In "Sans Rendez-vous", the sex therapist and psychoanalyst Catherine Blanc answers Wednesday to a listener who wonders about the free couple and about love in this form of atypical couples. 

What is an open couple?

Can we be in love in an open relationship?

In the program "Sans Rendez-vous", the sexologist and psychoanalyst Catherine Blanc addresses this question Wednesday, after a question from Emilien, listener of Europe 1, who questions loyalty as the basis of the couple.

For our columnist, the free couple is proof that the couple is inseparable from benevolence.

However, this is not necessarily linked to loyalty. 

>> Find all sexo questions in replay and podcast here

Emilien's question 

"My colleague has lived with her girlfriend for almost ten years. She revealed to me the other day that she is an open couple. They and her partner have the right to go elsewhere but should not talk about it. I think that strange. Are they really in love with each other? " 

Catherine Blanc's response 

I think that in this situation, everyone's curiosities belong to each and therefore, not necessarily to the couple.

The goal is that everyone can explore what is important to them while ensuring the preservation of the quality of the bond and to remain in the benevolence.

Benevolence does not necessarily mean that one belongs to the other.

This is to be careful not to hurt him. 

Why can the open couple shock? 

A couple can be formed on a basis other than the norm embodied by fidelity.

The common reasoning can be summed up as follows: "I am faithful to you by translating my love and especially because I want to make sure that you will be in return. I need, for my safety, that you are faithful. As such. , I am ready to give up my curiosities and my openings. "

Is it a proof of love to accept that the other goes elsewhere?

I believe that behind the term "love" is hidden a lot of things, in particular the benevolence that we can grant to each other.

For these two women, love seems to translate into a form of benevolence, in other words, respect for the other's freedom.

Why not.

But a question arises: do you have to have tasted everything to be able to be at peace and be happy?

Isn't finally landing in a relationship and building on that relationship a wonderful project without the relationship being sad, dying, or classic?

Everyone has their answer. 

These two women refrain from talking to each other about their extramarital affairs.

Can this rule explain the longevity of their couple? 

It is precisely there that we find this famous benevolence: "I do not expose you to my moods, my desires and my failures so as not to put you in insecurity because you remain my love and my choice of life. It is not a question of telling each other everything but of continuing to love each other. "

But if we don't talk to each other about these extramarital affairs and our head is elsewhere, that we no longer look at each other and that we live like roommates, there is no longer a relationship and history of love. 

But even without talking about it, the signs do not deceive when the other goes to look elsewhere ...

From the moment in the contract, it is a question of not exposing each other to extramarital affairs, this means that we do not talk about it either verbally or symbolically, through small signs that can betray our intentions. .

This nevertheless limits the field of possibilities.