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| ▲ | sheepscreek a day ago | parent [-] | | He would spend a week with a special friend every year (they'd hike together?), and this was in his marriage contract. That woman is now a VC. You can easily find out more if you google this. | | |
| ▲ | selcuka a day ago | parent | next [-] | | They didn't have a marriage contract (prenup) but it looks like the weekend agreement was real. It might be verbal. | |
| ▲ | qurren a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | And his wife was okay with this? wtf .. | | |
| ▲ | altairprime a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Lots of wives would be okay with this! It isn’t a betrayal of trust, it’s not an open-ended arrangement with unknown scope and terrors, it’s plainly declared up front, it’s so infrequent that it has little to no risk of displacing the primary marriage relationship, it minimizes jealousy, it isn’t a side fling that could be stumbled across by accident in the everyday by the wife, it’s a controlled outlet for long-term desires, it’s not likely to cause financial distraction, dependency, or drain. And that’s just ninety seconds worth of solid good reasons :) | | |
| ▲ | bigstrat2003 a day ago | parent [-] | | > Lots of wives would be okay with this! I think "lots" is vastly overstating it. Yes, there are women who would be ok with that, but in my experience they are greatly in the minority. Most women (and men to be fair) do not like if they don't have an exclusive claim on their spouse, even if it's being done in the open. | | |
| ▲ | altairprime a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Sure, I would not lightly or unthinkingly be okay with a potential husband entering into such an arrangement, but I also wouldn’t consider anyone as a potential husband if I would never allow them it for their lack of communication groundwork or trustworthy straightforwardness. If I have so little faith in him coming home to me after a once a year camping trip that clearly never became more before me, then I have no business marrying him in the first place! Sure, I may or may not like it — this varies rather sharply based on how readily they can bear a few days of jealousy with grace and good cheer — but marriage is no more about avoiding “do not like” than it is about confirming to the handfasted stereotypes of American monogamy and cheating. One campaign trip a year is three nines of reliability with a scheduled maintenance window rather than unpredictable outages and months of undiscovered foreign key violations corrupting the relational store. Take a lesson from tech: Three nines of uptime is quite sufficient to build something amazing and valuable to the right customers. We women (and anyone of any gender!) don’t have to implement Six Sigma to enter into a monogamous marriage marriage, but at least here in the U.S. we do care a great deal about proper outage notifications and root cause analyses and considering how to schedule and conduct future outages to minimize surprise harms. I would far rather target a couple of nines with a healthy process that doesn’t unduly harm the personnel involved than target six nines and live a dull life full of control-heavy, energy-draining grayness. Some people will just naturally hit 100% uptime without breaking a sweat; others will design and commit only to 99.0% but will do so with such grace and courtesy that an unexpected multi-month monogamy outage after years of impeccable courtesy and communication evokes compassion and patience and excitement for their return, rather than outrage and viciousness as defective coping mechanisms for their absence. (Come home soon, AO3.) | | |
| ▲ | AWTom 18 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Fantastic writing, despite the context you really took me by surprise with the uptime analogy. | | |
| ▲ | famouswaffles 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Is a comparison with machines the best analogy to deal woth human relationships? | |
| ▲ | altairprime 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Thanks! It stemmed from a thought about how “always” is not 100.0% but more like 99% in human being things, and trying to convey that people operate at varying levels of ‘always’, which bridged sideways to six sigma monogamy. It’s going to be a fun analogy to work with for sure :) |
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| ▲ | altairprime 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | *conforming, *camping (sigh) | |
| ▲ | famouswaffles 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | ncruces a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | There's billions of women in the world. A small minority can still be lots. | |
| ▲ | sejje 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If the man is a billionaire, you're wrong--lots of women would be okay with that. | | | |
| ▲ | wiseowise a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | > but in my experience they are greatly in the minority. That’s just because you’re poor. > Most women (and men to be fair) do not like if they don't have an exclusive claim on their spouse, even if it's being done in the open. That’s because it is frowned upon to declare something like this publicly. |
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| ▲ | jandrewrogers a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I can explain it. There is something in it for the wife. The world is a bit more "House of Cards" than some people assume. Aside from the French and a few others, western cultures seem almost uniquely dishonest about the tacit assumption that successful men will have mistresses. This isn't a new thing. Warren Buffett was essentially married to two women most of his life and no one cared. Many wives highly value the accrued status of being formally married to a high-status person. You can take half the money but the social status doesn't follow. No one cares about a billionaire divorcee with no status beyond a bank account. | |
| ▲ | subscribed a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | So what's the problem if the consenting adult is okay with their partner having a consensual relationship with another adult? You've lost me here. | |
| ▲ | wiseowise a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Why not? They’re both grownups with brains to think for themselves. | |
| ▲ | f6v a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Ok we’re back to pitchforking (possible) open relationships now? You know very little about their dynamics. You lack information and frankly any justification to judge. | | |
| ▲ | qurren 18 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm not pitchforking the concept, if everyone involved is honest with each other. However, the reality is the vast majority of people are not okay with open relationships. Call it 20% of relationships, which I think is generous. It's fishy that at the CEO level the percentage of these "open relationships" is close to 100%. |
