Monogamy, Polyamory and the like

[missshadedlove]

I'm am Monogamous. I don't like the idea of having to share my other half with someone. Personally thinking about the other things makes me kind of sick. :/ I wouldn't want to have to deal with all the hassle anyway.

[GrowlingCupcake]

Ugh. I had a looooong post typed up and then it went and ate it ><

I'm fully monogamous and I am not willing to try anything else. Call me selfish or jealous, but I just don't like the idea of the person I'm with being with somebody else as well. I don't feel like it would be a full relationship, since I'd have to share with another person. We wouldn't be able to move in together, unless we all moved in together, and marriage would be out of the question. Then there would be sex, and it just grosses me out to know that the person I'm with is also sleeping with other people I know. I would just seem to me to be a dead-end relationship. With that being said, I have no problem with other people practicing polygamy/polyandy/etc. It doesn't have anything to do with me, so I see no reason why I should be against other people doing it.

With that being said, there is no true way to understand why a person is monogamous, polygamous, etc. if you don't have the same thought process. It's just one of those things that you can try your best to understand and accept, but in the end you'll never fully understand why that person is that way because you aren't the same way as they are. For example, I breed Ringneck doves. Ringneck doves are monogamous and will stay with their partner until she/he dies. Yet, for a period, I had only 4 males and 7 females in one aviary and all my females were laying fertile eggs. Why did some of my doves choose to break against their monogamous instincts? There's really no telling why. According to all the experts, they weren't suppose to, yet they did. If we can't figure out why monogamous doves can turn polygamous, then there's really no way to figure out why humans can be monogamous or polygamous.

I didn't really expect that this topic would diminish my faith in finding a good man in the future who's monogamous and doesn't cheat, but it certainly did...

I am not trying to change your views. You're monogamous, this works for you. I am just trying to give an understanding into how my thought process works since I am not monogamous.

I think we share people all the time. A person cannot be entirely yours unless they cut ties to everyone else. Otherwise they're someone's child, someone's friend, someone's parent, someone's sibling, etc. They have relationships with others and they may not be romantic but they may still involve love, caring, affection, etc. I see no real difference between the types of love; if one can be shared among many, all can be shared among many. So if familial love can be for both parents, relatives, etc. I don't see why romantic love can't happen between more than once. Parents can love more than one child and I know many people feel like they "fall in love" with their kids. Not romantically, of course, but it's still a very strong bond of love.

In addition, most people fall in love more than once. We generally do not stick with the first person we love. So if this can happen, it again seems to me that it's an easy step to seeing how it can happen even when you're with someone else.

Moving in together: Not everyone moves in together. I know of longterm monogamous couples, some married, some not, who live separately. They're very happy with this arrangement. In addition, you can still move in together in a poly relationship. K and I basically live together. When we share a lease, it'll just be the two of us. If we find someone before we share it or buy a home, then they might move in with us. Or they might enjoy where they live and just want to come over often. Moving in together doesn't need to happen all at the same time. You can find partners at various times. K and I have been together for a long time and we don't have another person yet. They'd come into our relationship even though ours is already established. You can choose who to move in with or you could already be living together and have someone join you or you can have separate homes.

Marriage: This is tricky. Poly marriages are sadly not legal in most places. But people who are poly can still marry. They may have a primary partner. For instance, K will always be my primary partner. If I marry, I will marry him. They may marry the person who is the most rational choice based on taxes, health, kids, insurance, home ownership, etc. They may marry the person they were with first. They may marry someone based on an arbitrary reason. They may choose not to marry at all. Marriage doesn't make a relationship; love does. So who you marry may not be the most important thing.

Sex: I have no issue with my partner having sex with someone else. He's had sex with people before me. And he still talks to some of them, hangs out with them, spends time alone with them. I consider one of them a friend. I have no issue with knowing the people he's had sex with. To be honest, I'd have more of an issue if he had sex with some random person. With people we know, we know their personality, we know who they are, we care about them, we can test for STDs, we know their reproductive status. I'd rather he have sex with someone we know and like or love. And for us, anyway, sex is a together thing. He's not going to go have sex with someone without me and I won't do it without him. We're in this together, basically. Might not be like a threesome thing but the other will be there in some capacity.

What I really would like to know, though, is why this diminishes your faith? Monogamy is the prevalent form of relationships. So I'm sure you can find someone who is monogamous. And I don't really see what cheating has to do with this topic.

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K and I are still looking for someone. We've met with some people but there's no one we really connect with or like enough to form a real relationship with. It's a little... disheartening. But then we don't put a ton of effort into it. We also live in a small, relatively conservative town so it's hard to meet people who are like-minded.

On the plus side, I no longer feel like I am not worth K's love, I am much less insecure. I can appreciate myself more. So the jealousy and worry that he will leave me (because he will somehow find out I am awful and not worth being with) has gone down to basically none. I know he is my partner and he will not leave me and I know I won't leave him. Therapy and psych medications have helped a lot xD Dealing with my depression and anxiety allows me to explore this in a much better way. I think it's also helped that in the past three years we've been through a lot of shit (plenty of health issues on my side) and neither of us has given up in any way. I can say he's seen me at my worst and the only thing he's done is tried to make it better. So him leaving me? Not going to happen. It's nice to be able to feel good about myself and fully understand that he does love me and won't leave me.

