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Abstract

Open relationships as a form of consensual non-monogamy (CNM) offer ways of ‘doing’ intimacy and relationships aside from solidified norms of monogamy. At the same time, open relationships can go along with ambiguity or disagreements regarding their boundaries and their transgressions – especially among young adults. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, this study examines how young adults based in England negotiate and give meaning to boundary transgressions in open relationships. Such transgressions refer to the breaching or breaking of implicit or explicit relationship boundaries – for instance, with whom one can be sexually intimate. I argue that ‘infidelity’ serves as a cultural repertoire that young adults draw on when navigating the ambiguity of open relationships and in setting symbolic and moral boundaries. Furthermore, this study highlights the tenacity of mono- and heteronormativity – even in open relationships – as dominant ideologies structuring intimate lives.

Keywords

Boundary transgressions consensual non-monogamy infidelity intimate relationships open relationships

Introduction

Infidelity is a recurrent theme in popular culture and public discourse in Western societies (e.g., Gauthier, 2017; Iacobucci, 2021).¹ It also plays an important role in people’s intimate relationships – including in England, where this study is based (e.g., Lawson, 1989; Van Hooff, 2017). Earlier studies have often operationalised infidelity in a relatively narrow and static way, for example, as extramarital or extradyadic intercourse² (for overviews, see, e.g., Blow and Hartnett, 2005; Munsch, 2012). Such approaches have been subject to criticism (Blow and Hartnett, 2005) as people can understand a multiplicity of physical, emotional, or online practices as infidelity (Bozoyan and Schmiedeberg, 2023). What is understood as infidelity and how it is evaluated varies between relationships, relationship partners, and within individuals – for instance, depending on who (e.g., oneself or one’s partner) engages in a practice (Blow and Hartnett, 2005; Thompson and O’Sullivan, 2016; Weiss and Burger, 2021).

Furthermore, different features can matter for what is conceptualised as infidelity. For instance, Weiser et al. (2014: 671) suggest that ‘violation, secretiveness, immorality, consequences, and emotional outcomes’ are five central components of a ‘prototype’ of infidelity (on the role of emotional outcomes, see also Quinn and Stoll, 2022; Schneider, 2025). Hence, the same behaviour might, in some instances, be read as infidelity and in others not (Moller and Vossler, 2015). This ambiguity is also reflected in academic definitions of infidelity. Weeks et al. (2003: xviii), for example, conceptualise infidelity as ‘a violation of the couple’s assumed or stated contract regarding emotional and / or sexual exclusivity’. ‘The couple’s assumed or stated contract’ underlines that couples have their own – explicit or implicit – boundaries and may have different understandings of infidelity based on these.

The reference to ‘exclusivity’ also points to another issue: Blow and Hartnett (2005: 192) emphasised in their review article published nearly two decades ago the importance of accounting for different relationship formats and for the meanings of infidelity in these. At the same time, research on infidelity has commonly focused on monogamous relationships or not accounted for consensual non-monogamy (CNM) by translating any form of extradyadic intercourse into infidelity (Conley et al., 2017; Hangen et al., 2020).

CNM typically entails some kind of rules, agreement or boundaries³, and boundary transgressions can, of course, also take place in these (Barker and Langdridge, 2010; Cohen, 2016; Frank and DeLamater, 2010; Quinn and Stoll, 2022; Stewart et al., 2021; Wosick-Correa, 2010). Whether such transgressions are, however, labelled or understood as ‘infidelity’ is yet another question. Existing studies suggest that ‘infidelity’ might not be a desirable or meaningful term for polyamorists (Ritchie and Barker, 2006; Wosick-Correa, 2010: 45) – for instance, due to its inherent mononormativity⁴ (Kean, 2017: 33). With the CNM community seeking to develop new terminology (Ritchie and Barker, 2006), polyamorists might rather, for example, speak of rule-breaking than infidelity (Wosick-Correa, 2010: 55).

Coming up with different terms can be read as a way of setting symbolic boundaries (Lamont and Molnár, 2002)⁵ by which the CNM community distinguishes itself from dominant norms of monogamy (Ritchie and Barker, 2006). Such endeavours may be particularly important as CNM faces prejudice and stigmatisation (Balzarini and Muise, 2020; Haupert et al., 2017; Moors et al., 2021). For instance, through (disproven) assumptions about worse relationship quality in CNM compared to monogamy (Conley et al., 2013, 2017; Rodrigues, 2024) or gendered ideas about sexuality (Roodsaz, 2022).

At the same time, it appears that attitudes towards CNM fair ‘better’ than those towards infidelity (Grunt-Mejer and Campbell, 2016; Rye, 2024). Whereas CNM is termed ‘ethical’ or ‘consensual’, infidelity is widely understood as morally wrong (Clery, 2023) and, in the academic realm, also referred to as non-consensual non-monogamy (NCNM) (e.g., Levine et al., 2018). Scholarship commonly juxtaposes CNM and infidelity as opposing notions (Walker, 2017). For example, CNM has been framed as a ‘solution’ to the ‘problem’ of infidelity (Anderson, 2012: 199). This juxtaposition also fits public perceptions: Infidelity as entailing secrecy or betrayal (Morgan, 2004/2014; Ritchie and Barker, 2006; Weiser et al., 2014), as opposed to CNM being associated with openness, honesty, transparency, and communication (Andersson, 2022; Astle et al., 2024; De Graeve, 2019; Ritchie and Barker, 2006).

