Wanderlust

Netflix has a new mini-series called Wanderlust, have you seen it?

The definition they give is strong longing for or impulse toward wandering.

I found this movie to be very funny and insightful. A desire so strong to encourage wandering outside of the marriage. Exploration that goes beyond flirting and playful conversation. I won’t say much about the movie because I may spoil it for some who have not seen it.

Anyway …

If given the opportunity … well, I don’t see it as an opportunity but as a disaster to the security of your relationship. Think about it, if your partner gave you the go-ahead to have relations with others would you take that chance? The rules are the same as in the mini-series. You must tell each other everything and I mean everything from the conversations you have with your encounter right down to the butt nakedness.

These situations are always tricky. Sometimes you get so caught up in what you gain from the arrangement you are not prepared for what you may lose.

Think about this

• You are faced with developing feelings for someone other than your partner. You think you have things under control and you won’t allow yourself to get too involved, but when that other person becomes the designated fun guy it’s easy to mistake that for something much more serious.
• Jealousy – you or your partner becomes jealous of your relationship with the other person and then you find yourself giving more than enough words of comfort and reassurance to your partner. You all lose trust and once trust goes everything else falls apart.
• You realize you don’t feel the same about your partner. That can be a scary feeling. Imagine only having eyes for the person you are in a long term relationship with and then you open your eyes from that sleep I call love fog and see someone else. What if you start to see that you were just in a fog and you really don’t love that person as much as you thought you did or even like them enough to be with them long term. That would freak me out.

Besides the negatives the positives could be

• You discover you do love your partner beyond words and there was nothing outside the relationship that came close to that closeness that you feel with your partner.
• Your partner starts to do all the things you have wanted them to do or all the things they had stopped doing when you all became serious.
• You all decide that your relationship is worth more than a night or two with someone else and neither of you could go through with it. That would be an awesome resolution.

What I find disturbing about it all is that when your relationship starts to feel flat its time to reevaluate your position in life. What does this relationship need, is it worth saving. Adding someone else to the mix only makes the situation worse because it pulls you away from the real issues. Life is not always going to be rosy and we must learn to adjust to all the things that could go terribly wrong in a relationship. You must decide if your relationship is worth saving, and if you decide yes the repairing starts and stops with you and your partner.

I would feel hurt and less than if my partner suggested this to me. Why am I not enough and what makes you feel that I will be enough after we have cheated on our relationship with others? It is just not worth the risk. If I am not enough just leave. Life is short and we must do what we must do, and if having the desire to be with someone else is in your head you must move on.

Having an open relationship is the coward way of being in a relationship. Do the work and make life and love with each other. If loving each other is not enough then move on and save both of you years of heartache.