Objections to Non-Monogamy and Their Answers
Listed below is every objection to nonmonogamy I have ever heard, and their answers.
A few years ago I wrote a very detailed document located right here that describes why being nonmonogamous is, while not without flaws, better on the overall than being monogamous. In there I address all the objections people give about this.
However, I realize most people aren’t going to take the time to read it, and will throw these objections at me anyway.
To solve this problem, I have gathered together all the objections people use to defend monogamy and their very brief, summarized answers. It’s a list of all your excuses why you cling to monogamy and/or traditional marriage and don’t want to try things like open relationships, polyamory, prenuptial agreements, and/or open or semi-open marriages.
They are numbered for convenience, so in the future whenever someone tosses out one of these objections, I can just link to this post and say “Numbers 4, 8, and 22.” Time management is awesome.
They are listed in no particular order. If you want more detailed answers, refer to the document in the link above.
Let’s do this…
1. What about having someone care for you in your old age?
The divorce rate for people who get married now, at the usual ages people get married, is around 63% in most cities. That means there’s a 63% chance that person won’t be around in your old age anyway.
If you want someone to be with in your old age, get married when you’re in your old age.
2. I don’t want STDs.
Then use condoms on people unless they’re very trusted, get tested for STDs twice a year, and immediately stop dating any person who refuses to do the same.
I’ve been doing this for going on eight years now, and my most recent STD test came back clean. Condoms and responsibility do work.
3. I can’t trust my partner to always use a condom every time if they have sex with someone else!
Then why are you in a serious relationship with someone you can’t trust? Sounds like a stupid move to me.
4. Not settling down and/or getting married and/or having kids is selfish.
Having kids, creating more human beings to consume more resources on this already overpopulated world, is one of the most selfish acts you can commit.
Don’t bullshit me. You don’t want to have kids because you want to help the world. You want kids because YOU want to have kids. You’re being selfish. Which is perfectly fine. (I have two kids myself.)
5. Monogamy is the best way to raise children.
In a society with a very low divorce rate, you’re right. But our divorce rate is around 63% in most cities. Therefore traditional monogamy and/or marriage is a great way to screw up your kids via divorce.
6. That divorce rate applies to guys with bad taste who don’t know who to pick a quality woman. I will screen for a woman who will make a great wife and mother.
All those other smart guys now getting divorced and/or dumped and/or cheated on said the exact same thing. Everyone says it won’t happen to them. That’s why it happens to so many people.
7. There is one thing a man doesn’t get unless he’s married, and that’s a commitment.
In a society with a very low divorce rate, you’re right. But our divorce rate is 63% in most cities, and 82% of the time it’s the woman leaving the man. In the modern era, most people can and do divorce for any reason and do so in vast numbers.
The type of lifetime commitment you’re referring to has been extinct since the late 1960s.
8. Having a bunch of open relationships is too much work.
Then don’t have a bunch. Have just one or two. One serious girlfriend and one friend-with-benefits on the side is all you need.
9. I don’t believe in cheating.
Good, neither do I. I’m not talking about cheating. Cheating is when you promise monogamy then violate that promise. We’re talking here about nonmonogamous relationships, where monogamy is never promised. You’re having sex with other people and doing it with her full knowledge and consent. I’ve never cheated on anyone in my entire life, and neither should you.
10. She will complain I haven’t asked her to be my girlfriend yet.
Then ask her to be your girlfriend (if that’s what you want). Just don’t promise her sexual monogamy. One does not require the other.
11. A girl can’t ever fully trust and commit to you if you keep having sex with other girls.
Millions of men and women all over the Western world raising children in long-lasting discreet open marriages would disagree with you.
12. I won’t have time to be with my girl(s) and keep sarging for new girls every day.
Then don’t have a bunch of girls. Have two. One serious girlfriend and one friend-with-benefits on the side is all you need.
13. Okay, okay, dammit. All of this stuff is probably true, and I agree monogamy usually doesn’t work, but I just can’t handle it if the woman in my life is out having sex with other guys.
This is the biggest objection of them all. There are four answers to it.
A) You get used to it. The reason you’re so worried about it is because you’ve never experienced it, or experienced it consistently. It’s not nearly as bad as you now fantasize.
B) If that’s a huge concern to you, you likely don’t have enough going on in your life outside of her. Find a Mission, a purpose, set some exciting goals, and throw your whole heart into it. You’ll find that 80-90% of your jealousy will instantly vanish as soon as you do this. You’ll be a much happier man too.
C) A little jealousy is a very small price to pay for the 15-20 other benefits you get from being nonmonogamous (you being able to have sex with other women whenever you want, lack of drama, lack of financial risk, lack of rules you have to follow, vast amounts of freedom, etc).
D) Women are not in constant horndog mode like men are. There will be long stretches in your relationship were she won’t be having sex with other people at all (even if you are) because she’s just not in that mindset.
