partners having it or them. One reason open monogamy is.
More advantages in marriage cause it’s hard enough not to navigate alone.
Most are taking advantage of multi families due to financial not functionality.
That most do not share with there families that they are in a community family not a nuclear family.
I think that is a hard pill to swallow, due to men that are incarcerated or medicated for being one bad motherfucker dealing with there mental health is hard for the voices in one’s head.
I always see books talking of trauma of there fathers, mostly for the myth of tick(risk)on moms side of teratogens.
So call me old fashioned but men that are pregnant are hard and nil between incarcerated or medicated.
And might not want to say there in a community family due to the reproductive coercion of women getting it all and men footed for the time and abuse with the brunt of blame handed out with have all the aces in the deck rather not the twos that every one discards. Better not even have a deck of card if your playing for the discard pile.
Any way I don’t gamble, if you knew the odds and the gambling fallacies of people to computers you’d get about the same odds of a man not skipping on responsibility.
Next to nil in today words of not allowing to talk controversial issues because it’s not in there safe space but only conspiracy issues cause it provides people with an agenda better.
I see men rather giving up in relationship than to share a women, and I see men give up on sex than be with multiple women.
My take, is.
Financially or functionally to mess up in your 30-40 and get stuck in human bondage. Paying for another person kid or having taking some one else kid and setting that man up for statistics or algorithms that say, if you’re not married, you’re probably not working or if you don’t have kids, you’re probably not working. Funny how that works.
Mental health distributed health problems because I can’t talk controversy, but can talk conspiracy for agenda. Men’s issues are hidden in muffled agendas.
Of ageism,
And geriatrarchism having all the power but it all goes to offered all the help but too decrepit to do it yourself.
One can be happy for the young but happy those age old plumbing problems are youthful naive problems men are hormone lay challenge to not know many peers that lost there mental health or incarcerated over.
That female funcunidity if not controlled does little to control mends aggression. This is archeologically 101 that people who denied it is, well I don’t know many men who see there parents go through the issue of ageism and children go through it themselves not get incarcerated and yet the nuclear family if families are small have less issues than the community family.
Every one wants the communion life style but give up your trust fund, well if you have one most don’t have any money in those situations so, it’s milking a stone for mental health issues. For an illegitimate consequence on a pendulum it’s never balanced without post Secondary school in society is how it measures Society.
Asking all the what and why’s just holds an insurmountable right one holds with out knowing the answer or question for it to matter.
Apprehension can, and cannot replace thinking?
Baiting inappropriate to talk, to the young girl in my head that the older gentleman with integrated information theory or fractured information theory deals with going three a red light mail man education of going forward and back letting people pass to go in front. To do it again and again with the Mary syndrome of green lights.
Some just ruin their counter narrative.
And mine just sees there is no other answer but the virgin birth. Cause women are more neurotic, and having an open monogamy and not being trustworthy or honest with people has do much to do with lie about who the dad is and who the father is,
Like most even in nuclear families or community families bait of human bondage. The mental health of alienation in funcunidity for another man’s right of passage is.
Let alone curse a child is one that refuses it’s inheritence, hence let any Greek mythos is. What a father or dad meant is blurry waters. That sister hood do not want to exists, living on older person experience regret get by is.
With any one familiar with “who is Fowler” Google it if you’re not in the dunning Kruger club.
They did mention how 60% of women were effected by Covid with losing there jobs. And how most families are not having children because job security in there future cause they don’t see partners having it or them. One reason open monogamy is.
More advantages in marriage cause it’s hard enough not to navigate alone.
Most are taking advantage of multi families due to financial not functionality.
That most do not share with there families that they are in a community family not a nuclear family.
I think that is a hard pill to swallow, due to men that are incarcerated or medicated for being one bad motherfucker dealing with there mental health is hard for the voices in one’s head.
I always see books talking of trauma of there fathers, mostly for the myth of tick(risk)on moms side of teratogens.
So call me old fashioned but men that are pregnant are hard and nil between incarcerated or medicated.
