Marriage certificate, what is it good for! (For some, absolutely nothing!)

I have been expanding my horizons lately by spending time with more girlfriends and acquatances. Through an acquantance who I will call J, I have met her friend A who is a hilarious woman who is outgoing, hilarious, and self employed. Since I have met her we have met twice at the same bar with J and have become texting and fb buddies. So, not knowing too much about her other than knowing what she does in her free time, that she's married, and about her career I was suprised to find out that she is in an open marriage.

The thing is that I didn't even believe her when she said that because she is always cracking jokes, so I had to verify with J across the table, who agreed, but then I still thought they were playing a joke on me. Apparently not. She said that basically when they were about to get married they both figured that at some point they would cheat on each other, so they agreed to have an open marriage and tell the other when the other cheats.

My new friend also said that she loses a lot of friends and contacts this way. She said that usually when they find out they disappear, stop calling, and even delete her from their facebook! My initial shock of this information was just that, shock. I have never met or even known of anyone personally that is in an open marriage. The closest I have come to knowing about people in this situation is from the morning radio show when they delve into stories about this.

But what is the point of getting married and having sex with others? I spoke to my boo about this and he does not like it at all. I would be way to jealous to enter into an agreement like that. There was actually a bit on War of the Roses on the local radio channel that reminded me about this situation.

 If you don't know what War of the Roses is, it is a bit that they do on the radio where the DJ will talk to a spouse, girlfriend, or boyfriend, about their suspicions and the DJ will call their significant other and offer a free romantic bouqet of roses, (they usually pretend to be the persons cell phone carrier, saying its a thank you for being a customer). So this way they see who the person wants to send the roses to, and bam! catches them. It's so funny when they can't make it passed the name, usually the person on the other line goes nuts, sometimes the cheater makes it to say what they want on the card.

But once there was a bit where a woman called saying she thought her husband was cheating, so they call him and the woman freaks out, what she didn't mention was that she was in an open marriage and was pissed because he was having an affair and not  a one time thing and telling her about it. Is that fair? The DJ didn't think so and was pissed for not giving out that information. Isn't this scenerio just how it always will be? The person who is cheated on has to feel hurt that the person they love got so intimate with another person. Right?

What do you guys think about the subject?

Since learning this about A, I won't disappear from her list of acquantances. I enjoy her company a lot when we do things with J. I just think this is just another thing about this wacky world we live in. I think it's a bit odd but if it works for them, then I guess go for it. This is just something that I wouldn't be able to do.