Considering an open relationship? Don’t read this Reddit forum

On r/openmarriageregret, users lay into bad husbands, AI girlfriends, and toxic throuples. It's very cynical - and very compelling

• Read more in the Internet wormhole series

I'm not alone in finding perverse joy in other people's relationship dramas. Reddit's crowdsourced advice sections, particularly r/relationships and r/amitheasshole, have long been staples of viral posts. They're portable soap operas - or in some cases, sitcoms - with the added spice that they are (probably, sometimes, maybe) real.

One salacious celebrity rumour led me to r/openmarriageregret, a subreddit mining and reposting threads from other relationship and polyamory boards for cautionary tales of open relationships gone wrong. Maintaining a relationship with another human being contorts us into new ugly shapes. Maintaining a relationship with two or more other human beings can break us apart.