Poly vs. Mono: Which One Is Harder?
My good friend, emi_ka, told me once: “You know, I suspect that people who are not like you or Danny only attempt open relationships to please their partner, which brings them a lot of suffering and usually ends very badly”.
By “like you or Danny” my friend meant people to whom open relationships are natural - people who were seemingly born without the part of the brain responsible for jealousy. Danny and I have always been polyamorous - long before we were together, long before we knew there was a word for people like us. But most people in open relationships of various kinds are not like that; they began with monogamy, and later changed their minds.
I said a few things to Emilia in response to this, and I will repeat them here; but the funny thing is that now, when I thought about this more, I tend to actually agree with her! At least, agree more than I used to.
But first: her argument at a first glance seems a variation of the tired old “Many open relationships fail, therefore poly doesn’t work” (which, of course, ignores the fact that the vast majority of closed relationships fail as well - not to mention the overly-rigid definitions of what is a successful relationship to begin with - but I digress). What I mean here is that the same argument can be applied to monogamy: monogamy is not natural, is comes hard for people (for some much harder than for others), but people nevertheless choose to embrace it and deal with the challenges it brings, because they decide that the love that they want to build is worth it.
I probably need to expand a bit on that: monogamy is not natural. Polyamory is not natural either. Science tells us that we have evolved with these biological instincts:
1. To seek multiple sexual partners
2. To prevent our partners from seeking multiple sexual partners
Desire and jealousy are both natural. This doesn’t mean that all people experience them in the same intensity; just as it is with melanin, the pigment that protects our skin for sun rays - all people have it, but the amounts vary: blacks have lots of it, whites have less, and albinos don’t have it at all. To complicate things further, most people agree on this relationship principle:
3. Honesty and equal rights for all partners
And then we have a perfect contradiction. These three things cannot all be had in one relationship, you can only have two out of three! People who embrace the first two and reject the third are called cheaters. The honest ones choose between 1 and 2; they embrace one of them, and treat the other one as a problem, which must be worked on:
So, the dialog with Emilia really came down to this: maybe it *is* much harder to deal with jealousy than with the occasional desire for someone else? Maybe it does require more effort to sustain a happy open relationship than a happy closed relationship? Obviously, for some people it is harder than for others, that’s not the point. The point is: I think Emilia is right! For most people, closed relationships are easy, BECAUSE THEY CAN JUST CHEAT.
Open relationships do not have cheating as a simple fall-back option. In open relationships, you have to look the problem in the eye and deal with it. In closed relationships, most of the time you don’t want anyone else and then it’s simple; and when suddenly you do have a huge urge to fuck somebody else, you can just slip, and then continue to claim you’re happily monogamous. “So okay, I slipped, it was wrong, but it won’t happen again”. And the funny thing is, it avoids all the big drama! The huge blow with shit hitting the fan and all the omg-it’s-the-fucking-end-of-the-fucking-world occur only if one is caught cheating, and this doesn’t usually happen! Most cheaters never get caught.
Some people would say that the cheater still pays the price, because the guilt stays with them forever. Sorry, but it is mostly bullshit! The capacity of people to forgive themselves is simply astounding. I think that nothing in the world gets rationalized away more efficiently than infidelity. People really don’t regard their own infidelity as that big a deal. Which is amazing, if you think how bad their partner’s infidelity would feel to these very same people… “But when I do it, it’s different, because I’m a man!” (“because I’m a woman” / “because I was in love” / “because it was purely physical” / etc. etc.) The statistics on cheating are a hilarious read. Majority of people did it at least once, but above 90% vigorously claim that they would never do it (I guess they mean “again”… lol); majority of cheaters consider their relationship a happy one; majority of cheaters feel guilt, but nevertheless don’t regret the cheating.
Does the wronged party pay any price, even if they never find out? Yeah, I guess. But still, all of that is incomparable to the difficulty of adopting an open relationship, for someone who is not naturally inclined for it and has no previous experience with it. Yes, there are books and manuals and supportive communities and all - but in the end it requires some brutal honesty, a lot of determination, soul searching, courage, willingness to confront your deepest fears, and above all - great communication skills. It requires one to step outside of their comfort zone - and from what I hear, that is some serious understatement. (Again, Danny and I never had to face these difficulties, but that’s because we both happened to be “naturals” at it). I know many people who faced these difficulties and overcame them, and now they are very happy in a successful open relationship. But there are also many ones who tried it and failed (and I don’t have the stats for that).
