254 - When You're Unsure about an Open Relationship
Opening a relationship is extremely difficult, extremely stressful, and it’s not for everyone! Not every relationship looks the same, and it’s important to choose what you want in your personal relationships. If you’re considering non-monogamy, but perhaps aren’t totally sold on the idea or simply apprehensive, there are a couple things you can do, either before opening up a relationship or instead of doing so:
Get a third party professional to help you look at your relationship. A social worker, a counselor, a therapist…the options are endless. Preferably, they should be familiar with non-monogamy. Even if your relationship isn’t currently in trouble, couples counseling can be a valuable experience and help you be more cognizant.
Disentangle. If you and your partner rarely spend time apart, it can be helpful to start cultivating your own hobbies, or try to have some experiences by yourself to avoid developing a codependent relationship. Disentangling can be as simple as spending some time by yourself or as big as taking an entire trip on your own.
Entangle. Although it might seem counterintuitive, considering this suggestion follows one to disentangle, sometimes we’re already disentangled, and reconnecting is helpful. Having regular date nights or something similar is a good practice to engage in if you aren’t spending much quality time with each other.
The experiment of connecting to people outside your relationship. Intentionally fostering connections with others, like friends and family, both as a couple and individually, can be valuable and rewarding. Growth in relationships that aren’t romantic is excellent for furthering your own personal growth as well.
Break up or restructure your relationship in some way. Breaking up isn’t fun to think about, but sometimes it’s necessary. Sometimes even just changing expectations is enough, or separate finances, or living separately. And although breaking up isn’t to be taken lightly, it’s important to include in the options.
Sex and intimacy. Sometimes a desire to open the relationship stems from a desire to experience new things, excitement, kink, or something similar. Exploring some of these with your partner or even just verbalizing fantasies can contribute to the sense of excitement. Also consider connecting with local swinger clubs or members of the kink community, or even attending a play party. Some sex shops or local communities also host workshops that can be a fun way to reinvigorate your sex life, if that’s something you find yourself wanting.
Transcript
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Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory podcast, we're talking about what to do when you might not be sure that opening up a relationship is right for you. In this episode, we're specifically going to be focusing on, if you're currently in a closed monogamous relationship and you're considering non-monogamy but you just aren't sure if now's the right time or if that's the right choice for you. We want to talk about some things that you can do instead of just diving into non-monogamy to see if that might not be right for you.
Also, I did want to say that this episode, though, these things that we're going to be talking about aren't something that you can only do in a monogamous relationship by any stretch. I actually think that these are really useful things you can do anytime. It's like, "Hey, things, we're not sure what to do in this relationship right now. Maybe these are some things to try or to consider before trying to make some major change."
Dedeker: On this show that you're listening to right now-
Jase: The Multiamory podcast?
Dedeker: Yes. That's what it is.
Emily: This one right here. This one right here.
Dedeker: This very show you're listening to it right now. We very much want to send the message that non-monogamy, alternative relationships, nontraditional relationships, nontraditional sexuality, whatever you want to call it, is definitely not for everybody. I think that non-monogamy and the whole umbrella term of what that covers, those kind of relationships are not more enlightened, they're not the solution to all relationship problems, and we're definitely not here to convert anybody or try to change their mind or try something that they don't want to try.
Instead, we very much want to support people feeling good about the relationship style that they're in and that they've chosen, especially if that means consciously choosing some form of monogamy or just some form of relationship that doesn't necessarily have to look the same exact way as your radical social justice warrior queer friend is doing their relationship.
Jase: Right. It's more about that you're able to choose it rather than I'm doing this by default.
Emily: That's one of the things that I love about this podcast, is that I think we have branched out from just being about non-monogamy and that specifically into a bunch of different types of relationships. I guess, as you said, our point is that you are choosing actively what kind of relationship style you want to be in as opposed to just having it be the default out there.
There are contingencies out there who will criticize monogamous couples or even people who "fail at non-monogamy", which it's not a failure if you decide not to do it, but a lot of people out there might accuse those who try non-monogamy and then go back to monogamy. They might accuse them of being too scared or not evolved or mature enough, being too insecure and jealous, things like that. Maybe that is true in some cases, but there are a lot of other really good reasons why someone may choose not to open up their relationship or stay in a non-monogamous setting and why they may just feel unsure about it, in general. We wanted to talk about a couple of those.
