Dear Brandon,
I recently told my partner of several years that I wanted to be monogamous. Until now we have had an understanding that we are allowed to play with other people, but we have been together for such a long time now and I don’t want to share him anymore. He told me that he doesn’t want to be monogamous and that we should probably break up. How can he turn his back on me after all this time? Should I be as hurt as I am that he wants to fuck other guys besides me after all these years?
First of all let me just say what I usually say when I get asked questions about relationships: I am not a relationship counselor, I am not a doctor, I am just a guy who masturbates for the world and I write about my experiences. That being said, I decided to answer this one because it is sex related.
Monogamy is tricky. Frankly it is the hardest aspect of relationships, in my opinion, and yes I will elaborate.
Human beings are not monogamous by nature. In fact it is very hard to find any animals that are. Only 3-5% of mammals are known to form lifelong pair bonds, like beavers, otters, jackals, foxes, some bats and a few dwarf deer and antelopes. Even in those cases it isn’t unheard of for an animal to have “one night stands” with other animals from time to time. As males, it’s encoded into their genes to spread the seed and procreate, and being monogamous is not the most efficient way to go about that.
But we are humans. We are supposed to be more evolved, right? Well, I guess so. Humans fight. Humans are selfish. Humans lie and think cruel thoughts and murder and even eat other animals. It’s hard for me as a thinking person to see all of that and then actually believe that it is weird that we can’t be monogamous all the time, as though all that other stuff is normal but wanting to have sex with other people is not.
Well there are a lot of people out there that connect sex to emotion, and hold monogamy in high regard. These people want one person to hold and love forever and want to be that person to someone else. There is a host of possibilities as to why some of us want to go against our genetic code, and I wont pretend to know why your reasons are, but you do sound like a sensitive person so I am just going to assume that you are just a sweet guy and a hopeless romantic, not unlike myself (contrary to popular opinion). But sex and emotion are two different things. Sex is not love. Love is not sex. The two can dance or they can be separate, but they are not the same thing.
Just as you have the right to go against our genetic code, your partner has the right to his wants and desires. You said you had an understanding that you two were in an open relationship, and thus that is in part what your relationship was founded on. Relationships can grow over time, but many people enter into open relationships hoping that “things will change” over time, or that over time maybe their partner will “grow to love you and only you.”
The ugly truth is that people do change over time, though not always in the way you’d like. For instance, he could be looking at you and thinking “Man why did he have to change in this way?” I’m not attacking you in anyway, I think couples are very cute and it’s actually rather moving to be around two monogamous partners that have chemistry, however I also know that if it’s not working then it’s not working, and this clearly isn’t working for you.
I know it hurts, and it is a bummer anytime you lay your heart on the line and take a chance, but if you aren’t happy in a situation and you’re told that things wont change, then you have one of two choices to make; either comply and stay in a relationship where you are being hurt by your partner’s actions, or love your relationship for what it was and move on to another situation that will probably yield more happiness and greater satisfaction (hint: I am guessing it’s the latter).
Don’t let me, a total stranger, advise you what to do in this matter though. This is a very personal decision that you and only you can make. My only advice would be this — don’t resent him. You obviously care about him, and he obviously cares about you otherwise he wouldn’t have been so forthright from the beginning and have stayed with you all this time. Things just changed and you now want something else. There’s nothing wrong with that, and there is no bad guy.
In my opinion, that is. But what do I know, my last boyfriend was a Cyberskin vagina.
