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?

I don't think that it is possible.

Making sure namechange has worked!

I wouldn't be able to do it because for me emotion and sex go hand in hand. I would also not expect my chosen partner to do it as I think on such matters, both partners need to agree and have similar boundaries - and if one isn't happy in the agreement, then they should consider not being partners anymore.

However, I fully accept that lots of people can and do live like that and are perfectly happy doing so. I think where sex is concerned there are not too many rights and wrongs - just personal preference. No-one should prescribe what goes on between two consenting adults, and no-one should judge, lest they be judged!

Ok, regular here, but don't necessarily want this identifyablo on t'internet forever.

Dh and have been together for many years, totally committed and in love, dcs, and from time to time we have sex with other people, when we're both there. Works for us, fun, lovely, you can scoff but it's made us stronger. Not something we do all the time, nobody else atm, but certainly not ruling it out.

I personally feel you lose something precious if you do sleep with other people. It is difficult to explain but to have remained physically faithful to each other for 18 years has given DH and me layers upon layers of trust and committment that we wouldn't have got if we'd allowed others in. I'm sure other things are gained from sleeping with others - a shared excitement, buzz, a kind of conspiratorial thrill and a feeling of appreciating the committment you do have, that you will still come back to eachother and these other people are players in your 'story'.....but to me, that is just not so precious or important as the committment you grow when you've been physically faithful to each other. It's more hard won. And I have always found hard-won things to be the most worthwhile, in life, so far.

Sex without love and emotional involvement wouldn't interest me.

YANBU.

I agree with Jemart.

You should only be with your partner.

I am bisexual, but I am in a committed monogamous relationship with my husband. Many people (both hetero- and homosexual people) are surpised when they hear that I'm happy in a relationship with a man in spite of the fact that I fancy women, too. They ask if I dont get bored with him and want a girlfriend, too. I just smile and ask if they get bored with their partners and want a boyfriend or girlfriend, too? I made a commitment to my husband when he was my boyfriend to be faithful to him, apart from in our fantasies! And I've made a bigger one now by marrying him and having his baby.

I have an open mind and believe you can be a swinger and happy in a relationship, but it cannot be fully comitted because you choose to take other partners, in my opinion.
The only swinging relationships I have observed have either ended in tears or are very dysfunctional; these are in married, hetero couples. In spite of that I think these are maybe isolated occurances and not the norm? But its not for me or my husband!

LeQueen: do you realise how utterly ignorant that sounds? You are stating a personal opinion about something that is not, actually, quantifiable as a fact. This is what pisses me off about monogamists, not that they want to conduct their sex lives in any particular way, but the utternly unwarranted insistence that (you know, despite the vast numbers of failed and failing monogamous relationships, and the amount of violence condoned in the name of sexual jealousy) that monogamy is inherently superior to other ways of conducting one's sex life. There is NO evidence that this is true. None whatsoever. So enjoy your own relationships with my good wishes and all that, but FFS stop talking utter nonsense about other people's lives.

I couldn't sleep with someone without having feelings for them.

Every one is different and it makes for an interesting world.

SolidGold, I love you! I've not been able to post anything new because you've said everything I've wanted to!

Everyone does things in their relationship that the next couple doesn't do. I bet there are people who say that women who go to work aren't as commited to the relationship or how about either sex having some alone time? Can't say much about the sex they're getting can it? (I don't agree by the way )And I'm sure there are a hundred other examples.

Don't overlay your relationship and expectations onto someone else's.

LeQ, I think SGB is just surprised that those words you have written didn't come from me - the extreme monogamy fetishist.

Of course people who shag around aren't as committed and don't have as deep a relationship as those of us who have life long fidelity, how can they when sex is nothing special for them?
I don't need to quantify something I absolutely know.
People in open relationships need to stop kidding themselves that they are more secure and stronger for what they do, they aren't - the only thing they are is more selfish and less satisfied with one partner.
Which is all fine, as long as they don't see it as anything other than what it is.

Malificence, could you please make a list of what makes a happy secure commited relationship please? Could you possibly make it public so we can all follow your model and not kid ourselves that our relationship is as good as yours?

"Of course people who shag around aren't as committed and don't have as deep a relationship as those of us who have life long fidelity, how can they when sex is nothing special for them?"

EH?

WHo says sex is nothing special for them? Why do you continue to pontificate on a way of living you know absolutely NOTHING about?

And why do you get so actively worked up about something you have no experience of and do not understand?

Why are you so obsessed with threads about anything that threatens monogamy?

