Speaker 1: Sex outside my marriage is maybe more playful. It has
Speaker 1: new relationship energy with it. It's kind of like buyer
Speaker 1: worky and crazy and like tickley and exciting. That's Alice
Speaker 1: and she loves sex. Alice isn't her real name, but
Speaker 1: everything else she told me is true. I generated a
Speaker 1: lot of energy and a lot of joy from interacting
Speaker 1: with other people, and that includes romantic land sexually. And
Speaker 1: she loves to play and try new things. My sexual
Speaker 1: needs and desires and my body is kind of like
Speaker 1: this scavenger hunt because it keeps changing and there's dead
Speaker 1: ends and you have to like find different things. But
Speaker 1: she also very much loves her husband. He knows me
Speaker 1: so well that he follows that map and it's amazing
Speaker 1: and we can try anything together because we have so
Speaker 1: much trust and so much safety in our relationship. Despite
Speaker 1: how great things were with her husband, Alice just wasn't
Speaker 1: getting everything she wanted sexually from him. She craved new bodies,
Speaker 1: new excitement, new experiences, and like many of the women
Speaker 1: we've talked to in previous episodes, she decided to have
Speaker 1: an affair to find what she wanted. But here's what's different.
Speaker 1: After Alice had her first sexual encounter outside of her marriage.
Speaker 1: She chose to tell her husband the truth, and then
Speaker 1: she asked him if he'd be open to her doing
Speaker 1: it again. I'm Joe Piazza and you're listening to She
Speaker 1: Wants More, the podcast where real women talk openly and
Speaker 1: honestly about the extra marital affairs that have completely changed
Speaker 1: their lives. Open marriages have been coming up in a
Speaker 1: lot of our recent conversations, and at first we debated
Speaker 1: even talking about it. This is a podcast about affairs.
Speaker 1: It sex outside your marriage an affair If it isn't
Speaker 1: a secret, is it secret part that makes the affair?
Speaker 1: I don't actually know the answer to that. Actually. In
Speaker 1: last week's episode, our expert Alexandra Fine, the sexologist and
Speaker 1: founder of sex toy brand Dame, even shared that she's
Speaker 1: in an open marriage. I'm in more of an open marriage.
Speaker 1: You form patterns and habits for a reason, and having
Speaker 1: a new space to get to explore, to be different.
Speaker 1: I think that's how we're constantly refinding ourselves. Many of
Speaker 1: our guests, including Wednesday Martin and doctor Ashley Thompson, have
Speaker 1: even suggested that consensual non monogamy open marriages could be
Speaker 1: a healthier way for women who are considering affairs to
Speaker 1: get their sexual needs met without betraying someone. In recent years,
Speaker 1: the stigma around open marriages seems to be lessening. Google
Speaker 1: searches for terms like polyamory and non monogamy have increased
Speaker 1: substantially since twenty sixteen, and I'm pretty sure that all
Speaker 1: the ex positivity flooding our social media feeds is also
Speaker 1: contributing to more curiosity on the subject. Younger people in particular,
Speaker 1: seemed to be especially receptive to the idea of it.
Speaker 1: A recent Tender study revealed that one fifth of gen
Speaker 1: z users said that they would be open to considering polyamory. So,
Speaker 1: could open marriages be the answer for some women who
Speaker 1: are considering having an affair who are already having one?
Speaker 1: Could open marriages be the answer for women who are
Speaker 1: in a position of authority or privilege to be able
Speaker 1: to ask for one. That is what I wanted to
Speaker 1: find out. Before she met her husband, Alice never thought
Speaker 1: that she'd get married or have a traditional monogamous relationship.
Speaker 1: Leading up to dating my husband. I really wasn't in
Speaker 1: any long term monogamous relationships. I saw a lot of
Speaker 1: relationships that had one partner. That was quite controlling. Saw
Speaker 1: especially parents losing their identities to just be parents, and
Speaker 1: like you didn't know who they were beyond being a parent.
Speaker 1: They had no hobbies, they had nothing that they seemed
Speaker 1: to be interested in, and so I just grew up
Speaker 1: being these I basically felt like I saw the same
Speaker 1: relationship over and over and over with my friends parents,
Speaker 1: and seeing my friends and how they were dating, it
Speaker 1: all just seemed not very much fun. It seemed like
Speaker 1: people were losing themselves. I just knew that. The way
Speaker 1: I understood it is I don't ever want to get married.
