A new study finds that people in open or polyamorous relationships report being just as satisfied as those in monogamous pairings, according to the University of Michigan.
The study found that while monogamy is widely considered the way to build trusting, committed heterosexual relationships, people in open relationships _ generally where partners are allowed to have sex but not love with others _ and polyamorous relationships with more than one romantic pairing can be just as satisfied, and with lower levels of jealousy, than monogamous couplings.
"Overall, the outcomes for monogamous and consensual non-monogamous participants were the same _ indicating no net benefit of one relationship style over another," the study's lead author, U-M associate professor of psychology and women's studies Terri Conley, said in a news release.
Conley and fellow researches analyzed relationships with among more than 2,100 people to determine factors such as satisfaction, commitment, passionate love, and jealousy. They found no differences between monogamous couples and those in consensual non-monogamous relationships in terms of satisfaction and passionate love, but lower jealousy and more trust in open relationships than in monogamous couplings.
What's more, the study found that people in polyamorous relationships reported more satisfaction, trust, commitment and passionate love in their primary partnership than with a secondary partner, despite assumptions that people in non-monogamous relationships may not care about each other enough to be happy in primary relationships, according to the university.
