This blew me away...I don't know what to think...so of course I have to share with the Org..

Married, With Infidelities

By MARK OPPENHEIMER

Published: June 30, 2011

Last month, when the New York congressman Anthony Weiner finally admitted that he had lied, that his Twitter account had not been hacked, that he in fact had sent a picture of his thinly clad undercarriage to a stranger in Seattle, I asked my wife of six years, mother of our three children, what she thought. More specifically, I asked which would upset her more: to learn that I was sending racy self-portraits to random women, Weiner-style, or to discover I was having an actual affair. She paused, scrunched up her mouth as if she had just bitten a particularly sour lemon and said: “An affair is at least a normal human thing. But tweeting a picture of your crotch is just weird.”

How do we account for that revulsion, which many shared with my wife, a revulsion that makes it hard to imagine a second act for Weiner, like Eliot Spitzer’s television career or pretty much every day in the life of Bill Clinton? One explanation is that the Weiner scandal was especially sordid: drawn out, compounded daily with new revelations, covered up with embarrassing lies that made us want to look away. But another possibility is that there was something not weird, but too familiar about Weiner. His style might not be for everyone (to put it politely), but the impulse to be something other than what we are in our daily, monogamous lives, the thrill that comes from the illicit rather than the predictable, is something I imagine many couples can identify with. With his online flirtations and soft-porn photos, he did what a lot of us might do if we were lonely and determined to not really cheat.

[edited for compliance]

In Savage Love, his weekly column, he inveighs against the American obsession with strict fidelity. In its place he proposes a sensibility that we might call American Gay Male, after that community’s tolerance for pornography, fetishes and a variety of partnered arrangements, from strict monogamy to wide openness.

Savage believes monogamy is right for many couples. But he believes that our discourse about it, and about sexuality more generally, is dishonest. Some people need more than one partner, he writes, just as some people need flirting, others need to be whipped, others need lovers of both sexes. We can’t help our urges, and we should not lie to our partners about them. In some marriages, talking honestly about our needs will forestall or obviate affairs; in other marriages, the conversation may lead to an affair, but with permission. In both cases, honesty is the best policy.

The view that we need a little less fidelity in marriages is dangerous for a gay-marriage advocate to hold. It feeds into the stereotype of gay men as compulsively promiscuous, and it gives ammunition to all the forces, religious and otherwise, who say that gay families will never be real families and that we had better stop them before they ruin what is left of marriage. But Savage says a more flexible attitude within marriage may be just what the straight community needs. Treating monogamy, rather than honesty or joy or humor, as the main indicator of a successful marriage gives people unrealistic expectations of themselves and their partners. And that, Savage says, destroys more families than it saves.

Today, Savage Love is less a sex column than a relationship column, one point of which is to help good unions last. Sexual fulfillment matters in its own right, but mainly it matters because without it, families are more likely to break apart. It is for the sake of staying together — not merely for the sake of orgasms — that Savage coined his famous acronym, “G.G.G.”: lovers ought to be good, giving and game (put another way, skilled, generous and up for anything). And if they cannot fulfill all of each other’s desires, then it may be advisable to decide to go outside the bounds of marriage if that is what it takes to make the marriage work.

Savage’s position on monogamy is frequently caricatured. He does not believe in promiscuity; indeed, his attacks on the anonymous-sex, gay-bathhouse culture were once taken as proof of a secret conservative agenda. And he does not believe that monogamy is wrong for all couples or even for most couples. Rather, he says that a more realistic sexual ethic would prize honesty, a little flexibility and, when necessary, forgiveness over absolute monogamy. And he believes nostalgically, like any good conservative, that we might look to the past for some clues.

“The mistake that straight people made,” Savage told me, “was imposing the monogamous expectation on men. Men were never expected to be monogamous. Men had concubines, mistresses and access to prostitutes, until everybody decided marriage had to be egalitar­ian and fairsey.” In the feminist revolution, rather than extending to women “the same latitude and license and pressure-release valve that men had always enjoyed,” we extended to men the confines women had always endured. “And it’s been a disaster for marriage.”

Savage’s honesty ethic gives couples permission to find happiness in unusual places; he believes that pretty much anything can be used to spice up a marriage, although he excludes feces, pets and incest, as well as minors, the nonconsenting, the duped and the dead. In “The Commitment,” Savage’s book about his and Miller’s decision to marry, he describes how a college student approached him after a campus talk and said, as Savage tells it, that “he got off on having birthday cakes smashed in his face.” But no one had ever obliged him. “My heart broke when he told me that the one and only time he told a girlfriend about his fetish, she promptly dumped him. Since then he had been too afraid to tell anyone else.” Savage took the young man up to his hotel room and smashed a cake in his face.