In comparison to monogamous relationships, CNM cannot readily draw on solidified relationship or intimacy scripts. Rather, relationship boundaries are actively negotiated and set (Conley et al., 2017; Quinn and Stoll, 2022; Ritchie and Barker, 2006; Vilkin and Davila, 2023). Against this background, CNM has been framed as entailing emancipatory power, for example, in challenging mononormativity, heteronormativity⁶, and patriarchy (Barker and Langdridge, 2010). At the same time, scholars (e.g., De Graeve 2019; Klesse 2005; Roodsaz 2022) have shown that CNM is nonetheless engrained with power relations (see also Barker and Langdridge, 2010).

CNM takes many different forms (Astle et al., 2024; Hangen et al., 2020; Vilkin and Davila, 2023). While literature frequently invokes a trifold distinction between polyamory, swinging, and open relationships, researchers (Astle et al., 2024; Barker and Langdridge, 2010) emphasise the need to account for the diversity of CNM. For instance, earlier literature on open relationships often focused solely on gay men (Barker and Langdridge, 2010; Cohen, 2016).

It is important to examine infidelity and its meanings in different relationship forms (Blow and Hartnett, 2005), though scholarship on infidelity has commonly focused on monogamous relationships. Literature on CNM and boundary transgressions indicates that polyamorists might speak of rule-breaking or boundary transgressions rather than ‘infidelity’ (Ritchie and Barker, 2006; Wosick-Correa, 2010). However, CNM entails different forms of intimacy and relationships, which scholarship should account for (Astle et al., 2024). For example, open relationships are prone to worse relationship outcomes than polyamory or swinging (Conley et al., 2017; Conley and Piemonte, 2021; Levine et al., 2018). Open relationships are characterised by stronger pro-monogamy beliefs, can entail less transparent communication and are more frequently driven by extrinsic rather than intrinsic reasons (Conley and Piemonte, 2021). Namely, partners might agree to an open relationship for example, due to living in separate locations rather than genuinely preferring an open over a monogamous relationship.

Against this background, this study examines boundary transgressions in open relationships. How do transgressions play out in open relationships in which boundaries might more readily be explicitly discussed and negotiated – but which cannot fall back on solidified (implicit) ideas of monogamy? How is ‘infidelity’ nevertheless invoked in labelling boundary transgressions? To answer these questions, this study undertook 19 semi-structured interviews with young adults based in England who experienced boundary transgressions in their past or present, open and monogamous relationships. This study draws together scholarship on CNM with literature on infidelity, while theoretically building on work on (sexual) stories (Plummer, 1995) and cultural sociology (Lamont and Molnár, 2002; Swidler, 2003).

Methodology

A phenomenological approach guided my methodology: I conducted qualitative interviews due to this study’s focus on lived experiences and meanings of infidelity. More specifically, the project draws on 19 semi-structured interviews with young adults who experienced boundary transgressions in intimate relationships. These adults were involved differently: either they themselves and/or their partner(s) had transgressed boundaries, or they were the ‘other’ person in a case of boundary transgressions.

Initially, I did not actively seek out the topic of boundary transgressions in open relationships but came to perceive it as a relevant issue throughout my data collection. Looking to explore the overarching topic of meanings and practices of infidelity in intimate relationships, I shared a broad call for interview participants with experiences of infidelity.⁷ This call did not refer to monogamous relationships and without anticipating this, several people reached out to share experiences of boundary transgressions which took place in open relationships. Following a loosely abductive approach and understanding this ‘surprising’ topic as important (Timmermans and Tavory, 2022), I decided to focus in this paper on boundary transgressions in open relationships and to engage with literature on CNM.

To facilitate in-person interviews, I relied on convenience sampling and recruited participants in the university city in Southeast England, where I was based. I distributed a call for participants via numerous online and offline channels and my networks. I conducted 17 interviews between February and May 2020, and two more interviews between February and March 2024 to gain further insights on the topic. For all interviews, I used an interview guide consisting of open-ended questions regarding both experiences and views of infidelity. This guide was reviewed with all other documents used in the data collection process (e.g., call for participants, consent forms) by another researcher in the field of intimacy as well as the respective university ethics committee. Regarding its trustworthiness (Roulston, 2010; Urban & Van Eeden-Moorefield, 2017), the guide provided an overarching structure for the interviews but was designed in an open-ended way to provide space for what participants’ themselves considered important and wanted to share. Prior to interviews, I emphasised that there are no wrong or right answers and made space in the interviews for participants to raise any topics that were important to them that we had not yet discussed.

