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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   2253 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for September 27, 2023

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Married men of The Motte, how do you “make peace with” life-long monogamy?

I’m a heterosexual male. During my 20s and early 30s, I had a non-trivial amount of novel sexual experience (probably averaging 2 or 3 new sex partners each year over this period, with exceptions for years in which I was in various committed relationships). Now, I’m old (40). I’ve had a girlfriend for a long time (5 years), and I’m considering marriage.

The thing is though, I’m freaked out by the idea of only having sex with one woman for the rest of my life. I get really uncomfortable watching Will Ferrell’s character in “Old School.”

I doubt my girlfriend would accept a non-monogamous relationship (I don’t even really want this myself), and I don't intend to be unfaithful (if only because the stress / feelings of guilt would eat me alive). I've always preferred vanilla sex; novelty's my only kink.

Should men like myself seek to "make peace with" life-long monogamy? If so, where do I start?

Do you have principles? I mean, you are letting lust get in the way of love here, and if your principles cannot override your emotions, well, you don't really have principles then!

I mean, it's not like you can affirm this lust as some kind of important value. It's just a strong emotion. It can't even be that strong: 2 or 3 new partners a year? How long were the dry spells then? Were they so unbearable? This time, it's not like you won't be having sex, so it's not like you're signing up for one long dry spell either.

I've struggled with this too buddy. Despite what @George_E_Hale says, I've talked to quite a lot of married men grappling with this problem and I'd say that your position is the norm. Most men who get married aren't ready for it, and are nervous often in an existential way about being with one woman for the rest of their life. It's a serious commitment.

First off, it's a damn good thing that you take it this seriously and think about the long term consequences. Most men don't do this, just sort of put the ring on and get carried on a wave of infatuation and short-term thinking. This type of spontaneous decision making is what our short-term consumerist society loves to perpetuate, and it's foolish. In my humble opinion, it's the reason so many marriages end in heartbreak nowadays. Two immature children deciding to make a serious commitment based on fleeting feelings.

Now I'm not married, although I hope to be relatively soon. And I can strongly relate to what you've written here, hell I could've written this bit myself:

I doubt my girlfriend would accept a non-monogamous relationship (I don’t even really want this myself), and I don't intend to be unfaithful (if only because the stress / feelings of guilt would eat me alive). I've always preferred vanilla sex; novelty's my only kink.

I can say what has helped me get over the nerves and 'settle in' to the idea a bit more is understanding the full tradeoff. I can't find it after a quick search, but the great @FiveHourMarathon responded to one of my older posts here explaining this. Picking a wife can be seen as kind of like an intense game of poker. Yes, of course it's exciting to keep betting and betting and trying to win bigger and bigger. Get more and more novelty. But eventually you're going to be faced with a choice. You'll have to decide to go all-in. And ultimately if you never decide to put everything on the line, if you always waffle and place small bets, you're probably never going to win shit. You're always going to have to risk something if you want a true reward.

It depends on what you want out of your life. Not marrying the girl and going for a string of shorter term relationships is probably the safer option. You'll get fleeting pleasure, you won't have to change who you are much, you'll have a lot more control over your life. But you also won't get the lasting satisfaction of knowing there's a person you love there to reach out to when you wake up at 3am questioning all your life decisions. You won't learn what it's like to have to truly self-reflect, because you have a partner that knows you a damn sight better than you know yourself and who's willing to call you on it when you're being a hypocrite.

Most importantly, you really won't know what it means to commit to something, deep down. I've been learning that there is no commitment without risk, without sacrificing a part of yourself. I'm sure @FlyingLionWithABook can pull up the full quote, but C.S. Lewis said it well in Mere Christianity:

It is just the people who are ready to submit to the loss of the thrill and settle down to the sober interest, who are then most likely to meet new thrills in some quite different direction.

I've found that the more I'm willing to sacrifice the childish part of myself that just wants to bang chicks and live free, the more depth and beauty I've been able to find in my own relationship. The icy walls I've put up around my heart have started to melt, just a little, and I've managed to glimpse what it really means to open yourself to someone else. It's terrifying, breaking open, but there's a beauty and intensity in that vulnerable surrender that I've only found elsewhere in literally feeling the divinity of God.

