Polyamory = people with more integrity?

[Olivier]

I've always noticed that many people (according to some statistics well over 50%) cheat on their spouse. When I ask them why, most of them say it is easier to hide and do it anyway instead of confronting their partner. They basically choose the easy way out. The problem is that they enforce the old paradigm this way. If everyone would be upfront enough to just bite the bullet and admit they have feelings for other people (I know most persons do), instead of hiding and saying their partner is the one and only, polyamory would become universal.

[LovingRadiance]

Even if Poly wasn't for everyone-at least honesty would make everything operate better.

[redpepper]

The title of this thread is what I mean to address here. Integrity is a virtue. I don't think virtues necessarily come naturally to people. They need practice and need to be important to people. Quite often they aren't. Or at least go unnoticed. People seem to think they can get away with not being virtuous. Then they wonder why they are miserable and alone. At least this is what I have seen in some people.

I don't think poly people are more virtuous in terms of integrity, but do seem to practice it more in order to keep it. Otherwise they are not being true to the name of polyamory in my book.

[Honestheart]

I've always noticed that many people (according to some statistics well over 50%) cheat on their spouse
If everyone would be upfront enough to just bite the bullet and admit they have feelings for other people (I know most persons do), instead of hiding and saying their partner is the one and only, polyamory would become universal.

this was the reason i started up another thread about polyamory and affairs.... i wondered if you were poly if it was still possible to cheat or have an affair seeing as how you are openly acknowledging you can and will fall in love with more then one person at the same time... and yes, i found it was possible. but again, it all boils down to being honest to admit you have feelings and communicating with your significant other.... and even in poly relationships that does not always happen.
i dont think poly itself lessens the chance of affairs or cheating...

but i think that i see whet you are saying Olivier... so perhaps it not that affairs or cheating do not happen in poly but rather that is just that ,oddly enough, polyamory tends to encourage the high value and necessity of honesty, integrity, and communication in relationships more so then the society driven monogamy. does that make sense?

[redpepper]

this was the reason i started up another thread about polyamory and affairs....

your thread.... for those that are wondering

http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2353

there are others if anyone cares to do a search for them.... lots tagged under "cheating" and "affairs"

[MonoVCPHG]

Even if Poly wasn't for everyone

It's not :p....just to be a pain in your ass LR :)

[LovingRadiance]

I know that MON! ;)

[MonoVCPHG]

I know that MON! ;)

Heehee!...I am a little shit sometimes :) I think every poly forum should have one :eek:

[LovingRadiance]

Are little shit's better than big one's? :rolleyes:

[MonoVCPHG]

Are little shit's better than big one's? :rolleyes:

I'm kinky....but even I'm not going there ;)

[Derbylicious]

Thanks for the visual guys :p

[MonoVCPHG]

Thanks for the visual guys :p

The cat just threw up..how's that for a visual...now he's looking at me like I did it!! Gotta go for a bit...l

[Derbylicious]

The cat just threw up..how's that for a visual...now he's looking at me like I did it!! Gotta go for a bit...l

Hey I'm a nurse, vomit I can totally handle :D

[MonoVCPHG]

Hey I'm a nurse, vomit I can totally handle :D

All cleaned up...we have to get off this thread LOL!

[MonoVCPHG]

I've had an affair in the past and am now in a poly relationship. So here is my theory on why people chose the hidden path as opposed to the open path. This theory is based on experience.


Why would people decide to cheat instead of have a poly relationship?

1) - its way easier. Communication and understanding is strictly between the two people involved.

2) - It has the added excitement of "getting away with something". Who hasn't done something because there was a thrill in it being wrong or enjoyed keeping a secret.

3) - It is a self limiting entity. The functions of the relationship are very limited. "I can't come over and mow your yard because your husband will kick my ass but we can meet somewhere and fuck!" Translated - "I just want to fuck"

4) - they can be emotionally limited so you don't have to commit beyond your own needs. "It's not that I just want to fuck you, but really we have our families to think about. I don't want you to lose everything." Huge bullshit alert. Translated - "I don't want to lose everything...but want to fuck!"

5) - it can come and go without impacting a family or social network. There are a lot of affairs that happen without anyone knowing about them.

6) - there is a belief that the participants are at least trying to be faithful or shield their partner from the information that they are not adequate in all areas.

7) - they can be terminated with less effort because "what we are doing is wrong"

8) - your parents will probably never know


Why would someone want poly vice cheating?

1) - Poly encourages you to grow as a person where affairs make you digress into irresponsibility and self denial of reality.

