In preparation for The Ultimate Open Marriage Manual and Video Course coming out on THIS THURSDAY at 4PM EST May 28th, here is an overview on how to plan out the relationship logistics when you are married to or live with a woman full time. Click here to register for a free online training I’m doing at noon PST on Thursday May 28th where I will cover OLTR Marriage techniques in detail.

When most people move in together they just do it. They don’t really sit down and plan out exactly how the relationship will work, how they will integrate into each other’s lives, how they will handle future disagreements, and so forth. At best they might have a quick talk about how the monthly bills are paid and whether or not they’ll ever have kids, but that’s about it.

That is one of the many reasons why the divorce rate among people who actually get married is around 76% (and rising). Moving in with a woman/getting married to a woman, if you ever do it (and statistically speaking most of you guys will once you’re well over age 35 or 40 regardless of how you feel about it today), will be one of the most complicated things you will ever do. This is not something you just execute without a lot of prior planning, prior discussions, and setting up logistics.

Below is a summarized list of everything you need to establish in an OLTR Marriage before and during the marriage. Doing these things will minimize the odds of problems and drama arising as well as keep your personal levels of freedom and attraction high. I go into all of these things in great detail in The Ultimate Open Marriage Manual and Video Course.

1. Home Layout

You can’t just move into a shared home without a plan. If you do this, generally speaking the woman will essentially take over the entire house except for one small corner designated as the man’s tiny area.

Always remember that not having a home layout plan = woman runs 90%+ of the home. Her decorations, her style of furniture, her rules about where to eat or sit, her preferences regarding the kids (if any) or the pets (if any), all of this will (usually) take precedence.

This will cause one of two problems. The first one is that you won’t like it (or will eventually grow to not like it if you don’t mind it during the honeymoon phase) and you’ll fight her, causing drama and conflict. Since most women are “nesters,” she’s going to fight back with claws you’ve never seen her use. Have fun with that.

The second possible problem is that you’ll just suck it up and take it like a good little beta and slowly build more and more resentment over time. For a few years this will be fine, but one day you’ll explode and do something stupid like get addicted to porn, have sex with one of your female co-workers and get caught, gamble away your retirement in one crazy night in Vegas, or fall in love with a stripper… all of which I have seen quiet, resentful husbands actually do.

All of this crap can be easily avoided by laying out who exactly will control which parts of the home and ensuring these regions at least close to 50/50 or better (favoring you).

2. Financial Separation

I already discussed this in the last article. You need to sit down with your girlfriend/wife or future live-in girlfriend or wife and tell her, not ask her, but tell her that you’re both going to have 100% separate finances FOREVER. Then you’ll need to map out a plan with her on how to manage these separate finance pools.

Paying the rent, paying the bills, buying groceries, paying for the kids (if there are any or will be), managing investments, resolving debt, and so on, all of these things need to be discussed and plans laid out and mutually agreed upon. Exactly how these things are done are really up to the two of you, and these plans can certainly change down the road if conditions change. The only thing that can’t change is the 100% separation of finances. Just be flexible about how you do it. (Incidentally, the same frame goes for non-monogamy. You are always going to be having sex with other women and that will never change but you’re going to be very flexible in how you go about doing it.)

By the way, if you haven’t moved in with her/married her yet and you discuss things like home layout, separate finances, and so on, and she loses her shit and screams about how she will “never do that” or “never agree to something like that” or how that’s “not a marriage,” then guess what? She’s just shown you she doesn’t qualify for an OLTR Marriage with you. Next her or downgrade her to an MLTR or FB and find a more flexible and chill woman to live with.

That’s how many of these discussions can actually be used as secret screening tools. When I first discussed these things with Pink Firefly, I can promise you that I watched her very, very carefully regarding her initial reactions to these concepts. Fortunately, she was more or less cool with pretty much everything from the get-go, and if she wasn’t, I would have dropped the subject immediately, kept her as a low-end MLTR instead, and looked elsewhere for an OLTR. Guys forget that most women won’t qualify for an OLTR. Just because you like her does not mean she qualifies.

3. How to Handle Drama and Disagreements

Everyone who lives together will eventually get upset and/or argue about something. It’s unavoidable no matter how prepared, relaxed, or compatible two people are. Instead of doing what most co-habiting couples do and just scream at each other for 40 minutes, you need to lay out a specific procedure with your OLTR that you’ll both follow when you have times when you are upset with each other.

Remember, as soon as you move in with a woman you instantly lose your greatest drama management tool, the soft next. This means you need to use other effective drama management tools that work when you actually live with a woman. In the Ultimate Open Marriage Manual and Video Course I cover the live-in replacement for the soft next, the Drama Corrective Procedure, which has been vetted by several marriage therapists.

PF and I haven’t argued about anything in over three months. Name one married couple you know who can say the same. During the rare times there are any arguments or anger (always on her side since I never get angry) arguments last just a few minutes and then they’re over. Compare this to when I was in a TMM years ago when I would argue with my wife at the time for anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour like most normal married couples.

Stupid.

4. Sexual Logistics

The odds are high that you won’t be allowed to have sex with your side-FBs in your own home where your wife lives (unless doing threesomes or something like that). That’s fine. It just means you’ll need to plan out exactly where to have sex with these women and configure logistics accordingly, ideally before your wife/girlfriend ever moves in with you.

In the Ultimate Open Marriage Manual and Video Course I cover ten different systems I and other open-married men have used to accomplish this with ease. I currently use an office configured like a small apartment, but there are many other options. The point is you need to think this through before executing. I’ve seen a lot of guys move in with their girlfriends or convince their monogamous wives to convert to an open marriage, and then these idiots sit and stare at a wall trying to figure out how to have sex with women on the side when these girls aren’t allowed in the house. Don’t make that mistake.

5. How and When to Attract Side-Women

You need to plan out exactly when you will need to attract new FBs into your life and how you will do this now that you’re a “married” man living full time with a wife or girlfriend. When and how to tell women you’re married, where to meet these women, what to do about sexual logistics, how to handle your wedding ring, all of these issues need to be addressed. Men who live alone don’t have to worry about any of this stuff, but you do. I’ve seen a lot of open-married guys (as well as TMM guys cheating on their wives, though I am against cheating) really screw this stuff up. You must plan.

I talk about all of the above topics in great detail in the Ultimate Open Marriage Manual and Video Course, available on May 28th for just four days. Click here to register for a free online training I’m doing at noon PST on Thursday May 28th when we launch the book and the video course where I will cover OLTR Marriage techniques in great detail.