Cheating vs. Polyamory: Merged Threads, General Discussion

If you get around your lack of honor by calling people who disagree with you being "clouded with visceral aversion," you'll get yours in the end.

I am glad you are seeing the error of your ways. You reap what you sow. Thinking with your dick, clouded with pedantry as a defense mechanism, seems to be the order of the day. Good luck. You'll need it.
 
I stick around here because I like the discussions, because I like many of the people and because I have a romantic notion that non-monogamy is a better way to go and I keep seeking evidence for that (so far without success).

IP, that was a terrific post and I'm really thrilled that you took the time to write it up.

This last bit is something I would encourage you to take a look at. There was a discussion not too long ago about a quote from Dan Savage where he was claiming that successful poly didn't exist. I believe the statement he made was that he'd never been invited to a 5 year poly anniversary.

The fact that the "poly" attempts on this board are soaked in drama doesn't suggest anything about successful poly one way or the other. I'm just suggesting that you take a look at what your criteria is for mono or poly being a "better way" as well as consider what you're using as your evidence.

If you can't balance the pros and cons of enabling cheating without a visceral clouding aversion, you would feel better if you did not take part in the discussion. There really is no need.

I agree. In my opinion the emotionalism needs to be relegated to the kids table so the grown ups can have a conversation without foot stomping and pouting :)
 
IP, that was a terrific post and I'm really thrilled that you took the time to write it up.

This last bit is something I would encourage you to take a look at. There was a discussion not too long ago about a quote from Dan Savage where he was claiming that successful poly didn't exist. I believe the statement he made was that he'd never been invited to a 5 year poly anniversary.

The fact that the "poly" attempts on this board are soaked in drama doesn't suggest anything about successful poly one way or the other. I'm just suggesting that you take a look at what your criteria is for mono or poly being a "better way" as well as consider what you're using as your evidence.

I also love IP's post and want to take some time to answer it in greater length, but what I'd like to point out in my case is that, whatever drama or reconsideration I might go through with enabling or not enabling cheating on others, my 3-year-long main open partnership is going strong, we love each other more than ever, and I wouldn't have it any other way. My partner doesn't like it that I have been enabling cheating, but he knows I am always sincere with him & I try to do my best in any situation (which includes trying to understand if I've been doing something wrong). When we reach the 5 year mark as a couple, I'll make sure to send an invitation to sir Dan Savage. I don't know if that's proof for him that poly relationships work, but it's a sign to me that open relationships work.
 
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When we reach the 5 year mark as a couple, I'll make sure to send an invitation to sir Dan Savage. I don't know if that's proof for him that poly relationships work, but it's a sign to me that open relationships work.

I don't think longevity is proof of much of anything, at least not in a general sense. That's part of what is broken about his [Savage] odd comment, using longevity as a primary metric of success really says a lot about how he views relating romantically.
 
If a person is willing to commit an infidelity with me, and it follows that if they were willing with me they'd be willing with someone else, then it follows that infidelity would be likely to happen whatever course of action I take.
The problem with this assumption, is that it isn't necessarily true.
I was willing to cheat on Maca with GG. I was not willing to cheat on him with anyone else-ever.
Now-I'm not willing to cheat myself, thus I don't cheat on either of them-ever.

The thing is-that there are people who will cheat for one person, who wouldn't cheat "to cheat".
There are also people who cheat to cheat.

But assuming it is one or the other is still-well an ASSumption.
 
I don't think longevity is proof of much of anything, at least not in a general sense. That's part of what is broken about his [Savage] odd comment, using longevity as a primary metric of success really says a lot about how he views relating romantically.

What would be proof of (or a primary metric to use to determine) success in a polyamorous relationship, Marcus? From your perspective, of course.
 
What would be proof of (or a primary metric to use to determine) success in a polyamorous relationship, Marcus? From your perspective, of course.

Measuring the value of a relationship (romantic or otherwise) for me would be a function of happiness vs sacrifice. So, a romantic association in which people are able to share who they are with each other is fantastic, while an association where anyone involved needs to sacrifice who they are to be "happy" declines in value relative to how much they need to give up.
 
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What would be proof of (or a primary metric to use to determine) success in a polyamorous relationship, Marcus? From your perspective, of course.

I am not Marcus, but I'll chime in.

There are many long-term relationships out there that have lasted 30, 40 years or more - yet the people in those relationships hate each other, torment each other, are always fighting, or are just plain lost, depressed, or seething with rage at their partners. Certainly, in those cases, it is obvious that longevity means jack shit.

Some of my best, most successful relationships were very short-lived.

