We are a happily married, professional couple from Toronto, Canada, together since 2011, who have been exploring the wide world of consensual non-monogamy from the beginning of our relationship. We’d like to share our journey with as many people as possible. As we try to put our thoughts into words, maybe we’ll understand our journey a little better ourselves.
Our mission is to give you a clear window into all the ups and downs of our sexual adventures, not sugar-coat them. The stories we tell are absolutely true, and the emotional responses are as raw and unedited as we can portray them, but names and some details have been changed to protect the identity of our friends.
If you want to know more about us and our thinking around non-monogamy, check out our introductory post, Monogamish Marriage.
If you have questions or topics you’d like us to cover, please leave a comment, email us at themonogamishmarriage@gmail.com, or tweet at us @Monogamish1.
Just wanted to say how much I value reading your blog, it’s very well crafted, I particularly like the preceding art work which I find provokes open thought. Your web site has given me fresh insight and made me understand and appreciate the relationship I have with my fabulous wife. When is the next instalment of your adventures I very much look forward to them. All the best
I really hope you continue to post beyond the 1 year. Your frank written “conversations” have been extremely helpful (& entertaining!) as my wife & I have started to explore consenual non-monogamy.
Hi there! Greetings from the east coast of Australia. I found your blog whilst listening to C & D’s excellent “Swinging Downunder”, and I must say that I love you guys and what you’re doing, what you’re writing. I find your posts insightful and educational. You’ve helped my immensely in my journey. So, thanks, quite sincerely. A bit about me… I’m on the edge of fifty, married to a wonderful woman who is a year older (I feel like a toy-boy!), for the past twenty-eight years come September. We have two girls, both grown and moved out. Empty nesting is awesome. I can walk about in my “all-together” anytime I want! We are both Christians and are active in our church. However… Last year, whilst on a cruise, I experienced something completely out of the ordinary for me, something that I didn’t understand at the time, and quite confusing. My wife sensed something, but didn’t say anything at the time. I found myself attracted to another couple that we met. They were younger than us, just starting out really. She was cute, but at the time I didn’t imagine having sex with her, it was just attraction. But not to her specifically. To the both of them. As a couple. Now I know what was “wrong” with me. Now I know what I am. I’m an “ethical non-monogamist”. At least philosophically. Practically, I am living a monogamous life. My wife doesn’t know this, although there has been some talk about opening our marriage (me giving her some stories — I’m a writer — that detailed me fantasies of us in threesomes and foursomes — so pretty obvious there, I think) which was shut down fairly quickly with some excellent communication stoppers (“you don’t want an open marriage, do you? Because that’s not what I signed up for.” Then she dropped the D-bomb!). Since then, we’ve been operating on the “don’t ask, don’t tell principle, which effectively communicates he unwillingness to know me as a person, which is frustrating as hell. Having said all of that, generally there is great love and respect. The sex is great, though not as much as I’d like — another frustration. Like you, I’ve been keeping track. We average about four times a month, but sometimes there are three week gaps which drives me insane. I can only image what twice a month would be like consistently. My heart went out to you when I read that.he has become more comfortable about showing her body to me, and doing things that she has never done before. So, credit definitely where credit is due. I mentioned the fact that we are Christians deliberately. I read that you mentioned going to church at one point and also a reference to that ten commandments. It seems to me, by my research, that there are a large number of “people of faith” in the lifestyle and this intrigued me. I myself had to reconcile what I though were unassailable differences in order to get where I am today. I’d like to share some of my thoughts, if I may. But before I do, I would like to apologize on behalf of the true followers of Jesus, the ones that are not afraid to show love to others and who do not judge or condemn. I see pain in your past because of the teaching of the church through your first marriage. I believe that teaching to be wrong and harmful. I don’t know what denomination you were/are. I can only speak from mine — baptist. I have three points to make. Firstly: the church did not start sex-negative. It was a initially a Jewish sect — and the Jews were not sex-negative. They had their rules and patriarchy, yes, but they also had plural marriage. After the original Jewish leaders of the church died (John, c100ce) it was taken over by the Greeks. They were steeped in the philosophies of Plato and others, which valued the mind over the body. Any function of the body (especially sexual functions) were deemed base and to be sacrificed for learning and spiritual enlightenment. Nor were they particularly monogamous. This was introduced around the same time by the Romans, who valued monogamy and thought any other was uncivilized. They also enjoyed the odd orgy, so go figure. The church embraced these two ideals in order to win converts. Secondly: the ten commandments… Often these set of commands are put forward as the cornerstone of our moral framework. And there is a lot of validity in this assertion. But only from a moral standpoint. Who has a problem with not murdering anyone? What about stealing? Adultery? I’ll get back to that one. But what is almost universally forgotten, is those commands were delivered to a specific people, in a specific time, for a specific purpose. None of those three things apply today, to anyone. Moreover, in the case of adultery, the actual meaning of that word in that original context is no longer valid today. We like to apply our own twenty-first century (actually, lets go back to the Victorian era) meaning to the word found in the ten commandments. Sorry, but they aren’t compatible. You