Do we expect too much of ourselves (and each other) in terms of monogamy?

[Frrrrightattendant]

Is it even 'natural'?

I've been wondering this for ages - and not particularly in the context of any of my relationships, but it does come up and I'm interested to know if it's a minority view or there's something in it.

I was wondering whether we are, in terms of nature, really built to stay with the same person for ever. Or even for several years...or as long as our children are small(ish)?

What's the human condition got over other animals that makes us aspire to a lifelong mate? Do animals have other partners...I am ignorant on the science aspect.

It's just that I have seen so many people divorce and split up and thinking about it there does seem to be a big dissonance between social expectation (ie find ONE person, marry them, have kids, stay together) and what often happens.

I suppose I'm wondering if it might be a good thing to lower our expectations a bit - instead of getting hopeful and then being horrendously disappointed when one partner fancies someone else, or goes and has an affair or whatever.

I'm trying to word this sensitively so I hope it doesn't upset anyone. But I'm just not sure we are all cut out for long marriages.

What do people think?

I absolutely agree wrt to legal protection, and tax breaks and the other legal paraphanalia that accompanies marriage, and especially once children are involved you'd be mad not to want the same.

I just think it's a shame we can't think of a way of not having to have state-sponsored monogamy to achieve the legal outcomes we want.

Though do you remember when Ireland voted in divorce for the first time... there was some interesting debate on that.

this is turning out really interesting - thankyou for all your posts.

Lenin I particularly like your idea of how society should be run...I picture the men with spears and furry loincloths, actually

seriously though I could go for that set up, I think.

SLF I agree maybe a lot more good marriages would survive if there was an expectation that there would be other people, too - of course, it wouldnt be compulsory.

But the idea that everyone can actually FIND a monogamously driven partner from the off is a bit non socialist isn't it - there are only so many to go round.

The rest of us just have to, well, put up or live on our own. Or variations of that.

Can I also add that my expectation of monogamy was certainly there before I had kids - it was very hard to admit I could be happy with a prt time relationship even though in truth it suited me very well.

Once the urge to procreate had been satisfied, and I'd had children for a while, it really no longer seemed to matter - though I could be deluding myself - but I have come to feel better and more relaxed and actually far freer living by myself.

To the point where I no longer consider mutual habitation an ideal.

It could be something defensive, perhaps, to stop myself being let down - but it's how I feel at the moment.

Lenin, what would be done in your ideal world with those men who want to parent their children? Which is pretty well all the men I know. Would they be allowed special male child-raising groups or do we just ignore them?

In my family/circle of friends, free relationships would only work with 50% shared parental access, because the men are equally involved in child raising and they want to be.

"I don't expect my husband to share the same view, if I died he may well have other relationships - as long as he never marries or has other children, that's fine."

Seriously? If you died, you would expect your widower never to marry or have children with anyone else?

Yes, absolutely serious.

Does he know this?

But there is so much myth surrounding marriage that it is not surprising that people get a little disappointed sometimes by the reality. For instance there is still this stereotype of getting married and living happily ever after without having to make any effort.

I remember the first time I found another man attractive after I got married I was genuinely affronted - I had presumed that marriage was a sort of "band aid" against that sort of thing! Even more astonishing - when another man made a pass at me, knowing that I was married. The shock of it!

I think that even in the best marriages and long term relationships there will be moments when one or both of you might think: is this it? I presume that is sometimes when the mid-life crisis kicks in with all the potentially devastating consequences.

I am not sure what the answer is - I suppose it is good to have ideals, even if people do not always live up to them.

This is ignoring the initial question really, but the problem I think with long-term relationships is that we have an annoying tendency to fall in love with unsuitable people. There have been a few threads where we?ve discussed the perfect man, and he would be funny, he would be financially secure, caring, calm in a crisis, etc, etc. But we don?t pick our husbands like this (it would be horrible if we did), we fall in love with someone, and they might have almost all of these characteristics, except one, and it?s that one that will wear you down after a few years. I know lots of couples where logically, they know this to be the case, everyone can see it, but people are in love. Whoever invented love have a lot to answer for.