The point is: priests and rabbis don’t tell couples they might need to involve cake play in their marriages; moms and dads don’t; even best friends can be shy about saying what they like. Savage wants to make sure that no strong marriage ever fails because an ashamed husband or wife is desperately seeking cake play — or bondage, urine play or any of the other unspeakable activities that Savage has helped make speakable. If cake play is what a man needs, his G.G.G. wife should give it to him; if she can’t bring herself to, then maybe she should allow him a chocolate-frosted excursion with another woman. But for God’s sake, keep it together for the kids.

Savage does not believe people should live in toxic, miserable marriages. The Schwarzenegger family is surely beyond repair. But they are an extreme case: not all adultery produces secret families. Most of it is minor by comparison, and Savage believes that adultery can be one of those trials, like financial woes or ill health, that marriages can be expected to survive.

“Given the rates of infidelity, people who get married should have to swear a blood oath that if it’s violated, as traumatic as that would be, the greater good is the relationship,” Savage told me. “The greater good is the home created for children. If there are children present, they’ll get past it. The cultural expectation should be if there’s infidelity, the marriage is more important than fidelity.”

It gets better? It does. But it also gets very complicated. Savage is not arguing “let Arnold be Arnold.” He is imploring us to know the people we marry and to know ourselves and to plan accordingly. He believes that our actions mark us as a compassionate people, that in truth we are always ready to forgive an adulterer, except the one we are married to. He points out that the Louisiana senator, and prominent john, David Vitter — “who I hate,” he reassures me — is still in office, and that “Bill Clinton is a beloved elder statesman, and Eliot Spitzer is back on television.” We are already a nation of forgivers, even when it comes to marriage. Dan Savage thinks we should take some pride in that.

The article itself is much longer and more intensive. I edited it freely. If you are intrigued, please read the original;

http://www.nytimes.com/20...1&_r=1

Now let's digest this bit of cyanide-laced fruitcake a-la-mode, and discuss...

the couple that plays together stays together

This is all well and good, but these things must all be agreed upon by both parties BEFORE a union and offspring take place.

ZombieKitten said:

the couple that plays together stays together

This is all well and good, but these things must all be agreed upon by both parties BEFORE a union and offspring take place.

It obviously doesn't work when only ONE party agrees either.

PurpleJedi said:

ZombieKitten said:

the couple that plays together stays together

This is all well and good, but these things must all be agreed upon by both parties BEFORE a union and offspring take place.

It obviously doesn't work when only ONE party agrees either.

it's definitely NOT something one party can spring on the other after 20 years of marriage

ZombieKitten said:

PurpleJedi said:

It obviously doesn't work when only ONE party agrees either.

it's definitely NOT something one party can spring on the other after 20 years of marriage

Just out of curiosity...has an "Open Marriage" (or relationship) worked for anyone you know???

PurpleJedi said:

Just out of curiosity...has an "Open Marriage" (or relationship) worked for anyone you know???

I don't know of any, though I do know a couple that traded spouses permanently

I would guess that an open relationship is like any other. Sometimes it's okay, sometimes it's a disaster, and never perfect.

I know people who have been in non-monogamous relationships but I don’t know anyone for whom this has “worked out” long term.

But then, not every relationship has to last forever.

While it would never work for me, I’m all for honest, ethical non-monogamy for other folks if that’s what makes them happy. As Charlotte said, though, it takes both sides to reach an agreement. It’s the honest, ethical part that most folks don’t do.

CarrieMpls said:

I know people who have been in non-monogamous relationships but I don’t know anyone for whom this has “worked out” long term.

yeah it works sometimes in the beginning, before you make a committment and know where the other person is at all hours of the day

PurpleJedi said:

Just out of curiosity...has an "Open Marriage" (or relationship) worked for anyone you know???

I know one couple ~ married 30 yrs ... still

I know 3 other couples ... 2 ended and one is in seperation phase ( all after an average of 11 yrs or so )

PurpleJedi said:

Just out of curiosity...has an "Open Marriage" (or relationship) worked for anyone you know???

