popa

as a counselor for some 50 years (really) i have learned the human beings can a) make any configuration work and b) can also fuck up any configuration--and usually do both more or less simultaneously.  I think one of your phrases is the heart of the matter: "close extended family" - back 100+ years the "family" included grandparents in the attic, kids in the kitchen, siblings with their families within walking distance if not in the same building--so the average adult had some 20 or 30 complicated and baggage-laden relationships to be mindful of every time they bought a horse, or kissed a wench.  At the same time, most marriages were arranged, with the spouses meeting for the first time on the wedding day or only under heavy chaperones.  consequently everybody had side relationships, often with 2nd cousins or whoever bent over to check the pie in the oven... back in the 15th century Catholic priests were admonished to keep themselves to one wife and two mistresses (it was the reformation that mandated the celibacy of priests - more for tax purposes than spiritual reasons).   So nowadays we have marginal contact with our siblings, we warehouse our parents and ship our youngsters off to schools asap.  that leaves us with a lot of relational energy and a very unweildly container to hold it all.  push a fire-hyrdrant's worth of water through a garden hose and it will burst.  we need the extra relationships; many of which may be deeply intimate but asexual, and some of which may be sexual but not so intimate.  for myself/ourselves, we have had an open relationship basically from day one, with a modicum of honesty but TMI is still TMI.   i know who my wife is with and where they are (usually) and when she'll be back -- and vice versa.  past that, the whys and wherefores--well if we understood those, then those other folks wouldn't be needed, would they?  probably my most intimate relationship is not a sexual one but is with a woman whose childhood deep in the Bible Belt parallels my own--we have our own ambiguous relationship to Christianity, which is a non-starter for my Jewish wife! so ...yeah, open or rather "diverse" and "tolerant" or even, you known, "healthy" relationships.. that's the stuff!

Very interesting @oldernow thank you so much for your input btw I feel religious influence is part of the problem more than the answer to the problem not because of the purity of the underlying message in most religions but it’s corruption by power. Look our world is changing so fast now that we need to reinvent modern living much faster than we are to increase happiness or we are doomed 💔

That looks like the land around Thurso, or thereabouts... tho I guess a fair amount of the highlands can look that way.  (I have ties to Ullapool)