If, hypothetically speaking, your partner had a “you can dance with anyone you want as long as you come home to me” attitude towards sex with other people, or even “you can fall in love with other people and get serious about them as long as you still continue to spend time with me” — would you still commit?
A lot of the above, but one thing that recently became very evident made it all seem more worthwhile.
Back when you came to Prague for the Dopefest, I was going through a very very shitty time. My life was spiriling down quick because of numerous work-related issues. I survived it all because of one very important reason: my wife was there for me. Stand by your man, damn straight she did. Other people would not have blamed her much for walking out - I was in bad bad times. But she was there, daily, hourly. She kept her faith in me and helped me when I needed it the most.
I commit to her because she commited to me. And that realization has made both of us stronger.
-Tcat
Neither of us had to convince the other that it was the right thing for us to do. Everything about it felt right. We each turned out to be the kind of person we most wished we could have. We wrote about it in massive letters and talked about it on the phone for two years, because I lived in Canada then. When you find a relationship with another person like that, and after a couple of years you are both certain you’re not deluding yourselves, you throw your lot in with the other person, and do what it takes to make it work.
What did it cost? Immigration fees. What did it bring me? Security. A best friend of the opposite sex. The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to move somewhere warm and beautiful, and leave behind poverty and squabbling family and unemployment; to start over for the last time and make it work because I had no other option. It gave me the opportunity to meet other people in another family who don’t hate each other and actively try to keep each other miserable.
I can do just about anything I ever did before I was married. If there’s anything I can’t do now, I can’t remember what it was, so it can’t have been important. I don’t do anything to make my wife angry; she does the same for me. So we never have anything to argue about. Neither of us is the other’s boss. It’s a partnership. We’ve known each other coming up on ten years, and will have been married for eight years in May. I can’t imagine ever meeting someone else like her. We are so different in some ways, and so alike in others. The two of us coming together has been one of the world’s most happy accidents. That’s why I commit to my wife voluntarily. No regrets. There’s also the question of ‘would I go back to the way it was?’ - Not on your life! So I am motivated to see that it never happens.
AHunter, thanks for raising that question. What you describe was my relationship with my SO, for many years. (Nothing outrageous, we both had two-three other relationships during that time) And although I still think polyamory is a beautiful idea and can work for some people, it wouldn’t be my choice at present anymore.
Perhaps commitment is not so much about “I’ll help you” but about feeling perfectly entitled to ask “Please help ME”. From Tomcat’s and Lissa’s posts, that stance seems to make one, surprisingly, stronger instead of weaker. Who knew?
Not to mention what a damn lot of work it is. I figured out early on that, for me at least, it takes way more energy and time to be in 2-3 not-so-committed relationships than it does to maintain a single committed one. There are still expectations and responsibilities, and those can be different for each relationship - it’s like keeping a scorecard, and inevitably someone ends up unhappy when those expectations aren’t met. Throw in the worries about STDs, pregnancy, etc. and um, no thanks. I’d rather have no sexual/romantic relationships than multiples.
It’s also nice to know when you are in a committed relationship that there’s someone there who has your back at the end of the day too. It’s not always fun to have someone else in your life that you always need to clear things with, and whose actions can severely impact your life, but if you can manage to commit to the right person then the benefits can indeed outweigh the risks.
Thanks for your invitation Maastricht. Though I certainly don’t want to intrude on your OP. So if I start derailing it, feel free to tell me to butt out. 
I guess my rambling thoughts so far is not that I’m advocating polyamory - not that there is anything wrong with that. I’ve had some very recent experiences that approach that kind of thing. It was an interesting experiment but not one I’d like to pursue in the long run.
But life, being what it is, one immediately begins plotting revenge. 
Or at least a way of learning from past mistakes and coming up with ways to commit new ones. So to the extent that I’ve experienced what I’d call romantic, soul-mate type love with every intention of having it last, life had other plans for me. So as part of the second time around, I’m determined to make this be a more adult/rational type of decision based more on practical compatibility (yes, including the sexual kind) than the last time around when wanting a commitement based relationship was the cause and not the result of said union.
It’s hard (at least for me in the past) to tell the difference oft times between what comes first: The love and subsequent commitment or the desire to be commited.
So here I am once again, trying to make that decision through the eyes of a 42 year old and not the 24 year old that was more afraid of losing his “soul-mate” than selling his soul. 
As Chris Rock says: “When you’re in a relationship, ya wanna kill yo SO. When ya single, you wanna kill yaself. I figure…better HER than ME!”
Well, I look at my SO’s single female friends in their 30s and there’s kind of a sad desperation about them. At a certain point, going out to the bars goes from “fun night out” to “I hope I meet someone tonight”.
Then again, her married friends are all miserable too so go figure. I figure most people want to find someone to connect to who actually cares if you come home or not. Sure, the downside is you have to run it past someone if you want to hang out all night or take a vacation, but as you get older, there’s fewer people to do that kind of stuff with.
Don’t you know it’s rude, msmith537, to come into a thread and be all rational and sensible like. We’re trying to build up a head of steam here!
Can’t speak for anyone else here but I’m on the fence about the reasons to commit at this point in my life vs. the reasons to do that before. And even to what degree to do so.
Or perhaps I’m being all stupid and this is simply a form of mental masturbation because in the end, a commitment is just what it is, and who cares about the reasons leading up to it.
My wife took a lover who was just under 6 feet tall and right at 300#. (Much like Austin Powers, I had more than one thing in mind when I blurted out “How could you!?” Uh…my point is…in my experience, wimmin look at guys like they would a department store. If you have what they want and it requires what they would consider to be a reasonable emotional cost, you’re making the sale. Whether you have power tools, tires or state of the art stereo equipment is almost completely irrelevant as long as you have just the right thread count with the right print. Guys, on the other hand, are often stereotyped as shopping at the store with the best display in the window and typically ignore the price tags and general merchandise quality.
Me? My wife is not a wonderful wife. In al other ways she’s a really neat person, and she thinks the same of me. Neither of us have in great abundance what the other wants, but we do have some kids that we are willing to get along for. We would both suck as single parents, and we generally get along well enough now that fidelity is a matter of courtesey as opposed to a “given.” We have everything except each other’s hearts. There are worse marriages and better. At this point, it’s an arrangement of convenience with very little romance. “Commitment” with us is more of commitment to a united effort to raise kids that can make better choices than we did–both in relationships and in life’s dealings in general.
When SWMBO and I got together, both of us were recovering from painful divorces from disastrous marriages. Both of us resisted at first, because we didn’t want to bounce into a “rebound” situation. But as time went by, we found more and more reasons to be together and fewer to not, and as we got to know each other better, we found more and more things to honor and respect in the other.
Although I gotta say that I definitely got the better end of the deal!
Before I get yelled at, I should mention this is true for guys. After a certain age the answer to the question “what the fuck am I doing in this bar?” should be “dodging the Mrs.”, not “hoping to score with a 22 year old”.