For Ed and Jay, it happened somewhat explosively six years into their relationship. For Dan and David, it happened organically a year after they exchanged vows at an elaborate commitment ceremony. And it happened twice for Dale and Robert, but now, with two children to raise, it hardly matters anymore.

“It” is that inevitable moment in almost all gay male relationships when the question of monogamy arises. Sometimes the question is asked and answered right off the bat. Usually it occurs further into the relationship, when Prince Charming reveals himself to be less charming than previously thought. Sometimes it happens without much fuss at all, although it is rarely that simple.

If approached honestly, any challenge facing two people who have chosen to pursue a life together can and should contribute to a stronger and more rewarding relationship. An agreement about monogamy is no exception, and some believe that the way in which more gay couples are handling their emotional and sexual arrangements is remarkably realistic.

Michael Shernoff introduces his widely read case study Monogamy and Gay Men (1999) by saying, “As a gay therapist, who has seen hundreds of gay couples in a vast range of unconventional, loving and sustaining relationship configurations – including monogamy, semi-open relationships, three-partner relationships and more – I have grown to respect the fluidity and customized relationship forms that can work well for gay men.” Commenting on this same case study, Jack Morin, Ph.D., says that monogamous and non-monogamous options are “thoroughly woven into the tapestry of queer love and are lived out on a richly diverse continuum.”

That continuum is evident in the lives of six men I met. Each individual brought his own emotional and experiential baggage to his relationship, and the sexual component of each relationship has ended up somewhere slightly different from where it began. Before finding out more about how these three couples negotiated the choppy waters of monogamy, it’s worth stepping back to consider how most relationships work in the first place, and where physical monogamy fits into the gay male experience.

According to marriage and family therapist Michael Scott, physical monogamy in heterosexual relationships, let alone gay ones, has not historically been the norm. Even today, it’s not as prevalent as you might imagine. Different cultures have adopted different models (affairs, polygamy, harems), but each is based on the fact that men and women are built differently.

Paul Sussman, a practicing psychologist and educator familiar with relationships from both a research and an experiential perspective, agrees with that assessment. He emphasizes that the biological difference between men and women is an important place to begin any discussion about monogamy within the GLBT community, because a relationship involving two people of the same sex will have its own characteristics.

Both Sussman and Scott are careful not to stereotype genders, but they agree that men can separate love from lust while women find this more difficult to do. According to Scott, “Women are fine-tuned in the art of attachment; the need for an emotional connection is written into their genetic code largely because of their child-bearing role.” So it is more likely that they will require a stronger emotional connection to their mate before having sex. In short, they need to fall in love first. For men, this isn’t typically the case.

In 1999, Dan Teixeira was on the sad side of a painful breakup. “I was 33. I was single, lonely and looking for a relationship,” he says.

Meanwhile, David Anglikowski was 10 years his junior and in his final year at the University of San Diego. David was neither looking for nor avoiding Mr. Right.

The couple crossed paths once or twice, but despite Dan’s reservations about the age gap, he developed a crush on David and deliberately sought him out. With a deal-closing Barry White track queued up on the stereo at home, David fell into Dan’s romantic trap. They’ve been together ever since.

Before a relationship becomes “monotonous,” it is quite the opposite. Relationships typically pass through two phases in which fidelity is assumed because, according to lovebirds the world over, no one else exists. Fidelity is so certain at this point that conversations this early on about monogamy between two gay men rarely take place. The first phase is attraction; that mechanism that makes one face, one smell, one person stand out from the rest. This is followed quickly by an emotional state that can last anywhere between a few weeks and a few years, which many psychologists call “limerence,” a state of mind characterized by intrusive thinking, longing, uncertainty, hope, misperception and passion – what the rest of us call being in love. Scott calls this altered state “nature’s trick,” an intoxicating time when all the flaws and annoying habits of your one true love are masked.

Apparently, nature is tricking us for our own good, giving each “match made in heaven” the opportunity to bond in concrete and meaningful ways so that the union is better equipped to cope with the power struggle and/or the inevitable (sexual) monotony to come. Straight couples have several rites built into the process that help bolster the mating ritual, which the GLBT community has only recently been able to adopt for the same purpose.

Dating, from adolescence on, helps each individual refine their search. The attachment-oriented woman tends to tame the outward-driven man once they come together. By the time passion fades, children have changed the dynamics of the relationship entirely.

Children are becoming increasingly common in GLBT homes. So in the modern paradigm of same-sex relationship, one place where the monogamy question might arise is when and if children become part of the picture. Something Robert Trujillo and Dale Kaczmarek-Trujillo know well.