I know a married couple in an open relationship (polyamory is the term they prefer). They have been together for about a decade now. They are a very loving and dedicated couple. She sometimes has girlfriends, and he goes out on dates with girls and occasionally boys. It's all done within a loose sort of "community" of polyamorous people who understand the arrangement and carry it all out with lots of respectful conversations and openness of intent.

It works for them, and I love them as a couple. For me, it sounds like a ton of WORK to me.

Machaela said:

PurpleJedi said:

Just out of curiosity...has an "Open Marriage" (or relationship) worked for anyone you know???

I know one couple ~ married 30 yrs ... still

I know 3 other couples ... 2 ended and one is in seperation phase ( all after an average of 11 yrs or so )

Were the separations due to the polyamory, or was simply that their relationships ended and they happened to be open relationships?

PunkMistress said:

PurpleJedi said:

Just out of curiosity...has an "Open Marriage" (or relationship) worked for anyone you know???

I know a married couple in an open relationship (polyamory is the term they prefer). They have been together for about a decade now. They are a very loving and dedicated couple. She sometimes has girlfriends, and he goes out on dates with girls and occasionally boys. It's all done within a loose sort of "community" of polyamorous people who understand the arrangement and carry it all out with lots of respectful conversations and openness of intent.

It works for them, and I love them as a couple. For me, it sounds like a ton of WORK to me.

So they're polyamorous AND bisexual?

Damn.

It'd be interesting to pick their brain and see what - exactly - they are "in a relationship" for.

Actually I do know one couple in an open relationship, and they seem happy together, but...

from what I hear their open relationship boils down to him having to listen to his wife have sex with women while he plays videogames Not exactly living the dream IMO

NDRU said:

Actually I do know one couple in an open relationship, and they seem happy together, but...

from what I hear their open relationship boils down to him having to listen to his wife have sex with women while he plays videogames Not exactly living the dream IMO

You mean he doesn't get to watch...or join in?

PurpleJedi said:

PunkMistress said:

I know a married couple in an open relationship (polyamory is the term they prefer). They have been together for about a decade now. They are a very loving and dedicated couple. She sometimes has girlfriends, and he goes out on dates with girls and occasionally boys. It's all done within a loose sort of "community" of polyamorous people who understand the arrangement and carry it all out with lots of respectful conversations and openness of intent.

It works for them, and I love them as a couple. For me, it sounds like a ton of WORK to me.

So they're polyamorous AND bisexual?

Damn.

It'd be interesting to pick their brain and see what - exactly - they are "in a relationship" for.

That's actually not surprising at all; being queer makes you more likely to be sexually "open." It says so in your original post! Strict monogamy as a the "relationship ideal" has always been questioned and challenged by members of the gay community.

What are my friends "in a relationship" for? Because they love each other, like their life together and care for each other like a married couple? She has physical disabilities and he is an excellent caregiver to her. I am not at all suggesting that they are married because of her medical condition, just trying to illustrate that they are there for each other in the ways that married people should be. He's in a band and she's at all his performances. I assume that's the kind of thing they're "in it" for.

Just because they share sex and fun times with others doesn't mean they want to lose one another. They make it clear to everyone they "date" that their spouse is their number one relationship and the only permanent one.

ZombieKitten said:

the couple that plays together stays together

This is all well and good, but these things must all be agreed upon by both parties BEFORE a union and offspring take place.

[img:$uid]http://twentyfourframes.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/rosemarys-baby1.jpg[/img:$uid]

PunkMistress said:

Machaela said:

I know one couple ~ married 30 yrs ... still

I know 3 other couples ... 2 ended and one is in seperation phase ( all after an average of 11 yrs or so )

Were the separations due to the polyamory, or was simply that their relationships ended and they happened to be open relationships?

I see it as for2 of them it was just the natural end of their time together ~ the seperated couple is because one no longer wants "openess" and the other 1/2 still wants the marriage and is willing / trying to let go of their old lifestyle

ufoclub said:

[img:$uid]http://twentyfourframes.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/rosemarys-baby1.jpg[/img:$uid]

PunkMistress said:

PurpleJedi said:

So they're polyamorous AND bisexual?

Damn.

It'd be interesting to pick their brain and see what - exactly - they are "in a relationship" for.

That's actually not surprising at all; being queer makes you more likely to be sexually "open." It says so in your original post! Strict monogamy as a the "relationship ideal" has always been questioned and challenged by members of the gay community.

