Monogamy, with a shitty car analogy

"If you truly believe it works well for you both then if you are saying that with 100% honesty then it must be working for you guys."

"I just think in the end it might cause a problem."

These are some excerpts from a message I received from a dating site member. He's from the UK, and clearly has no greater motive for our relationship beyond a few saucy emails and pictures, but he clearly wasn't impressed with my open relationship, and refused to see any other side to the argument beyond what he had observed or experienced. I tried to explain our relationship format to him, but again and again, he'd dismiss it as a phase that we were sure to get out of.

But the discussion made me ponder the outside view of our relationship. How does the greater world see polyamory and open realtionships? Why do they attack us? Why do they feel so threatened?

One common response that I get, especially from men, is "I could never do that, I'd get too jealous!" To me, this is rooted in the monogamist tradition of ownership. For centuries, women were traded and bartered to seal deals, win favour, and cement male bonds. I'm not going to get tangled in the patriarchical, mysandric bullshit, but in truth, it's an argument that I've heard from men many more times than from women.

It makes me wonder how many of these staunch monogamists have been hurt in the past by infidelity. Say you purchase something big and expensive - a car, perhaps. Everything's great for the first year or two. Six months later, the clutch blows. A month after that, you're told that all the hoses needs replacing. The paint starts peeling and fading. The airconditioning makes that weird whine every time you drive over 70km/h. What do you do? Do you trade the car and cut your losses, or do you persevere and keep throwing money at it, in the hope that things will improve? Or do you look at your options, realise you made a poor purchasing decision, and start researching other makes and models?

Transfer the same argument to relationships. You meet someone, you have fun, it evolves into a relationship. After a while, one person has their eye caught by a delicious piece of candy - at the bar, in the workplace, a friend of a friend. They take the plunge - the affair becomes sexual. Gears start grinding. Chances are, it won't last long - it can be hard to hide infidelity, after all. The transmission falls out when the other partner finds a text, an email, a scent, an STI. What happens next? Heartbreak, generally, but either dissolution or forgiveness.

I knew I had this scenario within me. This is how Oscar and I started, after all. But could I really devote myself to one man for the forseeable future? I couldn't answer that question honestly, or at least answer it in the way that society that wanted me to, so we negotiated an open relationship. So far, it's working. It allows us to act on those natural impulses to taste something fresh occasionally. But it also opens us to a form of communication that in many ways is healthier than the average monogamous relationship.