On average, interviews lasted 76 minutes. To ensure participants felt comfortable sharing their accounts, they could choose the interview format, with interviews taking place in person, via video call, or the phone. The project received ethical approval from the respective university committee. Identifying features such as participants’ names have been anonymised.

The final sample consists of 19 participants: 15 identified as cis-women, two as cis-men, and two as non-binary. All participants were in their twenties or early thirties (average = 25 years), and all pursued or had finished university education. While 18 participants resided in the English city in which I recruited at the moment of the interview, some had temporarily returned to their country of origin due to the COVID-19 pandemic. One participant had moved to a different English city after completing university education. In terms of sexual identity, 12 participants identified as heterosexual, five as bisexual, one as lesbian, and one as queer.

Eleven of the young adults had been or currently were in an open relationship, and for some, the boundary transgressions they intended to share had taken place in these. Why did so many participants with experiences of open relationships reach out to be interviewed? According to their accounts, they had explicitly discussed and negotiated the boundaries of their (past and/or present) relationships, which led to their particular interest in the topic. Some also emphasised that they thought of their stories as more complex than, for instance, media representations of infidelity, which is why it felt important for them to share these. Additionally, most of those who had no personal experiences with open relationships also talked – without being asked – about CNM throughout the interview. Consequently, this paper draws on all 19 accounts, though I zoom in on those in open relationships in greater depth.

Participants’ experiences of boundary transgressions took very different forms. Due to my focus on negotiations and meanings, I refrain from offering an inevitably inadequate quantification of these transgressions. Some participants explicitly labelled their experiences as infidelity, whereas others pondered whether the term applies to them. Throughout this paper, I abstain from providing an ‘ultimate’ definition of infidelity, stemming from the epistemological standpoint that there is no final ‘truth’ (Plummer, 1995: 170) to what infidelity is. Instead, my interest centres around how people draw upon, conceptualise, and make sense of ‘infidelity’. Against this background, the question of what infidelity is turns into an empirical rather than a definitory undertaking (see also, e.g., Bozoyan and Schmiedeberg, 2023).

I audio-recorded all interviews and analysed the transcripts through a reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2020; Braun et al., 2023). Initially, I conducted a close reading of all interview material. Next, I coded the data guided by the question of how people experience and understand boundary transgressions in Atlas.ti, assigning open codes which stayed close to the original text. This coding step was mainly concerned with the phenomenal data structure, zooming in on what is being said. Throughout this coding process, I came to understand the topic of open relationships – and their entanglement with boundary transgressions – as particularly relevant. Following this approach, I read through all the interview material again and coded the data in relation to open relationships and CNM more broadly by assigning researcher-derived codes with a higher abstraction level. In this second coding step, I adopted a more interpretative approach, coding not only what was said but also how accounts were given (Roulston, 2010). After finishing this coding process, I explored how researcher-derived codes related to each other through mind maps (Braun and Clarke, 2006) and grouped these codes together under overarching themes. For instance, I grouped the researcher-derived codes ‘heteronormativity in open relationships/boundary transgressions’ and ‘mononormativity in open relationships/boundary transgressions’ to the overarching theme of ‘persistence of dominant intimacy regimes’. I refined the specifics of each theme through writing up theme definitions (Braun and Clarke, 2020) and drawing the themes together with existing literature on CNM and infidelity.

Reflexive thematic analysis emphasises that the researcher’s positionality shapes the research project (Braun et al., 2023) – and, of course, that is also the case in this study. Qualitative interviews constitute a co-production of knowledge (Roulston, 2010) – in Plummer’s (1995: 20) words, a story that ‘[…] can be seen as joint actions’. For example, I have many friends and colleagues who experienced boundary transgressions – or infidelity – themselves. However, most of these transgressions took place in monogamous relationships, which is why I did not foresee participants with experiences of open relationships coming forward.

Results

Defining infidelity

When I asked the young adults how they define infidelity or ‘cheating’⁸, most instantaneously spoke about the significance of relationship-dependent agreements or boundaries. Without me bringing this topic up, several participants explicitly referred to CNM in explaining what they understand as infidelity – and this was frequently one of the first things they mentioned:

Sophie [personal experiences of open relationships]: I think like the important point is that there's a difference between being in a polyamorous relationship and cheating on someone. And I’ve had friends that tried to like open up about their preferences to their partner, and like they tried to work it out. So, some people have open relationships. I think that’s fine. But then, I think the point is whether you are disclosing that information to your partner. And whether your partner consents to your relationship with another person.

Hannah [no personal experiences of open relationships]: Like having this kind of arrangement where you’re saying, oh, we have an open relationship, and we can have sex with other people. I think this is, would be fine for me. And when you don’t play by the rules of this contract in the relationship, for me, that’s somehow cheating.

Participants emphasised that infidelity is based on a transgression of a previously agreed-upon arrangement specific to each relationship. In line with existing research (Anderson, 2012; Walker, 2017), the young adults also juxtaposed infidelity more widely with CNM.

