Is it time for a new paradigm for committed relationships?

[stillgoingon]

I've started this thread as reading this board has me wondering. Are we asking too much of ourselves and human nature to commit to lifelong monogamy with our chosen life partner?

It seems to me that infidelity is so common, it's almost ubiquitous. It causes so much hurt and disappointment. Not to mention disruption for children. Is there a case for backing a more "open" norm for marriages. One where the wondering eye, the 7 year itch etc are seen as the norm and dealt with in a way that does not necessarily harm the primary relationship? Where dalliances are a bit more above board and tolerated... even expected... from both partners?

I'm interested to hear people's opinions. Do those engaged in open relationships find it works, or is one party always the loser? Do those in committed relationships who are bored and needing a bit of excitement with a stranger think they could ever achieve this with their husband/wife having full knowledge and come out the other side with their marriage unscathed?

I am simply an interested longtime lurker. Chucking this out there to see what people think really.

Interesting question.

I know I value more other things than faithfulness. However, there is a lot going on during an affair that damages a marriage. The time away, the lies, often the distancing and bad treatment of the partner.
There is the health aspect as well, particularly with casual sex.

I do think it's important that both partners set up expectations from the beginning.

There is a lot of really interesting research on this topic out there, most of which seems to show that men are evolutionarily designed to spread their seed and women are evolutionarily designed to compete for the best / more virile male specimen. It does seem that a lot of our marital / relational behaviours in modern day reflect this. Apparently men are more attractive to women if they are married, whilst the opposite is true for women.

I believe that the answer to this question changes with every individual and with every relationship. For example, my ex-fiance ABHORRED the idea of having a threesome or of me even kissing another woman to spice things up. A boyfriend after that and I had threesomes both ways, and we were both fine with it. My husband and I have talked about having a threesome with another woman, although we have set so many parameters around how that would have to work that I'm not sure whether or not we'd ever actually get round to doing it.

I think, though, that we are all missing an important distinction. Polygamy in a couple / group is consensual and open. Committing to monogamy and then breaking that commitment is entirely different.

Lweji, I agree with you, but would just add that the OP isn't talking about affairs, but about creating a relational paradigm that allows for an open and honest arrangement which includes more than just two people in the sexual activity.

Also, I remember my mom saying something to me once about marriage. Her and my dad have been married for 37 years, and I do believe that they have been faithful to one another during this time.

She said that during every marriage, each partner will fall in love with someone else a number of times. It's how you choose to handle that love (or lust) which determines the success of your marriage.

Been working all day. Want to agree with some points:

motherinferior - no disrespect to journalists! Some of my best friends are journalists... etc...

Comtesse - I think you make a valid point re. how infidelity manifests. Familiarity breeds contempt and all that.

Men vs women - whatevs frankly. Both sexes are capable of a tendency to non-monogamy and my OP was aimed at both.

hookedonchoc - I like your contract idea - it sounds very conscious and eyes wide open.

Dahlen - YES. and Lweji and Grumpasaurus I suppose I'm asking whether as a society we need to do this kind of thing more often. Being more up front, up front would presumably save a lot of tears.

I think it's natural to have desires but it is wrong to lie and deceive. And also wrong to break a vow or promise. I guess I'm wondering if we might actually end up with more longterm happy marriages, less divorce, more stable environments for our children if, as a society, it was the norm to think about and agree these issues as part of getting together and review them throughout the relationship.

"...just based on anecdotal evidence, I think men are more likely to do this and think they can get away with it than women."

Right, so that would be no evidence then?....

...or maybe anecdotal evidence from MN's Relationships section, where the vast number of 'cheating' complaints are inevitably going to be about cheating men because the posters are overwhelmingly women?

You can't get evidence. You can't proof of all affairs. It can only ever be subjective / anecdotal.

Even the best research in this area is self reported. That means no controls. And people:

1. underreport
2. overreport.

The whole thing of men claimign twice as many affairs as women in the governmental lifestyle surveys tends to show that there's something very strange going on!

Some people never admit what they've done, even anonymously.

Some people will admit it anonymously but will shade the truth. Or plain genuinely misremember.

So this isnt an area of life where you can look effectively for evidence.

The idea of a paradigm shift isnt a bad one, but it seems to come down to me to pretty much that people are more open about non-conventional relationships. And that means them being able to be more open, without the judgementalism that tends to deluge people who live openly in a more-than-one-man-one-woman setup.

(still think that dahlen's post summed a lot up beautifully!)

