Quote:
Originally Posted by settie
I think its simply the insecurity, and the "what-if?" factor. If I was in a situation like that with my boyfriend, I think I would immediately wonder why he feels he needs to fuck someone else with no emotional connection to, and what if one develops between them because of it? Am I that easily replaced? And if I am, does commitment really exist? Are humans capable of it for Christ's sake?!
That fear of being replaced is what immediately puts that terrible feeling in my chest. If we can be so easily replaced, no relationship is meaningful, and suddenly, commitment means nothing.
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I feel that this is the case; that the meaning we put into relationships is a fabrication, designed to help us rationalize doing all the things we do to maintain a regular source of sex and companionship. It helps us deal with our urges and feelings, but that it's an artifact of evolution and that no relationship means any more or less than any other.
It's a little like the tendency of people to put special meaning to random events that occur within their lives and say "Wow, I'm lucky!" or "God must love me!" or anything of that vein. The events are no different than any other possible outcome, but we ascribe meaning to them to make our day-to-day lives easier to deal with and understand.
It's from this perspective that I make my contribution to the question posed by the OP: I feel that sexual exclusivity is totally unnecessary for a relationship to work, but is almost totally inevitable anyway. Any person is capable of dealing with a non-exclusive partner if they are not given an obvious reason to object (like dishonesty), but that people are hard-wired to control access to their partner and so will eventually attempt to end the other partner's other relationship(s). You can see examples of this in relationships where one partner is clearly cheating on the other and everyone (including the partner) knows it, but the partner attempts to ignore or downplay the behavior. These are often people who normally are more jealous or controlling, or at least unwilling to tolerate infidelity.
There are those in whom the hard-wiring does not function the same or as well, and so they are more able to ignore the urge to claim their partner as their own. Some others are able to form a bond close enough that they see their partner as equivalent to themselves in the literal sense, and so their partner having sex with someone else is the same as if they were the one doing it in their mind. However, these people are the exception rather than the rule.
As is always the case where ever I post, no part of this was meant to offend anyone.