“I suppose our relationship is ‘open’ in theory,” says Robert after putting adopted 3-year-olds Heydi and Cristian down for their nap. “I say that because the kids are core now, and it will only take rampant alcoholism or domestic abuse to bring our relationship to an end. We are essentially monogamous, but if something happens it won’t be the end of the world because the kids are our priority.”

Five minutes into nap time, Dale responds to a noise that only a parent might hear and gets up to help Cristian to the bathroom. With his shaved head and trim goatee, Dale looks more likely to be fetching a pitcher of beer at The Hole than ushering toddlers to the toilet, but I see him over Robert’s shoulder perched on the edge of the bathtub, gently motioning his sleepy son through the final stages of potty training.

“It’s all about resources, and neither one of us has the energy to be thinking about other guys,” Robert continues, clearly proud of the couple’s accomplishments. “Dale’s back at school, I have a career, and, in any case, our sex life is probably the best it’s ever been because we are realizing our goals.”

The couple met when they were partnered up for an exercise during a personal growth course during which Dale found the courage, at age 30, to declare that he was gay. “Rob was the first to know,” Dale says.

The course participants were advised not to have sex with any classmate for a month, so Robert and Dale used that time to learn more about one another. They learned that they were polar opposites, and that this was a good thing. Dale needed to learn how to be comfortable in his new gay skin and Robert needed someone to help him establish some life goals.

Thirty days passed, they consummated the relationship and became a couple. That doesn’t mean “happily ever after” happened right away. Despite Dale’s desire to have children and build a life with Robert, both men knew that Dale’s envy of Robert’s sexual history was getting in the way of the relationship. Dale said he needed time to be alone. So the couple built some space into the partnership for the first couple of years, meaning they opened it up.

Robert confesses that he was a willing participant in this experiment. “It was a calculated risk on my part,” he says. “I remained faithful to Dale but I was insecure. However, I wasn’t going to wait forever. … I was going to need a decision.”

Three months later, Dale realized what he wanted, and the couple moved in together soon after that. With very few exceptions, they have remained monogamous since then, continually using their year-end anniversary to check in with one another about how things are and where they’re headed.

When I spoke to Sussman and Scott, each stressed the importance of honest communication like that employed by Dale and Robert. Sussman emphasized that the majority of straight and lesbian couples won’t face this issue in quite the same way as two gay men because of the biological differences described earlier.

“While almost all couples will experience less sex as the relationship progresses, men will wrestle with this reality to a greater degree, and it’s normal to do so,” Sussman says.

Scott goes further by saying that once issues arise in a relationship, “our differences present us with an invitation to grow.” While one option is to break up and move on, another option is to engage in the struggle in order to deepen the bond. Choosing to open the relationship can be agreed upon at any time, but if it is done prematurely, the couple might miss an opportunity to enrich their connection and accomplish a tremendous amount of personal growth at the same time.

I don’t know about you, but this is where my own personal demons start to kick in. As I listen to the experts, I can’t help but think that, as gay men, we are destined to be cursed by this perfect storm of circumstances once we find ourselves cozied up to a potential life partner.

Not only are we prone to promiscuity, but the opportunity to act on those impulses are everywhere (bars, Web sites, Hillcrest), both before and after the honeymoon is over. Because we are men, we are less likely to be comfortable talking about our feelings.

If we grew up in a particularly dysfunctional or homophobic environment, we might not have been imprinted with healthy bonding techniques during those all-important childhood years; bonding techniques that come in handy once we become fully-evolved adults. When people say that relationships are hard work, they’re not kidding!

With that dire prognosis in mind, the introduction of children into a relationship clearly isn’t the most likely motivation for the monogamy conversation to come up. Once the sexual high has peaked – even when emotional, intellectual and other nourishing connections remain strong – monogamous relationships can become monotonous, and tensions simmer as those previously masked flaws are revealed. It’s where emotional insecurities first emerge and where cheating begins.

David insists that for him and Dan there was no jealousy, no insecurity and no arguments. Their physical relationship simply evolved.

“In my opinion,” he says, “there are two kinds of cheating: emotional cheating and physical cheating. Physical cheating is not that important. But emotional cheating definitely is.”

Dan nods in agreement: “He just wasn’t interested in chasing new dick any more. My relationship with David was so much stronger than that. We talked about opening the relationship over a long period of time, and we set some boundaries around safe sex practices. And then one day we were at a bar together and the right guy came along. That was it. And that first time was the best.”

