missing monogamy, wondering how to proceed

turtleHeart

New member
I think I prefer the closeness of being monogamous with one person (and having them be monogamous with me), but am seeing right now if the chance to have access to the divided energy of multiple people can be enough for me (I'd like to find a way for it to work out for my wife to stay with her boyfriend). I don't feel bothered by the idea of sharing someone physically, but the emotional/commitment part still gets to me even after a year+. Maybe it's because I don't seem to feel compersion, even though I get along with my metamours.

I've tried dating other people but have yet to feel like it's worthwhile in comparison to spending time with friends and my wife. Ginko (my wife) has put in a massive amount of effort to help me be happy with things as they are, and she's willing to stop dating her boyfriend J if that's what I need, but she loves him, he loves her, and I'd feel like crap to require that. J is a good guy, he goes to a lot of effort to get along with me and help me be okay with things, but I'm just not sure I ever will be, and wonder if I'm wasting everyone's time to have it go on as it is any longer.

Ginko's boyfriend suggested she and I brainstorm solutions, and the two of them also said we could set a deadline, perhaps 6 months, to either figuring out how to make things work or go back to being monogamous. She needs some kind of resolution because it hurts her to have something that makes her happy make me sad to, at best, indifferent. Meanwhile J is in the midst of looking for a primary and had already mentioned before all this came up that he might have to switch to just being friends with Ginko if the person he finds needs monogamy, and she's supportive of that change if necessary since she knows he needs a primary. Any thoughts?
 
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Well, it's a tricky situation, but my first thought was... you're not going to like it, but here goes:

Your wife is polyamorous. You have trouble with the emotional aspect, not the sexual one. How is closing the relationship going to help?
Think about it: she will STILL be in love with the other guy, which is what hurts you. And if she finally gets over him, she will fall in love with others. Won't that hurt you just as much? And won't it hurt you more to see her miserable because she can't do anything about it? It seems to me, if you need emotional monogamy, you need someone who is able to provide it to you. Another monogamous partner. You'd need to break up with her.
If you want to stay with her, which I assume is the case, I don't think telling her she can't see the people she loves is going to help you much. You'll always know she loves them. If you ask her not to tell you about who she has feelings for, you'll keep wondering if she's in love with so and so. She'll be sad about not being with them, she'll feel guilty that she has feelings for them in the first place and that it's hurting you, and you'll probably feel just as bad as you do now.

If your problem was with sexual non-exclusivity, then it would be easier. No sex, and she can love whoever she wants, you wouldn't care, and maybe you could do things in the bedroom that would make it easier for her not to have sex with others. But here, it's feelings, not actions, that bother you. And feelings are not something she can control.

Now, if you think about what bothers you more specifically, maybe you can come up with actions, not feelings, that make you uncomfortable. And maybe you can work with her so that these actions happen less or stop happening.
Alternately, you might come up with actions that she can do with you so that you feel better. Spend more time with you, have regular dates, go on weekends or vacations together... I don't know, but there might be things that would help.

But ultimately, if the problem is that it hurts you to know she loves others, well you already know she does, and chances are she always will, whether she has boyfriends or not.
 
Tonberry: I disagree that his wife being in love with the other guy is what hurts him. I think the lack of the full emotional commitment (committing all your emotional energy to one person) is what hurts him.

turtleHeart: You seem like a very mature individual, but I agree with Tonberry in the sense that I think you're not looking at yourself enough. Mono vs. Poly, as I've been exploring in my thread, is not about one or the other being correct. It's not that your wife shouldn't want anyone else, and it's not that you should be ok with your wife pursuing relationships with others.

Within the mature mono relationship it's well-acknowledged that love is not an exclusive feeling that you feel only for some magical one true love who shows up one day and everything is perfect. I don't think for a second that that's how you're looking at this which is why I don't think your wife loving someone other than you is what necessarily bothers you. It seems that what bothers you is that you've taken every available option to enjoy there being multiple relationships, but it doesn't work for you.

To be totally honest, I agree with Tonberry again in that your desire to be with your wife is likely coloring your answer. It seems likely to me that based on what you're saying here (and said in my other thread), your personal choice lies towards monogamy. You've obviously thought it out. You've tried dating other people. You've tried being accepting of your partner dating someone else. It's not some immature feeling of jealousy that has made you unhappy with that. You've tried dealing with every emotional and intellectual avenue to make sure that this is not just you being immature about something, and you're still unhappy.

