If your spouse said "Let's be monogamish", would you think about it?

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

I’ve seen a lot of threads lately based on jealousy, possessiveness and betrayal. I’ve seen a lot of marriages broken up due to same. Now, betrayal seems to be at the root of much of it: “S/He said he would be faithful and wasn’t.” And that’s an understandable betrayal.

So let’s go to fantasy-land for a while, and pretend that, once legally married, a couple are a couple, period. Doesn’t matter who’s in whose bed; the legal contract is binding. In fact, let’s pretend that, until one IS married, sleeping around is really a big social no-no. However, once bonded, parties are free to reach whatever mutual agreement makes them happiest, with ‘sex on the side’, with whomever, being the norm. Goose and gander, both free to experiment…but not free to endanger the marriage. The marriage is the primary commitment, at all times.

So…Anyone up for this? If your partner turned to you tomorrow and said “Sweetie, I want some strange, and I’m sure you do, too. Let’s take a night off, meet Sunday morning for brunch, and have a nice day together afterwards. If that works out alright, maybe we can do that once a month or so,” would you even consider it?

I’ll start.

I’d be relieved if my husband would come right out and say this. At some future point, I feel pretty confident I can start that conversation myself without it being too big a surprise to him. I haven’t cheated in over a dozen years, and don’t see a reason to, but he knows my past. Or some of it, anyway. And MrTao is a very lusty male; I know full well that at least half the women going by would interest him in one way or another, and I am ok with that. More than ok, really, because I think he’d at least have a little understanding of how it feels to want to jump someone’s bones without it meaning anything more than “Hell yes, this is fun!”.

But I do know that, while it wouldn’t SURPRISE him to find out I’d cheated <which I haven’t, and won’t> it would still hurt him that I lied. And that’s why I won’t.

My caveats for having a monogamish relationship (HUGE kudos to Dan Savage for the phrase, it’s perfect) would be that I would not want to know anything about what was going on, and I would not want to share what I was doing, either. Sex is between me and whatever group of monkeys I’m sharing it with at the time, and that is it. And my marriage is between me and my husband, and THAT is it.

MrTao…may want to be more sharing. It would be…difficult for me, but I would at least try it, for him, after making it clear that I’d rather not. Hell, I’d rather make up fantastic tales about what I did then share what really happened; it’s just a privacy thing, as odd as that sounds in this context. But I would certainly try, if that’s what he wanted. If he liked THAT enough, then I’d definitely come up with something hot and imaginary for him to think about! (And now I have this image of a woman in an open marriage who never actually does anything on her end…hrm…I need to write that down somewhere)
So…if your partner tomorrow said “Hey, let’s!”, would you even consider it?

#2

Oh, for the record, I voted ‘It would depend on the relationship’. I’ve never been married before, so maybe that’s why I feel more comfortable about this with Mr.Tao than I would have with anyone else I’ve been with. Or maybe I’m just old now and long past the time that mind-blowing sex would cause me to change anything major in my life. :stuck_out_tongue:

#3

It’s not my idea of what being married means. I have no objection if others want to do it. That’s their business, not mine.

#4

I’d consider it, but only if I don’t have to grow the beard or forsake modern conveniences.

#5

While the idea of it sounds fun, it’s incompatible with my faith and thus off the table. Plus I don’t think I’m capable of doing it without the usual pitfalls and I know MrPanda isn’t.

What other people wanna do is their own bidness.

#6

I wouldn’t go for it, and it would bother me that my imaginary spouse even asked. When I’m in a serious relationship I don’t really want to have sex with anyone else anyway (but I’ve never been in a super long relationship so I can’t say for sure that I’d never want to) and I’d be jealous if my husband did.

I guess if it was purely a marriage of convenience though, then why not.

#7

I’d much rather be not married and have multiple sex partners than be in a situation where I was married and we both had multiple sex partners. In fact, I’m currently doing the former and I’d never do the latter.

I guess what I don’t get about the OP’s scenario is why do I have to be married to sleep around?

I have lots of friends and family that I love and I can turn to if I need help (and they can rely on me for the same). I don’t want a life partner purely for the companionship aspect of it. If there’s no sexual exclusivity to marriage, why not just marry a friend instead of a lover? Why not marry multiple people?

I have no particular desire to get married. Part of it is that I don’t want to have sex with just one person for the rest of my life. Another part of it is that I have no desire to have someone else living in my house with full access to my bank accounts.

I do sometimes get sexually jealous or possessive of my sex partners. It’s an irrational emotion, but often a powerful one. I suspect the cause of this is at least partially biological. But this only happens when I’m in a long term relationship with someone. When it comes to more casual dating, I’m not particularly jealous.

While it has evolved into something more complex, the primary function of marriage was to limit a woman’s number of sexual partners so that her husband could know that her children were his. With DNA paternity testing and women’s rights, I’m not sure marriage is really necessary any more. It seems pointless to me to keep marriage as an institution if you ignore the sexual exclusivity part of it.

#8

I personally didn’t give a crap about marriage either but ended up married for many reasons one of which is that immigration law doesn’t recognize unofficial commitments, but you cannot deny humans pair up. Maybe not for life but hell there are gay couples who are monogamous, why?

