The most common scenario is one where the couple in question has been in a long-term relationship for a substantial period of time and decides to take on an additional third, fourth, or fifth significant other who plays more of a supporting role in the relationship. Like polyamory, there may be a set of predefined rules to be followed in any open relationship. However, as previously discussed, labelling a relationship as “open” generalizes it by looping it in with other consensual non-monogamous relationships. Think of it this way: an open relationship can be a polyamorous relationship, but a polyamorous relationship cannot necessarily be an open relationship, much like how a rectangle can be a square, but a square may not be a rectangle. Besides the aforementioned questions, there is another topic that has been subject to debate: are humans naturally polyamorous? According to McGraw and Young (2010), while social monogamy is the norm, genetic monogamy wherein a male and a female have exclusive parentage of offspring is not. The study involved observing the social norms of prairie voles, a breed of …show more content…
Firstly, meeting another person’s needs is taxing on both the heart and body. Try as one might, all the effort will eventually take its toll, then a sense of exhaustion will kick in along with a sense of am-I-doing-all-the-work-here that comes with it in some cases. Secondly, it is impossible to meet a significant other’s every need because needs change. What they need today may not be what they need tomorrow, which leads to the third reason why being everything your partner needs is unrealistic: the human race is imperfect. Being human, there will be mistakes, and there will be things that cannot be done, so while trying to be everything for a partner is romantic in that sense of the word, it must be accepted that trying is all that can be