Monogamy, polyamory and asexuality - a never ending story of discovery and many questions

[maybe000]

My partner and I met when he was polyamorous with several partners. For me, that wasn't a lifestyle I could imagine or wanted for myself so I initially declined a relationship. He was pretty determined that he wanted to be with me and committed to a monogamous relationship with me. We were both actively involved in the kink community and through us opening up to play partnerships and exposure to alternative relationship models we came across the concept of mono/poly relationships existing. (The quick summary in my words of that is a relationship between a mono and a polyamorous person that meets both partners needs in their lovestyle- I raise for others this might mean other things, please share :)) We realised that this worked well for us, and my partner has other partners beside me.

 

Throughout this process I really wrestled with the role of sex in all of that. I internalised sex as something defining of a committed relationship, and so opening up my marriage broke that paradigm. I had preserved my virginity for a long time - losing it to last person I dated before my husband- and didn't sleep with my husband for a long time after my previous relationship broke up - believing waiting gave the sex more meaning and feeling seriously heart broken by the ease and nonchalance he ascribed to having or wanting to have sex with play or other romantic partners. I had hyped sex up to he this sacred, deeply connecting thing, to be given by only to the ones deserving of that....talk about highly conservative upbringing. 

 

Retrospectively I suppose my linking of sex with romance/ connection took time to unlearn. His polyness helped me do that. But as I disconnected sex from romance I also lost any drive to have sex with my husband. I have a small libido, but rarely to never initiate sex with him. In fact, sexualised attention from him (squeezes, pats, making out) often make me cringe and uncomfortable. After several years of this, and lot of heartbreak on both our parts (him feeling undesired, me feeling inadequate) it was his suggestion that made me start looking into asexuality and I have been recognising many of my feeling in the stories on here.

 

I'm grateful to have found this place. I feel less alien and like I'm beginning to find a new language to describe my experience. At the same time I grief for all this time i hyped up something that I was just not up for having in my life at all...almost as if I made excuses to have as little of it as possible...very confusing (and perhaps subject foranother post).

 

I was wondering if there are any other folks out there who are in poly relationships? What was your journey? How does your version of attraction/connection/romance fit into all of this? Has polyamory helped or complicated your relationships? 

[anisotrophic]

@maybe000 this is a clarification question: do you mean your partner has long term, loving romantic relationships with others? 
 

Because that’s what I think of as polyamory. But what you wrote sounds like you see sex as unlinked to love, which you learned from his own sexual behaviors & experience (and that sounds like a contradiction?). (There are other forms of ethical non-monogamy that I wouldn’t call polyamory; conversely, some aces describe themselves as polyamorous — about love, not sex.)

 

I tend to see sex as inherently social, motivated by wanting to “matter” to another person. That “mattering” can simply be about eliciting reactions from anyone (no one in particular, maybe a certain “type” of person); or it can be motivated by wanting to “matter” in an interpersonal relationship (whether that’s power or love).

 

That is to say, my observation for most sexuals is: not all desire comes from love, but love generally leads to desire. They are not unlinked.
 

That doesn’t mean they are necessarily linked for you, though.

[maybe000]

Hi @anisotrophic- thanks for your response.

 

For clarification: my partner has long term, loving and romantic relationships which for us fall into the polyamorous category, as well as non-romantic play partnerships where he views sex as "one of the tools in my toolkit for play" - be that in a power exchange, or otherwise. 

 

He definitely seems to unlink love from sex. I really enjoy your point of view:

Quote

8 hours ago, anisotrophic said:

to see sex as inherently social, motivated by wanting to “matter” to another person. That “mattering” can simply be about eliciting reactions from anyone 

 

That, to me, sounds quite a lot like my husband views sex. He enjoys having the ability to elicit reaction in many different ways and assures me  that having sex with someone (for him) does not change the intensity of a connection since sex does not inherently make a connection stronger for him. His relationships evolve into amorous relationships through deepening intellectual connection, not sex.

 

To be clearer:

 

Fun person + sex if that's fun in the context (ie not all desire comes from love) = play partnership

Fun person + intellectual/ romantic connection = polyamorous relationship, including sex, ie love leading to desire

 

I'd be curious if there is another term for what we've taken to describe a play partnership out there? I should also be clear that these aren't always clear cut lines. Relationships evolve and we keep up a constant dialogue about where his partnerships are at and where they're headed.