2) - Poly acknowledges and addresses the pain and emotions of your partner where affairs play people for fools; this is probably the greatest source of pain for those betrayed.

3) - It has the potential to become a fulfilling dynamic that widens family structures and generate more support and love for everyone involved. Affairs have a tendency to destroy families and severely damage everyone involved from spouses to children.

4) - It can set a positive example of communication and understanding for people around you.

5) - Poly relationships can increase love for everyone involved; affairs take something away from people whether they know it or not.

6) - You can be free to openly proclaim love to people around you. Affairs can become logistically exhausting and brutally stressful.

7) - Poly relationships can end with friendships and deep connections intact. Affairs usually end with total severance of ties and anything positive gets lost.

8) - Once your parents realize everyone is ok, they can often accept and be comfortable with the dynamic. Most parents would probably have a hard time hanging out with the person you are having an affair with…of course they probably wouldn't know.


Want it mathematically?

Affairs = short term gain, long term pain (for a lot of people but not all)

Poly = short term pain, long term gain (for some people but not all)

In summary, I think the majority of people who have affairs don't want to include those people into their lives. They want a separate life with them.
They are looking for an escape from the drama and distractions of everyday relationships and want it simple. Poly relationships probably won't satisfy the desires of someone actively looking for an affair.

Poly relationships are rarely simple in my opinion. For the most part they are way more complicated than an affair. It is the after affects of an affair, even one that is never found out about that is the biggest and hardest lesson to learn. Self judgement is often far worse than that of those around us. With poly you are at least up front.

Unfortunately I am a person who seems to need to learn by experiencing consequences. I have experienced a lot of consequences in my life; enough to know who I am in a way I never have before and I am no longer a boy in a man's clothes. I have lost what most would define as "everything". I have no excuse to repeat mistakes I made in the past. No excuse…full fucking stop. Any repeat of previously learned lessons is not because "it just happened". The repeat of negative things I have done would indicate an ill person. I am healthier than I have ever been.

[LovelyArianna]

I have seen a man in a leg of my V come to poly as an escape, wanting to justify his past fooling around. He thought he was poly and finally becoming responsible. I was fooled. Yes, I'm a vet poly and I was fooled, go figure. Sigh, Ari wanting to believe the best in people, as I met several of his woman friends. Great guy tho, trying to be sober.

Like mono's poly's can wanna be in love with the potential of a person. I'm a great optimist.

Well, no go, really, as it didn't last. He still was hiding out with his various female relationships, trying sometimes to introduce them and be open, but he started living fast and furious, his habits finally caught up with him and he could not really be poly. Only an effort to still guilty feelings.

Just fooling around. Hiding. Still. Don't need to be a shrink to see some of these guys.

Poly doesn't' make us more responsible, automatically, sadly.

Ari

[Olivier]

I really like your reply mono, thanks for that. Helps me clarify some things :)

[MonoVCPHG]

I really like your reply mono, thanks for that. Helps me clarify some things :)

You are welcome my friend, nice to see you around :)

[GroundedSpirit]

I've always noticed that many people (according to some statistics well over 50%) cheat on their spouse. When I ask them why, most of them say it is easier to hide and do it anyway instead of confronting their partner. They basically choose the easy way out. The problem is that they enforce the old paradigm this way. If everyone would be upfront enough to just bite the bullet and admit they have feelings for other people (I know most persons do), instead of hiding and saying their partner is the one and only, polyamory would become universal.

I see your thought process here Oliver, and agree to a large extent.
If the world (culture) you live in reinforces from a young age that sex and love can ONLY occur in pairs then of course you have what we have !

If on the other hand it was expressed otherwise from day one - what WOULD that world look like ? It would only seem that people would embrace those connections as they came into their lives - and potentially not even be "seeking" them - and all that goes with that.

I also like Mono's effort to detail some of the obvious facts of the way things "are", being food for thought on how they "could be".

I often use the food analogy.
If every relationship was as comfortable talking about their ENTIRE sex & love life as they are talking about their lunch experience/choices then there would be far more time and energy available to spend nurturing our relationships.

We do it here every day - in anonymity. But it COULD be the open default way to communicate.

Be interesting to see what that looks like - eh ?

GS

[LovingRadiance]

I'm kinky....but even I'm not going there ;)

LOL-that's probably good!
;)

[LovingRadiance]

Post 15 was awesome Mon.
Great breakdown!

[LovingRadiance]

We do it here every day - in anonymity. But it COULD be the open default way to communicate.