Here is how I assess whether a relationship is satisfying and successful or not (and this applies to mono or poly relationships, since I don't see much difference between the two): I ask myself, do I feel respected and valued in this relationship? Do I feel acknowledged and heard when I express myself? Am I able to do relax, trust, and be myself with this person? And finally, are we having fun? Is this person someone I am excited to be with and look forward to seeing, or is he a lot of work that just drags me down and has me thinking "relationships are so-o-ooo hard?"

That all being said, I find the concept of "proving" my success in a relationship to anyone quite bizarre. Why would I give two shits what people think about my love life?
 
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That all being said, I find the concept of "proving" my success in a relationship to anyone quite bizarre. Why would I give two shits what people think about my love life?

Well Dan Savage is somewhat influential. I actually don't know much about him, I don't even live in his same country, but I've heard stuff he's done before. It's in my best interest that he speaks positively about poly relationships in his love advice column, or in whatever he's doing these days. Writing short e-mails to some personality doesn't take much effort at all, if you have something to say or ask.
 
FWIW, I know of several poly units that have been together for more than five years -- and seem to enjoy being together to boot.
 
Behavioural scientists might say that the reason people cheat (or at least start cheating) on their partners is because the minds of animals (including humans) find it hard to do anything other than deal with the situation in hand. For negative consequences to effect behaviour, they need to happen immediately and they need to happen every time the problem behaviour happens.

I love your post, and I find it funny that you would start by considering human behaviour from the perspective of behaviourism, but it totally fits your background as a dog trainer.

I also love dog training. I've studied some dog training techniques in the past to make sure that when I do have a dog, I'm the best dog owner I can be. I have a book by Cesar Millan, and that's probably the one you frown upon, but I'm not all into him, I just consider different points of view. I've been recommended The Dominance Controversy by Dr. Sophia Yin. I find the concept of learned helplessness something very worth looking into (as something I'd like to avoid). I suspect it's related to Cesar Millan's method. I'd like to find a way that is somehow in touch with positive psychology principles, if that makes sense at all.

Anyway.

So - my stance has been that for all the drawbacks, monogamy seems like the better option for having a life with less drama in it if I want to be in relationships. The best life for being free and having little drama for me is to be single but sometimes I do want to be in relationships and having found so little evidence of non-monogamy working well in practice, I've decided that monogamy is the way to go.

For me open relationship are clearly the better way to go because, quite simply, they are the only way to go. The only way for me to reach happiness. Monogamous relationships I feel are full of hoops and obstacles I'd have to overcome, in the end for what, to not be who I really want to be. They feel inconsequential beyond belief. This is how I see it:

I not only love sex & love, but also chess, biking, reading, watching movies, etc. etc. etc. So what if a really close person with whom I practice any of these things often, suddenly tells me they want me to do that only with them, and feels jealous if I do it with someone else. My reaction would be "Are you out of your fucking mind? What's wrong with you?" It's sadistic.


I wanted to bring attention to the case of mistresses. I've read articles that talk about non-married women, 'mistresses', who carry out a lifestyle that includes having one or several adulterers in a romantic relationship with them, at different times of the day, and even throughout the years. They use this as a form of satisfying their desires and emotional needs, and some even make a living out of it, which I think is quite impressive in itself. It's not a lifestyle I'd choose, but it's there, and I wanted to know how you feel about it, as it applies adultery as a systematic way to make oneself happy.


I've tried to understand how I would feel if my long-time primary partner were to have extramarital sex and/or a love relationship with one of these mistresses, and I think I'd feel okay. I would think it's weird he'd do that, but I wouldn't tell him not to. I wouldn't feel hurt.

So I think it's really hard for me to empathize with a partner who's been emotionally broken by his significant other having cheated. I can't immediately think of an analogous situation that would make me internalize their misery.
 
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FWIW, I know of several poly units that have been together for more than five years -- and seem to enjoy being together to boot.

I agree with those that say that longevity might not be the best metric for gauging the "success" of a relationship...BUT, for me, it doesn't seem worth the effort to pursue anything more that FB-type relationships with someone that doesn't at least have the potential to be "co-primary" at this point in my life.

Yet, I might email Dan Savage when we (Dude and I) hit our 5-year mark (1.75 years from now)...it would please me to make him retract that statement.
 
Being tolerant and accepting of monogamists doesn't equal having respect for monogamy. I, too, don't have any respect for that concept, because it goes against basic values I live by. That doesn't mean I run around insulting/disparaging etc. mono folks, it just means I'll be very much open about the fact that they are utterly unacceptable as partners to me. They can (and should be allowed to without interference by me or anyone else) of course live this way if that's how it suits them best and makes them happy, but I will insist they leave me the hell out of it.


As for the specific matter at hand... I don't think you owe the partner of the cheater anything, so that bit can be safely disregarded. The duty of keeping the promise and not hurting the other partner lies with the cheater, not with the one they cheat with.