This definition of infidelity in explicit opposition to CNM was brought up by young adults with and without personal experiences with open relationships. Defining infidelity by what it is not illustrates how infidelity is not merely conceptualised by intrinsic characteristics as emphasised by existing literature (e.g., Weiser et al., 2014) but – similar to other cultural practices, objects, or social identities – also by what it excludes or is not (e.g., CNM) (e.g., Simmel, 1997: 544).

Both Sophie and Hannah described open relationships as ‘fine’, which points to the evaluative, normative dimension commonly entailed by the juxtaposition between CNM and infidelity. For example, Kate explained:

Kate [personal experiences of open relationships]: It (infidelity) makes me sad. It really does, especially from my perspective of being in an open situation that has warranted that me and my partner; you have to communicate and to talk about these things. It makes me really sad that so many people are getting hurt just because they don’t lay out expectations for their relationship. But it also hurts that people are willing to go behind their partner’s back and break that trust rather than being honest. You know if, if someone is so tempted to be unfaithful in any capacity, that signals to me that there is something wrong in the relationship or there is something that needs to be communicated. They are not getting something, right? So, it’s, it’s really disheartening to me that people aren’t that level of honest and open with your partner who you’d think of anybody you’d be able to be that open and honest with.

This notion was echoed by others, who called infidelity ‘a lazy way of solving things’ (Thomas, personal experiences of open relationships) or ‘childish’ (Lukas, no personal experiences of open relationships). While CNM was associated with open communication, consent, and honesty, infidelity was related to harming one’s partner, breaking trust, secrecy, and dishonesty. This contrasting hence goes along with a moral boundary (Lamont et al., 2015), which also matches previous research suggesting a greater stigmatisation of infidelity than CNM (Grunt-Mejer and Campbell, 2016; Rye, 2024). In participants’ accounts, CNM was portrayed as ‘better’ and a more desirable relationship format, compared to infidelity indicating something being ‘wrong’ with a relationship.

Blurred boundaries

The respective forms of participants’ open relationships and their boundaries varied significantly. All young adults with personal experiences of open relationships had – in line with existing literature – at some point explicitly discussed relationship boundaries with their partner. However, the extent thereof differed tremendously. Some had negotiated boundaries in a detailed manner, while for others, their agreements remained vague. And yet, even young adults who had explicitly discussed the open nature and boundaries of their relationships occasionally faced a lack of clarity regarding what this ‘openness’ entailed. One example of such ambiguity was provided by Kate, who was, at the time of the interview, in an open relationship with her boyfriend. As illustrated in the previous quote, Kate spoke very fondly about her relationship format and communication with her boyfriend. At the same time, she recounted:

When we first started dating, there was a lot of confusion about what was okay and what wasn't because my partner had never done this [open relationship] before. So, he ended up hooking up with a mutual friend of his without my permission first because he thought it would be okay. Because I had been open before, and we were trying something open, he didn't realise that line of communication needed to happen beforehand.

She continued:

That was a case where he honestly didn't even realise what he did wrong. Because the next morning, he texted me saying like hey, so and so had a great last night, like can't wait to tell you about and I was like what? And he was like yeah, we, you know, we went out to, to aehm dinner and then we went back to my place, and we had a good time. And I called him immediately. I remember being just like you're joking me, right? How could you think that was okay? And we, we talked a little bit, and he was like, oh crap, I, I, I assumed that this would be okay because of the conversations we had before.

This transgression was also the reason why Kate had reached out for an interview. When I asked why she labelled this transgression as ‘infidelity’, she said that her ‘trust in him was broken’ and that ‘he did violate kind of the contract of our relationship’. Drawing on the infidelity components outlined by Weiser et al. (2014) in this paper’s introduction, this quote points again to the importance of ‘violation’ and ‘consequences’ as core aspects of how people understand infidelity. Even though they had previously discussed relationship boundaries, Kate and her boyfriend held differing understandings of what their agreement meant.

In a similar vein, Thomas talked in the interview about his long-distance open relationship with his ex-girlfriend. This relationship was ‘exclusive in some ways, but not in other ways’: Thomas and his girlfriend were primary relationship partners but had explicitly agreed that they could ‘date’ others. In Thomas’ view, this relationship went well until his girlfriend ended up sharing personal information about him with one of her dates. He felt ‘betrayed’ and came to understand this experience as ‘cheating’:

Yeah. I think I would probably say to some extent that she kind of cheated on me. I think, so she's in, she didn't think about it that way in the first place. But when I explained it to her, she said oh yeah, I'm sorry. So I think she understood that she made a mistake there. So like, I think it's, it's that point where she started aeh telling stories about me to this other guy she was sleeping with aehm, which made it a little bit more intimate than just a sexual relationship from my perspective. That is definitely something that I would consider as some kind of cheating.

Infidelity is commonly associated with secrecy or deception (Morgan, 2004/2014; Weiser et al., 2014), but neither was part of these two accounts. Nonetheless, both Kate and Thomas labelled these transgressions as stories (Plummer, 1995) of ‘infidelity’ or ‘cheating’. According to Plummer (1995: 20), we all tell (sexual) stories about ourselves, and in doing so, we assign meaning to action. These stories lend themselves to different (research) questions – such as why people tell a certain story and what a story does. In a similar vein, Swidler (2003: 30) talks about ‘cultural repertoires’: toolkits that enable people ‘to move among situations, finding terms in which to orient action within each situation’. By conceptualising infidelity as a cultural repertoire, we can ask why people invoke the term ‘infidelity’ as a repertoire to ascribe meaning (Swidler, 2003).

