SARAH TAUB, sarah at sarahtaub.com

MICHAEL RIOS, michael at rios.org

Taub and Rios teach workshops on relationships including on open relationships and polyamory and are frequent presenters at polyamory conferences such as those put on by Loving More, a national polyamory organization, which just released a statement on Gingrich.

Taub said today: “Successful open relationships are consensual and based on trust, mutual respect and lots of communication. It’s very difficult (though not impossible) for a cheater to ‘come clean’ and create an open marriage with his or her spouse, because the initial situation is inherently non-consensual and trust has already been broken. Some extraordinary people can make it work, but the cheater must have a huge amount of humility, patience and respect for the other partner, including respecting his or her right to say ‘no.’ This is not how Marianne Gingrich described Newt Gingrich’s approach.”

Rios said today: “Open marriages are consensual, honest and based in love. Saying ‘let me have an affair or I’m going to divorce you’ is not consensual — it’s coercive. Being married and then waiting to come clean until after you’ve started an affair is is not open or honest. If Gingrich had approached his wife with his feelings beforehand, perhaps she would have said, ‘yes, well, actually I’ve been thinking about that possibility myself,’ and then they could have honestly had a healthy, open marriage. But what we’re hearing about is an affair that started in deception and ended in coercion — and that’s neither loving, nor honest, nor consensual. It’s not an open marriage or polyamory by any stretch of the imagination.”