The first thing that we wanted to talk about regarding this is that a lot of people out there may just not have enough time to date multiple people. They might already be spread way too thin with work commitments, with family commitments, any number of things. There might be an illness in the family that they have to take care of. Their job may be unbelievably demanding. I just recently got back from China, and it's amazing to me how unbelievably demanding and like hard people work there. I think the same is true in Japan. I have no idea how people would have multiple relationships in those types of settings, honestly.
Dedeker: People do it. It's the same thing. I think it's a perfectly good reason to choose not to undertake a major relationship transition if you already are very aware of what your time commitments are and what your capacity is. People who are non-monogamous also have to deal with that as well. It's like when you choose to take on new partners or dive into a new relationship or whatever, that it's always going to have to be counterweighted against knowing and being very real about what your capacity is, what your time capacity is, for sure.
Other good reasons to not choose an open relationship or to feel unsure about non-monogamy or opening up your relationships include if your current relationship, your current closed relationship, just doesn't feel stable or quite safe enough. That doesn't mean that things are on the rocks, but it may still feel like maybe there are some areas of improvement. Maybe you want to prioritize putting time and energy into fortifying your existing connection rather than tackling a big transition like this.
Speaking of transitions, another good reason to feel unsure, maybe hesitant about opening up, is maybe there are some life transitions coming up. Maybe you're going to be tackling a big move or switching jobs or changing careers or getting married soon or having a baby, stuff like that. That's definitely a perfectly justifiable reason why maybe you're like, "I don't know if non-monogamy is the right choice for me now."
Jase: That's enough transitioning for right now. Let's not add another one on top of that.
Dedeker: Especially having a baby. Maybe that's enough, adding other people to the mix. Now, of course, on the flip side of this, sometimes when someone's choosing to get married or have a baby or move or stuff like that, they feel more encouraged to be like, "Actually, non-monogamy feels more interesting or more safe for me in this way." It does really depend on the person and their circumstances and their preferences.
There may be emotional health or mental health factors. You may be in a place where you're feeling particularly emotionally vulnerable or mentally vulnerable. That could be a result of circumstances, again, like the life transitions we talked about, or maybe dealing with a death of a loved one, or dealing with extreme stress or healing from PTSD, or some other way, having compromised mental or emotional health and also don't want to take on a major relationship shift.
Jase: Another one is just fulfillment or fullness. You might feel perfectly fulfilled by your monogamous relationship. Particularly if that's true for both of you, you don't need to do this. It's not like you're somehow going to be better people by doing an open relationship. The last one on our list here is just that you might already know that monogamy is the right choice for you, or your partner might already know that. Maybe they have tried it. Maybe they've just thought about it a lot. Maybe they've looked at some of these things before and have really evaluated it and decided that that's not something that they want to do or it's not something that they believe in. That's okay. That's okay for someone to make that choice too.
Ultimately, it's okay to not be on board with opening up your relationship. I know that sounds weird for us to say, coming from this podcast, but it's true. It's okay to not be on board with opening that up. I think opening a previously closed relationship is incredibly hard. It's a very, very hard thing to do, and so it's okay to be unsure, to be hesitant or questioning, and maybe try some of these things that we're going to talk about in this episode. That doesn't mean you'll never open up, but this could be something to look at and consider first rather than thinking, "Well, our only option is to open up if we want to change this relationship."
Dedeker: I think that some people, if their partner pitches it to them or if they're thinking about it, that some people can get stuck feeling like, "Oh, God, well, if this conversation is happening, then there's just no going back. It has to be either I have to be okay with a non-monogamous relationship or we have to break up, and it's going to be just this very black and white choice, fork in the road, essentially." For some people, it does end up that way, but that's very rarely the case.
There's often not only a very large spectrum of how you can change your relationship, or what kind of relationship format you can transition into, but there's also so many other options of things that you and your partner can experiment with, or just seeing, "How does this add to our relationship? How does this change things? Does this feel good? Does this feel weird? Do we learn anything about this?" That's what we're talking about today.
Emily: We wanted to dive into this next part by giving some scenarios with non-monogamy. Maybe you're in a monogamous relationship, and all of a sudden you're presented with non-monogamy in some fashion. Maybe you're the one thinking about it or maybe your partner's pitched it to you. There's a potential that maybe both of you are unsure or maybe one of you is super pumped about the idea and the other is not very thrilled about it.
Maybe you're just wondering if non-monogamy is going to enhance your connection or change it for the better. There's also the possibility that you might be worried that it could be really destructive to your relationship. I know way back in the day with Jase, I was worried about that when he first presented it. There are many different facets to this that if you find yourself in this scenario and are listening to this podcast.
Dedeker: This very podcast that you're listening to in your ear hole.