Speaker 1: That doesn't make sense. But then Alice did meet her husband.
Speaker 1: We met through doing yoga together, and they just were
Speaker 1: in the same circle of friends for a few months,
Speaker 1: and one day we in our circle of friends ended
Speaker 1: up ending the whole day out together. And it was
Speaker 1: interesting because it wasn't this like flare of oh, I'm
Speaker 1: so attracted to this person and I need to have
Speaker 1: them or I wonder what will happen. It was just
Speaker 1: like friendship with like an peak of interest. And a
Speaker 1: couple weeks later, we ended up in another event together
Speaker 1: and we ended up staying out all night and because
Speaker 1: we are having so much fun. We just kept going out.
Speaker 1: And then the next day I was riding my bike
Speaker 1: and talking to a friend and I said, I met
Speaker 1: the person I'm going to marry, and I'm freaked out
Speaker 1: because I don't believe in marriage and I am too
Speaker 1: young for this, and I don't feel like this makes
Speaker 1: sense at all, and yet I know I want to
Speaker 1: and I'm going to marry this person. So you did it.
Speaker 1: You're just like, this is the person. It was just
Speaker 1: really clear to me, and again was confusing because I
Speaker 1: truly didn't believe in marriage. I'd never seen a super
Speaker 1: successful marriage, at least not the way I wanted to
Speaker 1: live my life. I didn't have a model of what
Speaker 1: I thought I be as a wife. I'm also queer,
Speaker 1: and so like the idea of like committing to this
Speaker 1: one person, of this one gender felt like a lot
Speaker 1: for me. And I had never been in a monogamous relationship,
Speaker 1: and I had an assumption that if I was with
Speaker 1: this person, that's what that would mean as well. So
Speaker 1: we dated and we felt very quickly for each other.
Speaker 1: He felt similarly. He had been in a lot of
Speaker 1: long term relationships, but just didn't feel the same as
Speaker 1: this one for him. Within three months, we were already
Speaker 1: talking about our future together. We were engaged within eight months,
Speaker 1: and we were married within a year and a half
Speaker 1: of our first date. Prior to getting married, had the
Speaker 1: two of you discussed non monogamy. Not really, So within
Speaker 1: a couple weeks of dating each other, I was traveling
Speaker 1: and was visiting friends and I got this cryptic phone
Speaker 1: call at like the middle of the night. That call
Speaker 1: was from Alice's future husband, and he very urgently wanted
Speaker 1: to know if she was sleeping with anyone else. He's like,
Speaker 1: I just need to know if we're monogamous. I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't care, or do you want to be monogamous?
Speaker 1: And he said yes, and I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: so we are. And so we had a discussion that
Speaker 1: we should be monogamous. That was sort of our commitment moment,
Speaker 1: I guess. So before they even got married, Alice had
Speaker 1: to set some boundaries. She is this naturally affectionate person,
Speaker 1: the kind of person who likes to cuddle and hug
Speaker 1: and be touchy with her friends. So it was very
Speaker 1: important to her that she makes sure that her soon
Speaker 1: to be husband was okay with her craving touch from
Speaker 1: other people, and he was I could never have chosen
Speaker 1: a partner who wasn't comfortable with that. I would have
Speaker 1: never dated him if he wasn't comfortable with that. I
Speaker 1: could never be in any sort of sustained relationship with
Speaker 1: one person who didn't support touch outside of the relationship.
Speaker 1: But then a few years later, after they were married,
Speaker 1: something very different happened, something that definitely crossed the line
Speaker 1: of what they'd agreed to when they first got married.
Speaker 1: Alice had sex with someone else and she knew that
Speaker 1: it crossed the boundary. Instead of hiding it, Alice decided
Speaker 1: to tell her husband what happened. After all, they had
Speaker 1: already communicated in the past about touch and being affectionate
Speaker 1: with others outside of their marriage, and that conversation had
Speaker 1: gone okay. I told him pretty much the second after
Speaker 1: it happened, like within you know, twelve hours have been happened,
Speaker 1: and he just noticed. He checked in with his feelings
Speaker 1: and he said that he just didn't he didn't care,
Speaker 1: like he didn't feel threatened by it. He knew it
Speaker 1: wasn't about him. He felt like our relationship was strong,
Speaker 1: and he didn't feel lied too, because I told him
Speaker 1: pretty much the second after it happened. I really didn't
Speaker 1: know what to expect when Alice said she told her
Speaker 1: husband what happened twelve hours after she had sex with
Speaker 1: someone else, anything could happened. But he was okay with it.
