Someone once told me that you can tell a person’s in a good relationship because they rarely mention it. I think there’s probably something in that: the idea that a healthy relationship attracts less introspection, and certainly less texting of the group chat—or indeed, emails to agony aunts. But increasingly I have come to believe that questions around a relationship are as integral to it as sex or laughter. As long as people have been falling in love, they’ve been questioning that fall (how do you know it’s love, is this guy right for me, how much cattle must my father offer for their hand, etc)—but some questions arise more often than others.
With a little help from Google Trends, we compiled five of the questions being asked most frequently right now, both as a way of pinpointing the precise relationship anxieties of our day and to see if we could, sort of, help…
What is a monogamous relationship?
Sorry, but this is the kind of question my kids ask to avoid going to sleep. “How do you make butter?” “What color is Saturday?” “Can you count to infinity?” A monogamous relationship is when people promise emotional and sexual exclusivity to each other. The history of the thing is interesting but vague—a general shift towards monogamy started about three and a half million years ago, but most human societies (around 85% of them) have permitted polygamy too. And even taking in evolutionary advantages, researchers can’t quite quantify why we, as a species, have come to largely favor monogamy over the centuries. Still, many continue to choose it, despite increasing headlines saying it’s “doomed” or “unrealistic” or “dead.” What is a monogamous relationship? It’s less “natural” than you were brought up to believe; it requires compromise and, just like its alternatives, it involves jealousy, love, desire, and trust. (You make butter by whipping cream, Saturday is yellow, no and good night.)
How long does the honeymoon phase last in a relationship?
God, I met a couple recently who were in their 80s and still seemed to be in the honeymoon phase, touching each other’s arms and giggling. They’d been together for over 50 years. So I guess there’s no correct answer to this one (18 months, four days, three hours?); the length of a honeymoon phase—meaning the period of time in which you feel entirely infatuated with your new partner, almost delirious with lust and vaguely euphoric—varies entirely depending on the people, and the relationship. But one thing I would say is that it’s easy to reach the end of this phase, and see the dull and sometimes sticky reality of a relationship beyond its initial fireworks, and not recognize that as love. To be so caught up in the romance and excitement that the next phase—of compromise, routine, and diminishing drama—looks like the end, when in fact it could very easily be the beginning. Something to think about!
What is an open relationship?
I was listening to Lily Allen’s album recently—as was, I believe, every woman between the ages of 30 and 50—and thinking about biscuits. You may have read, as I did, that certain chocolate bars in the UK have so little cocoa in them that recent legislation means they can no longer be labeled as such, and must now be called “chocolate flavoured biscuits.” And, listening to Lily sing about an open marriage (or, as its most commonly called today, “ethical non-monogamy,” meaning the people in a couple consent to their partner having sex with other people)—but one where the husband broke all the rules they had carefully put in place—it occurred to me that, in the same way a Club bar can not be called chocolate, labeling something ethical does not make it so. As an increasing number of people enter into open relationships without, perhaps, the trust or honesty or open communication required, is it perhaps necessary for us to call it ethical-flavored non-monogamy?
What qualifies as cheating in a relationship?
Okay, I love this question. This is something I could chat about for hours, because, beyond the relatively cut-and-dried “bonking my best friend” sort of situation, cheating can exist on a vast, shimmering spectrum. And people often don’t know where they stand on it until the cheating occurs! Your partner says they had a sex dream about a celebrity? Is that cheating? Maybe, for someone! Your partner ended a text to a coworker with kisses? Is that cheating? They got off with a stranger when horribly drunk? They slept with an ex when you were away? They have a whole other family living in Plymouth? The sex writer Dan Savage is very good on this topic. His advice is that couples should define sex as broadly as possible (so their sex life becomes richer and more interesting as more things than simple penetration count as sex), and they should define cheating as narrowly as possible. The fewer things a couple counts as cheating “the less likely they are to cheat on each other and, consequently, the less likely they are to break up over an infidelity.” Define sex broadly, he summarizes, and you get “more and better sex. Define cheating narrowly: more resilient relationships.”
Am I in a toxic relationship?
Oh, love, if you have to ask….
#Years #Googled #Relationship #Questions #Answered
