To think it's crazy that we hang our stability on sexual attraction?

[NoisyDenimShaker]

This post is about being married (or as good as married).

As I've aged, and seen entire lives blown up over sex, it's occurred to me how completely crazy it is that we organise our entire lives around something as fleeting, whimiscal, and delicate as sexual attraction.

Our life's finances, our children's sense of home and stability, our mental health, our very home, which should be our sanctuary, is all ultimately hung on sexual attraction.

It's. Crazy.

And I don't have a better idea. That doesn't mean our species' way isn't INSANE.

I know people might say, well it begins with sexual attraction but it develops into something more, a shared history, being family, being best friends, deep love. I agree wholeheartedly with that, and it's my answer, too. I'm someone who was made for commitment, and I get more bonded and interested in my partner as time goes on. I'm not someone who gets bored with commitment.

However, after many years together, my husband did not feel the same. The lure of the big wide world beckoned, other women seemed more attractive, and off he went. And he used to be so in love with me. The same thing happened to a good friend of mine. Her husband adored her, until he decided more sex was more important and went off seeking it.

And we've all seen the threads on here about runaway husbands.

YOU might be comfortable with longterm married/committed love, but we really don't have much control over the possibility of a restless or unfaithful partner. And so our entire lives can get blown up, easily, over sex.

The truth is that all our security and stability is hung on sexual attraction, and I think it's utterly insane.

I have no answer, but it does occur to me that the aristo way of doing things - marrying for business reasons - might be more sensible than our way, which is to organise things around often-fickle hearts.

I'm getting divorced after a very long separation and I'm determined that my home and security will never depend on a partner's sexual attraction to me again, so I guess I'm heading for a LAT relationship if I find someone I really like. (Living Apart Together.)

I really miss not having a life partner, but on the other hand, I'm glad that the stability and security of my home isn't built on the bedrock of marriage, which is - according to a divorce lawyer who wrote a book entitled IF YOU'RE IN MY OFFICE IT'S ALREADY TOO LATE (or something) - well, according to him, marriage is all about sex. I had thought sex was a part of it, but he reckons marriage is all about sex.

Well, I don't want my security and stability to be tied to sexual attraction. It's too fleeting.

Sorry for the essay. What are your thoughts?

Oh, that didn't work... I'll try a link...

Not all women are smart.

A few women I know became pregnant by total - good looking- dickheads.

Here we go:

Here it is:

I don't think you can assume family break ups are mostly due to men having affairs.

There are a lot of other factors - physical abuse, emotional abuse, men who don't pull their weight at home with the kids. It's a good thing that women are nowadays able to get out of these bad relationships.

I don't know what proportion of relationship breakdown is due to extra marital affairs but I'd guess less than half based on my experience.

I don't think women are designed to be monogamous either.

In my opinion, monogamy is a completely unnatural concept.

You can never force someone to never ever be with any other person. It doesn't work.

I fancy my DH, but we were friends for years before dating. The more friendship grew, the more a spark grew. He is my best mate, and that means more than just sex. We are partners. He pulls more than his fair share with housework, we equally share childcare, and we work together on big decisions.

Yes. He was well ahead of his time. Always felt strongly that women should have the ability to support themselves, even if they choose not to use it for a time. In fact he volunteered to be my childminder 2 days a week because he wanted me to keep my career going, and that turned out to be brilliant advice/support as I became widowed later and life woukd definitely be very poorer now if I hadn't kept my hand in at work.

His point was if you're going to have kids, choose their dad carefully.

Lol

Nomination for most MN post of the year please

I agree, but my post is about the many relationships where heartache is caused by sex, such as infidelity, including the discovery of an affair. Even if the couple stays together, a huge amount of trauma has been caused by extra-marital sex.

I think we are designed to be monogamous, in that we have one partner at a time, especially while raising DC. I don't think it's particularly realistic to expect that one partner to be the right one for a lifetime.

Not every woman has one partner at a time.

I think you have completely missed OP’s point, it’s not about how you feel, your partner has the power to sabotage all of that for sex elsewhere if he so chooses that’s what she is saying that it’s actually a precarious way to live when you think about it.

Yes monogamy to one person for an entire lifetime, is not really realistic. And never was.

So many things change over the course of a lifetime.

Well, I have skin in this game as I'm currently TTC with someone who is not my partner (he has a very lovely partner of his own), and a friend of mine reminded me that, over time, marriages (as in, institutions for the purpose of raising children or making a go of a shared financial life) have not really had much to do with sexual attraction.

I can absolutely see the negatives to that, and goodness knows I do not fancy being a sterotypical Victorian wife, expected to smile and nod while her husband shags whoever he fancies and still gets her pregnant 10 or 12 times. But even so.

I am sure it must be heartbreaking but I don't really see a solution in allowing someone to have extra marital sex... wouldn't that also be awful even if they were still living with you? Or do you think it would be ok if it were an acceptable thing in society?

Lots of traditional societies allowed men to take several wives and other sexual partners (see bible for reference!) , which was a mechanism to satisfy the need for men to have more sex, but still make sure the previous partners were financially looked after. But this just led to jealousy between the wives and their respective children.

I liked yoko onos idea. She got fed up with john lennon.

So she hand picked a new female partner for him, and packed him off. She got the new female partner to look after john lennon for a year.

Yoko ono got a long rest.

Then when she was ready, she took john lennon back.

I think people might be happier if they didn't expect monogamy.

I saw a woman write on mumsnet that she knew her husband was having an affair, and it actually made her happy, as he was much less grumpy.

"Allowing someone to have extra marital sex".

Many Men have extra marital sex anyway

Lots of people in the world do not marry (or equivalent of marriage) for love
In their culture marriage is related to; local tradition, property, dowry, religion, families, land.

Some people have no choice of a partner, it is decided for them

It would be interesting to ask people in their 80s what they think. To see if it turns out sex is the drive to make you happy or something more like character and loyalty.
it would be interesting to canvass people who have seen it through to the absolute end and get an average view of what was going on, do they regret their choices? What would they recommend people do. Would they prioritise sex or character, having seen every single marriage last or bust.

i feel like we are all in the thick of it and still have drives and desires and money in the game and can’t be dispassionate about it.

Culturally in western society it's one partner at a time but quite likely to be several partners over a lifetime, sequentially. It's fairly unusual for someone to have several partners on the go at once over a long period.

Whereas in African cultures it's normal for men to have more than one sexual partner on the go at once (and likely keep them for a relatively long time).

This is partly why the spread of hiv was so bad in African countries, because their behaviour is different and changes the risk profile for this infection.

There's a very interesting book on it called the wisdom of whores by Elisabeth pisani.

Well yes but generally it's not with the consent and approval of their wife. You missed my point - obviously men will always have affairs - my point was - is it better for the wife to condone this? Or does she still feel sad and betrayed and jealous anyway

I think women should have more extra marital affairs themselves!

My male friend said something once to me that really resonated with me.

He said "men are not nice to women, why are women so nice to men"

This. The divorce lawyer who wrote the book is wrong. He only sees the marriages that go wrong, not the many many more that go right. Its called confirmation bias.