Love

5 Reasons Only Being With One Person Will Make You MISERABLE

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For the first 32 years of my dating life I believed monogamy was where it's at

For the record, I am now 33.

I was one of the lucky ones, with happily married parents, the very picture of monogamous bliss. 

I bathed in romantic comedies and books and music where the idea of a soul mate, the one person designed for you, was the goal in life. And monogamy? That was the only way to find that person I was so desperate to find. 

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But when I met and started dating a polyamorous man, and found myself happier in our relationship that I'd ever been in monogamy, I had to do some rethinking.

Turns out, monogamy was making me miserable, and it might be making you miserable too. Here's how ... and why you might be happier without it. 

1. Monogamy forces you to suppress your sexual desire 

In a traditional monogamous relationship, the two people in it agree not to have other sexual partners.

Monogamy means sex with one person for the entire duration of that relationship, and if you believe in marriage, that means sex with just one person until you die. It's not unreasonable to want to explore your sexuality even while you're perfectly content with your romantic partner.

Be it bringing a third into your bedroom or exploring outside of your monogamous relationship, there's no need your sexual growth as a human being needs to be hampered by the construct of monogamy. 

2. Monogamy makes you dependent on one other person 

When you decide to make monogamy your way of life, it means depending on just one person for so, so, so, so much.

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When the person you expect to sleep in your bed, have sex with you, listen to you complain, buy toilet paper when you're out, and even more is all the SAME person, it's natural to start feeling like you can't shoulder the burden of being everything for one person.

That's TOTALLY NORMAL.

Why should we put all that pressure on each other when opening up our relationship frees us up to appreciate and love all our partners instead of feeling bitter or resentful?

3. Monogamy builds unreasonable expectations 

Being in a monogamous relationship isn't fair and it isn't realistic. Think about how much human beings change over time. You aren't the same person now that you were a year ago, let alone five or ten years ago.

Being in a constant, monogamous relationship and expecting your partner to meet all of your constantly growing and changing needs and for you to meet theirs is unreasonable. Sure, you have happy friendships with people you've known your whole life. But those AREN'T your only friends, and with good reason.

4. Monogamy isn't how we're programmed

I hate being this douche, but I'm going to because I've started to believe it myself: Humans being weren't designed or made to practice monogamy.

Look around at other mammals. It's far more common to have a man who mates with several different partners. It just makes more sense in terms of reproductive and gene dispersal.

Obviously we are more complex than say, gorillas. Obviously. But let's be honest, having stuff like shoes and the internet is great, but they sit around in the jungle doing nothing all day, so who REALLY has it all figured out?

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5. Monogamy ruins the idea of love  

This is a hot take, but I think it's something really worth considering. When you're in a monogamous relationship you have agreed to give your love to just one person.

The idea there (if we follow it through) is that your love is a finite resource. You have just enough romantic love to give to one person.

But love doesn't work that way. It isn't finite. It is expansive and ever-growing. Having more than one partner doesn't mean you love one of them less, it means you love them differently. 

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Rebecca Jane Stokes is the former Senior Editor of Pop Culture at Newsweek with a passion for lifestyle, geek news, and true crime.