So, a while ago it came out that my uncle（who's from outside the family and married in) cheated on my aunt (mom's sister).
They're still married. Honestly not sure what they'll do since he is the one with the job and our family doesn't have enough to support her and her children.
But I just don't get it. I get falling out of love or even finding other people besides your spouse attractive, but cheating is just such a layered lasagna of shit.
1.You want to eat your cake and have it too. (There's an entire community of people who cheat on their spouses called "cake eaters."). I don't understand what you get out of that though unless you're just really lustful (and even I wouldn't do that and I'm a lustful removed). If you want to break up/divorce that's fine but you can't just have emotional/physical relationships without changing anything. Which leads to point 2
2.How little fucking respect do you have for your wife and family? Because the thing is that youre denying your partner any autonomy in the relationship. You dont even respect them enough to even talk about it, or you don't respect them enough to think they deserve to know about it or will ever find out.
I mean look, there been some stories I've heard where I understand, if the relationship is already dead. It still sucks but I can understand if it's inevitable anyway. But otherwise i just can't conceptualize how selfish and shit you have to be to do it.
And I wouldn't ask if it wasn't so common. I mean it doesn't happen in every relationship but it's so common basically everyone is paranoid their partner is cheating on them. So I just really don't get it
We also need to talk about how coercing your partner into being monogamous is... a bad thing?
If someone is actually coercing, that'd be abusive. But if we're just talking about people doing it because it's common, I'd think coercion is a bit misleading of a word (makes it sound like it's one person doing it to another) and it'd be more suitable to say it's peer pressure, social expectations, and socializing (media, etc.) shaping what people do. I am personally not convinced there's anything inherently wrong with monogamy that would imply open relationships are somehow healthier, but the structure of it when it is tied up in economics undoubtedly has problems, as do the unrealistic expectations brought on by endless romanticizing in media. It seems to me that under the capitalist framework, some of the urge to go for open relationships would just suffer from problems of being seen as disposable and transactional, a convenience that gets called upon when desired and nothing more. Not that monogamy can't suffer from this too, but point being, I don't think the alternative is fixing the underlying issues on any generalized level.
Ultimately, if you don't want to do monogamy, you should make that clear from the offset and if someone is trying to pressure you to do otherwise, then get out of that relationship as fast as you can. That's a person who is not respecting your side of things.
I agree; on the flip side, it's extremely dishonest to present as monogamous (even if one really wishes to be) knowing you aren't, or have reservations or know that when temptation meets hormonal cycles, resistance is likely to fail. These things can be discussed honestly, giving a prospective partner the honest opportunity to consent or decline. It's not the end of the world if the prospective partner declines, since other options are clearly available.
💯 There's a lot to be said for being able to discuss things openly and honestly. And it doesn't have to mean it's any less romantic. Knowing with clarity where each other stands means you can build a stronger connection when you do align.
This is a powerful statement. A lot of issues could be avoided if individuals would take time to sit with themselves long enough to know with clarity where they stand with themselves. So many people think that's just the way it is, or they are, without knowing themselves intimately enough to say whether they are just engaging in behaviors because it's expected, or if their behavior actually aligns with their self-concept or perceived values.
That's a great point. And I think part of that comes down to experience, or a lack of it. Like in the sense that sometimes getting a taste of what you don't want will tell you more about what you do want. But also, as you get at, being honest with yourself about what's you wanting something and what's the position that is expected of you.
It reminds me of something that's come up in therapy for me before. Basically this idea of like, say I don't feel like doing some kind of cleaning. I could approach this in way where I come up with reasons for why I don't need to clean right now and why it's justified that I don't need to, and get into what is sort of a moralistic, ego-saving argument with myself against inner critics about what constitutes "good behavior." Or I could be honest with myself about the fact that I simply don't feel like doing it and that many people don't feel like it with a lot of things, and it doesn't mean I'm a bad person in need of defending myself; and that in spite of not feeling like it, I can choose to do it anyway, if it's something I believe in doing. And a lot of what could be made very tangled becomes instead pretty straightforward. Doesn't necessarily make the action easier, which might still be painful to do depending on what it is, but it cuts through layers of confusing self-narrative.
Sounds like you had a pretty good therapist, and you did/are doing the necessary work of getting to know yourself. That's a pretty big achievement, one a lot of us tremble to contemplate. Thanks for this exchange. It's important to have models of healthy approaches.
It is coercion, plain and simple. They start demonizing you because you're not mono? That is coercion, no need to mince words. I don't think there is anything wrong with monogamy, it's just that both partners have to consent to it. It's just that people who are polyam have been forced into the closet by circumstances and may not feel ready coming out yet.
If a closeted gay person has been pressured into a straight relationship, we feel sympathy, but then if a closeted polyam person has been pressured into a mono relationship, all of a sudden, they're le big bad?
Make it make sense.
I guess I'm not familiar with a circumstance in which people are being demonized because they want to have an open relationship. I'm not doubting it occurs, but it's not been an issue I'm familiar with. I'm used to seeing on a dating app, occurrences of people openly saying they'd rather do non-monogamous with a built-in option to choose that in the app. So it takes me by surprise a little.
Isn't that a common problem in cases of a married couple doing an open relationship. Like, do we tell our friends and family? And if we don't, what happens if they find out?
Or if you're married, and considering proposing an open relationship to your spouse, there's some chance that it's taken very badly.
This probably depends on how old you are and where you live tho.
I'm assuming it would be harder between the two of you if you are trying to take a pre-existing monogamous relationship and turn it into an open relationship (and for good reason, since the relationship has been built on the idea of monogamy up to that point). As for how friends and family feel, it's not really their business? Mind you, I don't mean that in a culturally blind, naive way. I'm sure where you live and what the culture is could mean that there's more of a potential consequence for trying to do so, depending on where exactly it is. But as a general principle, if we're looking at it from the cultural standpoint that the worst you'll get is some people judging or complaining at you about it, there are plenty of other things people get judged over and at a certain point you need to put your foot down and say you're an adult and it's not their business what you do in your personal life, as long as it isn't harming others.