What ‘West End Girl’ gets right about open relationships and red flags

Ruminating on non-monogamy.

Listening to Lily Allen’s West End Girl (on repeat) got me thinking about the time I believed opening up a relationship would save it, and how wrong, yet strangely right, that instinct was.

I’ve only ever tried to open up a monogamous relationship once. It was a few years ago, with my second boyfriend. We’d been together for a while, half of it spent in lockdown, and I started to feel suffocated. I couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong or if anything really was. So, one night, I asked him: “What are your thoughts on being in an open relationship?”

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“I’m not totally against it,” he said, in a voice that said otherwise. We talked about it for weeks, circling the same points. Me, curious. Him, cautious. I thought opening up was the solution; a way to feel free again.

What I was really craving was a night out drinking cocktails, flirting shamelessly with the hot bartender, who I’d later make out with furiously in the bathroom. I wanted to put on a tight dress, new heels and big hoop earrings. I wanted to be noticed and adored, I wanted to drink one too many free drinks. 

My yearning for self-destruction was familiar; I used to feel this desire for sexual expression every few months when I was single. Society might call this behaviour ‘debaucherous’ but for me, it’s always been therapeutic and empowering. Not that I could tell any of that to my boyfriend at the time.

Loud sexual desire often arrives when I doubt myself – after a friendship breakdown, a rejection, or a tough family talk. It’s my body screaming to express itself. In this particular moment, when I was sure that opening up my monogamous relationship would save me from feeling suffocated, it was actually a sign that I was trapped in the wrong relationship altogether. But we’ll get to that.

Lily Allen’s record speaks to the messy nuance of what can happen when monogamy goes off script, without the true honesty required. Her album sounds like a scream that’s been trying to escape for years but keeps falling on deaf ears. It’s her unravelling realisation that she’s been living inside a structure that was never prioritising her.  

I can’t help but notice that so often, opening up a relationship is actually a symptom of something that’s truly broken. Whether it’s a person in the relationship or the relationship itself, every situation is different. 

Lily’s lyrics make it clear that she didn’t want openness; she just wanted things to work. She probably thought David was the love of her life, and she wasn’t ready to see the red flags yet. Maybe she believed that the ‘brownstone with four or five floors’ was the life for her, despite her initial discomfort. 

But when she went to London and he asked her for an open relationship, it exposed all the issues that were already there: within him, within her, and their dynamic.

My theory is that the desire to destroy something usually comes with the knowledge that it’s destroying you. My body knew before my mind: I didn’t want to have sex with my boyfriend anymore but I did with practically everyone else. I didn’t know yet I wanted to break up, I just knew I didn’t feel sexy for him, or connected to myself. I know now that it was my body imploring me to stop having sex with a man who didn’t care for my health or wellbeing.

I lost a piece of myself in that relationship, and in the depths of that loss, I knew I needed to reconnect with myself intimately. I thought that the quickest, easiest way to achieve that – without immediately breaking any hearts – was to ask to open our relationship. 

My ex ultimately said no, which makes sense to me now. I’m sure he felt as though he was losing me already. We weren’t having sex. I’d stopped opening up to him. He didn’t want me to go and do all of that with someone else, which was a fair response. 

Ultimately, his refusal ended us, but it would’ve happened either way. If he’d said yes, I would’ve slept with someone else and realised I needed to leave. He must’ve known that, too.

I’m not saying that open relationships can’t work. I know couples who are thriving in them, who’ve lived in alternative dynamics like polyamory or ethical non-monogamy, and started their relationship with their current partner that way. It’s more of a personal lifestyle choice than an emergency monogamy escape route.

An open relationship dynamic needs to be properly understood before it’s entered into. Why does it need to exist? What do you hope to get out of it? How can you be honest and loyal to your partner while still honouring your needs? And, most importantly, understand what those needs actually are. Is it about looking outside the relationship, or is it about looking within yourself?

West End Girl is an incredible piece of creative storytelling that shows us the ugly side of alternative dynamics: how they can be misused, how they can become a tool for people who want to have their cake and eat it too, how they can offer temporary relief from the truth.

When I think about it now, I don’t feel ashamed for wanting more. I just wish I’d understood what that impulse was really saying. Desire never lies; it’s a compass. But before you follow it, ask what direction it’s really pointing.

For more on opening up your relationship, try this.