Is sharing your girlfriend wrong?
By
OptimistMinds
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Author bio
The Optimistminds editorial team is made up of psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health professionals. Each article is written by a team member with exposure to and experience in the subject matter. The article then gets reviewed by a more senior editorial member. This is someone with extensive knowledge of the subject matter and highly cited published material.
Society has changed so much that we can no longer say all women, but we can refer instead to some women.
Why are there women who share their lives with more than one partner? Does she really care about one of them? Is sharing your girlfriend wrong?
How psychologists explain women’s relationships with multiple partners
A woman who has several relationships does not love anyone she meets, but she can always lie that she does. It’s so easy.
We cannot look at a woman with multiple sexual partners correctly unless our opinion benefits from the pathological filter.
A person, regardless of sex, who has several sexual relations in parallel or simultaneously, with different partners, we cannot talk about love here. Period.
Psychologically, the woman with several sexual partners may say that one of her multiple relationships represents her inner balance, and the rest of the partners have a role of fun, but the reality is different.
The truth is this: for 7-10 seconds of pleasure, caused by neuromuscular euphoria, the woman thinks she loves or is in love.
The satisfaction she feels, after a release would be natural if she had only one stable sexual partner.
Why would a woman want to have multiple partners?
Love. Attention. Family. Self-esteem.
The woman cheats:
- Out of loneliness. When a woman is no longer appreciated and is already at the point where she can count the attempts at reconciliation with her current partner, she is wrong.
- Because of fear. Fear of not being abandoned. At 20, the woman is testing. Until the age of 30, she is not aware of the danger of not belonging to anyone. After 30 years, the despair of being with someone comes.
- Because she feels she can.
In general, trust defines a woman’s emotional state. The higher the self-image and stability in the couple, the more the woman will not give in to temptation.
In the absence of harmony, the woman can test alternative partners.
About monogamy
Is sharing your girlfriend so bad? Well, if you are a monogamous person, yes, sharing your girlfriend looks bad from this side of the story.
Monogamy refers to a form of partnership in which the woman has only one man and the man has only one woman.
However, monogamy can refer to the general state of having a single partner and can address the social behaviour of all animals.
Commonly, monogamy often refers to having only one sexual partner, regardless of the type of marriage.
Aspects of monogamy
– Social monogamy – refers to two people who live together, have sexual contact with each other and cooperate for the purchase of basic resources (food, clothes, money).
– Sexual monogamy – refers to two people who have sexual contact exclusively with each other and have no other sexual partners.
– Genetic monogamy – refers to two partners who have children only together.
– Civil monogamy – refers to marriage that involves only two people.
About polyamory
Is sharing your girlfriend so bad? No, if you are in a polyamorous relationship.
Most of the time, the dynamics of this type of relationship begin as follows: a couple, married or unmarried, in which the partners can identify as heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual, begins to have relationships with other partners, who may already be in long-term relationships with other people.
Instead of the famous “menage a trois” it is a “multiple household”. It’s just that, from the perspective of those involved in this type of relationship, it’s not about promiscuity, about open relationships, but about a kind of poly-monogamy, which, until recently, would have been a contradiction of terms.
Now the term “polyamory” has been found, which is composed of the Greek word poly and the Latin word for love.
If you want to know more about promiscuity you can read How to be a slut.
How does it work
This lifestyle is increasingly well documented, especially by the media. “We use Google Calendar to plan when we want to be together. In this way, we decide who to share the bedroom with on a certain night and which of us will spend an evening in front of the TV “, revealed a polyamorous partner in a documentary made by BBC.
For these people, polyamory is not a passing phase, but an identity.
And they want to show that this lifestyle is an alternative to monogamy, valid for anyone, even for middle-class families, with children and bills to pay.
For example, the Holder-Mullins triangle involves three adults living in the same house and sharing bills, housework and raising the initial couple’s 9-year-old daughter.
Belgian sexologist Esther Perel predicts in the BBC documentary the death of exclusive relationships, explaining that “relationships involving multiple partners are increasingly an alternative, and this form of cohabitation could become commonplace in the next 30 years. Monogamy has stood out remarkably on the barricades, but this new type of relationship redefines the rules of love, promoting sexual honesty instead of fidelity to one partner. ”
Possible legal consequences
As the concept of open relationships is gaining more and more ground in pop culture and political debate, some families of polyamorists see the opportunity to create a public debate around removing stereotypes about this lifestyle.
