Can monogamy be learned?

I think behaviors can be modified (some more easily than others) but values are unlikely to change. If monogamy isn’t something you value, I doubt that’s going to change barring some kind of catastrophic event (e.g., husband leaves you for woman he flirts with).

Do you want to change your position on monogamy? It sounds like what you’re doing works for you two.

If it is possible I don’t know, although I think one can condition themselves to ‘act’ a certain behavior, for just such a period of time that it will become almost second nature.
But that is what it is then in my opinion, a second nature.
Your first nature will be and stay number one.
I wouldn’t learn it if I were you, @ANef_is_Enuf…, in my book you seem like a lucky person.
Let your husband be flirted on, if you are totally okay with that.
And the not jealous by nature sounds good and relaxed too.

Whatever you and your husband worked out seems to fit you well, so stick with it and don’t try to change to some vague notion of what is proper.

Jealous is a toxic emotion, based on insecurity. Your husband’s flirting is, I imagine, appropriate for the two of you. Flirting within a marriage keeps the spark alive, especially if that’s all there is. (I am presuming he’s not fondling breasts at a party. that might be pushing it).

The great thing about modern relationships is that as long as conservatives stay out of our homes, we can define them to fit our own needs.

I don’t see that jealousy has anything to do with monogamy.

Monogamous relationships at their most basic are as you define them.

To me, though, it is more that each partner agrees to give all of their romantic energy and interest and thoughts to their partner.

For example, I would consider my husband to be cheating if he formed a non-sexual, but
very engaged relationship with a woman at work whom he thought about a lot, went to lunch with, laughed with, and touched in a meaningful way.

My question is: why would you want to? What you have going on seems great. I wouldn’t try to learn how to waste more energy being jealous or negative.

@marinelife right. That would bother my husband, as well, even without “meaningful touching.” Which is difficult for me to understand.
I’m not doubting my marriage or my relationship. I’m fortunate to have a relationship with someone that talks to me, that wants to work on issues, we have great communication and conflict resolution. We grow together.
But, this has been something that we have a hard time seeing eye to eye on. Not that I don’t want to, but I have a hard time really understanding it. The situation you described, with a coworker, would never bother me. So, I have a hard time understanding why it bothers other people. Including my spouse.
In situations like that, I feel like I’m not doing anything wrong, I’m certainly not trying to hurt my spouse, so why isn’t it okay? I know it’s “not okay” because my spouse doesn’t like it, but, then I feel resentful and frustrated, because I don’t see why it is actually wrong.

Am I making sense?

@ANef_is_Enuf It is a matter of intent. If to you that situation was just hanging out with a co-worker who could be the same sex, then it would not be a problem. But if you were thinking about them in a romantic way, caring about what they thought, then you are taking time and energy away from your relationship.

@marinelife but, I think that is my point. If my intent is not to detract from my marriage, not to hurt my spouse, not to be dishonest or to cheat… I feel like that should be fine. Do you assume that if your spouse is spending time with someone, laughing, smiling, being friendly… that his intentions are not good?
This whole thing confuses me. Which, I know is strange, but it really does. I don’t view the world like this.

Monogamy is clearly a choice. Nobody is forced by nature to practice it. They may be coerced by law to practice it, but that is not learning anything. That is simply coercion.

@saint but can it be learned? I don’t believe, for one second, that it is innate… so, people must learn it. No?

@ANef_is_Enuf I don’t know how to explain it to you. In general, laughing and talking with co-workers is fine, but singling one out for repeated interaction, why would you want to do that if you were in a committed relationship so that you were thinking about this co-worker instead of your husband? That is the part that would not be OK for me.

No.

@ANef_is_Enuf
I guess I don’t understand the question. It really isn’t learned as much as it is a conclusion that monogamy is virtuous behaviour. Nobody really learns about monogamy unless they have tried it several times, contrasted it with polygamy, which they have also tried, and being single which they also have tried. That would be a time consuming, and expensive (if you are a guy) learning curve.

@marinelife I guess, from my perspective, we connect with some people better than others. I, personally, don’t feel like that undermines other special relationships in our lives. I just don’t view the world in that way. I feel like I can have many close relationships, many special connections, but they don’t affect one another.
I guess that is not the popular perspective, though, which is the problem.
I feel… freer, less weighed down just not worrying about things like that. Trying to concern myself with those things makes me feel like I have a big weight on my chest.

Maybe I’m not cut out for this.

People that believe in strict monogamy tend to be the people with some self esteem problems and fairytale-like beliefs about relationships. Two people like this may go together, but when it is just one, you have one person oppressing the other because there are people of the opposite sex at their work place that their S/O is “exposed” to, leaving that person walking on eggshells for the rest of the relationship, being careful not to establish any relationship with anyone of the opposite sex at all.

Everyone knows this type: the treat their S/O more like territory or property. I don’t think you should try to be more strict in your monogamy, it already doesn’t seem like you from what you said (so you won’t even mean if you try to be this way) and you may just end up smothering your partner.