Emily: This very one and you're like, "I'm here because I want some answers."
Dedeker: I have a common refrain that I like to tell my clients. It's basically like when you're feeling unsure about something in life or in your relationship or for yourself or whatever, I like to tell my clients to be a scientist.
Jase: Quit whatever you're doing, go back to school, get your PhD, you become a scientist.
Dedeker: You'll definitely learn something.
Emily: Great advice, Dedeker.
Dedeker: No, seriously, be a scientist. You got to put on your white lab coats. You got a strap on, your safety goggles, and fire up your Bunsen burners, kids, because we're going to science up, pony up, and we're going to start gathering.
Jase: What do you really mean?
Emily: Pony up?
Dedeker: Sorry, it's ponies.
Jase: Science ponies.
Emily: I see, okay.
Dedeker: That thing that exists.
Emily: Yes, the science ponies.
Dedeker: Yes. Okay, the whole point of being a scientist is, start gathering data. Start gathering data, start gaining information about how you tick, how your relationship works. Start experimenting, start trying things, just try something and then see. That was something that when we went on meditation retreat together, one of the nuns was talking about that if you're plugged with doubt, in particular, a solution for that, of being plugged in doubt, is just try something, even if it's low stakes, and that's going to give you more information to then help things become a little bit more clear.
Jase: Yes, I love that.
Dedeker: Even nuns are scientists sometimes.
Emily: For sure. Yes, okay. In the spirit of all of us being scientists, we have compiled a list of six things for you and your partner to--
Jase: Experiments.
Emily: Yes, exactly. We've compiled a list of six things for all y'all out there, you and a partner, to try on and to experiment with that may help you enhance your relationship and possibly deepen your connection and then clarify what kind of relationship might be the best for you. Let us go to the first one, and that's would be to get a third party to help you look at your relationship. That could be someone like a professional, a counselor, couples therapy, a relationship coaching. This is super helpful in a variety of settings. Like if your relationship is kind of in trouble, it can be very helpful from that standpoint, but also if your relationship is doing really well and you just want to find a new way in which to communicate with a third party present, that's a really good time to go and get couples therapy or get counseling with your loved one.
Jase: Yes, a third-party professional can really help you to mull over that question of opening up or can help guide that conversation. Now, the caveat here is that this would be a professional who is familiar with non-monogamy and is comfortable with it and actually gets it.
Dedeker: Maybe, or--
Emily: He's not going to say that it all is going to screw everything up maybe just by default?
Dedeker: Yes. Ideally, you're finding someone who is at least affirming of non-monogamy, but when you go to a professional, I don't think you necessarily have to make that conversation all about non-monogamy. I think it can also be really good just to have someone there to help you take stock of your relationship, see where your strengths are, see where your weaknesses are-
Emily: That's true.
Dedeker: -and guide you toward different areas to look at that maybe are not necessarily about, do we open up our relationship or not?
Jase: Certainly. I guess what I'm saying is just that if you are going to go to a professional who themselves already has a foregone conclusion that non-monogamy never works, they might be able to help you in other areas, but you're not going to be facilitating a good conversation about actually evaluating whether that's right for you because they've already decided that without talking to you or taking your input at all. Just try to avoid that. But they can help you in that conversation brainstorm, get deeper into what's really going on for you about your fears or what it is that's appealing to you about it as well as improving your communication and helping the two of you feel more connected or building better habits with each other and sustaining your intimacy and building that with each other.
I know I hear a lot of you out there, myself I'm often in this camp of saying, "But that's expensive." While that is true sometimes, it is possible to find either a therapist who takes your insurance if you have that or someone who does a sliding scale actually happens fairly often. Specifically, if you look for people who are social workers who do couples counseling, they will-- I have found are more likely to do a sliding scale than a therapist, although many of them do as well. Also, relationship coaches tend to be less expensive, more flexible, many offer sliding scales as well. There's different professionals and different ways of going about that and you don't necessarily have to have a session every week either. This could be something you do just as often as you can afford. Basically, find someone who's willing to work with your budget and to work with your schedule.
Dedeker: Again, I feel like I need to repeat this. I can't stress this enough. Even if you don't feel like your relationship is in trouble, it's still highly recommended.
Jase: It's really helpful.
Dedeker: Yes. Just to have this nice, safe, facilitated space be having these meta conversations about your relationship can really teach you a lot about each other and really--
Emily: Have you two done that? Have you two done that in any sense? I never have--
Dedeker: Me and Jase?
Emily: Yes, or like separately or together because I don't think that I ever have gone to couples counseling when it wasn't like, "We need to really work on something," or, "There are challenges here that to fix," kind of thing.