14. My girl is Not Like The Rest™ No, seriously. I’ve had sex with <large number> women and she’s not like any of them.
By successfully sleeping with all these women, you have unwittingly established a variety-based pattern of behavior of sleeping with many women. Thus you are less able to make a monogamous relationship work forever than the typical guy who’s only had sex with five or six women. This is why Alpha Males and player-guys who attempt monogamy almost always end up cheating, thus incurring drama, breakups, and/or divorces.
But hey, if you really don’t care if the relationship fails later, then go ahead.
15. What happens if she falls in love with another guy she has sex with and leaves me?
If you go monogamous, she’ll likely leave you anyway. The real divorce rate is around 63% and 82% of these divorces are the woman leaving the man. Three-fourths of all normal, monogamous, boyfriend/girlfriend breakups are initiated by the female. Women break up with men. It’s what women do. Accept it.
Monogamous she might leave you, open she might leave you, but under an open system the damage is far reduced.
In addition, in an open/poly relationship/marriage, you have a much stronger incentive to keep her emotionally and sexually satisfied because it’s much easier for her to leave. This is why the sexual “fire” in open couples tends to last many years longer than with monogamous ones.
16. My parents/family/close friends won’t accept me if I’m having sex with multiple women.
That’s their problem. Stop being a pussy, man-up, and live your life as you choose.
And I can tell you for a fact that the people who really do love you won’t care.
17. What if open marriages/relationships becomes a societal norm and everyone did this?!?
Everyone won’t do this. Even if open/poly relationships/marriages become the norm in society, there will always be a 10% – 20% segment of the population (made up of religious people, needy people, low sex drive people, etc) who will choose long-term monogamy as a life path regardless (and suffer all the usual consequences).
So don’t worry. There will always be monogamous people and monogamy will always be an option no matter what happens or how cultural norms evolve.
18. If you find the right person, you’ll never want to have sex with anyone else.
Show me five men who have been married longer than 25 years who never wanted to have sex with a woman besides their wife. Good luck with that.
Sexual desire is a biological function. It often has nothing whatsoever to do with love, commitment, or connection.
19. It puts pressure and stress on women.
And monogamy doesn’t?
What do you think things like long-term monogamy, “commitment”, traditional marriage, living with a man full time, and having children will do? All those married monogamous wives aren’t stressed, pressured, upset, bored, or bitchy? Are you kidding?
Any path you take as a man will eventually put some “pressure and stress” on a woman. It’s how women are. (Be thankful you’re a man.)
20. Her friends will give her shit about her dating me.
Then she’s welcome to break up with you at any time and find someone else if she doesn’t like it.
Find a woman compatible with you, and do this stuff right, and she won’t. Massively field-tested.
21. I hate using condoms. With monogamy I don’t have to use one.
Neither do I. With fuck buddies or new women, of course condoms are used. But once you’ve been in a relationship for a while with a woman who has proven sexual responsibility, you don’t need a condom with her if you don’t want one.
22. I kinda like drama. I kinda like the ups and downs of monogamous relationships. I’m an emotional guy and kinda get off on that.
Then get monogamous and enjoy your pain. I’ll be over here being happy.
And by the way, I’d better not hear you complain in six months about all the relationship drama you have. (It’s interesting to see the number of men who say they “kinda like drama” complain about drama just a few weeks/months after they said it.)
23. I’ve tried this open relationship stuff once or twice. It doesn’t work. After about 2 or 3 months, women demand monogamy or leave me.
Your technique is off.
At least 80% of women will agree to an open relationship provided the man does everything right, and in the right sequence. Get my open relationships ebook which shows you how to do this step-by-step, and you’ll get things working fast.
24. Ah HA! You’re selling stuff! Now I can’t trust a single word you say.
Excellent. Healthy skepticism is good. Don’t trust me on any of the facts or stats I relay. Double-check me. Google around and do your own research. Objectively look back over the past several relationships you had that didn’t last. You’ll quickly find everything I’m saying about human nature is accurate, whether we like it or not.
25. I’m going to get Facebook drama. Like my relationship status, her seeing other women on there, etc.
Not if you do this right. Always keep your Facebook relationship status blank and hidden. Block or unfriend any women who you think might post stuff on your Facebook page that will cause you drama.
I have been doing this for many years and I can count the grand total number of Facebook drama incidents I’ve had on two fingers.
26. I want a relationship/marriage like my grandparents/parents had/have.
A) Your parents/grandparents are the products of a very different era, where men and women were conditioned with very different behaviors.
B) Your parents/grandparents were married in an era where divorce was heavily restricted, both legally and culturally. Today, divorce is legally easy and socially encouraged.
B) Your parents/grandparents don’t have sex very often. Don’t forget about that part.
C) Your parents/grandparents argue a lot. Don’t forget about that either.
27. What about love? You can’t truly love someone if you’re having sex with other people. Or if they are having sex with other people.
That’s completely untrue and you know it. You’ve probably had sex with person A while still in love with person B, and it didn’t make you love person B any less.
Sex does not equal love. I’m simply astounded that I actually have to point that out to supposedly evolved, modern day people. Wow.
