Can you really be in a committed relationship yet still sleep with other people?

[notanumber]

I am a regular and I haven't namechanged, so it would me nice if we could sidestep any troll accusations.

I've been pondering this since reading the interview with George Michael in last weekend's Guardian.

Michael seems like a slightly troubled but very likeable man. He has been with his boyfriend Kenny Goss for a very long time and as such they are one of Celebrity Royalty's fêted couples.

However, Michael -in this interview and previously - has made clear that he routinely has sex with other people (clearly this is with Goss' consent or at least knowledge).

Now if they're happy, that's fine, I don't have a problem with someone having multiple sexual partners if that's their thing. I just find it very hard to buy that a couple can have this kind of understanding and for their relationship to be really truly committed.

It is hard work being committed to someone, and being sexually faithful is a big part of what makes it hard. The pay-off though (in my opinion), is a truly deep, fulfilling committed relationship. Basically, can someone be 'the one' if you routinely shag other people?

Of course, it's none of my bloody business what George Michael (or anyone else for that matter) does with his willy for fun. I'm not judging casual sex.

I would also like to stress that this is nothing to do with homosexuality for me - I'd feel similarly about a heterosexual couple who portray themselves as deeply committed yet regularly sleep with other people. I would be asking the question, well are you really that bloody committed then?

It really really isn't me being icky about anal sex. I don't get why someone would want a fist up their fanjo either, but this would in no way make me question their commitment to their relationship if it was something they only ever did with their partner.

So what do you think?

The Second Coming THAT is the funniest thing I have read in a LONG time, am laughing my head off, thank you SO much for brightening up a rather dull thurs nite!!!!

Yes, I do. BUT, I don't think everyone can. For me, sex and commitment go hand in hand and in the past the minute I start to even think about sex with someone else, that's the end of the relationship.

I think it depends on what sex really means to you.

LeQ, our Mexico trip was 2006, first child free holiday, if you knew how I am with heights, I've been known to burst into tears on the walls of Conwy castle but standing on top of that pyramid was amazing, as was coming down from the ridge overlooking Hatshepsut's Temple at daybreak last April. DH getting carted off by the tourist police for videoing in the tomb of Seti was less spectacular .

It's the sheer bloody cheeky assumption that having a long happy (and monogamous) marriage means a dull, unfulfilled life as a drudge.

My life is anything but boring to me, we've packed in a whole lifetime of experiences since 1985 and if anyone thinks I've missed out by not having meaningless casual sex , they're very sad indeed.

Don't you find the nasty undertone of implication that our husbands view us as some kind of saps incredibly spiteful?

I run a small business too, alongside my part time job for the local council, I've always deliberately kept that private as it is the only such business in Staffordshire and would make me immediately identifiable to anyone who knew us - suffice to say I built the website and run the whole shebang - advertising/accounts etc. I keep it manageable so we can still go off travelling and so it doesn't control me, it's a hobby really.

We really are a pair of dull under achievers.

Note to self - must get a life.

I do think that this whole "I could never love another man" tone taken by Miss Havisham/Malificence and LeQueen and another poster is all a bit creepy. Are they living in Wuthering Heights-Ville? I am a one-man woman myself, having ahem sampled the menu shall we say before marriage. I adore my husband. But it seems ludicrous to hear grown women say that they couldnt bear the thought of their husbands touching another woman when they were 6 feet under..it's all a bit macabre and intense? Like someone said further up the thread, I'd be running a mile from my other half if he started to come out with any of that sort of talk! [hmm[

LQ, what is your nasty comment directed to me at 20.40 meant to mean?

Are you connecting my depression to my lack of monogamy in any way? because you are a. barking right up the wrong tree b. deeply offensive and smug if you are. But then as you know that already and are too pleased with yourself to care, I'll leave it to others to keep reiterating it....

btw, my very devoted dad says he would never marry again if my mum died. But that is because he wants to become a MONK (and always has done, lol). I have never (thankfully) met anyone man or woman who has protested their undying love (and jealousy) after death the way this lot do.

SCARY is all I can say. And LQ in particular is coming across as a deeply nasty piece of work who needs desperately to prove how much HAPPIER she is than everyone else.

Yes, Sherlock, you're happier than me, a woman with clinical depression who's going through a messy divorce and being forced out of a job. Congratulations to you!!! My occasional threesomes (all bloody great, btw, and incidentally SINCE I split up with H) have nothing at all to do with ANY of that. Nor do I think that if I suddenly developed a monomania about some bloke which extended into the afterlife, it would make me any happier.

yep, teenage emo sounds about right- although I get the impression they're both hearty upper-middle-class types over 40 (all those big exciting life experiences must cost)- they both sound a bit India-Knight ish. SCARY.

Hey Agingoth, am sorry to hear you are going through all that at the mo, that cannot be easy.

But lay off India Knight though, she's great!

hehe- smug though don't you agree!

but at least she got divorced didn't she- which could not happen to those who have experienced Real Love (TM)

tut tut!
Am signing off now, night all!

Best Thread Ever!

Mal, LQ,;

I think it's brilliant that you are so in love, I posted on here that I would never love another man if dh died, I know that's true. I've been with dh from the age of 17, I have never once thought i've missed out on anything.

I'm not sure what someone who is happily married misses out on? sex with other people? not sure what that would teach me..do you have to be having sex with someone to learn from them.? I have learnt from lots of people in my life, I didn't have to sleep with them. I have learnt from books, travel, even MN.

