Why do most people assume that all nonmonogamous relationships are destined to fail? Because we only hear about the ones that do. If a three-way or an affair was a factor in a divorce or breakup, we hear all about it. But we rarely hear from happy couples who aren’t monogamous, because they don’t want to be perceived as dangerous sex maniacs who are destined to divorce.
This state of affairs—couples who experimented with nonmonogamy and wound up divorced won’t shut up; couples who experimented with nonmonogamy and are still together won’t speak up—allows smug and insecure monogamists to run around insisting that there’s no such thing as happy, stable monogamish couples.
“You know lots of couples who have had three-ways and flings who aren’t divorced,” I told the skeptics a few weeks ago, “you just don’t know you know them.” In an effort to introduce the skeptics to some happily monogamish couples, I invited coupled people who’d had successful flings, affairs, three-ways, and swinging experiences to write in and share their stories. The response was overwhelming—I may do a book—and I’m turning over the rest of this week’s column to their stories.
My husband and I have issues like any couple, but I still smile when I see him walk into a room, and he still takes my hand when we’re walking down the street. For the past seven years, we have been “monogamish.” It started off with a discussion of “If you ever cheat on me and it’s a one-time thing, I wouldn’t want to know.” Then, when he turned 40, we had a threesome with a female friend. When I actually saw him “in the moment,” I didn’t have the jealous feelings I had always feared. There is no question that our relationship is our first priority, but just the possibility of a little strange now and then makes him feel like a stud. (And I reap the benefits!) I don’t much care for sex without emotion and affection, so my flings have been rather limited. We haven’t told our families or more than a couple of friends. I don’t want to deal with the judgment of others.
For the first five years of my marriage, everything was great: lots of sex, both GGG, lots of love. Then my wife’s libido failed. Whatever the problem was, she couldn’t articulate it. After a year where we’d had sex twice, I reached out to someone else. I used Craigslist and I was honest: I explained that I had no intention of leaving my wife and that I was looking for someone in a situation similar to mine. It took months to find the right person. We struck up a years-long affair. At the same time, I had a wonderful-yet-sexless marriage. Then, after nearly four years, a strange thing happened: My wife’s libido came back strong. To this day, she cannot explain why it left or why it came back. With the reason for my affair gone, I ended things with my fuck buddy. And you know what? Years of honest talk made this easy. She understood; we went our separate ways.
So I had a four-year affair without getting caught. Here’s how I pulled it off: I never told anyone about it ever, I chose a partner who wanted exactly what I wanted, we didn’t film ourselves (as hot as that sounded), we used condoms, I kept my computer clear of any evidence, and we never called or texted each other.
My husband and I are monogamish but also LMGs—legally married gays. We feel tremendous pressure to be perfect. The thing is, we are perfect. We love each other, we support each other, and we have amazing sex with each other—and the occasional cameo performer, who is always treated with respect. (We have a rule about not inviting someone into our bedroom who we wouldn’t be friends with outside the bedroom.) That said, the fact that Ron and Nancy down the street are swingers will raise eyebrows, but it won’t impact the perceived legitimacy of mixed-gender marriage. But if Ed and Ted happen to invite a third into their bedroom, that would prove the gays are destroying marriage/the country/the fabric of the universe. Even other gays get judgmental. So, at least for now, our monogamishness is on a strictly need-to-know basis. And who needs to know? Just our sex-positive doctor and the occasional hot third who gets a golden ticket into our bedroom.
I agree with you that we rarely hear about successful marriages that are open. How do I know? I just discovered that my parents are swingers—and they have been married for 26 years!
My husband, almost exactly 10 years older than me, confessed a cuckold fetish to me shortly before our fifth anniversary. I said no, but a seed was planted: Whenever I would develop a crush on another man, it would occur to me that I could sleep with him if I wanted to. Five years later, my boyfriend of two years, who happens to be exactly 10 years younger than me, was one of the guests at our 10-year anniversary party. My boyfriend is a good-looking grad student who adores me and values my husband’s advice about his education and career plans. He treats my husband with the perfect blend of affection and contempt. (“Gratitude and attitude,” my boyfriend calls it.) I enjoy my boyfriend, but I love my husband more than ever. My husband is not allowed to have sex with other women (he doesn’t want to, anyway), and he’s not allowed to have sex with me without my boyfriend’s permission (which he usually—though not always—gets). Our families would be appalled. We simply don’t live in a part of the country, or move in social circles, where we could be honest about any of this with anyone.
