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
Erica @ 258 –
I found the following shocking:
“It’s not unethical to admit that you can’t uphold your vows the way you hoped to. Pretending to uphold your vows is different from openly failing to uphold them. “
Each sentence might be technically true; it is not unethical to admit a failure, and admission of failure is different from lying about failure. But what, exactly, is the point of a vow if it is not a real commitment?
Another way of saying this: if we can walk away from promises whenever we feel like it without being unethical, because keeping the promise is just too hard, does making a promise have any meaning at all?
I am enough of a Quaker to acknowledge that there isn’t a special kind of truth for promise-making as opposed to every day. But that doesn’t change the fact that if you state an intention to love someone always and to care for him in his sickness, and then decide when it comes down to it that you would rather not (or aren’t able), that doesn’t make you less of an oathbreaker. A liar, if you will.
I guess I am old-fashioned – but I think an ethical person has an obligation to make sure his or her word is good. That means keeping promises you have made, and not making promises you won’t keep.
@260 “Sticking around and either lying or openly breaking the rules you agreed to is within the realm of ethics. “
What do you mean by “within the realm of ethics”? Are you saying that those activities are suitable for ethicists to discuss, or that they are inherently unethical? I don’t see why it’s unethical to openly change the rules you (foolishly) agreed to before you understood how much pain they would cause you.
@261, no one getting married in their twenties has any idea what they are promising to do, so their vows are more like wishes & intentions than true promises. It’s unreasonable to hold them to those vows when the pain & suffering becomes unbearable.
If your wife becomes alcoholic and hits you; if your husband molests your child… then you aren’t a bad person for leaving — you are in a bad marriage and, ethically, you should get out.
If your spouse has changed in less awful ways (no longer wanting sex, yelling at you), then ethically, you can leave, you can try to renegotiate the rules, you can say that you are changing the rules, and leave it to the other person to decide whether or not to stay. You are not ethically bound by a promise whose consequences you did not fully understand when you made it. Ethics takes extenuating circumstances into consideration.
@ The stoopid expression on Douchedrizzle Santorum’s face in the ads above: he looks like he’s about to suck a cock; salivating at the prospect of a thick shaft throatfucking him straight outta his silly run for president.
Go to a bathhouse and enjoy yourself, Rick.
The squeakiest wheels always need the grease the most;)…
Jesus Says You’re A Douchebag Too, Santorum!
I Saw Him This Afternoon In The Museum;): a chance run in..
🙂
@ 244 & 245: Dovasaga: Thanks for the (actually) inspiring stuff.
I practice what you speak of in your thing there. Just being a *real soul* and coming from that place: it enables you to find kindness and purpose as well as being much more focused and conscientious (responsible) about how to support others from afar, with genuinely-good vibes, actions and deeds.
THAT’S “The Secret”, folks! Wanna get a better quality of life circulating for yourselves? Then set the example if you must. Take initiative. Want it bad enough, to be truly happier and all-around healthier. *Listen to your heart, and trust your instincts. Learn not to second guess!* You do a little of that, as well as just remembering to have manners and courteousness, because it’s easier to be nice and keep it moving, at the end of the day.
Easier on everyone, really 🙂 . Want good karma? Start making your own…and wait to see what’s in store for you for your hard work, love and belief. And a good attitude 🙂 .
Thanks!
Cheers 🙂 +~+
@255
No need to point out my ‘gender bias’ I’ll freely admit I’m incredibly sexist.
In my comparison with monogamy/nonmonogamy to sexual orientation, I meantioned twice (@209, @213) that it’s possible for (some) nonmonogamous people to be monogamous. It eventually becomes redundant to point out all possibilities every time. I think for the majority of nonmonogamous people the expectation of monogamy leads to covert nonmonogamy rather than monogamy.
Actually, hold on, no, that’s not my ‘belief’ that’s fact. Statistically, most people cheat.
I actually didn’t discuss my rationale for why I believe monogamous men are less common than monogamous women but I’ll stick with it until I see compelling evidence to the contrary. (And no, I don’t consider that ‘men are players, women are sluts’ paradigm to be compelling evidence.)
I also addressed your other point back at… @213 I believe. I think men are more likely to want other women outside their relationship, but that doesn’t mean they’re more likely to content in an equal nonmonogamous relationship where their partner is allowed to have sex with other men. They’re not the same thing
If we did want to play the “look at nature” game (I typically don’t, but aw what the heck) this is referred to as a “harem” model where one male mates with several females, who only mate with him. Lions are famous for this but it’s not unusual in chimps either.
Dan, there is some Santorum on your lower lip.
