Lindy West Is Wrong: Why 92% Of Open Marriages End In Disaster
Open marriages fail at a staggering 92 percent rate, which makes the general divorce rate of 50-plus percent look almost optimistic. Lindy West and other non-monogamy cheerleaders can frame it however they want, but the math is brutal. Jealousy, broken verbal agreements, and third-party drama pile up fast. There’s no legal framework holding anyone accountable, just pinky promises. The real story behind why these arrangements implode goes much deeper than the headline.
While the idea of opening up a marriage might sound like a progressive dream, the numbers tell a brutal story. A recent study shows 92 percent of open marriages fail. That’s not a typo. Ninety-two percent. For context, the general U.S. divorce rate already hovers above 50 percent, climbing closer to 60 percent post-pandemic. So open marriages fundamentally take already terrible odds and make them worse.
Open marriages don’t beat the odds — they demolish them, turning a coin flip into a near-guaranteed loss.
Tracking these arrangements is a nightmare. There’s no official paperwork. No legal framework. Just verbal agreements between partners, which means when things go sideways — and they almost always do — there’s nothing concrete holding anyone accountable. Disputes erupt over who knew what, who agreed to what, and who crossed which invisible line. Jealousy and third-party complications pile on fast.
Despite the grim stats, open relationships aren’t exactly rare. Somewhere between 4 and 9 percent of Americans are in one. A 2020 YouGov survey found 23 percent of relationships were non-monogamous. One in five single Americans has been in a consensual open relationship.
Meanwhile, 56 percent of people still say complete monogamy is the ideal. So there’s a massive gap between what people actually do and what they claim to want.
Public opinion splits hard along predictable lines. Half of Americans call open marriages unacceptable. Married adults lean 57 percent against. Republicans hit 64 percent disapproval while 47 percent of Democrats find it acceptable. Men are more open to it than women — 32 percent versus 19 percent interested in non-monogamy. Millennials lead the curiosity charge at 41 percent, while adults over 65 sit at a firm 15 percent. Among those over 65, a striking 70 percent view open marriages as flatly unacceptable.
Some proponents argue non-monogamy can be healthy. Maybe. But the research backing that claim is thin. Beyond the 92 percent failure figure, data is scarce. Secrecy and dishonesty make studying these relationships incredibly difficult. The rise in interest correlates with practical factors too, like housing costs and the fact that 38 percent of prime working-age adults now live alone. When open marriages do work, success typically depends on pre-established boundaries and strict adherence to them.
The bottom line is bleak. Traditional marriages already fail at coin-flip rates. Open marriages just load the coin.
