Your lover is not your property!

[Immortality]

Your "theory" is stupidity in disguise.

 

You forget we are organisms in a species with two sexes and offspring that need years of nurturing before independence. Sex is a means to an end, and the pleasure derived, the relations built upon it, the bonds formed around it all serve the same end.

 

For those reasons, you can never fully disentangle emotions from sex. That's not to say many have not tried. Do so and you risk (or perhaps guarantee) disaster.

[soccerrprp]

For those reasons, you can never fully disentangle emotions from sex. That's not to say many have not tried. Do so and you risk (or perhaps guarantee) disaster.

 

I've never understood people who claim to be able to separate sex from emotion. I've heard people say this and dated women who've claimed this, but after a while realize that they are not, in fact, able to separate the two.

 

The only way I could see this happening is if there is a pathological dysfunction that permits them to do so. Eh, what do I know...

[Keke1]

OP, I thought your questions were great.

 

I think many people in a committed relationship will want to have sex with someone else at some point and not necessarily just for sex. At some point, there can be a feeling of great love for another person and that love may need to be expressed physically, and without any loss of feelings or desire for the other partner, i.e. the one to whom the so-called "cheater" is committed. It is certainly possible to love two people very much indeed and at the same time. And in my mind, to suppress such love would be an immoral act.

 

I liked your analogy to cheating as an activity in a game. Cheating in real life is defined by those who want to impose their rules on us (e.g. by spouses, friends, people on sites like this one, etc.). I reject the notion that any person (including my spouse) can impose rules as to how I conduct my one-and-only life. What some call cheating can often equally well be called expressing love, making love, making someone happy, enriching someone's life, giving someone renewed purpose in life, etc, etc. Cheating is an inappropriate term in relationships since we are free individuals and not bound by rules such as might be found in a game (unless we choose to be bound). Personally, I choose not to be bound. I choose not to treat life as a rule-bound game. I think far too many people are being misguided by conventions and traditional edicts and so get terribly distressed when they cannot live up to the conventions or spend their lives looking for something they never wanted or needed anyway. I think the situation is better now than in the 1950's but there is still much progress to be made and we will surely see much more progress by 2050.

 

What in the hell? Lol just seek out open relationships

[Keke1]

Yeah open open relationship is a no go for me but a hall pass with rules on infrequent occasions doesn't bother me. I'm far more the supportive doting person and my wife is more like the business minded need to get her rocks off character in the relationship. Real open relationships are hard but the idea of my wife having sex with another man or woman doesn't wreck my world but the idea of her being wrapped in text messages and emails for some other person would make me question being married. You gotta figure out what works for you!

 

Go down that road and I'm sure you won't like it.

[Woggle]

What in the hell? Lol just seek out open relationships

 

Why is this concept so hard for people who are into monogamy? There are people like them so seek each out. Are they allergic to honesty or something?

[miguelcervantes]

I have a problem with the word "cheating" in the context of romance. It implies that love is just a game. You play by the rules and don't cheat?

 

Lets face the facts. Even if you are in a committed relationship you will still find other people attractive. Does anyone really want to have sex with the same person their whole life? Why do people even try to stay together for "the rest of their lives" in this way? Is it because of the state imposed concept of marriage? Culture?

 

I think in the future, our current society's version of monogamy will be looked at as stupid and unrealistic. Lets face it, the real problem is jealousy and becoming attached to the ones you love. Love and attachment are not the same thing, but people get them confused. And this is indeed difficult because our current society can not go beyond the jealousy/attachment thing right now. It would blow their minds lol.

 

If you were a man and truly loved your wife/gf/whatever, and she wanted to explore sex or intimacy with another person...What is the REAL problem? Is it fear that she won't love you anymore? So what then, people are not capable of loving 2 people at once? Or can you love one person but just want to have experiences that are romantic or sexual with others as well?

 

Can you imagine a time when a wife says to her husband "Babe, I am gona go out and get some tonight, can you stay with the kids?" and he just says "sure baby, I love you, have a good time."