From the outside, my husband and I look like a boring vanilla married couple. In fact, people have included me in judgmental conversations about open relationships. But the truth is, for nearly as long as we’ve been together (three-plus years), we’ve had a semiopen relationship. My husband is bi. When he told me after a few months of dating, years of Savage Love reading helped me to keep an open mind. Long story short: We worked out rules that were mutually agreeable. Now he can hook up safely with guys and come home to a loving wife with whom he can be completely honest.
I’m a happily married woman… and so is my girlfriend. Maybe it’s cowardly of us, but no matter how simple our relationship seems to us, the people we care about would not understand. Yes, we do this with our husbands’ blessing. (We even double-date from time to time!) No, there’s nothing lacking in our marriages. Our parents, relatives, children, friends, and coworkers know we’re close. But I don’t see the need to tell anyone the entire truth. I was on the fence about sending this e-mail—that’s how little fuss we make about it. Then I thought, if I do send it, and if enough people send their stories, maybe one day we can go public and it won’t be a big fucking deal. That’d be awesome.
Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.
mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter
@ankylosaur, thanks for sharing your lying-about-Latvian story. I take your point, I think, and perhaps this smoking episode will help me process my honesty fetish 🙂
echizen_kurage@302, thanks for the info re smoking addictions being able to lie dormant for years, and also for the Gardisil info. Is there a good site for up-to-date research on what Gardisil can and can’t do?
wendykh@307, I have seen similar attitudes as far as women & monogamy, but I would nuance the argument to say that (many) men would like some recreational fucking alongside a primary relationship, while (many) women would like some sexual play alongside their primary relationship. Where ‘sexual play’ can be light kink; make-out sessions after clubbing; or cuddle piles; but (usually) not fucking unless they are considering changing mates or their man has a cuckold-sort of fetish and has pushed them out there.
also, to add to the conversation between kase and mydriasis, I think that a lot of people are “fine” with monogamy for 10 or 15 years (is it coincidence that that’s about how long it takes to raise a child?) — but they may stray after that point. Currently in the US, that usually takes the form of serial monogamy; in other times & places, a man would take on a new wife while keeping the first wife.
@307, how is the time factor you’re talking about any worse to deal with than in any family with sufficiently many members (say, children) to each claim time and attention from the adults involved? I grew up in a family with four children (two sisters, two brothers, I was second), and we competed for attention all the time; yet problems can be solved.
I do understand you don’t like D/s or poly relationships anymore. I hope you don’t mind that others still do.
kase@312 Whew — I said “(many) men / women,” not “most.” Does that get me off the hook for over-generalizations? 🙂 Also, would you agree with the generalization that many people imagine they’d enjoy sexual freedom more if they had it while their partner didn’t?
uh, kase@310
EricaP@307, you’re welcome. Basically my wife and I have come to a DADT-agreement on this issue: I pretend that I’m not studying Latvian (all links to Latvian websites are on my laptop, not on the communal desktop), and she pretends she doesn’t know. I also refrain from wanting to improve her attitude towards Baltic people, either openly or passive-aggressively, and give her space to think about them as she sees fit. Because it is, after all, a minor issue that doesn’t really affect how we feel about each other, I think it’s a reasonable solution.
@310(kase), I wholeheartedly agree that it’s not a good idea to generalize on one’s experience; and I also don’t want to make big strong claims. I do tentatively suggest, though, that women who want or are comfortable with nonmonogamy (for whatever reason) do seem less frequent than men. And that men who want nonmonogamy for themselves, but not for their mates, are not so hard to come by (you yourself mentioned them). Whether this is nature or nurture or a combination, I don’t know (I suspect a combination), and indeed I don’t have the stats to back this up (does anyone?).
