Not talking about being with one partner at a time. Talking about the idea of finding “the one” and being with them your whole life.
50% divorce rate. 97% of people (in the US) don’t wait till marriage, so most of us have multiple sexual partners prior to the one we stick with. Many have children with more than one partner.
How can anyone look at the world and think, yeah, there’s one that’s meant for everyone and just one?
Also hope I don’t come across disrespectful. If you do believe in monogamy, I am interested in hearing from you. I’m just buzzed and thinking about my own love life and being curt
Edit: Speaking to the idea that it’s the “natural order” or default. Not that it can’t work in individual circumstances, especially when we’ve been programmed for decades
That’s not monogamy, that’s a delusion.
Monogamy is “one partner at a given time”.
Even then it seems illogical to me tbh (internally inconsistent?), but at least it’s less rigid
How so?
If you date someone in Highschool, and then date someone in college after the highschool relationship ended how are you not monogamous?Oh the definition is fine, I just mean that it seems illogical to adhere to it dogmatically.
Like, ok I’ll try to come up with the best summation but bear with me lol. Basically, let’s say you’re with your current partner. You’ve been into other people in the past. So, logically, you’ll probably be into other people - at some level - in the future, right? That seems like a natural development to me.
So if it’s natural, why should we have the little fine print on all of our relationships that reads “If you’re into other people this contract is null and void?”
Am I making sense? Lol. Like I just mean that it’s natural to be attracted, in some way, to more than one person so why do we default to holding ourselves and our partners to the unnatural? In that way, I’m monogamous with one person at a time seems logically inconsistent to me. It accepts the existence of plurality of attraction, yet denies its engagement
the little fine print on all of our relationships that reads “If you’re into other people this contract is null and void?”
How do you define “being into them”? Looking and finding them attractive, or fucking them without your partner knowing?
Being into them is being attracted to them which, on an instinctual level, is wanting to fuck them
Edit: simplified, obviously, you can be attracted to someone in a more emotional way but some would argue that’s still wanting to partner with them in some way
Being into them is being attracted to them which, on an instinctual level, is wanting to fuck them
So what? As you say, is instinctual. As long as you’re not drooling and you don’t act on it, it’s not a problem. And any person demanding otherwise is toxic and not worthy of your time.
Why are you saying so what? You asked a question and I answered
I think that’s more of an age thing. Im nearly 40 and in a damn near perfect marriage for 15 years now.
We have friends that we absolutely find attractive. Frankly speaking, we all take care of ourselves and it shows.
Im not looking to bang any of them, and my wife isnt either (granted, as she says, but we have a very strong relationship). We’re happy being friends, being comfortable going to the beach, hitting the gym together, etc. We’re all very happy in our monogamous relationships (minus one couple, because he fucked around and is now in the ‘finding out’ stage). Life isnt porn?
It sounds like you’re more grappling with maturity, and maybe a bit of heartbreak.
I’m confused. Are you saying people who are monogamous aren’t allowed to be attracted to other people by your definition? Or are you saying why are people choosing to be monogamous over having multiple partners at the same time?
Oh gotcha! I think a lot of people are too jealous to pull off being poly. It takes a certain mindset to do it in a healthy manner. I guess what my opinion on it is is that there’s nothing bad about it but most people are bad at it.
I think I would struggle with it because I would feel the need to be there in all ways possible for all partners, but I don’t have the social energy to pull that off.
The divorce rate is not 50%. It’s closer to 30%, 40% at worst.
Monogamy isn’t equivalent to lifelong partner.
Aside from which, even a 50% chance at your marriage being one that results in lifelong partnership with someone you care deeply about seems like good odds.
Also, the 50% statistic is from all marriages, not first-time marriages. The figure goes way up due to people being divorced, married, divorced again, ad nauseam. I remember the first-time marriage divorce rate being somewhere in the range of 27-33%.
Also out of that 33 I imagine a good chunk is people who were dating a couple months before deciding to get married, or those who got married because of an accidental pregnancy.
If you take first time marriages, where they were dating for over 1 year, and did not conceive a child until after being married, I imagine it’s near 10%, maybe less, but I have no data to back that up.
What is the rationale for not including ALL marriages?
2 partners seems like too many and 0 too few
Fair enough have you tried 1.5?
The same way they believe in any invisible bullshit, indoctrinated as children.
Are you trying to deny the existence of Monogamy?
No, that it’s a psychological construct. But most of reality is.
There’s evidence that monogamous relationships existed for tens of thousands of years and the idea that these relationships lasted about 4-5 years each, long enough for one person to be able to more easily care for a young child as they got older. That’s not a psychological construct. It’s bonding, connection, hormones, and a biological drive.
Now, I’m not discounting what people in a relationship feel for each other. I’ve been with my husband for almost 17 years, married almost 7. But I can also acknowledge that part of our love is hormones and biology, the same way that I acknowledge my desire for children is partially hormones and biology. That’s just how I’m wired.
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Are you against divorce?
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I guess I’ll bite.
