Monogamy. What is "normal"?

[pfbsurf]

OK, I guess I'm having a bit of a personal crisis on the subject of monogamy, and would love to hear some thoughtful views on it.

 

What i've sort of figured out is that true love/monogamy is a bit of a unicorn, and that the reality of life and relationships is that most people will lie and cheat, at some point.

 

Cynical and sad I know, but at this point in my life (47, divorced, casually dated 8 years, recently dumped cheating gf) I am somewhat desperate to figure this stuff out. I honestly don't want to have a heart of stone - its just not in my nature - but as of right now, i feel that people are self serving and only want their own happiness in the moment (myself included).

 

I have plenty of reference points - my own personal experience, the stories on this site, friends' stories... Im not inexperienced and did not think i was that naive, but honestly, the data is pretty obvious.

 

So does this mean that lying/cheating should be built into some relationships, where it may be acceptable? Or is it always a deal breaker? Having hung out with some friends recently that are practicing swingers (and no, i did not partake), i have some interesting new perspective on the subject. They have really only one rule - and that is open communication...

 

I know that every situation is different, but really, reading all the stories here, thinking back on my own experiences, and looking around me, it is all very disheartening...

 

 

Thoughts?

[journeynow]

the reality of life and relationships is that most people will lie and cheat

 

Do you lie and cheat? Are those part of your credo, and you expect to do so in the future? How do you feel when people lie or cheat on you?

 

Bottom line, you have to decide if you value integrity and act accordingly, which includes having clear boundaries or not.

[pfbsurf]

Do you lie and cheat? Are those part of your credo, and you expect to do so in the future? How do you feel when people lie or cheat on you?

 

Bottom line, you have to decide if you value integrity and act accordingly, which includes having clear boundaries or not.

 

 

Well, the simple answer is no. BUT, as mentioned, when i was in a loveless marriage, I was well on my way to figuring out how to do it. I got a divorce instead.

 

And having been cheated on, i can honestly say that it is about the worst feeling i have ever experienced.

 

But, no offense, your response sort of evades the question. I can control my behavior, and I can have a value system, but these are outside the realm of love and emotion. I thought I was clever in my last relationship because my approach was to just trust her, and let her know that I was going to be faithful. "boundaries" only existed with this in mind, which is to say that for her, they didn't, eventually.

[ParisPaulette]

I responded to this in another post, but the bottom line is this: monogamy is just that. When two people agree they are going to be exclusive and together and with each other only, they essentially make a contract even if it's just verbal to do that. Do people break contracts, written and verbal? All the freaking time. I can say from personal experience that most people who have cheated on me or broken that contract had other red flag behaviors that I ignored/excused away/accepted excuses from. And when I stopped doing so I stopped getting cheated on.

 

I also have friends who are in a polyamorous relationship. They have bluntly speaking, one of the best relationships I've ever seen. Not because they get to sleep with other people though, it's because they really do have honest open communication with each other and they have a set of rules they agree to live by and they genuinely like each other. One of their rules is they have to like anyone else that one of them is sleeping with. It's almost more of a small community than it is swingers though. And no, I'm not a part of it, because I am someone who monogamy works for. I don't share my heart and my bed with anyone but one and that's just me. I tried swinging when I was younger and hated it. I also have friends who've been married since they were in their 20s and they've never cheated on each other and love each other. Again they have a very open communication, a set of rules they established early on in the relationship that they both live by and they genuinely like each other.

 

And I think there is something to that. I'm in a relationship now with an artist, have been for three years. We are monogamous, he's never cheated on me that I know of and if he had then he's really, really good at hiding it and having zero red flag behaviors. And for whatever reason I have told him that if he ever sleeps with another woman he's to tell me about it and I get to meet her. And that that's the only caveat I have to it. He told me the same thing. We have both had offers to cheat, we've both turned people down and told each other about it and then we do something that I think is key to keeping our relationship intact: we send the person who wanted one of us to cheat on their merry way and we never see/engage them again. I had to get another car mechanic after mine tried repeatedly to hit on me. My SO lost a big commission from a woman who wanted him to do a series of art jobs for her, but wouldn't stop propositioning him.

 

And it goes without saying that although we each have opposite sex friends we introduced each other to them when we knew the relationship was getting serious, we do not do date-like things with those friends, we make it a point to include each other when we see those friends and we limit our contact with those friends same as we do the regular same sex ones--not texts at midnight or discussing our life relationships or letting the talk become sexually explicit in some way with an opposite sex friend. Because we both have been so badly burned on that one that we made a vow early on not to let that be a sticking point or a problem in our relationship either.

