Traditional marriage is a disaster

[Trr]

Anthropologists, sexuality researchers, everyday experience, and thousands of stories on sites such as this one tell us unambiguously that humans are not naturally monogamous creatures. An immediate consequence of this is that the traditional marriage is by its very nature a completely misbegotten institution. And pretty much all the torment experienced by people on this forum has its origin in the failure to internalize this basic truth.

 

For starters, it is totally crazy and unnatural to have your mental health be so vulnerable to the actions of another person. Take a typical story, for example, about a man who gets destroyed because he finds out his wife cheated on him back when they were engaged. This is not at all a rare experience. If his emotional health can be permanently wrecked by something someone else did for ten minutes fifteen years earlier, then it's already clear there is something horribly broken with his world view.

 

And look at some of the phrases we read over and over here: "It just happened," "I was in a fog," "I lost control of myself." These common statements from wayward spouses are all completely accurate. Fighting our nonmonogamous tendencies is a full time job, and if conditions are just right we will lose that fight and our true nature will manifest itself. Oops. Say hello to years of counseling sessions, infidelity survival books, polygraph tests, email account monitoring, intense anguish and rage, venting on support websites, deeply rooted trust issues, traumatic stress symptoms, and perhaps even a general bitterness towards all of humanity. This is just insane.

 

An honest healing process involves reprogramming conceptions about human sexuality and restructuring basic attitudes towards relationships. This is not easy to do, but it can be done.

[WhatYouWantToHear]

Sounds like someone got busted cheating. Or is trying to rationalize why its ok to do so. Good luck.

[Redheaded Mistress]

As somebody who had an affair, I have to say that it had nothing to do with fighting "non-monogamous tendencies." I'm actually a monogamous person by nature and with very little effort or fighting of an inner will.

 

It boils down to that I was in a marriage that wasn't satisfying, I met somebody who felt the same, we clicked in a way that was better than our marriage, and we had an affair. To a degree, it did "just happen," but not because we struggle with monogamy. We just struggled with being married to the person we were with.

 

Now that my AP and I are married, it's not a struggle to stay monogamous... We're in a satisfying and happy relationship.

[merrmeade]

Oh my, oh my. This will be fun. Very brave of you, Trr, as a new member. Very brave and most interesting perspective. Responses guaranteed.

[Bootsie]

If all types of monogamy are/were completely unnatural to the human species then there's no explanation for the extreme negative emotions that so many humans experience when their partner is unfaithful. This is so common that it cannot be something that has been learned. If polygamy, polyamory, and infidelity were somehow "innate" to the majority of us then so would an acceptance of this be innate.

 

 

My personal opinion is that both monogamy and form of serial monogamy is natural to the majority of humans. However there is still a significant percentage that thinks nothing of having multiple partners at the same time. The problem arises when a "one at a time" person is paired with a "several at the same time" person, and the second person has led the first to believe they are a "one at a time" person.

[DKT3]

As somebody who had an affair, I have to say that it had nothing to do with fighting "non-monogamous tendencies." I'm actually a monogamous person by nature and with very little effort or fighting of an inner will.

 

It boils down to that I was in a marriage that wasn't satisfying, I met somebody who felt the same, we clicked in a way that was better than our marriage, and we had an affair. To a degree, it did "just happen," but not because we struggle with monogamy. We just struggled with being married to the person we were with.

 

Now that my AP and I are married, it's not a struggle to stay monogamous... We're in a satisfying and happy relationship.

 

What happens when that changes, and it will. Do you seek the next guy you "click" with?

 

Humans aren't naturally monogamous, however we also aren't dim monkeys and are fully able to sustain and maintain commentment through love and more inportantly respect. The conbination of the two should make affairs mute. If you aren't committed then get out, have enough respect for your partner to at least give them that.

[DKT3]

If all types of monogamy are/were completely unnatural to the human species then there's no explanation for the extreme negative emotions that so many humans experience when their partner is unfaithful. This is so common that it cannot be something that has been learned. If polygamy, polyamory, and infidelity were somehow "innate" to the majority of us then so would an acceptance of this be innate.

 

 

My personal opinion is that both monogamy and form of serial monogamy is natural to the majority of humans. However there is still a significant percentage that thinks nothing of having multiple partners at the same time. The problem arises when a "one at a time" person is paired with a "several at the same time" person, and the second person has led the first to believe they are a "one at a time" person.

 

Monogamy is a result of social mores, and is not instinctively ingrained. Examples of that is women, in general handle infidelity much better then men. Why? Social mores, "men cheat" "boys will be boys" etc. On the flipside when women cheat men get "what did you do wrong". The social mores are men cheat because we can't help ourselves and women cheat because the man isn't making her happy. This being drilled in us from diaper days make women better equiped to handle when the man cheats. 1000's of years of social programming, not inherent biology.

[ComingInHot]

And here I thought it was the cheating that made a disaster out of marriage...