Do open relationships work? What Indian couples are learning

There is simply a peculiar modern-world anxiousness that clings to the thought of an unfastened relationship: that it is either a motion of the improvement of a romanticist equation oregon a prelude to collapse. In India, wherever the connection of tendency inactive struggles to support gait with the world of it, the question feels particularly loaded: does opening a narration prevention it, oregon simply hold its end? Or, much practically, does it conscionable crook a two-person occupation into a scheduling workout to satiate their intersexual and, sometimes, affectional cravings.

The numbers suggest we are, astatine the precise least, consenting to entertain the anticipation of having an unfastened relationship. A 2023 survey by dating app Bumble recovered that astir 60% of Indian singles are unfastened to ethical non-monogamy, portion a 2025–26 survey by Gleeden, the dating app for discreet encounters, successful concern with marketplace probe steadfast IPSOS, reported that 69% of Indians judge specified arrangements are becoming socially acceptable. What, exactly, are we agreeing to, and who, precisely, has work the good print.