You might have seen the letters ENM (meaning: ethical non-monogamy) when scrolling through the likes of Hinge and Feeld, but how often does the concept actually come up in conversation IRL? Well, following the release of Lily Allen’s new album, non-monogamy has been on everyone’s lips…
ICYMI, last week Lily Allen dropped West End Girl — which is allegedly about her four-year marriage to Stranger Things star David Harbour. In the album, which Allen says is a “mixture of fact and fiction”, the narrator sings about unearthing infidelity in an open relationship and the heartbreak that can come with it. “If what you’re doing isn’t provocative, what’s the point?" she told Perfect Magazine of the new album. “I’m not here to be mediocre. My strength is my ability to tell a story. And so I’m going to lean into that. I have to. It’s all I have.”
While it’s unclear whether the allegations in Allen’s lyrics directly relate to Harbour, the album — and internet discourse surrounding it — has got us thinking about the rules that make a non-monogamous relationship work, and what it takes to be considered cheating if those rules are broken. With that in mind, we spoke to three experts about why some people in open relationships cheat on their partners… and why people cheat at all when open relationships are an option.
People can still cheat in open relationships
Unfortunately, cheating is something that can happen in any relationship, however open it may be.
Just like traditional relationships, non-monogamous partnerships function around a ‘monogamy agreement’, or a set of expectations and boundaries each partner is expected to uphold. Any violation of that agreement could be considered cheating, says Tammy Nelson, author of Open Monogamy and When You’re the One Who Cheats.
Unlike monogamous partnerships, in which the whole ‘We’re not supposed to have sex with other people’ thing is pretty universal, monogamy agreements and what it means to violate them may look very different from open relationship to open relationship. And even within those relationships, expectations may not be exactly the same for each partner. For example, one person might want to know when their partner has sex with someone else, while the other would rather be spared the details.
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“Sometimes cheating in an open relationship can be as simple as going out for coffee with a new partner that is off limits, or an ex, or someone outside of the ‘pod’,” says Nelson, adding that more partners can often create more complex dynamics. “It can be complicated to get ‘approval’ from multiple partners if you are in a group relationship, and some people find it easier to break away and do what they want on their own.”
Regardless, whether you’re breaking a closed monogamy agreement or an open one, “cheating is cheating,” says sex therapist Jamie Schenk DeWitt. “The cheater, by definition, is not playing by the rules that have been established and agreed upon.”
Open relationships aren’t always an option
It may seem like everyone is opening up these days, but while non-monogamy is definitely becoming more mainstream, it’s a long way from being the norm.
“Many folks don’t want open relationships,” says Zachary Zane, author of Boyslut: A Memoir and Manifesto and a sex and relationships expert for Grindr. “If your partner doesn’t want one and you still want to be with them, then you’re going to have to lie about having sex with others.” That doesn’t excuse cheating, to be clear, but it does explain why it still happens in our seemingly sexually evolved timeline.
Not to mention, the idea that you can just seamlessly convert a monogamous relationship into an open one to spare yourself the burden of infidelity is kind of a massive oversimplification of non-monogamous partnerships and the work that actually goes into maintaining them. Not everyone is cut out for that work, and some people simply don’t want to do it.
“Open relationships take work,” says Zane. “For many, it’s just easier to cheat and lie about it.”
Relationships are complicated (and so are people)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, cheating in open relationships tends to happen for more or less the same reasons as good old-fashioned adultery. Your monogamy agreement — whatever it entails — isn’t working for you anymore, and cheating seems easier than talking about it. Or maybe you know that whatever it is you want to do would be a hard no for your partner(s), so cheating feels like the only way to satisfy those desires without threatening your relationship.
“One thing that many cheaters have in common is that they don’t want to confront issues or feelings that may be impacting the connection and health of their current partnership,” says DeWitt. “They would rather avoid confrontation with their partner to get their needs met.”
So we cheat, whether on one person or several, in a closed relationship or an open one. We cheat out of convenience or laziness or selfishness or any combination of factors.
Will non-monogamy ever replace cheating?
It may seem like open relationships are the key to finally being able to have our cake and eat it too, to cheat without cheating, to Have It All.
But the reality is that open relationships are a compromise, just like anything else. For some, non-monogamy may be a way of reconciling otherwise conflicting desires, but not without its own complications. This is not to say that cheating is a better or even defensible option. But even as someone who now identifies as non-monogamous, I’d argue that the idea of using open relationships to avoid infidelity is one that oversimplifies non-monogamy and ignores some key, if uncomfortable, realities of human desire and behaviour.
“I think there will always be cheaters,” says Sheff. ”I think it will lessen as people come to know ethical non-monogamy as an option. But the ‘I want multiple partners and I don’t want you to have them’ — I think that’s a permanent feature of the human psyche.”
Cosmopolitan UK has reached out to David Harbour’s representatives for comment.
Kayla Kibbe (she/her) is the Associate Sex and Relationships Editor at Cosmopolitan US, where she covers all things sex, love, dating and relationships. She lives in Astoria, Queens and probably won’t stop talking about how great it is if you bring it up. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
