New Year New Monogamy. Ringing In The New Year With A New Monogamy. What exactly is a New Monogamy? Monogamy is defined as the practice or state of being married to one person at a time or having a sexual relationship with only one partner. Some literature on affair recovery suggests that infidelity is a symptom of some fundamental problem in a marriage or committed relationship when perhaps another reason could be monogamy is not possible or even desired for some couples.
New Year New Monogamy
As a Marriage Counselor who specializes in Affair Recovery, I see couples who despite the research indicating 60% of men and over 45% of women cheat at some point in their marriages (Atwood and Schwartz 2002) are still unhappy about cheating.
Staying faithful to one partner for many years isn’t easy. People are living until their 80’s and 90’s and staying monogamous is becoming more difficult with the use of the internet, online dating apps, and access to infinite amounts of people being able to communicate with each other throughout the world.
As a Marriage Counselor working with people who think they may no longer want to be monogamous, I help initiate that process through developing New Monogamy Agreements. These contracts are explicit agreements created by each partner to openly, honestly, and safely share desires, expectations, and limitations for moving forward in a way that clearly states how they may behave. The agreement is an obligation that you willingly support your relationship and want to meet both your partner’s and your own needs. This can mean agreeing on a Traditional Monogamous relationship (closed marriage), Open Marriage, Semi-Open Marriage, Polyamorous Marriage, or Polysexual Marriage. Each to be discussed with an open-minded Counselor trained in knowing how to talk about and follow through with opening up a relationship. And whose goal is to guide the couple to develop and negotiate an agreement that works for both of them without transference or countertransference of their own biases.
Coming into the 21st Century we no longer have the marriages/relationships that our parents or grandparents had. There are hundreds of “How To” lists for relationships and they all seem to say the same thing. Why not put something together that works for you and your partner? We live in a diversified and dynamic world where everyone is unique. As a Marriage Counselor who understand non-traditional relationships, I help couples develop New Monogamy Agreements to rebuild trust after an affair or to re-establish intimacy in a relationship that feels stale like roommates when you want to feel like lovers.
When making your New Monogamy Agreement it can be like renewing Vows. Realistic behavioral promises that are explicit rather than implicit to better care for individual and relationship needs. As a Marriage Counselor developing New Monogamy Agreements, couples have the fluidity and variety to renew at will and to prevent unnecessary discord.
For more information about developing a relationship that works for you or on New Monogamy Agreements please contact me at (858) 735-1139.