I think you're a very mature individual. I think the amount of effort you've put into exploring this thoroughly and checking out every avenue is wonderful, but I think now it's time to consider yourself. You're considering your wife and the fact that she loves and wants to be with her boyfriend. I think that if you really examine this and decide that what you want (regardless of anyone else) is what comes with a monogamous relationship then you're going to need to sit down with your wife to communicate that. You have to find out how she feels about monogamy and if she would be genuinely happy in a monogamous relationship. It seems that you might only be genuinely happy in a monogamous relationship so if your wife would be genuinely happy either way then maybe monogamy could work for both of you.

If your wife would only be genuinely happy in poly and you would only be genuinely happy in mono then it may be time to face the tough decision. If that were the case, would it really be worth it for either of you to sacrifice your personal happiness to allow the relationship to continue? Even if one of you could sacrifice what would make you happy for the other (which it seems you're already doing), will that really result in the most fulfilling relationship that either of you could be in?

So my advice is make the personal decision about whether you're mono, poly, or some variant thereof as well as what you want from a relationship. One of the smartest pieces of advice I've seen is that being poly is not a couple decision. It's an individual one. Each individual has to decide what they want from a relationship and then a couple can potentially go from there. What's most important here then is that you and your wife both evaluate individually what you want from a relationship and then decide how you want to proceed.
 
Ginko thinks she'd be happy being monogamous again once her relationship with J ends, however/whenever that comes about, though that could be years from now if we continue to adapt to the situation. She'd only tried being otherwise because she thought that was what I wanted, as addressed in another thread. Given all the effort she put into adapting to non-monogamy over 3+ years, I feel it's worth me trying to do the same a while longer. Ultimately we'll settle on whatever feels best for our relationship.

This past weekend Ginko had time with J while I worked and saw friends, while still making sure she and I had plenty of time with each other, and for once no one seemed to feel shortchanged. It restored my hope a bit, and I'm looking forward to seeing how we do next week as we continue trying new ways that may help her see J while losing little time with me.

I'm fine with her loving other people, it's mostly that I miss the focus we used be able to give each other, the freedom we had to do whatever we wanted outside of work without having to take anyone else into account, no one else feeling like they had a claim on her time due to any sort of commitment, and no one distracting her from what time she had with me, aside from friends that largely focus on both of us.
 
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What was the reason or reasons for opening up your marriage ?

Does it have the same value today ...or do the corresponding negatives have a greater value today.


Did the brainstorming work?....what did you come up with?
 
I was the one that initially proposed to my wife that we be non-monogamous, on our first date 4.5+ years ago. She initially wasn't interested, but was willing to try and find out what she'd be comfortable with. Over the next 3+ years she (Ginko on here) helped build a polyamorous network of friends, listened to Dan Savage and Polyamory Weekly podcasts, and read much of the materials I introduced her to, along with setting guidelines with me on what we were each comfortable with over time. She was excellent and very supportive, while I at times was impatient and not very good at showing my appreciation for all the effort she was putting into becoming ok with something that was not in line with what she'd grown up wanting. She loved the idea of monogamy, two people focused on each other and their family.

Confusion came up due in part to my lack of proper terminology. I mistakenly used polyamory as an umbrella term, while I'd just been asking for the ability to be more physically affectionate with friends as I had been when single in college, soft swinging, not even going to the point of sex, and she'd said she could potentially become ok with that but not the prospect of developing other romantic relationships. Then after a while a poly male friend, J, began pursuing her, and every step of the way Ginko and the friend were great in asking me what I was ok with. Given that we'd always just focused on what could be done physically, and Ginko had said romantic relationships would never be up for discussion, it didn't enter my mind that I was being asked if I'd be ok with them becoming romantic, while I was totally fine with them doing whatever they wanted physically as long as they were safe, which I knew they would be given their temperaments, so I simply said to do whatever she'd be ok with me doing. She begged for specific rules so that she could feel secure that she wasn't going too far but I didn't know what to say beyond that.

