Obviously not in every single case, but generally speaking I think people’s strict rules and expectations for monogamy often create toxic relationships and marriages that invoke controlling behavior and walking on eggshells for the other partner, or both partners (but here I’ll mainly be referring to one sided instances).

And from my perspective, the controlling behavior and having to walk on eggshells seemingly stems from the common fear that a lot of people have of their partner or spouse having sex with someone else, being sexually attracted to someone else, and/or someone's being sexually attracted to their partner/spouse . So because of those fears, one partner/spouse feels entitled to control almost everything about the other in order to prevent or protect their fears. 

Types of controlling behaviors that I’ve experienced, have seen discussed, or known others to experience are: 

  • Going through someone’s phone, texts, and dm’s 
  • Requesting that someone end friendships 
  • Constantly pestering someone about their past with their friends
  • Limiting someone’s platonic activities like spending time with their friends, going out, etc.
  • Hovering in instances the other is talking to strangers 
  • Tracking someone’s social media activity 
  • Making someone delete old pictures or throw away old gifts

The list goes on, I’m sure there’s enough shared experience here to get the point. 

And what usually ends up happening is the other partner walking on eggshells to appease the other’s fears. They can’t comfortably enjoy time out with friends at a bar, retain genuine friendships because them and that other person may have dated or fucked before, enjoy general privacy, and in some worse cases, can’t even hold a conversation with a stranger of the opposite sex. And this is all because you have to protect your partner/spouse against their own fears. 

Its really all so miserable to me. In my opinion, people are so ridiculously guarded against what I think are normal instances of people leading full regular lives. Now I don’t think cheating is normal, if you subscribe to monogamy, I personally believe that you should have enough discipline not to have sex outside of the relationship because that’s what you signed up for. But two things that I think are regular real life to drive my point:

  • Being sexually attracted to more than one person or others being sexually attracted to you. This is something that you can’t play defense against, I think its normal and natural but so many go out of their way to control this. You can’t even look at someone or have someone look at you in cases with an overbearing partner/spouse 
  • Maintaining friendships with people from your past. Again, people lead full lives. They’re social, which means that they date and have sex. Often times, someone is going to have dated or have had sex with someone that they’re friends with rather their friendship existed before or after they had sex or dated. Its normal. 

So I think monogamy sucks (again, not in every single case) because people are overly controlling out of their fears over things that I believe are normal. To me, its normal that your partner/spouse is going to be sexually attracted to others. Its normal that others will be sexually attracted to them. Its normal that your partners will have had sex or dated their friends. I think part of it is human nature. I think the other part of it is that people lead full lives before meeting the people that they enter relationships and marriages with and that full life is going to include a social life, dating, and sex.

This isn’t a ringing endorsement where I’m suggesting non monogamy or any other alternatives are better either. I'm aware that non monogamy is not for everyone so don't even accuse me of doing that here.

My point is simply that monogamy sucks. I believe monogamy sucks because too many people act like dramatic insecure teenagers. I believe monogamy could suck less if people worked on their trust issues which would hopefully make them less controlling.