 

In short we have open communication and we each have boundaries that we clearly define and draw with other people. And we've both sent people packing who violated those boundaries or asked us to cheat. Temptations are always going to be out there, but I guess the difference is what someone does about that temptation or not.

[pfbsurf]

ParisP,

 

I did see your other post - that thread sort of sparked this one...

 

I guess I'm taking this subject pretty personally, and it is not something I can just shrug off. My recent experience is over two months past, and still stings quite a bit. So it is nice to hear a more positive view - and one that i hope is not extremely rare.

 

For me, it does come down to honesty and trust. I suppose i can't blame someone for losing interest or being attracted to another person, but I can draw the line at dishonesty.

 

But i am also still sticking to my original point - that the likelihood that two people meet, fall in love, and commit to each other, without one of them straying, is pretty small. I think this comes down to the natural imbalance of "love" in most relationships - one being into the other a bit more - leaving one with a bigger "need", that they could get somewhere else. Or something along those lines.

 

And all this going through my head as i dip my toe back in the dating pool

[journeynow]

But, no offense, your response sort of evades the question. I can control my behavior, and I can have a value system, but these are outside the realm of love and emotion. I thought I was clever in my last relationship because my approach was to just trust her, and let her know that I was going to be faithful. "boundaries" only existed with this in mind, which is to say that for her, they didn't, eventually.

I was answering your question "Thoughts?"

Values and self control, love and emotion, all go into making a whole person (so are not out of the realm of monogamy). You can only decide for yourself what you chose to do, how you chose to act, and what you'll accept from another. There are no 100% guarantees or true control over someone else's choices. Not EVERYONE lies and cheats, although most likely everyone will have the opportunity or temptation at some point in life. It's "normal" to be tempted. It's normal to have a code of conduct, although people tend to forget or justify exceptions for themselves.

 

People do want to be happy. But that does not mean lying and cheating are the way to happiness.

[Batya33]

My parents have been married almost 60 years, were each other's firsts and have never strayed. I have been exclusive with my husband for over 10 years total, married for 5, no straying or cheating on either side. And no real temptation either (I believe fully I can say the same for him).

[Fudgie]

There are many people who cheat/lie but not everyone does, not by a long shot. You need to find someone whose values are in line with yours. And I don't believe in blind trust. Now, I think snooping is wrong too and you should trust your partner, but not blindly. What I mean by that is, if you have a bad gut feeling with a partner and you are generally not an overly jealous/insecure person (because people like that can have gut feelings 100% of the time unwarranted) then you need to HEED THAT FEELING. Don't push it away, especially if you have it when your partner is exhibiting possible cheating behaviour. That's what I mean by trust vs blind trust.

 

Now, true monogamy is very rare. Very few people are with one person their entire lives. Most are serial monogamists, going from one monogamous relationship to another.

 

I don't believe lying/cheating has to be the norm in relationships. It may be for some, but it's not for me. It doesn't have to be for you either. You'r going to find a lot of dysfunction out there in relationships but that doesn't mean that you need to lower your standards to conform. Not everyone is like that.

[pfbsurf]

I was answering your question "Thoughts?"

Values and self control, love and emotion, all go into making a whole person (so are not out of the realm of monogamy). You can only decide for yourself what you chose to do, how you chose to act, and what you'll accept from another. There are no 100% guarantees or true control over someone else's choices. Not EVERYONE lies and cheats, although most likely everyone will have the opportunity or temptation at some point in life. It's "normal" to be tempted. It's normal to have a code of conduct, although people tend to forget or justify exceptions for themselves.

 

People do want to be happy. But that does not mean lying and cheating are the way to happiness.

 

 

Thanks for the response - it does get to the heart of the matter - we can only control our own behavior. But down deep, i do worry about my own personal "enabling" of this sort of treatment. When i was married, my ex cheating was quickly forgiven, just to keep my family together. But even with this, it all fell apart anyway.

[beingawesome]

I think you've been beat down a bit by your experiences, so you are viewing things from a darker lens. It's natural to see patterns in your own life and experiences and assume they're true for the rest of the world, but it's also important to remember that you can't don't see everything. There are plenty of people who have had no experiences with cheating and will continue to avoid them (myself included). To offer an example: homicide is also a common occurrence (especially in my city), but that doesn't mean everyone will turn out to be either a murderer or a murder victim.

[Sportster2005]

I know that every situation is different, but really, reading all the stories here, thinking back on my own experiences, and looking around me, it is all very disheartening...

 

 

Thoughts?

 

The stories here form a very small sampling of what is going on in the world. The people who have come here are probably from a small demographic. So I wouldn't draw any conclusions based on such a small sampling. There are billions of people not on this site. I suspect many of them are in monogamous relationships. To me, I don't think the data is obvious. What we find here are stories and anecdotes, but not data. I would turn to Google for a more academic look at the subject.