To answer your question as to where to start, I'd recommend reading about journeys to maturity and what it means to become a true adult. You'll quickly find that most people in the modern West are childish, never even truly reaching the stage of early adulthood, as Bill Plotkin outlines well in his work on discussing the human soul and the stages we go through.. You could also check out Jung's Man and his Symbols, or go into the Constructivist framework and look at Piaget's writing or Kegan levels.

There's no easy way to get around the idea of marriage. Frankly it's a hell of a difficult journey, as it's one of the only serious decisions and commitments men have left to make in the West. But even if it stresses you out on a deep level and makes you question your life, it's also an opportunity for you to grow and mature. Decide what kind of person you want to be, and commit. That's the best advice I can give you.

I'm sure FlyingLionWithABook can pull up the full quote,

Speak of the devil, and he shall (eventually) appear!

People get from books the idea that if you have married the right person you may expect to go on "being in love" for ever. As a result, when they find they are not, they think this proves they have made a mistake and are entitled to a change—not realising that, when they have changed, the glamour will presently go out of the new love just as it went out of the old one. In this department of life, as in every other, thrills come at the beginning and do not last. The sort of thrill a boy has at the first idea of flying will not go on when he has joined the R.A.F. and is really learning to fly. The thrill you feel on first seeing some delightful place dies away when you really go to live there.

Does this mean it would be better not to learn to fly and not to live in the beautiful place? By no means. In both cases, if you go through with it, the dying away of the first thrill will be compensated for by a quieter and more lasting kind of interest. What is more (and I can hardly find words to tell you how important I think this), it is just the people who are ready to submit to the loss of the thrill and settle down to the sober interest, who are then most likely to meet new thrills in some quite different direction. The man who has learned to fly and becomes a good pilot will suddenly discover music; the man who has settled down to live in the beauty spot will discover gardening.

This is, I think, one little part of what Christ meant by saying that a thing will not really live unless it first dies. It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: that is the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go—let it die away—go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow —and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life.

It is because so few people understand this that you find many middle-aged men and women maundering about their lost youth, at the very age when new horizons ought to be appearing and new doors opening all round them. It is much better fun to learn to swim than to go on endlessly (and hopelessly) trying to get back the feeling you had when you first went paddling as a small boy.

Thank you. I think this is very helpful. I look at various of the married guys I work with and it's hard to tell whether their boring-seeming (to me) lives are actually full of these hidden, rich wellsprings of "beauty and intensity," or whether it's all a lie I should run from without looking back. A lot depends on the person, I guess.

I look at various of the married guys I work with and it's hard to tell whether their boring-seeming (to me) lives are actually full of these hidden, rich wellsprings of "beauty and intensity," or whether it's all a lie I should run from without looking back.

The vast majority of adults I've interacted with are broken from trauma and have learned to repress their emotions to a large degree in order to function in their workplaces. It's not an enviable life, in my opinion, as the costs are high. Learning to be a passionate and intense person is difficult work though, not for the faint of heart.

It depends. On what? In how much you love her. And your relationship. And whatever it is you both build out of it, whatever family you make. It depends on how committed you both are to fidelity, how much of a deal breaker it is. It will also depend on how careless you allow yourself to be by putting yourself into situations where you'll be tempted to stray--and let me assure you now that there are and will be many, many such situations unless you willfully and consciously navigate away from them. Pence isn't the fool people make him out to be, at least not in this regard. The clashing rocks, as it were. They'll get you. Then you'll be playing guilt and intrigue games forever. You needn't go far to find examples of this.

It frankly sounds to me that you're not ready. Sex is just sex. The variety of women and women's bodies, that thrill, the hunt, the look, that way a girl's eyes change when she realizes she wants you, how her body language picks up, the little pulses of interest, the smell of her make-up, and hers, and hers. I could go on. I won't. Gold can't buy this. (Of course it can, but not really. Gold buys the facsimile.) Juxtapose that next to growing old with one woman--will she lop off her hair? The inevitable graying and broadening. In both of you. But also the intimacy, the knowing without being told, the chatty suppers, the contented silences, the shared life. Trust. Is anything more valuable?

I won't--can't-- tell you which you are meant for. One or the other. Or maybe neither. If you're lucky you have a choice, and you can fuck up either one easily. Good luck.

Edit: 18 1/2 years of marriage here.

