Why Dating Someone In An Open Relationship Will Always Lead To Heartbreak

Open relationships don't exist.

Sure, there are "no strings attached" relationships and "friends with benefits" relationships, but those aren't actually open relationships. Someone always gets attached, and to that person the relationship is very much not open.

The reason this happens is because the odds of you being physically intimate in an open relationship are pretty high and intimacy leads to emotions. It's just hard not to gain feelings for someone when you're letting them into a really private part of your life.

If you're in a real open relationship -- the type where you both agree on not being monogamous -- then you know that at the end of the day, no matter who else your SO was with before you, they'll always come back to you.

In these new age open relationships (no strings attached and FWB) there's no guarantee the person you view as your SO will come back to you because they don't have to. Technically, they're free to come and go from your life as much as they please, and as much as you let them.

I wouldn't be able to be in an open relationship because I would constantly be thinking about all the other people the person I liked was getting with.

As is, I constantly compare myself to other girls, so I can't imagine how it would be if I had to do it in bed too. My confidence would probably plummet.

Open relationships lead to heartbreak almost every time; one person almost always falls for the other who in turn doesn't fall for them back.

An open relationship sometimes seems like the ideal case if you're just starting off with someone. You get the best of both worlds: You get to be with other people, but you also get to come home to one person.

But then a problem occurs. At some point you stop getting with other people because you only want to be with your partner, but they don't. What happens then?

Then, you're sitting at home, eating shit, waiting for your SO to get home from a night spent at the bar doing their thing with a new person they happened to meet.

Finally, they get home and you each talk about your days. If they're honest they'll tell you about the person they were with and then you're left feeling shitty because you were waiting around for them to come back.

My roommate was in somewhat of an open relationship and -- expectedly -- her feelings for the guy started to grow a lot.

He had told her he didn't want anything serious, and she said that was OK. But, when he ended it because they wanted different things and it was unfair to the relationship, she was left heartbroken.

It should've been expected because college is supposed to be about having fun and meeting new people, right?

It makes sense, it does, but that doesn't make it hurt any less when you really like someone only to find out that their feelings aren't entirely reciprocated, or even reciprocated at all.

The feelings gained in these types of open relationships don't compare to those of meeting someone at the park, hanging out with them and being like "Wow, I could like this person."

The feelings gained in these relationships fuck you up because they branch from intimate experiences. To some people sleeping with someone, or even just cuddling, may not seem like a big deal. But to most, these are intimate experiences that leave feelings of like, or even love, lingering in their minds for days after.

When you're in a relationship that induces these feelings, knowing that you're not good enough for someone to be engaging in those activities with you and only you can be traumatizing. It leaves you questioning yourself, your worth, your beauty and essentially every other quality you possess.

The connection of intimacy is meant to be for people who are dedicated to each other, so it's unnatural for us to have that connection with someone who we're not trying to be with, both emotionally and physically.

If the person you want to be with wants to be in an open relationship, proceed with caution.

Go into the relationship with the mindset that if you get emotionally involved with this person and they're not doing the same, you need to bow out quickly and gracefully.

It may hurt at first, but it will hurt a lot less than the pain of knowing the person you're emotionally invested in may be emotionally invested in someone else.