# Gentlemen: How are you coping with monogamy and taming the monster? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 2, 2008, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gentlemen-how-are-you-coping-with-monogamy-and-taming-the-monster/466234 "2008-10-02T21:24:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gus\_Gusterson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85f322/32.png) [@Gus\_Gusterson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gus_Gusterson)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2008, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gentlemen-how-are-you-coping-with-monogamy-and-taming-the-monster/466234/21 "2008-10-03T18:28:51Z")
I cope with monogamy with lots and lots of masturbation. I don’t cheat simply because I don’t want to deal with the fallout when I get caught. The men in my family from the previous generation talk openly (to the younger men, not to the women) about how it was in their day. Most of them had girlfriends on the side. Some of them still do. Their wives looked the other way as long as they were discreet. These 70-year-old guys look at us in our 40s and shake their heads. They don’t understand why we put up with having so little sex _and_ doing so much more around the house (taking care of the kids, cleaning, etc.) than they did. Somewhere along the way the rules changed. ---
**Author:** ![BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2008, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gentlemen-how-are-you-coping-with-monogamy-and-taming-the-monster/466234/22 "2008-10-03T20:17:41Z")
> [@Kalea](#): > > (“Is she hot?” - “Ass ten, face three”) As I learned on the Dope, that’s what’s known as a butterface. ---
**Author:** ![Pollux\_Oil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/858c86/32.png) [@Pollux\_Oil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pollux_Oil)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gentlemen-how-are-you-coping-with-monogamy-and-taming-the-monster/466234/23 "2008-10-04T00:36:44Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > I try my best. My love for her is engorged, my heart is hot and throbbing for her, and at the end of the day, I just want to hold her gently in my arms, take in her sweet scent, whisper sweet nothings to her, and split her the fuck in two. > > I should probably write poetry. I was in a sour mood before I read this post. Now I’m laughing. Thanks. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gentlemen-how-are-you-coping-with-monogamy-and-taming-the-monster/466234/24 "2008-10-04T01:07:04Z")
> [@robby](#): > > What a coincidence–my wife is also an Irish Catholic from Dorchester, Mass. > > She divorced her first husband for cheating, and made it absolutely clear that she would do it again, so that’s a factor for me. > > She has also inadvertently come across materials she finds objectionable (i.e. porn) twice in the last 10 years, and her reaction was definitely NOT good, but she didn’t divorce me, either… Yeah, I was pretty much kidding with that extreme prejudice thing, but I know what you’re talking about reactions. They don’t suffer in silence, do they? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gentlemen-how-are-you-coping-with-monogamy-and-taming-the-monster/466234/25 "2008-10-04T01:17:57Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > I just take all of that frustration and plow it straight back into my GF. You see, THIS is why I’m thinking Congress is backing the wrong ‘stimulus package’. Assuming that flirtation spreads through the economy like a surge of money, and assuming sufficient flirtation by those willing to give til it hurts, America could be the Happiest Country On Earth in just 18 short months… 😉 😃 ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gentlemen-how-are-you-coping-with-monogamy-and-taming-the-monster/466234/26 "2008-10-04T02:29:40Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > I try my best. My love for her is engorged, my heart is hot and throbbing for her, I know what you mean. Sometimes my heart throbs so hard that I can hardly keep it inside my pants. ---
**Author:** ![Influential\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Influential\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Influential_Panda)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gentlemen-how-are-you-coping-with-monogamy-and-taming-the-monster/466234/27 "2008-10-04T02:33:43Z")
Just as a minor style request, how about toning down on the parentheticals? (just a bit?) I love 'em, too, but too much and they make it hard to get a coherent flow going. ---
**Author:** ![A\_shameful\_cracka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@A\_shameful\_cracka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_shameful_cracka)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gentlemen-how-are-you-coping-with-monogamy-and-taming-the-monster/466234/28 "2008-10-04T02:53:58Z")
It was a lot harder with my first wife than with my second. I had only been with 6 women before her, but all but two of them had been within the last year and a half or so - I had finally figured out how to appeal to women, and it didn’t hurt that I had a decent job at the time. I had two ex-girlfriends who wanted to get with me after I had got married (one of which was a friend of my wife and myself so I was in contact with her a lot), one of my wife’s friends was trying to seduce me, and a 22 year old virgin I had met on the internet wanted me to be her first and was messaging me about 30 times a day. I stayed faithful, though I came close to falling to temptation a couple of times (well, not that close, I put a hand on a girl’s thigh before getting the shakes). I kicked myself later because it turned out my wife was cheating on me the last few months of our marriage. I enjoyed my single life a while after getting divorced, added another 5 to my number, but the last couple of years before I met my current wife I was in a pretty dry spell. I was dealing with some depression issues due to a death in my family and economic problems, and I had become pretty abrasive in personality. By the year I got with my wife, I only had two friends, and then one self-destructed due to mental illness issues and left the state. I got to know his ex-wife (though I had known her for about 8 years I never liked her before) and we got together. I got my shit together after she got pregnant, and my other friend didn’t like me after that, so now I have no friends outside of my wife’s family. I’m going bald, showing my age, and work in a place that is 90% male. Makes it pretty easy to stay faithful. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gentlemen-how-are-you-coping-with-monogamy-and-taming-the-monster/466234/29 "2008-10-04T04:24:23Z")
Yeah I watch porn. And I beat my dick like it owes me money. But I don’t consider that cheating, and I don’t cheat. What happens between my ears doesn’t effect the love I have for my wife. Male, late 30’s married a few years. ---
**Author:** ![Black\_Train\_Song](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4da419/32.png) [@Black\_Train\_Song](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Black_Train_Song)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gentlemen-how-are-you-coping-with-monogamy-and-taming-the-monster/466234/30 "2008-10-04T04:38:42Z")
I’m 38, married for 15 years and find it extremely difficult to deal with. It’s pretty much a daily struggle, not the cheating part but the thinking about other women. I think it’s a biological thing and that monogamy isn’t as entrenched in my genetic code as wanting to fuck everything that moves. That said, my wife and I are very sexually active and I’d consider it far from boring. She also doesn’t care if I watch porn. I actually don’t think it has much to do at all with having sex with another woman so much as it has to do with appealing to another woman to that extent. ---
**Author:** ![gravitycrash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@gravitycrash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gravitycrash)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gentlemen-how-are-you-coping-with-monogamy-and-taming-the-monster/466234/31 "2008-10-04T21:40:13Z")
> [@control-z](#): > > I think the ladies on the SDMB are far more liberal about porn than most ladies. For many in the “real world”, it’s a deal-breaker. I think it’s a self-esteem issue, women can’t reconcile the fear that if you are looking at porn then there must be something wrong with them. My ex was that way. When she discovered my porn collection on VHS tapes she acted like I had somehow had been cheating on her. And even though she is still very attractive she does have self esteem issues. I never felt compelled to cheat on her but sometimes I just feel like a wank, ya know? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gentlemen-how-are-you-coping-with-monogamy-and-taming-the-monster/466234.md?page=1)