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Do Women Cheat For Better Sex and Men For A Different Taste?

Absentglare said:
I don't see monogamous relationships as trying to control how your partner feels. I see it as having an expectation that your partner will not suddenly decide that someone else is more valuable or important to them, betraying your trust and deciding to abandon you. If someone decides that being able to have sex with new people is that important, it just goes to show that their partner is not satisfying enough of their sexual needs. Some people may decide that it's impossible for a single person to meet all of their sexual needs, i can't really address that since i have only my own experience to draw from. My emotional needs value the reliability of my partner over my freedom to sow wild oats.

Wanting to have sex with other people is normal. Without any restriction, there is no real commitment. Which is fine if you decide that being unconstrained yourself is more important than being able to rely on a partner.

I have long respected the exercise of restraint as a demonstration of discipline.
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But there's already an assumption in there that it is physically impossible for someone to care about someone else, while also caring about you. That assumption doesn't make any sense to me. Our partners often love lots of other people in a variety of ways, and we don't see this as threatening. Indeed, it's abusive to try to tell your partner they shouldn't have other people in their lives. Our culture only sees it as threatening, and therefore consideres it ok to be controlling in this manner, if you're making an assumption that there is a possibility of sex, which monogamous culture is strangely obsessed with.

That comes out even in your response. Although I've just explained otherwise in literally the post you just quoted, you continue to assume that polyamory -- or indeed, relationships in general -- are almost entirely about sex, because you just can't see them any other way. How one behaves sexually is the sum total of whether they are judged to be loyal, decent patners. How utterly weird, in light of everything that relationships truly are, and indeed, that some relationships don't even include sex to begin with. I would consider that insulting, if that was how my partner judged me.

These are the people we build our homes with, share our fears with, raise children with... but all that matters to you in judging their worthiness is sex?

I just don't understand that. It makes no sense to me.
 
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Here's a category that hasn't been touched on in this thread, or if it has, then "MY BAD, I MISSED IT":

People (male or female) who came from a very repressed upbringing, possibly religious or cultural, or both.

I've seen instances of both men and women who married early in an ultra-conservative culture or faith, to people they were not compatible with, and
when the marriage fell apart, they disconnected from it all, and went out into the outside world on a mission to taste it all, entering into a series of doomed relationships marked by cheating.

I dated a girl briefly in college who was on the rebound from almost exactly that scenario. She grew up in a repressive culture and a strict religious upbringing, and was married off at sixteen to a much older man she barely knew.
She wound up cheating on him, was thrown out of the faith and the marriage, left utterly on her own and she got lucky in as much as she was able to reinvent herself and get a chance to find a new life in work and school.
But she insisted that she was possessed of an extraordinarily high sex drive and she refused to say she would be exclusive, with me or anyone.

Me, I was just a young dumb horny kid and went along with it until it wasn't fun anymore, but in retrospect I would bet she finally figured out that she was just in "rebound Hell" and was attempting to find something equivalent to self esteem through sexual experiences, and she probably sorted everything out and settled into a more normal pattern.

But when the pressure needs a release, some people work past their built-in fears and just bust out, and cheating seems to be one avenue by which they rebel against the system they are under.
 
RAMOSS said:
I knew a woman that lived with both her boy friends .. and last I knew of her the three of them had been together and exclusive for 15 years. It's odd to me, but it worked for the three of them.
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Yeah, that would so not work with me. 1 partner is my limit!
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
As someone who does poly... no, that is nothing like how this actually works.

Polyamory is about relationships. Some poly people are asexual and never have sex with anyone at all. Others, like me, aren't very prolific daters, and usually dont even have multiple relationships going on anyway. Some poly people are fidelitous, meaning they are not open to any more relationships.

Why do it, if you're someone like that? Well, for me, because I fundamentally don't believe that I can control other people's feelings, that a partner should try to control mine, and also as someone who is rebuilding my family from scratch, I want flexibility in how that winds up working.

