I understand where he's coming from, but I think he might be wrong about one thing:

When you’re monogamous, every single person you’re even moderately attracted to seems like Shangri-La, a lost city of infinite erotic promise, with genitals made of divine light and chocolate ice cream that would transform your life if only you could have a taste. (It did for me, anyway.) The allure of the forbidden, and all that.

That's never been my experience, and it's really not like I have anything to compare my husband to. I've been with him for 9 years now, since I was 17, and he's the only man I've ever had a serious relationship with, the only one I've had sex with. I have never felt the "allure" of the forbidden, there's been no one I've ever met that has ever come close to my husband, not by a dozen miles.

All these people that talk about how "the grass is greener" worry me, and I wonder if I'm broken, because I've only ever seen mud across that fence. :P

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Hey! First comment! =D

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If you're broken because of that then I'm broken too.

While I have had more than one serious relationship, it's generally not been me worrying about greener grass. Does make me wonder whether my own grass is insufficiently green though. :P
(Not really - I have been told once or twice that it later turned out the grass was not greener after all.)

I dislike that society (or at least the internet) is leaning more and more towards considering long-term monogamy to be a horrible monster made of jealousy and controlling, while poly is delightful open minded fluffy bunnies prancing in a field.

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I'll hop on the "broken" train as well. Apart from the usual crushes on various movie stars and what have you, I've never wanted to actually initiate sex with anyone apart from my boyfriend. So, yay, we're wierd.

Whenever I'm confronted with that, I usually quote one of Poppy Z. Brite's characters. I don't remember it exactly but it went something like "Staying in a relationship with someone you love is a life experience." I find that helpful.

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I think experience tends to puncture the amusing example-as-argument too... genitals, whilst being different from [member of preferred gender(s)] to member, taste much the same and the only transformative bit is that it's flattering to discover the owner of them wants you to get stuck in with a spoon...

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For nearly 10 years I was monogamous and didn't think I was missing anything. I love my wife and was happy to be only with her.

Now I'm polyamorous and feel the same way about both partners. Just sayin'.

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I'm the same way. Every once in a while I see another person who's appealing, but it doesn't happen all the time or even very often. And generally I'm not that interested in the person anyway. I think the author of that piece is wired for poly and doesn't stop noticing other people when she's in a relationship. A lot of us who are wired for monogamy do, I think, notice others a lot less when we are already happy with the person we are with.

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I don't think you're broken. I think some people are wired to not be attracted to other people once they're in a relationship. It all depends.

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You're probably not broken, but I have to say I've ruined relationships due to my obsessive curiosity about other people. It took me quite a while to accumulate a sufficient sample size so that I would know how a given person was likely to look naked or behave sexually - and I couldn't live with the curiosity; I had to find out. Now I know, to within a certain degree of plus/minus tolerance, how a given male person is likely to behave sexually in a given situation, and I can relax about it. Now I can think about the actual person; I no longer really even think about the parts. Parts is parts.

It's strange but it's the only part of my nature I feel is truly engineerish in origin. I couldn't just extrapolate, I had to *know.* Now I do know, and that's cool. But I don't go around explaining this to everyone, because it sounds crazy even to me. :-)

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All these people that talk about how "the grass is greener" worry me, and I wonder if I'm broken

I would be considered broke as well, since our stories are incredibly similar.

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"Greta" sounds like "she" to me. But I don't know for sure.

Re: "Grass is greener", it does happen, though I do think the quote is seriously exaggerated for effect. Of course, I also think that a person with serious "grass is greener" syndrome is not ready to BE monogamous.

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All these people that talk about how "the grass is greener" worry me, and I wonder if I'm broken

No, it is they who are broken. Sadly, there are so many of them that isn't clear.

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My boyfriend and I probably fit the description of theoretically non-monogamous. We're open to others. But we're very very busy. If we have a free night we could be dating someone else, we're probably going to spend it with each other, because we don't see each other enough as it is.

Technically I do have two other lovers (a couple) but I don't see them [intimately] very often (maybe every other week I'll see them at social occasions), and they're like family to both of us. He doesn't have anyone else at the moment, but he has the freedom to.

When we made the decision, there was a little thrill of "oooh, I can have whomever I want now!" but seriously, it's amazing how finally having other people as an option makes you reevaluate how much you really want them.

Poly or not, I've always felt my boyfriend is the best thing that's ever happened to me. Poly just cemented it. ;)

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Sometimes I get the impression that working to keep a monogamous relationship interesting and fresh is being viewed as too much trouble. It's somehow easier to just look elsewhere if something is missing, and anyway, why should you have to give up your playtime interests to please only one partner?

IMHO, commitment to a monogamous relationship includes a sufficient respect for each partner's feelings and beliefs to make certain sacrifices acceptable. Even joyful, in that they become a way of letting your partner know you care enough to let some things go. Polyamory seems to me to be a cop out, a way to *have it all* without making any concessions or sacrifices. I dunno, I've just always figured that a committed, loving, monogamous relationship, with honesty, communication, and respect IS having it all. But that's just me. To each his own. I suppose the argument can be made that allowing a partner to pursue his or her own kinks elsewhere is a form of respect. Just doesn't happen to work for me.

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As someone who has been polyamorous for 4 years -- trust me, there are plenty of concessions and sacrifices. Just different ones. And I make them for the same reason monogamous people make theirs: because I think it's worth it.

I don't "have it all," whatever "it" is, and neither does anyone I know, monogamous or polyamorous. If someone somewhere does, I'd like to meet them.

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Heh, in my experience, poly has been exactly what ou described...making concessions and sacrifices. Poly, for me, wasn't, and isn't, a cop out. Even when things were very difficult for me (as it relates to dealing with the polyness of my relationship), I still chose, when asked, to continue being poly.

