Written by 
Aaron Springer on November 13, 2008
[If only the hype were true more of the time...]
I was going through my previous posts, and stumbled upon this one, from 2004. It was a response to a response to this article. I think it’s time we revisited the Polyamorous issue.
Now, since then, I have met a wonderful woman and gotten married. We are monogamous, and happy. I have severed ties with several of my friends who are poly, and I have a very good friend who is committed to being poly. We will talk about him in a moment.
I would like to revisit the case studies as well. In fact, let’s start with that.
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Couple is married. The couple is in an open relationship, and actively dates other couples. At some point, the man is convinced by a girlfriend that is wife is not being a good wife. He leaves his wife for the girlfriend.
Update:
They divorced. One remmaried, and is living a monogamous life, the other continues to have poly relationships.
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Couple is married. Fearing losing his wife because of her desires for others, he opens their marriage, against his better judgment. His internal equations get so far out of whack that he begins to turn in upon himself, retreating into escapism and antisocial behavior. She, on the other hand, begins to explore outside their marriage. Wishing to include him, she tells him everything, but every word she says leads to more animosity and anger, until, out of desperation, he leaves her, because his joy is lost.
Update:
She left the state with their daughter, and he is remarried and living happily with his new bride. She went underground with her desires, and continues to try to live in the BDSM/Poly world, although trying to raise a daughter on her own and keep her daughter from being exposed to the lifestyle she chooses to live has made most socialization difficult. The man she left the state to be with still refuses to leave his wife, even after nearly five years of dating.
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Couple is married. There is a tragic event in their lives, and, over time, the joy leaves their relationship because of bitterness. They open their relationship seeking joy elsewhere, and, for a time, this works.
Update:
They divorced. He is remarried, and she is engaged to be married. Neither is in a poly relationship.
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Couple is dating and living together. Man breaks up with woman because he “falls in love” with another lover.
Update:
Same cycles, same events, repeated ad nauseum.
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Couple has dated on and off for several years. Man wants to be poly, woman does not, but goes along with it because “she loves him and wants him to be happy.” She begins a sexual relationship with the boyfriend of a woman he has a sexual relationship with, and the man’s core programming takes over, causing jealousy and animosity, leading to a breakup. He leaves the poly lifestyle, realizing that he wants monogamy. What eventually happens is a bizarre life of living in two worlds, constrained by both his new found sense of monogamy and his feelings towards both his monogamous relationship and his love for the now ex-girlfriend. Although sex is not involved directly, the result is not stable, and brings three adults and three children into a rather interesting mess.
Update:
Two marriages later, he is still going through the same cycles. His second wife left her husband for him, and is now leaving him. He is left with two children and a mortgage this time.
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Couple is living together. Both are happy in the poly lifestyle. However, she treats her lovers no differently that acquaintances and he falls in and out of love like most people change underwear. Oddly, this is a stable state for poly relationships. Update:
They broke up. He is now practicing serial monogamy. She is getting married, although by her own admission, it is not for love.
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Couple goes poly, but has very different rules of conduct for the man and woman. Woman falls into a codependent loop because of her core programming, and man goes wild, hitting on anything that moves. She falls into a depression cycle, seeking guidance from first one religion then another.
Update:
Not much has changed. She has become an emotionally abused wreck, and her life is slowly falling apart.
- Couple goes poly at the request of the woman. He has no interest in relationships outside of their marriage, but she did. Eventually, he found equilibrium, but at the cost of their sexual relationship and his ego.
Update:
Finally fed up, he blows a gasket and attacks one of the boyfriends. She leaves him for the boyfriend, then leaves the boyfriend for another boyfriend, and so on.
As you can see, most of the case studies collapsed. Some became monogamous, and the ones that did not are going through the same cycles.
From what I have experienced, and what I have seen others experience, polyamory offers no advantages to monogamy. In fact, it causes undue stress and strain on a relationship. Our culture teaches us that a single spouse/loved one is acceptable, and more than that can lead to jealousy.
I began writing this post about a month ago, and, in the light of Proposition 8 passing in California and similar measures passing elsewhere, I feel I need to state my position on gay marriage.
[If you keep religion out of my bedroom, I'll keep sex out of your church]
As I have stated before, marriage should not be about gender. It is about love. It is about the connection between two people. Why does it matter what sticky groinal bits those two people have? Yes, Rabid Pseudo Reader, some religions forbid this kind of union. Let’s look at the source of this.
Back before modern civilization, sexual mores were quite loose. Men and women did a lot of weird things to get off. Love was, well, not a primary concern. Sex was fun. Marriage was set up to help provide a stability that was needed to continue the species. One man, one woman was preferable because it is needed for reproduction. Two men, or two women, could not produce children on their own, so such unions were, at best, not considered to be reproductive unions. Heck, in Sparta, gay sex was the norm, and hetero sex was used solely for procreation.
I digress. My point is that up until the 20th century, marriage was rarely for love. It was for procreation, predominantly. It has been used to cement treaties, for many other purposes throughout history. The idea of love being tied to marriage is a relatively new one.
That being said, why should that bond be dependent on gender? Maybe we should return to different races can’t marry, or different nationalities. Maybe we should have arranged marriages.
In this world, there is so little love between people, why the hell are we concerned what gender people are when they get married? What the hell does that have to do with “the sanctity of marriage”? Nothing, I say. Absolutely nothing. If you were one of those than voted to pass Proposition 8 based on religious reasons, I say that your religion is dead and cannot adapt to change. I say that your religion has forgotten the one thing that ties all religions together, one of the few things that is not utter claptrap, and that is that you should do to others what you would want done to you, and you shouldn’t do to others what you would not want done to you.
Tags:
Civilization,
Gay Marriage,
Love,
Marriage,
Monogamy,
Politics,
Polyamory,
Proposition 8,
Relationships,
Religion,
Sex