 

That, at least, is handy for me since we feel deeply, intellectually and romantically connected - I just don't/ won't/ can't (?) give him the type of reactions he's looking for through sex. Sex, therefore, is disconnected from the development of Love in our experience with each other, since it is not the driving force behind deeper connection. I take some comfort in knowing he is able to "matter" (ie elicit these sexual reactions from others) in this way in his other relationships  - but I know that this won't imminently lead to the addition of a new amorous partner to his life. It might, but it doesn't have to.

 

Similarly, I know on an intellectual level that my asexuality will not diminish our relationship. It is built on the romantic and intellectual attraction that defines amorous relationships for us, and having sex is not a defining feature of that.... Writing this post actually helped me to come to this conclusion and in a way makes it easier to accept that I am asexual. As his primary partner I have, for the longest time, expected of myself to be everything: a good play partner (ie delivering good, fun reactions to sex) and a good romantic partner (intellectually, romantically and sexual because of that) and that pressure has been incredibly damaging. I struggle to accept that I may not be "perfect" (in a highly subjective definition of perfect that is expected of me by no one) and accepting my asexuality is quite challenging for me because of that. Writing this has helped me work through that in a way - so hey - thanks for your prompt

[Guest]

Do you think you wanted or enjoyed sex when it was seen as special, or did you not want or enjoy it during those times ?

 

I ended up discovering when sex is special and between just me and a partner and all that I desire it and enjoy it. Once there is any of that given to others, my desire and libido drop to a zero level. So my own sexuality revolves around monogamy (probably due to demi tendencies) and has probably had a lot to do with my disinterest / dislike of sex for the first 30 years of my life. When I tried non-monogamy with an ex in college, I found it 100% disintegrated even my romantic feelings and kissing or sharing a bed started feeling like trying to do that with a brother or something, so it ended the relationship entirely (was probably the easiest break up though, I literally felt nothing when we split...). 

 

Personally, I have found poly or inclination towards it seems more of an innate trait for many people.  Some feel stifled in monogamy, pressured to be all and poly frees them. Some are emotionally incapable of poly, like I found for myself. Some can go either way. It is really common in the BDSM community though as slave sharing is a big thing for doms. And even in cultures where poly is the norm, some go against the grain and choose just one. It is an interesting study in human sexuality when you read the history across cultures. And one that sadly gets ignored too much, with people bashing poly people as "unable to commit". 

 

And play relationships is how the BDSM community would describe it, it is different to casual FWB or other vanilla types of relationships. So, I would stick with the BDSM labels if that is what it is around.

 

Glad you two figured out what works for you. I think the poly or open mixed relationships are the main successful ones on AVEN that I have heard of. So you should find a few people to discuss things with who share the lifestyle. I think a few are also into BDSM and such, if I recall correctly. Though the couple that used to do clubs and podcasts about it have left the site

[maybe000]

Hi @Serran, thanks for you response, that was another great thinking prompt.

 

In my prior relationship and in my current one and marriage, I wanted sex maybe once or twice, but I knew the scripts about when to want sex, so I just acted them out. For example, my previous boyfriend was in the army. When he was on leave I knew I 1) should be sexually excited because I hadn't seen him (I wasn't) and 2) he would want to blow off steam with me and so I obliged and enacted the script. With my current partner, the more comfortable with one another we got the less I felt like I needed to act out these "when-I-should-want-sex"  scripts, and the more authentically me I could be, the more comfortable I'd be just declining to have sex altogether - that's been a process of years though!

 

There are occasions I enjoy sex with my husband, but those occasions are usually linked to feeling extremely romantically connected and happen very rarely. I have no desire for him, but I enjoy sex then, whereas most of the time I just feel like that's a waste of my time and energy....

 

I really like thinking of poly and mono tendencies as a spectrum. Your description of your sexual desire being tied really firmly to a monogamous relationship is interesting. Since I do occasionally play with others, I would perhaps describe myself as romantically and sexually monogamous, but slightly further to the middle of this spectrum. You definitely gave me food for thought and challenged me to look closely at how my partners lovestyle might affect me, thank you!

 

I'm also really encouraged by your last paragraph about poly being a successful model for many. BDSM has taken a backseat in my life for the moment - there are no clubs just now, and generally we've focussed on life as a couple, getting married, etc. but I anticipate finding people in that corner, too, eventually.

[Memento1]

Hi @maybe000, welcome to AVEN!

 

I am not in a polygamous relationship (and never have been), but I've had an interesting journey with my thoughts on it, so I hope you won't mind me sharing.  For a long time I did wholly internalize the cultural messages that true love was monogamous, that having sex outside of an exclusive partnership meant that love wasn't real, or at the very least that it was reduced and inferior.  At the time I was fully sex-repulsed and asexual, but I still thought I could never accept a romantic partner having sex with someone else (much less LOVING someone else romantically).  I was open to the idea that some people were just wired differently and could have polyamorous relationships, but that I was 100% monogamous.

