It is supposedly the shortest joke in the English language: “Take my wife. Please.” Marriage is the centre of much comedy shtick and television sit-coms make endless fun of married couples’ foibles. Marriage is portrayed as a trap and a prison. Men are hapless and hen-pecked. Women are emotional harridans.

Though large numbers of people still choose to get married, the reality is that statistics can make it seem like an outdated institution. A third of relationships end in divorce while another 20 per cent are having affairs. As a colleague says, “Why not face reality? Monogamy is unrealistic. It doesn’t actually work.”

In past decades, such as the 1950s, relationship life was relatively ‘safe’. You knew the rules of the game. You chose someone and then you settled down for life with that person. The downside however was that there was a massive repression of human emotion and desire. And repression never works. It cripples and constricts the human spirit and the hidden energies leak out in skewed or abusive ways. So what are the options for relationships in our more ‘enlightened’ and modern world?

The possibilities

The relationship landscape has opened up over the past few decades. It used to be that marriage (and only with a member of the opposite sex of course!) “until death do us part” was the only option for intimate relating.

Now a couple can get divorced even after a few months if they choose. Others may have a lifelong series of relatively committed relationships and still others will choose to have multiple partners at the same time. Some who choose to have multiple partners will hide this fact in what is commonly called an affair.

Polyamorous people (those with multiple sexual partners) talk to me about exploring the creativity of an unbounded and freely expressed sexuality. I have met Sanyasins (followers of an Indian guru) who have had sex with multiple partners in groups as a way to break down the “artificial barriers that the ego constructs” and “to connect with God”. A television show called Big Love explores the issues around a polygamous man and his three wives. With the options for intimate relating becoming so broad, how are we to choose what’s best?

Admittedly, none of the Sanyasins I know is still having group sex. The polyamorous people I met were men in their 50s who seemed to have found a convenient philosophy within which to camouflage their sleaze. And the polygamous man in the TV show is run ragged trying to manage all his wives. None of these options looks that attractive.

Nevertheless, the fact is that over our lifetime we will be attracted to more than one person. Even if we commit to a partner, the chances are that we will bump into other people we find attractive.

To confound matters more, in today’s more spiritual (as opposed to religious) climate, people are more likely to have had some experience of the “oneness of all” or of the “love that connects everyone underneath”. So as Laura*, a spiritually inclined client asked, “Does this mean we are all supposed to be expressing this love by having sex with each other?”

The basis for choosing

The difficulty in today’s culture is that there are no “rules of engagement”. Anything goes. In the past it was simple; marriage or nothing. God and religion were used to construct rules for how people were to relate intimately with each other. The boundaries were clear.

Now there are no boundaries. Each person has to decide for themselves how they will navigate the relationship terrain. Instead of being able to rest within confines constructed by an external body we all have to take responsibility for constructing our own rules.