Is Polyamory a Natural Solution?

Over half of monogamous couples suffer from one partner or the other becoming involved in an outside relationship. Why is that? Are people just inherently bad? Do they wish to hurt the people they love and face societal disapproval? Or do people just naturally have polyamorous feelings?

No one goes into a monogamous relationship intending to hurt their partner. The bonds of romantic love are formed by a desire to share happiness with each other, not to harm. People are not out to cause suffering or to cast themselves as villains. Yet affairs happen all the time, destroying families and lives. The partner who cheats must live with overwhelming guilt and self-hatred. The partner who is cheated on takes an even greater blow to their self-esteem, their happiness, and most of all their ability to trust. Why do people cheat then, if everyone understands these awful consequences?

Monogamy is not natural, it is a social construct. We've been fed the idea that there can be only one lifelong romantic love for any one person. If we can't fit ourselves to that construct we are held to be failures. Over half of us are doomed to be "failures" by that measure. The problem with the entire concept of monogamy is that it is built on a lie. People obviously can and do have more than one romantic love in a lifetime and more than one romantic love at a time. Polyamory is natural and quite common, it is just not acceptable in our current society.

You see, it's not the romantic love for more than one person, the polyamory, that causes suffering, it is the misconceptions, the dishonesty, the lack of communication, and the possessiveness that create these horrible situations. In fact, possessiveness is responsible for the failure of many relationships, not just through infidelity.

People start out in relationships with lots of good stuff. They talk for hours and hours, communicating about themselves and their feelings. They wish to just share time with their partner, to touch, to share joy and pleasure. Subtly, slowly the relationship changes. The partners begin to feel a sense of belonging, of family and familiarity. This is a good change. The problem arises when this sense of belonging turns into a sense of belonging to. Partners become possessions instead of playmates and real partners.

Most people recognize a woman's freedom to do with her body as she will in terms of birth control use, freedom of choice, and safer sex practices. However, when it comes to couples people see an exception to this. The idea seems to exist that somehow, one's mate has an exclusive contract on the use of one's genitals. Some partners are even jealous of masturbation and the solo use of sex toys.

In reality, a man's or woman's sex organs belong to no one but themselves.

Love is not something that exists in limited quantities. If this were so, only children would be more loved than children with siblings and couples without children would have more love for each other than couples with children do. Neither of these is the case. You may say that it is a different sort of love, that between a parent and a child but really, it isn't. The relationship is what is drastically different. Love is basically the need for another person's happiness. Romantic love is simply love with a flavoring of lust and sexuality. Love for children is love flavored with maternal or paternal feelings.

Trying to monopolize a person's sexuality is unhealthy. A person's sexuality is their own and no one else's. No person belongs to another.

If there is open communication, honesty, and freedom there is no reason people can have more than one romantic or sexual love at a time. The important thing is that no one gets hurt and that everyone is on the same page.