On Monogamy and 'The Discussion' (girlfriend, married, Valentine, 2015)
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Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Quote:
Originally Posted by msgirlnyc
This is where I differ on all this; if you are agreeing to give up being with other people so that the other person will give up being with other people too, neither of you should be giving up being with other people. When you choose to be with one person and they choose to be with you that is a very different thing (though it may seem it is not it is). It isn't about rejecting other things it is about embracing something without regard to those things. So, again, if someone has to be asked/told to not do something, in this girl's view you might as well not ask. Takeaway for me is I have to ask a guy with the keys/drawers/overnight/toys to not do the same thing with anyone else, I'm with the wrong guy.
I thought you two didn't agree to both give up other people?
Nope, I'm with her: gross. It isn't just sterilization. Toys are not about orgasms per se they are about intimacy. And how matter how much they are "cleaned" knowing they were on/in someone else the night before IS gross. In large part because of how odds it is with the sharing of intimacy let alone ...
I was thinking of bodily fluids, cleaning them and just decency. A toy is something shared by 2 people and if he has someone else, he should have separate toys for her. It is just THE RIGHT thing to do.
By judging most people's residence, I doubt many people clean them well enough.
And I doubt he changes the sheets after every woman. You may be laying your head into the same pillow another woman drooled into the night before.
Also, OP, one of the great benefits of communicating, and making agreements, is that you can talk about what one another really wants, rather than running face-first into "Well I was hoping you wanted X but now...that happened...seems you want Y."
And only a person with no integrity makes an agreement and then simply goes against it (rather than trying at least to renegotiate terms.) Everyone knows that's unloving behavior, in fact many who have been cheated on will tell you, it's not so much the sex that is deeply hurtful, it's the betrayal of trust, the breaking of one's word, the lies and deceit that tend to go along with it.
Now if you're going to leap to, "OK but only someone with no integrity would sleep with someone else when they are doing XYZ with a partner and care about them" then I'll point again to polyamory. The thing about agreements and explicit communication, is CONSENT. When you talk about such matters, you ask and give consent to things before they happen. Such as sharing a partner. Or asking if someone consents to having you be their one and only partner. Plenty of people just go ahead and "organically" make all sorts of things happen without asking for consent...but many people nowadays are working (myself included) to spread ideas about how maybe it's better practice to give and receive consent explicitly instead of assuming it. And that's not just "permission for sex" consent obviously. It's the ubiquitous idea that governs humans being civil to each other...the difference between giving someone a gift or loan, and them stealing from you...between being a guest, or a trespasser, between flirtation and harassment, etc. It is SO much easier to respect one another's boundaries and expectations, when we know what they are.
In all of this, I will also say to please try to bear in mind the difference between responsibility and blame. I don't say you are to blame for this or that you deserved it. The guy crossed a line (or several) in my opinion. But if you take responsibility, then the result is personal growth that (hopefully?) could be helpful in engineering future happiness. And the points I've made that you pushed back against...hey, if it doesn't resonate, that's cool, discard it. I don't know you and can only make guesses based on things you've said here, yeah? So please take things not so much as "you did this and that wrong" and more like "maybe it could have been better (or could be in the future) if you try this or that instead."
Takeaway for me is I have to ask a guy with the keys/drawers/overnight/toys to not do the same thing with anyone else, I'm with the wrong guy.
This is really your takeaway???
That's really setting you both up for disappointment. I mean ... how will you know? That's like saying, "If a man really loved me I wouldn't have to tell him why I'm upset. He should just know."
You assumed this guy wasn't doing the same, yet he (says he) did. At what point do you know??
I was thinking of bodily fluids, cleaning them and just decency. A toy is something shared by 2 people and if he has someone else, he should have separate toys for her. It is just THE RIGHT thing to do.
By judging most people's residence, I doubt many people clean them well enough.
And I doubt he changes the sheets after every woman. You may be laying your head into the same pillow another woman drooled into the night before.