Both Thomas’ and Kate’s accounts exhibit a lack of clarity or alignment regarding what both relationship partners understood as explicitly or implicitly agreed upon. In comparison to monogamous relationships, CNM does not rely on readily available, solidified scripts of relationships (Conley et al., 2017). This can offer new ways of ‘doing’ relationships based on personal preferences, desires, and negotiations. At the same time, this flexibility can be accompanied by ambiguity or misunderstandings.⁹ Drawing on Plummer (1995) and inspired by Barker (2005), Barker and Langdridge (2010), and Ritchie and Barker (2006), we can conceptualise CNM as a new (sexual) story which has gained visibility and popularity over the last decades. However, new stories require time and work to consolidate and take shape – and can even incorporate parts of previous stories or ideologies (Plummer, 1995).

Labelling a boundary transgression in an open relationship as infidelity can then be understood as young adults drawing on more solidified stories – namely, on the terms available to them (Plummer, 1995) to navigate the ambiguity of CNM as a new story. In doing so, they assign meaning to action, as stories of infidelity represent a widespread, omnipresent narrative which – in comparison to CNM – provides a well-known plot based on shared knowledge and ‘key components’ (Weiser et al., 2014).

Such ambiguity may be particularly salient among people with little prior experience of CNM. Furthermore, with all participants being young adults, some also had generally less experience with intimacy or were uncertain about their sexual or relationship preferences. As suggested by Vilkin and Davila (2023), not being able to fall back on readily available intimacy scripts might be of particular relevance for young adults, and they might be especially prone to experiencing ambiguity when initially pursuing open relationships.

For most of the young adults, the open relationships they talked about were (one of) their first experiences of CNM – or of their partner. Here, open relationships entail a learning – or, in some cases, trial and error – process (see also, Rodrigues, 2024). The transgression described by Kate led the couple to engage more readily in ongoing communication regarding their boundaries. Setting one’s own relationship boundaries aside from widespread norms of monogamy offers a space of opportunity but also requires work. Importantly, this work is commonly framed in individualised, therapeutic terms (Roodsaz, 2022) as a personal responsibility – all while resources in addressing these issues are commonly distributed unequally (e.g., Illouz, 2012, 2021).

Furthermore, it is important to account for these relationships being open rather than polyamorous (Astle et al., 2024; Cohen, 2016). For example, people engaging in polyamory or swinging might more readily be part of a community where, for example, they can discuss relationship boundaries or transgressions (Astle et al., 2024; Conley and Piemonte, 2021). This seems to be less the case for the young adults I spoke to. Some participants had friends who (also) engaged in CNM, and several had consulted, for example, books to learn more about the topic. At the same time, none appeared to be strongly involved in any wider CNM community. Against this background, negotiating the increased ambiguity or potential misunderstandings of open relationships remains an individualised endeavour.

Evidently, participants were aware that their stories differed from dominant imaginaries of infidelity – such as infidelity as a secretive and mainly physical betrayal (Morgan, 2004/2014). This divergence illustrates the numerous and often contradicting cultural repertoires surrounding love and infidelity (Swidler, 2003) – but also the different discourses people engaging in non-monogamy draw on (De Graeve, 2019). For instance, ideas about infidelity as deceptive or secretive can mismatch notions of infidelity as hurtful and breaking trust. The young adults navigated these tensions by relativising – or hedging – their terminology, referring to ‘some kind of cheating’ (Thomas) or ‘technical infidelity’ (Kate). In doing so, they acknowledged the limitations of their storytelling while simultaneously framing their experiences as cases of ‘infidelity’.

In asking what a story does (Plummer, 1995), the presented quotes illustrate yet again how narrating boundary transgressions as ‘infidelity’ serves as a form of symbolic boundary setting. According to Lamont et al. (2015: 168), symbolic boundaries are ‘conceptual distinctions made by social actors to categorize objects, people, practices, and even time and space. They are tools by which individuals and groups struggle over and come to agree upon definitions of reality’. By defining a certain experience as ‘infidelity’, the young adults set symbolic boundaries between themselves and their partner. As is illustrated by Thomas’ quotes, such boundaries assign for example, who has ‘made a mistake’ (partner engaging in infidelity), and what actions could follow from this wrongdoing (apologising). Against the background of infidelity being widely perceived as morally ‘wrong’ (Clery, 2023), these boundaries entail yet again a moral dimension in distinguishing who has done something wrong – and who has been wronged.