However, it is certainly true that we still have to deal with each other as individuals, and if certain kinds of people — of men, or of women — are more or less frequent, what difference does this make when the people in our lives are who they are, regardless of how frequent their particular type is in the general population?
(I do agree with EricaP, by the way, that the appeal of monogamy tends to fade away with time. Again, not for everybody, maybe even not for most; but I’ve seen more people who started out monogamous slowly feel attracted by non-monogamy after the first decade or so than the other way round. Again only personal experience, not in principle generalizable, I hasten to add.)
@ 271, mydriasis: I too love Dr. Seuss! ‘Green Eggs & Ham’ and ‘The Grinch That Stole Christmas’ are two of THE Coolest books ever! My dig is more about reading more into a book than there actually may be 🙂 . That was a cute quip, mydriasis. Thanks for the 🙂 . Cheers.
@ All of You: This thread is one awesome read as a scrolldown 🙂 . Thanks for a quiet respite from annoying phone duty at my job! Many thanks! :-)+~+
I think the fear that acceptance of non-monogamy will cause nearly all men to seek open relationships is overblown. Yes, most men have non-monogamous tendencies (as do most women) but they also have a tendency to very much want their primary partner to be monogamous. And I don’t buy for a minute that this tendency is stronger in women. Men have been known to kill other men because of a cheating woman, and I don’t think it’s entirely because she wasn’t honest about wanting to do another dude.
If society did a better job of promoting honesty/integrity, we may end up with a situation in which a large number of husbands are willing to actually (for real, not pretend!) practice monogamy in exchange for monogamy from their wives. Or maybe these couples will eventually decide to be slightly monogamish by allowing for a handful of one-night stands or a brief affair over the course of a lifelong marriage. But that’s a far cry from an open relationship or swinging.
There are monogamous-attempting couples in which one partner cheats but then the couple decides to work things out, the cheater reforms (yes it does happen!) and they return to being monogamous. Wouldn’t it be slightly better if a monogamish couple permitted an occasional lapse in the context of the relationship being mostly monogamous? See to me this seems much closer to monogamy than it does an open relationship or swinging. I don’t think it would be quite fair to classify it as non-monogamy because non-monogamy sounds like you’re not even trying.
@203, It’s definitely something to consider when you’re opening a relationship. That’s why a lot of people prefer having poly or FWB situations as opposed to just being able to have the occasional one night stand.
Even with that, things can happen. Things like herpes and HPV can lay dormant for months or years before popping up. I know this because my bf found out that he got genital warts (a type of HPV) from an ex, and we closed our relationship before they started popping up. (Yes, I understand that I can’t be 100% sure that he’s monogamous too, but as I’ve done open relationships before, that’s less important to me).
Luckily, I was one of the people that got the HPV vaccine. I looked up some info on it and while the vaccine only covers 4 strains, 2 of those strains are responsible for 70% of the cases of cervical cancer. The other 2 are responsible for 90% of cases of genital warts. While its possible that he’s got part of the 10%, I decided it’s better not to worry about that. I have no intentions of leaving any time soon. We’d been together long enough that he would have had ample time to give it to me if he was going to, and the likelihood is, he’s got the type I can’t get.
Basically, you have to weigh the risk/reward ratio. Is it worth the small risk that you could get something when you’re being as safe as possible to have the fun that goes along with it?
Someone hit the nail on the head, a big part of the reason why people can’t come out as mongamish or poly and happy is because mongamous people will feel threatened by it. The argument is often:” nobody who *insert “good catch criteria here* would be willing to engage in nonmonogamy! If you love me you’ll be monogmaous! You can only be in love with one person at a time!” Without the participation of the masses in monogamy, the dating pool dries up for those who wish to be monogamous. Truth is, with so many men and women cheating already, the truly monogamous are rare anyway!
@313: “Also, would you agree with the generalization that many people imagine they’d enjoy sexual freedom more if they had it while their partner didn’t?”