I just find it fundamentally weird that people believe "commitment" means "placing all of my need and expectation on one person forever and ever." That is honestly just strange to me, and also makes it dramatically harder to actually get your needs met. To me, commitment means actually being there for someone when it matters, not agreeing to never Netflix 'n' chill with anyone else until you die.
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I got into an okay discussion with some coworkers about what we want in our love lives. It was prompted because one guy said he loves 'no strings attached' sex. That's all fine and dandy, if that's what pleases someone, and they are honest and upfront about it, then I'm sure he can find a girl who is up for that too.

But, I don't want no strings attached because that says to me, as soon as something better comes along, that person is gone. So, if I were to get with a girl, I would outline what I want; I want a commitment to support each other emotionally throughout, potentially years, and support each other in our personal growth. That's what I want, that's as important to me as the bedroom.

Anyway, I'm not sure if that has to do with poly, and I'm sure that objective overlaps a poly lifestyle. In that a person can want the same, but, from multiple people and genders simultaneously.
 
Winston said:
I got into an okay discussion with some coworkers about what we want in our love lives. It was prompted because one guy said he loves 'no strings attached' sex. That's all fine and dandy, if that's what pleases someone, and they are honest and upfront about it, then I'm sure he can find a girl who is up for that too.

But, I don't want no strings attached because that says to me, as soon as something better comes along, that person is gone. So, if I were to get with a girl, I would outline what I want; I want a commitment to support each other emotionally throughout, potentially years, and support each other in our personal growth. That's what I want, that's as important to me as the bedroom.

Anyway, I'm not sure if that has to do with poly, and I'm sure that objective overlaps a poly lifestyle. In that a person can want the same, but, from multiple people and genders simultaneously.
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But how does someone caring about someone other than just you even mean that? How does that mean they're going anywhere? That doesn't make any sense. That's thinking about human emotions as if they were Skittles in a bag. It... doesn't work like that. :lol:

The way someone loves someone else and also you is exactly the same way someone loves their sibling, or their friend, or whomever, while also loving you. Your partner's heart is not a bag of Skittles.

And again, polyamory has nothing to do with sex, and some poly people don't even have sex at all, but you can't seem to look at it from any other angle than this instant assumption that polyamory = NSA sex. And you hold on to that even after being corrected because your head just can't imagine anything else that any relationship style could be based on, apart from contracts of sexual behavior.

To be honest, part of what made me leave the monogamy world is how obsessed most monogamists are with sex. There's much less of that in some sections of the polyamory world, contrary to popular belief.

You know, I never had any trouble being monogamous, which is something a lot of people assume about people who move into poly. I just can't stand how reductive the thinking of monogamist culture can be, and I find it really objectifying, both towards me and towards the relationship itself. That's the real reason I left it behind, not anything having to do with sex.
 
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Checkerboard Strangler said:
Fitbits know when you're stroking it?
Holy KRAP, that's worse than an Amazon Echo listening in on a couple making whoopie!
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Fitbits are proving scary. Echo is out the question here. We have enough trouble with sleeping over grandkids waking for a glass of water, "I had a bad dream, can I stay in your bed?" and "There's a monster in my bed, and he has bad breath!"

The dog got in bed with them.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
As someone who does poly... no, that is nothing like how this actually works.

Polyamory is about relationships. Some poly people are asexual and never have sex with anyone at all. Others, like me, aren't very prolific daters, and usually dont even have multiple relationships going on anyway. Some poly people are fidelitous, meaning they are not open to any more relationships.

Why do it, if you're someone like that? Well, for me, because I fundamentally don't believe that I can control other people's feelings, that a partner should try to control mine, and also as someone who is rebuilding my family from scratch, I want flexibility in how that winds up working.

I just find it fundamentally weird that people believe "commitment" means "placing all of my need and expectation on one person forever and ever." That is honestly just strange to me, and also makes it dramatically harder to actually get your needs met. To me, commitment means actually being there for someone when it matters, not agreeing to never Netflix 'n' chill with anyone else until you die.
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Netflix n chill? Is that what the kids are calling it these days.
 
