Monogamy Made Me Miserable

Though I have never been married, I have had many relationships in the past that people colloquially refer to as monogamous. The technical definition of monogamy is a dyadic marriage, but we can agree that it’s generally understood to include any kind of relationship with sexual and romantic exclusivity, right?

Growing up, we are inundated with mononormative messages from society and media that reinforce ideas like finding your “one true love” or “other half.”
We are given the impression that jealousy is a sign of love as opposed to a symptom of an underlying insecurity that should probably be addressed.
We are taught that our one and only romantic partner should fulfill all of our intimate needs.

Having these ideas and expectations made me miserable.

One true love

I went into relationships thinking that our feelings weren’t authentic if either of us started feeling attracted to other people. “True love” prevents you from feeling that way about anyone other than your partner, right?

If I started to feel attracted to women other than my partner, as I am naturally inclined to do, I started to question if the love I had for her was actually real.

I felt guilty for feeling my natural feelings. I felt guilty for being unable to hold myself to an overly romanticized standard of monogamy.

Also, if true love is supposed to make me feel attracted to only one person, I should also feel guilty for lying. I told her that I loved her. Did I lie to her?

And, if my partner started feeling attracted to other people, didn’t that mean that I was inadequate, that I wasn’t good enough for her? Didn’t it mean that I wasn’t attractive enough or man enough? Wouldn’t it also mean that there is a huge risk that she would leave me for someone better at any moment?

Mononormativity makes us doubt the sincere love we feel. It makes it more difficult for us to appreciate what we have as a genuinely enriching relationship worth working on. It makes us doubt ourselves as worthy partners.

Jealousy

I thought jealousy was a natural and healthy reaction, so I let it go unchecked within myself, stunting my emotional maturity and coddling my inner insecurities. And I simply accepted any consequences of a partner being jealous as a normal part of any relationship, stunting my ability to set important boundaries.

Society and media treats certain feelings as bad, that we should learn to address the root causes of them, and to manage them. “Anger is bad. Go to therapy to find out why you’re angry. Manage your anger in a mature way,” we are told.

What about jealousy? In all the movies and shows about romance that we’re exposed to, jealousy is normalized. It’s even treated as a sign of true love. It never even occurs to many of us that it can also be a so-called bad* emotion like anger, that it can also be destructive and toxic if unexplored or normalized.

* No emotion is bad. Some are just symptomatic of unaddressed problems. Don’t try to force yourself to not feel something. Let yourself feel whatever you need to feel. Explore where it’s coming from, and explore if the feeling itself is something that needs to be managed after that.

I was never more miserable in a relationship than when I allowed my jealousy and insecurity to feed each other in an unbridled feedback loop.

Mononormativity teaches us to be jealous, and to expect our partners to be jealous. It makes it very difficult for us to realize that jealousy can also be something to talk about, to address as a sign of unmet needs, to treat as something worth managing maturely.

Every role for every need

I saw my girlfriend as the one and only partner who could fulfill every role of intimacy in my life, and for me to be that for her. If either of us needed physical intimacy, emotional support, or anything in between, it was the other partner’s job to provide that.

If we expect monogamy to be the natural state of a loving relationship, doing that should come easily, right? It should energize us to be everything for our partner rather than make us feel burdened or exhausted from emotional labor, right?

What? You met up with a friend for a drink to talk about some problems, and to get emotional support? And you and that friend hugged? Is that cheating? Aren’t I supposed to be the one who’s there for you in every way?

Disregarding the issue of the inherent lack of clear boundaries within the spectrum of intimacy, it’s often unrealistic and unhealthy to expect your one and only romantic partner to fulfill every single one of your needs and desires.

Having that expectation fueled my jealousy and exacerbated relationship problems when I was trying that whole monogamy thing.

Mononormativity makes us think that interpersonal relationships can easily be compartmentalized into these neat little boxes, and makes us question our and our partners’ integrity when those boxes end up being less neat than we thought they’d be.

I’m not saying that monogamy doesn’t work for anyone.

I’m sure there are monogamous couples out there who are perfectly happy with their relationships, especially if they’ve consciously and maturely decided on addressing the issues commonly found in monogamy.

There are plenty of happily monogamous people who are perfectly aware of other options existing.

It’s fairly common for supposedly monogamous people to learn about polyamory or other forms of ENM (ethical non-monogamy), and for them to say that they’d still prefer monogamy purely because they don’t want their partner being involved with anyone else.

Those aren’t the happy ones.

The happily monogamous ones maybe even read books on polyamory or ENM and still decided on monogamy not out of such a fear, insecurity, or any sort of risk assessment, but because they themselves are only capable of feeling attraction for just one person, or because they are perfectly happy with overlooking any potential attraction for others for the promise of the other advantages that monogamy offers to them personally.

For me, though, I could never go back to it after getting a taste of polyamory.

I have never felt so authentic and myself than I do now in my polyamorous relationships.

It’s something I strongly advocate for and write about fairly often:

Letting go of “one true love”

A lot of people become jaded and cynical when they begin the process of letting go of some mononormative notions, such as this highly romanticized idea of “one true love.”

You see it in “red pill” communities with their common phrases like “She’s not yours; it’s just your turn.” You can just feel the bitterness oozing from it. It’s like watching someone go through the grief of realizing that Santa Claus isn’t real.

You won’t be so bitter when you realize how much greater things can be once you’ve liberated yourself from mononormativity, once you realize how much better relationships can be once you’ve embraced the necessary steps to build a mature relationship that acknowledges the reality of human emotions.

The polyamorous relationships I’ve had were far happier than any monogamous ones I’ve had not only because I could freely feel my feelings, but also because these relationships were built on a foundation of open and aware communication. We polyamorists are conscious of how attraction, jealousy, and our other emotions function, and we know how to negotiate with these emotions instead of just ignoring them and letting them become a bigger problem.

However, the glaring problem for many men is that they don’t know how to fully take advantage of living such an openly loving lifestyle.

They might say that the only reason I have such a high opinion of polyamory is because I was able to have three girlfriends at the same time, while they struggle to get even one woman interested in them.

I wasn’t always able to do that. It’s a learnable skill:

How an Incel Ended up with Three Girlfriends
Why do boys become incels, and how can they change?
medium.com

Have you ever felt like you weren’t built for monogamy? Or, have you found a way to be happy in a monogamous relationship? What do you think of alternative relationships? Tell me your experiences and thoughts in the comments!

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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