On Not Becoming Unhinged

by Chris Bodenner

A Slog commenter accuses Dan of pushing open relationships on people. He protests:

There's a column, pretty recent one, not gonna look up, where I encouraged a guy who was into monogamy to dump a girl who wasn't. And told him he was fine. Go and find it! Gotta run.

I do advocate, however, being realistic about the odds that one or the other or both partners in a truly long long-term relationship will cheat at some point. The stats on infidelity? Shocking, considering that monogamy is so favored, culturally. We fail at it, though, pretty predictably, and so I think we should be realisticthe monogamous wannabes shouldbecause I think a good, strong relationship should be able to survive, and be expected to survive, a routine, non-nuclear-level infidelity.

Because, you see, I'm a conservative, and I don't like to see marriages fall apart over trivial bullshit.