[Outdated, please look at pinned post] Casual Conversation

That's not monogamy, that's a delusion.

Monogamy is "one partner at a given time".

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.

So I am non-monogamous in that I have several sexual partners at any time, as does my wife (were also swingers), but she is absolutely "the one" and I absolutely believe in the concept of one person for life.

I do honestly believe in true love, a soul's counterpart in another, it just happens that my personal one is also kind of a slut, too. It's just another thing we have in common.

Looking at divorce rates as a bad thing is misleading, imo. A high divorce rate isn't necessarily bad. It's people escaping bad matches,. It's people learning and growing. It's people still chasing that special thing that makes them say "holy shit I've found them."

Worth noting that I think there are many great loves people can have, and I was deeply in love several times before I was with my wife. It isn't (and wouldn't have been for me) "settling" to marry one of those great loves. Your One is what you make of it.

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.

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.

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.

Just because you don't see it around you doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I'm from Portugal which has even higher divorce rates, and yet 90% of couples I know got together and stayed together and have absolutely stable family lives. The idea that it cannot be done(unless it's done with no effort) is the main reason most couples fail to do it.

So I'm a queer woman and I swear ALL OF MY FRIENDS are some level of poly. Which, rock on! Good for them! But my GF and I are happily monogamous and can't imagine a future where we open it up. I have no shade, I've read the poly books, watched the open relationships YouTube and listened to the theroy, I totally understand where they are coming from and why it works for people. The divorce rate is a good enough example as any for why it makes people happy. Monogamy is not something to enforced or expected of people, clearly it isn't working for most folk.

But I also know any thing more than 1 partner just sounds STRESSFUL. Like, I always work myself up wondering if I am messing up ONE relationship, idk how y'all do it with multiple people to worry about. 😂

2 partners seems like too many and 0 too few

So, I started dating before the internet. Yeah yeah, I’m old, I know. Anyway, I always had this feeling of what if my partner finds someone better?

Now with the internet people from all over the world are at your fingertips. Now, I feel like “this person could literally be with anyone in the world, but they chose to be with me”.

But, also, in it’s most basic form a relationship is a situation where you find someone, and decide that you can put up with their bullshit, and hope they feel the same. I’m old enough, and have dated enough to know. All those people that you think are hot. Do gross ass shit behind closed doors, or some embarrassing ass shit.

So, maybe you put up with her always wanting you to hang out with her while she poops. Meanwhile she puts up with your god awful laugh. Y’all do this because you know it can be so much worse, and besides the sex is good, and they have good taste in whatever interests y’all share.

And for those of you that say I don’t do gross, or embarrassing stuff. Either you’re lying or delusional. We may call ourselves “humans” to make ourselves feel better, but we are disgusting animals that have to learn how to act, and most of the time the training is incomplete.

The problem is not monogamy vs polygamy, the problem is to find the right person.

Also, it is not a matter of finding "the one". It is a matter of finding someone you can love. And then you need to learn how to get through shitty moments and love again.

I don't mean that you should stay in a toxic or dangerous relationship, but that it is easy to get angry and think that it's over with someone, but in reality anger and love come and go. The thing is to understand why you love someone so you can love this person again and again.

Now maybe some people are not like that and its good for them. But please don't tell me that I should love several people at once or that I should consider relationships like a consumable thing. I am unable to do those things.

Well, I just recently got married in July. We'd been together for 5 years before that point, we survived COVID in a rather stress inducing state.

• My wife works in banking, with secrecy requirements. I work in AV, testing equipment that records everything it sees and hears. We couldn't even be within earshot of each other. She was forced to work in her bed and I was forced to take up half the living room with 2 baker's racks of AV equipment. Still went through those two years being able to look back fondly at being able to take a five minute break to scream into a pillow and get a hug after a particularly stressful problem, meeting, or office politics.

I completely understand where you're coming from, but just like how you can't imagine a partner you want to spend the rest of your life with. I cannot imagine someone ever replacing my wife, and I don't even want to entertain the notion of losing her.

• well what if it's insert_celebrity_crush_here?
  -- that's not my wife, not interested

• well what if it's your wife but she never says no to you?
  -- that doesn't sound like my wife at all, I'm not interested

We just mesh incredibly well. We both grew up in problematic households with a disdain for our parents. We both grew up poor. We both care more about financial security and safety than trying to get it all. I feel like we're a team, at all times. Not having her beside me would be like playing football with only half the players.

I will say, this is gonna sound weird but stick with me. Don't... don't chase a monogamous relationship.

I think too many people get hooked on this idea that you must have a partner. You must marry before you hit 35. You must fuck before you hit 19. Just don't think so hard about it. Geography, life events, mistakes, opportunities, are all at place with literally everyone at all times. COVID especially through a wrench in every life plan in America. I feel so bad for anyone who hadn't gone through college yet. Just... find enjoyment where you can and balance that with building your future and if both those points can be met with the same activity. DO IT. Whether it's a partner that you can't live without and you wanna keep, or a group you can't live without. You need both those points in life. Do whatever makes sense.

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.

I believe in monogamy, but not "soulmates" which seems to be what you're talking about, here. If you conflate terms of course you're going to wonder why so many people believe something... because they don't, they believe in the other thing.

My first several relationships were just trial and error of figuring out what works. I ended up meeting a widower and we both knew exactly what we wanted and expected in a partner and expressed it clearly to each other. We moved in together after just a few months and have enjoyed a beautiful life together.

"The One" is just a person that you can be happy with because you express your needs and they meet them, and they express their needs and you meet them. And you're both willing to put in the work to get through the times when needs can't be met.

It's working out fine for me 🤷‍♂️

Edit to add- I don't expect it to work for everyone

My wife and I have been married 14 years. I don't think she was "the one" and only woman in the entire world for me, but she is the one who was willing to work with me to build a relationship with each other.

Plus, it's fun to watch her get into things. Shes always trying to learn how to do something. Last year, she tried to grow a garden. It was a sad little thing, and we got a couple of vegetables that we could eat. This year, we set up a bigger plot in the yard, and she used the stuff she learned last year, and she grew so much stuff that we're basically fed for the next few months. We also got some chicks back in February, and we haven't had to buy eggs since June.

My wife and I started dating when I was 16 and she was 15. We have been together 37 years, married for 30.

I don't believe in the concept of "the one". I think when a long term relationship like ours succeeds, it's because there is something fundamental that both people have in common.

By fundamental, I'm talking about fairly obvious stuff like "wanting to put in the effort to be in a long term relationship".

I was watching something on TV with my wife the other day and a character said something to the effect of, "marriage means you standing at the sink having a shave while your wife sits on the can clipping her toenails".

I've always said that marriage is about making sure your spouse doesn't drown in the toilet while vomiting.

Also, as many people have pointed out, the "50% of marriages end in divorce" statistic is bullshit.

I never really believed in 'the one', but I met my wife when I was 27 and without being cheesy there was definitely something different between us from the get go compared to previous relationships (serious and otherwise) I'd had.

The definition of 'monogomy' is just 'being in a relationship with one person' though. What you're talking about is an idealised version of Romance which I personally don't buy into. It puts too much pressure on the idea of everything being perfect which nothing ever is.

I think the best thing is just to chill. Meet people you like. Meet people you don't like. There'll be fallow periods where you don't seem to be getting dates or anything for months or longer (my record - 3 long years...)

But whatever you do don't start looking up at statistics and things, because that does start to look incel. Do not become incel, or any of the other manosphere stuff. That's the best advice.

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.