 

link removed

 

Also you may be looking for confirmation bias. When we get an idea, we sometimes start to see things through the lens of that idea. We subconsciously seek out stories and statistics to confirm what we believe. We can build a very strong case for that belief. It appears you may have done that. Intentionally or not, it sounds like you've started to believe everyone cheats, then you've reinforced that by selectively reading and listening. We are all guilty of it I think at one time or another. We tend to want to prove ourselves correct, not wrong.

 

And at the end of the day if you want to cheat, then cheat. If you don't, don't. We are the masters of our moral compass. No one else. No excuses.

[DancingFool]

One thing to keep in mind is that these sorts of boards are not a reflection of the majority of society, but rather a concentration of people who have been wronged, are hurting, etc and are seeking essentially advice and a support group of sorts. If reading all these posts is starting to color your view, it might be a good idea to step away from the computer until you can recalibrate.

 

For what it's worth, I have never cheated, never been cheated on that I know of and none of my close friends have dealt with anything such either. I don't think we are in the minority by any stretch of the imagination. The thing is that when people do what's right, there is nothing to talk about or complain about. So do keep that in mind. You are just not going to have boards where people come to post "so as usual, my bf called me when he said he would".

 

Ultimately, while there is always the factor of surprise, in that you never really truly know anyone and everyone can surprise you in good ways and bad, I am a firm believer that a lot depends on the choices and judgements we make every single day. All choices come with certain results and consequences. So, if you look at your relationships and out of 10, you got cheated on once, you can safely write it off as a one off anomaly. If you've had 10 relationships and got cheated on in most of them, you are the common denominator. Time to figure out what you are doing that it keeps repeating.

[greta96]

I have given monogamy a lot of thought, and I'm probably going to be flamed for my opinion, but I have started to doubt that us, as humans, are really built to be monogamous.

 

Now I'm the type of person who has never cheated, when a relationship stopped working for me I let him know and took it from there. I have never done FWB or dated multiple people at the same time (at least not as an adult). I always think cheating has to be punished by dumping. I don't condone it and I would never do it myself, and it hurt when I got cheated on.

 

But I'm starting to question whether people are made to be monogamous. Some are, definitely. But is that the norm? I don't know. We all go by society's morals, cheating is wrong, etc, but if we had a choice and it would be morally right, would we really stick with only one person for the rest of our lives?

When we meet someone, we fall in love, get married...and at that point in time, we are sure we want to spend the rest of our lives with that person. But we live in an ever changing universe, nothing ever stays the same. Situations change, feelings change, we change...the truth is that we don't know (because there is no way of knowing) what we are going to feel 5 or 10 or more years from now, who is to say that if I promised my eternal love to someone today, I will still feel the same 10 years from now?

We can (and most people do) try to ignore outside stimuli, avoid temptation, and do the right thing. But is that really what we want? We all like novelty, we are human.

 

Just brainstorming here, as this is a subject I've been mulling over for quite some time. I don't have an answer to this, and I am interested in reading as many opinions as possible on it.

[pfbsurf]

Well, for me, alot of this does come down to "me" and how much I have contributed to this. two "relationships" in my life to speak of (LOTs of casual dating). Both relationships - when it really mattered to me -someone I trusted broke that trust.

 

The casual dating (a few dates to a few months) was always monogamous, but honestly, it was always too superficial to matter. Even where I dated someone for many months but didnt fall for them I stayed monogamous. In many ways, i had more "fun" dating casually, and certainly never really worried about getting my heart shredded.

 

 

And honestly, i may be taking too much of this personally. I'm pretty good at that. I see cheating as a way of completely rejecting the other person, so of course being on the receiving end makes me question every aspect of my life. that's a bit extreme, I know.

 

I probably should just take a break from this site and the subject.

[journeynow]

I equate monogamy with marriage or mutual long term commitment. Not casual dating.

[Fudgie]

greta,

 

I've sort of given up on figuring out "what is natural". Everyone is so different. Yes, I have known of happy, elderly couples who didn't cheat and were each other's firsts and never slept with anyone else. Yet you also have people who have had a few marriages, people who have cheated, people who prefer to have multiple partners, etc. I don't believe that monogamy is right for everyone. It is right for me. Yes, I think everyone gets tempted and maybe giving in to that temptation would make some people much happier and their lives better (provided they told their partners and their partners were fine with it). For me, monogamy is better despite temptation and I know that giving into temptation would not ultimately make me happier, but that's just me. Everyone is different.

 

I do encourage people overall to be honest with themselves and their partners. If monogamy isn't for them and they feel unhappy/restricted in such a relationship, then they shouldn't force themselves into monogamy and choose monogamous partners. Seems like a no-brainer to me but many people act according to "what is normal" and not what makes them happy.

