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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Entertainment
Will Cox

Considering an open relationship? Don’t read this Reddit forum

‘The emotional zing of gossip is strong’: the ‘open marriage regret’ subreddit.
‘The emotional zing of gossip is strong’: the ‘open marriage regret’ subreddit. Composite: Getty Images

I’m not alone in finding perverse joy in other people’s relationship dramas. Reddit’s crowdsourced advice sections, particularly r/relationships and r/amitheasshole, have long been staples of viral posts. They’re portable soap operas – or in some cases, sitcoms – with the added spice that they are (probably, sometimes, maybe) real.

One salacious celebrity rumour led me to r/openmarriageregret, a subreddit mining and reposting threads from other relationship and polyamory boards for cautionary tales of open relationships gone wrong. Maintaining a relationship with another human being contorts us into new ugly shapes. Maintaining a relationship with two or more other human beings can break us apart.

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