28. I don’t want to be hanging around dance clubs picking up chicks when I’m 45 years old.
Neither do I. I’m almost 42 years old, have women who love me, have plenty of sex, am very fulfilled and happy, and I haven’t set foot into a dance club in many years.
There are many other ways to meet attractive women who will like you (including younger women) besides dance clubs.
29. Abolishing monogamy is one of the goals of feminism!
If those feminists want me to have a marriage where I can go have sex with 19 year-old cheerleaders on the side whenever I want, then that’s one aspect of feminism I wholeheartedly support.
However I have a feeling that’s not the kind of relationship the angry feminists have in mind. They’re likely thinking about a relationship where they can have sex with other people, but their men can’t. (Obviously I would be against that. Both parties should be allowed to play around, or the relationship won’t last and/or won’t be harmonious.)
30. Well, okay. When you’re dating, this stuff is all fine. But no one actually does this while married and raising kids and stuff.
Millions of men and women all over the Western world raising children in long-lasting discreet open marriages would disagree with you.
They do it very discreetly and don’t advertise what they’re doing (because people like you will judge them). Check out my ebook on open marriages for more information.
31. Legal marriage offers financial advantages such as estate tax benefits and social security benefits.
You only get those benefits if you stay married forever. If this was a society with a very low divorce rate, then you’d have a point. But our divorce rate is 63% in most cities, so your point is moot. The odds are overwhelming your marriage won’t last long enough to gain those benefits.
Betting your retirement on a system with an only 37% success rate is shockingly irresponsible financial management.
This goes back to the whole “If you want security in your old age, get married in your old age” thing. If you want to get married when you’re 62 years old, that makes perfect sense. Go for it. It probably will be a marriage that lasts “the rest of your life”, because you’ll be dead in a few years.
32. Most marriages fail. Okay, fine. But most small businesses also fail, yet you encourage guys to start their own businesses. You’re not being consistent.
Even if you’re the perfect spouse and do everything right, you’re still only 50% of the equation. Starting a small business, you’re damn near 100% of the equation. (Even if other people are involved, you can almost instantly replace them if they don’t play ball.) There is no valid comparison between those two things.
33. I want to know that my kids are mine.
They have these great things called “paternity tests”. You can buy one at Walgreens for $20.
34. Well…monogamy is better for more traditional people.
Religious people have higher divorce rates than atheists. Look it up.
Therefore, if those traditional people don’t mind getting divorced down the road and/or cheated on, then fine.
35. I know so-and-so who’s my friend/acquaintance/family member/guy I read about online who’s been married for 3/5/12/15 years and he’s made marriage work. So I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.
You don’t know if his marriage has “worked” until he’s about 75 years old AND still married to her AND he’s never had sex with anyone else during that entire time AND she’s never had sex with anyone else either. (Remember, clandestine or tolerated cheating is not monogamy. Monogamy is when you’re only having sex with one person and that person is only having sex with you.)
Check back in with that guy in 40 years and let me know if his marriage really “worked”.
36. Monogamy works fine in places like India.
I’m not talking about India. I’m taking about the modern era and the Western world. I’m not talking about India or the 1950s.
And by the way, you’re more than welcome to move to sexually-repressed India to get an arranged marriage whenever you like.
37. This “63% divorce rate” stuff is bullshit. If you wait until you’re 30 / 35 / 40 to get married and/or marry an older woman and/or marry a college graduate and/or have your wedding on the winter solstice while all the planets are aligned then the divorce rate drops to 44% / 30% / 39% / <some other number>.
Just to be a nice guy, I’ll take you at your lowest number, 30%. Would you spend $300 on a dish washer that had a 30% failure rate? No? Then why would you bet your entire financial future, emotional well-being, and children’s well-being on a system with a 30% failure rate?
Just because 30% isn’t 63% doesn’t mean 30% is good. A 30% is still extraordinarily terrible. (“I’m only going to cut off 30% of your arm…”)
38. There have been studies that suggest a woman’s sexual desire for a man “resets” and is strong again when she has his baby. So if you just have a new baby with her every 2-3 years, you can make long term monogamy work.
So to be with her the rest of your life, you’re going to have 15 babies with her? Do you want 15 kids? Can you afford 15 children? Is she physically able to have 15 kids? Even after she turns 40?
Stop being silly. This isn’t ancient Babylon. Even if those studies are accurate, it’s completely irrelevant to the realities of the modern era.
39. I’ve been married and monogamous for X years, and everything is perfect, so I don’t know what you’re talking about.
I’m not sure if I believe everything in your relationship life is “perfect”. Sometimes married people defensively say that, but when you actually look at their marriage it’s anything but perfect. You probably have more regular drama in your life than you did when you were single. Moreover, the odds are overwhelming that you don’t have sex nearly as often as you used to, and/or that one of you has cheated already. If I pressed you on it, you’d likely admit one or more of those things.
But okay, for argument’s sake let’s say for I do believe everything in your marriage is “perfect” (which it is not).