For David and Dan, threesomes like this happened maybe 10 times over a two-year period, followed by another shift that allowed the other to “play” alone when either one was out of town. Huddled together like two cuddly peas-in-a-pod outside a café on a cold Sunday morning, they clearly enjoy telling me about one occasion when Dan urged David to go home with “the most gorgeous FedEx guy in the world,” simply because he was beautiful and the opportunity might never happen again. Dan wanted his partner to have the experience and was not jealous about it at all. David obliged (apparently it was a lot of fun), but didn’t need to do it again even when he had the opportunity. Now, the couple says they have come full circle and are largely monogamous again because they simply don’t want to have sex with other people.

“We’re just not that interested, and, in any case, we have a kitchen to remodel,” Dan says.

The absence of insecurity and possessiveness in David and Dan’s experience was not the case for Jay and Ed, whose awkward transition into a more open relationship may be a more familiar story. The couple met in a bar in Portland, Ore., in 1982, when they were both 21, and chose to live a life somewhat separate from the greater gay community.

“We didn’t go to gay bars; we only hung out with straight people. In fact, we patterned our relationship after the straight model, combining our finances, moving in together and setting shared goals right away,” Ed says.

Their relationship also coincided with the onset of AIDS. “I guess we also deliberately coupled off because we were young and afraid.” he adds.

Like many of their peers, the young couple didn’t know how this terrifying new disease was spreading from one gay man to another, so they simply decided to step out of the community altogether.

By six years into the relationship, Jay was feeling suffocated. He needed to re-enter the gay world, and Ed felt that he had no choice but to follow. They began by joining Front Runners, a gay and lesbian running and walking club, which exposed them to a lot of new gay friends, and also to an array of relationship configurations.

Although Jay admits that he has less of a sexual appetite than Ed, once he unlocked the door to the outside world, so to speak, Ed “kicked it wide open.” Nevertheless, Ed says that agreeing to that first threesome back then was an act of desperation. “I was really worried the relationship might end.”

Ed’s fear probably rings true for a lot of gay men in relationships who are negotiating this self-confidence-testing turning point. Ed’s insecurity (believing that Jay was better looking than him and therefore more likely to move on, for example) and possessiveness were essentially ways of expressing a deep and vulnerable truth: I’m scared you’ll fall in love with someone else and leave me.

But the irony here is that by being this honest with your partner, and having an avenue of communication in place that can accommodate this type of conversation, you can neutralize those fears and open up new horizons. By talking about the reality of your sexual interests (commonplace or extreme), you can help realize them. By articulating your fears, you give your partner the opportunity to appease them. And as the relationship evolves, the evidence of growing together and not apart through these kinds of mutually-beneficial agreements will become clear as the years tick by. Just ask Jay and Ed, who have begun planning their 25th anniversary.

Both Scott and Sussman, as well as the literature that I came across, agree with what many might say is stating the obvious: Talking to one another early on and throughout the relationship about fears, insecurities, sexual truths and desires is the best place for any couple to successfully negotiate the question of monogamy, as well as any other issue that is important to both individuals. You might remain monogamous as a result of this dialogue and you might not, but if sex has become monotonous, someone needs to say something.

Ed says that he was turned on by his and Jay’s first sexual experience with a third person, and over the years their non-monogamous relationship has changed its shape a number of times. Months pass when no one else is involved. One year, they considered becoming a three-partner relationship with a younger man who came along during a period of time when health issues kept Jay from having sex with Ed.

Ed no longer worries that Jay will be snatched up by someone else, and the couple has learned to be clear about the primacy of their relationship with any third person they become involved with.

At the end of the day, Ed says that his experience with other men has made him realize that he and Jay have an emotional connection that is unique to them. “When I have sex with Jay, I want to make him feel good and I want to please him,” says Ed. “With other guys, it’s all about me!”

Clearly, today’s generation of young gay men and women have a lot of options to consider as far as their future relationships are concerned. But it is in this area that the GLBT community is at a huge advantage. We have not been constrained by a rigid model of love and fidelity that claims to be “one size fits all.” Alternative intimacy styles thankfully exist in the “tapestry of queer love,” as described earlier by Jack Morin, and range from complete monogamy to a fully open relationship, and back again.

In The Male Couple (1984), David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison’s best-selling investigation of 156 male couples, the authors conclude that “fidelity is not defined in terms of sexual behavior, but rather by the emotional commitment to one another.” In chatting to each of these three couples, it’s clear that the agreements they’ve reached about physical monogamy have traveled circuitous routes, but the emotional monogamy they share is unshakeable. With relationships ranging from seven to 24 years, each of these three couples has found a place on the sexual/emotional continuum that fits. And for every couple reading this article, there is a different spot on that same map that is just right for them.