I’ve been with my wife since high school and we married after 7 years. So all-in-all, in total we’ve been together 16 years and have one kid. After all of the time invested and my age now, having more than one partner sounds exhausting.
If I was able to do it over differently, I don’t think I would. I grew up catholic, so the idea of monogamy was part of my upbringing. But having had access to the early internet I was exposed to just about anything you could imagine. Having read and listened to many people talk about poly relationships in my younger years, while enticing to have more than one partner, it still sounded harder to deal with or navigate than one person.
Similar boat - wife and I dated in high school, broke up, ended up at the same college later on and now we’re married with two kids (going on 15 years together).
I married my best friend and I don’t need to worry about any weird landmines. No regrets.
I’ve dated a decent number of men and women now, and I started dating this guy that just felt…right. He’s the most thoughtful person I’ve ever met. He makes me strive to be a better person even when he’s not around. Even when he doesn’t realize I’m looking at him, he treats strangers and friends with kindness. He has a wonderful spirit.
We clicked really well, and I just don’t feel this way with anyone else, even when I was dating them at the time. I never want anyone else but him.
The thing I figured out is that yes, there are certainly others out there that could be potential partners or friends. I’m sure there are lots. But in decades of friendships and relationships, I have yet to come across anyone quite like this. He’s in a different class altogether. :)
it’s not for everyone and certainly shouldn’t be seen as the default or indoctrinated into people from a young age like it is right now. that being said, i’m very happily monogamous and couldn’t imagine it any other way.
Fair enough! Also because of you I learned that yiffit exists!
nice! feel free to join if you’re looking for furry content. but yes, i feel very strongly about equality for my polyam friends.
Hey OP, instead of stating in the post body that you are referring to the concept of “the one”, why not just simply change your post title to say “the one” rather than “monogamy?”
Not sure anybody thinks it’s a good idea to bond for life without some experience? It’s certainly not the default, and the roots of that sort of monogamy are dark as fuck, it was mostly only enforced on women in a really shitty manner.
But CHOOSING to be monogamous is reasonable. Especially if you have a good match, and enough experience to know it’s a good match. It’s still fun, and less risk of disease. If there was no STI risk I don’t think it would be so popular though. Some combination of a solid long term partner and some degree of freedom for swinging or occasional fun would be less of a threat and more just some fun.
I don’t think divorce/breakup is usually just because someone wants to be more sexually free though? It’s more like relationship problems cause sex life problems and relationship problems cause divorce or breakups.
Life is just easier when you have a good partner who has your back. Its hard and requires comprising sometimes. Just make sure your comprising on the small things and its great.
The divorce rate is high because of a small percentage of serial monogamists. Most first marriages don’t end in divorce.
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Wait WHAT? Its been outliers this whole time?
Not the greatest website but it summarizes things adequately.
Essentially, (in America)divorce rates steadily climbed until the late 1970s, with a slight dip in the 50s. Starting in the 80s, divorce rates started falling again, and have fallen all the way back down to where they were in 60s. It’s a tricky thing to get a handle on though, because one reason divorce rates have been falling is because many millenials never got married in the first place, when compared to earlier generations.
Interesting as anecdotally, here in Canada, I only have one friend or acquaintance who is still married as I approach 40. Feels like the divorce rate in this country is easily higher than 80% after Covid, high inflation, and the stress both put on relationships
I’m sure there is significant regional variation in the rates as well. Canada is well up in the rankings though.
It’s working out fine for me 🤷♂️
Edit to add- I don’t expect it to work for everyone
To me, what you’re describing is exactly monogamy, but you’re classifying it wrong. Sure, you have a lot of partners before you find your “the one”. I’ve had 3 so far. But that doesn’t exclude you from monogamy once you’ve had your first partner, which is what you brushed off in your first sentence. Monogamy is one partner at a time, not that you find one person at the very beginning and get it right the very first time.
The idea of finding “the one” is, to me, someone that I want to spend the rest of my life with. And it takes a long time to find that person. And there’s more than one “the one” out there! I know that sounds contradictory, but come on, there’s 8 billion people out there, any set of desirable traits you could write down are shared by who knows how many hundreds of thousands of people. So you date lots of people, get to know lots of people, and then when you find someone who checks all your checkboxes and who you can see living with til death do you part, then you stay with them.
One might say one person for who knows how many dozens of years could get boring, or that one person at a time is too restrictive. To them I’d say, that’s fine, you’re polyamorous or something of the sort, and that’s okay. But to me, having one and just one partner is special. I’m entirely theirs and they’re entirely mine (in a romantic way, not a possessive way), and that’s just how I like it. I want someone, just one person, I can always rely on to watch a terrible movie with, always have a player two, always rant to or be ranted to, and so on. That’s what makes it special. The exclusiveness is part of the charm, I suppose-- it’s not just any old person they want, it’s me they want. And my feeling is mutual to them.
I don’t think I wrote this exactly the way I wanted it to come out, and I mulled over it a couple times, but I hope I got my point across. Everyone’s different, and that’s okay.