What is not as easily disregarded, however, is the risk involved. How high is the risk you will end up lying to the other partner? (i.e., do you know them personally, especially as a friend? I'd personally rate that as a huge no-go - any lies you end up telling yourself will ethically discredit the arrangement.) Do both you and the cheater have a realistic idea of the potential drama this can cause? Are you ready to live with that risk, and humbly accept the damage it can cause you (i.e., prepared to not hit back if the cheatee chooses to beat you up, and treat their blows with acceptance, forgiveness, apology, and a promise not to turn them into the cops over a few bruises and a broken bone? Big go for it, IMO, if that's the case, but I doubt many people have it in them to swallow their pride that much.)

From a simple risk/gain point of view, I don't think there are many scenarios where I could ever see myself going along with it. I'd likely insist that the other partner should be informed about it right from the beginning, if for nothing else than the plain and simple sake of sheer convenience (risk minimization, ease of time scheduling, etc.).
 
Re (from mischa):
"I wanted to know how you feel about [the case of mistresses], as it applies adultery as a systematic way to make oneself happy."

To the larger question of, "Can systematic adultery make one happy?" I would say yes it can, as long as one's conscience isn't bothered by the compromised honesty, and as long as one doesn't get caught. Otherwise, a certain amount of happiness will be lost, though perhaps not so much as to make it not worth it anymore.
 
Interesting

I'm not sure where I stand when my partner dates someone who is married (and cheating).

My partner's opinion is "love is messy" which I agree with - we never can tell who we will fall for. She said she's unwilling to meet a married (and cheating) person for just sex, but is willing to if she has an emotional attachment to him.

I've been cheated on (in a monogamous marriage) and have certainly been tempted to cheat with someone else involved in a monogamous relationship. I've never cheated or helped someone cheat on their partner (that I know of). I always stop myself and think it's just not worth it. I even really fell for a woman who was married a few years ago, but nothing came of it because she was married and I just didn't want to get involved or damage that relationship. I hope I'd react similarly today, but I don't know. Generally, I simply steer clear of those in monogamous relationships or are just looking to cheat. I just don't need the headache.

But then my partner starts seeing a married guy. She really likes him, but her MO is to get attached for a few weeks or a couple months and then trail off and I assume the same will happen with the married guy she's seeing. Another guy she'd seen for roughly a year recently called her out on this new dalliance and said it wasn't cool and he was through with her because of it. It really made me think, should I draw a similar line in the sand? Or would I just be reacting to her seeing someone new (as I do sometimes).

I've not said anything, yet, other than were the situation reversed, I hope I'd make the right decision. It should be noted, the married guy said his wife has cheated on him twice. I'm not sure if this makes it any better or not - I was cheated on and I didn't seek a revenge cheat.
 
Revenge cheating does happen, although I'm inclined to think the "revenge" part is more of a rationalization than it is a main cause. Sometimes a main cause, though, is an emotional gulf between the two spouses in a marriage, or a lack of intimacy between them.
 
I'm just suggesting that you take a look at what your criteria is for mono or poly being a "better way" as well as consider what you're using as your evidence.

I've been on holiday with my family and have been watching relationships and thinking about this while I've been away.

I think that my criteria for a "better way" in relationships centre around most pleasure and least drama for everybody impacted. Mostly for me - I tend to put my own wants first in my life. Also, to varying degrees, I want to be having a peaceful, happy time in all of my relationships and that wouldn't be likely to happen so much if, for example, I announced that I'd fallen for a mass murderer living death row and was spending all my spare time and money on campaigning for his release.

To me, romantic relationships (by which I mean those where there is an intertwining with my life and that of the other person and we are engaging in sex together) seem to be a source of difficulty as well as pleasure and to entail a higher level of drama than other relationships.

So - to me - logic would suggest that keeping those sorts of relationship to a minimum is a way of maximising the pleasure got from that way of relating while minimising the pain and drama. It seems logical to me that multiplying romantic relationships is likely to mutliply the pain and drama as well as the pleasure and that it is therefore likely that pain and drama become more prevalent than pleasure. That is what I see when I read these boards and what I hear when I talk to my previously poly friends about their experiences - so I hear my suspicion confirmed regularly. Crucially too I see little evidence to the contrary. There is some but it seems to me that the probability is that multiple romantic relationships will result in more pain and drama than pleasure.

(I should say that I very much agree that FWB type relationships can be excellent. Lots of fun and little drama. I could very easily imagine having several of those if my circumstances were different).

I fully appreciate that this perspective is very personal to me, very dependent on my current experiences and that it could very easily change if I were to have different experiences.

