Much has been made on the internets about the CNN.com article that came out recently on non-monogamous relationship models. It’s a good article for the most part, fairly balanced and well-written, with a brief look at poly as one relationship alternative. The central question of the article, “Is Monogamy Realistic?”, can’t truly be answered in 1500 words or less. But the author addresses many of the issues that challenge the viability of monogamy in our modern age, when life expectancy is so much longer than it used to be and it seems so much easier to find people to give in to temptation with. I imagine it was a lot easier to contemplate spending the entirety of your adult life with one person when the length of that life was so much shorter.

“It’s realistic that some people can mate for life in the same sense that some people can play the Beethoven violin concerto or other people can ice-skate beautifully or learn a new language,” psychiatrist Judith Eve Lipton says in the article.
Adds evolutionary biologist David Barash, “It’s within the realm of human potential, but it’s not easy.”
In spite of these challenges, monogamy is the predominant choice for most people, even when statistics say that it is likely to fail (over 50% of marriages end in divorce and some sources estimate that 40% of women and 60% of men will have an extramarital affair at some point during their marriage.) Many people still attempt it, though, because, up until recently, it’s been the only game going. Society still presents the monogamous til-death-do-us-part relationship model as the only acceptable one (with the occasional “mistake-that-ends-in-divorce” exception.) Anything else is suspect at best, vehemently opposed at worst. As children and young adults we are still bombarded with the fairytale romance concept, still conditioned to search for our “one true love” with whom we will (if it’s “true” love) live happily-ever-after. When society promotes this ideal it conveniently ignores that even if you are happily and successfully monogamous, relationships take work to be successful, as well as love. Whether they are monogamous or poly. And so we are given no other viable options, and if we choose to try a new way, we are brought back in line by society’s censure.

I do believe that even if people knew about and embraced poly as just another alternative to traditional marriage, the majority of people would still probably choose monogamy over polyamory. For many people, having one-on-one relationships just works better. And for others, the perceived “security” of monogamy, issues of trust, and human beings’ basic territorial instincts are deeply ingrained enough that poly just isn’t an option. But I also believe that many more people would consider polyamory if it was presented as a viable option: if more people knew about it, if it was just another relationship structure like any other, if society accepted it as an alternative relationship model.

I know I would have.

See, I was a married person that cheated. Whether emotionally, as in my first marriage, or emotionally and physically, as in my second marriage, I could not be faithful to one person. I fell in love and lust with others, and even when I was physically faithful to my spouse, I knew that I was committing emotional infidelity, and that is was just as wrong as the physical kind, when I had made the commitment to be faithful to my partner. How could I simply turn off my feelings, though? How could I stop loving others? I tried. I cut off all contact with anyone I might have more than “friendship” feelings for. Looking back, I see what a bare and lonely landscape that was. I did try, though. I tried to fit into the box that society wanted to put me in, and that, because I had known no other way, I had placed myself.

I wish I had known about polyamory when I first met my exes. We would have been able to choose either to be with each other (or not) based on what we wanted out of relationship, and with an understanding of who we were. I’m not proud of the choices & mistakes I made, but I do know now why I made them. And having discovered polyamory, I realized there is a better way, an honest way, for me to be me: a person that has the capability—and chooses to—love more than one person. I have been happily poly with my live-in partner for six years now, and with my OSO (Other Significant Other) for over a year.

It’s my belief (and hope) that the internet is beginning to get these ideas out in the public realm, and that by doing so more people will know there is another way to do things, and society will begin to accept it. Your choices are not only either to be monogamous and unhappy or a cheater, if your natural inclination is to love more than one. Articles like the one on CNN.com may be a beginning to that.