@ 207, crystn2: “But God is not mocked!” God isn’t the one being mocked: Rick Santorum is! If you choose to hide behind an antiquated fairy tale handbook, then that’s your right and business. Not my bag, baby: I live what your good book preaches…without the bullshit morality you and and encrusted jizz and poop-meister Rick Santorum champion. You and he both need a penis deep inside your deep sphincters of denial, and brains! Jesus has been gone how many years now?? 2012?? Oh yeah: he’s on a comeback.
Religion = False Spirituality. Sorry the likes of you will always be stupid and ignorant to ever wonder. Yeah?
GOD MOCKS *YOU*, CRYSTN2! AND THE DEVIL THINKS YOU’RE A SHITHEAD, TOO.
Jesus Takes No Shit & Comes Out Swinging In My Bible, Motherfucker! Jesus says you’re a dumb whore, too. Suck a dick for Jesus, losers!
@252
Well this is why it’s bizarre to me. He told his wife he was going to cheat on her. She must have said something.
But if she heard him, comprehended him, then she has to take some sort of responsibility as well. If someone said “I’m going to shoot you if you don’t get out of that chair” you can bet I’m getting out of that chair.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not really on either of their sides. I think it’s shitty to force your partner whom you presumably love into celibacy. I think it’s shitty to tell someone you’re going to fuck other people rather than try to work things out.
All I can say is what I would do if I were in his situation. I wouldn’t marry someone with a low sex drive, and if I were already married and a low sex drive came out of nowhere we’d try to figure out the solution. If he didn’t want to, that would be the end of the relationship. I think this is a pretty unlikely possibility so I’m not worried.
@Erica
“no one getting married in their twenties has any idea what they are promising to do”
Excuse me?
@261
You’re not alone. I also believe that promises mean something.
@ 267: Only for the humanity-hating scumbags who don’t believe that anyone has the same fundamental rights as the next person: THAT’S who it’s directed at: scumbags like Santorum and that blind sheep sucking at the ass of religion to justify being hateful themselves..
That, and have you ever seen Santorum’s high school picture? Google it! Jesus H. Christ, what a super Poindexter! No wonder why he’s a misguided, thick-skulled, gay and lesbian hating waste of sperm and egg. Jesus, God & The Holy Grail all told me to tell you, Santorum Inc., to go fuck yourselves with a 3′ dildo and plenty of ‘K-Y’ jelly.
It’s not our problem you fuckers are closeted, conflicted dooshbags! Stop hating humanity, believing in a Dr. Seuss book as the gospel and go and get some same sex action. Jesus says it’s kosher.
😉
@270
HEY HEY HEY.
Do NOT drag the lovable Dr. Seuss into this.
Not cool.
@269 If my twelve year old promises never to lie to me (as she has promised, from time to time) — do you think she really understands the implications of that promise, and can ethically be bound by it? She means well, but she doesn’t know the temptations she will face.
I feel the same about people in their twenties, promising to stay married until death-do-us-part and never to have sex with anyone else. (Standard marriage vows.) You just don’t know what life will throw at you. Ethically, a promise whose ramifications you didn’t understand isn’t really a promise. If you want to hold people to such promises, pick people who keep their promises even when ethically they have other options (like Mr. J., for instance).
@256(Mr J), I didn’t mean to offend you or your wife — sorry if it came out this way. (Lack of empathy is not necessarily lack of love. There are lots of parents who love their children, yet have no clue — no empathy — with what said children are going through right now.)
Note that you didn’t answer my question. I didn’t ask if Mrs J was sexually satisfied, but if she didn’t feel empathy to your situation — at least in past times, when you still told her you were unsatisfied. Did she think that this wasn’t a problem? (Many people don’t have obvious insight into what sex feels light to others; this is part of the reason for the stereotypical claim that women don’t understand men, and men don’t understand women.)
I was just curious — again I’m sorry if I offended you. And it’s OK with me if you don’t want to answer my question — I don’t have any right to knowledge about your private life, after all.
@262 EricaP
I was responding to what you wrote @258:
I mistakenly thought you meant that ethics didn’t apply. I see now that you meant that it is an ethical action. I agree that it’s ethical to make the admission, i.e. the acknowledgement, I just don’t think it carries as far as you do. As you say, sometimes it’s ethical to leave. We’ll just have to disagree about the procedural rules for modifying jointly-made vows if one chooses to stay.
@269, 261, 272 — I think I agree more with EricaP here. My rationale is a little different.
Promises are statements of commitment, and they mean more than simple claims or statements about future events. However, they are statements, and as such are subject to changes — some quite unexpected — in situational conditions.
When you promise something, especially something promised in a ritualistic manner (such as wedding vows), then you are putting your honor at stake. You should, to the best of your knowledge, uphold the promise you made.
Which doesn’t mean that you will. And not necessarily because you’re a coward, or because you’re a wily manipulator who’s just looking for the first chance to abandon the ship when you feel like it. But because life does indeed throw unexpected things at you, and claiming that you’ll always know what you will do under circumstances that you have no way of predicting is, to me, insane.