can do your own reading on this, but essentially it meant: an Israelite man would not “lie with another Israelite’s wife”. That sounds fair enough for them back then and had very real connotations: property (the wife was the husband’s property) and lineage (no birth control meant that any child produced could be the lover’s just as much as the husband’s and this was a real problem with inheritance and passing on blessings from father to son). But neither of these connotations are relevant today. Wives are (or should be) not property, and we have the pill and condoms. We are better to follow Jesus’ excellent summation: love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. In other words, if consent is given, and everyone is happy and loved, and no one gets intentionally hurt, then there is no law from God that should stop you from enjoying a wide range of sexual activities. Thirdly, picking and choosing… We seem to have this problem (human beings in general, that is) with taking a book like the bible and picking and choosing what makes our case. We come to the bible with a firm idea about what we believe and natural chose what verses justify that idea. For centuries the bible justified slavery, misogyny and racism. We, increasingly, have seen the error of our ways, but there is still a long way to go. Gay people now, in my country, are allowed to marry. (This in some way was the start of my journey, because of what the gay-marriage-vote would mean to my gay daughter — interestingly, my wife wanted my daughter to be happy and be free to express her sexuality as it came naturally to her, but does not feel like extending the same blessing to her husband. I know, that is just one facet of a very complex issue). But, I believe, we need to approach the bible from a holistic point of view. The bible, in fact, covers a very wide range of sexual relationships. If we were to consider a scale of sexual partners (I’m using this term, rather the “wives”, because I want to make the men that this scale represents into “people” or men and women, that have been granted the same rights — Jesus gave women the same rights as men when he showed up the religious leaders’ preference for men in the case of divorce — but that is another story). At one end of the scale — zero — we have Jesus and Paul — both pushing celibacy. It’s tempting to take their view as the “best” situation for the spiritual life, but stay with me. Going up, we have Abraham and Isaac and Jacob with more than one wife — let’s say two. And then, at the other end, we have David and Solomon, both with one-hundred plus sexual partners! Busy guys indeed. The bible actually says nothing about God having a problem with any arrangement above one sexual partner. In fact, the opposite is true. Hebrews 11 lists many individuals from this scale, from many points along it. All of them given great honor as having “great faith”. I want to look at David. The bible goes to great length extolling his position in respect to God. He was blessed with great wealth and many sexual partners. But he fell, taking another man’s wife (without his consent) and having the man murdered in order to prevent shame from the ensuring pregnancy. Interestingly, according to the law, he should have been stoned. I wonder if the reason was that neither the husband nor the wife were Jewish. Regardless, God sends a prophet to tell David that his sin did not go unnoticed. Nathan, the prophet, says something very interesting: all of David’s blessings (including multiple sexual partners) came from God — and in fact, God would have given him more had he asked. Now you know what I pray for every night! Therefore, no amount of sexual partners has any relevance to spirituality. In fact, as we’ve seen with David, it is a blessing. Try telling that to your local pastor/minister/reverend! The entity of the bible, instead of giving a mixed message, actually tells us that God doesn’t care about how may people we sleep with, or even who, just as long as we love and care for them. Finally, and not part of my three points, I’d like to offer one other observation. This would probably get me burnt at the stake, but I think it’s an interesting point to make… Jesus dies c30ce. The first gospel was written c60ce. Now, I have trouble remembering exactly what I did last week, let alone the exact wording of any conversation I had. Anything thirty years ago? Forget about it. Literally. The words and actions of Jesus were “remembered” through oral tradition and very human memories of the men that walked and talked with him. What is the likelihood of Jesus’ exact words being inaccurately recalled? And yet, we examine and dissect every one of them, squeezing out any meaning we can — then we base our whole life on those words. Does that sound, in any way, sensible to you? And then, when we question, we are told to “have faith”. But what are we having faith in? We have faith in those that tell us to believe the words they tell us, as if that come from God himself. I have no doubt, in most occasions, there are very good intentions. No one is trying to deceive. But, what if they have been deceived themselves. Still thinking about that one. I guess, the overall point I’m making here, is that the bible actually does not condemn the lifestyle. It condemns people acting without a good and pure heart — in any circumstance. Anyway, thanks again for your thought-provoking posts and I look forward to the next one with anticipation. Dave. (Sorry, a lot of words here!)
Hi Dave…we are SO SORRY we missed this heartfelt (not to mention extremely well written) note earlier this year. We just read it together tonight and wanted to express how much we feel for you. Life is complicated and it’s clear you are working hard to reconcile the realities of your circumstances with your evolving ideals. We are happy to hear that our blog has been some kind of help. What you want for yourself and your wife is a good thing, and we wish you the best in making progress toward your goal.
Hi,
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Good luck!
We love your podcast. The Mr and I feel that you are our kindred spirits. So many things you say feel like looking in a mirror. Thanks.
Thank you so much for writing. It’s so gratifying to hear when our message resonates with another couple. Our best to you and your husband!
Really worthwhile information in your podcasts