 

That changed.  Through exposure and research, I have changed in my thoughts and feelings over time, and I'm not even sure I can completely track all those changes and everything that contributed to it.  Part of it was recognizing and starting to heal my attachment anxiety from my upbringing, and improving my overall self-esteem/self-worth.  Part of it was learning to be more assertive and set boundaries for myself.  Part of it was coming around to spreading my emotional needs across many relationships instead of one.

 

I started to separate out "love" and "romance" from one thing to a conglomerate of things that could be obtained in different ways.  A big part of that was differentiating limerence/NRE from from bonding/connection.  We usually call limerence romance.  I think some aspects of limerence may have a limit, that putting too much in one place deprives others, but in other ways it builds on itself.  It's not all something that happens to us, it's something we create.  In my especially wide view, limerence is partly experienced through dopamine, which embodies joy and playfulness.  That's why we have the term bromance.  Do you have joy/playfulness in your life?  Do you share it with him?  My view is acutely biological, breaking love, sex, and romance into hormones.  In that way, love and romance are not completely disconnected from sex (which tends to release the relevant hormones), but neither are they limited to it.  As with all else in life, what triggers our sexual/limerence hormones is almost certainly partly genetic, partly learned.

 

Now I can't imagine trying to get all my emotional needs met from only one person.  Polyamory to me is not about having sex with more than one, it's about giving and receiving love with more than one.  Monogamous/polygamous labels only tell number of sexual partners, not division of love.  So in my mind it's entirely possible to be monogamous and polyamorous (depending on how you define polyamory, and from there romance, and from there onward into subjective experience).  In any case, I think a monogamous partner with a polygamous partner is unhealthy only when the monogamous partner is expected or expecting to get their bonding, excitement, joy, or awe only from the partner, or the polygamous partner is holding any of those exclusively for others.

 

Of course, all this is my own thoughts, which are always a work in progress and very subjective.  I'm not saying I'm right, and you're certainly free to disagree with any or all of it.  I guess part of me just wanted a space to work out my own thoughts, and perhaps me working through my thoughts will help you work through yours!  Thanks for a fascinating discussion.

[maybe000]

Hi @Memento1

 

Thanks for sharing your story. I really appreciate yet another lense through which to look at my situation, and totally get that working out stuff by saying it out loud (or writing) really helps.

 

I also 100% get the feeling of everything being a work of progress. God knows this seems like a never ending journey and I feel very blessed to be married to someone who never seems to tire of late night discussions and analysis of what is happening in our love lives.

 

What I particularly find fascinating is how you pull apart romance into NRE and bonding (I hope I understand that right?!). I definitely experience a lot of joyfulness and playfulness with my partner, which is part of what I associate with romance. Thinking about NRE and that potentially being a limiting factor when it takes overhand in one relationship at cost of another is a great conversation prompt for yet another late night. Those late night chats and other intellectual connections have another intimacy and bonding experience altogether that, to me, are also romantic.

 

It's definitely fascinating how - once you take apart love, sex and romance - the terms monogamous and polyamorous are very broad/ open to interpretation. This is definitely something I am taking away from this discussion, and I continue to be curious about how others apply/ relate to these terms.

[Memento1]

I've also found these concepts so intellectually intriguing, I'm glad you do too!  The Wikipedia article on monogamy is an interesting read, that breaks down many of the various meanings.  In the biological realm, monogamy is strictly about sexual exclusivity (with the variety that humans usually practice called "serial monogamy", meaning one sexual partner at a time).  Anthropologists and social scientists are usually using the term to mean marital monogamy or social monogamy, which means living and gathering resources together.  Interestingly, there are animals that are sexually polygamous and socially monogamous (something I just discovered!).

 

The idea that monogamy involves exclusivity of emotions is a relatively new concept that started with Romanticism in the 18th century.  This era placed a large emphasis on emotions and individualism, and was in part a backlash against the rationalism of the Age of Enlightenment.  Alain de Botton gives some interesting lectures on this.  The term "romance" didn't even acquire its meaning until this time.  So marrying because of romance and monogamy meaning exclusivity of both romance and sex is a relatively new concept, it just doesn't seem that way because that's how we've been raised.  I found this all really fascinating.

[maybe000]

That's really fascinating. Time for a little more deep diving. Thanks so much for sharing :)