If things remain within sane limits (and then we have a big discussion about what sane limits are), then I’d agree with mydriasis and Thisbe. Keep your promises. But since things sometimes don’t… then I have to agree with EricaP.
I think the basic difference between you guys’ viewpoints is not that you don’t agree in principle — it’s that you’re worried about different things. Mydriasis and Thisbe are worried about people gaming the system, manipulators lying about their incapacity to uphold their promises… or even simple cowards looking for an easy way out.
Whereas EricaP is worried about people who are bound by promises made under very different circumstances and that now force them to do things that result in terrible unhappiness for them, or for others.
So it seems to me Mydriasis and Thisbe are talking about cowards, manipulators, and freeloaders, while EricaP mentions situation traps and their victims. It seems to me Mydriasis and Thisbe worry that promises may become mere frivolities, without any seriousness about them, while EricaP worries that promises may become prison bars that will destroy someone’s happiness.
Both things happen, and there is no system that can simultaneously prevent both. All we have is common sense and the desire not to cause unnecesary suffering in ourselves and in others.
@273 ankylosaur
Oh, I wasn’t offended! I’m simply not going to delve into the complicated circumstances of the past difficulties of my marriage. I’m not looking for fixes. I’m quite satisfied with things as they are. If I want to have my marriage adjudicated I’ll send a letter to Savage Love;-)
One general observation though: empathy and action are not linked in any particular fashion.
Comparing a twelve year old and a twenty nine year old in terms of decision making ability is both neurobiologically unsound and deeply offensive.
The problem isn’t age, it’s entitlement, and it’s cultural. People feel that they are owed an easy, pleasant marriage and give up the second it gets hard for them. (See the difference between arranged marriages and typical North American marriages)
Maybe you had poor or underdeveloped understanding when you made your wedding vows, but don’t transpose that on all of us.
@275
I essentially agree with you with the addition of what I mentioned above.
@275 well put. If a group of non-involved people agree that the particular situation justifies the ethically-dubious actions, then it probably does (within that culture), no matter how wrong it seems to the victim.
Since we’re near the end of a SL week, I hope people don’t mind if I ask my own question about my own marriage. Mr. P. lied to me again, this time about having started smoking again (after 15 years without). He admitted in December that he has been smoking for six months. I’d asked him several times straight out if he was smoking again (from having smelled it), and he lied to my face. Last month, when I asked again, he sighed and told the truth.
There is no way he thought it was unsafe to tell me. I don’t think he thought I would leave over this. He just thought I would be unhappy about the smoking and maybe nag.
So — those of you saying that we hold lies about sex to a different standard, I don’t think so. I think people hold lies about important things to a different standard than white lies, but drugs/cigs/alcohol/money/work-fraud/etc. are all potentially serious enough issues that I’m upset to be lied to about it.
What I don’t know is where I go from here. Do I try to rebuild trust in what he says? Do I just not listen to what he says, and take my cues from what I see him do? If he wants to smoke or see women secretly (even though he can do both openly), is that necessarily a problem, or only if I choose to see it as such?
@277 Most of the people who get divorced promised “till death do us part.” For the most part, they’re not bad for failing to keep that promise… Or do you really think they are ethically wrong to get divorced when their marriage proves painful? How much pain would you put up with before breaking a promise of “till death do us part” — or would you never make such a promise in the first place? If so, you’re the unusual one, not me.
I certainly didn’t know what I would face when I promised “till death do us part.” I’m staying in my marriage, despite the lies and infidelity, but not because I think I would be ethically wrong to leave.
@277 – the difference between most arranged marriage cultures and ours is that the penalties for divorce are extremely high in those cultures, and mostly borne by women. Ethically, I prefer our culture, with all its flaws.
@280/281
I once was told a story about doing a medical residency in an African country – over there heart attacks are so rare that if one happens, everyone crowds around. In an American hospital, heart attacks are a dime a dozen. You’re probably better off living in America than most countries in Africa, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from other cultures that do better in some respects.
I’m not advocating arranged marriage, but I do think that Western culture has trivialized marriage to a disgusting degree. If you can’t take it seriously, don’t sign a legal document, don’t undergo a ceremony, don’t change the title of your relationship.
So I have to ask. Before you got married, did you have a detailed, explicit conversation about monogamy? About nonmonogamy? How long did you know your husband before marrying him? Did you not catch your husband lying to you before you got married? These are all salient points in my mind.
Re: ’til death. Would I make that promise? I’d like to. But only if I feel confident that I can keep it. There are certain (astronomically unlikely) situations where I would leave. But in my mind, divorce is an emergency measure, like murder or suicide. I don’t expect everyone to feel that way, but it would be nice if people put a little thought in before marrying, and gave it the old college try instead of bailing the second it gets hard.
i am a huge fan, and a catholic thought you might appreciate this:
http://www.christianity-revealed.com/cr/…
Does anyone else find it incredibly funny that the first add on this page is for Santorum campaign?