My brother jumped off the roof when he was little. It was a 20 foot-drop and he landed on hard, dry dirt. Not only did he not die, but he didn’t break any bones and was completely unharmed. Using this real-life example, would I start recommending to all little boys that they should jump off 20-foot roofs? No. That would be insane. The fact that he ended up “perfect” is meaningless on the overall because he was a very, very lucky exception to the rule.
And remember, you can’t emulate luck.
40. If you’re Alpha/have strong game/use great relationship technique/have a solid frame, you can keep your monogamous woman interested in you forever.
Keep her interested in you for longer than normal? Yes. Interested in you forever? No. Strong game/frame will indeed increase the temporary length of a monogamous relationship, like push it from two years to six years for example. But it won’t keep her horny for 30 years. That’s not how women work. Given enough time, biology always trumps skill.
41. Well, yeah, monogamous relationships fail, but open relationships won’t last either!
Correct. They won’t. No where have I ever said open relationships or marriages will last forever. If you’re talking about people under the age of 60, ALL RELATIONSHIPS ARE TEMPORARY, whether mono or open. The difference is A) the amount of rules, compromises, and drama that must be suffered during the relationship once the temporary “honeymoon phase” is over, and B) the amount of damage and anger that occurs when the relationship ends.
42. No woman over 30 would ever agree to a relationship like this.
I have dated multiple women in multi-year long relationships like this who were over 30 and over 40. So have millions of other people all over the Western world, including marriages with children.
It is true that older women have more societal brainwashing that needs cleaning out, so it is often easier for younger women to enter into a relationship like this, but there are still millions of over-30 women who do this. Moreover, I can tell you from vast experience (my own and other’s) that once over-30 women enter into a nonmonogamous relationship, they derive more satisfaction from the relationship and experience less jealousy than younger women who tend to be more drama-prone.
43. No intelligent woman would ever agree to a relationship like this.
Some of the women I have dated in multi-year long relationships like this had genius level IQs, advanced college degrees, Ivy League educations, and/or held president or vice-president level positions at their jobs.
Strong, confident women love open relationships, as long as the guy is responsible and discreet. When men are not responsible or discreet and start running around like horny maniacs, that’s where the problems start. In many ways, strong women like nonmonogamous relationships more than men do.
44. The stats show that married people live longer.
Correlation, not causation. Dig a little deeper into those studies, and you’ll find that unmarried men who die early are not Alpha Males and are nothing like the type of man I talk about. Those men are usually nerds, social recluses, immature men, men with anger issues, men who don’t know how to relate to women, etc. These men do not take care of themselves, mentally or physically.
I’m talking here about a happy, well-adjusted man who can deeply love a woman…but can do so without promising eternal monogamy, something men (and women!) were never designed for.
45. Getting married is a good idea because it helps reduce monthly health insurance costs.
Are you seriously telling me you’re going to incur all the drama, life and sexual limitations, and financial risk of marriage just to save $300 on your health insurance? Is that really your excuse?
Here’s an idea. Why don’t you figure out how to increase your income by $300 a month and stay unmarried? Is it really that hard for you to increase your income by $300 or $400 a month?
46. Yes, the odds of monogamous marriage lasting forever are very low, but that doesn’t matter to the individual. The statistical odds of a guy having sex with more than 50 women in his life are also very low, but you don’t recommend that stop any guy from pursuing that goal, right?
You really need to improve your math skills. Having sex with 50 women doesn’t require the cooperation of one individual person who can prevent you from achieving that goal at any time. It requires the cooperation of 50 women out of thousands of women you hit up. If one woman doesn’t want to have sex with you, you can simply move past her and move on to the next girl. Rinse and repeat until you get your 50.
Can you get married 50 times and find one wife that will work? Nope. Once you get married you’re looking at just one woman who needs to cooperate with you for around 50 years straight. All of your success is locked up with this one person who can (and statistically will) change her mind at any time, then you fail. The successful player is dealing with a statistical pool of thousands of women, but once you’re married, you’re dealing with a statistical pool of one, thus the odds are stacked against you. You cannot compare the two scenarios statistically in any way.
47. If you get married you can (maybe) save money on taxes!
Being married places massive upwards pressure on month-to-month living costs. Even if you save a little on taxes (and even that’s not guaranteed) your increased costs will more than offset any such savings. Read this.
48. I prefer to have one partner because I hate all the things necessary to get a new partner.
You only need one more partner, not 5 or 10. I teach an entire dating system where you get to sex within 3-4 hours of face time with less than $27 spent. If you have a higher income you can use sugar daddy game and even skip that part if you want. Getting one more woman in your life is not difficult in the least; even beta males can do it.
49. At some point you need to grow up and commit to someone.
I completely agree. But “commitment” does not automatically mean “monogamy”. You can, and probably should, eventually commit your emotions, your love, and your support to one special person. That doesn’t mean you can’t go have discreet, meaningless, condomed sex on the side occasionally while still maintaining that commitment to that person.