Speaker 1: He was okay with it because Alice didn't lie to him,
Speaker 1: and so he and I then really had our first
Speaker 1: conversation about what non monogamy is for me and for him.
Speaker 1: We had a conversation around limits and boundaries of what
Speaker 1: feels safe for us, Like he personally wanted anogamy for himself,
Speaker 1: and he understands that what I need to feel fulfilled
Speaker 1: is to be connecting to other people. I'm an extreme extrovert,
Speaker 1: like I'm beyond the boundaries extroversion, and I generated a
Speaker 1: lot of energy and a lot of joy from interacting
Speaker 1: with other people, and that includes romantically and sexually. My
Speaker 1: husband's more of an introvert. He likes a lot of
Speaker 1: alone time, and so this actually balances our relationship better
Speaker 1: because it fills this need that I have for a
Speaker 1: lot of engagement, a lot of energy, a lot of attention,
Speaker 1: a lot of touch. Like he really understood that, and
Speaker 1: so it's been really important for me not to keep
Speaker 1: things and not be in the shadows at any point
Speaker 1: about my sexuality and my non monogamy, and he's been
Speaker 1: really amazing and receptive through the years about it. Everybody
Speaker 1: has different definitions of what are the boundaries in our relationship?
Speaker 1: What does it mean to us to feel that we
Speaker 1: can trust each other. That's doctor Laurie Gottlieb, psychotherapist and
Speaker 1: New York Times bestselling author. If you remember we talked
Speaker 1: to her in our episode about loneliness, We called her
Speaker 1: up again to ask a few questions about boundaries, communication
Speaker 1: and marriage. One of the things I really wanted to
Speaker 1: know was whether doctor Gottlieb pop partners needed to talk
Speaker 1: about their boundaries before they even got married. This is
Speaker 1: why people come before marriage. People think, oh, they must
Speaker 1: be having problems before they even got married because they're
Speaker 1: going to therapy. No, people come all the time for
Speaker 1: premarital therapy to talk about these kinds of things so
Speaker 1: that they are on the same page about them, so
Speaker 1: that they can at least open up the conversations and understand.
Speaker 1: How do we talk about these things that can be
Speaker 1: really challenging to talk about. I asked doctor Gottlieb if
Speaker 1: it can be challenging for couples to talk to each
Speaker 1: other because we don't always know what our boundaries are.
Speaker 1: In fact, we might not even realize that a boundary
Speaker 1: exists until it's been crossed, right. We don't until we
Speaker 1: feel like one of them has been violated, and then
Speaker 1: we say, oh, look what you did, and the other
Speaker 1: person says, wait a minute, I didn't think I was
Speaker 1: doing anything. Now, Sometimes they know they're doing something, so
Speaker 1: sometimes it's a clear boundary violation, But there are many
Speaker 1: times when two people have very different ideas about what
Speaker 1: it means to be faithful to the other person. If
Speaker 1: two people can have very different ideas about what it
Speaker 1: means to be faithful, then does that mean that the
Speaker 1: definition of an affair could be different for everyone. And
Speaker 1: how do we define a betrayal in a marriage anyway?
Speaker 1: Is it when something is a secret, when it's a lie,
Speaker 1: or is it as simple as when there's a lack
Speaker 1: of communication between partners. We'll be talking about all of
Speaker 1: this as we learn even more about Alice's experience, as
Speaker 1: well as how being intimate with other people actually ended
Speaker 1: up helping her sex life with her husband. We're back,
Speaker 1: So talk to me a little bit about when you
Speaker 1: first opened up the marriage on your end, what did
Speaker 1: the two of you have to work through for this
Speaker 1: to work, What boundaries had to be put in place,
Speaker 1: and what kinds of communication had to be put in place. Surprisingly,
Speaker 1: we didn't really have to work through much at all.
Speaker 1: I am an incredibly busy person, and so it limits
Speaker 1: how much time I have for anything outside of the
Speaker 1: marriage anyway, which creates a boundary in and of itself.
