Two by Two: Welcome Aboard the Good Ship Monogamy

People like to pair up. This impulse creates the modern marriage and other forms of sharing and sustaining a romantic or sexual interest. Contemporary humans generally adopt "monogamy" to manage such relationships: with or without the blessing of church or state, partners agree to commit to each other. Healthy monogamous pairings foster support, stability, wellbeing, and even longevity for both partners.

Monogamy Is Not Monolithic

Most people practice "serial monogamy": over time, we may enter into a series of intimate relationships, formal and informal. Although couples entering marriage may make a commitment unto death, civil society and most religions recognize that sometimes that pledge must yield to the wellbeing of one or both partners, and marriages dissolve.

In a monogamous commitment, partners pledge to be "faithful" to each other, usually meaning sexually exclusive – no hanky-panky outside the relationship. As with serial monogamy, our ideals differ from our social practices. Despite the traumatic, dramatic narratives of popular film and books, current surveys – along with anecdotal evidence from the past – tell us that monogamous relationships can and do weather a certain amount of straying. Among perhaps one out of five married couples, one or both partners have had relationships outside their primary one. In roughly the same proportion of marriages, non-exclusivity is explicitly allowed for under specific circumstances. Among unmarried couples, allowing for exception is even more common. To cite a prominent example from among the married, Hillary Clinton counted on such cultural tolerance and sympathy when she described her adulterous husband as "a hard dog to keep on the porch."

Mixed Messages

So which is it? Are monogamous relationships permanent or transitory? Are we wired to stay or to stray? Are promises of fidelity ironclad or do they come with escape clauses? Should couples feel threatened by involvements outside their relationship or take them in stride?

The answers seem to add up to a confusing "all of the above." Society assumes that couples make monogamous commitments in good faith, and continues to assume good faith when such contracts bend or break. That assumption may be harder for partners caught up in the nitty-gritty of who’s done what to whom and why. Despite best intentions and prior understandings, when commitment feels compromised, conflict, doubt, and hurt feelings may follow. How do couples resolve some of the tensions inherent in monogamy?

If It Feels Good, You May Need to Work at It

Along with any partner, you deserve the best workable arrangement of your sexual life – one that promotes self-preservation and self-esteem, does not harm, and expresses and receives respect and trust. The great majority of couples decide not to indulge random sexual impulses that threaten their commitments; a significant number of couples work through transient lapses. Couples who choose wider latitude in expressing their commitment need to be explicit about just what their terms are. Overall, the happiest couples seem to define and embody good faith through mutual consent, emotional commitment, honesty, and openness – and as needed through setting boundaries, agreements on privacy, or other rules designed to minimize conflict and heartache.

A Practical Tip: Variety as Spice, and Vice Versa

Routine can be monogamy’s best friend, and its worst enemy. A sense of comfort and security may keep a couple together, may make for cozy evenings, but may not do much for partners’ sex drives. Breaking routine can help: "date night," for example, puts daily cares on hold, giving social relaxation and the rituals of courtship a chance to rekindle romantic interest and re-spark sexual interactions. In the bedroom (or the back of the car, or on the discreetly chosen picnic table), other refreshing variations might involve choosing porn that both partners find exciting, or disclosing and experimenting with sexual fantasies and curiosity. Some couples use sex toys, fantasy role play, even costuming as "spice." C’mon, it’s not that far out: costumed Star Wars sexual fantasies are common enough to have turned up on an episode of Friends, and even in the working-mother comic strip Sally Forth.

If It Feels Bad: Mend It or End It?

Though couples may agree to humane accommodation of sexual impulse, it is another matter when one partner uses the expectation of forgiveness as license to be hurtful or controlling. In the vulnerable intimacy of couplehood, when an "arrangement" works out consistently to the advantage of one partner, the imbalance of power can slide quickly into abuse, and should be considered a warning sign. Unbalanced relationships may need therapeutic help before serious harm is done.

When instinct consistently tends one way and commitments tend another, and attempts to resolve their tension end in futility, only the couple involved can decide whether to give precedence to instinctual nature or to the nurture that comes from shared commitment. Even when the bulk of the evidence points toward a split, counseling may still help sort out options for separating with as little pain as possible on both sides.