What are my friends "in a relationship" for? Because they love each other, like their life together and care for each other like a married couple? She has physical disabilities and he is an excellent caregiver to her. I am not at all suggesting that they are married because of her medical condition, just trying to illustrate that they are there for each other in the ways that married people should be. He's in a band and she's at all his performances. I assume that's the kind of thing they're "in it" for.

Just because they share sex and fun times with others doesn't mean they want to lose one another. They make it clear to everyone they "date" that their spouse is their number one relationship and the only permanent one.

Well it definitely qualifies as proof positive that the O.P. has a point.

So they're like really good friends with benefits and a committment to grow old together.

Oh...and btw... you said "queer"

Hos are always trying to justify their hoishness. Ho sit down!!!

nd33 said:

I'm beginning to think strict monogamy isn't natural. This thread supports that thought... I wonder if monogamy will go the direction of other social institutions in the next few decades? ie. be seen as old fashioned. I wouldn't be surprised!

I definitely don't think it's natural...or let's say maybe serial monogamy is more natural

but people get jealous, and they get attached. There's sex and there's love. Unfortunately they don't always cooperate

nd33 said:

I'm beginning to think strict monogamy isn't natural. This thread supports that thought... I wonder if monogamy will go the direction of other social institutions in the next few decades? ie. be seen as old fashioned. I wouldn't be surprised!

Nothing is really natural or unnatural in today's world. Too many people are doing too many things. Monogamy is no more a social institution than wiping your ass with toilet paper. Its what some people do and what others don't. The one real and natural thing is human emotion and history has shown us that most folk do not like to share.

NDRU said:

Actually I do know one couple in an open relationship, and they seem happy together, but...

from what I hear their open relationship boils down to him having to listen to his wife have sex with women while he plays videogames Not exactly living the dream IMO

Sorry, that just made me laugh.

What you just described sounds a lot like polyamory, or as Wikipedia defines it, "is the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved."

While it sounds like the answer, it can run into problems. For instance, you need to be honest about your relationships. I heard of one woman in a polyamorous relationship get hurt when her husband didn't tell her he was falling in love with one of his partners. She didn't mind him screwing another woman, she was sad because he wasn't open about his emotions toward that partner.

I personally...can't stand these kinda relationships. They ain't for me. If I get into a relationship, I intend to put my heart and soul into it for that person. And if he ready to do the same, keep walkin', punk ass.

ThruTheEyesOfWonder said:

What you just described sounds a lot like polyamory, or as Wikipedia defines it, "is the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved."

While it sounds like the answer, it can run into problems. For instance, you need to be honest about your relationships. I heard of one woman in a polyamorous relationship get hurt when her husband didn't tell her he was falling in love with one of his partners. She didn't mind him screwing another woman, she was sad because he wasn't open about his emotions toward that partner.

I personally...can't stand these kinda relationships. They ain't for me. If I get into a relationship, I intend to put my heart and soul into it for that person. And if he ready to do the same, keep walkin', punk ass.

I think you are of the more common type in the world. Like I posted earlier, hos are trying to justify their hoishness. IMO you are not in a "relationship" if you are sleeping around. You are single. To convice a person to stay in such an arrangement with you especially when they believe in exclusivity is just assinine and selfish and can be dangerous depending on how ticked off the other might get. Like I said most people don't like sharing.

I also think that it takes a bit of an advanced mind and higher spiritual plane to be monogamous. We are afterall still animals and we are still progressing - or maybe regressing depending on who you ask. I admire people who can be monogamos, who can commit to one another on all levels and build a beautiful relationship and who are not afraid of sacrificing a much easier carefree-all-about-me lifestyle. That takes work and you have to want it. I'm not fully there yet because I have a terrible wandering eye and I am admittedly selfish. However, when I do committ I expect my partner to do the same and if he don't his ass gonna get cut!

HotGritz said:

ThruTheEyesOfWonder said:

What you just described sounds a lot like polyamory, or as Wikipedia defines it, "is the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved."

While it sounds like the answer, it can run into problems. For instance, you need to be honest about your relationships. I heard of one woman in a polyamorous relationship get hurt when her husband didn't tell her he was falling in love with one of his partners. She didn't mind him screwing another woman, she was sad because he wasn't open about his emotions toward that partner.

I personally...can't stand these kinda relationships. They ain't for me. If I get into a relationship, I intend to put my heart and soul into it for that person. And if he ready to do the same, keep walkin', punk ass.