Remember, sex does not equal love, and commitment is about much more than who you have the biological function of sex with. Truly mature people understand this.
So NOW what’s your excuse?
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I like number 4 a lot. It’s the most important one on the list as far as I’m concerned, and it’s the reason we have to argue over this crap to begin with (if we weren’t here, there is no mess to clean up – consciousness causes it all). Having kids is probably the most selfish act you can commit, considering you’re imposing existence on someone who didn’t ask for it. All that nonsense about people desiring kids biologically is just a bunch of cultural bs that was used for the benefit of societies a long time ago. We desire sex. Period. Never have I, or other people I talk to, had a biological desire to have a kid just as I don’t have biological urges to make money, etc. It’s all societal programming. And those people who claim it’s biological? There responses are stories like “Well my neighbor had a kid and I wanted to have one more.” Boom. It’s societal pressure, similar to seeing your neighbor get a pool and then you have to have one of those.
Here’s on objection to non-monogomy I haven’t seen addressed. I’m going to start with generalities but please bare with me as I do get specific:
When guys go into open relationships, they open their PANTS to other partners. When women get into open relationships, they open their HEARTS to other partners. Women get emotionally attached to guys they are sleeping with, quickly. As soon as another guy achieves “lock-in”, meaning he’s slept with your main girl on a couple of separate occasions, she’s going to leave you all together and go with him- as long as he’s not sinking to demanding beta behaviors like asking her to leave you, etc . You can count on her becoming attached to him because she’s sleeping with HIM now.
I know, you’d say ‘big deal, it’s just a long term soft next for temporary exclusivity, or a ‘LTSNFTE’ but it IS a big deal if a) you TRULY love this woman and care for her, and/or if b) she TRULY is better in bed than the other FB’s you’re seeing. Both A and B have been true for me simultaneously, and let me tell you, it hurts, badly. For the first time in my life I realized that having sex with one woman who is truly amazing in bed beats sleeping with two women who both suck in bed.
I know, you’d say “there’s no guarantee she wouldn’t have left you anyway.” And while she may have eventually left, this is not sound logic. You can’t simply point to other risk factors beyond your control as an excuse to risk something within your control. Would you say to yourself, “someone might steal my whole car next week anyway, so I may as well leave it unlocked all the time for others to get in”? Of course not. Oh, her sleeping with other men isn’t within your control, you say? True, but she’s far more likely to feel guilt and remain with you if she cheats (her heart wasn’t open at the time, probably just her legs) than if the sex was allowed (her heart is open to new flames as well in addition to her legs.)
Besides not being logically sound, emotionally it’s much easier to cope with a relationship ending because of her being a jerk then it is to cope with some other guy you know practically stealing the woman you love away from you. Think of it like this- do you feel more bitter if you lose something yourself, or if something is taken from you?
And let’s face it, if you keep the same 2 or 3 FB’s around, never swapping them out, you’re practically a Mormon polygamist at that point. The sex is going to get stale with the same few women after the New Relationship Energy runs out unless you keep integrating new women. So the suggestion to just have one or two FBs to avoid opening new women is a bit self-defeating.
Now to be fair, there are women out there who won’t become emotionally attached when they achieve lock-in with another man. I’ve met two of them in my whole life who lead successfully open marriages. But these women are the exception, not the rule. The vast majority of women are programmed to leave you when they achieve lock-in with someone else, and that’s what happened to me. So my point is, there are trade-offs with everything. You can’t claim non-monogomy to be full of only positives and no negatives- everything in life is a trade-off.
You’re simply making a longer-winded version of item 15. I suggest you go back and re-read that item.
For your point to be valid, you would have stipulate that monogamy *guaranteed* a woman you loved would never leave you, and this is obviously untrue. You try to address this when you state:
I disagree with that statement completely. If you really loved the woman deeply I think you’d be extremely sad/upset no matter what the reason was, even if she was a jerk. Evidence: All the divorced men out there who are still VERY bitter about their “bitch” ex-wives years or even decades after the divorce.
If you’re looking to avoid very painful breakups, monogamy is the exact opposite of what you should do.
And one clarification on what you said here:
That is not my suggestion or my advice. Never have I advised having the same 2-3 FBs forever, as this would be impossible anyway, since they’d eventually get boyfriends or husbands and LSNFTE.
I think the ultimate relationship endgame for older Alpha Males is:
1. Get one trusted OLTR who has shown a long-term pattern of emotional stability and responsibly.
2. Also have 1-2 temporary, rotating FBs on the side, that you constantly rotate and replace as necessary.
3. Never assume that your OLTR will be with you “the rest of your life”, unless both of you are over age 60.
Good piece. Where did you get the 63% divorce rate from? Most stats I have seen place the odds of any one given divorce at 40-50%.
Most states only track the number of divorces per 1000 people and the number of marriages. usually there are twice the number of marriages as divorces. But when people talk about divorce rate they mean, what are the odds of a given marriage failing.