[eggod]

I'm in a monogamous relationship myself, but I'm open to the possibility of polyamory.

I feel that most people do not go looking for a polyamorous relationship when they enter the dating pool, but it is highly unlikely that anyone will only be attracted to one person, even if they are already in a relationship. Acceptance of the possibility of having more than one partner is necessary to save the relationship from potential jealousy/distrust issues and "love triangles". Actually, these beliefs are based on reading young adult novels where the heroine is forced to choose between two guys. I always thought that their lives would have been much simpler if all of the involved individuals could have accepted that she loved the two of them equally and simultaneously.

[SilverWolf]

That was quite a long post, so I'm just gonna skip quoting you, but I am replying to you, GrowlingCupcake

I'm sorry if I came off as being aggressive, if that's the reason why you had to explain yourself in the beginning. I felt a little attacked after reading through this topic, such as when Txcat said this

I would disagree that the human race in general is monogamous. I would argue instead that it's a social imposition which has been placed upon the rest of the world as the standard model. Many Middle Eastern and African countries do not practice monogamy ..... If human beings were naturally monogamous I do not think that there would be so much cheating in relationships...and both men and women cheat and not all of them do so because they are tired of their spouses.

It made me feel as though being monogamous is unnatural and should be shunned, so I responded with aggression. My apologies.

Moving on from that, I didn't mean I don't want to share my partner with anybody else as in with absolutely any other being on earth. I meant I don't want to share my partner with somebody who is also romantically involved. It creeps me out and even makes me a little nauseous to think about sharing one guy with other people who're romantically involved with him, mostly because I have no interest in having more than one partner myself.

Yes, most people do fall in love more than once. However, usually we do not stick with our first love, second love, etc. because they turn out to be people we would not be happy with. We fall out of love with that person and move on to try and find another who is better suited to how we are. I don't think this is a very reasonable example to explain polygamy. After all, there are many species of animals who mate until their partner dies, then they move on and mate with another member of their species. They "fall in love" more than once, but generally don't practice polygamy.

Again, I didn't quite mean it that way. I seem to have an issue with getting across what I actually mean, but for most of my post I was speaking in terms of how it would be for me. I understand there are various ways to get around moving in together, or ways to make it work out, but for me it would not work out. It would be way too much of a hassle to work with everybody's living situation. I can barely handle living with one other person, let alone more than one person, so living together wouldn't be an option either. The same is with marriage, I meant it in relation to how it would be for me. I want to get married eventually, and yes I am aware marriage doesn't equal love, but having the knowledge that your partner loves you enough to marry you is comforting. If I couldn't marry all of my partners, I wouldn't marry any of them.

I wouldn't like knowing who my partner is sleeping with. Past or present. I'd rather just not even think about my partner ever having sex with another person. In my opinion, sex is a very emotional experience meant to be shared with somebody you love deeply, so to think that my partner would be doing such a thing with other people is mortifying. Not to mention the gross factor of knowing that his man-bits were in another woman not too long ago. To me that's just as gross as thinking about a group of women sharing a used dildo, or a bunch of men sharing a used sex doll.

Cheating doesn't have anything to do with this topic. I was merely stating that I lost some faith in finding a man who's monogamous and doesn't cheat. I separated 'monogamous' and 'doesn't cheat' for a reason, that reason being that they aren't related. The issue isn't finding just anybody who's monogamous. The issue is finding somebody who's monogamous, loyal, non-abusive, good-hearted, and caring. It just seems to me that I was born in an age were divorce is praised and marriage is feared, cheating is normal and actual love is scarce. It's quite depressing.

[GrowlingCupcake]

Oh no, I didn't feel like it was aggressive. I just wanted to give you a better understanding into how someone who is polyamorous might think since you mentioned that you didn't think we could understand the thought process.

I will admit, I do not believe monogamy is the 'natural' form of things either. But that doesn't mean it should be shunned and I'm sure TxCat didn't mean that either. It's just that if we were not... brought up in the way we were, we probably wouldn't be monogamous. A lot of our social interactions, our behaviours, etc. are based on the culture we live in, were brought up in. Speaking with a view of evolution, it at least does not make sense for males to be monogamous. With more mates, their fitness would be higher. Females have more invested in it because they care for the child and it is a much more energy and time intensive process but there's every likelihood they'd then just find a new mate once the child is done being reared.

Again, this doesn't mean it is bad or wrong or whatever. Things have changed and how we feel is based on the society/culture we live in, were raised in, or are exposed to. We cannot really help this... indoctrination of a sort. It's pretty strong but that's a whole other bit on social psychology there.

I also do not believe it should be viewed as the standard model. I think we should just stop sticking our noses into who people want to marry or how many people they want to marry or whatever. As long as they are consenting and of an age to know what the fuck they're doing, it isn't anyone else's concern.