Dedeker: No Jase and I haven't yet.
Jase: No. Maybe we should get on that.
Dedeker: I go to individual therapy and Jase has gone to individual therapy.
Jase: I have an individual coach and--
Dedeker: I have thought about it because I'm in the middle of doing the Gottman Training right now for couples and I have been thinking about it of like, "We should do some of this."
Jase: Yes, totally. We did recently do some questionnaires on things-
Dedeker: Some of the Gottman Assessment stuff.
Jase: -from the Gottman Assessment and then looked at that and talked about what that showed us about our relationship and stuff like that.
Emily: That's cool.
Dedeker: Yes.
Emily: Something to think about.
Dedeker: Then also the other thing is when we say get a third party to help you look at your relationship, it doesn't count as getting a third to add to your relationship.
Jase: Yes, that's not our theory.
Dedeker: Some couples treat it that way. Some couples like the experiment is like, "Let's try adding a third and then--"
Jase: And get a free therapist. That's what they think.
Dedeker: Get a free-
Emily: Oh, boy.
Dedeker: -I don't know, an experiment at someone else's expense I suppose.
Emily: Experiential therapist?
Dedeker: Sort of, something like that. Some immersion therapy.
Jase: Make them deal with all your baggage.
Dedeker: Basically, anyway.
Jase: Not a good idea. Don't do that.
Dedeker: No, okay. Moving onto number two in our list, and that's to disentangle. Find some independent interests or hobbies. If you find that you and your partner, maybe you spend all of your waking free time together or maybe you suspect that you're developing a codependent relationship. I know codependent relationship tends to be a dirty word, but is okay, a lot of us have codependent tendencies. It doesn't mean your relationship is toxic. It doesn't mean you're a bad person, it happens. We're in a culture that, to be quite honest, I think really encourages codependent relationships. That's okay. But if you suspect that, it may be helpful to just experiment, just try on some disentanglement and see how that feels.
It can take on many different forms. It could be pursuing interests or hobbies that are independent of each other. It could just be something like making time for alone time, time that you're separate from each other. It could be something as adventurous as maybe going on a whole trip by yourself. I know several couples where if it's successful to them, like one or both of them will do like little outings or weekends away from each other just to solo and they absolutely love it, or if that's not within your budget or schedule, even just going on an outing by yourself or even just taking a walk around the block by yourself.
Just examining the ways where you feel like maybe there's some codependence or like a little bit too much entanglement with your partner and seeing if you can tease that out a little bit. This is, I think, a great precursor as well if you're feeling maybe opening the relationship or non-monogamy maybe in your future, maybe you're not sure now, but you're thinking it may be in your future, that disentangling is a good step just to get used to the sensation of, "I'm at home and my partners are a movie by themselves," or, "I'm heading out to have this new experience without my partner." Just to start to acclimatize yourself to what that feels like and what that brings up for you.
Jase: Yes. Like a baby step on the way toward maybe in the future, they'd be on a date with someone, but you know that. "Yes, I know how to have fun by myself. I know-- I have my own hobbies." I know a lot of people who have been in a relationship a long time, particularly people who've been married a long time where if you ask them like, "What are your interests and hobbies?" They couldn't give you an answer. They would just say, "Well, we like to do this," or, "We go and do that," or, "We're busy with these things."
Emily: What do you do?
Jase: Right, but it's like, but what are your interests? What are your hobbies? If you have time on your own, what would you do? They're like, "I don't know. Maybe clean the house." It's just like they really don't know. This is a really good way to do that, is to figure that out again.
Dedeker: Also, again, even if you're not going to open up, still a good thing to find out.
Emily: Totally. Even if you can only budget some time and money to do this even once a month, it's going to carry more benefit and give you some more stat points, some more data than not doing it at all. Having your own interests I think makes you a more interesting person to your partner in a lot of ways as well because then you can both discover new things, talk about them, learn something new, and then come back and relay that to your partner, talk about how cool this thing is that you were doing something like that. It does give a lot of benefit if you're even able to do it once a month. We'll move on to the next one, number three, which is the opposite of what we just touched.
Emily: Instead of disentangling, it's to entangle, connect. Get some more connection in your life. You may feel like there's distance between you and your partner or there's lost passion, lost interest, that you're living in separate worlds. When this happens, try to invest in intentional time with your partners, things like doing a regular date night, finding a really novel experience to try together, go bungee jumping or something or even rock climbing or ice skating, I don't know, something like that. Find a new hobby to share. Even find some of those really open-ended question things out there, the 36 questions or something along those lines. I'm assuming the Gottman's have something, right?