Forget your Carl Marx and all the other boring philosophers, I learnt everything about life and love from the Wizard of Oz, a great and underrated work of philosophie imo. People need to learn more from Dorothy, she went in search of a wizard she thought would give her everything, he turned out to be a fraud, and everything she really wanted was back in Kansas. I am thankful that I haven't slept around, thankful that I didn't need to keep searching for something, because that's what these "free spirits" are doing, constantly searching for something.

I would never patronize people who laugh at me because I have only slept with one person, ( it's all about quality not quantity) I just feel a bit sorry them, but if casual sex makes them happy for 15 minutes, fair enough.

But as happy as I am with dh, there have been times when I have planned his death. I have sat and thought "how can I kill him and make it look like an accident", and there are times he bores me so much i'd rather be on MN talking to strangers...(you know I love ya punkyman )

I think it is quiet sad thatbecause people don't understand something, they see it as wrong, or that people are kiddng themselves.

I am personally in a monogamous marriage, my husband and I are faithful to each other, and we have a vey happy love life.

HThe fact is though, plenty of peole can totally detach sex from love/relationships,a dn it is purely a physical thing, whereas they see a relationship as a 'spiritual' thing and so don't see having a physical thing with somone else being unfaithful. If it works for those people, why do I care?! I'm certainly not going to label them insecure or anything else.

'But as happy as I am with dh, there have been times when I have planned his death. I have sat and thought "how can I kill him and make it look like an accident", and there are times he bores me so much i'd rather be on MN talking to strangers...(you know I love ya punkyman wink)'

daftpunk LOL!!

btw I would never LAUGH at anyone who had only slept with one person! my parents did it and are together for life and that's great for them. It just doesn't work for everybody.

The thing I really hate on here is the assumption that people who do do this have found some great secret, are superior to others and (worst of all) that others must be 'unhappy' because they do not share in the great love these people have.

Imho it's all about ego. 'I love and am loved like this because I am special and others are not...you can love, monogamously or otherwise, without that sort of smugness and the couples I admire most have not a shred of that superiority.

"Upper middle class" types, sorry but that's SO not me , I grew up on a very rough council estate and I've never heard of India Knight btw.
Just goes to show , you sould never assume you can tell who people are by how they write. We're comfortable now due to sheer bloody hard work on the part of both of us.

Hearty and over 40 I may be, but middle class? We're as working class as they come duck .

If people had read my posts properly, they would know I've never said monogamy was the be all and end all, just that monogamy should be part and parcel of being married.

It's not as if I'm extolling the virtues of keeping virginity intact for marriage or any of that nonsense We have a soon to be 20 year old daughter at Uni FFS, she's probably having a whale of a time, as long as she's happy and safe that's fine.
I don't look down at single people having lots of sex, it is great fun after all.

A non-monogamous person may well be fully committed to the family unit, but it's not even logical to suggest that they are fully committed to their main partner, it's obvious to all those with even a single brain cell that they aren't and could never be.

You can be in a relationship and sleep with others but not a committed one.I think its best to sleep with as many men as you fancy while single and learn what you like.Dp and I had a lot of fun as singletons and I was often in short term relationships where I was never faithful and so was he.Now we are 100% faithful and thats what I consider commited.But it horses for courses some people can and don't see it as a big deal but I always get the feeling that in open relationships there is always one who is a little bit heartbroken and hurt that they are not 'enough'.

agingoth;

I don't feel superior to anyone, if people want to have lots of casual sex that's fine, it just wouldn't have been the life for me.

I know i'm lucky to have met someone who makes me happy and who I make happy, (he'd have been long gone if I didn't) and i'll never take that for granted.

I don't feel that women get very much from having multiple sexual partners, I think they end up feeling used, and that has an effect on self esteem. Most people want to feel loved and special, (especially women) and that feeling can only be achieved in a long term relationship.

I'm also not sure what being sexually experienced has to do with anything, a relationship will not last longer because you slept with 10 men before you got married. People stay together for various reasons, having a fantastic sex life isn't usually top of the list.

There's a song:

My heart belongs to you but my dick is community property

However, it has to be monogamy for me. I've only had 5 sexual partners in my life. I don't feel like I've missed out on anything. Besides...I have a rampant rabbit if I need an extra helping

Of course you can feel loved and special out of a long term relationship.I have been single and felt both.

True, i'm sure good friends can make you feel loved and special, I was talking about casual sex. Casual sex does not make anyone feel special. I can only liken it to being on drugs, i'm sure they get a massive high, and then a massive low.

DaftPunk, from what evidence do you state:

"I don't feel that women get very much from having multiple sexual partners, I think they end up feeling used, and that has an effect on self esteem. Most people want to feel loved and special, (especially women) and that feeling can only be achieved in a long term relationship."

Or:

"Casual sex does not make anyone feel special"

You've said that you've only slept with one man so how can you possibly speak for a group of people you have never been a part of?

Please don't get me wrong, I met my XH at 17 and married "in white" at 21 so I'm not knocking you and I don't think it's a bad thing. But I could never and would never talk about how it feels to have sex with someone outside of a relationship until I was divorced and done it, even then I could only talk for how I feel because I'm not the next person.

I love sex, I love it anyway it comes and I always feel good for having it. I can't say I've ever felt a "massive low" following it!

I dont think casual sex is supposed to make you feel special tho...