529. Contact With Ex-Partners, Reliability And Trust

529.   Contact With Ex-Partners, Reliability And Trust

Whenever I read in a man's profile, that he continues contact with his ex(es), I recoil.    When I explained my reasons in entry 76, I only mentioned the impertinence of a man's feeling entitled to have a harem of more than one intimate partner and of not valuing a woman enough to give her a genuinely exclusive place in his life.   
Ex(es) can never be converted to be the same as platonic friends, they will remain forever deactivated intimate partners.   Because the special ties created by physical intimacy can never be undone.   The friendship of two persons, who have never been physically intimate, and the alleged mere friendship of two persons, who have deactivated their previous physical intimacy, are fundamentally distinct and can never be the same.  

But in entry 76, I omitted, that the friendship with ex(es) is also a significant indirect indication of how much harm and hurting is to be expected from such men.  
A man, who is friends with his ex(es), can never be trusted to be a reliable partner in a relationship being a safe haven.   His friendship with his ex(es) tells me, that he either starts or ends relationships for insufficient reasons.   Therefore he is a hazard to do the same to me.    

A man's personality, instinctivity and his subsequent attitude towards women, is expressed and represented in the specific reasons, which for him are sufficient to enter and to end a physically intimate relationship.   These reasons indicate, if he either commodifies and objectifies women or if he appreciates them as persons to commit to, to bond and to share his life with.

The history of a man's past relationships can thus be helpful to assess a man's individual choice of reasons and thus to evaluate the risk of being hurt by him.    His maintained friendship with ex(es) or the absence thereof is a valuable information allowing some conclusions.     

A man, who is determined more by his human cognition than by is animal instincts, is able to base both decisions, to enter and to end a relationship, on careful considerations and on consent.    Therefore a man's careful decisions are an indication of his being more human than an animal.    Intrinsic commitment is human.    Animals just copulate.  

Intrinsic commitment means to accept obligations towards the partner, to be considerate, responsible and therefore reliable.   The decision to enter physical intimacy is inseparably also the decision to be committed.   Otherwise it is the abuse of an objectified body and a violation of human dignity.     
Therefore a decent, valuable, humane man asks himself, if he is ready and willing to begin a committed long-term relationship, before he gets physically involved with a woman.   He asks himself, it he appreciates the person enough for commitment.   If he gets aware, that he is only triggered by instincts, he refrains from touching her.   He does not want to be an unworthy animal. 

Intrinsic commitment includes the obligation to end a relationship only 

• by a onesided decision, if the partner has become unworthy having first created this reason by committing an unforgivable transgression.
• by consent, after working hard and persistently together on solving all problems and conflicts.   But this should be a very rare case, as such an blatant incompatibility should have precluded the couple to enter the relationship.   As long as a couple has not forfeited the reciprocal justification for true friendship by unforgivable transgressions, they should be able to solve their conflicts and stay together.

Friendship in the true sense of the word means to see qualities of character in a person, friendship requires trust, honesty, integrity and more.  Intrinsic commitment between a couple has the same requirements of character as has friendship, only the benefits of bonding, of monogamy and of sharing the life and home with exclusively one partner are added.  
Without the qualities to be friends, two persons are not suitable to each other for intrinsic commitment.  When people at one moment in time are really suitable as true friends to get physically involved and share their life in a monogamous arrangement, then their commitment is for better or for worse and ending it can only be justified by very good reasons.   Therefore whenever someone and his ex are still true friends, their commitment has never really ended.   Intrinsic commitment only ends, when reasons impede friendship

A man's intrinsic commitment makes him reliable and predictable, because he allows the woman enough influence on how the relationship impacts her life.    She is not the victim of decisions imposed upon her out of the blue as she is by objectifying jerks, instead she is involved in all shared decisions. 


A man's friendship with his ex(es) is a big red flag.  

When a man perceives and experiences no difference between a friendship, which has always been platonic, and the friendship with a woman, with whom there had been physical intimacy in the past, this is a clear indication of his animal instincts being so strong, that he is innately determined for the objectification of women's bodies.   It means that physical intimacy does not automatically create intrinsic commitment.   
1.  It can mean, that he has exes from any kind of promiscuous non-committed arrangements, no matter if it was an affair or friends with benefits or whatever.    He has commodified and objectified a woman based upon reciprocity.   Had he dumped her, she would probably refuse to remain friends with a jerk.   But mutual abuse is nevertheless abuse, and entering a physical relationship without commitment is a dangerous attitude indicating the predominance of the man's instincts.  
I can never trust a man to be committed with me by physical intimacy, if he has a history of using others without commitment.
2.  He still wants his ex, in spite of her having committed a transgression.    He maintains a friendship for her, even though she is unworthy.   He still craves for her body, in spite of her unworthy personality.   This means, that her personality is not significant.   Either he is not free to commit or the non-physical qualities of a woman are generally of no significance to him.  
3.  He has dumped her for insufficient and selfish reasons, but she wants him back and has forgiven him in spite of his being unworthy and a jerk.  He probably wants more than he is willing to give.  He is probably unable to need and appreciate a partner as much as is necessary to motivate him to invest enough time and effort into a relationship.  Instead he has developed the habit of discarding and replacing as the easy way out.    