@282, it was the mid 1990s, and things were different. We had known each other 8 years when we got married; been dating for two. He did ask permission to sleep with an old girlfriend, after we’d been dating a month, and I said yes (though it was painful for me). We also had an almost-threesome with a guy, that I turned into cuddling because the vibe felt wrong to me.
We went to sex parties, in our early years, but only fucked each other there. I knew he had cheated on other girlfriends; I had cheated on other boyfriends. I felt we were well-suited to each other, and there would never be reason to lie; we could always make things work out.
And that worked for 14 years of married life. No outside sex (to my knowledge), though plenty of strip club visits, which he told me about. Maybe he didn’t tell me all his fantasies, but I don’t count that as lying. The first significant lie (to my knowledge) was his visit to an escort, in year 14. Though the first lie he confessed to me was a secret visit to a strip club, a couple of months later, when he was ‘supposed’ to be at work. Maybe the whole purpose of that lie was to get a sense of how I would react to him confessing the escort lie (which had happened earlier but was confessed later).
Since then, no lies (to my knowledge), until six months ago when he started lying about smoking. Do I now think there have probably been other lies? Yes, I do. Does any of that mean I’m going to leave him? No. I want his smile, his laughing eyes, his sexy body, his quick mind. I want him as much today as the day we met. I would still promise “till death do us part,” and mean it. But ….I’m just saying I had no idea what it was like to go through a midlife crisis until we got here. Just like I still have no idea what it’s like to nurse a spouse during a debilitating chronic illness. For me to promise to stick it out, when I don’t know what “it” is, can’t really be ethically binding.
@279 EricaP
I’m sorry that happened. You’re a smart woman and you’re right to fold this into your view of who he is. I admire you your ability to contextualize this lie. We live in a culture that is swift to judge and abandon. I have no doubt that you two will talk it out and come to a better understanding. My best to you both.
Look, Erica…
You seem like a very nice lady and I wish you all the best. I mean that very sincerely. I’m sorry for any pain/difficulty that you may have felt.
But… it seems to me like you had ample indicators of what was to come. Maybe you didn’t see it that way at the time, maybe you don’t see it that way now. If that’s true it would be silly for me to try to convince you. Some of us are good at knowing what makes people tick and what those people are and are not going to do, some of us aren’t so good at it(I have told many of my female friends what their boyfriends were going to do from miles away). Same goes for self-knowledge as well. There are many talents I lack, but understanding people is one talent I was blessed with (getting along with them, or getting them to like me did not come with that package). This is why I feel that what you’re saying doesn’t really apply to me.
@287 I apologize for saying @262 that “no one getting married in their twenties has any idea what they are promising to do.”
Clearly, you can see both how you and your partners (and everyone else’s partners! and my husband!) are going to react, decades in advance. I’ll just reiterate that you are unusual in that talent, as you yourself seem to be aware.
So, to rephrase — most people (not you!) make promises that they don’t understand, and should not be held ethically to all the consequences thereof. (Though obviously that’s less true when the promise you’re walking away from involves a dependent than an equally healthy and competent adult.)
277- Re: Arranged marriage. I’m not sure I do see the difference between arranged marriages and the typical North American one. A great number of arranged marriages are terribly unhappy as are North American ones. If you think it’s hard to find someone you share a sexual chemistry with now, try it in a situation where you don’t know the other person first. Arranged marriages can be arranged for the benefit of the parents (financial, prestige) with the children (usually the daughter) used as pawns. Also (not sure this is relevant, but it helps any discussion to have definitions) there’s a lot of difference in what people mean by “arranged.” There’s the arranged marriage where the 2 people truly have no say. There’s the arranged marriage where the parents or the matchmaker act as a dating board where they introduce acceptable matches, but both parties have veto power.
Welp, since I’m already coming off like a douche…
I’m not sure what you were expecting out of your relationship/marriage, but if it was monogamy I think it would’ve been clear to most people from very early on that monogamy is not a reasonable thing to expect from a man who has a history of cheating and asks to sleep with an ex when things are still new and fun with his current girlfriend.
I’m aware that I’m anomalous, but perhaps you are too. Maybe most people fall into a middle ground where (with a little dilligence and effort which are unfortunately lacking) they can (for the vast majority of cases) avoid large surprises and going back on their promises.
@290 – you’re not a douche, it’s just odd you would suggest I expected monogamy, when obviously that wasn’t a top priority for me. I was fine with monogamy, and I’m fine without it.
I expected (and have gotten) a good partner in life, a good co-parent, a friend, plus laughs, conversation, back rubs and hot sex.
But I also expected honesty. And I thought, for 14 years, that I had figured out how to get it: not give him shit about doing things that maybe I didn’t love (like strip clubs).