I’m planning a big blog post about exactly how they figure divorce statistics, and which types of statistics are relevant, and which are not. Most stats are figured, as you said, by comparing the number of marriages to the number of divorces in any one given year, which is not really very helpful. Other statistics are based on a specific group of people who got married at one point, say the mid-1990s, who have or have not become divorced yet.
Since the average man gets married at age 30 and dies at age 75, the only real divorce stat that matters is the odds your marriage will last 45 years. These odds are very low, and I think 63% is actually being generous, espeically considering there’s been a huge spike in divorces for people over the age of 50 in the last 15 years.
But like I said, I’ll have much more to say about this shortly.
“38. There have been studies that suggest a woman’s sexual desire for a man “resets” and is strong again when she has his baby. So if you just have a new baby with her every 2-3 years, you can make long term monogamy work.”
HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Careful; us older guys’ hearts might not tolerate laughing that hard and long.
Great article. I wish I had read this site 40 years ago.
ms
“3. I can’t trust my partner to always use a condom every time if they have sex with someone else!
Then why are you in a serious relationship with someone you can’t trust? Sounds like a stupid move to me.”
Trusting a person with your health, who you know you can’t lend money to (expecting to get them back), who you know speaks in a language that has to be translated (often meaning the opposite of what was said, the definition of lying), who you know in sexual matters decides emotionally, doesn’t seem that bright of an idea either.
“11. A girl can’t ever fully trust and commit to you if you keep having sex with other girls.
Millions of men and women all over the Western world raising children in long-lasting discreet open marriages would disagree with you.”
A quick check reveals the population of Europe, North America and Australia equals about 1.3 billion. “Millions” is very vague but 4 millions would be about 0.3% of the previously mentioned population.
So I guess your argument is “0.3% of men and women all over the Western world raising children in long-lasting discreet open marriages would disagree with you.” Which is still 16 times less than the 5% of people who would disagree with you no matter what 🙂
That’s a good point. The best way around it, as I’ve talked about before, is to date someone for a long time (8-12 months or more) while carefully watching her behaviors (instead of her words) before you start trusting her in this way, only after she shows a reasonably long trustworthy pattern of behavior. This does work. (100% of the time? Of course not. No guarantees in life.)
The problem is guys get NRE or oneitis and hate waiting, and almost never do this.
Your 4 million figure is arbitrary and a wild guess on your part. No one can give exact numbers about this because it’s not something tracked by experts (yet). However I read an NYT article a year or two back that said there were several thousand polyamorous couples in New York City alone. Multiply that by two and you get the number of polyamorous people in New York. Then you can add in all the people who are not polyamorous, but do have open or nonmonogamous relationships. Then add in all the open marriage people on top of that. On top of all that, you could also add in all the married people who know they have a cheating spouse but stay anyway (a “defacto” open marriage).
That’s a lot of damn people. We don’t know the exact number, but it’s far beyond your “0.3%”.
“My 0.3%” is a guess at your “Millions of men and women all over the Western world raising children in long-lasting discreet open marriages”. It has little to do with polyamorous couples who are not married, or who are married and not raising children, or who are married and raising children but not in long-lasting discreet open marriages.
In a city of 8.337 millions, 0.3% is just a little over 25 thousand people. Which may be easily classified as “a lot of damn people” and is probably way more than “several thousand”.
Several thousand couples are formed of twice as many people only if every one of those couples is made up of two unique individuals. With them being polyamorous, that is necessarily less. If we exclude all the gay/lesbian couples from your “several thousand”, and we assume every man and every female are part of only 2 couples, then the number of couples equals the number of people.
The number of men forming those couples should not enter into an argument to “A girl can’t ever fully trust and commit to you if you keep having sex with other girls.” Neither should the number of married women who ‘know they have a cheating husband but stay anyway’, which is strange you are including, since I know you are not advocating cheating.
So what’s left are the women who “are not polyamorous, but do have open or nonmonogamous relationships”, which is guesswork, but we have a long way to go to 25 thousand, or 0.3% of New York City’s population.
If we’re talking about “30. Well, okay. When you’re dating, this stuff is all fine. But no one actually does this while married and raising kids and stuff.”, of the “several thousand polyamorous couples in New York City alone” we should cut off the people who are not married, or are married and not raising children.
“All the married people who know they have a cheating spouse but stay anyway” should not be taken into account since “cheating almost always leads to drama and usually leads to bad breakups and is thus never a good idea” is probably the concern of objection 30.
Then we have the people who “are not polyamorous, but do have open or nonmonogamous relationships” to which the same rules apply as above.
It seems more and more like my 0.3% was pretty generous, especially if we consider that the rate in NYC is probably bigger than the whole of western world, since there are so many people crammed together.
Point taken about the poly folks who are not married.
Correct. I do not advocate cheating, but I do admit there are millions of marriages in the world where one spouse is cheating, the other spouse knows it, and stays anyway. This is especially true in Europe (which is part of the “Western world”). That is a (de facto) open marriage. I don’t agree with the method at all, but it’s still not a monogamous marriage. In addition, As you pointed out, there are there are other marriages where the man is fucking around but he restricts his wife from doing so. I don’t agree with this either, but it happens.
