More thoughts on Monogamy: Agreeing to be monogamous

I posted an article in a thread earlier about the complications of Monogamy. I came across another article today about how young couples can't agree on whether or not they should be monogamous.

My thought is, "Be a grown up and have the conversation." Be clear and honest to avoid any misunderstanding. I always tended to say, if you want to have sex sans condom, I will go on birth control (for that 1% chance I do get pregnant) and not search for another partner to sleep with. The partner would have to agree to not sleep with anyone else either. If someone else comes into the picture, wear a condom. That opens up the conversation.

I am not naive enough to think that committed people are automatically monogamous, but definitely understand why that conversation would be difficult. The practical person in me says that I would tell my committed partner that if he found himself in a situation where he was sexually attracted to another person, that he should wear protection. The jealous spiteful woman in me says, hell no. I will go Bobbit on him! (Ok, not THAT extreme.) It's difficult to separate being practical with being emotional.

I truly don't think we were wired to be monogamous, but society, religion, Disney, CDC or whatever may have programmed us to feel that way. I believe in being open and honest to prevent the spread of disease as well as prevent unwanted pregnancy.

If I ever did find myself in a committed relationship, I don't think I would actively seek out a sexcapade nor would I advocate that my partner do, but if something happens....it happens. I would hope that my partner could communicate feelings to me and I would hope I could do the same.

So after my rambling...how do you feel about monogamy? Do you feel people are afraid to label the relationship too soon? In the US, are we so sexually stunted that it's difficult for us to have that conversation with someone? Am I ridiculous in thinking it's possible to be in a relationship built on communication about sexual desire and attraction?

 

Great thread topic, ZS. I'll respond more when I've got the time but I'd like to state the obvious: relationships are what they are for all the parts that aren't hot-hot fuck action. Sex is often a one-on-one commodity used as a privilege of "ownership" in a relationship. And it's been weaponized.

 

I think you are right that we are not wired to be monogamous. I also expect someone to say "just because it isn't natural doesn't mean we shouldn't aim for it" and I get that, too. But of course, committed couples must talk about this expectation. Newlyweds, all sick in a good way with love and romance, aren't likely to fess up that they really aren't sure whether they can go for sixty years and never have sex with any other than their beloved.

There is love, and new relationship energy, and then there is long term (decades long) marriage. Something happens over time - the NRE fades and the complications start to show through, we start to see beyond the cozy little bubble that the two of us live in - we start to see what a big and beautiful world it is, full of possibility and adventure. I'm all for long term committed -and completely honest and trusting - relationships, but perhaps we can talk about the role and meaning of sex in a long term relationship. Maybe we can talk about sex apart from love, sex as dancing, sex as physical exercise, sex as recreation. (To be completely honest, my wife and I have talked about this and I wouldn't say we have reached agreement - but we do talk about it, and that we can, in a civil and honest and understanding way is one of many things I love about our relationship.)

Maybe I'm naive, or maybe this is a man talking (oh, actually it is) but I'm wondering if we can move or are moving to a more enlightened perspective on sex and love. I keep thinking of the old song 'love and marriage, love and marriage...go together like a horse and carriage'...but we've moved way beyond the buggy era. Maybe we can start to evolve our relationships, too. I think the key thing is for committed couples to talk about this - even that is a huge step in the right direction, regardless of what they work out.

 

From experience and observation of relationships in all their various forms and styles, the only thing I'm managed to learn is that you only ever trade one set of complications for another. And there are always complications.

I guess it just depends one what mutually works best at the time.

 

Whilst reading the other posts, I was thinking what used to keep couples together decades ago, couples like my grandparents. Of course it was the general opinion and religious views regarding polygamy as a sin. But in our country it must have also been postwar conditions. You had to commit to sticking together to cope the adversity. They had no time to "fool around". I claim we nowadays aren't wasting our energy in surviving and rebuilding, we seek challenge in relationships. We also live longer and stay healthier, so it seems like we live many lives instead of one.

The difference to the past is, that women can also do this now. It's been easier for men and more acceptable to have other relationships. We are becoming more open about this, yet I think it's still depending on individuals, how they can handle this. There have been and still are arrangements being made, when the other spouse is not capable or willing to have sex. "What you can't see, won't hurt you" might have worked for some, being discreet.

