The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
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Notes -
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?
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.
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