TM, we've been married for over 25 years, of course he knows this!
I'm not saying he wouldn't fall in love with another woman if I died, he's a very loving, caring person, but I wouldn't want him to marry her, I'm his wife and I always will be, my death wouldn't change that. He will always be my husband too, alive or dead.

It's also important that our DD is protected financially, my own family was ripped apart by my father's re-marriage after my mother's death - my step mother's family ended up with everything after he died because of a tiny mistake with his will that no-one could have foreseen - Bitter, moi?

STRAIRNGLEY.IF U TRULY LOVE SOME 1 U WOULD NOT WANT TO HURT THEM.ITS A CASE OF FAITH IN EACH OTHER.NOT EVERY 1 THINKS WOTS IN SIDE HIS PANTS.

But plenty of people are not hurt by their partners having sex with other people. It is more than possible to have happy and functional relationships that are monogamy-free.
TBH the full on heteromonogamist couple-model always seems so utterly grim to me - e idea that one human being should be everything to you, and that having hobbies/interests/a social life that includes other people of the opposite sex is wrong if your partner doesn't get to join in, so either one partner has to devote time to a hobby that bores him/her, or someone has to give up a much-loved hobby because The Relationship COmes First.

But SGB I don't know any monogamous relationships like the one you've just described, so I have no idea where you get this idea from, that this is the norm?

And yet again, it's perfectly fine if people want to have relationships outside of the relationship, as long as everyone knows that's the deal and have signed up to it.

SGB - where do you get these weird ideas from that couples aren't allowed to be individuals within a relationship?
My marriage is the only one I know of where we do everything together, most people do have seperate friends and seperate hobbies. Ours is the unusual marriage - it only works because it suits us both.
Your way seems utterly grim to me tbh, no-oneto share your life with, no-one to make plans for the future with, no-one special.

SGB, I think most monogamists would agree with you that it's unhealthy for one person to have to be everything to you, and that to exclude other friends outside the relationship providing different functions and positives is a bad thing. Only the most intensely insecure person would want that

SGB, I know this might be impolite of me, but I've read a lot of your posts, and I can't help thinking (maybe it's my heteronormative blinkers on) that someone along the line, you've had bad experiences with monogamous relationships, and there's some projection going on.

Yes, I was going to say Mal that yours is the only relationship I "know" of, that is like this. It obviously suits you both, just as SGB's lifestyle presumably suits her.

But the idea that this is typical of monogamous relationships is absurd.

But solid gold is right in the sense that there is a lot of misery caused by the assumption that it is completely normal to want to be with only one person for your whole life. I know that is supposed to be the marriage deal, but the fact that there is such a high divorce rate, people have affairs, married people "swing" (ugh - personally I would rather my husband had an affair than go to one of those places!) married people use prostitutes etc.

Some people are in relationships where one or other person choses to turn a blind eye, yet again some people experiment with alternative lifestyles - open marriage or whatever.

Rightly or wrongly the lifelong monogamy deal seems to be quite difficult for a lot of people to achieve.

I think you are probably right. But what follows from that? There are a great many things we do that we are't naturally cut out for but we find there are advantages for our current lifestyle.

tadpoles we have debated this many times, when we have all been on different threads.

I agree that because people have been fed a diet that it is aberrant to have an attraction to someone else when you are in a relationship, when that happens, people often reach the wrong conclusions. Marriage and monogamy do not, as you said downthread, provide a "band aid" or a set of blinkers to the attractions of the opposite sex.

If instead, we all regarded this as perfectly normal and talked to our partners about what this means (or doesn't mean) then a lot of misery and deceit would be avoided - and some very bad decisions about leaving a perfectly good, functioning relationship, because one of the protagonists has convinced themselves that this must be "true love" and they must therefore, have fallen out of love with their spouse.

Having deceitful affairs isn't the answer to this problem; a bit of grown-up honesty in a relationship is however.

You post a lot about people "choosing" to turn a blind eye, but what you cannot know (unless you do so yourself) is whether this is an active choice. Smoke and mirrors are not the best foundations for a healthy relationship, whereas some honesty about perfectly normal temptations and desires at least allow both partners to discuss the issues and retain some real choices.