Monogamous behaviour is quite strongly planted in us. I reckon many couples end up divorcing and seeking another monogamous relationship, when they can't deal with the idea, that they may have flings, which in time will pass and the previous relationship could have been better after all.

"Opportunity makes a thief." I'm not sure if this is the best saying for the occasion, but one way to not get confused about your emotions, is to avoid situations, where you could end up bonding with another person than your partner.

It's a known fact, that company parties before Christmas often offer the opportunity to mix with your colleagues, when spouses aren't invited. I think it's firstly depending on willigness to commit and evaluating the consequences, which dictate the boundaries.

 

Personally, I am someone who has to "love" or have strong emotions for the person I am going to be at my most vulnerable. I have been of the belief that "how can I say I love you, if I also want to be with that lady over there?" The answer is There is love and there is lust. Much like how Doris talks about it.

There are those I have been comfortable with and enjoyed being with them non sexually to want to be in a relationship with. The sex becomes a complicated issue because I don't believe we were meant for just one mate, that was a socio/religious invention to prevent the spread of disease, jealousy and so on.And yet, there is jealousy knowing that the other is with someone else. It's not so much jealousy, IF we are to be honest with ourselves, as it is insecurity that our "mate" will leave us for another. Jealousy, I like to think says "I am lousy" (JE =me or I in French, a lousy). So "jealousy" is just us not feeling good because we have to see in ourselves something we dislike, none of us like doing that when it is so easy to blame the other person.

America is a weird hypocritical at times country. Our Puritanical roots are deep with in our society and we are in an age where anything and everything we want is openly available (legally or not). All animals seek pleasure, mankind is just a very intelligent animal that happens to have opposable thumbs and stands upright. We tend to mark our territory and be very protective and/or jealous of invaders, never mind that we ourselves can be invaders.

Personal history and disclosure: when I was in my 20's I dated only married women. Thus I didn't have to commit and could continue living my life the way I wanted without having to answer to anyone, yet when the fights would come about my lifestyle and what I was doing in my life (and those fights would come), I always felt like I had the winning hand with "well, I maybe a lot of things but look what you are doing to your family." That was low looking back because it played on the guilt they had for doing what was natural, finding pleasure. I gave them what their husbands couldn't attention and a feeling of importance, that what they said, how they felt, what they believed was important. It was. Then we'd bump uglies and I would pleasure them in ways perhaps their husbands couldn't or hadn't in a long time.

Now, fast forward to my marriages: I was not a saint, I had a wandering eye in both, I flirted, I made overtures with other women, even went to Canada to meet one (nothing happened but I came home to a wife that knew and the marriage was over just took a couple years of Hell and torture to realize it). Did I love my wives any less when I flirted and made overtures and went to Canada? NO. But, I was getting something from another woman that my wife wasn't giving me and didn't want to discuss with me. So, in some ways I became like the women I used in my 20's. Married and in "love" but missing that romance and attention that you get early in relationships.

I guess the truth is IF there is to be monogamy in a relationship one must be open to the others physical and emotional needs. Cause if you aren't chances are they will find someone else who is and they will not be open to yours. The act of bumping uglies is NOT that important (to some it is), to me, it is more about the smaller things the attention, the realization of your mate's feelings and making them feel as though they are the most important things in the world when you are with them, the holding, caressing, spending quality time, talking, listening, playing a game, etc. It is so very important those things. So if you are truly wanting a monogamous relationship, you must be prepared to give that and to receive that. Allowing yourself to receive it can be just as hard as giving it.

The internet is easy to find that on. Hubby/wife/SO doesn't give you that, there are many on here that will. It beats going out to a bar or doing the dating thing, Because on here, is it really cheating if it's just anonymous and if it goes to far you can walk away and just stop talking? Then you find someone else online and this time it goes a little further because of the rush of attention from someone that makes you feel like your mate should be making you feel and then it's phone calls and you walk away and then the next one is you meet for "drinks" and you walk away and eventually you get that attention and care that you hunger for enough that you go all the way get the hotel meet and do what 2 adults do behind closed doors. Yeah, you can feel guilty and yeah you can go home and tell your mate, but the truth is, it probably wasn't about the sex as much as it was about getting the attention and the caring that was lacking at home.

Anyway, that's my viewpoint.