Be interesting to see what that looks like - eh ?

GS

Goodness I was just telling someone ( I can't remember at the moment who it was) that I really am losing that anonymity faster than I could possibly rebuild it. :)
By my own choice mind you-but still.

I find that since I made the commitment to myself to make my decisions from the stance of love-it really makes it damn near impossible to keep anonymity.

For example:
someone created a login for the SOLE purpose of sending me a PM asking for my advice. I COULD have talked with him via PM endlessly and remained anonymous.
But the truth is that when I read his explanation, request for suggestions, what I heard was a heartbreaking. I FELT the heartbreaking. (writing this gave me goosebumps).
I responded and made the offer that he could give my email (less intimidating to a mono) to his wife if she wanted to ask questions of her own.

I've exchanged personal contact information with a number of the people on the board and am making arrangements to corelate my vacations to meeting them.

In doing so I've found that I feel so much better about myself.

I'm reading the book 'The Seven Levels of Intimacy'. It really gets in to the importance of being REAL to yourself before you can be real to anyone else. But something else it said that REALLY hit home with me is that (don't laugh);

While opportunities are unlimited, TIME is limited.
We can have LOTS of relationships in level 1-2 of intimacy, or we can have a smaller number of relationships that hit levels 5-7.
Not because any of those relationships aren't potential opportunities for deeper level relationships, but because building that depth of intimacy requires TIME and we have a limited amount of time.

I have started limiting my time with people who I can't be REAL with and increasing my time with people who I can. Because we can't have a REAL relationship if I can't be real ANYWAY-so why should I put a great amount of time into a relationship that is a facade? :rolleyes:

[maca]

I'm kinky....but even I'm not going there ;)

Dont worry brother If LR can try to handle my kink Im sure she can deal with a little Mono kink :P

[MonoVCPHG]

Dont worry brother If LR can try to handle my kink Im sure she can deal with a little Mono kink :P

No doubt Brother :)

[Honestheart]

I'm kinky....but even I'm not going there ;)

giggle oh man Mono, so glad you didnt go there cause TMI! ;-)

seeee.... i dunno if we poly folk have more integrity or virtue... but we certainly do tend to have some very interesting forum discussions ;-) LOL

[CielDuMatin]

Chiming in a bit late to the discussion, I know, but I have to say that I don't believe that poly people naturally have more integrity than monogamous folks.

I have seen some horribly abusive, manipulative and downright mean behaviours perpetrated by people who self-identify as poly. I have seen lying, emotional blackmail, and jealousy used by some.

So while this may open up one aspect of integrity, it most certainly doesn't seem to do much for the others...

I think that there is a part of the poly community (and I don't mean any folks on this forum) who "do poly" because they quite frankly weren't very good at monogamous relationships. Then there are others who, for whatever reason, couldn't find a decent monogamous partner, so "settled" for becoming someone's secondary, while resenting it all along.

There are many doing poly in an open, honest way, full of integrity. That applies also to monogamous folk. I really don't think poly folks can claim any "high ground", though, when it comes to personal integrity.

[Confused]

I'm still monogamous and no longer thinking of changing that, after researching and thinking a lot about polyamoury for a few months.

I try to be completely honest with my husband, all the time. I tell him everything in as loving a way as possible but it seems like honesty is not valued at all in our society. I totally understand why we need social dishonesty (white lies) to smooth along surface relationships but I don't think they help at all in marriage or intimate relationships. The amount of people I meet though who think that telling your partner about a crush is cruel and you should keep that info to yourself because what good can it do to share it other than hurt your partner... I really don't understand this viewpoint and I've really enjoyed reading these boards to get away from that type of thinking that somehow we should protect our partners from every possible negative emotion and present ourselves as loving them and only them unconditionally whether thats true or not. I married a man, not a child and I want to be his equal partner, not his parent and that means I want to be known for who I really am, and to know him in return.

So I consider myself someone with integrity in my marriage. One thing I struggle with is learning what of the tools I've found work in my marriage will work in friendships. They seem to go a bit astray when I try to be as honest as I'd like to be. Not all but it has happened..

[rpcrazy]

Redpepper and mono pretty much have it down. Basically you have to combine their brains to make a buddha like statement(the ultimate compliment to you guyz hahaha)

Integrity is a virtue. People cheat as a response to fear of (the) reality > self denial of reality > Mental Safeguards > Ease of situation/Lies > cheating.

That's something that enlightened people like the buddha teach folks and the RP/Mono combo tackled it in like 5 posts lol.

peace & love
-gabe