Jase: Yes.
Emily: Ask your partner. Spend an entire evening and delve into those things because that's definitely a novel fun experience for sure.
Jase: Just like Dedeker was saying about if you're finding yourselves being really codependent and just always doing everything together and being very uncomfortable on your own, that's a good sign that you should try to rediscover your own interests and how you can be more comfortable doing your own thing, whether it's watching your shows that your partner doesn't want to watch or catching up on some hobby that you haven't done in years. This on the other side is-- Or sometimes people it's the opposite where it's like we live our whole lives apart from each other and we're around each other a lot, but we're doing chores or we're zoned out watching TV and we're not actively engaging. Like Emily was saying, those open-ended questions and stuff. Actually the Gottman Institute has an app that's called the Gottman Card Decks app. Not a great name for an app, to be honest.
Emily: It is so hard to say card decks.
Jase: Card decks.
Dedeker: It's not a very snappy title but--
Jase: No, it's really not.
Emily: No, it doesn't roll off the tongue, but here we are.
Dedeker: It is what it says on the tin.
Jase: Right. What's pretty cool about it is that it's a free app and it's not covered in ads because it is essentially in itself kind of an ad for the Gottman Institute just because it's from them.
Dedeker: It's clean and well designed.
Jase: It's real simple. It doesn't do a lot, but what it has is basically little decks of cards that you can flip through on your phone that just have different open-ended questions and they're in all sorts of different categories, there's sexy ones or there's more getting to know your relationship with your family ones or getting to know what you think about love or just general question.
Dedeker: Or let's talk about adventures we could have.
Jase: It's definitely a good go-to.
Dedeker: That's awesome.
Jase: It's really great for just like, I don't know how to ask open-ended questions, that's a great place to go. We do recommend a book actually by doctors John and Julie Gottman which is called Eight Date-
Emily: Doctors?
Jase: Doctor, which is the book Eight Dates. Basically, in it, it talks about the importance of reestablishing a date night with your partner. They have eight specific dates that each have a theme, they suggest types of places you can go, what sorts of questions to ask while in them.
Dedeker: Also if you don't want to go out and spend money, they suggest at-home versions of each of them and-
Jase: Or cheap versions
Dedeker: It's less about--you're going to go mini-golfing and more about like these are the kinds of questions you're going to ask each other related to this theme on this date and to have this kind of conversation.
Jase: Then also you can check out our episode 247 on why your relationship needs a date night and that we go into a lot more detail about the science behind regular date night and the fact that it's still really beneficial even if you just do it once a month. Just like the disentangling, even if you can only do that a little, even doing this once a month, it's going to make a big difference in your relationship.
Dedeker: I really like this particular experiment because I do feel that sometimes when you've been in a monogamous relationship for a long time and if you're losing that passion or that excitement or you're starting to feel like, "I really wish that--" Or like, "I'm really missing those days of early dating when I felt like I was courted or I felt like we would actually dress up for each other." That sometimes people turn to non-monogamy to try to recapture that a little bit, sometimes either consensually or nonconsensually. Sometimes that's why people cheat as well because it's like you miss that feeling of someone wanting you actively or the thrill of the chase of someone pursuing you or you pursuing someone or something like that.
I do think that this particular kind of experiment can really help to see like, if we just kind of sprinkle in a little bit more of that specialness around some ritual date night or connecting time or if we injected more energy into us still trying to get to know each other-- When you're going on a first date with someone and you're in those early stages of dating, it's like you try so hard to get to know this person, you're so curious and ask them so many questions and then we lose that over time. That doesn't necessarily mean that you've learned everything there is to learn about your partner. There's still plenty of things to still learn because your partner is vast, I assure you.
Jase: Another recommendation I've heard is actually doing something active together, something so that you actually get a little bit sweaty around each other can be nice.
Emily: Experiments.
Jase: Exactly. Going for a hike or a jog or go into the gym together, something. If that works out for you, that can also be a nice option as well. Before we go on to our final three things to try in your relationship, we want to take a quick moment to talk about some ways that you can help keep this show going and growing and get this message out to more people who might need it.
Dedeker: All right, let's get back to this list. We're on number four. Number four is the experiment of connecting to people outside of your relationship. That means being intentional about fostering connections with friends, with family, with community, with your support network and both doing that together as a couple as well as individually. This corresponds with numbers two and three about disentangling experiment and also entangling experiment that I think that when it comes to your friend network or your support network, I think it's important to have networks that you can connect to together as a couple in your relationship and also that the two of you have individually and even separately as well.