You must take all those people into account even if they’re doing it wrong, and even if you or I disagree with how they’re doing it. I’m talking about “people with open marriages”, not necessarily “people with open marriages who are doing it perfectly according to Blackdragon”.
There are millions of people married and not monogamous, which you yourself have admitted. We can’t know the exact number or percentage of these people, and once again I’m going to repeat that this 0.3% figure is something you just pulled out of your ass. We could argue about what this percentage or number might really be, but neither of us will ever know the real answer (other than “millions”), so to do so would be a waste of time.
Fantastic points. I’m going to memorize several of them, because I deal with these objections every time I try to be honest about my open relationship. Society seems to have a vendetta against the idea. Thanks for putting this together!
It does indeed have a vendetta against this idea. Many people have their entire emotional well-being and financial lives staked on this idea, even when they know deep down it doesn’t work. Hence the resistance.
“So NOW what’s your excuse?”
I think, for some guys, the hardest part is being willing to let women walk away during “the Where’s-This-Relationship-Going Talk.”
You already know some girls just WON’T say yes to being part of a harem (although of course many will). And if a man likes a girl enough, that can be tough and painful to face.
I’ll admit, I’ve almost caved and promised monogamy a time or two, just to get a favorite girl to stay. But if a man can get past that part, giving her the freedom to leave while he keeps his frame strong, then the rest is easy. Assuming she stays, or comes back.
“Show me five men who have been married longer than 25 years who never wanted to have sex with a woman besides their wife. Good luck with that. Sexual desire is a biological function. It often has nothing whatsoever to do with love, commitment, or connection”
but on your other article you wrote “Women get bored, men do not!”
huh? make up your mind Mr Blackdragon.
I’m talking about men’s need for sexual variety; you’re talking about boredom. Two different things.
As I said to you in the other post, men who get “bored” with their wives and cheat on their wives still want to have sex with their wives (generally speaking of course; there are always exceptions to this, like if the wife gets fat).
In the other post I was talking about when women get bored with their male partner and don’t want to have sex with him any more. You’re talking about something completely different.
I’m curious how many of your readers have never gotten bored with their wives? Hands up if you’ve never gotten bored of banging the same woman year after year after year.
I’m pretty sure almost all men get bored just like women.
Google Helen Fischer, she can explain why.
It has nothing to do with using a different term such as variety vs boredom, it’s just a natural human response.
You’re not reading what I said. As I said, many men do and I’m sure many of my readers have. The correct question to ask is how many have suddenly refused to have sex with their wives. The answer would be some, but not many.
Oh I’m reading everything you write. I’m fascinated by the way you think. You are saying to me now that they are in fact bored (despite saying in two of your other articles that men don’t get bored) but despite their boredom, they still have sex with their wives.
The reason many men would not refuse to have sex with their wives despite being “bored” is because their options are limited. There are fewer women prepared to just have sex with men as their are women seeking relationships (women are gatekeepers to sex, men are gatekeepers to relationships).
Mr BD, with all due respect, I love how you are helping men be men but you may not always be right. Men do get bored with their wives but they continue having boring sex because it’s not that easy for men to find a woman seeking sex only. If that were the case, you wouldn’t have many readers.
My objection is I don´t believe in the women´s ability to stay happy in an openly open relationship. In your writings the arrangement seems to be calm and once you make them see the light they are happy to be in an open relationship, then the whole thing calmly ends and you get another.
I haven´t seen many open relationships but in those I´ve seen, the woman always changed her mind (as you say they would). Suddenly what she had agreed to pissed her off no end and she started asking for commitment or she would leave, all with a generous bonus of blackmail, shaming, denigrating and other genres of drama. Of course, the men may have done it in a wrong way, might have been indiscreet or any other of that. I never did it so I know only from the guys telling me. (I was always more of a “monogamy” man).
Be it as it may, my observation suggests that women accept more easily to be cheated on than agreeing to share the man. I suppose this way they can claim to be the victim if it goes wrong and afterwards they are (or not) the great forgiving one, the family saviour and they enjoy the man coming back to them. Of course this might count as drama and be intolerable in your system.
Moreover, the vast majority of cheating goes undetected or silently tolerated. You seem to suggest that once you start cheating or she starts cheating, it´s bound to fail. Based on my observation the odds of having low drama + several women in a “monogamy” arrangement is much higher than in an addmittedly open relationship.
Also a few surprises for me in the :
3. If you can´t trust your partner to take a condom, seems absurd to trust him/her not to cheat.
26.E) And let´s not forget, quite probably at least one of them cheated on the other.
