Monogomy

[Minchia]

I read these pages and sometimes wonder if I'm of a different species when it comes to Monogomy. I don't actually think we can can get everything we need from one person, sometimes what someone offers is something we could never get from our primary relationship.
I can't really relate to the huge disgust felt for adulterers. Sex is just a natural thing and should we really condemn people for following their animal urges?
I'm married. I love my husband. We're a good team and we laugh and take care of each other. We have children.
I'm also having sex with someone else. He's married too.
It's intoxicating. We're both indulging sides of ourselves that we don't get to elsewhere in our lives. Neither of us are unhappy in our marriages but the sexual chemistry is immense.
We have tried to resist but it is so difficult and actually, I don't feel any guilt about it though I wouldn't want my husband to know as he would be hurt.
I understand that many will condemn me as I've read these pages for a while. I just can't relate to the comments. I don't really understand sexual jealousy. I think people stay in relationships because they want to. My husband gives me lots of what I need, I give him lots of what he needs. I can get the rest from elsewhere. I intended to be totally monogomous when I married. I didn't seek this out or yearn for it but i can't resist it.
Is there anyone that thinks like me or am I just some kind of freak in our society?

[SnowSpot]

I guess you only have to look at the threads where people find out their OHs have had affairs to show how damaging the deception is.

I would love to go and bang the gorgeous Classics professor who works a floor up from me and who I have a good flirting relationship with. But I won't, because I couldn't do it to my DH.

[Sunnyhaze]

I applaud your honesty (especially posting on this site!). I agree that monogamy is hard and having young children and the demands of life can make it all the harder. I can sometimes daydream about having what you have with someone else but would be too scared to take the risk. Husband ticks 80% of my boxes, we get on, laugh together, same wavelength (most of the time!) etc. He definitely takes me for granted though and then I daydream! But if I ever acted on it, I think I would struggle and if he found out, we would 100% be over. I would be heartbroken for me and for my children. Is it really a risk worth taking?

[MiniTheMinxLovesMinxPies]

Yes you are a freak- not a freak of nature but of societal expectation and repressive morality. I don't understand sexual jealousy either.

I'm reading Freud at the moment, he was quite radical in that he said that the instinctual wishes that were repressed by societal expectations are not commensurate with human nature.

Only 3% of mammals are monogamous by nature. Human's are not, we are only monogamous because of patriarchal ideas about property and progeny.

[WineWineWine]

There is nothing wrong with open relationships. They are not for everyone but they work for some. However, they only work when everyone involved has agreed to the rules and boundaries. Honesty is vital.

You made a promise to be faithful to your husband. You lie and cheat and you feel no guilt because you are incapable of feeling guilt. You don't care about the pain you cause to anyone else involved. What if you get pregnant by this lover of yours?

[Minchia]

See, what some of you are saying makes sense. I know I should try and bring things out in the open. I'm not sure I have the mental energy.
It's true that escaping is the most attractive part. All relationships end up in tedious day to day stuff, no matter how they start.
SnowSpot, I suppose sordid could be the case in a different light, I do see that.

[SnowSpot]

BTW - I do understand where you are coming from somewhat as to sexual jealousy and not feeling it. I would love to give (and to have!) a hall pass to my DH one day. Just tell him to get whatever he wants to get out of his system at some conference with some random person, and i'd get to do the same. I genuinely don't think I'd be that fussed about a one night stand.

An affair would be different though.

[Diagonally]

If I was your H and I found out you were having an affair, I would divorce you.

Not because you had sex with another man, but because you had so little respect, care or love for me that you thought you didn't need to tell me about a decision you had made that had materially changed the agreed basis of our relationship.

I think you should prepare yourself for a reaction like that.

[Palmyra]

Minchia, I am from your planet, I think we have a more continental view on life and love.

[ispentitwithyou]

How dare you make a fool of your DH like this,so an anonymous chatroom of people feel pity for him and another man probably laughs behind his back cos he's shagging his wife

[SnowSpot]

Mincha - I do daydream about being totally sordid quite often… sigh!

Part of me is v jealous of you and I am very split between thinking it's outrageous and thinking 'no harm done'.

[Branleuse]

are you sure youre worried that it would hurt him to find out, or are you more worried about him leaving you?

Tell him. Let him decide whether hes ok with it. Maybe he will be and you can all go fuck who you like

[Minchia]

Does nobody else get the urge to be self-destructive in times of stress? Lots of things have happened, I'm still standing. I want to get drunk, run away , fuck everything up on purpose just so I FEEL SOMETHING that isn't sadness.
Clearly, I have more problems than I imagined when I started this discussion!
Bollocks.

[Viviennemary]

What you're doing is not illegal. If everyone involved knows what's going on and that's how you choose to live your lives. If you don't believe in monogomy then don't get married. It's as simple as that.

[Sunnyhaze]

I'm with SnowSpot, but you are taking a HUGE risk that could backfire on you & especially your kids. That's the deal breaker for me.

[Sunnyhaze]

And yes, self destructive urges take hold of me too. I've acted on them and I will continue to pay for my actions over my lifetime. They are worth fighting.