Jase: I thought at first that this was more about individually connecting with other people, but you're saying just more generally is what you were thinking?
Dedeker: I think it's important to have a balance because I think I've seen couples where they only have separate friend groups and sometimes that's a little bit weird, sometimes that's a symptom of them they're being a little too much distance and-
Jase: Yes, that makes sense.
Dedeker: -no overlap. Then I've also seen couples where it's like, we only have shared friends and that if the relationship ends, then it's always the tricky question of how do we split up the friends and it's very rough.
Emily: I get this friend and you get this friend.
Dedeker: I've been there. This connecting, it could include creating new connections with people, either going to a class or a meetup group or something like that, but I think we can all acknowledge that it is often quite difficult to make new friends as an adult. It could look like just rededicating time and effort to your existing friendships or family members or communities, even little intentional investments with your existing friends. Things like texting nice things to them for no reason or sending a card or a small gift or having a friend date or having a Skype date. Something like that can still go a long way.
The reason for this is that it's just important to make sure that there's people outside of just your significant other who are supporting you, who are people you can turn to, who are people that you can do a variety of activities with that maybe you don't do with your significant other.
Jase: Or who can support you on things or encourage you to stick to your new workout plan or your diet or something. Your partner doesn't have to be the one doing that all the time.
Emily: There's this narrative out there, common polyamory PR about different people being able to fulfill different needs. I know I've definitely said it as one of the reasons why polyamory did appeal to me and yet it does have a lot of merit to that statement, I think. It is a broad stroke statement, but it's true even if you do choose monogamy because we as human beings really thrive when we're connected to a variety of people and have a variety of relationships. I do think with one person, with my mom, I'm very different than I am with my best friend James and with Jase and Decker. I think that all of them bring out different sides of me.
When you're in a monogamous relationship, it's super important to not just be only with your significant other but to really continue to let yourself blossom and flourish outside of that relationship and amongst and within other types of relationships as well, even if they're not romantic ones. I just wanted to throw that one out there.
Jase: I would say even if you are non-monogamous, I think it is incredibly important to not. Because I also see that problem too when people are polyamorous, and especially if they get so busy because they have a lot of partners.
Emily: They only know their partners. Yes, exactly.
Jase: Yes, exactly. That, I think it is really important. I've gradually learned this over time, how important it is to maintain friendships, and even just acquaintances and coworker relationships and whatever. That it's important to value those too and not just assume that, by default, like any free time I have is only going to get spent on romantic partners. I think it's a really powerful thing for making my relationships better and also just making my own life more enriched.
Emily: Absolutely. Let's move on to number five, which is the downer one.
Dedeker: Wiiih, waaah.
Emily: Waaah, waaah, but it's the breakup, take a break, or restructure your relationship in some way, if you're unsure about an open relationship. Yes, this isn't exactly a fun one to talk about, but we definitely, here on Multiamory, like to encourage people that if they should break up, then go ahead and do it, by all means. It's totally okay to break up.
This is definitely the more extreme version of disentangling, but it is possible that an open relationship might be on the table because there is something wrong with the relationship already or just incompatibility amongst the people in that relationship. Non-monogamy can definitely be a reason and show like, "Hey, this is an important thing that maybe I'm really into and you're not into, and I want to pursue it, and maybe there's just something that's not going to work out here."
Dedeker: Also what I've seen countless times is your monogamous relationship, it's come to the point where one or both of you has realized, "This relationship isn't working." Or maybe like, "I'm not compatible with this person. I'm not excited about them anymore, but I don't want to break up with them because that sounds too uncomfortable. So let's open up the relationship as a means of--" This sounds horrible, but people straight up do it, but opening up the relationship as a means of staying comfortable while I'm seeking out who my next partner is going to be. I've seen that play out so many times.
Jase: The thing that people often accuse open relationships or polyamorous relationships of being.
Dedeker: That's the ironic thing, yes.
Jase: Well, and I think that they assume that because, yes, a lot of people do that.
Dedeker: Shitty people do it sometimes?
Jase: Well, I don’t even think shitty people. It's when you feel trapped and you feel like breaking up isn't an option unless you have something else lined up.
Dedeker: I've been there, jeez.
Jase: That's a common feeling. I think it comes from a lot of things, among those being just either insecurity or fear or difficulty in doing that. There's a lot of reasons why that could be. I don't want to pass judgment on anyone because I feel like, to a certain extent, we've all probably done some variation on that, even if it wasn't specifically like opening up with the intention of moving on, but something like that can happen.