[pfbsurf]

A dissenting view. Sort of the devil on my shoulder right now.

 

And actually i do think i could stick with the person as they changed, and not stray, once we committed to each other. The problem for me is that I'm running out of the faith and energy you need to actually trust and fall for someone to do the same. And recently, i'm thinking that this is a lot to ask of another person anyway.

[pfbsurf]

monogamy as in say, month 5 or 6, where a conversation takes place that neither of you are "seeing/dating/sleeping with" anyone else. This is not "long term" in my book, but it is a gray area.

 

Casual dating to me is just that. What the other person does in their spare time is none of my business. Marriage is obvious. It is that gray area that is very interesting to me.

[greta96]

A dissenting view. Sort of the devil on my shoulder right now.

 

And actually i do think i could stick with the person as they changed, and not stray, once we committed to each other. The problem for me is that I'm running out of the faith and energy you need to actually trust and fall for someone to do the same. And recently, i'm thinking that this is a lot to ask of another person anyway.

 

I know what you mean, I guess the key is to meet someone who has the same chemical "make-up" as you, which unfortunately doesn't happen too often. Like Fudgie above said, we are all so different, you just can't know. Or even if you know now, that may change in the future. It's all about taking chances and there are no guarantees.

[jak3]

One thing to keep in mind is that these sorts of boards are not a reflection of the majority of society, but rather a concentration of people who have been wronged, are hurting, etc and are seeking essentially advice and a support group of sorts. If reading all these posts is starting to color your view, it might be a good idea to step away from the computer until you can recalibrate.

Pay attention to this.

[Fudgie]

This is why I think it's very important to be extremely open and communicative about your desires, drive, etc. It can be awkward to talk about but it's good to talk about with someone that you're trying to establish a long term partnership with. Generally speaking, freq of sex will be really high in the beginning and it will naturally taper off. I think it's important to try and find a partner whose "normal" drive (after the infatuation is gone) is as close to yours as possible. Not saying it can't work when there's a mismatch, but it's harder.

 

And yes, things can change over time. Especially as one gets older, desire may go down.

 

Now, I know not everyone is the same, but for me, it's important that sex isn't the cornerstone of a relationship. For me, a relationship is mostly about companionship and having emotional intimacy. I can deal with ebbs and flows with a partner's sex drive as long as the core of the relationship is still there and we can spend time together. And I've always tried to find men who feel the same and I usually do.

[Ms Darcy]

You can't come to a site where most people have been hurt in a relationship and make conclusions about all relationships.

 

I think for me the question is moreso do relationships have a shelf life. Because when a relationship is happy on both sides then monogamy isn't an issue. I think it is when one is not happy where you start seeing problems such as cheating. So I wonder if it makes more sense to emphasize that if people are unhappy they should leave rather than trying to bandaid the underlying issue by getting lax on monogamy.

[SoulTaker]

Thanks for the response - it does get to the heart of the matter - we can only control our own behavior. But down deep, i do worry about my own personal "enabling" of this sort of treatment. When i was married, my ex cheating was quickly forgiven, just to keep my family together. But even with this, it all fell apart anyway.

 

Pfbsurf, as you know, this is not a one size fits all situation. Every case has to be looked at on a one-on-one basis. If it happens to you multiple times, then you might definitely be an enabler to it.

 

The problem with monogamy in many situations is when you take a relationship that has a finite life shelf, and try to extend it longer than its expiration period. Not all relationships were meant to go the distance. Some are only meant to last for a year, others 3 years, others,...

 

There's usually someone in the relationship that wants to keep things going, while the other person knows that there's nothing left in it, but hangs on out of moral duty or other situations (kids, financial stability, avoiding loneliness,...). And then there's marriage which is the ultimate form of a relationship (last forever).

[journeynow]

Relationships do not have a "shelf life", they aren't "meant" to last a specific time, they don't "run their course". People learn more about themselves and each other and either want to continue or not. It's a choice, not fate or something passive.

[pfbsurf]

Well, I did think my marriage was forever. Not so much.

 

And this last relationship, despite the breakup being very hard - i did feel down deep that it would have not been a good long-term match.

 

In both cases, they cheated, I buried my head in the sand for a bit, and I walked. BOTH times, I had to make the decision - my partner, for whatever reason, could not do the honorable thing. Sad.

 

If i were to write the happy ending to this story, i would take the wisdom from these relationships, and 7 years of dating, into the next, and final relationship of my life. I think it should not go to waste. And despite my original post, I guess I do believe in some form of love and commitment, and don't think we are meant to live our lives alone...

 

So in other words, ladies, you get one more shot

 

Just not right now...