[Mom2K]

I want to get drunk, run away, fuck everything up on purpose just so I FEEL SOMETHING that isn't sadness

You need counselling. Not meaning this in a bad way. If this ^ is how you truly feel, it needs to be dealt with

[DontstepontheMomeRaths]

My DD has had 2 lots of play therapy and still regularly cries as she can't live with both her parents like other kids and misses him. It's 5 years now since he left!

Your kids should be far more important than getting screwed. The fall out if you're found out is huge. And your H would end up separated and seeing his kids once a fortnight no doubt, the poor bastard.

I wish I hadn't clicked on this. Your attitude is bizarre, so unfeeling to anyone else. Just what you want.

[WellWhoKnew]

Monogamy is a choice. So is honesty.

It's how you manage choices that matter. Keep making shit choices if that's your choice.

It's not my problem.

But it will a problem for everyone that you profess to love.

But hey, you keep making your choices.

[HerrenaHarridan]

Another one here who doesn't feel sexual jealousy.

What you are doing is wrong. Not the sex, the deception, the risk you are taking with your childrens future.
You need to have a conversation with your husband, lots of them in fact and come to some sort of relationship agreement that works for BOTH of you.

[Eekaman]

Does the traditional British middle / working class version of marital monogamy HAVE to be the only way?

Ask the French, Germans, Italians or Spanish if it is, you would get a very different response to the strait laced Victorian version so many here in wonderful MNLand believe in try to live their lives by. Over time, people change, yet the societal restrictions we impose upon our British selves do not.

And yes, I speak as one who had strayed previously, but who chooses not to presently. And presently, there is a hint that my lovely wife might just possibly have been straying recently, and I'm reasonably sure she has in the past, but I'm not snooping, digging through phone internet records, not because I don't care, but because I know it'll blow over.

Might I stray again? I have no plans or intentions, but one never knows. However, we have over 24 years of marriage, a terrific life together, great kids, we are best friends, we have a lively interesting and active sex life and things are good.

So I can see where OP is coming from; not every one fits inside the same sized box.

[meandjulio]

LOL at the Victorians being straight-laced (or in tight straits?)

It's the huge double standard that everything was fine provided nobody knew about it and everyone Kept Up Appearances In Front Of The Servants that the Victorians went in for, and that's just what the OP is describing.

[weelittlething]

I don't completely understand why you would be annoyed if he had cheated and told you about it. Surely if you don't get jealous you wouldn't mind knowing about it? In fact it should make you happy because you can then have an open discussion. I can't help but feel the reason you don't want to know is exactly the reason you don't want him to know - i.e. you would feel hurt by it, just as much as he would. And you do on some level feel that what you're doing doesn't sit right with you, you just don't want to give it up just yet, hence you're making it about a larger question on society and monogamy. (Perhaps I'm reading too much into it...)

[dirtybadger]

Monogamy isn't "natural" or unnatural. Some people like relationships that fit in the box, some don't. We decided to label that box and tell everyone to get in because it best serves industrial society. It's not weird to be in camp monogamy or camp "other".

Why dont you tell your dp?
You know the happiness you feel having more than one partner? Well, you're potentially robbing your partner of that. He's being short changed.
Or you're both deceiving each other in which case I suppose that's fine but things would be much easier practically if you could be honest about where you were going, etc, could discuss sexual health, boundaries within your supplementary relationships.

FWIW I would be quite reluctant to have another "monogamous" relationship. I've never cheated on someone because I value honesty and transparency in relationships but I would prefer to explore other options (with a primary partner).

It strikes me that many "cheaters" are excited not by the sexual variety they get in being with other people but in the deception. Get rid of that and see how you feel about it all? If its still up your street then by being open with your partner you will have potentially opened new routes to explore (alone or together). Surely sneaking around is quite tedious and frustrating? You must feel some guilt when you lie to your partner about where you've been, etc (although perhaps he never asks of he knows deep down)?

[BOFster]

"And what if you've only just worked out how you feel? It's difficult to accept you don't believe in something that is so deeply rooted in society"

You are talking about this as though you are some kind of radical operating on the fringes of convention in a brave new world. You aren't. It is actually deeply conventional to be having sex with someone outside your relationship to get some excitement and escape from a life you find humdrum. To the point where it's practically a cliché.

If you were seriously rejecting societal norms, you would do it with a bit more conviction and integrity, by putting your husband in the picture- this is his life too, and he deserves the respect of being treated as an autonomous human being, in the same way that you have decided to make the choices that suit you.

By all means forge your own path, but don't do it in a sly and selfish way: it does you no credit, and it certainly doesn't make other people somehow small-minded and petty to point out that you are kidding yourself by cloaking your actions in an 'alternative' morality. It's not about society being prudish- it's about the simple dislike of dishonesty, both to yourself and others.

[Tinks42]

Sly and selfish are the two words that stick out in all of this for me.

In layman terms, has something not been connected properly up there?

Its ok for you but wouldnt be ok for your husband?

Do you not treat people the way you would want to be treated?

It has nothing to do with "society constraints" every society has bad apples.