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

["Kelly Cookson" <kc62301@hotmail.com>]

> > 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.

I completely agree with you.

I don't blame individuals for not talking about open marriage before they 
get married. It's tough to expose yourself in a way that could cause your 
lover or spouse to think of you as sick, immature, perverted, uncommitted 
and so forth. It's even tougher to do this if you have the same kinds of 
feelings about yourself--or at least question yourself--for wanting an open 
marriage. The possibility of losing the partner in whom you confide is a 
real and painful one.

I was lucky enough to realize I was bisexual before I was married. I was 
also lucky enough to realize that keeping my bisexuality a secret would 
eventually cause problems. So I told all my lovers I was bisexual and wanted 
to be with women and men. When I told this to one of my girlfriends, she 
said she was bisexual too. We fell in love and have been happily and openly 
married for 23 years. But it was mostly luck. I can imagine things going 
differently had I not discovered my bisexuality until later or had I thought 
"true love" would be enough to keep me sexually monogamous.

We can't rely on luck. We need to find ways to help people feel more 
comfortable talking about sexual non-monogamy, and to make it less of a risk 
to raise the subject with relationship partners.

Kelly

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