i should have quoted. that last line was a reply to Charley’s earlier post.
i’m making a lot of assumption about Herself here, but i think your failure to understand a monogamous person’s viewpoint despite spending 12 years with one speaks volumes on the matter.
No, intentionally misstating what something is in order to justify your insults of the OP is what gets you accused of putting a “spin” on a topic. You continue to conflate polyamory, the inclination to maintain more than one romantic partner relationship, with promiscuity, the behavior characterized by indiscriminately engaging in sexual relations with numerous people on a casual, uncommitted basis. You have no justification for doing so in either definition, nor the admitted lifestyle of the OP, but that’s not stopped you from accusing him of things that he hasn’t done, or dishing out insults based on your mistake.
What commitment and responsibility was being avoided when he was in this relationship for more than a decade? Please be specific and detailed.
Also, please explain the difference between polyamory and swinging. Because I don’t believe that you actually know, and your confusion is muddying your perspective significantly.
Which would be followed by:
Her: And you knew it would make me feel like shit if you did.
I think maybe you’re misunderstanding a poly relationship - which is not the same as swinging. My understanding is that your middle paragraph does, in fact, describe poly relationships - you can be in a committed, supportive relationship with more than one person at once, in the same way that monogamous relationships focus all that on one person. It’s not just having sex with whoever you feel like it, and it’s not necessarily an unequal relationship, and I think you’re making some rather offensive assumptions about people who do have those relationships and their ability to make their own informed decisions.
Being in a relationship where you’ve both agreed you can have other relationships at the same time is not the same as not being able to commit and expecting or wanting that relationship to end; rather the opposite, in fact - it’s committing to more than one person at once.
Am I misunderstanding here?
I am fully aware of the difference. I have a bit more respect for swingers - at the very least they acknowledge a long-term commitment to their partner as a relationship, even if they want no restrictions on sexual partners. Hey, it might work for some.
Poly relationships, however, are basically multiple sex partners without even creating the facade of a long-term committed relationship.
No, you can not. Supportive, possibly. Committed, no. Take my rather simple example above. Two of your partners suddenly depend on you for emotional or financial support due to illness or something. Are you telling me you are able to offer equal commitment to both? Commitment means being there for that person when -they- need you to be there, not just when it’s convenient for you.
Baloney. I know lots of people that I have close relationships with that doesn’t involve sex. I call them ‘friends’.
Sorry if the truth hurts. As I said previously - if all parties in the relationship are equally happy that the other person will only be there when it suits him/her, won’t be there to grow old with them, to be there ‘in sickness and in health’ - more power to 'em. Grownups can make their own choices. But let’s be honest here - wanting multiple sexual partners with no commitment is much more common with men than women, and I think we all know that women in the relationship area more likely than the man to eventually want the relationship to move towards monogamy. And that’s where the relationship becomes unequal.
Yes. Unless you are amazingly wealthy with massive amounts of free time on your hand, you can’t actually commit to multiple people. It simply doesn’t work, and in the end it is going to be the women that draw the short end of the stick.
DragonAsh
You keep using that word. I do not think that word means what you think it means.
Seriously. You keep asserting things to be self-evident and established facts, when they are not; and drawing conclusions from unstated premises that you seem to think are axiomatic for everyone.
I don’t accept your built-in gender diffs argument.
I don’t accept your unexplained notions about some hypothetical connection between exclusivity and intensity of feeling.
I reject your equivocation between promiscuity (or choose your own term) and polyamory.
I dismiss your “the majority do it so it must be right” approach to justifying monogamy as the natural & only appropriate formulation.
Overall, you’ve started out with a conclusion – that being monogamous is in some fashion a better or more nice way to be in the world – and then argued in circles, begging the question, reiterating the unquestioned beliefs you started out with as if you’d derived them and developed them by hurling them at me as invective.
I simply don’t agree with you.
I did not seek out and select a monogamous person to have a mismatched relationship with. The two of us met, fell in love, and despite our mismatch tried to make a go of it.
I do not merely regard polyamory as “permissible” or “ok”, I consider it to be the honest approach to relationships.
It isn’t the polyamourous who are most often characterized by selfishness (“If you loved me you would not do what you want with your body, you would do what I want”), possessiveness (“I need to own you, you don’t get to have anyone else”), widespread dishonesty (what you folks call “cheating”), insecurity (the emotional energy you waste on worrying about “cheating”), distrust (“I found a guy’s phone number in her wallet what should I do”), or sanctimoniousness (yes I know I’m guilty of it myself on this subject, but you’ve eclipsed me at my most self-righteous & pompous).
