How would you distinguish a "friends with benefits" relationship from an open relationship?

I think it’s important for people to define their relationships in terms of specific agreements that are clearly communicated in detail, rather than relying on terms that may mean different things to different people.

To me, “friends with benefits” suggests friends who add hanky panky to the relationship, while “open relationship” suggests a romantic relationship that allows hanky panky with people outside the relationship.

The focus on the FWB is the benefits are extra and the relationship isn’t mainly romantic. The open relationship is mainly a romantic relationship, but allows relations with others.

In both cases, people should be clear about what all the agreements are, for instance particularly where people are having fluid contact with multiple partners, and what communication and agreement needs to go along with that.

The commitment is different. Friends with benefits have no commitment to each other, it’s just convenience. If one of them finds a love interest they probably would stop partaking in the benefits with said friend.

An open relationship people are committed to each other long term and date on the side. If the primary SO becomes uncomfortable or unhappy it needs to be worked out or the secondary person may need to be dumped altogether.

FWB: You don’t live with.
OR: You can live together.

FWB: You don’t care to know who they are boinking just that they use perfection.
OR: You may not care to know who they are boinking but would like to know who it is, some details.

FWB: No attraction but what fire in your loins they can put out.
OR: Attraction that goes beyond the bed, but not much.

FWB: If you saw them in public you would not introduce them to friends.
OR: You’d introduce your spouse if you ran into them in public.

In short, an open relationship is one where you allow cheating but don’t care because you have the option to do the same.

They are the same in essense they both say the proposer of the idea says I don’t respect you enough.

”just that they use perfection.”

And really, isn’t that all we expect from sex?

^^Yeah, but the Pope won’t allow you to use perfection.

What about MOFWB’s. Multiple open friends with benefits?
Friends don’t let friends go home alone. lol

@JLeslie Re. “An open relationship people are committed to each other long term and date on the side.” Really? How about one of them wants to dump the other, except they don’t want to say it, they propose “open relashinship hoping they will say goodbye, except they have low self respect or something and they agree.

Or, not? You seem more than a little hostile for no stated reason. Got a bone to pick? Sure, you can have assholes like Gingrich using ‘open relationship’ as a way to abuse a partner, or you can have a loving arrangement that doesn’t happen to fit monogamy. Why the anger?

@BhacSsylan Not buyin’ it, just like not buyin’ lady suing McDonald’s is right for suing. Edited out. Added: I assumed there is only one lady who sued McDonald, I meant the one for “too hot” coffee.

I don’t know, you seem to be waaaay more hostile than just ‘not buying it’. I actually know people in committed open relationships, who have been together well for years. Hell, my own parents were in one for several years while they went different ways in college. Do those real experiences not count?

Also, there’s a tad bit of difference between ‘this person launched a frivolous lawsuit’ and ‘this entire group of people don’t respect their partners’

@flo Sure, that could be the case. Or, not. We can’t generalize all open relationships. Sometimes a couple has an agreement and they still love each other. Sometimes a couple has and agreement for purely practical reasons. Sometimes one or both just can’t be monogamous. Sometimes people are together for their children, but emotionally are basically divorced.

It varies all over the map.

In short, stereotypes are bad.

Also, point of clarification, while @Hypocrisy_Central‘s response was pretty close (though, again, specifics vary, and I’d suggest that the bit about ‘attraction’ is way off), I take issue with the term ‘cheating’. Most couples I know don’t consider it cheating. You are not breaking your word to your spouse if this is part of the arrangement, while cheating implies breaking that. Also, it is still quite possible to actually cheat in an open relationship: break your word. For instance, if you agree that sleeping around is okay, but you must let your SO know, having sex with someone and keeping that secret from your SO would be cheating.

Brain washing.

Even the too hot McDonald coffe case (the word “frivilous”, way too kind, there are frivilous and there are frivilous cases.) defence lawyers must have sounded like they are on the side of sense to the jurors.

Oh my God with the coffee.

@dappled_leaves At least answer the OP.

Yes, I’m sure my parent’s 30+ year marriage is founded on brainwashing. Again, you don’t sound like you’re just ‘not buying it’. Going so far as to call a whole class of people brainwashed because you can’t accept that non-monogamy is a valid option sounds quite a bit beyond that.

@BhacSsylan
1)“I actually know people in committed open relationships, who have been together well for years. Hell, my own parents were in one for several years…”
Is that like saying, “I smoke, a lot of people smoke, my parents smoke, and some geniuses smoke, it is real, therefore it can’t be bad to smoke”?

2)”....you can’t accept that non-monogamy is a valid option…”

In general, what horrid things can you list that some people find “valid options”?

You are not putting up an arguments here.

I’m not putting up arguments? Neither are you! You just stomped in here, declared that half of them can’t respect their partners and the others are brainwashed, and have given no good reasons for us to believe that that’s true other than your own insistence and vague references to McDonalds and smoking for god knows what reason. Why should anyone believe you that its bad, when several of us know people in these relationships and they look nothing like what you imply?

You started this whole thing saying you ‘don’t buy it’. Why? You have never given any good reason for this, you just declared it. Why do you feel the need to call them duplicitous and brainwashed?

The discussion here is good example of how one can’t rely on others to agree with one’s meanings or definitions, and why a more detailed discussion is needed, or else either or both people can think they understand what the other person is thinking or talking about, and not realize that they are living in differently-defined worlds.

BTW, the McDonald’s coffee case is another such situation. It became a meme for frivolous and over-priced law suits, but the actual case was more like a woman who was severely burned and just wanted McDonalds to alter their policy so others didn’t get hurt, and IIRC it was the jurors who raised the amount quite high, in response to McDonald’s defensiveness. IIRC, the woman did not profit from the case but did gain a horrible mistaken reputation as a symbol of excessive lawsuits and was severely harassed… there are many perspectives on any situation, which can have nothing to do with one another.

Yes @BhacSsylan If my last post didn’t do it nothing will.
An idea: Don’t tell people you or your parents your friends do x y, or z. For one thing, it doesn’t add to any debate. YAnd you don’t want the debater to hold back do you?
I can go on.

So, you cannot answer my question. Cool.

I’ll ask you one last time. I have responded to this because I have real, personal knowledge of several situations like this, most of which have worked well. On the other hand, why should anyone believe you that what you say is true, and they’re actually harmful and driven by a lack of respect?

@BhacSsylan
”...and not realize that they are living in differently-defined worlds.”
One world it says “take responsiblity for your own actions” the other says “no, never take responsibility for your fault”