I was so happy that she was seeing that being physical with someone else didn't hurt her feelings with me. Then she informed me he'd asked her to be his girlfriend and she'd said yes. She thought I'd been supportive of them dating, while I thought she'd been clear that wasn't an option, so I had never really addressed it. Still, I was so happy with the rapid change in her feelings about what could be ok that I wanted to see if I could adapt, given that she'd put in so much effort to adapt for me. She'd always asked me what the benefit to what I wanted would be for her. In her experience the answer came in dating someone else, while for me if I'd known that'd be the necessary change, I'd have preferred to stay monogamous and limit affection with others to hugs. The transition from monogamy to our current status has probably been the center of ~95+% of our arguments, so if either us had known how it'd go we wouldn't have tried, but now that we're here it's more manageable, if not yet ideal.

For brainstorming, part of my problem has been that when J is around he kind of takes over Ginko's attention, at least in my perception, and he likes to drop in for a day or two at a time (often at a moment's notice) whenever he can, leaving me suddenly feeling like I've lost my weekend with her. He doesn't do planning well, but this past weekend we managed to make it work a bit better with me guiding when she saw him to some degree (I know that sounds controlling, but everyone actually seemed happy with the result), and this upcoming weekend we're going to try visiting him Friday night through Sunday mid afternoon, but often be in a separate room doing our own thing like when we're home, as he thinks he'd be happy simply to have her around even if they're not focusing on each other, as he works from home. They'll have Friday night through Saturday afternoon to themselves as I'll be working and then sleeping at home, then I'll join them and have a bit more time of my own with her, and she and I will sleep Saturday night in a spare bedroom. It's an experiment to see if we can feel more at home at his place, which would let us enjoy being there more often.
 
part of my problem has been that when J is around he kind of takes over Ginko's attention, at least in my perception, and he likes to drop in for a day or two at a time (often at a moment's notice) whenever he can, leaving me suddenly feeling like I've lost my weekend with her.

For a lot of people this WOULD be an issue. I understand some people can't do strict scheduling, but if his dropping by is an issue, then you should come to a more useful agreement with your wife. If you want to be spending the weekend with her (and have the attention/time to give her, and you're just not wanting her around while you're home) then you should be able to say "no, I don't want to entertain J, I want to spend the weekend with you. She should be graceful enough to say yes sometimes, and it's nice if you work to be graceful enough to flexibly say OK sometimes (which it sounds like you do).

I'm not spontaneous - I dislike planning things less than 2-3 days in advance, and I can get bothered if my husband wants to make plans for tomorrow. Doesn't matter if it's a date, a party, whatever. I don't know what you do need personally so you feel like your personal life isn't being disrupted, but perhaps just telling J that if he can't give X amount of notice, he can expect there's a chance you two aren't available for him to drop in on, would be sufficient.
 
When I have something specific planned, that is usually respected. Ginko and I are big planners, we typically have things planned out well in advance, and try to keep J informed via sharing our google calendars and telling him directly what we're up for, but as J says he's fundamentally NOT good at keeping to any sort of schedule.

As Ginko would say, J doesn't know if he's going to an event until 30 minutes after it has started (and he may not arrive until we're ready to leave). Likewise he may give the impression he's just briefly dropping by and end up staying much longer if I don't make it clear that I'm ok with the initial timeline indicated, but not beyond that. Things seem to improve as I get better at making my preferences clear, giving not just arrival but leave times. I'd be fine with J being so erratic with his schedule if it didn't impact mine, but as long as Ginko is seeing him I just have to continue asserting myself, while making allowances when I can, much more than I'm used to needing to do, as I'd usually phase anyone out of my life that is so erratic.

Aside from that is the simple issue that I don't feel I can get as close to a secondary as I can to my wife, so I get less out of seeing them, and if picking between time with someone I've just started dating vs Ginko, I usually pick the latter. As much as I can, I mix the two, which only works so long as my dates like being around my wife and vice versa.

I'm not sure I can offer a secondary the level of commitment that would merit them being very available to me, while if someone isn't regularly able to see me at least once or twice a week I don't know how to develop a fulfilling relationship with them. I'm very touch oriented and need that frequency of touch to feel close. I haven't absolutely given up on dating others quite yet. I have my second date with a guy tomorrow, and Ginko is joining me Thursday to go camping with my girlfriend Helena and one of her other metamours that I dated. A large part of why I'm still seeing Helena is that it takes nothing from my time with Ginko as they love being around each other. Our friendship is much older than the dating relationship, but Helena isn't really available enough for the dating part to mature.
 
