Monogamy vs Polygamy: So personally speaking, I’ve the polygamy side of things, I feel monogamy forces the hand of the mind to do the work on myself that allows me to show up fully with one person. Fostering the idea that I am enough as I am, and as flawed as I can be, given a safe environment of a relationship, that relationship could become corrective in my self sabotaging behaviours. Where as I found polygamy, I didn’t have to look at myself in that way, it’s like, oh I’ll connect with this other person because they can handle this aspect of me, and this other person can handle this aspect of me. Which in a way seems a little short changed when it comes to self worth. I appreciate cheating is a big crux in the argument between both. One side can see it as the worst of all evils, the other santises it by calling it ‘maturity’ as if having sex outside of a commitment is inevitable and we just should accept it. I personally feel that there is a large portion of folk who cheat because they’re like a ‘deer in headlights’ and they (on limbic system/primal state aka fight or flight) want to win in some way. Quite often you have someone emotionally brutal, gaslighting, stonewalling, manipulative person taking someone on as a partner providing a false sense of emotional safety. Then over time they ebb away at someone and then the someone feels the need to go find affection elsewhere to satiate that need primal need for closeness,appreciation and kindness, albeit morally in the wrong place. I’ve been on both sides, and as the partner doing the cheating I felt emotionally trapped and estranged from my partner at the time. And as for being cheated on, I was young and hurt at the time and didn’t know how to treat someone in a way that wasn’t appropriate; emotionally elusive, pressure and just not bringing love to the table, to much of an imaginary high bar. Now I have seen a few healthy and successful polygamous relationships, very few, and I’ve found monogamous ones do really well if they’re both introspective and have the ability to bring issues to the table with grace and safety ‘we listen and we don’t judge’ vibes. TBH, I don’t want to be in a polygamous relationship, I’ve realised that over recent years. Though it feels like that’s seemingly all that’s on offer. It feels for me, by and large it’s all about ‘gay on holidays with other men’, concerning themselves with circuit parties and who can collect the most amount of semi naked photos with hot men. To me that all feels very vacuous, what kinda home, future and family can be built if that is the foundation, especially if I’m trying to stop generational trauma. Am I the only one, I know I’m not, but the self indulgent victim within me definitely feels that isolation and urgency to assimilate.