 

I don't think people are ready for this type of openness and non-attached giving and receiving of REAL love. So no, I am not promoting or encouraging it. I guess I am just having a philosophers moment:)

 

I think this way of thinking with regard for the need for monogamy will be around for our foreseeable future - I agree that everyone will at some stage find someone that they are not "with" attractive and many will even act on it. This is human nature. However, I also believe that man is basically possessive and will continue to be so unless genetic mutations occur. The need to claim his spouse for his own and to support, care for and defend her will always be there just as women will always seek these same things from a spouse (sexist it may be but thats the way it is). As a result, jealousy will always be around, and people who try and control these basic feelings will be more akin to salmon swimming upstream. They may manage it but it will be difficult and unnatural. They may even view themselves as more "advanced" but that is the subject of a very different debate. So, the need for relationships, possessiveness, jealousy - all coupled with good old fashioned love, attachment, dependencies will be around - good or bad, right or wrong.

[Eggplant]

Your "theory" is stupidity in disguise.

 

You forget we are organisms in a species with two sexes and offspring that need years of nurturing before independence. Sex is a means to an end, and the pleasure derived, the relations built upon it, the bonds formed around it all serve the same end.

 

For those reasons, you can never fully disentangle emotions from sex. That's not to say many have not tried. Do so and you risk (or perhaps guarantee) disaster.

Exactly. We humans cannot out-logic our basic instincts. What is the logical reason that any of us have sex at all? It makes us satisfied by instinct. And as we're going to have sex for no good reason other than instinct, we're going to crave monogamy to have families and jet jealous. And I know this word is taboo, but to a certain extent, monogamy is sexual ownership in fact.

[sidney2718]

I was born in 1947 and my little kid years were in the 50's. I had a friend I used to play with and my older sister by 8 years used to baby sit for his family. We lived in a regular neighborhood with regular people.

 

One day, we were sitting under the porch eating a snack and my friend was telling me about how if he got up late at night for whatever reason, he often saw his parents naked along with other people. What I remembered was him telling me that all the grownups had a bunch of hair "down there" and he pointed to his groin. I didn't know any better because at that age I didn't have any.

 

Any how fast forward to 2003, and I was telling my oldest sister about what he said and she looked at me and said "Yeah I know because they were swingers and in the cellar of their house, they had a bunch of porn magazines and 8mm films stashed in a box and the dog and cat were chasing around and the cat knocked the box over and when my sister checked out the noise, she saw it on the floor. She said she picked the stuff up and put the box back on the shelf and stopped babysitting for them. The good old primp and proper 1950's. The only difference was that back then it was kept under wraps but there was porn and swinging.

 

What you say is true but the action was very submerged. Porn was hard to come by and making arrangements for swinging were even more difficult then than they are now.

 

The lesson I take from this is that things have changed in degree but not in kind. While it is clear that our marriage system is broken, given the realities of modern life (cell phones, hotels, whatever) it isn't clear how to fix it. My private advice to the few folks silly enough to ask my opinion in real life has been to tell them that the rules are whatever they work out with their wives, as long as it is legal.

 

The problem with that, of course, is that folks don't agree on what the rules should be. The desire for monogamy is very strong in us until it isn't. The worst examples are sexless marriages. The most heart-breaking are those where a person honestly cares for two people at the same time.

 

Some today (and back in the '50s) are lucky and their "affairs" are never discovered. Still the divorce rate coupled with the break-up rate of long-term cohabiters is well over 50% it is clear that marriage is in trouble.

Edited January 24, 2014 by sidney2718
Spelling

[Chi townD]

Okay, let's look at this differently. The OP stated that a wife should be able to go to her husband and say, "Hey Babe, I'm going to run out tonight and get me some. Can you watch the kids?"

 

Okay, lets be honest. Women have a harder time not forming an emotional connection with the person that they are sleeping with than men do. That can break up a marriage and cause a lot of confusion and then the guy is on here saying that his wife told him that she loves him but is not IN love with him. And here we go!!!!!

 

Point is married couples get married because they fell in love with their best friend. I'm married. Do I find other women attractive? YEP! Do I fantasize about those women? Sometimes. Do I act on it? NOPE!

 

Because I respect my best friend and what we have together. I know that she'll be at my side when I'm at my best and when I'm at my worst. That she would go to bat for me in a second and that she would do most anything to make our lives easier. For me to sleep with another woman would be a slap in my wife's face. It would be totally disrespectful to our marriage and each other for a moment of lust.

 

I guess I look at sex a whole lot differently than most. For me, sex is the ultimate way to communicate your love for another person physically. For a lot of women, the sex act itself isn't as important as the feeling of being loved by her husband or boyfriend and for them to experience the warmth, safety and security of being in that mans arms.