Perhaps the women having fewer affairs versus men means some women are having multiple affairs simultaneously. They are better at multitasking after all.

Not everyone is in a bad relationship either!

On boards such as these you will hear the awful stories of people having to deal with unfaithfulness. I don't think it necessarily gives a true reflection of what is happening in real life.

People rarely comment when they are happy, but you hear about it when things are going wrong because that is when they need the support and help.

For every faithless relationship there will be another one which is going strong.

I'm with joysmum :)

My DH and I talk about this. I acknowledge when people are good looking, as does he, but that doesn't mean either of us are going to rush out and act on that. We've got no interest in having any extra marital action, we are quite happy with each other.

I don't know where people get the energy or time to cheat. It's also not true that in nature it's not natural. Lots of species mate for life. Perhaps we are a hybrid.

I guess I am was a serial monogamist....

I lived with someone for 12 years.... I did not marry him because I did not want to spend the rest of my life with him.

I have been married for 15 years to a man I see myself growing old with... we got married because we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together (rather than just wanting a wedding as some seem to do nowadays)

Hmmm my bad, just looked at the question again. Some people want open relationships too. There is an (admittedly bad) programme on TLC about swingers in the US but I watched it with interest to see as there's so little out there - unless you're doing it I guess!

Some of the couples genuinely were happy to share each other and found it a real turn on. There was a guy who disgusted me who was happy to have threesomes with his fiance and another woman but when she finally 'got his permission' to start engaging with another man (she was full on into swinging, just not keen on always following what he wanted) he got the huff and said he wasn't comfortable with it at all (double standards much?!). There was another lady who was open-ish but I think doing it more to please her husband, and as a committed Christian wanted to stop once they were married and he wasn't keen.

Personally I would never share my DH with anyone. But other people are different.

Is it that it is just not as socially acceptable to have an open relationship rather than it being time to have a new paradigm?

Personally I don't see why modern society is so repressive that M Hollande and Valerie Trierweiler could not have entered a discreet mutual agreement about an open relationship had they wanted to do so. Some people do, not least educated intellectuals.

My hunch is that he probably didn't want an open relationship: he wanted one where he could cheat and she was expected to be faithful.

I have known quite a few unfaithful husbands/boyfriends over the years. Not one of them has had an interest in an open relationship, and if there has ever been a suggestion that their wives might not be faithful either they have been terribly hurt and upset.

Though in a cynical mood, I can't help wondering if Mme T:s extreme consternation might not also be about her fear of losing her position as the First Lady of France, given that she is not married to him and there would be no obstacle to ditching her for a new model.

Think you're right Cory and what a double standard that is when applied in any relationship - do as I say and not as I do. Urgh.

If that is the case then I'd say there is something much deeper going on then the need to get one's end away outside of the marriage bed, surely? Perhaps they are feeling neglected, or actually they are a bit controlling/abusive in which case an affair is but a symptom of the real issue? Not that either gives an excuse to jump into bed with someone else.

We could start by admitting to the fact that the current human paradigm, that has run for the last X tens of thousands of years, is not perpetual monogamy. That has been an artificial construct to ensure property is passed to genetic descendants of fathers, for a few thousand years at most.

I'm sure some cheat becuase they fall in love with someone else or because something is deeply wrong in their relationship.

But I think that actually a lot of people who cheat, do so simply becuase they can :/ especially (sorry) males. No deep reason, they just can, so they do.

"Though in a cynical mood, I can't help wondering if Mme T:s extreme consternation might not also be about her fear of losing her position as the First Lady of France".

Perish the thought :)

I could have stayed faithful, that wasn't the problem for me.

The problem was saying the marriage vows meant I was committed to a person who lied and betrayed me and did a shitload of deal-breaking behaviour not explicitly prohibited by them.

You can't promise to stay through that without compromising your very soul IMHO.

So I won't get married again.

Lazyjaney, interesting. I was reading a bit last night about marriage in celtic Britain. According to the source, polygamy was widely practised, more often with men having more than one wife but this was often due to lots of women being on their own after their husbands died in battle. So men "took on" other wives to prevent families becoming destitute. However, polygamy was practised by both sexes.

Also, an interesting titbit, if a man took on a new wife, the current one was allowed to beat them up to the point of death with no repercussions for the first 3 days. Possibly the origins of the honeymoon - leaving the area with the new wife to avoid the murderous old one!

So if the current human paradigm is not perpetual monogamy - what is it?