On the subject of poly...here's my take.

Children make poly (of the non Mormon kind) extremely difficult. They require structure and stability. Having different folks coming and going is not gong to be conducive to that, male or female.
 
Do Women Cheat For Better Sex and Men For A Different Taste?
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Mmmm.....pretty sure my ex cheated on me simply because I was deployed and she could. :neutral:
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
But how does someone caring about someone other than just you even mean that? How does that mean they're going anywhere? That doesn't make any sense. That's thinking about human emotions as if they were Skittles in a bag. It... doesn't work like that. :lol:

The way someone loves someone else and also you is exactly the same way someone loves their sibling, or their friend, or whomever, while also loving you. Your partner's heart is not a bag of Skittles.

And again, polyamory has nothing to do with sex, and some poly people don't even have sex at all, but you can't seem to look at it from any other angle than this instant assumption that polyamory = NSA sex. And you hold on to that even after being corrected because your head just can't imagine anything else that any relationship style could be based on, apart from contracts of sexual behavior.

To be honest, part of what made me leave the monogamy world is how obsessed most monogamists are with sex. There's much less of that in some sections of the polyamory world, contrary to popular belief.

You know, I never had any trouble being monogamous, which is something a lot of people assume about people who move into poly. I just can't stand how reductive the thinking of monogamist culture can be, and I find it really objectifying, both towards me and towards the relationship itself. That's the real reason I left it behind, not anything having to do with sex.
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SmokeAndMirrors, do you mean to say that it would not bother you one bit, if one of your lovers started sleeping with say, a coworker or, your sister, etc.? Because you are so detached from sex, that it is just an inconsequential physical act, like blowing your nose?

sorry, if I worded that wrong or coldly. I don't mean to say that sex isn't special to most everyone. I just have a hard time accepting that someone can be so detached from sex, that it wouldn't bother them if their husband(s) started sleeping with someone within their environment.
 
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Winston said:
SmokeAndMirrors, do you mean to say that it would not bother you one bit, if one of your lovers started sleeping with say, a coworker or, your sister, etc.? Because you are so detached from sex, that it is just an inconsequential physical act, like blowing your nose?

sorry, if I worded that wrong or coldly. I don't mean to say that sex isn't special to most everyone. I just have a hard time accepting that someone can be so detached from sex, that it wouldn't bother them if their husband(s) started sleeping with someone within their environment.
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And again, your obsession with sex. *sigh*

Lots of things are special to me. In most cases, we don't see someone else experiencing the same thing we did as being destructive to the specialness of said thing. And unless you think sex is about nothing but ownership of their body parts, I don't see why this would be any different -- no two people have the same connection. My ability to not see others as objects that I own is not "detachment." It's respect. The fact that I see relationships as far more than just sex, and that sex is, in truth, only a minority part of a relationship, is not "detachment." It's appreciating the wholeness of my partner.

"Bother" is not the issue, and not how one addresses human issues of negative feelings in healthy polyamory. But since we can't even seem to get past the idea that relationships are about nothing but sex, I don't really want to go to the effort to try to explain that. That is about communication, introspection, and working together, not sex, and you apparently don't think relationships are about anything but sex.

Truly, I can't get over how goddamn sad it is that you see your partners like that, or think they wouldn't be special anymore if they were sullied by somebody else. And this is why I don't do monogamy anymore, even though I seldom date enough for it to matter. I would be mad as hell if my theoretical partner talked about me like this. I would be mad as hell if they couldn't conceive of any reason I would be special apart from owning the sole rights to **** me. Gross.

I swear to god, monogamists damn near drove me to the nunnery with this crap. It's just toxic.

And it's not even that I think there's no healthy way of doing monogamy. I do. I wouldn't even much care about being monogamous, if I met someone like that. It's just that our culture has no idea what the hell that is, so most people don't think of it in healthy ways, and instead we wind up with this crap ruling our relationships, and just... yuck. I'm done with it.
 
