When did you realize that monogamy was optional?

[adamgunn 1,460]

Or do you believe that a married or committed couple should be monogamous?

 

Now, I’m older, went through my teens in the sixties, this colors my perception. When I was young, the world was still a place where most people were religious, and the country was socially conservative. The prevailing belief was that when a couple got married (a man and a woman, of course, because homosexuality was still a sin against God and America!) they were expected to be faithful to each other as long as they lived.

 

I got married when I was nineteen, she was twenty, I was in the Navy. Yes, when I took my vows I intended to be faithful, and I think my wife did too. We were based in a suburb of San Francisco, just after the Summer of Love, but still we kept our beliefs. For five years, even though there were opportunities to stray, neither of us did.

 

I was assigned to an aircraft carrier, we spent nine months out of the year on deployment to the waters off VietNam. I saw my shipmates - some of them married - head off to the brothels when we hit port, I heard that some of the wives had boyfriends when we were out to sea. I won’t say I considered them bad people, but I thought they weren’t honoring their spouses.

 

Then, before my last cruise, my wife told me she got very lonely and horny when I was out at sea, she brought up the possibility that she might take a lover. I wasn’t shocked, but I did have to reorient myself. It probably took me three weeks or so before I understood that if my wife had an affair, it wouldn’t mean the end of our marriage. In short, at that time when I was twenty-five, I realized that people didn’t really have to be monogamous for life.

 

Do you have a story about when you first realized that monogamy was optional for a married couple? I’d love to hear it, particularly from people younger than myself who grew up in a different social environment.

 

Or, if you believe that a married couple should stay faithful to each other, please feel free to explain your view.

[NWAtlSwing 522]

Collage when we started playing with others

[RickandLinda 5]

To me, there is a VAST difference in non monagomy and having an affair. Non monagamy that invokes knowledge of (for sure!) and participation of both parties, such as swinging.  An affair means lies, sneaking, deceit and is hurtful to one partner.  That being said, what happens between a married or committed couple is their own business....if they’re happy with non monogamy....good for them. 

[Numex 2,416]

"When did you realize that monogamy was optional?"

When we dated and got married, my wife and I were comfortable talking about our exes, then about our sexual experiences with them.  It turned us both on.

 

When my wife talked about two in particular who she enjoyed, I thought, "Why not?"  She knew them, had fun fucking them, and most importantly for me (at first anyway), she had already had sex with them, so why should I care/worry.  I suggested it, she was eager and did it with them separately, and it was our start.

[Guest]

My first serious consideration was after divorcing my first husband. I had gone on a couple dates, kissed a couple frogs, and resorted to sneaking away from my kids and picking up strangers to get laid. I was super horny. And wow, I was getting fucked by some handsome guys with pretty cocks. They were excited and grateful to stick it in me good. I liked it, I liked the variety, and I had come from a marriage where he would get on top of me, squish me, grunt for two minutes, whimper and shake, and dump his sperm in me. Not good.

[EastInWest 1,524]

On 4/14/2020 at 9:39 AM, adamgunn said:

Do you have a story about when you first realized that monogamy was optional for a married couple? I’d love to hear it, particularly from people younger than myself who grew up in a different social environment.

We also both grew up in fairly religious/sexually conservative environments and got the same official boilerplate about how it works with men and women. She took it to heart and was a surprisingly good Catholic schoolgirl while her friends were blowing roadies then married young, I spent my twenties having casual sex with multiple women after growing apart from my high school sweetheart.

 

A big part of what got us started in the first place was her finally feeling safe trying and enjoying casual sex without the lying and pretending that people do, but once we realized it was something serious, the official line still crept back in that a committed relationship has different, less fun rules. It took years, even after we'd experimented with other couples, for us to fully come to grips with the number of things that other people care about but that we just really do not and can have our own private space where it's completely OK to get off on things we "shouldn't". That took a lot of very frank and open communication that we'd closed off somewhat when we got serious.

 

Looking back, the whole thing and the baggage is ridiculous. Mrs. E has said more than once that if she'd realized it didn't matter as much as she'd been told and how much fun people were having, she would have spent her high school/college years on all fours in the locker room. I know I blew up a couple of serious relationships trying to be a "good traditional vanilla boyfriend" when they would have lit up if I'd suggested a threesome.