 

So, for me to want to be with another woman is a concept that is foreign to me. Because I know where my bread is buttered. And to quote my father, "Never f*ck up a good thing."

[Lixxy]

Our monogamous culture is a huge exception to the majority of cultures.

 

There are cultures in which it is considered normal for a husband to take more than just one wife. There are women in these cultures who have kicked up a huge fuss because their husbands have not taken another wife, being as an additional wife would serve the purpose of helping the other wife with child-rearing, household chores and being a general friend.

 

But yes, I don't see our culture working out. At all. I just see people in miserable marriages everywhere, lol, so I don't think our culture has it made in terms of it's relationship arrangements.

 

Humans are not monogamous, but so many people just pretend they are so they don't get looked at with suspicion and accused of being "a bad boyfriend / girlfriend". It's pretty become just become one big joke to me now.

[Lixxy]

Okay, let's look at this differently. The OP stated that a wife should be able to go to her husband and say, "Hey Babe, I'm going to run out tonight and get me some. Can you watch the kids?"

 

Okay, lets be honest. Women have a harder time not forming an emotional connection with the person that they are sleeping with than men do. That can break up a marriage and cause a lot of confusion and then the guy is on here saying that his wife told him that she loves him but is not IN love with him. And here we go!!!!!

 

Point is married couples get married because they fell in love with their best friend. I'm married. Do I find other women attractive? YEP! Do I fantasize about those women? Sometimes. Do I act on it? NOPE!

 

Because I respect my best friend and what we have together. I know that she'll be at my side when I'm at my best and when I'm at my worst. That she would go to bat for me in a second and that she would do most anything to make our lives easier. For me to sleep with another woman would be a slap in my wife's face. It would be totally disrespectful to our marriage and each other for a moment of lust.

 

I guess I look at sex a whole lot differently than most. For me, sex is the ultimate way to communicate your love for another person physically. For a lot of women, the sex act itself isn't as important as the feeling of being loved by her husband or boyfriend and for them to experience the warmth, safety and security of being in that mans arms.

 

So, for me to want to be with another woman is a concept that is foreign to me. Because I know where my bread is buttered. And to quote my father, "Never f*ck up a good thing."

 

But why should it be considered a slap in the face to your wife for you to sleep with someone else? If you still loved your wife, still cared for her, still had that connection with her, why would you having sex with someone else change that at all?

 

I just see this as being an issue of our culture: sex is this big, serious thing where if you put your penis in another vagina, you've committed the biggest offence possible. In our culture, having sex with another woman is probably worse than telling your wife that you hate her, regardless of if you still love her or not.

 

I still just think it's more than possible to fall in love with more than one person: to genuinely and sincerely care for the people you love, and not want to hurt anyone.

[Chi townD]

But why should it be considered a slap in the face to your wife for you to sleep with someone else? If you still loved your wife, still cared for her, still had that connection with her, why would you having sex with someone else change that at all?

 

 

Because it's an intimacy issue. Those moments where we are most vulnerable, it's where there's a mutual understanding and trust that we hold sacred to each other.

 

To me, sex is much more than two people slamming sex organs together. It goes much deeper than that. I guess I'm an old romantic.

 

Plus, we don't have to worry about STD's. We're both clean and we intend to stay that way. If you're in an open relationship and one of you brings home herpes or genital warts. That's going to change the dynamic of your sexual relationship.

 

Or even worse, you bring home HIV or H041 (I think that's it). It's a super gonorrhea that is resistant to antibiotics and can kill you in a matter of days. They're calling it the new AIDS epidemic.

 

I'd rather not catch that...

[Leigh 87]

I could never be in love yet screw other people.

[Lixxy]

Yep, with true love you just don't want anyone else. Well, not in a serious way. Doesn't mean you can't find others attractive, but I can find a woman hot without actually wanting to bang her.

 

I am half tempted to think "true love" is a social or cultural construct, being as it's not necessarily something all human beings in all societies and cultures experience.

 

I don't understand why it would make sense for us to just so happen to love ONE person - out of all the billions others in the entire world - and never have such a connection with anybody else ever again?

[Eggplant]

I am half tempted to think "true love" is a social or cultural construct, being as it's not necessarily something all human beings in all societies and cultures experience.

 

I don't understand why it would make sense for us to just so happen to love ONE person - out of all the billions others in the entire world - and never have such a connection with anybody else ever again?

