The Monogamists and Being Attached
By Sara Twogood, MD
Sex and the City to Season 1: Episode 7: The Monogamists
Carrie grapples with the idea of monogamy.
She wonders: “do men have an innate aversion to monogamy? Or is it more than that?
In a city like New York with its infinite possibilities, has monogamy come too much to expect?”
What’s going on with our main character?
Carrie becomes essentially desperate for monogamy with Big.
She spirals about interpreting his words and intentions, catches him on a date with another woman, has to watch as other women kiss him on the lips and fawn over him at his friend’s party. And when she gets pissed (because, yes, when you’re dating someone this intensely, you deserve more respect than that) he has the gall to ask her: “what do you want from me?”
In the end though, we’re left with them standing together at 3am, agreeing to date monogamously.
While Carrie spirals, Miranda listens. And while they are chatting, Skipper – a guy whose desperation turned off Miranda after seeing each other briefly – walks by with his fashionable and funny girlfriend. Miranda gets jealous, calls him, sleeps with him, and then he discloses he broke up with his girlfriend for her. He is still desperate for monogamy with Miranda. She realizes the only ways she wants him is when he’s dating other people.
ATTACHMENT
The common thread here is attachment and the desire or fear of showing it and acting on it.
Carries desires it, feels a deep attachment to Big, wants to secure this attachment.
Same with Skipper to Miranda.
Miranda is not feeling it with Skipper. She wants attachment on her terms only, and they are not the same as Skipper’s.
Big seems … ambivalent at best.
In Emily Nagoski’s Come As You Are (as you know by now, we’re big fans of this book), the concept of attachment and how it relates to sex is discussed at length. She doesn’t emphasize the term monogamy, though for most people in sexual relationships monogamy is used as a symbol of commitment to attachment. But research on commitment and attachment encompasses sexual and non-sexual relationships and the emphasis is on feelings and actions, not labels.
Attachment is an innate human experience.
It occurs with parents and children, in friendships, in romantic relationships.
At its best: it is a feeling of being genuinely connected to another human and the reason we fall in love.
At its worst: if / when attachment is threatened, we will do whatever we can to hold onto it. Even if that relationship is not good for us. Threatened attachment can make people act in ways that don’t make sense, even to them (Carrie in this episode), as it creates heartbreak and a feeling of being lost or destroyed.
Secure attachment in a solid relationship seems ideal, right?
Yes … but it can also lead to complacency.
The initial feelings of wanting and needing are drivers of intense human feelings. As the attachment feels more and more secure, the wanting and needing decreases because what you want and need is so easily accessible. Those feelings are replaced by security. This can be a wonderful feeling and is a key to a long term stable relationship. But security can lead to complacency. It can lead to taking the other person for granted. It can lead to even ignoring or not showing how much you care for the other person.
So what do we do about it? How can we avoid this turn of feelings and events in secure relationships?
I have 2 suggestions:
Practice gratitude. It sounds trite, but it works. There’s no right or wrong way to do this. Here’s one suggestion: Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and for a few moments think about the best of your partner and all the reasons you love them. Just a few minutes can bring back some of those intense feelings. Reinforcing this feeling as often as possible is additive. Daily is a good practice. You can do this activity with other areas of your life, not just your partner. Try it with your children, your friends, your job, life in general.
Focus on yourself as a way to focus on the relationship. If you feel you’re giving too much of yourself constantly you will feel burdened, not attached. Take some time to yourself - be it a few minutes or a few hours or a few days. Hide in your closet for a minute. Go for a walk or take an exercise class. Spend more time with friends who have the ability to rejuvenate your soul. Take a solo trip and spend the night away from your partner. Take a trip with just your partner but away from the demands of daily life. Maybe you’re rolling your eyes because you’ve tried these and don’t feel like any worked. If that’s the case, I have an additional reminder: make the activity intentional. Going for a walk because you feel forced to exercise is not going to give a positive feeling of focusing on yourself. Be intentional about what fills you up, what nourishes you, and try to incorporate more of that into your life, in whatever small, consistent quantities you can.