Even in society now where marriage is supposedly out of fashion monogamy is not, a lot of single people are what used to be called common law.

#9

Sure I can deny that all humans “pair up.” Some cultures practice polygamy. In Ancient Rome, a man was only allowed one wife, but it was perfectly acceptable for a married man to go to prostitutes or have sex with his slaves. There are innumerable other examples of cultures who don’t just “pair up.”

I do think that human beings might be biologically inclined to temporary monogamy, but not life long monogamy. Then again we aren’t just slaves to biology. It doesn’t bother me at all if people want to be monogamous for life.

#10

I consider serial monogamy pairing up, even people in open relationships have partners they end up spending more time with than others.

I do chuckle when people insist they are not married like it is a dirty word, but have been monogamous and lived together for more than a decade.:wink:

#11

I’m jealous and possessive. Couldn’t handle it.

#12

No. N.O. No. I can’t, for myself, imagine such a thing. I don’t even know how that works. Maybe a ‘sophisticated’ city couple moving in racy circles, but where I live? The pickin’s are slim out here! And again, how do you do that? “Oh, I’ve got a hot strictly-sex date Friday night and probably won’t be home till morning, but I’ll be back in time to take Junior to T-Ball.” “Hi, honey, just letting you know I’ve left your dinner in the fridge, I’m hooking up with the golf pro this evening. Be sure to take the trash can out to the curb, love you, bye!” “Did you put on the coffee? I’ll tell you about that wild chick I’ve been seeing but not till I’ve had my coffee!” “I’m worn out myself, the golf pro is a machine! We did it half a dozen times, but he’s not as good as you, hubby!” :stuck_out_tongue:

To each his own, I’ve known a few ‘swingers’, but me? No, thanks, I’m in it for the duration, till death do us part, don’t physically need a third party to change up the boredom.

#13

Been there, done that, have the t-shirt…and I’m not going back.

#14

“Monogamish”? I’d tell the bartender to shut her off.

#15

My logical side says “why not?”

My emotional side would probably be quite hurt if someone I loved enough to marry suggested this. But maybe it would seem easier if I had been married for a while and took a more practical attitude towards it.

I’m a bit hypocritical about it. If I ever cheated I could see it as something that has no bearing on the relationship - I would still love my wife and want to have sex with her 99% of the time. But on the other hand if a wife cheated on me I would see it as a damning indictment of her feelings for and about me. I’d probably be disgusted and want to destroy the other guy’s face.

#16

Yeah, that’s not going to happen. I’m monogomous. I have no desire to sleep with other men. My husband feels the same way.

Whatever other people do, that’s their business, though I will say I’ve never seen an arrangement like that work in the long term.

#17

Same here. We got married because we decided we were okay with the idea of being partners, a team, together, forsaking all others, for the rest of our lives. If we were not okay with the concept, we would not have gotten married. If we ever become not-okay with the concept, I would be sad, but the marriage would have to end. That’s just our point of view on it, but if he told me he wanted some sex on the side, I’d ask him to sign divorce papers first. And he feels the same way.

I’m okay with people who decide that open marriages are for them. My issue is with people who are sanctimonious about it, claiming they’re better than the rest of humanity because they don’t feel such base emotions as jealousy and possessiveness. You’re not some new evolution of humanity, folks. You found something that works for you, and that’s great. But don’t look down on me because I’d prefer that my husband keep his lovin’ for me.

#18

“monogamish” sounds to me like a sugar-coated word for “I want to screw around.” Which in most cases (to say the least) is not what a marriage is about, either generally in principle or specifically with any two given people. And frankly if we could somehow check, I think you’d find that extremely few such arrangements last.

ie unless you had this understanding from the start (good luck with that flying), it’s pretty ridiculous IMO to expect the other half to agree to it down the road and almost certainly will end in divorce.

If I was married to someone who said this - and my odds are better of winning the lottery, fortunately - my response would have something to do with courts and lawyers and nasty slang terms for prostitutes.

#19

If my fiance suggested this arrangement, it would be over between us.
I am happy with monogamy. I can find other men attractive, but I don’t have a desire to actually sleep with new people. One of the benefits of being monogamous is no longer having to worry about all the BS involved in looking for new partners. :slight_smile:

If I wanted to sleep around, I wouldn’t get married in the first place. My fiance was my best friend before we were a couple and I used to talk to him about dating other guys. We could have just kept things that way if I didn’t want to be monogamous with him.

We make an effort to try new things together which I think helps with not getting bored with each other. I don’t see any reason to try new people.

#20

Ooh, an unpopular position! One for me, please.

Admittedly, I’m not married, or even in a long-term relationship at the mo, though I have been.

I would probably be a little hurt if he suggested it out of the blue, and I’d definitely want storytelling, because I have an issue with secrecy, but I think I’d be open to it.

Some ground rules:

  • Condoms. Always.
  • No secrets. No sneaking around.
  • No dating. Sex is fine, but not romance.
  • I’m the wife. I come first.
  • If jealousy/feelings become(s) an issue, bring it up.