Dating : Ethical Non-Monogamy Isn’t a Fix For Cheating

My husband has cheated. I’ve always been honest about this in my writing, not because I want to demonize him in the eyes of my readers, quite the opposite actually. Nor do I want to romanticize it. I’m open minded, but that doesn’t mean his betrayals didn’t hurt. What they did was force me to open my eyes to the reality of our situation and question him and myself as to why he was exhibiting this behavior. And most of all, was it something he would continue to do or was it possible for him to stop.

One of the reasons I write about this is to stop some of the myths I see perpetuated constantly about cheating spouses. Sure, there are situations, and enough of them to make it seem the norm, where the offending spouse isn’t getting what they need at home, so they look elsewhere. But that isn’t always the case. Beware of always and never statements in anything. Sometimes, it’s simply a situation of lack of maturity, fear of commitment, or in my husband’s case, a bit of both, coupled with a concern that I would leave him like ‘everyone else had’, so he needed to be prepared with someone else waiting in the wings. He couldn’t see, at the time, he was living in a self-fulfilling prophecy. By cheating, and in turn lying to me about things, he was pushing me away.

We went through a lot of anger, blame, and arguing to get to the point we’re at now. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t pretty. But we both knew that at the end of the day, we wanted to do everything we could to fix our relationship and remain together if it was possible. Although there was never a question of there being a lack of sexual connection between the two of us, because we definitely discussed it just in case I was reading the situation wrong, what this situation taught me was, as close as we were and as much sex as we were having, we still weren’t talking about it much. And that was one of our issues. He had never been in an ethically non-monogamous relationship, (I had), but in our talks, that’s really what he was searching for. But instead of knowing how to ask for what he wanted and needed, he presumed it wasn’t possible, and sought out his desires elsewhere without involving me, his partner.

The more we openly talked about our desires, the more we realized they were in line with one another. Neither of us had an issue with being sexual with others, within discussed parameters. The key was communication ahead of time. And that’s what was missing, the respect for one another to talk it through and come up with rules and plans for what we expected and desired out of relationships with others, but more importantly, from each other.

What is Ethical Non-Monogamy?

Although most sources will tell you ethical non-monogamy is a fairly new concept, it isn’t. I can’t tell you how long it’s been around, mostly because, those of us who practice it have kept ourselves in the dark because of societal pressures. One estimate says around 21% of Americans have engaged in consensual non-monogamous relationships. I posit it’s a higher number than that, but until society accepts this as ‘normal’, we won’t know.

Ethical non-monogamy is simply any relationship where the partners agree it’s okay to engage in sexual relations with others. How this looks is different for each couple. It can be a polyamorous relationship, swinging, or an open relationship. There are so many iterations of it that can be named whatever the partners like.

For us, we’re what Dan Savage has coined as monogamish. Simply stated, we don’t engage with people separately (as of now), and at first, it was only other women. Since my husband has come out as bisexual, we’ve added other men to the list of who is okay as a partner. It hasn’t happened yet, but it’s something we’re looking into doing. Other couples are okay too. Neither of us are interested in getting into a long-term relationship with anyone else beyond each other, but we’re also not closed to the prospect. We do have a girlfriend. I have multiple very close female friends that I could see something sexual happening with if the opportunity presented itself, and the friendship stays as it is. We’re open to all of that. What’s most important to us is our relationship, as primary.

How ethical non-monogamy works for others will look completely different than it does for us. It may have begun similarly to how ours did, with one partner unsure of how to go about asking and doing something they may regret. Or, you may both be emotionally intelligent enough together at the same time to know what you want and ask for it. However it works, open and honest communication is the cornerstone for making it work.

The Bottom Line

I won’t say that entering into an ethically non-monogamous relationship is a fix for every philandering spouse, because it isn’t. I’ve heard numerous times that I’m ‘rewarding’ my husband for his bad behavior, by ‘allowing’ him to have sex with others. And I get it, although I don’t agree. We both benefit from our changed relationship status and are happier with how things are since it’s changed. I wasn’t willing to throw away what we had and knew with communication and honesty, we could make a change for the better and was willing to put in the work, and so was he, which makes all the difference.