Differing ideas of relationship formats

In the cases of Thomas and Kate, both relationship partners wanted to pursue an open relationship – at least, according to their accounts. It appears the alleged transgressions might have been based on a genuine misunderstanding or lack of communication. Other participants, however, brought up cases where only one person – either themselves or their partner – wanted to pursue an open relationship in the first place. Just like regarding monogamy, there can be discrepancies between partners seeking to pursue open relationships (Cohen, 2016; Deri, 2015: 125), which calls for research into one-sided non-monogamy (Hangen et al., 2020).

In these cases, young adults eventually agreed to be ‘open’ because of their partners’ wants – or never reached a ‘final’ agreement. Also, in these relationships, boundary transgressions were experienced as such. For instance, Anna talked in the interview about her relationship with her ex-boyfriend. Whereas Anna wanted to be monogamous, her ex wished for a polyamorous or open relationship. When I asked how this issue was resolved, she answered:

It [the relationship] was polyamorous at the start, but not by my choice. And then it kind of became monogamous, although we never really, I don’t know if we ever, like, said it very clearly that that was what it was like. And then we opened it up again when I moved, but then it was kind of murky whether it was open or not all the time.

CNM is commonly related to openness and transparency (Andersson, 2022; Astle et al., 2024; De Graeve, 2019; Ritchie and Barker, 2006). However, in this case, there appears to be explicit ambiguity about the relationship format. Anna recounts how, in this relationship, her boyfriend cheated on her – and how she later cheated on him. This also included an instance of Anna kissing other men in a period during which the couple was explicitly in an open relationship. When I asked her whether she thinks of this experience as infidelity, she said:

Yeah, I think all of them I consider infidelity. Because in all cases, I don’t know, we had agreed different things in the different situations. But I think in all cases, we both knew that we’re hurting the other person. And that this is not like in their terms. Aehm even if not in all situations that was explicitly said.

‘Hurt’ has been shown to be a core ‘component’ of infidelity conceptualisations (Weiser et al., 2014: 671) and was also emphasised as such in Anna’s account of why she uses the label ‘infidelity’.

In a similar vein, Jamie was in an initially monogamous relationship, which their ex-partner wanted to open up. First quite reluctant, Jamie eventually decides to give it a go. According to Jamie, their ex-partner cheated several times in this open relationship. This included the partner making out and having sex with specific people that Jamie had previously explicitly asked to be excluded from their open relationship. When I inquired whether they think of this as infidelity, Jamie recounted:

Why would I consider it a form of cheating? It broke many boundaries within what we had agreed upon in our relationship. And if it was maybe less of maybe like one of those things at a time. I think it could have been something to discuss and figure out. But since it was like so many of them like I was like what even is the point of even talking like it just felt like the conversation was meaningless.

Both Anna and Jamie did not want to be in an open relationship in the first place. Furthermore, in both cases, their partners transgressed boundaries, although Anna also did so herself. These young adults would have wanted to be in monogamous rather than open relationships. Against this background, they might more readily perceive and label a boundary transgression as ‘infidelity’ (see also, Cohen, 2016) as a term widely associated with monogamous relationships.

In these cases, labelling a transgression as ‘infidelity’ can yet again be understood as a form of symbolic boundary setting. Namely, both of their partners were hesitant or reluctant to share their interpretations of these instances constituting infidelity. Anna explained:

And, I, at one point, kind of threw it in his (boyfriend) face that I’m not the first person to do this in our relationship. But yeah, when I brought it up, he was reluctant to agree that he cheated on me.

Similarly, Jamie questioned whether their partner would share their interpretation of having cheated on them:

And at one point, we were talking. And she (ex-girlfriend) was like, I know you feel like I’ve cheated on you. And I looked at her, and I said, I don’t like the use of the word feel because you did cheat on me. I don’t feel like you cheated on me. You did cheat on me. So, I think she probably would not agree that it was cheating.

These quotes suggest that people who did not want to be in an open relationship in the first place might more readily perceive extradyadic practices as infidelity (Cohen, 2016; Hangen et al., 2020). But notably, in both cases, the partners were also the ones transgressing boundaries and rejecting or questioning the label of ‘infidelity’. Furthermore, these quotes also point to the symbolic interactionist dimension in relation to boundary transgressions: The young adults provide a definition of reality (e.g., a specific transgression constitutes infidelity), but this understanding might not necessarily be shared by their partner.

Tenacious norms

The previous section already points to the role of monogamist preferences or values in the accounts of some participants – a notion that I delve into further in this section. Namely, some of the open relationships appeared to be imbued with heteronormative or mononormative ideas surrounding sexuality and relationships, which also pertained to relationship boundaries and transgressions.

Isabel’s account provides a particularly viable example of the persistence of mononormativity. Similar to the cases described above, Isabel and her ex-girlfriend had differing views on the form – and future – of their relationship:

You could say both of us were experiencing different pressures in this situation. She didn’t want an open relationship at all. She was doing it to like, what’s the word, appease me basically. Which is never a good attitude to start an open relationship with. But then I wanted a fully open relationship because, and then so I felt like I had these rules unfairly placed on me because we didn’t talk about them. So, she just said, okay, these are the rules.

