House: Open Marriage

[marcmagus]

Last night's episode of House dealt primarily with Open Marriage. I actually didn't completely hate it, although my rage at both characters and writers was frequent and intense.

I'm kind of tempted to rewatch it with a polyamory Bingo card in hand, but off the top of my head, we had the following things which irked me, and may or may not be on the bingo:

• Relationship Broken; Add More People [in spades]
• Men are evolved to cheat
• It's ok as long as there are no emotions!!!
• It's ok as long as I never meet her or have to know anything about anything.
• Lying to your spouse pretending you're having sex with other partners because you've realized you're monogamous and don't want them to feel obligated to give up their other partners: wow, this relationship is seriously fucked up.

Bonus WTF points for implying that being attracted to a person who isn't your partner and maybe briefly entertaining the idea of having an affair is OMGterrible even if you don't act on the thought, never intend to, and weren't even really serious about it.

More bonus points for characters who should know better completely failing at understanding the statistical implications of a genetic factor making something 2x more likely.

[Ok, now I'm skimming my chat log...an interesting side-effect of watching TV with someone remotely is that I get a log of my reactions.]

Ableism fail on accusing someone of "being OCD" when they care about basic hygiene and materials preservation [don't put wet things on the wood furniture and the like]. Not cool.

Ok, more on the not-cheating thing: look, he cheated on you before, and now he's implied interest in opening the relationship, and when you pushed him he acknowledged that there's a person he finds attractive and that he knows is attracted to him. I totally get that you're in a lot of emotional pain at this moment, and it's bringing the other back, and all that. But if you'd take a minute to listen and acknowledge that he didn't cheat this time and that it's actually different, and then maybe try to talk about why this is upsetting for you.

Not that it's all your fault by any stretch of the imagination. So, to you: don't cheat. When you're bringing up that you're interested in someone, after a history of cheating, be really careful about how you present it and, as was clearly shown to be the case here, if it's kind of a passing fancy and some minor flirtation that you never would have even thought of pursuing if the idea of open marriage hadn't suddenly appeared, be clear about that.

Oh, and for the record: it kind of sucks to decide at the last minute that you're not ok with something, but you're totally allowed to do it, and good on you for making sure to say so right away. And good for reacting reasonably and saying it was ok and canceling the plans [presumably graciously and apologetically, although we didn't see that]. But WTF is this turning around the next day and starting an affair. Fuck you, Taub, for jerking both of these women around...you weren't even that interested until it was suddenly an option for all of a day.