My partner… ex-partner at this point… trusts me, even now, to be honest with her. I never said I would never have sex with anyone else, NOT because I feel the need to do so but because I don’t think humans are very good at making that prediction or living up to that promise. “Monogamous” folks as a whole sure don’t a real scintillating track record in that regard, now do they? What I did promise her is that if I did, I would tell her. I do know some fully trusting monogamous folks who would tell you that if their significant other says they haven’t had sex with anyone else, then they haven’t, end of story. But frankly, many of you make the exclusivity promise just because it’s expected of you, it’s “what normal people do”, and then when a situation develops where you’d really like to have sex with someone else, you do it and then you keep it a secret. (Because you promised NOT to do so, so you’ve already broken faith).
I understand what it is like to be biased against a way of life that makes no sense to you, because I have been biased against monogamy / sexual exclusivity. So I suppose this is my comeuppance, to start an MPSIMS thread and get the holier-than-thou finger in my face and listen to all this contempt. But I don’t intend to sit here in the pillory while such stuff is flung at me.
I’m very confused about the posters who think that polyamorous relationships aren’t “committed” or that it sucks for women. For what it’s worth, I’m female, I’ve been with my partner for 18 years (yeesh!), and I’ve never felt unloved. He has stood by me in sickness and health, through moves and job changes, through prosperity and want. The fact that we have both had other partners (of varying degrees of seriousness and commitment) changes none of that.
I disagree that it’s in any way about genders. I’ve seen monogamous men treated badly by poly women, too.
But I do think there is a real difference between two people who are poly getting involved versus a monogamous type agreeing to a poly relationship. The latter is a set-up for disaster, and even if it lasts 12 years, there really was an inherent power imbalance that means the monogamous half was getting a raw deal from day one.
Personally, I think that poly relationships are immature and a lifestyle choice of the emotionally stunted, but my opinion is neither here nor there and it’s really none of my business. I’d just rather that poly types have the decency to at least only play with their own kind.
Hey, don’t expect you to agree with me - we have very, very different perspectives on what we want out of relationships and what we’re willing to put in relationships.
But yeah, starting this thread and actually looking for sympathy - sorry, not from me. And I will continue to believe that, in the end, you’ll either realize you really would rather commit to just one person, or you will end up in your golden years very much alone.
Ghar, there’s so much that’s completely wrong with your post, AHunter3, that I don’t know where to start.
Calling it a mismatch is downright dishonest. A mismatch is a night-owl trying to date a morning person. A vegetarian trying to date someone that hates vegetables. What you were doing was holding the relationship hostage: if you want the relationship to continue, you have to accept that I can and will have multiple sexual partners when I know you would rather I didn’t. Take it or leave it.
Actually, many of us keep the exclusivity promise not just because it’d hurt others, we keep it because we’re actually committed to the other person in the relationship. I’m not interested in having sex with anyone else - it’s far more meaningful with my wife. Just because -you- can’t make a commitment, don’t assume nobody else can.
I do think it is better overall. Just two examples, I think it’s better when it comes to raising children, and better for couples as they face old age. No one has yet to answer my question about what would happen if two partners both needed you. Or two partners got pregnant at the same time. You think both women would really be equally happy with having only half a father for their children?
What you call ‘honesty’, I call immature selfishness.
You’re taking the lazy way through relationships; at least have the balls to own up to that much.
Did you complete miss the part where I explained that I have never had sex with anyone else during the 12 years we’ve been together? Specifically because of my understanding of how it would make her feel? (Even though I don’t really understand why it would make her feel that way, I take her word for it)?
I don’t think you could have missed that unless you were ignoring it willfully. And in light of it your statement makes no sense at all.
That would be a disaster–but that’s not what was described. It was a poly person being in a monogamous relationship for 12 years. Not nearly as much of a guaranteed flaming wreck in the future for that, but still unlikely to succeed long-term.
You don’t get to pick who you fall in love with, Lobot. If the two of them were both willing to make the relationship work within mutually-agreeable parameters (which, to reiterate, did include exclusivity in this case), I don’t see why they shouldn’t have given it a shot.
("… with their own kind?" Nice. :rolleyes:)
Typical, though.
I knew the “their own kind” part smacked of prejudice, but I was too lazy to think up a better wording. Or maybe I didn’t care. Either way, my apologies.