Isabel remembers how she initially sought to break up but agreed to ‘settle’ on an open relationship after her ex-girlfriend experienced a panic attack in the realm of this. However, this open relationship entailed very narrow boundaries – for example, ‘making out’ with others was only ‘allowed’ while drunk – a rule set by her ex-girlfriend. When I asked Isabel why this boundary was set in place, she reflected:

I think it’s because she didn’t want to entertain the idea that I could be consciously trying to date somebody else. And I think part of that might have been me not wanting to hurt her feelings, so I didn’t accurately communicate very well why I wanted the open relationship. But I also think they were problematic rules. That you have to be drunk, that’s problematic.

This excerpt illustrates mononormativity: For example, consciously dating others is undesirable. Furthermore, while open and honest communication might be understood as general virtues of CNM, these aspects do not play a role in Isabel’s story. After deciding for herself that she will end the relationship in the next months, Isabel transgresses the previously set boundaries – an experience she did not disclose and about which she explicitly lied to her partner.

In the interview, Isabel ponders whether her transgressions constitute infidelity. Ultimately, she rejects this label – amongst others due to her not feeling guilty about the transgressions and initially not planning to be in this relationship in the first place. Labelling a practice as not infidelity serves again in ascribing meaning. Namely, as Isabel and not her partner transgressed boundaries, she refrains from assigning this label and its moral dimension to her experience. By talking about her transgressions as not a story of infidelity, Isabel can symbolically re-direct herself away from infidelity and its potentially moral ramifications.

Not only mononormativity but also the tenacity of heteronormativity is particularly explicit in Mary’s account. When Mary went for an exchange semester during her undergraduate degree, her boyfriend agreed to her making out with other women – an arrangement which Mary described as ‘open’. However, this making out was supposed to be platonic – ‘as long as there is no kind of no kind of actual like desire or sort kind of a weird as long as you don’t want to do it or something’. Mary explained that they arrived at this agreement because, in her boyfriend’s and her own understanding, she was predominantly straight:

I think even though we did have like queer friends, and we were at a very queer school. I think just in at least in our straight relationship there was a kind of assumption that that non-sort of straight kind, they don’t really count as much. So, I think there was an assumption in like the heterosexual partnership that the other stuff just wasn’t really important.

This agreement was based on the idea that Mary has no ‘real’ desire to make out with women, and she and her boyfriend perceived this ‘non-sort of straight’ making out as ‘not count[ing] much’ in relation to her straight relationship. This agreement appears to be fuelled by ideas about heteronormativity, in relation to which sexualities are perceived as more or less legitimate. While CNM might, in some cases, challenge dominant gender norms, especially the initial stages of moving to CNM can be marked through patriarchal norms (Cascais and Cardoso, 2013).

Similar to Isabel’s case, Mary’s account also features mononormativity. Mary is supposed to only seek out those forms of intimacy that she does not really desire so as to not pose a risk to the primary relationship. Mary herself is critical about this former agreement, emphasising that she ‘was pretty young for the record’.

These cases illustrate the ongoing relevance of heteronormativity and mononormativity as organising forces in people’s intimate lives and relationships – also in CNM (De Graeve, 2019). While new (sexual) stories such as CNM emerge (Plummer, 1995), they might still be imbued with dominant ideas of previous stories – and especially at the early stages (Cascais and Cardoso, 2013). This finding is in line with existing scholarship on the tenacity of dominant relationship or intimacy ‘regimes’ (Roseneil et al., 2020). Even though many aspects of intimate lives and practices are marked through significant transformations, previous norms linger on, constrain, or might be reproduced in new stories (Ritchie and Barker, 2006).

Towards the end of her stay abroad, Mary goes to a club where she ends up making out with two women – an experience which went, in her perception, beyond a platonic encounter:

I felt really guilty about it, and I told him, and I said oh well. So, I made out with these two people. I made out with one of my friends and I didn't tell him that it really was not really platonic. For him, the assumption was me making out with a girl was like probably a straight girl, aehm yeah, and that wasn't the case [laughs]. So, it was kind of a I don't, I, I never told him actually that it was more than that.

Mary talks about this experience as infidelity – she transgressed an agreement, experienced guilt and afterwards kept parts of this secret. Similarly to Isabel’s case, this boundary transgression was imbued with questions around feeling guilty as well as secrecy and withholding information from one’s relationship partner – facets commonly associated with infidelity (Weiser et al., 2014), but not CNM. This aspect points to the relation between discourse and practice regarding CNM: Not all relationships that are labelled ‘open’ might inherently fulfil ideals or values commonly associated with CNM (see also Vilkin and Davila, 2023). While CNM is often understood as disrupting patriarchal, heteronormative, or mononormative structures, it can also be imbued by or reproduce these (De Graeve, 2019; Roodsaz, 2022).

Conclusion

This paper explores boundary transgressions in open relationships among young adults in England. I have argued that young adults label such transgressions as ‘infidelity’ against the background of 1) the ambiguity of unsolidified boundaries in open relationships, 2) their setting of symbolic boundaries, 3) uneven desires to be in an open relationship and 4) the tenacity of hetero- and mononormative ideas. In the following paragraphs, I discuss how these findings contribute to scholarship on intimate lives, CNM, and infidelity.