The thing is: the ones who tried and failed at honest non-monogamy still create a lot of drama during the attempt. Unlike monogamy, “silently fail and then pretend everything is alright” is not an option. And hence, Emilia was right. For some reason, though, I suspect that she is not going like it :-)
By “like you or Danny” my friend meant people to whom open relationships are natural - people who were seemingly born without the part of the brain responsible for jealousy. Danny and I have always been polyamorous - long before we were together, long before we knew there was a word for people like us. But most people in open relationships of various kinds are not like that; they began with monogamy, and later changed their minds.
I said a few things to Emilia in response to this, and I will repeat them here; but the funny thing is that now, when I thought about this more, I tend to actually agree with her! At least, agree more than I used to.
But first: her argument at a first glance seems a variation of the tired old “Many open relationships fail, therefore poly doesn’t work” (which, of course, ignores the fact that the vast majority of closed relationships fail as well - not to mention the overly-rigid definitions of what is a successful relationship to begin with - but I digress). What I mean here is that the same argument can be applied to monogamy: monogamy is not natural, is comes hard for people (for some much harder than for others), but people nevertheless choose to embrace it and deal with the challenges it brings, because they decide that the love that they want to build is worth it.
I probably need to expand a bit on that: monogamy is not natural. Polyamory is not natural either. Science tells us that we have evolved with these biological instincts:
1. To seek multiple sexual partners
2. To prevent our partners from seeking multiple sexual partners
Desire and jealousy are both natural. This doesn’t mean that all people experience them in the same intensity; just as it is with melanin, the pigment that protects our skin for sun rays - all people have it, but the amounts vary: blacks have lots of it, whites have less, and albinos don’t have it at all. To complicate things further, most people agree on this relationship principle:
3. Honesty and equal rights for all partners
And then we have a perfect contradiction. These three things cannot all be had in one relationship, you can only have two out of three! People who embrace the first two and reject the third are called cheaters. The honest ones choose between 1 and 2; they embrace one of them, and treat the other one as a problem, which must be worked on:
- Embracing 1 and treating 2 as a problem is called “open relationships”.
- Embracing 2 and treating 1 as a problem is called “closed relationships”.
So, the dialog with Emilia really came down to this: maybe it *is* much harder to deal with jealousy than with the occasional desire for someone else? Maybe it does require more effort to sustain a happy open relationship than a happy closed relationship? Obviously, for some people it is harder than for others, that’s not the point. The point is: I think Emilia is right! For most people, closed relationships are easy, BECAUSE THEY CAN JUST CHEAT.
Open relationships do not have cheating as a simple fall-back option. In open relationships, you have to look the problem in the eye and deal with it. In closed relationships, most of the time you don’t want anyone else and then it’s simple; and when suddenly you do have a huge urge to fuck somebody else, you can just slip, and then continue to claim you’re happily monogamous. “So okay, I slipped, it was wrong, but it won’t happen again”. And the funny thing is, it avoids all the big drama! The huge blow with shit hitting the fan and all the omg-it’s-the-fucking-end-of-the-fucking-world occur only if one is caught cheating, and this doesn’t usually happen! Most cheaters never get caught.
Some people would say that the cheater still pays the price, because the guilt stays with them forever. Sorry, but it is mostly bullshit! The capacity of people to forgive themselves is simply astounding. I think that nothing in the world gets rationalized away more efficiently than infidelity. People really don’t regard their own infidelity as that big a deal. Which is amazing, if you think how bad their partner’s infidelity would feel to these very same people… “But when I do it, it’s different, because I’m a man!” (“because I’m a woman” / “because I was in love” / “because it was purely physical” / etc. etc.) The statistics on cheating are a hilarious read. Majority of people did it at least once, but above 90% vigorously claim that they would never do it (I guess they mean “again”… lol); majority of cheaters consider their relationship a happy one; majority of cheaters feel guilt, but nevertheless don’t regret the cheating.
Does the wronged party pay any price, even if they never find out? Yeah, I guess. But still, all of that is incomparable to the difficulty of adopting an open relationship, for someone who is not naturally inclined for it and has no previous experience with it. Yes, there are books and manuals and supportive communities and all - but in the end it requires some brutal honesty, a lot of determination, soul searching, courage, willingness to confront your deepest fears, and above all - great communication skills. It requires one to step outside of their comfort zone - and from what I hear, that is some serious understatement. (Again, Danny and I never had to face these difficulties, but that’s because we both happened to be “naturals” at it). I know many people who faced these difficulties and overcame them, and now they are very happy in a successful open relationship. But there are also many ones who tried it and failed (and I don’t have the stats for that).
The thing is: the ones who tried and failed at honest non-monogamy still create a lot of drama during the attempt. Unlike monogamy, “silently fail and then pretend everything is alright” is not an option. And hence, Emilia was right. For some reason, though, I suspect that she is not going like it :-)