But when he turned 40, I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why he stopped feeling that he could trust me with the truth. Maybe I made him feel too safe, and he wanted more danger. I don’t know.
Erica @262 is completely right in my experience:
“no one getting married in their twenties has any idea what they are promising to do” Perhaps early 20s would have been a more precise statement, as I doubt that she is (as 277 suggests) comparing a 12 year old’s mindset to a 29 year old’s.
My husband and I were 18 when we got married. 18. I wasn’t pregnant. It just seemed like a fine idea at the time. We were engaged for 4 months, the ceremony was the weekend between prom and graduation. This wasn’t a whim, we made a decision (when we were 17) and said the vows at 18. Neither one of us had a fucking clue what we were agreeing to. My 19th birthday present was a positive pregnancy test. He had a fling with a high school girlfriend sometime in the next year (I found out about that 5 years later, when I was pregnant with the 2nd) and somewhere in there, we grew up. I’m not really sure when or how that happened.
Now, at almost 40, we are not the same people that we were at 18. Honestly, I think we’re still together because neither of us knows how to be anything else. But one thing that has occurred to me fequently for the past 10 years (since the 3rd and last was born) is can I reasonably be held to a decision ( and a promise) that I made when I was 18 and still very much a child?
@291
That was just the impression I got over the many posts where you referenced it. At the very least it seems that you would be happier if he wasn’t sleeping with other women. (Did you not say that at some point?)
When he cheated with his previous girlfriend was it one time followed by a confession? Or did he lie about it, was it ongoing?
@293 – he didn’t lie about his ex; he told me she was coming to town and asked if he could sleep with her. I said yes, and it was just one time. No lies, as far as I know, until year 14 of our marriage.
I want him happy, and if he wants “a little strange,” then I am okay with it (though it doesn’t turn me on the way me sleeping with guys turns him on). I did have issues with him having a girlfriend, but mostly because she kept asking for more and more of his time, until they broke up over that issue.
To clarify, in 294 I’m referring to 2 different girlfriends: an ex he slept with (openly) in 1993, and a woman he dated (openly) this past summer. He didn’t lie about either one, so I didn’t freak out about them, though I wasn’t ecstatic either.
Erica, re lies and the whys behind the lies:
I am brutally, bluntly, painfully honest. I don’t lie to anyone as a result of my own logic– if I like you and respect you, I’m not going to lie to you; however, if I don’t like you and don’t respect you, then fuck you, I’m not going to waste the time and effort to maintain whatever lie I might tell you, so you’re still going to get the truth from me. This makes perfect sense to me, so I tend to expect everyone to have a similar approach to honesty. Unfortunately, not everyone thinks like me, although they really should.
Everyone lies for a different reason. Small children lie because they think that by saying something that they really really want to be true, they can make it true. Older children, like my 14 year old or your 12 year old, tend to lie to paint themselves in a more favorable light–nothing malicious, just a little recreation of themselves as they want to appear. Adults lie for more complex reasons–the self serving lie, the social lie, the cover my ass lie. Your husband’s current falsehood is over something that is pretty trivial and also pretty foolish–smoking has so many tells, mainly in the odor left on the skin and on the mouth and hair, lying about it seems silly. You’ve been married a long time (by today’s standards, 15+ years is a long fucking time) you likely have the best insight to his possible motivations. But a trivial lie seems (to me, and my grad studies are in work psychology, so this is just my gut feeling on this) like it’s more about control, like it’s him having some small thing that’s just his.
Thanks, catballou! I think your point about control is really helpful. We have a D/s relationship, but one that’s complicated by the fact that submission doesn’t come easy to me (though it turns me on), and likewise dominance isn’t completely natural for him. I’m intrigued by the possibility that he wants something private, though since (as you say) smoking is likely to get noticed eventually, maybe lying about it is a way of acting out, of getting in trouble? I feel like I’m put in the position of being his mother, where I don’t want to be. Hmm.
I’d never even heard of open marriage when I got married. What I did know was there were endless unknowns ahead and I was committing to face them together with my wife. No one is “holding” me to that. People divorce all the time and their lives don’t end.
“Not everyone takes the same vows”. So true! My fiance and I had experienced cheating when we got married. Our vows didn’t say anything about sexual fidelity. They did focus pretty heavily on honesty, trust, respect, and communication. I can’t make him promise to always want to fuck me and only me. But I can make him promise to always be honest and respectful. That shit is way more important than whoever you’re sticking your dick/tongue/fist into. The CPOS letter writer forgot the honesty/respect part, and THAT is what makes him a CPOS.