And, it's not about "having it all" for me. It's about having the freedom to express myself to people that I care about. It allows for a fluidity in how I relate to people that is very important to me.

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Calling other people's lifestyle a "cop out" and following it up with "To each his own," induces a bit of cognitive dissonance in me.

1) Respect for your partner's feelings? Great! If your partner really doesn't want you sleeping with someone else, as Dan Savage said yesterday, that's a *sexual preference*, not a hang up, and should be treated with as much respect and consideration as any other. Whether that means a compromise, a sacrifice, or a kind, respectful "I don't think we're right for each other, but you're still awesome," breakup is up to the parties in question, but all are valid options.

However, if your partner's feelings about monogamy are *also* some variant of "man, that sucks" or "I can take it or leave it," how, pray tell, is entering into an open relationship disrespecting his or her feelings? Making a sacrifice that the person being sacrificed *to* doesn't want...well, that's not so much showing that you love them, that's making yourself a martyr in the fine old Jewish mother style.

2) "Monogamous" does not guarantee that a relationship will be committed, loving, honest, respectful, or communicative; "non-monogamous" does not mean or imply that a relationship will fail to be any of these things.

3) Trying to "have it all" at the expense of a partner is a Bad Thing, yes. But if you can "have it all," whatever that means, *not* at the expense of anyone in particular, is there some reason why you shouldn't

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It's a complex theoretical issue for me. I enjoyed the article and wish it could be that simple. My last relationship was with someone who wanted to freedom to be poly and was more than happy to extend that freedom to me. What made this not such a good thing was that I was not getting the basic level of love and affection from him that I required. He wouldn't even kiss me, so when I saw him flirting with someone else and paying them attention, it broke my heart every time. I finally discovered, though he would never admit it while we were together, that he didn't find me attractive and stayed with me because it was "comfortable". That's a terrible thing to do to a person, and I'm still dealing with it.

Perhaps, if my theoretical future partner was loving and attentive and I felt that any other partner would not be diminishing the amount of affection I received, I could be OK with it. And I do truly believe there is such a thing as love multiplied rather than love divided. For me, though, getting to the point of believing it could exist for me might be very difficult indeed.

Sorry. Didn't mean for this to turn into such a pity party. But I needed to say it, so I will let it stand.

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See, this is what I sort of envision a poly relationship being for me, but that's mostly because I have low self-esteem. I would be open to a poly relationship, but only if it started as one, and the other people involved made sure I got the love and affection I needed, rather than someone who wanted to screw around and ignore me while trying to maintain the semblance of a relationship with me. It sounds like you got a mighty raw deal out of that, and I extend my sympathy. I remember you from the picture post (and checked out your "me through the ages" post) and you're very attractive, at least as hot as my mom (I mean that with respect, since you're around her age and she is very attractive).

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That's a really good article. I just wish more people would pay attention to the 'no, this doesn't necessarily work for everyone' bit. It seems like you can't talk about the good parts of poly without people taking it as an attack on their lifestyle.

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Yes, exactly.

Well, not exactly. I have slight tendencies toward poly; my boyfriend is new to the whole thing and finds it all slightly unnerving; and we've just passed the six-months "oh, you're not the incarnate deity I thought you were" mark, which would be a horrible time to start seeing other people. So we're currently monogamous.

But part of the reason I don't mind is that I don't really have the time or the opportunity. The fuckable guys I know are in relationships, ninety percent of them are in relationships with my friends, making them very much off-limits, and I have neither the time nor the inclination to go out and fuck strangers. So monogamy suits me quite well right now.

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That article almost precisely describes my own experience...

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That expresses my attitude pretty nicely. I've been monogamous for almost 10 years ... with the underlying understand that, hey, if one of us wants to be with someone else, well, we'll work it out.

So far, neither of us has. Patrick's monogamous because it's entirely his nature. Me, I just don't have the time or the energy to date. In fact, the best thing about being married is that I get to be with that one person who "gets" me every day, and I don't have to go through the complications of figuring out someone new.

I'm happy with intense, non-sexual friendships and crushes on fellows I read on the Internets. But having that understanding that our relationship is stronger than whether we'd like to sleep with someone else is a nice bit of solidity to carry in the back pocket.

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Heading toward nine years with the husband and have to say that we've been through hell and back together and after nine years of a non-monogamous relationship that has never been acted on. Well, other than making out with other people once in a very very long while -- I think we haven't held hands with somebody else in a cuddly way for two years or so.

But we definitely view ourselves as a non-practicing poly couple. If it happens to us, we'll deal with it. But so far it hasn't gone beyond kissing other people. Who knows if it ever will. But I'm not worried about it for the reasons the writer mentioned.

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Thank goodness for this comment:

Well…

It is true that you and your partner are “living animals with normal libidos”, as are so many other people, but it is also true, perhaps not for you, but for many, that we are normal animals who experience intense sexual jealousy. That is a part of who we are, it evolved in our ancestors, and was selected for, and we are stuck with it.

This makes the concept of non-monogamous relationships difficult to apply universally, to say the least.

It's strange, but conversations about open relationships tend to terrify me, almost to the point of tears. I think that might be unhealthy, but I'm horrified of infidelity, and when I read things like that or hear conversations like that, I think, Holy crap, maybe I just need to not ever get in to relationships, because I really don't think I could handle non-committed relationships. It's nice to know that there are some people who are very fond of them. Your saying "...I’ve seen some long-term poly relationships that would terrify the shit out of neurotic, clingy ol’ me..." in your last post really eased my mind. I agree that I wouldn't say that one thing simply can't work or that one thing is the only way it can work, and I agree that we all have different needs. I, personally, am also very clingy/neurotic (at least relationship-wise) and don't think a non-monogamous relationship could ever work for me.

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