I think it's a shame that some people measure commitment to one person in terms of sex.

For me, sex is not the ultimate quantifier of how committed I am to my husband. This may be because I am not particularly sexually driven, neither is my husband. This is NOT to say, however, that we do not enjoy an active and healthy sex life.

Far more important, IMO - and bear in mind, it is only that, MY opinion, nothing more - is the sharing of a life, being a part of a tight-knit family unit, agreeing on how we raise our children and so on. Sex is a small part of that. My husband is my best friend, the one person in my life who knows me inside out, who (to use an already overused expression) totally 'gets' me.

We have an agreement. A snog, a one night stand, even a short-lived affair- these are not deal breakers. An emotional affair- that would be. For us, it's the emotion that counts for more than the act of having sex.

However, it wouldn't work for us to have a series of partners for sex. That's just us. My DB and DSIL though are one of the most committed couples I know and they have swung in their time together.

Malificence: do you believe in any imaginary friends/deities/higherpowers? Because the way you talk about monogamy is not dissimilar to the way the superstitious talk about their imaginary friends - 'It's true because I know it is, because I say it is, and the rest of you poor fools will never understand.'
What you don't understand is that other people don't necessarily give a toss. Your choices are up to you, but please stop stating opinions as facts.

I wouldn't even call them opinions they're what is true in that relationship. No one relationship is an exact model of the perfect relationship, what works for you doesn't work for the next person. My OH comes in from work and goes straight into the kitchen to cook, I don't even see him until he brings dinner out. We like it that way (his kitchen) but someone else might find that selfish, he's been at work all day and I've been home and should have dinner on the table waiting for him. Just because it works in your relationship for the SAHP to cook, doesn't mean it does for mine. Same goes for sex.

Ever watched the HSBC adverts?

SolidGold I think yr being a bit touchy when you say opinion not facts, the fact of the matter is people who sleep with others while in a relationship are not committed to the person they're supossed to be in a relationship with. If thats cool with you then fine but don't make it into something it's not. Being exclusively with one person is the true definition of being committed.

eeeeeeek- 'people who think they are fully committed, but still sleep with other people clearly don't feel the way I feel about MrQueen, or he feels about me.'

errrr, LeQueen, you don't know. You and that lucky man Mr Queen are one couple out of millions in the world who are all (gasp) DIFFERENT!

Imho the whole nuclear family/committed (hetero, usually) couple thing is a big fiction.....one that our society is structure around. It may well work for you. Just cos it doesn't work for others doesn't mean you have tapped into the big cosmic secret of lurrrrrrve and everyone else hasn't.

But then I am just a sad lonely divorcee to be so what would I know of real love eh?

oh and btw the most radiantly happy couple I know are a lesbian couple who (gasp! whisper it!) have an open relationship! who'd have thought it eh.

Oh, but of course their love can't be REAL cos they occasionally sleep with other people. And sometimes they even sleep with the other person simultaneously! And are quite open about it! What's the world coming to, eh.

Hohum, more bullshit. You cannot prove or demonstrate that your relationship is 'better' than anyone else's. WHat you have may suit you, what other people have suits them, get the fuck over it. I wouldn't really mind about the obsessive squealing of the monogamists about how much more special they are if it weren't for the long history of horrid and unnecessary damage done in the name of monogamy - the idea that it's kind of forgivable to assault people, destroy their belongings, even kill them, if they breach monogamy, the misery and boredom of people in 'monogamous' relationships where one partner has switched off sex. Etc. And let's not forget the stupid toxic nonsense of 'soulmates' which a) leads the monogamists to behave really, really horribly to existing partners once they find themselves fancying someone else (Oooh, I want to shag this person therefore s/her is my SOULMATE and any existing relationships are now irrelevant and unreal) and b) leads to people putting up with all kinds of horrible crap from not very nice individuals that they have decided they 'love and will always love'.

No no, LeQueen.

They are fully committed to each other, one hundred percent of the time.

Their love for each other is more than just sex.

Which means, to them, that an occasional bit of , if you like, extra-curricular sex is just that. Nothing more.

TBH I find your assertion that other people can't possibly love their partner as much as you do, or as much as anyone else does who only conforms to your ideals, rather arrogant.

You are not in a position to judge other people's feelings. It is merely an assumption on your part- and a misguided one at that.

'the long history of horrid and unnecessary damage done in the name of monogamy - the idea that it's kind of forgivable to assault people, destroy their belongings, even kill them,'

QUITE.

Enough said.