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https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-helpful-rules-youve-ever-seen-or-used-in-an-open-relationship/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper?ch=1&share=5b18055e&srid=B7tY
Q. What are the most helpful rules you've ever seen or used in an open relationship?
A. I’ve never seen any helpful rules. I’ve discovered that if a person wants to do a thing, a rule against it won’t stop them. If a person genuinely wants to be the person you want them to be, then you don’t need any rules telling them how to be that person. The most successful open relationships I’ve seen in all my decades in the poly community as an activist and educator tend to not have “rules”, if by “rules” you mean “you agree to this kind of behaviour and I agree to this kind of behaviour”.
The most successful open relationships I’ve seen tend to have good boundaries. By “boundaries” I mean “this is how I want you to treat *me* and I will pay attention to how you want to be treated by me.”
Q. What are the most helpful rules you've ever seen or used in an open relationship?
A. I’ve never seen any helpful rules. I’ve discovered that if a person wants to do a thing, a rule against it won’t stop them. If a person genuinely wants to be the person you want them to be, then you don’t need any rules telling them how to be that person. The most successful open relationships I’ve seen in all my decades in the poly community as an activist and educator tend to not have “rules”, if by “rules” you mean “you agree to this kind of behaviour and I agree to this kind of behaviour”.
The most successful open relationships I’ve seen tend to have good boundaries. By “boundaries” I mean “this is how I want you to treat *me* and I will pay attention to how you want to be treated by me.”
But rules where the people’s behaviour for anything other than how they treat each other? I’ve never seen any that were helpful. As I said, if a person naturally didn’t want to do something against the rules, then a rule isn’t necessary, which means it’s not helpful. If a person does really want to do a thing that’s against the rules, then the rule won’t stop them, which means that it’s not helpful.
People only follow rules for as long as they want to. If they want to, they don’t really need to make it a rule. If they don’t want to, the rule won’t stop them.