Now that is a complicated question. I can’t imagine myself saying that I would enjoy my sexual freedom more, knowing that my partner was, by comparison, caged. That feels very hypocritical and unfair to me.
On the other hand, I can easily imagine a number of things that pragmatically amount to almost but not quite the same thing. I can imagine enjoying the feeling that my partner is so bonded to me and so satisfied with me that I am all that she wants, while also enjoying the attentions of others who find me just as attractive as she does. I can also imagine feeling threatened by my wife’s wanting to sleep with other people, even while feeling that my wanting to sleep with other people doesn’t constitute a threat to the relationship.
But no, I don’t imagine I would feel right simply setting up the rules of the relationship to be that I get to sleep around and she doesn’t. That situation would not enhance nonmonogamy for me.
Diagoras @ 318, a person’s sexuality should just happen, it shouldn’t be something you struggle with. A homosexual person doesn’t have to “resist” people of the opposite sex, an asexual person doesn’t have to “resist” a sexual relationship, a monogamous person shouldn’t be tempted to stray because by definition of mongamy they only have a desire to be with that one person. Once that is no longer true (which for many many many people that becomes the case) describing yourself as monogamous is no longer accurate. It isn’t what you do, it’s what you desire to do that defines your sexuality.
avast2006 @ 321
The scenario where one person has sexual freedom while the other is restrained by an allegiance to monogamy is the common setup of a monogamous person being cheated on.
I actually think that most people would find this kind of relationship to be ideal *if* they were the one exercising the sexual freedom.
@322, By your definition of monogamous (not even tempted to stray), there are almost no monogamous people. Many people who are tempted to “stray” hold back because of fears about disease, or drama, or not wanting to hurt someone, or their own insecurity. If they never stray, I call them monogamous, even if they lust after other people in their hearts.
@324 EricaP
Why do you say they’re so rare?
EricaP@313 It most certainly does! I realize I am arguing semantics, and perhaps that’s petty, but it’s a pet peeve of mine. Your wording was very careful with “(many) men / women,” and I thought that was great. I don’t have a problem with “many people/men/women” because “many” is a subjective term, dependent on the person’s own experience. “Most” seems to presume a level of knowing about everyone everywhere… but I also might be crazy… the latter is likely true.
I do agree that many people find the idea of sexual freedom attractive if it only applies to them and not their partner. But whether it’s most people… I couldn’t begin to presume 🙂 In any case, I think the idea and the reality are two very different animals, and while some people may find that idea appealing, they may not actually like it in practice anyway.
ankylosaur@315 makes a very good point. The frequency of these types of attitudes or people in the population at large are far less relevant than those in each of our respective lives. The problem I have with “most” generalizations… in general… (ha!) is that they can lead to false assumptions. It’s all well and good for me to make a generalization based on the small subset of people I interact with in the world. It becomes a problem when I then assume that other people follow this model elsewhere, when I don’t have the data to back up a comparison of the two populations. Hmm… maybe I’ve been doing statistics too much lately.
@322 I’m not sure that it’s as clear cut as you put it. Sexuality has a lot of gray area. Both desires and actions can have an affect on how people define themselves. Over time, I have come to believe that labels should only be self-applied. What I call bisexuality, to take an example of a term which has been frequently disputed, is not what many other people call bisexuality. Whose definition of the word should we use, when there is no consensus in society at large?
@ 280, Xremote: Absolutely! ;-D Feel free to check out @ 263, @ 267 as well as @ 270 for some shits and giggles! ;-D It is beyond funny that they advertise on here. Cheers. 🙂
@325, maybe it’s my stunted imagination. I believe anyone with a working libido would occasionally, over the course of a long term relationship, be sexually aroused by the sight of an attractive person other than their partner.
Or maybe it’s the difference between “aroused” and “tempted”? Does “tempted” imply that you get so far as to think about logistics? I just meant that sex with that person sounds appealing.
@ 322, Azalea Rose: I’m with you about all of that. What’s true about someone is what’s true about them: what someone craves most of all in a sexual and/or romantic capacity.