“We want to promote the idea that any relationship is valid as long as it is the result of a choice made by two adults unforced by anyone. To this end, promoting public acceptance is only the first step, “writes CNN.
In a series of articles in the publication Slate on this subject, a polyamorist explains, under a pseudonym, that for them the idea of a partner to force them into a relationship in which they are not allowed, under any circumstances to love someone else is downright terrifying and limiting.
In other words, polyamorous people could not find their personal fulfilment unless they are free to “enjoy” more intimate relationships. And in this sense, the law should provide the same recognition that heterosexual and homosexual couples enjoy.
“It is tragic that in some parts of the world, homosexuals can lose their children, jobs, family and are the victims of terrible attacks, just because they love who they love. The same logic applies, with the same force, to polyamorists. In this sense, the argument that “if we tolerate homosexual relations, we will soon have to tolerate poly relations is correct”, concludes “Michael Carey”.
This means that soon, those who prefer polygamous marriages and open marriages will seek legal recognition.
Is the concept of fidelity slowly disappearing?
Loyalty is an important trait in relationships. Especially people who want long-term relationships want their partners to be loyal.
But lately, as a result of changes in society and culture, fidelity seems an endangered trait.
Fidelity and the sexual revolution
The sexual revolution has made sex liberalized. Media and social media have begun to promote nudity and promiscuity, with celebrities being a role model.
Thus, infidelity in the couple became more acceptable and sexuality a way to obtain pleasure.
Relationships are no longer what they once were, nor are commitments. Maybe you have enough examples of unfaithful people around you, or you have faced your partner’s infidelity yourself.
Surrounding examples and negative experiences can lead to a great deal of mistrust.
Distrust can be detrimental to any relationship. Without trust, jealousy, quarrels and separations are easily reached.
The struggle between the sexes and genetic evolution
I met many people who thought they could no longer find someone faithful. Some of them thought that this was the natural tendency of humans, something genetic, especially in men.
From a genetic point of view, things are a little different. As Richard Dawkins points out in his book The Selfish Gene, although each partner is ideally interested in “copulating with as many members of the opposite sex as possible, each time allowing their partner to raise children,” fidelity is a stable strategy of evolution, i.e a strategy that imposes itself in front of other strategies.
He exemplifies how fidelity comes to be imposed.
There are two feminine strategies he calls “good” and “easy” and two masculine strategies called “faithful” and “thieves.”
In a population where all women are good and all men are faithful, everyone has something to gain.
But if only one easy-going woman enters the core of the population, she will do very well because she would have only benefits.
If the population included predominantly “easy” women, it could also change men’s strategy.
If a faithful man were to enter a population of faithful men, he would have advantages over others.
And in a population with “easy” women, there would be advantages for thieves and disadvantages for easy women who would stay with children.
But when a thief stumbles upon a good woman, nothing happens, because the thief would not exert enough effort and the woman would not give up fast enough.
Thus none has disadvantages but neither advantages. And the disadvantages of easy women would be greater than those of good people.
In the end, faithful men and good women would have the most advantages.
The fidelity gene is not enough
Genetically, humans have evolved to be faithful. Fidelity can be a genetically determined trait but also a learned trait.
Humans do not necessarily behave as they are genetically programmed.
Culture also has an influence, the environment in which a person lives, the family he had as a model, the type of attachment and the values he has can make a person faithful or not.
Just as there is a culture of infidelity, there is a culture of fidelity, and there may be many more faithful people than we think.
So there is still hope. If you have been disappointed and thought that you have no chance of meeting someone faithful, you may have chosen the wrong person or found yourself in the wrong environment.
There are still enough faithful people out there.
Conclusions
In this article, we talked about monogamy, polyamory and core aspects of fidelity.
In conclusion, whether sharing your girlfriend is good or bad, it’s your own decision.
If you are alright with your girlfriend having multiple partners, then there are no issues.
However, if fidelity is a trait that you value, it is not selfish to not want to share your girlfriend.
What do you think about polyamorous relationships? Let us know in the comments section!
Further reading
The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins
Love Me, Don’t Leave Me: Overcoming Fear of Abandonment and Building Lasting, Loving Relationships, by Dr Michelle Skeen PsyD
Relationships, by The School of Life
4 Essential Keys to Effective Communication in Love, Life, Work–Anywhere!: Including the “12-Day Communication Challenge!”, by Bento C. Leal III
References
The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins
Hoi, H., & Griggio, M. (2010). Monogamy and Extra-Pair Parentage. Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior, 475–482
Medicalnewstoday.com
slate.com