I’m very much like you, @ANef_is_Enuf. It doesn’t bother me at all if my husband has a close female friend (he does, in fact), and I’m not a terribly jealous person. Even when jealousy does catch me from time to time, I recognize that it’s not necessarily rational and I try not to have a knee-jerk reaction to it. At least part of it is my problem, and my husband shouldn’t have to deal with it as long as he really isn’t doing anything wrong.

I don’t think you need to change the way you feel about this stuff, but if you want your marriage to be successful… you may need to change the way you act. Because your husband’s feelings about this stuff aren’t likely to change either. Knowing that it would bother your husband for you to have a close male friend, you’re pretty much going to have to resign yourself to the fact that you can’t have one. (I did that myself, in my last marriage – because it bothered my ex-husband.) Before marrying my current husband, I stipulated that I wouldn’t do it again. He’s fine with that, thank goodness.

Monogamy IS a learned process. Children are monogamous to their parents because that is what they are taught since the time they know themselves, that their parents are their parents, and they are their parent’s kid. What if the notion that you could switch, or shop around for other parents if you felt your current parents were too mean, etc. Do you think nurture would kick in and make all but a very small few take the option? Kids learn what monogamy is from their parents. They can learn through other sources but it is usually by their own experiences that might not have been favorable so they learned it through loss. Monogamy, IMO, is relationship ethic. When you work in any given environment, there are rules and protocol to adhere to. I have rarely seen a kid whose parent(s) slept around who did not see that as normal. If they had one parent who was monogamous and another that wasn’t, it came to who the child liked and admired most if the child followed in the monogamous path, or the heathenish path.

@ANef_is_Enuf is there some reason you want to learn how to be jealous? Is there some reason you want to learn to not trust your husband around other women when he is affectionate with them? Is there some reason you want to become suspicious and envious and want to hire private detectives so you can know your husband’s every little move when he is out of your sight?

You know what is going on. You know that when most people say they trust their spouse that is because their spouse never strays from their sight. Most people have a hard time imagining a spouse having a very close relationship with another friend of the opposite sex and not being threatened by that. It sounds like this even bothers your husband. Perhaps he thinks that if you don’t mind him cuddling with some other woman, that means you wouldn’t mind doing the equivalent thing yourself.

Frankly, I think most people feel that if you don’t watch someone closely, they’ll fool around, given the chance. They may have a hard time imagining not being threatened when a spouse has close relationships with others.

I don’t think you can learn monogamy, if monogamy is what you seem to think it is. For me, that’s not monogamy and I can’t for the life of me see why you would want it. I think your trusting self is far more advanced than the non-trusting self. I think you are more loving and giving that way. You clearly are warmed by your husband’s happiness that he gets from forming close relationships—or would be, if that has yet to happen.

I think it is fine to not fit that monogamous mold. I wouldn’t want to. That sounds like closing down and drawing in—isolating. I’m pretty sure you know what isolation is like and that it is a sense of empathy that keeps you from wanting anything to do with anything that puts barriers between people.

When you’ve been in psychologically dangerous places, where you are alone to death, and isolated and cannot break through—and when you survive that—I think it changes you and your feelings about jealousy. I know it changed me. Connections to others are precious things. They are far too rare. Yet they scare others because they easily seem inappropriate. Well, they don’t have to be inappropriate and I think that you understand that and can intuit which ones are fine and which people you can trust.

That sense of being able to read people is what you want and what you should trust. That is what will keep you safe and will enable you to find the connections you need. Or so I believe. I think you know what I’m talking about, but maybe I’m just projecting like mad. Wouldn’t be the first time. But do you feel you know people? Do you trust your sense of being able to read people? I think I would trust your judgment, and I hardly know you.

I don’t want to learn to be jealous. I want to not make my husband jealous.
I didn’t really want to come out and say it like that, but I guess that is what it really is. He has a more traditional, the more popular view, of monogamous relationships. I don’t. I struggle with that. I don’t understand that concept.
I am comfortable with my relationship, as it is. I trust him. He is not comfortable. @augustlan pretty much nailed it. I have to agree to act a certain way, basically, that doesn’t fit with how I feel or what I believe. Which, is just hard to deal with, period… but I have a great relationship, we almost never fight, we’re good at seeing eye to eye, so this is an unusual scenario in and of itself. I want to find a compromise, but at the same time, I feel forced into a belief system that I don’t agree with. And that seems selfish, to me, because that is what monogamy is. And, I feel like I must learn it.

Monogamy MUST be learned. Most of us learn it from our parents, but it has to be learned because it is not natural. Most learn monogamy without realizing they are being taught. Humans learn by imitating their parents, and peers, and if we are raised around monogamy we tend to imitate it.

It’s interesting that people bring parents into the discussion. My parents are together, and they have a monogamous marriage… but they have always had close friends of the opposite sex. I have never seen either of my parents behave as if they were jealous of what the other was doing. That probably does have a lot to do with it.
I know that my sisters share similar views, to mine, on monogamy. We all have similar attitudes in our relationships.