Yes. Like Emily was mentioning, this could be because one of you realizes like, "Non-monogamy or polyamory really is for me. Now that I've learned about it, this just feels right to me. This makes sense. This fits my ethics better," something like that, and the other doesn't. There is a point where that's just not going to be something that the two of you are going to be happy, maintaining a relationship together, when either basically one of you has to be getting something that they're not okay with in order for the other to be getting what they believe in. That can be challenging.
There's also a lot of other reasons. I remember when I first started traveling years ago, I read some books about culture shock and about traveling and things like that. One of the things that they came back to over and over was if your marriage is struggling, don't move abroad as a way to try to fix that. I think the same is true.
Emily: Do some people do that, they move abroad?
Jase: Well, and I think the same that people will have a kid when their relationship's struggling.
Dedeker: Or get a dog.
Jase: Or get a dog, yes. It's this like, "We're struggling and so we're going to try to fix it by doing something radical," but that's actually going to add more stress because it's a change. Having kids adds a lot of stress to a relationship. Moving abroad adds a lot of stress to a relationship. I would say opening up adds a lot of stress to a relationship for a little while, while you're making that transition. It is a difficult thing to do.
In addition to breaking up, this could also mean some variation on that, just choosing not to live together anymore. If you are living together, choose not to live together but stay together, could be just changing your expectations, maybe separating some of your finances or something. There's lots of things that can make this difficult, though, if your finances are very entwined, you have kids together. This isn't just to say, "It's easy. If it doesn't feel good, break up." That's not what we're saying, but just to realize that that is an option, and sometimes it is the right option.
Dedeker: For some more information about that, you can listen to our episode 243, How Compatible Are You Really? How compatible are you really?
Jase: It sounds so accusatory.
Dedeker: I know.
Emily: You were very intense about that, yes.
Dedeker: I know. Whenever I see the title of that episode, that's the voice that is in my head, it's very accusatory. How compatible are you really? When I think the content of that episode is actually--
Jase: It's not that.
Dedeker: It's not that, yes.
Emily: Goodness, yes.
Dedeker: Okay. Now moving on to the last one on our list, again, this is far from a comprehensive list. This is just what we got for you today. Number six is sexy time, sexy time. It's the time for sex. It's what they called it, sexy time. Okay. Sometimes some people may be considering non-monogamy or opening up the relationship because there may be some curiosity. There may be some titillation. There may be some interest in exploring a fantasy.
That could be a particular sexual fantasy, or it could just be the fantasy of to having multiple partners. Even if we don't all have sex together, do kinky sex stuff. Or it could be motivated just by the desire to experience some sort of new sexual energy in some form. For some people, if that's the case, turning to non-monogamy in some form is the right choice, and for some people, it's very much not the right choice. Depends on your relationship, depends on who you are. You may be unsure. You may be in the middle. There is, of course, a wide spectrum of how to experiment here.
We're not a sex podcast. There are so many billion, kajillion sex podcasts out there that can give you all kinds of ideas about kinky stuff. As a matter of fact, pretty much any of the other shows on our network, Pleasure Podcasts, are a great place to turn to, to get some ideas about sexually exploring or exploring some kind of non-normative sexuality or kink or something like that. It could be something as low stakes as just verbalizing your fantasies to each other, which is vulnerable and scary, but sometimes even just for-- You can verbalize without necessarily making it mean that you have to act on it.
Sometimes you can just talk about it, you can be doing role play, or you could do something a little bit more risqué, more along the lines of going to a play party or a swingers club or getting involved in a swingers' community. Or you could just go to a sex-positive event or you could go to a munch or a play event, and you could go to some of those things, just with the intention of watching, maybe not participating. See how that feels for both of you.
Jase: I do want to clarify too, if this all is new to you, that basically what a munch is, is something that the kink community puts on but that's specifically nonsexual. It's no one's going to be having sex there. No one's going to be flogging each other or getting undressed or anything. It's specifically an event that kink communities will put on, just for people to meet each other and talk to each other.
Emily: Like it's a brunch but it's called a munch?
Dedeker: Well, I don't know if there's usually brunch food involved.
Jase: Yes, usually there in the evenings when I've gone to them, but sometimes in the middle of the day. Usually like a dinner or--
Emily: You're probably munching though?
Jase: Yes. It's usually at a restaurant or a park or somewhere like a picnic or something.