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The weekend ended up not being as easy or cheerful as I'd hoped, but it was productive in getting the three of us talking more, and left me with more hope for things. The main issue for me is that of Ginko and I having enough time/focus for each other even when J is around. All of us are working on making it possible for J to be able to be at our place and us at his while we go about our day more freely, closer to how we would if he weren't there, with him occasionally joining us.

Right now I'm looking at how to feel more at home while at J's house, looking at what I can do in the area, what friends I can see more easily since they live closer, and so on, basically looking at how life can be more rewarding with a 2nd place to call home.

If the issue of time/focus could be settled, everything else seems manageable.
 
Would you also feel so short-changed if Ginko spent lots of time with a platonic friend and focused lots of attention on him or her? No judgments from me, but here are some questions to get you thinking... Do you feel a bit possessive over her attention, like you must always come first and a lover who needs her attention is usurping what is rightfully yours because you're married to her? If so, what if she were to join some group and make friends with people who didn't really include you in their activities? Would you tell her she cannot add any more friends to her life? Or is it the fact that he is a boyfriend/lover/sexual partner, and you feel he must be secondary and not be granted any more privileges than a secondary deserves? In other words, do you feel he takes liberties he shouldn't because he needs to be in a certain place lower than you, in all aspects of her life and attention? Does any of what I wrote ring true for you?
 
Nycindie: The word possessive doesn't have inherent meaning, and just because you can frame things to sound bad doesn't mean that they are.

Many monogamous people might feel short-changed if their partner lavished attention on a platonic friend. This is for the simple reason that the choice to be monogamous is most often based on the choice to be in a partnership where you use your available resources (time, energy, attention, etc) mostly with one person. If that's your definition of possessive, that's fine, but it's pretty convenient to define something that you don't involve yourself in using a word that has culturally negative connotations in all relationships. There's nothing inherently negative about that.

A lover who needs his wife's attention is interfering with a sharing of resources considered appropriate in monogamous relationships. It's not that they're over-utilizing your property. The sharing of available resources is something that should be laid out and found agreeable at the beginning of any relationship, which it unfortunately does not seem to have been here. For a partner to join a group of friends that doesn't include you again would depend on the partnership you BOTH desire, not childish feelings of desperation.

Furthermore a lover without question demands more energy and attention than a friend. They also demand "time sharing" in a way that would not be considered appropriate to a monogamous friendship (because of the way most monogamous relationships lay out sharing of resources). It has nothing to do with maintaining your court and throne.

Quite frankly, I find it disgusting that someone who might be monogamous drifts onto a polyamorous forum struggling with something their wife wants, and you chastise them. Anyone in his position is in no position to argue what I'm arguing. They'd be most likely to feel bad about themselves for being immature and unenlightened rather than understanding that perhaps this simply isn't a style of relationship they personally want. You're setting him up to go back to being miserable by setting him up to see that his needs (which may be intrinsic to a style of relationship he needs but is not in) are inferior to his wife's more mature needs.

I hope you would find it appropriate if a potentially polyamorous person struggling in a monogamous relationship was asked on a relationship forum, "Are you unwilling to commit? Do you fear being with one person? Are you afraid of devoting most of your time and energy to a partner you cherish?" That's tantamount to what you just did.

Turtleheart: Unfortunately the issue of time/focus is what is the central change between different styles of relationships. As I noted above, the available resources to give in a relationship are time, energy, attention, etc. Monogamous partners are those who decide that they individually want to give most of those resources to one person and want to receive the same amount in return.

If what you want is the level of time/focus present in a monogamous relationship then there is no way to resolve the time/focus issue. If there's some level of time/focus in the present polyamorous setup that would work for you then it can be resolved. Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, this is really a decision you need to make on your own. You deciding one thing is right for you doesn't mean it's what will end up being right for your wife or J.

You have to be willing to look at what's going to make you happy in a relationship while still respecting the views of others you may be involved with without adhering to them. You can only really figure that out for yourself as an individual, and time/focus is the central issue of that.
 
Many monogamous people might feel short-changed if their partner lavished attention on a platonic friend. This is for the simple reason that the choice to be monogamous is most often based on the choice to be in a partnership where you use your available resources (time, energy, attention, etc) mostly with one person. .

That would be my definition of an abusive relationship. Someone who expects me to reserve the lion's share of my time and resources to the exclusion of other friends and family is someone I would absolutely consider possessive and, at best, in need of therapy and space to deal with their dependency issues.