I think I gather what you mean: everyone has a will, a freewill. The heart of it all is what you desire most within the most intimate parts of yourself that only you are privy to.
Some people can face their own truths bravely enough, and some struggle still. It’s never that cut and dried, although deciding and following through on living as you truly wish and desire is *most* important.
Everyone finds themselves, and their own truths, on their own timetables.
I applaud anyone who is, has, or once eeked out the bravery and candor to just tell the truth, keep it simple and then move on.
Carrying yourself with your own integrity, really.
Hope that helps!
@307 wendyhk – your description of men as “light poly” is so dead on its scary. I ran your description by the 6 guys I had lunch with and you are 7 for 7 in total agreement that would be the ideal situation.
I look forward to your weekly column….
@325 (Mr J), I would tend to agree with EricaP on the basis of the number of people of both sexes who confessed to me that they felt attracted to someone other than their partner, when compared to the total sample of married people I know. (If you’d like the numbers, lessee… from a total of 7 couples were are close with for a variety of reasons — some are family, some are close colleagues or co-workers or old grad school friends –, 9 people have told me they once felt attracted to someone other than their partner (I’m excluding nonce situations, like a wife saying she’d do Brad Pitt in a moment if he were there, because those always feel more like jokes than reality; I’m actually talking about people who confessed to me they at some point felt really tempted to pursue some third person they had met). Curiously, more were women (5 of them). In 4 cases (2 couples), both the husband and the wife told me, in different occasions, about having been tempted. (Note that the 5 who never told me they felt tempted may still have felt tempted at some point, but just never told me.)
Plus, of course, anecdotal evidence from the culture at large.
Of course both are very questionable sources of information, and I might be wrong. Do we then stop the conversation based on the sad but true fact that we don’t have the necessary stats?
@331, how old were they? (My wife told me once the same thing about her female friends from college: they all said they’d love to have NSA sex without drama. I don’t know whether this means something, or whether people just like to give funny answers to impromptu questioning.)
@332 ankylosaur
If I understand correctly, 5/14 gave no answer in your survey so we don’t know about them. I can assure you that such people do exist. I thought perhaps EricaP had some data in mind. Your data leave open the possibility that it’s reasonably common. I know one person for sure, so they’re out there.
@333 – our lunch group is early to late 30s, married w/ children, white collar, professionally successful. They work out, work hard – exactly the type @307 describe. For better of worse, I know hundreds of men like this.
If you ask the question over drinks, the vast majority will tell you they would love to have “a weekend a month” or some infrequent interval of affair-type sex. They aren’t looking for escorts per se, but some type of person they have a minimal connection/drama free relationship with. Mostly about sex but some level of affection. My working theory is that these men want female affirmation with the sexual release. Something more than an escort provides.
Is that unique? I am totally willing to concede I just happen to hang around a bunch of closet polys, but I believe this is near universal. Full dislclaimer – very few would be cool with their wife having the same privileges.
This has been an interesting read over the past week but goddamit people. How am I supposed to get any work done if you keep posting comments?
If the number of comments an article receives is a metric of interest I’d say Mr. Savage should publish that book and soon.
@334, how you can be sure that she has never had an idle thought about a colleague or someone across the aisle on a plane?
@335, my experience with well-paid, well-educated escorts is that this is exactly what they provide. No drama, no threat to the marriage, lots of affirmation that you’re hot, brilliant, funny, a great lover. They are experienced in dealing with the occasional male performance issues. And they love regulars, someone who will see them about once a month — that’s where they shine, because the money becomes invisible (just as my husband’s salary covering the mortgage becomes invisible).
@337 EricaP
She sees the beauty (I hesitate to use the word attractiveness) in other people, but it’s on a totally abstract level. When you know someone this well you can tell when they’re being completely sincere. I believe there is zero temptation going on in her head.
…not that it would trouble me in the slightest if there were.
@338 You are the only person in the universe who arouses her? If you (god forbid) died, she would never feel arousal again?
@340 EricaP
It’s a one-at-a-time thing, not a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I have no doubt that if I die first she’ll move on.
