Gay Monogamous Relationships? Why so Rare?
For the longest time I've been leaning toward finding myself a monogamous relationship (when I haven't been trying to run from interested people at least). Honestly though, I'm finding it very difficult to even find anyone else who's looking for that. Why are monogamous relationships so rare? When I do find someone who might be interested in one
( Read more... )
In our case, we've been together for 10 years, and married for 1. Our relationship was about to fail around year 2 of living together. The short version is - plenty of misunderstandings, plenty of buttons being pushed, plenty of hurt, and no "toolset" to deal with that / talk in a different way. We were lucky to find an outstanding counselor. By getting to terms with our own individual demons, we could deepen the relationship - I'd say now it's about as stable is it's going to get.
For starters, then, you have what everyone struggles with: The ability to say "I feel hurt, I feel rejected" instead of "you reject me", and the ability to know that "I feel this" does not necessarily mean "the other did this", just "what the other said hit a sore spot". Only works if both parties can be careful with each other, and know some of the import if what's being said. And if you're over 30, that can only be accomplished by expensive therapy. Kidding :).
There is a body of research that suggests that same-sex relationships tend to fall apart more readily than heterosexual relationships, and this may be caused by the lack of support for those relationships. Heterosexual relationships have plenty of support from family and "all around" (and even there the divorce rate is 50%); same-sex relationships lack that support.
There's more to it, though. There is a "gay culture" idea that being monogamous is somehow not hip. I'll offer a few pieces of anecdotal evidence:
M. in Munich, who has the gall to tell me that the "real gays" are the ones going to clubs and fucking around, and the ones settling down in the suburbs monogamously are a disgrace. And then some of them even have kids, blech, gross! I wanted to throttle him.
A book written by Dr. Isay, Commitment and Healing: Gay Men and the Need for Romantic Love that argues that monogamous relationships and the deeper trust / love / commitment they offer can be good for people becomes a source of instant controversy. Only in the gay community, heh.
The sheer number of research papers, self-help books and otherwise about gay relationships that have a slant towards "how do we handle the constant urge to fuck around?"
I don't have that urge, so I couldn't say. I can offer this piece of advice to close out: Whatever "contract" you have with your partner about sexual contact, make sure you both keep to it. There's a nice short blog entry about it over yonder. I'd imagine open relationships to be quite challenging - but a relationship that is "open" in the sense that both partners screw around and hope the other doesn't find out is headed for the rocks.
Reply
Leave a comment