Anyway, I appreciate that the relationship was effectively monogamous and I’ll give AHunter3 that much, at the very least. But it doesn’t exactly foster a sense of emotional stability if you, as the monogamous half, have this Sword of Damocles perpetually hanging over your head that your partner’s fidelity will remain only so long as it suits them.
And no, you can choose who you fall in love with. I’ve had inklings and sparks with married people, but I’ve not fostered such inclinations because that goes against my values. It’s all about boundaries.
But…that’s true of all relationships, yes? There is never any guarantee that the person you’re with will remain faithful throughout the entire relationship. One hopes so, of course, if one is a monogamous type, and one tries to choose one’s partner carefully - but there is always that risk.
Hell, if I were a 100% monogamous person, I’d rather be in a relationship with someone like the OP - who was open about being poly, but loved me enough to put that aside because they cared about my feelings and was de facto monogamous for OVER A DECADE until the relationship ran its course for other reasons - and who I could trust to tell me if he wanted to be involved with someone else - than with someone who was pretending that they didn’t ever have eyes for anyone else but me, but was secretly banging their ex on an irregular basis.
Barring mind-control, there is no guarantee of fidelity. Barring telepathy, there’s no way to know for 100% sure that your spouse is faithful. The sword of Damocles is there for EVERYONE.
Maybe this is my naivety talking, but I disagree. In a monogamous long-term relationship, if there’s a background idea that either party may chose to start seeing others at any time, that’s when the relationship is doomed, because at a fundamental level there are big trust/commitment issues.
Yes, in reality the relationship may break down at any point, but to make it work, you commit to not becoming involved with others and you also place trust in your partner to do the same.
It’s immaterial as to what may or may not happen in your relationship. What’s important is what each person believes about the relationship and whether or not their beliefs are shared.
AlHunter, essentially your relationship fizzled out and neither she nor you seemed to want to take the necessary steps to make it thrive. Correct? This could happen in any kind of relationship, as has already been pointed out. Many of us have been there in one shape or another.
So why do you vow to never do monogamy again? I think this is what is causing posters to attack you. You seem to think that a relationship in which both you and she are practicing polyamorists would somehow last longer and be more satisfying than your last monogamous one. This sounds like delusional wishful thinking to me.
Consider this: If things get boring between you and your next girlfriend, when that flower of passion wilts (as it did with your ex), when the crust of the motherfucker (to quote Chris Rock) finally emerges from behind the veneer of idealism, how is having another girffriend going to remedy this? Would you be more committed to working through your issues with GF #1,when GF #2 (and maybe GF#3) is there to keep you preoccupied? Or would you be more motivated to put GF#1 on the back burner, until she becomes completely obsolete and another more attractive GF moves in to take her place?
It is said that polyamorous people can love mulitple people at once. This doesn’t strike me all that crazy, especially if we define love as a feeling rather than an action. But this doesn’t mean these people need to love multiple people at once to function in a healthy relationship. Just as it’s not inevitable that a serial monogamist will never find one person to happily settle down with. “Can” is not the same thing as “need”.
From what you wrote, it doesn’t sound like practicing polyamory is the obvious next step. Figuring out exactly why you guys gave up on each other and aiming to not let that happen again is. Having access to multiple lovers may be a way to add excitement to your life, but I can’t see how it can prevent people from growing apart and letting their relationship fall into neglect.
That’s a very good question. I don’t have a good and reasonable answer for you, actually. At least not off the top of my head. It really is sort of a red herring, isn’t it?
• OK, some of it is in the same spirit as my girlfriend saying “…and I will NEVER EVER again get involved with someone who fries all his damn food. Do you have any idea how much fry oil is embedded on top of the wooden cabinets?” Yes I, being a souithern dude, tended to fry a lot of chicken and pork chops over the years, deep pan frying. Yes, she, being a non-polyamourous person, put a crimp in portions of my lifestyle, too. Could I just have easily have said “…and yeesh, no more women who are into Frank Sinatra and all that pre-rock jazz club music stuff. I wanna be with someone who appreciates Pink Floyd dammit” – ?? A little bit no, but a little bit yes.
• If – hypothetically speaking – I had had other girlfriends I could spend some time with, and get laid with, etc, I think in many ways she would have been “off the hook” as far as fulfilling some of my emotional needs that, for failure to be addressed, caused me to not want to be intimate with her any more. In particular, if I was getting physical affection (hugs, random touches) I think I would not have felt to STARVED for that that I became withdrawn around her and sexually disinterested in her.