@341 Ok. I think that’s rare, among people with working libidos. Don’t have stats though.
@334, I know at least one person (unexpectedly, a man) who claims not to be aroused by people other than his wife. I am sure that they do exist. (After all, since asexuals, who are not aroused by anyone, do exist, why shouldn’t there be people who are not aroused by people other than their partners, i.e. strictly monogamic people?)
But I do think those who can be, and indeed are, aroused and thus ‘tempted’ by others are a majority. Again, I only have the data I mentioned, and it’s way too little for conclusions.
I think there should be a special term for such people, to distinguish them from those who do live in sincere, faithful monogamic relationships, but are also occasionally aroused/tempted by other people. The latter are what I usually think when I say ‘monogamic people’; the former could perhaps be called ‘monocentered people’? (I don’t like this word, if someone has a better idea…)
saints?
ultramonogamous?
monomoniacally monogamous?
very rare?
@322, Azalea Rose, sexuality is always something you should be willing to struggle with, even if you are poly. Just because you are attracted to someone doesn’t mean it’s always a good idea to act on it. Even if you don’t respect the commitments of other relationships, the person you are attracted to could have a history of domestic abuse, substance abuse, illegal activity, or voting Republican. Okay that last one I’m kidding about but the point is that just because you are attracted to someone doesn’t mean that person is good for you or that there aren’t some very good reasons for saying no. That’s not denying your sexuality; it’s having standards.
As to your other point, monogamy is not a sexual orientation like being gay or straight. Almost EVERYONE with a high enough sex drive will be sexually attracted to a non-primary partner at one time or another. Monogamy is NOT natural but you know what, neither are my eyeglasses! Monogamy is about choosing not to stray because it takes a lot of effort to be poly and not have the quality of your primary relationship deteriorate. (While being monogam-ish means trying to approach monogamy while being flexible about it by allowing the occasional exception.) I’m not saying a strong poly relationship can’t happen. I’m saying it is a huge effort because it’s hard to give the same attention to your primary partner when you are infatuated with a new one. And a lot of people do not want to make that effort, nor do they want to worry about what will happen when their primary tries to do that balancing act.
ankylosaur @343, both groups of people are monogamous. The first group is just much luckier (since it’s easy to be monogamous when you aren’t tempted in the first place.)
@ Erica:
The immunogenicity of Gardasil in older patients may be better than I initially thought, at least according to this article from The Lancet, although the authors do note “an expected trend towards slightly reduced immune responses in the older cohort of women.”
Basically, there are two things at play in the reduced efficacy of Gardasil in older patients: one is the increased likelihood that older people will already have contracted one or several of the HPV strains Gardasil protects against; the other is the unfortunate fact that the older you are, the more your immunocompetence declines.
Also, here’s another article you may find interesting, about relapsed smokers.
. . . and now I will get back to reading the articles I’m actually supposed to be reading. Bleh.
So have we convinced anyone but the choir that healthy non-monogamous marriages are possible?
Okay. Now I know why I missed this thread. I don’t know santorum about monogamous relationships.
@347 thanks!
Is this Santorum lawsuit thing a hoax? Dan, will you please address this in your next column?
Apologies if I missed someone bringing this up earlier, but nobody DESERVES monogamy. If you want monogamy, it is your responsibility to be awesome enough to be worth it. Just asserting that you DESERVE monogamy is a repugnant enough level of self-aggrandizement to make that same conclusion unlikely by other people.
@ 352, bdshfgdifusghk 😉 : THANK YOU!!!! YOU F’IN NAILED IT ON THE HEAD, MAN! :
To quote you: nobody DESERVES monogamy. If you want monogamy, it is your responsibility to be awesome enough to be worth it…”
Meaning, *WORK FOR WHAT YOU WANT!* Work it! Work hard, have a vision, maintain your heart and soul and just fucking *WORK IT*! Work it out! Make it happen if you want it bad enough!
I do, and I have been! I never thought I would ever find who I did sixteen+years ago… I fall into that category of people most attracted sexually, etc. to their partner.