@Mydriasis, even if most people fall somewhere between ‘clueless’ and ‘personality specialist’, that would still make most of them somewhat worse than you. Personally, and despite the fact that my marriage (which will turn 10 years next June) was entered at a later moment in life (I was already 32, she was 31) after we had had quite a lot of experience (both she and I had had many previous partners and a good deal of sexual experience, including various kinks)… even though we discussed everything, had endless talks about all the possibilities and probabilities and whatnot…
Still there were surprises. From personality quirks that only became problematic because they unexpectedly changed into something else, to sudden new interests, to psychological problems… when I look back, the list of bumps is surprisingly long. Yet we managed to stay together through a ride that did at times feel like a roller coaster, we kept a (to me, now, though at first I expected it) surprisingly high level of honesty and openness about ourselves and our shortcomings, our wants and desires. I kept my vows, she kept hers, we’re still together and that’s how both of us wants it to be.
A lot of it is indeed due to virtues like honesty, sticking around even when things looked grim, trying to and managing to see through misunderstandings and little power games to what lies behind, to what really was going on. As a result, I am with a woman who tells me she loves me as much as she did the first time we made love, and about whom I can still sincerely say the same. And, god dammit, we worked for it.
Yet I am enough of a realist to also be able to say, and mean it: we were lucky. Despite efforts and best intentions, despite being intelligent and open, there were several points at which things could have gone bad. They didn’t. Not because I, or my wife, are ‘superior people’ or have special powers. They just didn’t.
I didn’t know — not in my guts, anyway; intellectually I did, but I learned that it’s a different thing to feel it inside — that I was going to need luck. Several of the problems we had I had no clue we were going to have. Maybe I am naive, Mydriasis: maybe someone like you would have seen some of those problems miles away, and avoided them. But I didn’t, and neither did my wife.
So we were lucky. And I understand some people weren’t lucky. And I don’t blame them for that. Everybody’s circumstances were different — including the fact that they are different people from who I am. I can’t judge them by what I would have done, or been able to do, in their situation.
@297(EricaP), I think I agree with catballou, having been more than once on the other (your husband’s) side or similarly trivial-with-hidden-meaning situations. Let me give you an example, from my perspective, in the hope that this sheds some indirect light on your situation. (Warning: the situation I will describe may appear ridiculous to you, since it involves my shameless love for foreign languages. But believe me — it was a real problem.)
My wife is Russian-Ukrainian, very much Russian; she was against the independence of Ukraine, and very much disliked the pro-Ukrainian culture and language movement in that country. She strongly identifies with Russian culture (she can quote Pushkin, Akhmatova, Essenin, Tyuchev and Gumilyov by heart; she strongly dislikes Dostoevsky, though). On a trip to Riga, in the Baltic countries at one point, before the end of the old Soviet Union, she experienced anti-Russian feelings from the local population, to which she reacted in kind. As a result, she really doesn’t like Estonians and Latvians.
Recently (about a year ago), I became interested in Latvian — a very mellifluous language, with some pretty good music from Riga (Dzelzs Vilks, Livi, Gain Fast, etc.). I knew this was going to create a problem, given my wife’s feelings, but I started learning anyway. As I expected, she reacted negatively to the teach-yourself-Latvian course I brought home one day. We had a somewhat heated discussion about this topic, in which she got me to admit that, since I like all languages, I could very well study a non-Baltic one in my free time. Why not Sanskrit, for instance (a language she actually would enjoy learning, since she is very interested in Indian Philosophy)? I grudgingly agreed.
As you might imagine, after a while (when her interest in Sanskrit ebbed) I secretly resumed studying Latvian. Unlike Mr.P, I didn’t have to lie about it, because after our first somewhat heated conversation the Latvian grammar stayed in my office and I didn’t touch it (my free time was filled with Sanskrit). So I just started again, at first in my office. As the months went on and I progressed, I started buying some new books — a better dictionary, children’s books (in the absence of easy-reading literature works, children’s books are great when you’re just beginning to master a language), newspapers and magazines from Latvia. At one point, my wife found one of said magazines in a plastic bag I had left home by mistake, and she confronted me.
I know, this sounds silly. Both because languages in general, and Latvia or anti-Latvian feelings in particular, probably aren’t a big deal to most of you; and also because the situation was so much like the stereotypical my-wife-found-my-hidden-porn-stash situation… (My wife and I used to laugh about such situations. She never cared about my porn stash, among other things because, when we first me, she already had an even bigger porn stash than mine, god bless her lusty heart; we now have a common one).
So, Erica, unlike your husband, I didn’t ‘sigh and admit’ my white lie after the nth question; I was actually caught lying about a relatively trivial matter. Well, lying by omission, since she didn’t ask me whether I was studying Latvian; but I had said at the beginning I wouldn’t, and yet I did.
No big deal, right? Well, since from previous experience we knew that ‘little things’ have a way of gaining a life of their own and becoming (part of) the source for resentment and hard feelings that accumulate like lava within a volcano, we actually sat down and talked through this one.