This study adds to the literature concerned with the relation between continuity and change in contemporary intimacy and sexuality (Plummer, 1995; Swidler, 2003) and, more specifically, work on the persistence of dominant intimacy regimes (Roseneil et al., 2020) and power relations in CNM (De Graeve, 2019; Klesse, 2005; Roodsaz, 2022). By showcasing how participants’ stories were often (heavily) imbued with mononormativity and heteronormativity as governing ideologies, this paper further highlights the pervasiveness thereof in organising intimate lives and practices. Previous studies have zoomed into power relations in polyamory (De Graeve, 2019; Ritchie and Barker, 2006). While new sexual stories – such as CNM – gain visibility (Plummer, 1995), I have outlined throughout this paper how especially open relationships can also incorporate or reproduce heteronormativity and mononormativity.

This persistence might be particularly prominent in open relationships as a form of CNM more closely related to monogamy (Astle et al., 2024), as compared to, for example, polyamory (Ritchie and Barker, 2006; Wosick-Correa, 2010) In contrast to monogamy, open relationships can offer freedom and flexibility in pursuing one’s ideas and desires of intimacy. At the same time, this can go along with an increased space for required negotiations, misinterpretations, or disagreements – all of which commonly have to be addressed and solved through an individualistic, therapeutic framework (Roodsaz, 2022). As I have shown throughout the result section, open relationships are – like any other relationship – imbued with power relations, normative ideas about what makes a ‘good’ relationship and can face mismatching desires between partners – all of which should be at the centre of research on CNM (De Graeve, 2019; Roodsaz, 2022).

Regarding scholarship on infidelity, this study showcases the limits of juxtaposing CNM and NCNM (or infidelity) as opposing forces. In existing literature (Anderson, 2012; Walker 2017), these two forms of non-monogamy are often portrayed as counterparts, and also my participants explicitly contrasted them. However, CNM can also entail non-consensual intimacy based on boundary transgressions. Furthermore, as I have illustrated throughout this paper, open relationships as a form of CNM can encompass secrecy, deception, and a breach of trust – all of which are commonly associated with infidelity (Morgan, 2004/2014; see also Klesse and Van Hooff, 2024). At the same time, infidelity might not always entail secrecy or deception. This latter finding emphasises the importance of accounting for boundary transgressions in different relationship formats to gain a better understanding of how people define and give meaning to infidelity in their daily lives. It also furthers Barker and Langdridge’s (2010) question of whether distinctions between (non)monogamy are useful in the first place – or to what extent monogamy and CNM form a spectrum instead of a dichotomy (Moors et al., 2013). By drawing on the conceptual tools of cultural sociology, (academic) distinctions between CNM and NCNM also constitute a moral evaluation. Namely, labelling a practice as either CNM or infidelity can serve in expressing an evaluation regarding what forms of intimacy are ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

As mentioned previously, one should be mindful of the particularity of this study’s sample when thinking about its overall conclusions. With its focus on young adults and open relationships, this paper cannot account for the breadth of CNM. Integrating participants of other age groups or those involved in CNM communities lends itself to further work.

A key concern that I reflected on throughout the project is the risk of ultimately falling back on mononormative assumptions rather than critically engaging with these (Kean, 2017). I have sought to address this issue by working closely with participants’ accounts and their aims of diversifying narratives of ‘infidelity’ or boundary transgressions. Of course, I only spoke to individual participants rather than also to their (former) partners. I do not know to what extent participants’ partners were aware of, agreed with, or challenged interpretations beyond participants’ accounts. Against this background, future research would benefit from exploring this symbolic interactionist dimension (Plummer, 1995: 20). For instance, how do relationship partners negotiate and reach a shared meaning of a transgression when boundaries are individually set and less solidified?

Finally, this study recruited participants under the guiding umbrella of experiences of ‘infidelity’. People with experiences of boundary transgressions in open relationships who do not invoke infidelity as a label might have been less likely to come forward. At the same time, some participants who did ultimately not conceptualise their experiences as infidelity (e.g., Isabel) did reach out – precisely because they wanted to discuss how and why this label might not apply to them. Nonetheless, future research would benefit from more broadly investigating the topic of boundary transgressions, for example, by zooming into boundary transgressions in open relationships, which are not termed ‘infidelity’.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Véronique Mottier and Britt Swartjes for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. I am also grateful to the reviewers and editors for their feedback and suggestions.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported through a scholarship by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

ORCID iD

Simone Schneider

Notes

Simone Schneider is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Cambridge. Her research interests span intimacy, sexuality, culture and inequality. In her doctoral project, Simone explores norms, meanings and practices of infidelity in intimate relationships in contemporary England.

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‘Some kind of cheating’: Boundary transgressions and open relationships

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Methodology

Results

Defining infidelity

Blurred boundaries

Differing ideas of relationship formats

Tenacious norms

Conclusion

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Declaration of conflicting interests

Funding

ORCID iD

Notes

References