Monogamy / Nonmonogamy Issues

The following is an excerpt from my book, 10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do To Find Real Love and illustrates my approach for couples who decide to be monogamous or nonmonogamous.

If you and your partner choose to have responsible monogamy (or responsible nonmonogamy), it’s imperative that you have effective communication. Without it, you risk ruining your relationship. Healthy, open and effective communication is like an antivirus program on a computer.

The trouble is, no matter how healthy your relationship, opening it up to others is never fully free from opening it to problems. If you decide to have an open relationship, that's the risk you take. But doing so doesn’t necessarily mean there is anything inherently wrong in your relationship.

I used to believe that if I saw a couple—socially or in therapy, straight or gay—who were open and swingers, automatically I assumed they had some kind of attachment disorder or other problem that prevented them from enjoying full intimacy. Now, after more than twenty years as a therapist, I have seen all sorts of couples able to make it work without creating problems in their relationships. I have seen many even get better as a result of opening the relationship! It is about what works for the couple, not what someone else believes should or shouldn’t work. The couple themselves should decide, not friends or therapists.

I began working with a gay male couple who told me that they were monogamous. After several months, however, they informed me they had had a three-way. When I asked if they had changed from monogamy, they said, “No.”

I was confused. Maybe I hadn’t gotten the correct information in our initial consultation? I told them, “I thought you told me you were monogamous,” and they said, “We are.” Now I was really confused! I said, “But you just told me that you had had a three-way.”

Their reply was, “We are monogamous. We only have three-ways together, and are never sexual with others apart from each other.” Okay, now I was slowly getting it.

I quickly learned to ask what a couple means when they say they’re monogamous. Now, in fact, I routinely ask each couple, gay or straight, what their contract is around sex and commitment. Do they have an assumed or an explicit contract, verbal or otherwise? I don’t assume that every couple or individual who comes in for therapy is in an open or closed relationship. Nor do I assume that they have—or haven’t—talked about it.

Books on affairs have been exploding in the self-help market over the past ten years. This seems to acknowledge the lack of conversation and openness among couples, gay or straight, that leads to ruptures in relationships and exits from intimacy.

Open relationships are controversial, to be sure. Claiming that gay male couples can show how to manage them successfully is even more controversial, at a time when the issue of gay marriage is making headlines. Yet many heterosexual couples’ lives are torn apart because of affairs and cheating; and only rarely do these couples talk openly about their sex lives. This is far worse than a couple talking openly and honestly with each other about a sensitive topic like sexuality.

Recommended Reading

"Monogamous Ever After?" by Joe Kort