In the end it turned out that my going back to studying Latvian despite knowing my wife would feel angry about that had to do with:
(a) me wanting to be free to do what I liked, having ‘something for myself’ that I don’t just give up for a ‘trivial’ reason;
(b) her not following through with the promise of studying Sanskrit with me;
(c) me thinking inside that her opinions about Latvia and Estonia are overreactions, and that she should be fairer and less ethnocentric and judgmental about Latvia and Latvians — she should ‘get over’ her bad experiences in Riga.
So, thinking about it, (a) was about me wanting ‘a playground for myself’ where she can’t just tell me to stop (‘languages are my special place, you can’t tell me what to do there!’); (b) was about me ‘punishing’ her for not having kept her promise of studying Sanskrit with me by not keeping my promise to not study Latvian (‘you lied to me first!’); and (c) was about me wanting to ‘improve her as a person’ (‘you should be more as I think you should be, not as you are’).
Similar issues had come up before in other situations, with me often exchanging roles. So we had some experience in negotiating through this, and ended up agreeing that I was entitled to study Latvian if I wanted (but not flaunting it) and that she was entitled to thinking whatever she wanted about Latvians (but not claiming that “it’s logical” and that I should agree with her simply because I love her).
This, because we both realized this was not really about the Latvian languages or about bad memories from a trip to Riga, but about (as so often happens in relationships) power. Power to be or do what you want, or power to influence others to be or do what you want.
These problems don’t necessarily disappear when you talk about them (one of the things we learned throughout the years), but when they’re out in the open at least we know what we’re dealing with and don’t get lost in appearances.
I hope this helps. 🙂
@ankylosaur:
And you’re still with her anyway? Wow, that’s true love.
@Erica:
It’s possible that Mr. P’s smoking has more to do with simple addiction than anything about the dynamics of your relationship. As I understand it, the dominant model of chemical addiction suggests that it never really goes away; it just lies dormant. As for why he didn’t tell you, that might be because he’s embarrassed about giving in to his cravings and/or doesn’t want to admit himself that he’s started smoking again. (I think even the best of us are susceptible to wishful thinking along the lines of “if nobody knows about it, it didn’t actually happen.”) This is only one possible explanation among many, of course, but I thought I’d put it out there anyway.
Maybe Mr. P should talk to his doctor about using Wellbutrin or Chantix to help him quit smoking? Both of these drugs have significant potential downsides, and neither of them is a “get out of jail free” card for nicotine addiction, but they might be worth considering.
While I’m talking medicine: Mr. P’s doctor probably already told him this, but the efficacy of Gardisil decreases dramatically with age of inoculation. A late inoculation is probably better than none, but it’s far from a “get out of jail free” card for HPV (never mind the many strains that it doesn’t protect against in the first place).
@302, she dislikes Dostoevsky in the Western sense of the world: as an embassador of ‘the Russian soul’. Dostoevsky is at his best when discussing deep human questions, which she will gladly agree with (not for nothing was one of her first papers about Dostoevsky’s “Dream of a Ridiculous Man”). But when she sees people judging Russians based on Dostoevsky’s description of them — as if they were all Myushkins or Raskolnikovs or Alexei Ivanovichs (or… what’s that guy’s name from “Demons”/”The Possessed” again — Stavrogin?) then she can actually see red. She thinks Russians are much more like Gumilyov and Akhmatova than they are like either Alyosha or Ivan Karamazov. Her idol (and object of her Ph.D.) is Russian Silver Age philosopher Vladimir Solovyov. 🙂
Dan Savage was straight until his fifty-third failed sexual experience with his kleft hand while watching his mom get humped by the neighbor’s dog.
@304, what’s a kleft hand? Is it like a cloven foot? 🙂
Savage was straight until his fifty-third failed sexual experience with his left hand while watching his mother get humped by the neighbor’s dog. Don’t judge Dan until you understand his past. A little dog santorum is how he grew up.
I think light poly is the average man’s definition of a perfect relationship. I think most men would prefer to focus on career and lifestyle, and have some not exactly random but not emotionally or psychologically complicated with a few pleasant people now and again, some more regular than others. This is why men generally thrive in and enjoy affairs. Seriously, the guy banging some chick on the side is usually doing great in his career and working out at the gym more and feeling fantastic. He goes to work, fucks some woman from Craigslist over afternoon cocktails once a week, then goes back to work. Perfect. I’m not even saying that in a bad way. I think more women would be happier if they’d try it too. But… from my observations… women are monogamish/non monogamous exactly as long as it takes them to find a man they want to be monogamous with. Call me cynical but I’ve listened to too many women drone on and on about how they are so hip and modern and not jealous and being non-mono is great (and wtf, if my boyfriend had to give my husband permission to fuck me, I’d need a new one of both. Yuck. That’s just straight up emotionally abusive and a very obvious passive aggressive fuck you to the husband because she’s pissed he won’t stand up and say no I want you to myself!) and fabulous…
and then they meet some man who fucks their brains out until they can’t see straight, is strong and dependable, and just smells right… and huh suddenly she’s all betty homemaker. Interesting.