Whatever he has done to his ex(es), he is prone also to do to me.   

In all three scenarios, such men are a hazard, there is a very high risk of being hurt by them.  Men, who have dumped women for insufficient reasons or who have committed other transgression, get fatally wrong signals from those women, who still accept and treat them as friends.   Instead of being punished by the appropriate rejection as unworthy jerks, they learn to misinterpret the inappropriate friendship as if there were nothing wrong with their behavior.   
Every ex, who reacts with continued friendship to a jerk's transgressions, implicitly reinforces readiness to repeat such transgressions on the next woman.   While ending all contact with a jerk does not stop him from behaving as a jerk, at least this does not encourage him.


On dating advice sites, sometimes people are warned about new contacts talking bad about their ex-partners.   I disagree.  I have more trust, when a man feels hurt by specific behaviors of his ex and when he can convincingly explain, what efforts he did to repair the relationship and why it failed.   While I of course cannot know, what really has happened, a man's feeling hurt and treated badly by his ex indicates, that he at least subjectively was not the transgressor and whatever behavior he feels hurt from is something, that he hopefully has learned not to do upon others.  When a man talks too well about an ex, this makes me suspicious, because people learn more from their own suffering than from getting away with making others suffer.     

497. The Human Preference For The Dyad

The Human Preference For The Dyad

The web is full of claims, that monogamy were not part of human nature and that polyamory and other forms of promiscuity were the better expression of human nature and needs.   If this were as true as it is often repeated, then this would be visible by the choice of the preferred living arrangements of involved groups of three or more persons.  
Reality indicates the contrary.  Dyads are so much preferred, that even gay people fight to be allowed to be married as dyads.  Most people indicate their preference by living as dyads or by a clear wish find a partner to become a couple, when they are singles using dating sites.    

As far as there are polyamory living arrangements, they are usually a consequence of a religion.   I cannot be sure, if without a religious belief any mormon or muslim women would really choose to share one man.    I have never heard so far of any gay or lesbian triad wishing to be a married group.  

People still prefer dyads as the basic unit of living arrangements as the result of a cost and benefit calculation.

An adult, who is neither dependent nor has dependents be family ties, is free to choose the preferred living arrangement of living alone, living with one other adult or living with more than one adult as a group.   

The following omits any special situation, when people live with parents, children, siblings etc.   The incest taboo excludes the physical needs, which are a part of the deal in the free choice by cost and benefit calculation.   

By living arrangements I mean complete personal involvement, not living as separate and independent households under one roof.   When the preferred living arrangement is a free choice, the decision to prefer and enter a specific arrangement is based upon a cost and benefit calculation, that includes not only material, but also emotional and psychological factors, which are at least equally important, if not predominant.   

Sharing a home as a safe haven means sharing material resources, security against inclemencies of life events, mutual support and advice and mentally stimulating shared time and activities.  All this is very beneficial and for many people a basic need in life.  
Sharing a home means compromising, self-control and the acceptance of restrictions of the freedom to follow every whim due to acting only by agreement with another person.   The own needs are only equally important compared with those of another person.  Additional costs are the risks by making oneself vulnerable.   Sharing very private information and unrestricted access to personal belongings bears a huge risk of being exploited, harmed, hurt and betrayed by someone trusted too much.

Seen as a cost and benefit calculation, dyads have logically the highest potential of life satisfaction for both partners compared with polyamorous groups of any kind.   

Comparing dyads with triads as living arrangements.

To illustrate this, I will compare the living arrangements of a dyad with that of three persons, no matter their gender or orientation.    A dyad by choice is independent of their sexual inclinations as either of two heterosexual or two homosexual persons, as long as they consider themselves as an involved couple.  

