Xposted from the RedPillNonmonogamy subreddit, a place to discuss multiple relationships without LTR, slut, cuck, or cheat shaming.

DISCUSSION THREAD: How is your ability to form pair-bonds affected by having multiple lovers at once, past or present?

This is relevant to multiple lovers and LTR/marriage. If you're young, only spin plates, or are strongly monogamous/anti-cheating, you're not wrong but this probably isn't a thread of interest.

We're probably all familiar with the Red Pill Canon that the ability to pair-bond in the face of multiple lovers can become compromised in women but not so much in men due to differently evolved sexual strategies. According to this, a man's affair is much less likely to pose a threat to a long-term primary relationship or marriage than if the woman has an affair. To wit: Women riding the Cock Carousel may damage their ability to pair-bond even much later in life, whereas men riding the Vagina Velodrome are likely to retain it.

There do exist women who can love more than one man expansively rather than diminishingly; Heinlein fans know the type I'm talking about. However, they only exist as rare exceptions to the rule in my own observation.

There has been a lot of heated debate on the merits of this theory, but little actual evidence brought to the table. Let's put the debating aside for the moment and focus on discussing our personal experience with multiple lovers and bonding. This is a research and discovery thread, and it would also be interesting to hear from any lurking women with nonmonogamy experience.

My background: Grew up in an intact nuclear family, and I've always preferred LTRs- never had a one night stand in my life. My BP 20s were a mindfuck of doing everything I "should" do, only to have it work exactly against me; from severe early-onset oneitis to staying too long with toxic partners in the name of faithfulness.

Frustrated by wasted years of trying to make serial monogamy work, by 30 I came to nonmonogamy by hitting an anger phase (I thought of it as a "Fuck-it phase" before finding TRP) and started overlapping relationships. Branch swinging soon turned to branch crawling, needing all four limbs and a prehensile penis as a metaphor for the occasional peaks of overlapping plate activity.

Abundance and experience soon caused anger and frustration with women to give way to amused mastery and enjoyment. The next 20 years saw periods of monogamy, multiple partners, and MGTOW all of my choosing.

Through it all, I have always preferred LTRs, with a model of a main public girlfriend and part-time but long-term plates. Plates come in knowing they are in a shared position, and the negotiated terms of endearment vary widely with each individual; that said, even the lowest-tier plate has some manner of bond or sense of special connection otherwise I wouldn't be having sex with them.

How nonmonogamy enhanced pair bonding for me

  • I've had primary relationships that held together for many additional years BECAUSE of nonmonogamy. Wherein vanilla sex was accepted until stepkids moved out, or a strong companionate love remained when medical issues affected her sex life.

  • It takes the pressure off a main partner to be everything I need in a partner, which is a nearly impossible standard to reach even with great mutual compromise. This applies to both sexual and cultural/recreational variety.

  • Potential resentment of shortcomings is nipped right in the bud. Time together is spent enjoying the positives of that particular partner.

  • The feeling of Limerence, or strong infatuational attraction to a new lover has not diminished for me. Being able to wallow in it without neglecting a main partner is possible, but not necessarily simple even with practice. Becoming able to compartmentalize effectively when needed prevents crises, but setting up nonmonog relationships correctly in the first place reduces the required effort to nil most of the time.

  • The abstract desire to pair-bond, possibly exclusively, has not diminished in me either. I'm willing and able to drop all plates just like that if a strong match comes along.

Challenges nonmonogamy has presented to pair-bonding for me

  • Far and away the biggest, a much lower threshold of tolerance for games, manipulation attempts, and poor behavior. I'll pick the plates right back up again, or just walk without remorse. Part of it is because of Abundance Mentality, but I attribute a majority of it to the general cynicism of age and experience.

  • Divided time. Whereas my ability to love an individual is not diminished by additional lovers, my schedule is a zero-sum game. Even with careful prioritizing and time management, it's an ongoing challenge to parse out attention fairly by my own standards.

  • Maintaining ability to pair-bond means never completely extinguishing the built-in human sense of loss at departure; I don't recommend elimination, but management. Experience and abundance has mostly removed anxiety and anguish from breakups, but I still feel a wistful sense of "wish I could keep ALL the good ones!"

Bottom line: Having multiple lovers for over 2 decades has NOT eliminated my desire or ability to form strong, ongoing pair-bonds, though it has certainly tempered and fine tuned the ways I form, manage, and ultimately end them. Edit: Format

What is your experience with pair-bonding while or after having multiple lovers at once?