Dedeker: Another good thing to try is to look into workshops. Sometimes, I think, especially if you're in a city, if you look at your local sex store, and I don't necessarily mean like CD, rundown sex store from the '70s. I don't know, maybe. Look into your local sex-positive store. Often they'll have workshops or seminars or events or stuff like that, where usually it's pretty low stakes, sometimes aimed at beginners, where you can just go and try something, and maybe you walk out being like, "Well, that was weird." Or you could be like, "Wow, that was really hot and that was cool."
Jase: Yes, totally.
Dedeker: We do recommend a good place to start with, is this site called mojoupgrade.com. It's just like it sounds.
Emily: I've never heard of those.
Dedeker: Okay. This is my one criticism of the site, is that it is titled very weirdly. Based on the title, what would you think the site is, Emily?
Emily: Well, mojo, like how to get your mojo back. Probably like how to speak better or be more sure of yourself or something in that capacity. I don’t know.
Dedeker: That's not a bad guess. That's not a bad guess.
Emily: Yes. Well, what is it? Is it sex-related?
Dedeker: Yes. There are a number of sites out there similar to this, but MojoUpgrade I found it's just the one that has the nicest user interface. They recently updated it, so the user interface is even better.
Jase: That's good. They were having some bugs and problems a little while ago.
Dedeker: They were, but they recently upgraded their own mojo of their site.
Jase: They've got their mojo back.
Dedeker: It's a quiz that you and your partner can take that goes through a bunch of kink, sexual scenarios, group sex scenarios, all kinds of fetishes and vanilla sex scenarios and stuff like that. Both of you go through answering separately. Are you interested? Are you not? Do you do this already? Are you interested only if your partner wants to? Then it'll show the results to both of you, but it'll only show the areas where you matched.
You can go through answering honestly and maybe if you have a fantasy or a kink that's very vulnerable to you to share but your partner doesn't share it, or answers like, "Hell no, I'll never do that." It won't out you to your partner, essentially, it will just show your the areas where the two of you overlap. They also recently upgraded the site to be not quite so gender binary as well.
Jase: It was a little bit much. That's great. Awesome. We also wanted to say that in all of this, if you are thinking about experimenting with sexual situations that involve other people, it's just to remember that these are other living, breathing human beings and that you need to be respectful, be kind, be communicative, be safe, and don't treat them just like they're a disposable sex toy that happens to have a pulse or like they're your free therapist, or whatever it is. Be aware that this is another human being, and while you two are figuring things out, it's not okay to distract someone else through that.
Dedeker: They're also a scientist figuring things out.
Jase: You're right. Yes. Just a little caveat there, just remember that other human beings are involved, so educate yourself, be safe and learn what you're can. I think workshops and communities can be a really great way for learning about that. Shall we review the list?
Dedeker: Let's.
Emily: We shall.
Jase: All right. Number one was to get a third party to help you look at the relationship. Number two is to disentangle if you're feeling like you're a little too codependent all the time. Or, number three, is to entangle, mesh and connect, which is more about not spending nonsense time but about intentional time with each other. Number four is to connect to people outside of your relationship, this is fostering your friendships, your family, your community, maybe making new friendships or just fostering the ones you have.
Number five is to break up, take a break or restructure your relationship in some way. An extreme disentangling. Number six is sexy time. Explore some ways that you might be able to reinvigorate and enhance your sex life or learn some new things or try some new things in that department.
Emily: These are all just a few ideas of ways to get some data about what may be a better option or approach to your relationship if you're thinking that maybe opening up is not going to be the right choice for you right now. These are just a bunch of things that you can try within that, and then hopefully, you can come to some sort of conclusion. Although, we will say that none of these are empirical. We are not the experts here who are just going to tell you in black and white terms, "You're ready for non-monogamy or you're not." So don't put that pressure on us in that fashion.
Dedeker: We're also scientists too.
Jase: I would argue that no expert could tell you that, just like, "Check, check, you're good for it. Or check, check, no you're not." It is much more nuance to that.
Emily: The interesting thing is there are definitely couples out there who one side of the couple believes, "There's no way that I'll be interested in this," and once they get into it, that reverses and the person who is super excited may decide, "I'm not all about this in any capacity." You never know until you try again. Why not? Let's do it.
Emily: Give it a good college try.
Dedeker: Just going to cycle through all the ideas.
Emily: Exactly. Get some data, look sexy in your lab coat, get all that done, get it done indeed.
Dedeker: We're going to move on to recording our bonus content for this episode. We're going to talk about Oprah Magazine. Guess you weren't expecting that we were going to talk about Oprah Magazine on a show such as this.
Jase: I'm curious because I don't even know what that's going to be about. I will tune in and I hope that all of you too as well.