I think this nicely acknowledges some of the individual variation / tradeoffs involved. I've noticed a trend in life-advice-giving where people are often wrong, but never in doubt. So, you'll have someone ask whether he should pursue his dream of quitting accounting to become a painter, and one person will write back that he definitely, 100% should, and the next person will respond that he definitely, 100% shouldn't.

I don't understand the "clashing rocks" comparison. I understand (from Google) that it's a reference to the Symplegades from Greek myth, but what the relevance is of that story is lost on me.

My metaphors don't always hit. I was referring to the dangers of navigating interactions with other women, and how reading the wind wrong can sink your ship suddenly and unexpectedly, i.e. wreck your marriage or torpedo the trust of your marriage, which is little better.

It frankly sounds to me that you're not ready. Sex is just sex. The variety of women and women's bodies, that thrill, the hunt, the look, that way a girl's eyes change when she realizes she wants you, how her body language picks up, the little pulses of interest, the smell of her make-up, and hers, and hers. I could go on. I won't.

It frankly sounds to me like you've forgotten the lust you dealt with as a young man, or were never that driven by lust in the first place. Bully for you, but for most men it isn't this easy. Otherwise there wouldn't be reams and reams of novels and poetry written about the difficulty and seriousness of the commitment of marriage, not to mention the laws and religious sacraments.

Maybe my wording put you off, I was overly blunt, but you've got me wrong, for whatever it's worth. I married when I was 35, late for guys in my generation. We lived together two years prior to marriage. I'm not now nor was I then immune to lust. I'd have thought my earlier post made that clear.

Also I've seen most of my friends marry and divorce. One of my best friends is about to get married for a third time. I have seen very plainly the arc of love, disenchantment, and failure.

That said, no one has to listen to me. My advice has been ignored before and no doubt will be again.

Yeah sorry I’m projecting a bit here. I just wish the older generation encouraged marriage a bit more and took it more seriously.

I'd like to think I am encouraging it, and taking it very seriously, much like Kierkegaard wrote about Christianity:

I wonder if a man handing another man an extremely sharp, polished, two-edged instrument would hand it over with the air, gestures, and expression of one delivering a bouquet of flowers? Would not this be madness? What does one do, then? Convinced of the excellence of the dangerous instrument, one recommends it unreservedly, to be sure, but in such a way that in a certain sense one warns against it. So it is with Christianity. If what is needed is to be done, we should not hesitate, aware of the highest responsibility, to preach in Christian sermons—yes, precisely in Christian sermons—AGAINST Christianity.

Not to get too heavy. I thought your post offering your own advice was quite good.

To explain a bit more, I suppose I see older married men saying things like “you may not be ready” as part of the problem. I’d rather see older folks who have been through marriage say something more like “you’ll never be ready, it’s difficult, but it’s worth it.”

I’m not married myself so again and I can’t speak for the personal experience. I’m more talking about what would be healthy on a societal level.

I gotcha. I suppose in a way perhaps I think most people may just not be cut out for marriage in today's world because everything is telling them that marriage is a deal you can just renege on later. As opposed to a sacred vow. And I see the choice to opt out as preferable to screwing up kids who have to stomach seeing their parents divorce. But I see your point, certainly, and I'll give it some thought the next time I am tempted to jump in with dubious advice. Thanks for clarifying.

marriage is a deal you can just renege on later.

Yeah this is the shitty part. It's sad how normalized divorce has become, really shows just how heartbreakingly immature the West is. We can't have one damn adult commitment we don't break.

Same way I make peace with any other set of mutually exclusive choices I have to make. Say you choose to become a doctor instead of a professional musician. Certain doors are opened by that decision, and certain doors are closed. You gain certain experiences, you lose out on others. If those tradeoffs aren't ones you can live with then you need to make a different choice. Otherwise, you have to accept the tradeoffs. Nobody can have everything. You have to choose what you care about most and decide accordingly.

I like how this response emphasizes tradeoffs. Sometimes (or often, or always) the best realistic outcome isn't a perfect one.

Mix it up. Get into dress-up and roleplay. If your wife dyes her hair or does it up differently than usual or wears something out-of-character, it'll trick your hindbrain into thinking she's someone else.

Depending on what her favorite genre of literature is, she probably has some cringe sexual fantasies, possibly to do with pirates, vampires, or the like. Compare notes and come up with some RP scenarios.

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