• If – hypothetically speaking – SHE had had a different kind of guy also in her life, perhaps more “dangerous” and naughty, someone into different positions and role play and stuff, I might not have seemed so dull and boring to her.
I admit to being prejudiced. I think everyone would be happier without sexual exclusivity. Because I am not blessed with perfect knowledge, and because it is neither productive nor nice to go around assuming that whenever one sees things differently than other people they are always wrong, etc, I accept on some level that this simply may not be true of everyone. But exclusivity just seems like an incomprehensibly foreign notion. I have never for 15 seconds in my life EVER wanted that from anyone else. (Umm let me rephrase that. I have certainly wanted 15 seconds and considerably more than that, as a block of time, reserved for me. But that’s not what I meant and you know it).
Sometimes it won’t. Sometimes Person X is just no longer good news and it is time to not have Person X in your life.
In the case of my girlfriend (/ex), I’d like to keep her in my life. At the time I was breaking up with her (initial announcement etc), I did not think I ever wanted to be more than friends with her, but oddly enough the breakup process has scraped off some of our mutual armor, and (frustratingly) I would not want to discontinue relations with her if I could see her on occasion. But not day in and day out. And not exclusively.
I will add that I happen to have retained friendships with a sizeable percentage of my ex’s. I’ve stayed decently good friends with S, J1, J2, and would consider myself fortunate if I can keep them in my life and stay in touch a be a resource to them, in one sense or another, as we all grow older. Some of them are more disposted to polyamory than others; if occasional sexual intimacy were to be a possibility that would be a delicious and wonderful thing to share with any one of them. It hasn’t been a factor so far, though, and is not the reason why I value having them in my life.
Ultimately, it is friendship and intense personal loyalty that persists. They are the people I love.
Yes, I think so. Having someone else to talk it over, and go over how they’ve resolved similar / parallel issues with their boyfriends, helps; and just making it to that GF#1 doesn’t have to be my ONLY significant emotional outlet. Seriously, no one should have to life up to that!
Agreed. I don’t feel intrinsically shortchanged if I only have one girlfriend at any given time. Heck, it’s pretty darn nice to have anyone to love and who loves you in return.
We’re going to talk some. As others have said, 12 years is a damn long track record to fling aside without a few more tries. I’m out of her apartment and in some ways maybe it can be like starting over from scratch. Dunno for sure whether we can again find common ground. Can’t hurt to not be in too much of a hurry to talk some more, though. There’s a whole lot of “rest of our lives” to explore the alternatives, it’s not like postponing it to talk some more will kill that off.
I think I understand what you’re saying, but in reality if you were just a standard monogamist couple who broke up for the reasons yall did, I can’t see you putting so much emphasis on finding a Pink Floyd fan next go 'round.
This concept is something I’ve toyed around in my head for a while and still haven’t reached a decision on. I have to admit that it sounds good in theory; but in practice, I’m not so sure things work so neatly. If a person stops meeting your emotional and physical needs sufficiently enough to keep you happy, then how strong is your relationship? Or rather, how deep is it? If someone else provided you with that missing thing, it doesn’t follow that you would suddenly want to be intimate with your girlfriend, does it? Odds are, you’d give that initimacy to the person who supplied you with the thing you wanted.
Not to tell you how you’d feel, but I think this is wrong. If I had two boyfriends, one who was excited about having sex with me and loved to initiate it and one who acted like it was a chore, having my ego stroked by the first one would not suddenly make me want to get in bed with the second one. Just the opposite actually. Why would I even bother sleeping with the second one when the first one is better? Why would I even try?
You would have seemed much more duller and boring to her, dude. Very easy for her to compare you to her dangerous bad boy and find you lacking.
Sometimes I think so as well. But I don’t think polyamory is the answer to our woes. As the name implies, it’s about love and relationships, not just sex.
I disagree pretty strongly with this.
It sounds like you’re saying, “I don’t trust anybody, so I won’t trust anybody, that way I won’t get hurt”. That’s really a sad, lonely perspective to have. I’ve had painful experiences in the past, so it’s not like I haven’t been there…but I guess I have a more optimistic outlook on life and people in general.
The sword of Damocles may be there for everyone - but it’s a LOT closer for the person whose partner makes it clear from the start that they won’t even try to stay faithful.