I agree that many people don't experience it. I think it's more caused by natural genetic variety than by culture. As far as the billions, I think that it's possible that an entire subset of people could be candidates, but only one at a given time occupies that space.

[Lixxy]

Just because you haven't experienced something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I haven't experienced sky diving, but it's still a thing that exists. It's true some people do not ever find true love, it sucks, but it happens.

 

I'm not saying you can't have multiple connections, but I am saying you can't have multiple soul mates. Sorry, perhaps multiple POTENTIAL soul mates? Sure, but you will not be truly in love with two people at the same time. People often time confuse lust and feelings of love with being IN love. There is a difference.

 

It just doesn't seem to make much sense that there can only be *one* "soul mate"? Out of the billions of people in the world.. I don't get how it could be logically possible.

[Leigh 87]

I once believed that it was unnatural for two people to be sexually exclusive for life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I made threads about it. I started topics on it.

 

 

 

Years later, I have discovered that I believe in a true love whereby the two people who are IN this "true love" can mostly NOT want to ACT on sexual desires for others.

 

 

 

In most cases, I have found that people who fall head over heels in love DO NOT WANT to screw others...... although I do not have evidence beyond the anecdotal evidence (of thousands of people I have heard who believe that true love correlates with monogamy).

 

 

I have also heard about plenty of people who were once of my belief that monogamy was unnatural and not ideal for most humans.

 

^^^^^ Have THOSE people experience the "head over heels" in love feeling, though? How do they KNOW they will not meet "that person" who changes everything for them?

 

 

 

Perhaps a person has more credibility of they are middle aged or older, has experienced numerous relationships and sexual partners and who HAS fell head over heels before and knows the difference between a person they really care for opposed to being strong " in like" (and not love).

[central]

To SmartDude: Basically you're advocating open relationships. I don't see that becoming common quickly, but it's certainly more common, acceptable, and openly acknowledged than ever before. Perhaps it will be simply another choice in one or two hundred years - but change can happen quickly, so who knows? We have an open relationship, and it has worked well. Partly, because we have a very strong core relationship, want each other to be happy, and really don't expect anyone else will be able to come between us. Open and Poly relationships are already becoming more common, especially amongst the 20-somethings. We hear about it from one of the kids and his girlfriend.

 

 

Your [Can you imagine a time when a wife says to her husband "Babe, I am gona go out and get some tonight, can you stay with the kids?" and he just says "sure baby, I love you, have a good time."] already exists for us.

I will also point out that monogamy works very nicely for many people. Many others espouse it, but end up cheating anyway. Being able to be honest and have an open relationship instead might resolve some of the issues in a modest percentage of the cases where cheating now occurs, but far from most.

 

 

To Oldspiceywolf: It sounds like you have a workable system - not open, but occasional hall passes. And, it seems like you'd be okay giving same to your wife, so you don't have a double standard. Relationships with others can be problematical, even if you agree to rules. Sometimes, more than physical attraction and friendship occur, but we haven't had any problems with our open relationship so far.

 

 

To Janesays: Monogamous and polygamous relationships - as well as every other kind including cheating - have been around for thousands of years.

 

 

To Lixxy: You said [but why should it be considered a slap in the face to your wife for you to sleep with someone else? If you still loved your wife, still cared for her, still had that connection with her, why would you having sex with someone else change that at all?] For us, it isn't. We're madly in love, yet still enjoy sex with others. It changes nothing - it's just good, dirty fun! We also agree with you it's possible to love more than one person - polyamory - and we were in such a relationship soon after we met.

 

 

To Leigh 87: We were and still are head over heels in love with each other, do not believe monogamy is natural, have sex with other people, and think that different things work for different people. Responsible non-monogamy works well for us, and we can see that monogamy works well for many others (except those who cheat because they only give lip service to monogamy).

 

Humans are a promiscuous species, with spectrum of bonding behavior ranging from basic monogamy to full promiscuity. Most people fall in the middle - serial monogamy or social monogamy with sexual promiscuity (either consensual or cheating). There are polygamists and polyamorists amongst us, and they know that monogamy isn't always the default or the best choice for everyone.

[crederer]

Yah ok you want what you want and other people want what they want. Different strokes, man. Not for me, though. If a woman wants these goods she's gnna have to be monogomous for a number of reasons that would be wayyyyyy too long to make in one post.