--- title: Open Marriage: What One Woman Learned From a Year of Sexual Freedom description: Lessons from a year spent sowing wild oats canonical: https://time.com/3765674/wild-oats-project-open-marriage/ author: Charlotte Alter article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-01T16:09:14.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-01T09:07:40.746Z og:title: Here's What One Woman Learned From a Year of Open Marriage og:description: "Sex is the classroom, sex is not the lesson" og:url: https://time.com/3765674/wild-oats-project-open-marriage/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt75acf14c7a944efc/6987862c06f2c13faa334b2c/wildoats_1280_2.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1280 og:image:height: 720 og:image:alt: The Wild Oats Project Robin Rinaldi og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's What One Woman Learned From a Year of Open Marriage twitter:description: "Sex is the classroom, sex is not the lesson" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt75acf14c7a944efc/6987862c06f2c13faa334b2c/wildoats_1280_2.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here's What One Woman Learned From Taking a Year Off From Her Marriage > Sponsored content. 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Robin Rinaldi did what many women dream of but few actually do: she took a year off from her marriage, made an agreement with her husband that they would both sleep with other people for a set period of time, and threw caution to the wind._ by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/) and [Diane Tsai](https://time.com/author/diane-tsai/) Apr 1, 2015 4:09 PM UTC Robin Rinaldi did what many women dream of but few actually do: she took a year off from her marriage, made an agreement with her husband that they would both sleep with other people for a set period of time, and threw caution to the wind. by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/) and [Diane Tsai](https://time.com/author/diane-tsai/) Apr 1, 2015 4:09 PM UTC Robin Rinaldi did what many women dream of but few actually do: she took a year off from her marriage and made an agreement with her husband that they could both sleep with other people for a set period. Rinaldi’s book, _The Wild Oats Project_, is a summary of what she learned during the year she spent in an open marriage. The idea came to her when her husband got a vasectomy after a long battle over whether they would have children — she wanted them, he didn’t. Faced with a future without a family, Rinaldi made a decision: “I refuse to go to my grave with no children and only four lovers,” she wrote, “If I can’t have one, I must have the other.” That’s when she embarked on the Wild Oats Project. Rinaldi and her husband had three rules: no serious relationships, no sex with mutual friends and no sex without condoms. Both broke multiple rules over the course of the year, and it eventually took a toll on their relationship, but Rinaldi says the project wasn’t as much a choice as “a calling.” “It was unlike me to act that way,” she says. “I had always been a very cautious and somewhat anxious person, I had always played by the rules. It was something instinctual, and something very female driving me to do this. It wasn’t really planned and strategized as much as felt.” Still, Rinaldi found that, while many of her friends were supportive, some people thought her project was threatening, even terrifying: “The tale of a woman giving up security, even in an above-board way and allowing her husband to do the same thing, giving up all that security in pursuit of passion and adventure, is a scary idea for a lot of people,” she says. “I certainly didn’t write it to intentionally push anyone’s buttons.” And ultimately, for Rinaldi and her husband, this was their last chance at saving their marriage. “We knew how risky it was, and we might not make it through, but it was really the only choice we had,” she says. “So we both agreed, two consenting adults, to try this first.” Ultimately, she and her husband went their separate ways, but Rinaldi says the project taught her much more than a simple divorce would have. The biggest thing Rinaldi says she learned from the Wild Oats Project is that she was putting too much pressure on her husband. “Expecting your spouse to provide passion and security and purpose, it’s a lot,” she says. “I was asking too much of that one person… So now, as a result, I don’t look to someone else to kind of unfairly provide all of those things. That’s the biggest thing I learned from it, and I couldn’t have learned it unless I actually went through it.” She also learned a lot about sex, and about her own body. Rinaldi spent much of the project in new-age sexual workshops and orgasmic meditation classes, so she came away a greater awareness of her sexuality. “The sex was the classroom, but the sex was not the lesson,” she says. “Your body has wisdom, that is very powerful and can kind of show you your path, and you don’t always have to think it through or necessarily act based on other people’s rules.” Still, Rinaldi wouldn’t necessarily recommend that other women take exactly the same path she did. Instead, she’d advise younger women to “sow your wild oats before you settle down — that’s a no-brainer.” _Read next:_ [_Who Needs Marriage? A Changing Institution_](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2032116,00.html?iid=time%5Freadnext) ### See Photos of Love and Courtship in 1950s Japan  A young couple on a date in a cafe in Tokyo. John Dominis—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  A Shibui dance function in Tokyo where young people would go to meet other young people in hopes of finding a partner. JOHN DOMINIS—THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES  A Shibui dance function in Tokyo where young people would go to meet other young people in hopes of finding a partner. JOHN DOMINIS—THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES  A young couple walking around in the Ginza district of Tokyo. 