The one thing I have never seen addressed as a downfall of non-monogamy is practicality. It wasn’t the jealousy or emo drama that ended the Mister and I’s poly life, but the time factor really. We had enough to do keeping one another happy and having enough sex with one another to our personal tastes and dealing with our own personal relationship drama to deal with someone ELSE in that mix.
@265 (mydriasis) I apologize if I came off as rude. Tone can be tricky when it comes to quick comments in these sorts of threads. I think you’ve raised some interesting points, some of which I disagree with. The comments you refer back to @209/213 do not mesh with what I was saying @255. You are saying (and I’m sure you will correct me if I am wrong) that nonmonogamous people can choose to “pass” as monogamous, but they will be unhappy. While I am sure that that can be true in some cases, it is unfair to generalize and say that people inclined towards nonmonogamy will either “pass” and be unhappy, or cheat. Many of us, as these comments show, enjoy nonmonogamy but do not NEED it. I wouldn’t be unhappy in a monogamous relationship, and neither would my husband if I am to believe what he says, and he has never given me reason to doubt him in the ten years I’ve known him.
I am curious if you have seen any actual statistics on cheating, or the percentage of men vs. women who are monogamous. I haven’t, so anything I say about it is pure speculation. I am not sure any extensive survey has ever been done, but if it has I would be very interested to see it. I was simply explaining that I suspect cultural bias may be a bigger factor than evolutionary biology. I tend to be very suspicious of oft-used vague explanations harkening back to evolution, but perhaps that is my own personal bias as a biologist.
As far as the “harem” model you refer to (I would call this polygyny if it involves exclusivity, promiscuity if not), I am not sure what point you are trying to make. Yes, some animals follow this model, while others (admittedly less) follow a polyandrous model, where one female has multiple male mates. When thinking about these mating systems, humans are typically classed as monogamous, with pair-bonding to facilitate child rearing. But hey, we’re a complicated animal, and many of us don’t like to fall into these clean-cut groups.
Re: the EricaP/mydriasis dispute on marriage vows – I think you both make good points. Vows should not be made lightly, and they shouldn’t be broken lightly. Hopefully, a couple has been honest with each other (and themselves) about their expectations upon entering a marriage. But as EricaP points out, sometimes things change, and it heads into an ethical gray area. Some vows matter more to some people than others, and the point about lying about sex vs. lying about smoking is well taken. It’s down to the people involved to determine what really matters to them. There’s no cookie-cutter response to that.
I would think that if both people agree to change the type of relationship they have, then that’s fine whether or not it meshes with the vows they took. But if there’s a disagreement on that point… well, it’s unfortunate. I’d generally suggest therapy, to discuss what a mutually beneficial solution could entail. People do grow and change, and sometimes people grow apart. It’s sad, but true. Personally, I think it’s better to get a divorce than stay in an unhappy marriage. But in our culture, many people do jump ship at the first sign of trouble rather than trying to work it out first, and that’s no good either.
EricaP, thank you for sharing your story. I think you seem like a strong person, and I hope you can make things work. From what you are saying, I think you will. Only you can answer your question about the significance of the smoking lie, and I hope you can encourage him to be more honest with you in the future. The explanations already posed by others (@296/301/302) seem plausible, but only he can tell you what the truth is. I wish you all the best.
@307 You’ve made some very judgmental statements there. I don’t see a problem with the couple/boyfriend example above, as long as all parties have given full consent to the situation. It sounds like they all enjoy it. It’s not abuse if the husband understands, enjoys, and in fact was even the one who requested it.
I think making “most men” and “most women” statements is really problematic, as most people (yes, I just did it) are only qualified to talk about their own experiences and social circles. In my case, many of the guys I’ve talked to about my relationship seem excited at first “You let your husband sleep with other women?!” but then it gets more real when they understand it goes both ways. The majority of men (and women) I have talked to have said they wouldn’t want that sort of relationship themselves. To each their own.
Your statement that most women only enjoy non-monogamy until they find that “right guy” – what are you basing that on? How many times have you seen that happen? If the comments in this thread are to be believed, many women are happy in non-monogamous relationships for many years (myself included, thank you very much). I am too much of a cynic to believe that there is only one person in the world for everyone, and somehow linking up with that person will make sunshine and rainbows appear and suddenly the rest of the world doesn’t matter. Granted, it may feel that way at the start of a new and exciting relationship, but I have never seen a case where that feeling didn’t eventually lapse (note: I am not saying it is impossible). If you’re lucky, it will turn into a stable and lasting relationship founded on love and mutual respect.