31. There is a dark side to the joint wealth benefits (even in the 37% successful cases) and suprisingly few people consider it. I didn´t marry and if ever I marry I will most certainly have a pre-nup dividing the assets in order to protect my children. This way, If my business has a financial problem, my family will not be liable for my debts since the wealth is separate and all I decide to pour from business to family stays there even if I go bust. Funny nobody thinks about it
34. Really? Catholics, too?
38. Resets my ass… Also 2 years are a hell of a long time to wait for a sex reset, not talking about her vomiting three months prior to such a reset, being torn up two months after and then very tired for at least a year. If you can have a satisfactory sex life with a new mother, it means she needed no reset.
Addressed in number 19 above. Women won’t stay happy forever in any relationship.
Correct. The vast, vast majority of men who do nonmonogamy do it completely wrong and get all kinds of drama because of it. They then assume that “open relationships have a lot of drama.” No, YOU have a lot of drama because you did it wrong.
My recommendation to men is to do it right.
Ah, so you’re one of those cheating advocates.
Yes, cheating often goes undetected if the woman is the one cheating. When men cheat, they almost always eventually get caught. (Yes, there are always rare exceptions to the rule.) Men are really, really bad at not getting caught, for all kinds of social and biological reasons.
Serial cheating men tend to have have high-drama relationships. If you like drama, then I guess go ahead. I like happiness instead.
Damn! I only read the first 20, but I agreed with every single one of your points!
I am the same woman from your” 3 types of women” posts!
I especially hate it when people tell me I am selfish for not wanting children! Lol… Can’t stop laughing.
The most difficult thing is the jealousy, especially for the man, but as you said it is not as bad as one envisages it and if you feel secures in your bond with the long term woman, then that worry will subside, once you experience the MANY benefits! Better to share a horny and sexually heitened partner than have exclusive rights on a miserable one…
🙂
If the majority of men will follow BlackDragons Alpha 2.0 example, the system will collapse like a big Ponzi scheme. If women want to fu©k two times per week and men three times, of course with fertile young women, simple arithmetic shows that sexual frequency will drop to two or less. Women will get bored for being used as fuxktoys and look for more interesting men. Meanwhile the 2.0s will fish in a smaller and smaller sharkpool. A strategy need we that increase the sluttiness and sexual craving of women. More cake we need, instead of fighting for a small piece of cake.
Even if my ideas became mainstream knowledge, only 10% of men (at most) would actually follow them. So you have nothing to worry about.
Stop worrying about what other men might do and focus on your own life instead. Alpha 2.0 will make you a happier man.
What makes you think so? It does not make sense. Your method guarantees a lot of sex with a lot of women, no relationship drama and no alimony (again, as long as not too many men practice it). So, from the perspective of the average male, it is a superior lifestyle. After the guru’s (you and other dating coaches) and their clientèle (the trendsetters) live this new life style, the followers will imitate it. Like they did before in human history. We are an ape species and apes imitate.
That said, I like your e-book regarding your advice how to live your life as an independent man, as well as your attitude to life in general.
Because you have to…
1. Completely go against all the SP you were raised with.
2. Be okay if your wife or girlfriend fucks other men.
3. Piss off most of your family.
No, from the perspective of the brave male seeking real happiness, it is. But most men are not brave (betas) nor seek real happiness (Alpha 1.0’s).
Gonna be honest, the idea of a girl I like and have a connection with (no homo) fucking another dude makes me squirm….even if I’m spinning a sidepiece or two on the side. Some would say “hypocritical,” I see why, but I chalk it up to biology. Was this ever an issue for you or have you always had the “fuck whoever you want” attitude towards your OLTR/main piece?
I find the answer to 35 and 39 to be disingenuous. Everything else is fine and makes sense. Apart from the financial (tax and insurance) benefits, where I disagree with you. That’s easily solvable however, since like you, you can have an OLTR. However, with your answers to 35 and 39 basically say “we’ll see”. It assumes that the person is lying, or that that’s not possible, or that they’re just plain wrong, and you seem to be pushing an agenda rather than engaging, which I wouldn’t expect from someone as intellectually clear as you.
My response to those would have been that, just as you elsewhere have defined success and failure yardsticks for your marriage, so may have other people, and for them they may have achieved the necessary success to constitute “work” in which they, like you, are now giving advice about their “working” marriage life, ragardless or maybe in spite of perfection. Your answers on those two go against the choice paradigm you’re trying to establish (it’s your choice; here’s my view and my benefits).
47 reasons and you don’t like 2 of them? I think I win.
BlackDragon, you are assuming the current society which is quite conservative, but in flux, will continue to be in existence in the future. In fact, we currently see fast shifts, in which polyamory is becoming mainstream. Once polyamory is the cultural norm, no bravery is required any more to pursue this lifestyle. It will rather be the opposite.
The same applies for the pursuance of real happiness. Only religion is holding people back from a hedonistic lifestyle, and religion is disappearing. Consequently, we will see 50-60 percent or more of alpha male 2.0 hunters, fishing in the shallow pond of young, fertile women. I guess, only sex robots, or physical rejuvenation technology for women, can solve the obvious dilemma here.
PS: I prefer older women myself, as I am not enamored with the childish behaviour of young adolescent women.