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KevinKohler said:
On the subject of poly...here's my take.

Children make poly (of the non Mormon kind) extremely difficult. They require structure and stability. Having different folks coming and going is not gong to be conducive to that, male or female.
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Not all poly people are open to dating anyone new. Therefore there isn't anyone "coming and going." Google: polyfidelity. Pretty common in groups raising kids. And actually, poly groups raising kids this way tend to function really well. In reality, two adults just isn't enough to properly raise children, especially if you have more than one, and they're younger. It's a lot less stress on the parents to have more hands on deck, and therefore a lot more positive attention for the child, to have less strained resources.

But perhaps someone should tell this to all the monogamists who divorce when their kid is two and then spend the next 10 years dating as if they're still in college and it won't have any impact on their kid. Hell, I know people who had 3 or 4 different step parents before they reached adulthood. A lack of stability is hardly exclusive to polyamory.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
Not all poly people are open to dating anyone new. Therefore there isn't anyone "coming and going." Google: polyfidelity. Pretty common in groups raising kids. And actually, poly groups raising kids this way tend to function really well. In reality, two adults just isn't enough to properly raise children, especially if you have more than one, and they're younger. It's a lot less stress on the parents to have more hands on deck, and therefore a lot more positive attention for the child, to have less strained resources.

But perhaps someone should tell this to all the monogamists who divorce when their kid is two and then spend the next 10 years dating as if they're still in college and it won't have any impact on their kid. Hell, I know people who had 3 or 4 different step parents before they reached adulthood. A lack of stability is hardly exclusive to polyamory.
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I never claimed monogamous couples were stable. Never heard of Polly fidelity. I assume that's a situation, like, 2 guys, 2 girls, who share? I mean, that's essentially the same as a 2 family house....highly stressful, unless your house is quite large. I get you on having more hands to help, completely true. I would have to believe, though, that this would involve more kids, as well.

The only family that follows this model that I know anything about was the creator of wonder woman. Forget his name...psychologist, with 2 wives, kids with both, but social stigma prevented them from being open, so it was hidden from the kids.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
And again, your obsession with sex. *sigh*

Lots of things are special to me. In most cases, we don't see someone else experiencing the same thing we did as being destructive to the specialness of said thing. And unless you think sex is about nothing but ownership of their body parts, I don't see why this would be any different -- no two people have the same connection. My ability to not see others as objects that I own is not "detachment." It's respect. The fact that I see relationships as far more than just sex, and that sex is, in truth, only a minority part of a relationship, is not "detachment." It's appreciating the wholeness of my partner.

"Bother" is not the issue, and not how one addresses human issues of negative feelings in healthy polyamory. But since we can't even seem to get past the idea that relationships are about nothing but sex, I don't really want to go to the effort to try to explain that. That is about communication, introspection, and working together, not sex, and you apparently don't think relationships are about anything but sex.

Truly, I can't get over how goddamn sad it is that you see your partners like that, or think they wouldn't be special anymore if they were sullied by somebody else. And this is why I don't do monogamy anymore, even though I seldom date enough for it to matter. I would be mad as hell if my theoretical partner talked about me like this. I would be mad as hell if they couldn't conceive of any reason I would be special apart from owning the sole rights to **** me. Gross.

I swear to god, monogamists damn near drove me to the nunnery with this crap. It's just toxic.

And it's not even that I think there's no healthy way of doing monogamy. I do. I wouldn't even much care about being monogamous, if I met someone like that. It's just that our culture has no idea what the hell that is, so most people don't think of it in healthy ways, and instead we wind up with this crap ruling our relationships, and just... yuck. I'm done with it.
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I see what you are saying. It's different to the way I've been socialized. But, I think we're just going to have to disagree. Sex is important to me, and girlfriends are girlfriends partly because you guys sleep together exclusively. It doesn't 'sully' their body to sleep with other men. It just hurts my feelings. If it 'sullied' their body, then I would have to look for virgins only. Which has never been a consideration of mine. So, I think you have an inaccurate assessment of me; hypothetically labeling promiscuous women as tainted. Because I don't see them that way. I believe women and men should have as many consensual sexual relationships as they want and for whatever reason they want to. However, if they choose to see me and we agree that it is to be exclusive, I expect it to be that way. And if her feelings should change, as feelings are wont to do, I would expect her to communicate that to me.

