Re: [UUPoly-L] Poly Not As Fun As Cheating

["Earthfather" <Earthfather@cfnc.us>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kelly Cookson

> I feel it is much better for people to discuss sexual non-monogamy before
> they get married. They may change their minds over the course of the
> marriage, and they may come to disagree about it over the course of their
> marriage, but at least they can talk about it openly.

Of course that would be preferable, but most people have been raised without
even knowing that was a possibility.  They were told that anyone who didn't
want monogamy was sick, immature, distressed, perverted, irresponsible,
unable to commit-- and those were the *nicer* things that were said!

Unless a person has an uncommonly unconventional mind, it is nearly
impossible to buck that flood of misinformation.  Many of the folks who are
"cheating" now had no idea that, when they fell in love with their spouse,
that it wasn't the magical transition to a perpetually monogamous
orientation that they had been led to believe it would be.

Many of those folks may have tried to talk to their spouses, and been met
with hysteria.  Others may be in relationships that, by the time the issue
arises, have deteriorated to the point where such communication would be
unthinkable/impossible.  There may be other situations as well; I know one
woman whose husband had a long-term degenerative disease; his attention was
focused nearly 100% on surviving as best he could-- any additional stress
would have seriously compromised his health and/or survival.

My own choices would be/have always been to keep communications open, even
at the risk of losing a relationship (which has happened).  But I had an
ethics prof who framed this sort of situation very nicely.  He would have
put it thus:

"Cheating is always unethical; but there could be circumstances in which the
alternatives are more unethical."

Michael Rios

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