And might not want to say there in a community family due to the reproductive coercion of women getting it all and men footed for the time and abuse with the brunt of blame handed out with have all the aces in the deck rather not the twos that every one discards. Better not even have a deck of card if your playing for the discard pile.
Any way I don’t gamble, if you knew the odds and the gambling fallacies of people to computers you’d get about the same odds of a man not skipping on responsibility.
Next to nil in today words of not allowing to talk controversial issues because it’s not in there safe space but only conspiracy issues cause it provides people with an agenda better.
I see men rather giving up in relationship than to share a women, and I see men give up on sex than be with multiple women.
My take, is.
Financially or functionally to mess up in your 30-40 and get stuck in human bondage. Paying for another person kid or having taking some one else kid and setting that man up for statistics or algorithms that say, if you’re not married, you’re probably not working or if you don’t have kids, you’re probably not working. Funny how that works.
Mental health distributed health problems because I can’t talk controversy, but can talk conspiracy for agenda. Men’s issues are hidden in muffled agendas.
Of ageism,
And geriatrarchism having all the power but it all goes to offered all the help but too decrepit to do it yourself.
One can be happy for the young but happy those age old plumbing problems are youthful naive problems men are hormone lay challenge to not know many peers that lost there mental health or incarcerated over.
That female funcunidity if not controlled does little to control mends aggression. This is archeologically 101 that people who denied it is, well I don’t know many men who see there parents go through the issue of ageism and children go through it themselves not get incarcerated and yet the nuclear family if families are small have less issues than the community family.
Every one wants the communion life style but give up your trust fund, well if you have one most don’t have any money in those situations so, it’s milking a stone for mental health issues. For an illegitimate consequence on a pendulum it’s never balanced without post Secondary school in society is how it measures Society.
Asking all the what and why’s just holds an insurmountable right one holds with out knowing the answer or question for it to matter.
Apprehension can, and cannot replace thinking?
Baiting inappropriate to talk, to the young girl in my head that the older gentleman with integrated information theory or fractured information theory deals with going three a red light mail man education of going forward and back letting people pass to go in front. To do it again and again with the Mary syndrome of green lights.
Some just ruin their counter narrative.
And mine just sees there is no other answer but the virgin birth. Cause women are more neurotic, and having an open monogamy and not being trustworthy or honest with people has do much to do with lie about who the dad is and who the father is,
Like most even in nuclear families or community families bait of human bondage. The mental health of alienation in funcunidity for another man’s right of passage is.
Let alone curse a child is one that refuses it’s inheritence, hence let any Greek mythos is. What a father or dad meant is blurry waters. That sister hood do not want to exists, living on older person experience regret get by is.
With any one familiar with “who is Fowler” Google it if you’re not in the dunning Kruger club.
October 29, 2023
An incredibly informative introduction to different relationship styles. As someone who had no prior knowledge of the topic, I found it perfect as it was easy to read, contained lots of interviews with actual couples in varying degrees of nonmonogamy, and provided questions for exploring you and your partner's own feelings towards opening the relationship. It helped me to better understand my own opinions towards the various relationship styles and made me feel capable of exploring them further in the future.
January 9, 2022
I didn't really need the how to aspect of this book; I've been poly for years. This would have been an excellent book for my past self though, and the info in it seems quite solid, would definitely recommend if you're looking for something like this.
June 1, 2023
Read it in 24 hours
What an honest, eloquent book about relationships. It’s a keeper !
It has lots of good homework for you and your partner to work on even if you are not looking into opening your relationship.
What an honest, eloquent book about relationships. It’s a keeper !
It has lots of good homework for you and your partner to work on even if you are not looking into opening your relationship.
February 23, 2022
Excellent resource for therapists and laypeople - a clear, thought-provoking how-to on creating healthy, happy non-monogomy.
November 28, 2022
I appreciated this author bridging world's. It feels like it can create an open conversation for many couples to define their wants, needs, and values, and not allow assumptions to rule.
February 27, 2023
Interesting concept and lead to some good discussions!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews