If you don't believe in a singular soulmate, have you had any conflict with monogamy (see details)?

I don’t believe in the “soulmate” thing, but have absolutely no problem with monogamy. I intend to stay married to my wife until we die. Or she leaves me, which seems more and more likely lately :(.

Have you seen this Tim Minchin song?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAzodf69rfk

Serial monogamy is quite popular. I don’t think we can or should “mate for life” even though I’m on track to achieve that. I’d love to see us evolve to a better form of legal and social contract that anticipates serial monogamy (or alternative arrangements within the primary relationship) and creates a system that doesn’t punish those who practice same.

I’m completely against cheating in any form and would never allow myself to hurt others with my deceit.

You’ve taken a big leap there, @KNOWITALL. I didn’t infer unfaithfulness or deception in the question and didn’t imply any in my response. I’m suggesting a more evolved contract.

Whether I believed in soulmates or not, cheating would never be okay.

I don’t believe in “soulmates”, but I also don’t believe in abandoning my morals or hurting someone that I care about. I’m a serial monogamist, and if my current relationship lasts the rest of my lifetime, wonderful. If it doesn’t, I would end it before beginning another.

Have you seen the movie “Before Sunrise?”

@picante Ah, European open marriage? I don’t think it’s more evolved at all, people still get hurt quite often and you know, self-denial builds character.

What is so European about open marriage? When I think of open marriage, I think of fat, sweaty swingers from Florida.

@bolwerk Supposedly the aristocrats have had open marriages for ages.

@KNOWITALL: they never had “open marriages.” They had concubines. Or clandestine gay sex. Or flat out cheated, openly or not.

I’m totally cool with the idea of open relationships, and my husband and I have totally serious hall pass lists. Neither of us have ever cashed one in, but it’s still there.

Human beings seem primed for something between being radically into lots of sex with the whole village, and something more like serial monogamy. Long-term mating for life happens, but it seems rather unusual.

In any case, I think a sexual relationship (or a bunch of them at once) can only be part of a healthy social life.

I have to admit I deeply love one of my exes. We both still feel the connection.

It is a really powerful one. But I also have had relationships after him. Some of which were good and I was quite fond of them.

If he were to be my one and only soul mate I got screwed. But the level at which we connect and can commicate our intimacy and enjoyment of each other I have never been able to match.

I did have some big crushes on people during my marriage but I never acted on them.

The concept of “singular soulmate” is some romantic fantasy that lives on in tired love song lyrics. But as most people learn once they are past that first overwhelming late adolescent crush, a deep connection can be made but it is not singular. So, once again, as everyone has said, serial monogamy seems pretty standard for most people.

That said, serial monogamy is not incompatible with ‘not cheating”. Indeed, an open relationship is “not cheating” as long as there is open and honest communication.

Yeah, just as a note, I’m not promoting cheating, and I would never cheat. I am just wondering whether it is difficult for anybody to keep thoughts about other people at bay when in a relationship, or to begin a commitment to a single person in the first place.

@Mariah I still had thoughts about specific other people. I never acted on them. And yes I think it is normal. Though people are ashamed and don’t usually mention it.

I think there are probably many men with whom I could have had a successful marriage . The timing was such (we were both 30) that I chose my my husband then and I think that was true for him too. We had many many things in common as to our likes and personalities, and, most importantly, senses of humor. Our differences were workable because I made adjustments. For example, I loved to dance; he never danced, so I took dance classes. He loved watching baseball and football; I wasn’t interested. When our son went into Little League, I learned all the rules and became a fan too. Bill Walsh and Stanford changed my attitude about football. After over 50 years together, we still get along very well. But It could have worked with someone else too.

I don’t know. I think you are right to some extent that it is human nature to think about what could be instead of what is. I don’t feel like being in a committed relationship right now because I don’t want to exclude any possibilities. But I also know that if I fall in love with someone this view would probably change. I’m not sure about the soulmate thing. If there is many people out there with whom you could be happy, isn’t it all just about coincidence? Isn’t that the unbearable lightness of being? Doesn’t that make it all so unimportant? Or is it really the beauty of coincidences that creates life? That’s another discussion of course, like I said, I don’t know.

I’m not sure about the soul mate thing, but rather deep connections with people that can exist on many different levels. For example a deep friendship with a woman I had that involved sharing and caring, not sex. So for me soul connections should happen more than they do as opposed to pouring all your eggs into one basket (the SO).

I don’t agree with the soulmate thing, and at the same time I have no problem with monogamy. I think being aware people will continue to cross your path who you find attractive and engaging even when you are in a committed relationship can prepare you to not ever cross the line. In the beginning of a relationship there is all sorts of lust, and sexual cheating is just acting on that. I can easily not give into that. In fact, the idea of being physical with someone else kind of freaks me out after all these years with one person. I don’t have a desire to do it. I am not curious. When I was younger and just starting my sexual life I was more curious that way. I wondered if it would be very different with different men. I still never was very impulsive about sex.

I love being with my husband, he is my favorite person to be with. I still can do things with other friends though, your spouse does not need to fulfill everything for you when it comes to companionship. But, choosing well, choosing someone respectful, honest, and supportive who will grow with you helps you not wonder what could have been if you took a different path.

Most women I know don’t wonder about other men. Their “wondering eye” or thoughts of leaving their spouse usually have to do with wanting to be out of the relationship with their spouse. Free of it, or free of him. I only know one women who left for another man. I don’t know what the stats on it are though.

I too do not believe in soul mates, but do believe in serial monogamy.
Happily I have been in men-o-PAUSE for awhile now. I’m very faithful to myself. Self monogamy is really great. lol

When I was young, I refused to tie myself to any one person…I dated many people all at the same time (I was upfront with all of them about it, right from the get-go). I definitely wasn’t a ‘soul-mate’ kind of girl, and didn’t fall in love or even get serious with every guy I dated.

That said, when I do commit, I’ve never had a problem with monogamy. When in a monogamous relationship, I’ve never had the “what if I’m missing something better” feelings, and have never even come close to cheating. My first marriage lasted 17 years (together for 20), and I’m eight years into my second marriage now. I’m all for open relationships, though, so long as everyone is happy with that idea.

My marriage is, at least in theory, an open one. We are both bisexual and we have a standing arrangement that we are free to pursue relationships with people of the opposite sex to our spouse, provided that those relationships always remain secondary to our marriage. Within the rules we’ve agreed, it’s not considered cheating; “open” requires that we are also open with each other, with full communication about what we are doing and who with. It doesn’t happen very often, but the agreement stands.

It works for us, we’ve been married 25 years and our secondary relationships have never so much as caused one argument between us.

I have the same take on monogamy. Very fortunately, my fiance has always felt the same, so we, like downtide, have a (mostly theoretical) open relationship. I think it’s mostly the lying involved in cheating that’s destructive, so we simply eliminated any potential need to lie. We are also realistic about it, though – it only works because so far, neither of us has experienced jealousy about the other’s activites. If one of us ever does we might restructure, but we’ve been together nine years and it’s worked well so far. It’s heartening to read about your 25 years, @downtide; thanks for sharing.

Something that I find interesting is that a lot of people with a similar problem handle it by having an open relationship. But the terms of an open relationship are usually such that one is not supposed to particularly close to their other partners. It’s mostly just a sex thing (or do I understand incorrectly?)

This wouldn’t help me. I barely have enough sex drive for one relationship. My straying thoughts have little to do with sex. I love to be emotionally close to people and the unfortunate truth is that having that closeness with just one person probably isn’t going to fulfill me, or at least it doesn’t right now. I realize one doesn’t have to be in a relationship to be close with somebody. However, there is often jealousy involved when a person has closeness with somebody else while being in a relationship. It can lead to conflict.

I’m just starting in on coming to terms with the idea that I will probably not live a conventional life. There isn’t anything wrong, in my opinion, with not following the cookie cutter American lifestyle. But it is complicated and confusing.

You can have any kind of relationship style you want. You can have one partner who meets your sexual needs and another who meets your emotional needs. You can have partners who come and go to bring novelty into your life. You can bring another partner in to meet your partner’s sexual needs if you can’t keep up.

Choosing an unconventional relationship style is always an option if everyone involved is open to it. It is harder than the other kind. A relationship between two people is already a lot of work; between three people the emotional work grows exponentially. But for some the payoffs are worth it.

@Mariah For me the openness is, in fact, needed more for emotional closeness to others than it is about the sex. “I barely have enough sex drive for one relationship” – describes me perfectly, as well. So my desire for an open relationship has a lot more to do with my fiance accepting my love for multiple people than it does with sex. For his part, he has a higher sex drive than I do so it is somewhat more about that, but he also finds emotional fulfillment in other partners.

We have not found that this closeness aspect is more or less of an issue than sex, but it was an important part of the initial set of “groundrules” conversations.