Well, if it helps, I do know a fair number of people who do not cheat? So there are people out there. I think the people who do cheat are just more... emphasised? We tend to talk about the bad more than the good. I don't think divorce or marriage are bad things, though. I think marriage is unnecessary in a lot of cases and I think divorce can be useful but I also think people should try to work on their relationship fully first. And love too is there. I'm sure you'll find someone who fits for you

[SilverWolf]

I still don't think a person can fully understand something they don't experience. You can understand it as much as you can, but if you don't experience it, you can't fully understand it. It's like trying to explain the joys of swimming to somebody who doesn't want to swim.

The thing is, I don't think there is a such thing as 'normal'. Nobody is normal, we're all unique. Sure there may be something that a majority of mankind has in common, but that doesn't make it normal. Anyways, if it's odd for humans to be monogamous, then why are there also animals who are monogamous? As you said, it would make more sense for males to have multiple mates. So why is it that monogamy even exists in the animal kingdom?

Ah, but you see, I don't agree with that. Not entirely, at least. I don't think that you have a choice on if you're going to be monogamous, polygamous, etc. Just like you don't have a choice on your sexuality. You can be in a polygamous relationship in a culture that supports polygamy, but you can still be truly monogamous and just not be happy with how you're living your life. After all, there were countless homosexual men and women who had to be with the opposite sex due to cultural standards back when homosexuality was still shunned. They had kids and probably died without anybody knowing they were homosexual, but that doesn't mean they were happy or chose to be straight. I've never thought of somebody choosing to be polygamous, even when I was a child. That was just who they were.

Well, I've already said that I don't really care what another person does, as long as it doesn't affect me, so I have to agree with you on that. Polygamy goes against my personal views of marriage, but, I'm not the one in a polygamous relationship nor would a polygamous relationship hurt my marriage, so a polygamous marriage doesn't really matter to me.

There are good, non-cheating people out there, the problem is just telling which ones are like that Ah well, I'm 17 and don't have plans for marriage for a while, I have plenty of time to figure out the good from the bad.

[PeachyImperfect]

This actually came up recently. I have been dating my partner for a year and a half, but have recently developed a crush on another boy. This boy also likes me, and when I brought up polyamory, would consider it. However, my partner is not open to the idea. In some ways it kind of sucks living in a culture that encourages jealousy.

Has anyone read Wheel of Time? Some of the societies in that practise polyamorous relationships, which I don't see in books all that often. Usually it's up to the women, too! If two women like one man, they agree between them to both marry him. Or, if one woman likes many men, she just 'bonds' them all. Gimme some of dat!

im in a bit of a similar situation, as im polyamorous/polysexual. i think its just the way im programmed, just the way my minds wired. modern western society says its wrong to feel like this, to have multiple consenting partners. in the past year or so i had multiple female partners, but now ive mostly settled down with a guy. hes wired more to be monogomous, but ive brought up poly stuff to him and hes a bit interested. if you want to introduce the concept to your boyfriend, you should start out by explaining that everyones mind is wired differently, and yours might be wired more towards being comfortable with consensual polyamory. you gotta explain it right since society is so quick to judge anything not involving monogamy as cheating. but you have to be accepting if his head is wired for monogamy, which some people are and theres nothing wrong with it and its not societal brainwashing its just who they are. you could either stick with your current partner or try a relationship with the other guy.

ive never read wheel of time, but i have read dancing with eternity, which takes place in the future where everyone is basically immortal so most people see no point in marriage. its pretty good, recommend it if yall like sci fi stuff.

[pegasi1978]

As someone who is currently the injured party in a lie about whether or not there was an open, polyamorous relationship I'd like to ask all of you who may be considering getting into a relationship with a member of an "open" couple to please, Please, PLEASE confirm what you might have been told with the other member of the couple. In my case, if the other woman had talked to me I could have told her that no my husband and I did not have an open relationship and we wouldn't be going through the pain and heartache that we are going through right now.

[GrowlingCupcake]

As someone who is currently the injured party in a lie about whether or not there was an open, polyamorous relationship I'd like to ask all of you who may be considering getting into a relationship with a member of an "open" couple to please, Please, PLEASE confirm what you might have been told with the other member of the couple. In my case, if the other woman had talked to me I could have told her that no my husband and I did not have an open relationship and we wouldn't be going through the pain and heartache that we are going through right now.

I would (and have) always asked to meet the other partner(s) in the relationship to confirm it is actually a poly/open couple and not just someone cheating.

I am very sorry for your pain. If you need a ear, PM me any time.

[pegasi1978]

Thank you. I've never been in a open relationship, but I have a newspaper background. We were always told we must have more than one source when presenting something as fact. So had I been in her place I would have asked both members in the relationship as well. She got a serious tounge-lashing about not doing so, and has apologized, but it doesn't make what they did right.

My husband and I are going to be starting marriage counseling soon (if the counselor would get in touch like they said they would). We've discussed some things on our own, but I'm still not brave enough to ask some of the hard questions yet. I don't know if my heart and soul can take the answers.