(I started writing this as a reply to a post on this sub, but it turned into a longer digression, and I didn’t want to weigh down the OP’s comment thread with it. I’ve rewritten it, and I’m submitting it as a stand-alone.)

You wouldn’t be having an “affair.” You can’t be having an affair. Monogamy is a variety of sexual relationship, a relationship without sex is, by definition, not monogamous.

I’m never going to have sex with my coworker, but if neither my coworker nor I are having sex with other people, nobody would describe us as monogamous.

You wouldn’t be having an affair. You could be lying, and you shouldn’t. But an affair is having sex outside an exclusive SEXUAL relationship, and you’re not in one.

Something this sub has helped me understand is a concept I only partly got: we have no rights TO or OVER another person’s body.

To or OVER.

I got the “to” part. Most folks get that concept. We don’t want reluctant, “duty sex.” We want to be wanted. If we hear backwards lawmakers asserting “a married woman can’t be raped by her husband,” we’re horrified and angry, if we have any character or empathy.

The OVER in “to or over” deserves the same attention. It’s none of your business what another human being does with his or her body. It can only be made your concern if you’re being exposed, without your consent, to health risks, or if you are PARTICIPATING in a SEXUAL relationship both partners have agreed to be monogamous.

Being married doesn’t make it your business. Nor does being in an LTR. No rights to or OVER.

How do you have sex outside of a non-sexual relationship? By simply doing so.

“Are you having sex with someone else?”

“That’s really private, and I don’t want to discuss whether or not I am with you.”

I want to stop here for a moment. This frame could be read as casting the LL in a relationship as the bad guy. I honestly don’t believe he or she is. I DO NOT think most LLs are cynically manipulating the HL’s’ behavior, doling out sex to get results. Even when sex can’t happen after HL does something LL doesn’t like, I think it’s MUCH more likely to be about the weird and varied way we human beings experience attraction and arousal than it is to be manipulation.

I think LLs who manipulate exist, but they’re vanishingly rare, and the majority often receive mean and unreasonable judgement, based on the actions of that tiny subset. If anyone’s reading this and saying, “yeah — stick it to those LLs!!,” you’re on your own.

That stipulated, people enter into monogamous relationships in hopes they’ll have their sexual needs, (and the need for the intense, emotional intimacy that comes with sex) filled by one other person. They want to be closer. They want the safety of not being exposed to sex-related health risks.

If you’re getting those needs met by each other, with any kind of reasonable frequency, you can be described as monogamous. If you’re not sexually active with each other, or only rarely have sex, you’re not monogamous, because, again, monogamy is a kind of SEXUAL relationship.

Should you lie? No.

Do you owe disclosure? No, unless it affects him or her. If the LL wants to resume sex after the HL has been with another person, then responsible adults make sure their partners don’t have any expectation of a fluid lock. That’s just kindness and decency.

But beyond that? No. None of their business. To or OVER. No rights to. No rights over.

“Have you been with another person?”

“I don’t want to say. That’s private. Our monogamous relationship ended, obviously, for whatever reasons, but I don’t want to say whether or not I’m sexually active. Assume I am.”

You don’t need a “permission slip.” Your “permission” to have consensual sex can’t be granted or revoked by anyone but you, yourself. You don’t need to renegotiate monogamy. You have no monogamy to revisit. It ended when the sex did.

If you’re an HL, and this makes sense, think about this: the “over” applies to your relationship’s LL, as well.

Don’t be surprised if he or she, no longer bound by monogamy, suddenly becomes HL again. That doesn’t mean the LL had been “lying,“ “faking,”or engaging in some deliberate manipulation.

The LL might become HL, because sometimes it’s not the stress, the relationship, health, hormones, or other factors. Sometimes, it’s the monogamy.

If you’re not willing to accept both “to and over“ for your significant other, even if they have been LL in your relationship, you have no moral authority to claim it for yourself.

All this came to me during a half hour of cardio this morning, while I was thinking about replying to someone’s post, asking if he or she should “have an affair.“

I think it’s right. I think it’s the right way to view monogamy. Right for me, at least. I think it’s the way I will view it, going forward.

… But I confess, I could be wrong. Let’s have all that disagreement, but be nice?