That to me is a well adjusted and mature view on love, do you disagree?
 
Winston said:
I see what you are saying. It's different to the way I've been socialized. But, I think we're just going to have to disagree. Sex is important to me, and girlfriends are girlfriends partly because you guys sleep together exclusively. It doesn't 'sully' their body to sleep with other men. It just hurts my feelings. If it 'sullied' their body, then I would have to look for virgins only. Which has never been a consideration of mine. So, I think you have an inaccurate assessment of me; hypothetically labeling promiscuous women as tainted. Because I don't see them that way. I believe women and men should have as many consensual sexual relationships as they want and for whatever reason they want to. However, if they choose to see me and we agree that it is to be exclusive, I expect it to be that way. And if her feelings should change, as feelings are wont to do, I would expect her to communicate that to me.

That to me is a well adjusted and mature view on love, do you disagree?
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So you'll go down on a girl after a guy has cum in her? Or is she unsullied?

Would you have no problem marrying a girl who has slept with over 50 men? Including every man you know? Also, are you aware of the statistical likelyhood of divorce due to dissatisfaction women with high partner counts have?
 
Winston said:
I see what you are saying. It's different to the way I've been socialized. But, I think we're just going to have to disagree. Sex is important to me, and girlfriends are girlfriends partly because you guys sleep together exclusively. It doesn't 'sully' their body to sleep with other men. It just hurts my feelings. If it 'sullied' their body, then I would have to look for virgins only. Which has never been a consideration of mine. So, I think you have an inaccurate assessment of me; hypothetically labeling promiscuous women as tainted. Because I don't see them that way. I believe women and men should have as many consensual sexual relationships as they want and for whatever reason they want to. However, if they choose to see me and we agree that it is to be exclusive, I expect it to be that way. And if her feelings should change, as feelings are wont to do, I would expect her to communicate that to me.

That to me is a well adjusted and mature view on love, do you disagree?
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You should always expect they honor what you'd mutually agreed. Trust is the heart of a relationship.

It's just this focus on a game of capture-the-flag with other people's bodies has nothing to do with that, and it just... makes my stomach do backflips. Because, in truth, most people are much more offended by the idea that their partner has been touched, than they are by the betrayal. And I can demonstrate that to you pretty easily:

1. Most men are more offended if a woman sleeps with another man than if she sleeps with another woman, because socially we don't see lesbian sex as being "real sex."
2. If she did tell you she liked someone else, there probably wouldn't be any real "communication," would there. You would probably give her an instant ultimatum, regardless of whether she'd even done anything with them, right?

At the end of the day, it all comes down to ownership and not much else. There's no room for accomodation. There's no room to grow. There's no room for people to belong to themselves.

I don't believe it's well-adjusted to see people that way, no. I also don't believe it's well-adjusted that we've had such a long exchange where I've been trying to talk about relationships, but we can't get off the topic of just sex no matter how hard I try.

However, I also don't believe our society is well-adjusted as a whole, and I don't particularly blame any given individual for that. I'm not perfectly well-adjusted in my own opinion either.
 
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Spartacus FPV said:
So you'll go down on a girl after a guy has cum in her? Or is she unsullied?

Would you have no problem marrying a girl who has slept with over 50 men? Including every man you know? Also, are you aware of the statistical likelyhood of divorce due to dissatisfaction women with high partner counts have?
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Whether or not I'll perform a sex act has to do with many factors, such as hygeine. So, likely no. also, if you've been following the conversation, you'll notice that I've been arguing for monogamy. So, I would not even be in the room if a guy was coming in a girl. Because, I sleep with one person at a time.