I have been happily monogamous, and could do so again with no problems. However, anyone worthy of my love understands that I am a whole person, not their "other half," and that I have a full life that they are privileged to be included in, as I would be grateful and privileged if they should choose to include me in theirs. All the "you should spend the majority of your time, energy, and love on me" crap is ownership dressed up as romance, which is all too common in our culture.


turtleHeart, I think it's great that you're stretching your comfort level, and working to figure out how to fit everyone's needs and wants as best as possible. I especially think looking at being more comfortable in J's home/neighborhood is a really positive step.

The lack of focus and lack of planning would bother me a lot. With work and my family, I have to be able to plan in advance and I don't like it when plans change, because I don't have the ability to be as flexible as I did when I was younger. Punk does this a lot, and I find it upsetting because it feels like he's disrespectful of my life and obligations. The attention thing, as well. He's frequently texting with his wife on our dates, and it really bothers me. If I've set aside time specifically to be with him, I want the fullness of his attention. It's ridiculously frustrating, and I sympathize with you in those ways.
 
RainyGrlJenny: Your post at best barely addresses mine. Of course someone who expects you to reserve the lion's share of your time and resources for them at the expense of anyone else you would want to spend time with is abusive, but that's not what I said. I said a monogamous relationship is two people mutually deciding that what they desire is to devote the majority of their resources to their relationship with each other. There's no reason they wouldn't consider themselves whole people or would need to be dependently searching for their "other half" to want to do that.

I'm glad you've been happily monogamous, but that does not mean I respect you as any kind of authority on the subject. I, again, agree that two people in a monogamous relationship would want to be apart of each other's "full" lives, however any relationship makes an impact on your time and resources. The choice of monogamy is to make a single relationship the large relationship portion of that full life in whatever way both people mutually see fit. The fact that you desire to divide more of your resources amongst other relationships than monogamous people do is not significant.

In the future I would appreciate it if you provided your definitions for the terms you use (abusive, lion's share, exclusion, possessive, dependency, whole person, other half, full life, ownership, and romance). Also, you don't bother to provide premises for your conclusions, and I'm left to seek out the myriad implicit premises you're using. You could also more clearly define your conclusions. Most of your two paragraph response was nothing more than emotional appeal and argument by authority using the authority as yourself. I'm glad you're self-confident and see certain things as "worthy" of you and other things as "crap," but all of that is meaningless in an intellectual discussion.
 
You have to be willing to look at what's going to make you happy in a relationship while still respecting the views of others you may be involved with without adhering to them. You can only really figure that out for yourself as an individual, and time/focus is the central issue of that.

Thank you, I agree. Right now I'm looking at new ways in which I can be happier with the current situation, or ways in which the current situation could be improved while Ginko and J remain together. She's noticed that when J is around she still treats him as a guest (despite having his own key and being around more than a guest), which demands more of her attention, while if he were more simply part of the household the hope is that he could be around without it meaning that so much of her attention would automatically go to him.

Discontent with the current situation is pushing us to see how we can improve things in a variety of ways. While the issue of time/focus may not be able to be fully returned to how it was when we were monogamous, improved communication and use of what time we have should at least help.

This weekend Ginko and I will be camping at a regional burning man festival for our anniversary, just the two of us and a couple thousand people ;-) It should be good quality time, but we won't be near a computer much to check things here from Friday until early next week.
 
Nycindie: The word possessive doesn't have inherent meaning, and just because you can frame things to sound bad doesn't mean that they are . . .
Who framed anything to "sound bad?" I certainly did not. Apparently, you viewed what I wrote as something bad. :confused:

Quite frankly, I find it disgusting that someone who might be monogamous drifts onto a polyamorous forum struggling with something their wife wants, and you chastise them.
CHASTISE???? What the fuck have you been smoking? I in no way chastised anyone. I asked questions to promote some thinking in different directions. Your opinion doesn't really mean anything to me, but you're way, way off in your crazy assumptions. As I stated:
No judgments from me, but here are some questions to get you thinking... Does any of what I wrote ring true for you?
There was no chastising going on. You misread and misinterpreted my words.

