Monogamy Concessions

I began this post as a response to a com­ment that Tokra wrote to a post by Still Here Too. My thoughts took me far enough away from the orig­i­nal post that I felt they be bet­ter pre­sented stand alone.

There is no deny­ing that choos­ing to live one’s life in a long-term monog­a­mous rela­tion­ship will require per­sonal con­ces­sions. If you are one who believes the path to per­sonal ful­fill­ment is only through the achieve­ment of per­sonal desires over all else, then make no strong com­mit­ments to another.

Per­haps you will be lucky, per­haps you will develop the sin­gu­lar inde­pen­dence nec­es­sary to find ful­fill­ment on your own. Extremely few humans can exist so sep­a­rated from other humans. A very few find ful­fill­ment through a series of fleet­ing friend­ships. I sus­pect these few find them­selves very alone at some point in their life. There are surely some who find ful­fill­ment through many less deep friend­ships. But the major­ity of the rest of human­ity seeks at some point to be a part of a small group rela­tion­ship, most often a pair. Many of the pair rela­tion­ships, pos­si­bly a major­ity, form with the intent of being long-term and for the mem­bers to remain monog­a­mous. A small minor­ity last for the long-term and remain monog­a­mous. The truth is, for either to occur requires con­sid­er­able con­ces­sions on the part of both partners.

Con­ces­sions are not con­sis­tent with achieve­ment of per­sonal desires over all else. I wish I under­stood exactly what makes one cou­ple make the con­ces­sions that another can­not. Look­ing back, I can­not say that the con­ces­sions I have made have always been made con­sciously. Still Here Too, my part­ner, and I been through a lot, espe­cially my health issues early in our time together that per­haps cou­pled us in a way that is dif­fer­ent than with many other pairs. It is not that there is a sense of owing a debt to Still Here Too. It is more a sense of con­ti­nu­ity and under­stand­ing that I feel.

So do I feel that giv­ing up a per­sonal desire for some self plea­sure to see to the needs of Still Here Too makes me a “serf” as Tokra seemed to imply? Absolutely not. Do I believe that Still Here Too is bound by some debt to serve me because I have given up some per­sonal desires? Absolutely not. Do I believe that I owe Still Here Too any debt for per­sonal desires she has given up? Absolutely not. I believe Still Here Too and I have made these con­ces­sions not as repay­ment of any debt, not because we are in a state of serf­dom under either of each other, but because the known joys of a joint exis­tence greatly out­weigh the con­ceiv­able delights of a sep­a­rated life.

To say there are no per­sonal desires that would have not devel­oped dif­fer­ently had I not spent the last forty years with Still Here Too would be a fan­tasy. To say that I know how those devel­op­ments would have turned out would be delu­sional. I do not really won­der about it much at all. All of that is in the past. Are there still some per­sonal desires that I might wish to explore. Absolutely. Will all of the per­sonal desires mesh with Still Here Too’s per­sonal desires? I am fairly cer­tain from past expe­ri­ence that some will, some will be accept­able to her, and some will be unac­cept­able. I am also just as fairly cer­tain from past expe­ri­ence that those that mesh with her desires we will pur­sue with great rel­ish, those that are accept­able to her we will dis­cuss and pur­sue per­haps after some adjust­ment, and those that are unac­cept­able will fade from thought (except for the very few where I am sud­denly sur­prised by the con­ver­sa­tion that comes up later when she says, “do you remem­ber when you men­tioned? I have been thinking”.

I am not sure where my career will go, where and how we will live, what new activ­i­ties will be enter­ing our still very active sex life. But I do know what­ever hap­pens will be some of each of our per­sonal desires and some con­ces­sion to each of our per­sonal desires. The con­ces­sions will not be sac­ri­fices. They just are part of what we are.

As I said above, I have no answer why this is so, it is just the way we are. It does not make us “serfs” to each other. Maybe it is the way we are because we are together, a lot. We touch, we talk, we have sex (after all these years). The con­ces­sions just happen.

Is Still Here