As for the previous partners thing, doesn't bother me one bit. I live in the moment.
 
Spartacus FPV said:
So you'll go down on a girl after a guy has cum in her? Or is she unsullied?

Would you have no problem marrying a girl who has slept with over 50 men? Including every man you know? Also, are you aware of the statistical likelyhood of divorce due to dissatisfaction women with high partner counts have?
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Careful....we're almost to the "ass to mouth" segment of the discussion.




(Shameless Clerks reference)
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
You should always expect they honor what you'd mutually agreed. Trust is the heart of a relationship.

It's just this focus on a game of capture-the-flag with other people's bodies has nothing to do with that, and it just... makes my stomach do backflips. Because, in truth, most people are much more offended by the idea that their partner has been touched, than they are by the betrayal. And I can demonstrate that to you pretty easily:

1. Most men are more offended if a woman sleeps with another man than if she sleeps with another woman, because socially we don't see lesbian sex as being "real sex."
2. If she did tell you she liked someone else, there probably wouldn't be any real "communication," would there. You would probably give her an instant ultimatum, regardless of whether she'd even done anything with them, right?

At the end of the day, it all comes down to ownership and not much else. There's no room for accomodation. There's no room to grow. There's no room for people to belong to themselves.

I don't believe it's well-adjusted to see people that way, no. I also don't believe it's well-adjusted that we've had such a long exchange where I've been trying to talk about relationships, but we can't get off the topic of just sex no matter how hard I try.

However, I also don't believe our society is well-adjusted as a whole, and I don't particularly blame any given individual for that. I'm not perfectly well-adjusted in my own opinion either.
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I appreciate your perspective. You raise some good points :

1. Men are less concerned if their wives/gf cheat on them with other girls than men. But, that is because men are in constant competition with one another.
2. It depends on how much I liked her.

I know you've been trying to get me to talk about relationships, but, I wanted some sort of concession that I have a valid point, which is why I've been stubborn.

If you'd like, since the thread is about cheating, I would appreciate your thoughts on what are key components of a healthy relationship, that would deter cheating. But, we have a fundamental disagreement here because I'm a monogamist.

If you'd like we could extend the term cheating, to include cheating of the emotional sort. In that the unhappy wife, goes out shooting with her boss a la American Beauty, because she is unsatisfied emotionally at home.

So, we can leave the physical part of the conversation behind. What components of a relationship would satisfy a woman's emotional needs, so that she feels happy and fulfilled by a partner?
 
Winston said:
Whether or not I'll perform a sex act has to do with many factors, such as hygeine. So, likely no. also, if you've been following the conversation, you'll notice that I've been arguing for monogamy. So, I would not even be in the room if a guy was coming in a girl. Because, I sleep with one person at a time.

As for the previous partners thing, doesn't bother me one bit. I live in the moment.
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Are you interested at all in marriage?
 
Winston said:
I appreciate your perspective. You raise some good points :

1. Men are less concerned if their wives/gf cheat on them with other girls than men. But, that is because men are in constant competition with one another.
2. It depends on how much I liked her.

I know you've been trying to get me to talk about relationships, but, I wanted some sort of concession that I have a valid point, which is why I've been stubborn.

If you'd like, since the thread is about cheating, I would appreciate your thoughts on what are key components of a healthy relationship, that would deter cheating. But, we have a fundamental disagreement here because I'm a monogamist.

If you'd like we could extend the term cheating, to include cheating of the emotional sort. In that the unhappy wife, goes out shooting with her boss a la American Beauty, because she is unsatisfied emotionally at home.

So, we can leave the physical part of the conversation behind. What components of a relationship would satisfy a woman's emotional needs, so that she feels happy and fulfilled by a partner?
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Oh, cheating exists in polyamory, in most cases. It does for me, although I hate that particular term. Just... sounds juvenile to me. But, obviously you still have issues of time managment, health, etc to consider. I may decide not to date a given person with sexual behaviors I deem riskier than what I want to take on in my life. I may break up with someone if I find they have lied about it. It's not because of who touched them. It's more because I consider lying to be pretty much zero-forgiveness when my partner already knows they could talk to me if they wanted, and because I am not interested in high-risk lifestyles. That impacts my body too, not just theirs.