I hope you would find it appropriate if a potentially polyamorous person struggling in a monogamous relationship was asked on a relationship forum, "Are you unwilling to commit? Do you fear being with one person? Are you afraid of devoting most of your time and energy to a partner you cherish?" That's tantamount to what you just did.
Those all sound like valid questions and I would appreciate anyone pointing them out to me so I could ask myself the hard stuff and understand myself better. Don't know what your problem is, but wow.
 
I disagree that it's not framing the discussion. In my questions to the hypothetical polyamorous person, I'm deliberating looking to exacerbate an emotional response. Through the use of words like "devotion" and "cherish," I'm underhandedly implying that there would be a lack of devotion in polyamory. This uses a word which has an emotional connotation in our culture against someone who might be struggling with an idea. So rather than asking the realistic question of whether or not the person would want to spend most of their time with a single person rather than more than one, I've asked them if they fear devoting their time to a person they cherish (thus framing the question into an emotional negative).

I do think your questions chastise on an emotional level whether or not you intended them that way.

"Would you also feel so short-changed if Ginko spent lots of time with a platonic friend and focused lots of attention on him or her?"

The use of "feeling short-changed" implies ownership of a product, that he's not getting his money's worth. Reframing the relationship question in terms of a platonic friend also implies that the situations are similar without demonstrating that they are.

You then frame the entire issue in terms of possession without noting any sort of reality to what would constitute possessiveness versus what wouldn't. You go on to demonstrate how friends might not be inclusive, how he might claim ownership then as well, and how his problem could concern power status.

The problem is you don't really demonstrate any reality for these questions. Your questions and usage of terms are so vague and appeal so much to the emotional responses of a concerned partner that he could easily feel that he was doing those things and just hiding them from himself even if he wasn't.

By not demonstrating a practical reality for what would be a possessive polyamorous person versus a healthy monogamous person in the wrong kind of relationship, you end up showing him a series of emotional negatives that he could identify with without providing viable alternatives.

Additionally, my argument is that the usage of the emotional negatives (particularly with someone in a currently emotionally vulnerable state) do, in fact, frame the discussion. I think the issues and situation could be addressed via the reality of available choices itself without the usage of vague emotional terms (possession, ownership) and slippery slope arguments (framed as questions) utilizing them. That's why I refer to it as chastising. I think the usage (whether deliberate or not) of strong emotional questions with unstated implicit premises clouds the issue rather than helping it.
 
This is for the simple reason that the choice to be monogamous is most often based on the choice to be in a partnership where you use your available resources (time, energy, attention, etc) mostly with one person.

Monogamous partners are those who decide that they individually want to give most of those resources to one person and want to receive the same amount in return.

I find your definition of monogamy interesting and a bit misguided because that is not what most monogamous relationships, in my experience, are. In my experience, people do not decide individually that they want to give most of their resources to one person, nor do they discuss what monogamy means to them. Most people enter relationships with the cultural background of monogamy. They learn their role from how their parents, friends, and other family members do relationships. They assume that their partner understand what they mean when they want to form a relationship. When I met Runic Wolf, he was my night in shining armor, literally because he stood up to my abusive step father and wouldn't take anyone abusing me. I fell in lust and then love with him. I knew that I didn't want to lose him, ever and he didn't want to lose me either. Which meant that we should get married, because that was the logical conclusion to draw. . . if you love someone and you want to spend the rest of your life with them, you get married? Right? But did we talk about wanting to be devote almost all of our time to each other? No. We talked about having kids some day, sharing finances, our values, religion, gaming, and how much it sucked to not see each other when he was in basic training. We never said it would be exclusive, but we never said it wouldn't either, at least not before we got married. And to be honest, the large majority of the population doesn't talk about it either. They either don't know that their are other options or assume that their partner knows and shares their views.
 
Hi BrigidsDaughter,

I completely agree with you, though not that my definition of monogamy is misguided. I do, however, agree that most people in monogamous relationships have not decided that it's what they want or bothered to figure out exactly how a monogamous relationship would play out.

I think that polyamory has advanced the situation in demonstrating what a relationship is, but unfortunately much of it is still handled childishly by those who advocate it as the evolution of relationships.

Relationships in our culture are, for the most part, still handled like children. We look to the adults around us to figure out what to do and then copy their mannerisms. We become confused when the copying of the mannerisms does not result in the happiness demonstrated in fairy tales, advertisements, and select couples.