I'm with you on this. I doubt he has an Autoclave in the bedroom ready to sterilize everything to her (or anyone's) standards
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
41,936 posts, read 36,962,945 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by oh-eve
I was thinking of bodily fluids, cleaning them and just decency. A toy is something shared by 2 people and if he has someone else, he should have separate toys for her. It is just THE RIGHT thing to do.
By judging most people's residence, I doubt many people clean them well enough.
And I doubt he changes the sheets after every woman. You may be laying your head into the same pillow another woman drooled into the night before.
Criminy. Are they not putting condoms on the toys? Seriously?
I thought you two didn't agree to both give up other people?
That's the entire point.
I'm simply amazed at how much stock is put in words and not actions. Early on we agreed to this. Eventually, behaviors/interactions/invitations changed. At what point does a new 'conversation' have to take place vs actions? What if say.... I'd started staying over. Eventually I moved in completely. We visited his family on Christmas, mine for the summer. We had dinner parties, and went sailing together in the winter. We developed a Valentine's Day tradition at Tavern on the Green. We made love 3x a week and were building a sailboat together that took us seven seasons and named it 'BobAndAlicesLoveBoat'. Are you saying that without the 'let's be exclusive' conversation I'm still an idiot for assuming and have only myself to blame when I find him doing the female steward on our boat in Turks and Caicos in 2025? I get that is a lot further along on the continuum for it to be excusable/understandable that I would wrongly, in this case, assume there was not another woman doing the same thing the same way in the same place the next night.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
41,936 posts, read 36,962,945 times
Reputation: 40635
Quote:
Originally Posted by msgirlnyc
I'm simply amazed at how much stock is put in words and not actions. Early on we agreed to this. Eventually, behaviors/interactions/invitations changed. At what point does a new 'conversation' have to take place vs actions? What if say.... I'd started staying over. Eventually I moved in completely. We visited his family on Christmas, mine for the summer. We had dinner parties, and went sailing together in the winter. We developed a Valentine's Day tradition at Tavern on the Green. We made love 3x a week and were building a sailboat together that took us seven seasons and named it 'BobAndAlicesLoveBoat'. Are you saying that without the 'let's be exclusive' conversation I'm still an idiot for assuming and have only myself to blame when I find him doing the female steward on our boat in Turks and Caicos in 2025?I get that is a lot further along on the continuum for it to be excusable/understandable that I would wrongly, in this case, assume there was not another woman doing the same thing the same way in the same place the next night.
Nice false dichotomy.
You converse. Come to an understanding (if monogamy is that understanding, fine). Then act on that understanding.
It's very simple.
People can be dating/involved for years, or decades, without being exclusive. It's should never be assumed.
In all of this, I will also say to please try to bear in mind the difference between responsibility and blame. I don't say you are to blame for this or that you deserved it. The guy crossed a line (or several) in my opinion. But if you take responsibility, then the result is personal growth that (hopefully?) could be helpful in engineering future happiness. And the points I've made that you pushed back against...hey, if it doesn't resonate, that's cool, discard it. I don't know you and can only make guesses based on things you've said here, yeah? So please take things not so much as "you did this and that wrong" and more like "maybe it could have been better (or could be in the future) if you try this or that instead."
Hey Sonic I deeply appreciate your input and perhaps, yes, hold to dearly to the belief that none of this needs to be discussed by two people as I never did have these discussions and (to my knowledge) were trusting monogamous relationships. I don't even mean in fact I would not have been up for that conversation next, cleary it would be the next step yet I did not have the chance to move from one to the other. I get it he can say 'but we never had the talk' but is there some free-for-all two week period between what transpired and the talk where everything and everyone is fair game? The answer for me is no.
I take responsibility for ignoring my instincts, for accepting attention for attention's sake, and I suppose for believing these conversations should not be necessary. Yet, again, I did not really have the chance; the timeframe between the gestures/intimacies and even the opportunity for conversation was short. The stay-over weekend never happened. I'd put some of the responsibility for what happened between squarely on his shoulders as well.
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