Anyway, what would make for healthier relationships whether they're monogamous or not (and no doubt, plenty of polyamorists are doing it poorly -- they all come out of our unhealthy style of cultural monogamy, after all) is a couple things.

Firstly, we need to stop prioritizing our egos above our partner's needs. At the heart of a lot of relationship issues that eventually end in cheating is just the simple truth that people's needs change over time. Emotionally, physically, in all sorts of ways. And our model of monogamy mandates perfect consistency, decade after decade, until you drop dead, in order to avoid challenging your partner's ego. That is completely unrealistic, and it's not healthy. If you're going to be with someone for decades, then you need to commit to being there for what THEY are going to need over those decades, not just commiting to your own desire to feel unthreatened.

On the other side of that, we need to stop making our partners so responsibile for such a totality of our needs. Where the cheated-on justifies their unwillingness to consider their partner's ever-changing needs by appealing to their own ego, the cheater justifies their cheating by projecting responsibility for their needs onto their partner in such a way that their failure to forsee them justifies betrayal. At the end of the day, they don't know what we don't tell them (for fear of challenging their ego), and one person cannot meet every need we have. That, too, is completely unrealistic (and there are plenty of realistic fixes for that in a monogamous model -- the way we drift away from our families and friends after we partner, for example, makes this problem so much worse than it needs to be).

Your partner is not responsible for reading your mind, and you are not responsible for their ego. Your partner cannot meet 100% of your human needs, and you cannot own them. And that needs to be accepted in a monogamous model just as much as any other model in order to have a healthy dynamic where people can actually flourish rather than just exist.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
Oh, cheating exists in polyamory, in most cases. It does for me, although I hate that particular term. Just... sounds juvenile to me. But, obviously you still have issues of time managment, health, etc to consider. I may decide not to date a given person with sexual behaviors I deem riskier than what I want to take on in my life. I may break up with someone if I find they have lied about it. It's not because of who touched them. It's more because I consider lying to be pretty much zero-forgiveness when my partner already knows they could talk to me if they wanted, and because I am not interested in high-risk lifestyles. That impacts my body too, not just theirs.

Anyway, what would make for healthier relationships whether they're monogamous or not (and no doubt, plenty of polyamorists are doing it poorly -- they all come out of our unhealthy style of cultural monogamy, after all) is a couple things.

Firstly, we need to stop prioritizing our egos above our partner's needs. At the heart of a lot of relationship issues that eventually end in cheating is just the simple truth that people's needs change over time. Emotionally, physically, in all sorts of ways. And our model of monogamy mandates perfect consistency, decade after decade, until you drop dead, in order to avoid challenging your partner's ego. That is completely unrealistic, and it's not healthy. If you're going to be with someone for decades, then you need to commit to being there for what THEY are going to need over those decades, not just commiting to your own desire to feel unthreatened.

On the other side of that, we need to stop making our partners so responsibile for such a totality of our needs. Where the cheated-on justifies their unwillingness to consider their partner's ever-changing needs by appealing to their own ego, the cheater justifies their cheating by projecting responsibility for their needs onto their partner in such a way that their failure to forsee them justifies betrayal. At the end of the day, they don't know what we don't tell them (for fear of challenging their ego), and one person cannot meet every need we have. That, too, is completely unrealistic (and there are plenty of realistic fixes for that in a monogamous model -- the way we drift away from our families and friends after we partner, for example, makes this problem so much worse than it needs to be).

Your partner is not responsible for reading your mind, and you are not responsible for their ego. Your partner cannot meet 100% of your human needs, and you cannot own them. And that needs to be accepted in a monogamous model just as much as any other model in order to have a healthy dynamic where people can actually flourish rather than just exist.
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I'm on a mobile now. I'll reflect on your post throughout the day and respond.


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