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| ▲ | WesolyKubeczek a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | She should have an equal provision about her special friend. Or a personal trainer. | |
| ▲ | sejje a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Billions, remember? | | |
| ▲ | qurren a day ago | parent [-] | | He didn't have billions at the start of his marriage. | | |
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| ▲ | vrganj a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I don't know about their specific arrangement, but in some relationships, having other partners is not only accepted, but actively used to reinforce the primary relationships. If you accept your partner has those urges, you can either treat it antagonistically and have those urges become a problem in your relationship or you can absorb them into your relationship and have it be strengthened by them. You either become the one being cheated on and weakened or the one in control with a relationship strong enough to not be threatened by some side action, which in turn makes you a rarer and more valuable mate. Or as a less cynical take, there's also the phenomenom of compersion, the ability to feel joy from a partner's happiness with other people. If you truly care for somebody and want them to be as happy as possible, you might be willing to set your ego aside to create that experience. And of course, that sort of security is again very attractive and a rare trait in itself. | | |
| ▲ | disiplus a day ago | parent [-] | | what kind of answer is this. i bet you would not like (if you had) your wife going around and fucking other people except if you where a cuck. | | |
| ▲ | wiseowise a day ago | parent | next [-] | | > If you accept | |
| ▲ | vrganj a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Don't assume how other people structure their relationships, don't project your values onto them. Not everyone sees things through the lens of ego, ownership and male dominance. Not everyone has to live their life the way you see fit. I've given you an explanation of why some people structure their relationship that way, why are you reacting so defensively? Does what other adults consent to make you feel threatened? Why? | | |
| ▲ | disiplus a day ago | parent [-] | | Because this is stupid. Idk where you are, but I can say that in the circles I'm in, and this spans multiple European countries, fucking around ends up in divorces when the other Partner finds out. I'm old enough to have kids and saw it and talked with other in those situations. You could be talking about some small subset of people and thats ok. But don't pretend this is somehow spread out. I saw multiple divorces, and only one where the wife staid and it was mostly because it was in the height of economic depression and she was stay at home mom. I don't care for internet points here and down votes. I would like to you to try to present your point to your wife or anybody in your circles and give me an answer. | | |
| ▲ | Fargren a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Most relationships are as you describe. Many relationships aren't(I don't know the numbers, but I would guess somewhere between 1% to 10%, either of which I would qualify as many). It's also extremely different to agree that some amount of extra-marital sex is OK, to being cheated on without being aware. The betrayal of trust is to me the main problem with cheaters. | |
| ▲ | vrganj a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | >fucking around ends up in divorces when the other Partner finds out. I don't think you've fully absorbed the point I've made. I agree with your sentence here - but I'd argue that it is a symptom of a societal construct that is counter to our biological reality which one can fix by making it so there's nothing to be found out. If you discuss rules and boundaries beforehand like emotionally mature adults, there's no element of betrayal or breach of trust. > I would like to you to try to present your point to your wife. I've been in my current relationship for close to two decades. Not a wife, because we like the idea of being with a person that chooses to be with one every day by their own volition, not by some legal contract rooted in patriarchal control. While we're currently monogamous, we've went through several phases where we invited other partners into the fold, with the consent of everybody involved. Some of those were even longer-term, multi-year repeat encounters. At no point did it diminish my love for her or hers for me. To the contrary, it's made us appreciate each other more and shown us that our relationship is strong enough to prioritize each other's well-being over our jealous need for control. | | |
| ▲ | sarchertech a day ago | parent [-] | | > prioritize each other's well-being over our selfish egos The desire to sleep around is obviously a desire to feed your own selfish ego. This is where I have a problem when people try to defend this. If you’re honest that you like to sleep around and you found a partner that likes to sleep around, fine. But the I have evolved beyond the quaint social mores of the unenlightened bit is silly. | | |
| ▲ | vrganj a day ago | parent [-] | | Yeah, I edited because I realized it could come across more confrontational than I intended. That being said, it is - whether we like it or not - an observed biological mechanism that humans, like a lot of other species, like to sleep around and that they are attracted to new sexual partners after being with the same one for a long time. [0] Once we accept that, the question becomes one of management. Do we use our free will to override these urges to fit social norms better or or do we instead trust each other to uncouple the biology from the emotional bond? Different couples might come to different conclusions at different times, but they are both not without risks and both require thoughtful compromise and communication. The superiority is not towards people in monogamous relationships - that's how ours is structured right now too! It is towards people that use language like "cuck", that implies somebody's worth is defined by their monogamy, language that brings all sorts of weird vibes of male ownership of female bodies and a lessening of men who do not subscribe to such views. There's nothing wrong with either monogamy or ethical non-monogamy, just do what works for you and your partner and don't be a dick about it! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolidge_effect |
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| ▲ | asksomeoneelse a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | I remember reading about an email he sent to the "special friend". It definitely felt like she wasn't okay with this. |
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