Charlotte Divorce Lawyer Blog
Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Does adultery affect my divorce case?”
Some call it a midlife crisis; some call it a wandering eye; some call it downright bored. Whatever “it” is, 50-year-old self-described “good girl” Robin Rinaldi decided to give it a whirl for one year, agreeing with her husband of seventeen years to try an “open marriage.”
The concept—called polyamory—is nothing new. It is almost as old as infidelity—a concept most people call cheating, except an open marriage takes the “cheat” out of cheating. In effect, a spouse is allowed—if not encouraged—to cheat.
Rinaldi, of San Francisco, California, said that prior to the year of her “wild oat project,” she had only slept with four men, including her husband Scott Mansfield. Her once-a-week love life with the brewer and winemaker was in a rut, and his refusal to bear a child with her was the final straw, she wrote in a recently published book titled The Wild Oats Project.
Her agreement with Mansfield was as follows: Rinaldi would rent an apartment and live there through the week. On the weekends she would return home, where she and Mansfield would live as a married couple. They were not to sleep with mutual friends, not to get into any “serious” relationships, and they were not to have unprotected sex.