 

**placeholder till the caffeine kicks in**

I'll just start by saying that you can be monogamous and still enjoy multiple partners. I know I know.. shut up 9'er. Let me expand that in a semi-coherent thought in a few minutes.

 

During the 60s and 70s more women entered the work place than ever before, I wonder if extra-marital affairs increased during that time. I'm sure there have been studies on that. Would make sense to me if it did. Gone are the days of the stay at home Mom while Dad goes off to bring home the bacon. Now Dad is working along side someone else Mom. Things can happen.

 

Just look at the divorce rates, that should give a clue. Yeah it became "easier" to get them than in the past and there wasn't the negative social aspects, so that shows they were more in demand. It has been my experience, personally and with friends in my generation that the wives have wanted them and asked for them. That men are more accepting of the straying wife, as long as it's not in their face.

 

There are some great comments and insights in this thread so I really don't know what I have to add other than my thoughts on monogamy and how they have changed depending on my domestic circumstances.
I've never bought into the Victorian bullshite and I got a faceful of it growing up in Connecticut so I was having unmarried sex at age 16--monogamously and it continued that I'd have sex, one boyfriend at a time--serial monogamy for years. As I got older I separated then divorced by age 25, I started to date more. I would have been glad to stick with one guy but I was choosing essentially from a bunch of musicians and other entertainers--not the most monogamous bunch in the world.
By my early thirties I hooked up with the guy who is now my spouse. For whatever reason that I have failed to take the time to plumb I was monogamous in the early years but as he lost both all romantic and sexual interest and the tug of the Internet increased I found myself tempted to stray. Though very much a sexual creature, I could live without sex but not without a demonstrably love-based relationship. Once I had neither and there was many years of trying to 'make it so,' I gave up and gave in to a couple of the entreaties that came across the Internet. I really didn't get too far into crazy. One guy was an ex-fiance (I've had 2 that I did not marry) and the other an ex-boyfriend with whom I moved to California when I was 18. I actually hooked up with the ex-fiancee; online was as far as the ex-bf and my reunification went--no-face-to-face. My reasoning was I've tried many times over to make my marriage work and on some levels it did/is but I was completely alone emotionally and there was no sex and I felt I was withering on the vine.
What I discovered despite not resolving my marriage issues to this day is that I can love two men at once, no question. I can in fact see myself in a multi-partner situation as long as all parties are OK with that. Whether that ever happens is debatable (never say never) but it has become clear to me that the traditional one-size-fits all American marriage is not for me. I am not cut from that cloth.

 

I know my SO for 12 years now. We are in monogamy. There are known/unknown fantasies of another female in to the equation. But I don't think we will ever try that for real.
Honestly and frankly I get attracted to other girls in a physical/body sense. I think it is more of lust. And I like lust. But when I get attracted to other girls on a personality sense, it goes on a friendship route. And with such friends I can adore their eyes or lips or the way they speak or laugh for ever with out making any physical moves. I am wired that way.

I think I am a monogamy mind in polygamy body. So unless I go mindless I would stay in monogamy!

 

I am in a long distance relationship. It is highly complicated...I am bi, and at a women's college, so temptation is everywhere, and I am juts not wired to not look at other people and I find women super attractive. But the guy I am dating while supportive of my bi-ness doesn't want me to date around since we are trying to pursue a relationship. To me i feels strange to be alone and yet with someone, and while I don't really want to sleep around, or mess up what we have (He is very attentive and affectionate when he is here) before we get a chance to be together. I am planning to move near him, but until then, how can I not feel lonely, want to touch, look, flirt? Maybe if I didn't feel like I would be deeply hurt if he cheated on me I could justify it. Nobody wants to be lonely. And being lonely in a relationship is the worst kind. because there is no one else to turn to without feeling like you are betraying their trust.

 

I agree its complicated! I had been in distance relationship, fortunately I wasn't bi. But yes I felt terribly lonely... But what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger!!!
Cart Loads of Best Wishes to you

 

I find it pretty simple, honesty is good, deception is bad. Whatever two consenting adults agree on is fine by me.

The last thing I need is another woman disappointed or pissed at me. I'll stick with monogamy.

 

When the couple are quite like minded - yes it is pretty simple
Stan, the worst among the fights are the ones that you do with yourself!