That’s because he’s the shit, he’s smart as fuck, soulful like Motown, sexy to the point of molten wax orgasmic ecstacy AND he’s my very best friend I’ve ever known.
Monogamy, like anything, is something to be earned to be able to enjoy and make a reality.
But then, I like one awesome person rather than spreading myself thin for whateverthefuckreasons.
I’m Happy, Blessed & So In Love With My B ,’)+~+.
Thanks Again bdshfgdifusghk ;)+~+.
Like Minds & Souls Think Alike 🙂 .
Happy Wednesday 😉 .
Cheers!
Peace/Thanks/A Dose Of Warmth & Cool ;-)+~+
@351: I think it’s just a bunch of right wingers, teabaggers, and associated GOP assholes out to raise a media circus to divert us from another illegally bought election attempt.
Dan – write the book. It’s desperately needed. We have no idea how big our closet is. My wife and I, and a couple we sometimes fuck, joke that anyone who cares about the Oxford comma probably is monogamish. So far, we’re batting 1.000 on that hypothesis.
I guess it is possible to remain monogamous, just because it’s your ideal self. I once was married to a lovely woman for 17 years. I never strayed (do lap dances count?) and begged off a couple of nice bedroom invitations from some very sexy women because I thought my marriage vows trumped any temporary pleasures of the moment. My wife was hot beyond belief in bed and we screwed like rabbits. Unfortunately at year 17, I came home to an empty house and a note saying she was leaving me for a younger guy she had been in a relationship with.
Of course, I was disillusioned, hurt badly and felt adrift for a good year before bothering to open the curtains again and let the sunlight back into my life. It’s been almost 20 years since she left, and I no longer feel like a stud, secretly wishing I had fucked Carla and Becky afterall.
I still strive for a monogamous relationship, but really believe it goes against the natural scheme of things in one way where men and women are to spread the genes in as wide a broadcast as possible, biologically speaking, in order to assure a diverse and genetically strong species. But, on the other hand, monogamy is much better for couples raising a family (and the relationship) in a stable, safe and loving environment.
Now that the shoe’s on the other foot and I’m the guy seeking some solace outside a sexless relationship, I can see where I did not deserve monogamy from my ex-wife in the first place. I was messed up emotionally from a life of endless emergencies and being steeped in the underbelly of the city as people go about their business killing each other. Like a garden, a relationship needs constant attention and nurturing, falter even for a moment and you allow a new weed to take root.
Nowadays, I still like the ideal of a relationship where the bond of love, understanding and caring is so strong that monogamy just is. It’s a rare thing and should be celebrated when it happens. Probably about as likely to happen as world peace breaking out these days, I guess.
There’s no such thing as “can’t” be monogamous, just like there’s no such thing as “can’t” stop smoking, or drinking, or using. The operative word is “won’t.” Those are voluntary actions.
Hey Danny!
They were talking about you on CNN tonite!
by name!
(we know how much you get a hardon about being on CNN….)
Pierce Morgan had on Rick; and the wife and kids
(damn lovely family, we must say.
you know Danny,
you could have married a nice catholic girl and had a houseful of kids as well…..)
So the daughter was saying how she prays for your depraved pathetic soul.
She seemed like such a nice kid, you almost wonder if god would answer her prayers.
PS….oh, hey, Slog fanboys- were your ears burning too?
(and still the yellow discharge? eeeeew….no, just kidding!)
Cause Morgan said people who mock the Santorums for how they grieved the loss of their child are first rate assholes.
are you going to let him call you first rate assholes?
Farting Monkeys! to your email!!
I’m all for folks finding the most correct solution to help create an enjoyable life.
But NOT telling your partner or spouse about your sexual advantage of +1 (as does happen) is wrong. Cheating is not how we are supposed to go through life. If someone cheats and they don’t tell the other then the other doesn’t have the opportunity to say “yes or no” to continue the relationship.
I understand that the purpose of the article was not to open discussion about cheating but maybe if more of us were more open and forthright with our partners/spouses (from the beginning) the polyamorous measurements and viewpoints would improve.
Then all the reasons to write this article would have never arisen.