1. Material and practical. 
   Sharing the home and household with one person reduces all fixed costs like rent, heating etc, by one half.   Would one more person be added, the additional reduction of costs would only be one sixth more.  
   But the cost of sharing resources is doubled.   Two persons block the bathroom twice as often as one.  
2. Safe haven concerning life events.
   A person living alone is at the risk of becoming helpless, when sick or financially in trouble in the case of loosing a job.    This can cause anxiety and worries.   But one person is enough to alleviate the worries by supplying the feeling of security and being protected.   One partner in a dyad is enough to be able to care for someone sick or to share resources.  
   A third person is of no or little additional benefit.   
3. Supportive emotional safe haven
   When a person is in emotional need of another person's empathy, support or advice, usually one supportive partner is the best situation.  It requires a lot of trust, which is difficult to build with any one person.    Revealing the innermost feelings implies making oneself vulnerable to being taken advantage of, hurt or being damaged by indiscretions.  Overcoming inhibitions due to shame and embarrassment to ask for support is difficult with every person.  Getting support from one partner is of high benefits compared with the cost of the vulnerability risk and strain of overcoming inhibitions.   
   Sharing the troubles with a second person doubles the vulnerability, but does not add many benefits from support.    Having more than one person listening with empathy does not add much to the relief of being listened to by one.
4. Intellectual companionship.
   Being alone in a museum or other enjoyable cultural situation is often dreary, communicating about one's thoughts, impressions and experiences is joyful and rewarding.   But one person is enough to talk about the picture in a museum.  
   A second person may add a few more different ideas, but does not add much additional benefits to the communication of a dyad.
   
5. Man's physiological need for homeostasis
   When the experience of sexuality is controlled and modified by cognition as explained in entry 496, men's physiological need of homeostasis are as real as are the collateral emotional needs.  Most women and also those high quality men, whose sensitivity and bonding ability has not been destroyed, get emotionally attached and their attachment reinforced by physical intimacy. 
   Biologically, there are two genders, and maintaining homeostasis does not require a group or a third person, two partners are enough.  I doubt that even those in favor of polyamory and such would really choose to share a treble bed with two others snoring and tossing.     

The emotional importance of the exclusivity of the dyad.   

The viability and benefits of a dyad as a living arrangement depends upon the realistic expectation and trust, that the partner is reliable, predictable, responsible and bound by accepted obligations.   This depends upon the exclusivity of reciprocally fulfilling each other's relationship needs. 
Exclusivity does not automatically make a partner reliable and predictable, but the refusal of exclusivity prevents the possibility of being able to rely on someone in the case of need.  

Exclusivity is an emotional state of feeling bonded with and committed to one specific partner by a one time decision, which is the result of a careful cost and benefit analysis.    
Exclusivity is more than the repeated self-control as the result of a new cost and benefit calculation every time, whenever some external temptation triggers it.   
  

1. Material and practical. 
   Sharing the home requires the reliable expectation of a lasting commitment.   Financial entanglement of shared mortgages, shared rental agreements and no place to go lead to a person's dire situation, when the other's behavior destroys and betrays the trust.   Reliable agreements concerning the exclusivity of the relationship reduce the risks of such entanglements.
2. and 
3. The safe haven concerning life events and being emotionally supportive.
   All the benefits of feeling safe and secure and protected depend on the partner's reliability and predictability.    This means to be able to trust, that the partner is always available, when needed.   
   When a partner needs support in any emotional crisis or care in the case of sickness, an exclusive partner is available as a result of his exclusivity.  He has no need, reason or obligations to be somewhere else.  Nobody else is competing for his attention and care.   
   But when a polyamorous partner is part of several dyads, nobody can ever trust, that he is there when needed.   There is always the competition with someone else, who may have a stronger hold or influence over the partner.   A partner refusing exclusivity to the dyad cannot be relied upon, he is not predictable, he is not trustworthy.   He cannot be, even would he wish to, because he cannot clone himself and be present in two dyads at the same time.
    
4. Intellectual companionship.
   Only the intellectual companionship can be substituted by sharing activities with just friends having similar interests, so this does not require exclusivity.  But it requires at least the priority of sharing activities with the partner rather than with others, whenever this is the partner's wish and need.
     
5. Man's physiological need for homeostasis
   A dyad fulfilling the emotional needs of two persons does not automatically imply sexuality, if for whatever biological or medical reasons both partners have no such needs.  But since for most people except oversexed promiscuous jerks, sexuality is not completely void of emotional attachments, exclusivity of all sexuality to the dyad strengthens and protects the emotional bonding, while sexual entanglements with persons outside the dyad destroys or damages the trust and the reliability of having the dyad as a safe haven. 

I do not imply, that the preferred living arrangement of dyads by a cost and benefit analysis is conscious.   But this preference is an expression of the fact, that dyads are the best representation of the biological dichotomy and its cognitive and emotional perception.  

Monogamy in the traditional sense means the exclusivities of the heterosexual dyad.  Even the people, who are in full denial of the benefits of monogamy as the complete package of exclusivity of sexuality, emotional significance and living arrangements in the full commitment with only one person, are usually not preferring triads or group involvement.   Instead they want to be in more than one dyad.   They want the benefits of more than one dyad without the costs.  They are in denial, that they cannot be present and available all the time in more than one dyad and therefore not equal partners.  

Therefore, while monogamy may not be a part of the animal instincts of humans, especially not of promiscuous males, monogamy is the best way of fulfilling the emotional needs of humans as being determined by their cognition on a long term basis, when monogamy is redefined as the exclusivity of fulfilling all of a partner's relationship needs in a dyad of two committed persons of any gender.   .