Open Marriage Jealousy - Prevalence of Jealousy

Prevalence of Jealousy

Jealousy is a familiar experience in human relationships. It has been reported in every culture researchers have examined to date, and has been observed in infants as young as 5-6 months old and older. It is especially prevalent in open marriages. Studies have shown that around 80 percent of people in open marriages experience jealousy over their extramarital relationships. Couples in open marriages experience as much or more jealousy than people in sexually monogamous marriages. The prevalence of jealousy in open marriages is not surprising, since people in such relationships expose themselves to situations that can potentially provoke jealousy.

Martin Weinberg, Colin J. Williams, and Douglas Pryor found that 77 percent of bisexuals in sexually open relationships had partners who experienced jealousy at some point. The largest group, at 46.2 percent, said their partners experienced only a little jealousy. The remaining 30.8 percent said their partners experienced moderate to extreme jealousy. While it may seem encouraging that less than one-third of partners experienced moderate to extreme jealousy, these findings may not generalize to heterosexual married couples. First, most of the bisexuals in this study were not married. Studies suggest that unmarried people who cohabit tend to reject the idea of lifelong marriage and hold more accepting attitudes toward divorce. More accepting attitudes toward ending a relationship may reduce the threat of losing the relationship to a romantic rival, and hence reduce the amount of jealousy experienced. In addition, bisexuals are often more jealous of outside partners of their own sex.

"Primary partners were reportedly more jealous of an 'outside' partner of their own sex -- for example, a man whose primary partner was a woman would say she was more jealous of his relationships with other women. The logic that underlies this was that a person of the same sex as themselves could meet similar needs and thus replace them. A person of the opposite sex would not compete in this way, satisfying a different set of needs for their partner." (Weinberg, Williams, & Pryor, 1995, page 108)

The fact that many outside partners were not the same sex as primary partners may have reduced the overall amount of jealousy experienced. Heterosexual couples in open marriages might therefore experience greater amounts of jealousy than reported in this study.