I think you are of the more common type in the world. Like I posted earlier, hos are trying to justify their hoishness. IMO you are not in a "relationship" if you are sleeping around. You are single. To convice a person to stay in such an arrangement with you especially when they believe in exclusivity is just assinine and selfish and can be dangerous depending on how ticked off the other might get. Like I said most people don't like sharing.

I also think that it takes a bit of an advanced mind and higher spiritual plane to be monogamous. We are afterall still animals and we are still progressing - or maybe regressing depending on who you ask. I admire people who can be monogamos, who can commit to one another on all levels and build a beautiful relationship and who are not afraid of sacrificing a much easier carefree-all-about-me lifestyle. That takes work and you have to want it. I'm not fully there yet because I have a terrible wandering eye and I am admittedly selfish. However, when I do committ I expect my partner to do the same and if he don't his ass gonna get cut!

I agree wholeheartedly, Ms. HotGritz.

Too many people think with their gonads nowadays... And when they find someone worthwhile to be with, they just HAVE to mess it up.

Again, mess around on me, I'll beat that ass.

ThruTheEyesOfWonder said:

HotGritz said:

I think you are of the more common type in the world. Like I posted earlier, hos are trying to justify their hoishness. IMO you are not in a "relationship" if you are sleeping around. You are single. To convice a person to stay in such an arrangement with you especially when they believe in exclusivity is just assinine and selfish and can be dangerous depending on how ticked off the other might get. Like I said most people don't like sharing.

I also think that it takes a bit of an advanced mind and higher spiritual plane to be monogamous. We are afterall still animals and we are still progressing - or maybe regressing depending on who you ask. I admire people who can be monogamos, who can commit to one another on all levels and build a beautiful relationship and who are not afraid of sacrificing a much easier carefree-all-about-me lifestyle. That takes work and you have to want it. I'm not fully there yet because I have a terrible wandering eye and I am admittedly selfish. However, when I do committ I expect my partner to do the same and if he don't his ass gonna get cut!

I agree wholeheartedly, Ms. HotGritz.

Too many people think with their gonads nowadays... And when they find someone worthwhile to be with, they just HAVE to mess it up.

Again, mess around on me, I'll beat that ass.

ThruTheEyesOfWonder said:

What you just described sounds a lot like polyamory, or as Wikipedia defines it, "is the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved."

While it sounds like the answer, it can run into problems. For instance, you need to be honest about your relationships. I heard of one woman in a polyamorous relationship get hurt when her husband didn't tell her he was falling in love with one of his partners. She didn't mind him screwing another woman, she was sad because he wasn't open about his emotions toward that partner.

I personally...can't stand these kinda relationships. They ain't for me. If I get into a relationship, I intend to put my heart and soul into it for that person. And if he ready to do the same, keep walkin', punk ass.

I suppose that it boils down to your personal tolerances.

I found that I CANNOT carry on an open marriage, no matter how hard I'd like to keep the family unit together. That's just not me.

But for other, like the couple that Punkmistress cited; it can be a very natural & comfortable way of doing things.

HotGritz said:

I think you are of the more common type in the world. Like I posted earlier, hos are trying to justify their hoishness. IMO you are not in a "relationship" if you are sleeping around. You are single. To convice a person to stay in such an arrangement with you especially when they believe in exclusivity is just assinine and selfish and can be dangerous depending on how ticked off the other might get. Like I said most people don't like sharing.

I also think that it takes a bit of an advanced mind and higher spiritual plane to be monogamous. We are afterall still animals and we are still progressing - or maybe regressing depending on who you ask. I admire people who can be monogamos, who can commit to one another on all levels and build a beautiful relationship and who are not afraid of sacrificing a much easier carefree-all-about-me lifestyle. That takes work and you have to want it. I'm not fully there yet because I have a terrible wandering eye and I am admittedly selfish. However, when I do committ I expect my partner to do the same and if he don't his ass gonna get cut!

I agree, most people don't like sharing. But yet, there is SO MUCH cheating going on!!!

That just boils down to a different type of selfishness than you described. A selfishness where you want to pretend & keep appearances of being the dutiful husband/wife but all the while stabbing your spouse/partner in the back with a crass disregard for his/her feelings & wants.

Like I said in an old thread of mine...when you realize that it's over, that the person you are with is no longer your main priority in life...JUST WALK AWAY. Leave & be done with it.