One of the major problems in my view is that relationships are still considered primarily from the view of emotions. Polyamory is often referred to as the ability to love more than one person, an ability which I think is not an ability at all but simply part of the human condition. Polyamory instead, I think, ought to be framed as the desire to have relationships with more than one person thus creating an entirely different understanding.

Of course, as you accurately noted in your example with Runic Wolf, most of monogamy is also still based on fairy tale ideals of love preyed on by our culture. This creates problems even for those who would choose monogamy. Couples end up in relationships and wonder why love doesn't do it all for them. They also become concerned if there are feelings and desires for others which I think it's impossible that there wouldn't be.

Monogamy thereby is the choice of two people to share a large amount of their resources with one another. This demands a great deal of effort, though hopefully effort that is mostly enjoyed. The point of a monogamous relationship is arguably the opportunity to fully explore another person which means active effort must be put in to do so.

A monogamous couple would have to actively endeavor to share new experiences, go new places, have new conversations, etc. The sheer volume of self-help books on reinvigorating relationships I believe is because of the idea that love carries a relationship. Couples put effort into dating and then sit back and wait for the rest of their relationship to happen. Of course this would result in the stagnation of anything, but the reliance on emotions in understanding relationships clouds the issue.

Additionally, implicit in monogamy is the understanding that you both will have feelings and desires for other people but are choosing to commit whatever amount of resources you choose to each other. Neither romantic feelings nor sexual desires for other people are in any way threats to monogamy.

Ideally I think young teenagers would be taught the entire range of relationship styles in completely practical terms. This would include the realities of the various kinds of relationships, how the day to day life lays out, what's demanded in each of them, and the realities of romantic and sexual emotional responses as well. Unfortunately we're still struggling with even allowing the teaching of sexuality so this would seem a long way off.
 
I agree that teenagers should be taught all the options, realities, and responsibilities as well. I learned early on that love wasn't enough, but was also taught that once you have children with someone, you've committed to staying with them through the children's entire childhood, in spite of abuse because it is better for your children to have both parents than only one, no matter how bad the relationship between the parents is. I personally never prescribed to that belief, but it is what was modeled for me.

Runic Wolf figured out that I was bi-sexual before I did and our initial talks about opening up our marriage were because he felt that I deserved the chance to be true to myself. (I love him for that.) For me, being polyamarous means that I have the ability and desire to love multiple people at the same time, but living polyamarously means that I have the desire to have multiple loving relationships. The same is true for Runic Wolf.

I will have to disagree with you on your statement that "implicit in monogamy is the understanding that you both will have feelings and desires for other people but are choosing to commit whatever amount of resources you choose to each other. Neither romantic feelings nor sexual desires for other people are in any way threats to monogamy." Not on the part about committment, but on the understanding that you will both have feelings and desires for other people. Most people are raised with the belief that when you find the "ONE" you will not have any feelings or desires for anyone else. So they are hurt when their partner expresses that they do have those biologically natural attractions. Some couples handle this better than others. But I would say that most monogamous people do feel that romantic and sexual desires for other people are a threat to monogamy and specifically to their relationship. Whether or not that is true, that is their perception.
 
Yes, the views on child-rearing are particularly unfortunate especially as we now understand that a child would benefit more from a non-abusive environment than from having both parents around.

I think the distinction you make in living polyamorously is crucial. I don't think everyone is the same, but I do think that the capacities for love of a polyamorous person are not so different from that of one who is monogamous. I think most people can, and often do, love multiple people. The real choice is how you actually want to live, and that's what the different styles of relationships represent (ways of living).

I should have clarified. I did not mean inherent in the perception of monogamy. I meant inherent in the reality of monogamy. I think it's impossible to have a monogamous relationship where there will not be feelings or desires for others thus it's inherent in the reality of monogamy regardless of the common perception (which I agree with you on).

The study of love and sexuality as humans experience it is fascinating of course, but it's a question best left for science. I think of crucial concern to the larger public is what choices we have the ability to make and what the results of those choices are. It's an arena with precious little literature or study. Books on polyamory with any degree of intellectual rigor are staggeringly rare, and books on the entire spectrum of relationship choices/lifestyles as a whole and the realities of them without an agenda are nearly, if not entirely, non-existent.

I have no proof, but based on my reading I would estimate that the vast majority of relationship counselors of any kind still advocate that there's only one correct type of relationship. Of course it's a different type or version for all of them. Being that these are the people most often looked to for guidance, we've got a long way to go.
 
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