The thing is that I can't step out of those experiences or deny my own thought patterns. None of us can. The idea of the person who approaches life from a position of rationality and is unswayed by anything other than facts is a myth. We are all profoundly influenced by what we experience and by the living circumstances we are in. This has been studied from many angles in lots of different fields. Phillip Zimbardo's was studying psychology and his prison experiment shows with frightening clarity just how easily people are influenced by their environment. He cites many other examples in his book The Lucifer Effect

Ben Goldacre writes about medical research. In his book Bad Science he talks about how medical studies have to double blind because if they aren't, researchers will without meaning to influence the results of the study. He also talks about how results have to be analysed using statistics because the human mind's need to look for patterns has a strong tendency to misinterpret results. There is much in his book about the need for research to be set up so that it - as far as possible - removes the human influence because we cannot stop ourselves from allowing our own biases and preferences to impact on what we do.

Bruce Lipton is a cell biologist who also writes strongly about the influence on the environment on how people perceive and behave in the world. His book Biology of Belief has many examples from a biological perspective.

Everything that the philosopher Noam Chomsky writes and says about the manufacturing of consent by the media and government is along these lines too.

For me, the evidence that I cannot pretend to make rational decisions about an objective reality is impossible to ignore.

The conclusions I've drawn about romantic relationships are heavily influence by what I see and hear around me as well as by my upbringing and my past experiences. My conclusions may or may not change in time.

I'm comfortable with that. It means that somebody who wants an open relationship is not going to be able to have one with me. That's perfectly okay. Most people in the world don't want to have a romantic relationship with me. I can deal with it. Similarly, it's not a massive loss to anybody who can't be in a romantic relationship with me. I'm really pretty ordinary, nothing amazing about me that couldn't be found with somebody else.

I've made no promises to my partner about always being the same and have asked him for no promises about always being the same. If we find in time that our life paths have diverged sufficiently that we must revert to being friends, that is okay. We'd both be very sad about it but it's far from the worst thing that could happen. Equally if we find that we change in the same direction and that results in a change to how we approach our romantic relationship, that would be fine too.

I'm in a comfortable position for me right now and while I'm open to change in my attitude toward romance, I don't seek it.

IP
 
I also love dog training. I've studied some dog training techniques in the past to make sure that when I do have a dog, I'm the best dog owner I can be. I have a book by Cesar Millan, and that's probably the one you frown upon, but I'm not all into him, I just consider different points of view. I've been recommended The Dominance Controversy by Dr. Sophia Yin. I find the concept of learned helplessness something very worth looking into (as something I'd like to avoid). I suspect it's related to Cesar Millan's method. I'd like to find a way that is somehow in touch with positive psychology principles, if that makes sense at all.

That is excellent. It would be good if everybody who has a dog took such care before getting one.

Cesar Millan is, IMO, an idiot about dogs. He is, however, incredibly charismatic and very good with the media and at manipulating people. I understand why people think he is good. He's not. What he does to dogs very often constitutes abuse and much of it would be illegal in the UK. Quite often his treatment of people I think verges on abuse.

Sophia Yin is very good.

If you can get anything by Sarah Fisher in the US, she is excellent.

Ken Ramirez is fantastic about training animals in general. Fascinating guy to listen to and he explains his point of view very well.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by positive psychology? If you mean that you have an interest in finding ways of seeking happiness for dogs, I think you may find the philosophy behind clicker training of interest. While it began as something that B.F. Skinner looked at as a quite mechanical way of getting animals to do what he wanted, it has evolved in dog training circles.

Many clicker trainers now work hard when training their dogs to look for everything that the dog does well and making sure that they find a way to make those things a source of happiness for their dog. Much thought and care goes into setting up the dog's living environment so that they can be successful and into building strong, positive relationships between the dog and the person.

It works beautifully and that method has been used to train dogs to do a variety of complex and interesting tasks. Some researchers in New Zealand took a dog called Monty who had been abandoned because he was said to be unruly and untrainable and taught him how to drive a car. I saw loads of great footage of it last year. :D



Back to open relationships. Isn't it fascinating that this
For me open relationship are clearly the better way to go because, quite simply, they are the only way to go. The only way for me to reach happiness.
is true for you and yet I have reached almost the polar opposite conclusion.

This is the thing, it can be utterly true for you that open relationships are the only way to go while being utterly true for me that monogamous relationships are the only way to go. And also utterly true that one or both of us may totally reverse our position at some point in the future.

I suspect we have very different experiences and backgrounds. We don't operate in exactly the same world as each other. I'm thinking that you are male and I'm female. Men and women are socialised totally differently and that must have an impact. I'd guess too that we are different ages. I'm 41. How old are you? I think you are in the US? I grew up in Scotland. Our cultures are similar but not exactly the same.

These things can shift people's world views sufficiently that very different conclusions can be drawn about the same world.

This stuff fascinates me so much. :D
 
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