To think monogamy is outdated?

[UniqueOrca]

In today’s world where we value personal freedom and independence, AIBU to think monogamy is an old-fashioned concept? Is it really realistic to expect one person to fulfil all your needs for life?

It works for some people, not others.

Like most things, it's not black and white.

Its always been outdated. It's just we've been conditioned to accept it as the "norm".

I suppose it is, but like capitalism, I haven't found an alternate system that works. People who have given up on monogamy seem no happier than me.

But why expect someone to fulfill all your needs? I am monogamous but I go on solo trips, have my own interests, my own friends....

It's one of the stupidest rules we have made up along the way imo.

It's outdated to expect everyone to remain monogamous, that doesn't mean monogamy is an outdated concept. If you expect one person to fulfil all your needs for life then you're doing monogamy wrong.

Absolutely this.

Your husband/wife does not need to fulfil ALL of your needs.

I feel like the point of life is to grow and evolve, learning things along the way, facing periods of discomfort / adjustment and ultimately spending time with people who bring you joy and happiness. As a result, we can outgrow relationships that no longer serve us. Personally, I could not imagine spending decades with the same person. I like meeting people. I like learning about other people's lives and worlds. If I was still with the same person I loved when I was 18 I would have a pretty shit life nowadays I think.

Absolutely this!

People who criticise monogamy come up with crap arguments like 'one person cannot fulfil all your needs' to justify wanting to shag around.

I've always been monogamous and never once have I expected or experienced my partner as ' fulfilling all my needs' and never once have I fulfilled all their needs. We both have full lives of our own. We enhance each other's lives, rather than become each other's lives.

One could always take up polyamoury or have an open marriage? I can't think of anything worse, but some of my friends are doing that.

It seems your definition of monogamy is incorrect? Monogamy means to have one sexual partner at any one time. It does not mean to have that one partner for life.

Social conditioning is hard to break
We have been told all our lives that seeing someone else is cheating and bad and some even break up families over it.
This would be a very hard mentality for most people to get over

It's not about anything being outdated, as pp says it's works for some people. The important thing is that don't promise monogamy then betray that promise.

Monogamy really is about promising to reserve your resources for one nuclear family. I don't think that's outdated. For men that was about ensuring that your wife's children were yours no some other man's and for women it was about ensuring that the man would stick around and that he was the boy providing for your own children not dozens of other women and their children.

Don't marry if you don't intend to stick to those principles. It's outdated that you have to stick to that traditional life if you don't want to. Stay single, sleep around as much as you want!

I thin people are confusing monogamy with having a possessive controlling spouse. I meet lots of other people while being married and learn about their worlds. Just not romantically.

No of course it's not 'outdated', it's up to each individual/ couple to decide what works for them.

I had lots of "fun" before marriage (long term and short term and non defined relationships). I enjoyed that but have been (almost always) happily married for 24 years.
I love DH more as time goes on and love the depth of our relationship. Can't imagine having that with anyone else. I am very sociable and out loads without him which helps with the potential boredom factor.

It isn’t realistic to expect another person to fulfil all of your needs for life. That’s up to you and it would lazy and complacent otherwise. Perhaps the problem isn’t monogamy but your expectations of it?

I think the problem is not with monogamy but with expecting any one individual to meet all of your needs for life. What a curious idea!!

Funny thing is, I've been with my husband since I was 18. I am 50 now, and in all these years, I have met lots of people, grown and evolved, learning on the way, facing challenges. ..I have just done it with him. I have not been prevented from interacting with anyone else, or travelling, or learning new things. We grew together. We evolved together.
You may not have been able to do that with the love you had at 18. I could, did, and still am.

Honestly, monogamy doesn't mean you are locked in a cage for the rest of your life.

This is another counter reality argument. It clearly is not just social conditioning, as humans feel sexual jealousy. We would not have feelings of sexual jealousy if we had not evolved the capacity to do so, and it evolved for a reason, which is not hard to work out.

In fact, from open relationships/ polyamory chats I have read, its the other way around. People in these relationships often seem to be trying very hard to consciously ' socially condition' themselves out of the feelings of jealousy that they are experiencing.

I've felt this strongly before, when single, and after divorce, but now I'm in a happy relationship, I don't. Everything looks different when you're in love. When I was young and driven by my ovaries, I was strongly attracted to the man I wanted to have children with, though I didn't realise at the time that I wasn't looking at the long term. Now, in mid-life, I want someone I can be happy and relaxed with. But isn't it beautiful when you see couples who do really work well long term?

However, clarification needed - "monogamy" doesn't mean you stay with one person for life, it just means one person at a time, as opposed to having multiple partners. It sounds like you are thinking of "lifelong monogamy". If so, certainly there's a large proportion of people who it doesn't work for.

@UniqueOrca

Are you single?

I came here to say this, who puts pressure on one person to fulfill all of their needs? I would feel stifled if my DH was involved in every part of my world.

Serial monogamy is the norm, whether people like that or not. I don't have the data available obviously, but I would have thought it was extremely likely most people have had more than one sexual partner in their lives. You wouldn't expect someone to only have one sexual partner ever.

It's a lovely idea that people stay together their entire lives, but people shouldn't make themselves unhappy trying to pursue that ideal. It's ok to leave and get into a new relationship. I don't feel at all guilty for being divorced, for example. I'm not spoiling my one life for the sake of pleasing anyone else.

I am planning a solo trip to meet a friend in Greece in December. DH doesn't want to come so he won't. I will be pursuing some of my niche interests, meeting new people, doing new things while being monogamous! It's not a cage.