1959. JOHN DOMINIS—THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES  Akiksuke Tsutsui, left, bids his girlfriend, Chiyoko Inami, farewell as her train departs. March 1959. JOHN DOMINIS—THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES  Akiksuke Tsutsui, left, and his girlfriend Chiyoko Inami, right, walking around in the Ginza district during their lunch hour. March 1959. JOHN DOMINIS—THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES  Nohito Mukai, left, and his girlfriend, Hiroko Inayaki, go roller skating on a date in Tokyo. March 1959. JOHN DOMINIS—THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES  Hiroko Inayaki, left, goes for a drive with her boyfriend, Nohito Mukai. March 1959. JOHN DOMINIS—THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES  Takahide Inayama (Age 20), left, and his girlfriend, Mitusyo Ogama (Age 20), both are university students. Seen here picking out apples on a date near their university. 1959 JOHN DOMINIS—THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES  Chiyoko Inami, left, and her boyfriend, Akiksuke Tsutsui, playing a game on a train headed to Kyoto to meet Tsutsui's family. March, 1959. JOHN DOMINIS—THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES  A young couple out on a date in Tokyo. 1959 JOHN DOMINISÑTHE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES  Young couple visiting a bridge near the Imperial Palace. 1959 JOHN DOMINIS—THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES  A young couple takes a "selfie" on a self-timer on their camera. 1959 JOHN DOMINIS—THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES  Chiyoko Inami, left, and her boyfriend, Akiksuke Tsutsui, right, sharing an intimate moment on a date. March, 1959. JOHN DOMINIS—THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES  A young couple making out on a date in a park in Tokyo. 1959. JOHN DOMINISÑTHE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES ## Transcript [00:00] I [00:03] saw a headline the other day that said something like [00:05] Woman Sleeps with Twelve Strangers in a Year and is [00:09] Shocked, Shocked Shocked, When She Divorced. No, I [00:12] was not shocked. Who, nobody would be shocked. [00:13] Good girl seeks experience. I'm [00:17] a 44 year old professional, educated, attractive [00:21] woman in an open marriage seeking single men age [00:25] 35 to 50 to help me explore my sexuality. You must [00:29] be trustworthy, smart and skilled at conversation as [00:32] well as in bed. We will first meet in public for coffee or [00:35] a drink. If that goes well, we'll have dinner. Possibly [00:37] followed by sex. Our time together will be limited to [00:41] three dates. As I cannot become seriously involved. [00:45] When you think about it. A lot of people do this. They [00:48] don't move out and set up rules and have an open [00:53] marriage and apart time separation. They just have [00:56] affairs. I was living in San [01:00] Francisco. I was in my early 40s. My [01:04] husband and I hit a marital crisis where I wanted [01:08] to have children, and he didn't. And he ended up [01:12] saying that he wanted to get a vasectomy. And at that [01:14] point, I thought, what do I need to do now before. My [01:18] life is over if I'm not gonna have children. That's when I [01:22] realized I really needed to sow the oats I'd never done [01:26] in my youth and needed a little time off from my [01:28] marriage to do that if we weren't gonna be having a [01:31] family. It was the fact that I was gonna let them get [01:33] away scot- free. After three dates. The [01:38] three basic rules were safe sex, no mutual [01:41] acquaintances and, no long term serious [01:45] relationships. We both ended up breaking two [01:49] of those rules over the course of the year. I wanted [01:51] their smells, their stomachs, their grasping hands and [01:52] hungry mouths. The more maleness I had, [01:57] the more female I could be. I sought it out despite the [02:01] warnings of concerned friends, the obvious pain I was [02:04] causing my husband, the moral code and defining [02:07] boundaries of the self I'd known for 44 years. Come [02:11] what may, I would be ravished and then they could All I [02:17] can say is that it was unlike me to act that way. I'd [02:20] always been a very cautious and even anxious person. [02:23] It was something instinctual and something [02:28] very female driving me. It wasn't really planned [02:33] and strategized as much as felt. Kind of a [02:37] calling that I just needed some time to [02:41] explore this before I went forward in my life. People [02:45] would tell me this is so brave, and I didn't, I didn't feel [02:49] brave. I, but I felt I was acting on instinct. [ MUSIC ] [02:54] Okay. [02:56] So, Angie. Angie. In that time. I met [03:01] several people had experience with several [03:05] people learned not just about other people but about [03:09] my self. Via these sexual experiences. [03:13] And I also learned more about my marriage. Expecting [03:18] your spouse to provide passion and security and [03:22] purpose. It's a lot. Going through this process gave [03:26] me all this experience that kind of turned into [03:30] this awareness and this wisdom that, wow I was asking [03:34] too much. And so now as a result I don't look [03:38] to someone else. To, you know, kind if unfairly provide [03:43] all of those things. And I couldn't have learned it. I [03:46] don't think unless I actually went through it. 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