I’d describe that as monogamous. You’re saying that you think you’d be able to negotiate a new rule if circumstances arose, but the current rule is monogamy.
Mm. OK, with that connotation of “disallowing”, I would agree. It’s not the connotation I would expect to ordinarily come to mind in conversation, and in particular your statements about “B wishes A would not sleep with others” emphasized a different understanding of “disallowing” in my mind.
Have you (implicitly or explicitly) promised each other to not have sex with anyone else for the time being (even though the promise is renegotiable)? For example, would it be OK with you if your husband went to (say) a conference abroad and had a one-night stand with someone there without telling you until afterwards? That’d sound as a stronger condition than “B wishes A would not sleep with others”—I wish my grandma didn’t smoke, but given that she’s never promised me not to smoke...
If he had sex with someone without telling me until afterwards, I would be very surprised, and it would suggest that our relationship doesn’t work the way I thought it did. I wouldn’t be OK with that change/revelation, and would need to adjust until I was OK with it.
If he bought a minivan without telling me, all of the above would be true as well.
But it simply isn’t true that I wish he wouldn’t buy a minivan, nor is it true that I wish he wouldn’t sleep with others.
And if he came to me today and said “I want to sleep with so-and-so,” that would be a completely different situation. (Whether I would be OK with it would depend a lot on so-and-so.)
It’s possible that, somewhere in the last 20 years, he promised me he wouldn’t sleep with anyone else. Or, for that matter, buy a minivan. If so, I’ve forgotten (if it was an implicit promise, I might not even have noticed), and it doesn’t matter to me very much either way.
If he had sex with someone without telling me until afterwards, I would be very surprised, and it would suggest that our relationship doesn’t work the way I thought it did. I wouldn’t be OK with that change/revelation, and would need to adjust until I was OK with it.
If so, I wouldn’t consider it much of a stretch to call it monogamous.
What I considered a stretch was accepting ciphergoth’s definition of monogamy, given that my marriage is monogamous, because “We disallow other partners” didn’t seem to accurately describe my monogamous marriage. (Similarly, “We disallow the purchase of minivans” seems equally inaccurate.)
Then came ciphergoth’s clarification that he simply meant by “disallow” that right this moment it isn’t allowed, even though if we expressed interest in changing the rule the rule would change and at that time it would be allowed. That seems like a weird usage of “disallow” to me (consider a dialog like “You aren’t allowed to do X.” “Oh, OK. Can I do X?” “Yeah, sure.”, which is permitted under that usage, for example), but I agreed that under that usage it’s true that we’re not allowed other partners.
I’d describe that as monogamous. You’re saying that you think you’d be able to negotiate a new rule if circumstances arose, but the current rule is monogamy.
Mm. OK, with that connotation of “disallowing”, I would agree. It’s not the connotation I would expect to ordinarily come to mind in conversation, and in particular your statements about “B wishes A would not sleep with others” emphasized a different understanding of “disallowing” in my mind.
Have you (implicitly or explicitly) promised each other to not have sex with anyone else for the time being (even though the promise is renegotiable)? For example, would it be OK with you if your husband went to (say) a conference abroad and had a one-night stand with someone there without telling you until afterwards? That’d sound as a stronger condition than “B wishes A would not sleep with others”—I wish my grandma didn’t smoke, but given that she’s never promised me not to smoke...
If he had sex with someone without telling me until afterwards, I would be very surprised, and it would suggest that our relationship doesn’t work the way I thought it did. I wouldn’t be OK with that change/revelation, and would need to adjust until I was OK with it.
If he bought a minivan without telling me, all of the above would be true as well.
But it simply isn’t true that I wish he wouldn’t buy a minivan, nor is it true that I wish he wouldn’t sleep with others.
And if he came to me today and said “I want to sleep with so-and-so,” that would be a completely different situation. (Whether I would be OK with it would depend a lot on so-and-so.)
It’s possible that, somewhere in the last 20 years, he promised me he wouldn’t sleep with anyone else. Or, for that matter, buy a minivan. If so, I’ve forgotten (if it was an implicit promise, I might not even have noticed), and it doesn’t matter to me very much either way.
If so, I wouldn’t consider it much of a stretch to call it monogamous.
Nor would I, as I said initially.
What I considered a stretch was accepting ciphergoth’s definition of monogamy, given that my marriage is monogamous, because “We disallow other partners” didn’t seem to accurately describe my monogamous marriage. (Similarly, “We disallow the purchase of minivans” seems equally inaccurate.)
Then came ciphergoth’s clarification that he simply meant by “disallow” that right this moment it isn’t allowed, even though if we expressed interest in changing the rule the rule would change and at that time it would be allowed. That seems like a weird usage of “disallow” to me (consider a dialog like “You aren’t allowed to do X.” “Oh, OK. Can I do X?” “Yeah, sure.”, which is permitted under that usage, for example), but I agreed that under that usage it’s true that we’re not allowed other partners.
I hope that clears things up.
Right, but those are the obvious circumstances where a couple who were not monogamous might become so.