What's the point of being in a marriage if you aren't going to be monogamous? I never understood that. Forgive me if I'm being naïve or old fashioned, but to me, a marriage is supposed to be a sanctimonious bond between two people that means they are committed to one another and only one another.

To me, the term "open marriage" just doesn't compute. It's like an oxymoron.

With that all out of the way, I would suggest that the reason you're looking for all the things that come with a relationship, without the whole endgame of marriage, is because your only experience with marriage was a bad one and you can't go down that path again, ever.

You associate being in a marriage with bad feelings and emotions and want to avoid it at all costs.