Speaker 1: I tend to have either very spontaneous random experiences like
Speaker 1: at a play party or like a one night stand,
Speaker 1: or sort of in depth long relationships with people that
Speaker 1: I don't see that often and who are like maybe friendly,
Speaker 1: who I also have a sexual relationship with. And so
Speaker 1: it has never been threatening to the marriage because there
Speaker 1: hasn't been a lot of like the in between where
Speaker 1: I'm like dating somebody actively and needing to prioritize a
Speaker 1: lot of time with that person. And the agreement that
Speaker 1: my husband and I have is that if it takes
Speaker 1: energy and time away from our family, or at any
Speaker 1: point he doesn't feel like a priority, than it has
Speaker 1: to end. We also have an agreement that if we're
Speaker 1: not in a good place in our marriage, and we're
Speaker 1: not connecting emotionally, physically really in any way. Like if
Speaker 1: we feel estranged in some way, then we do not
Speaker 1: explore outside the marriage at all. It's just like immediate lockdown.
Speaker 1: So a good example of that is like after I
Speaker 1: gave birth, it was a really hard moment for me.
Speaker 1: I was working, going to school, breastfeeding, like momming, it
Speaker 1: was so full on, and so just everything shut down
Speaker 1: our marriage and our family sure quite a while. More recently,
Speaker 1: we've been in conversation that involves more limits and boundaries
Speaker 1: now that my kid is older and I have more time.
Speaker 1: And I use this word super lovingly, but I just
Speaker 1: feel sluttier in the best of ways, and I feel
Speaker 1: super embodied and like really high sex drive right now.
Speaker 1: And so I want to be going out more and
Speaker 1: meeting more people. And a lot of my friends are
Speaker 1: in like Polly relationships, and so I am feeling much
Speaker 1: more like amped up about going out. And so we
Speaker 1: have had to have those conversations that you're talking about
Speaker 1: that we didn't before. So limits and boundaries on like
Speaker 1: what he feels comfortable with is regarding time some as
Speaker 1: regarding sexual acts that he prefers I do or do
Speaker 1: not share with other people. Most recently it's about kink
Speaker 1: play with impact with people. I was playing with a
Speaker 1: friend of mine and he bit my leg and I
Speaker 1: had like a pretty gnarly bruise from it, and my
Speaker 1: husband was upset because then he had to look at
Speaker 1: it and it made him unhappy to look at a
Speaker 1: bruise on my body. And I didn't mind. It was
Speaker 1: playful and fun of the moment, and so I asked him.
Speaker 1: I was like, do you want that to be a limit?
Speaker 1: And he said, well, if you need it and it
Speaker 1: turns you on, I don't want to tell, you know.
Speaker 1: And so we got into a little bit of this
Speaker 1: like loop of me asking him, him saying, but I
Speaker 1: don't want to restrict you. And it was like we
Speaker 1: played around this thing for a little while until finally
Speaker 1: he's like, yeah, I don't want you to be bruised,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, that is no problem. That was
Speaker 1: like a recent boundary. The other thing, and this has
Speaker 1: been since the very beginning, is it has to be
Speaker 1: safe sex with anyone. You know, condoms and STI checks
Speaker 1: and just really considerate of sexual health. And that's like
Speaker 1: a hard, incredibly hard line that's been there since the
Speaker 1: very beginning. Alice's husband wasn't very interested in physical non monogamy.
Speaker 1: He wasn't regularly searching or something outside the marriage, but
Speaker 1: he was allowed to if he wanted to, and because
Speaker 1: of that, Alice had to consider what her boundaries were
Speaker 1: for him. Buying gifts was my boundary because like, money
Speaker 1: is such a complicated thing in a marriage anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's something about that that I felt time upon and
Speaker 1: not making gifts. He wanted to make somebody something for
Speaker 1: someone that would be fine, like taking someone out is fine.
Speaker 1: It was like the physical act of giving a gift.
Speaker 1: I think it's so interesting. I think the thing that
Speaker 1: would make all of us uncomfortable is different. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think what would really piss me off if I
Speaker 1: was setting boundaries with my husband, Long emotional conversations might
Speaker 1: or even gift giving. I never thought about that before,
Speaker 1: or frankly, acts of service him doing the dishes or
Speaker 1: taking the garbage out in some other woman's house would
Speaker 1: really get under my fucking skin. Yeah, and a lot
Speaker 1: of the women that I speak to have similar boundaries.
Speaker 1: In heterosexual relationships, like if their male partners are doing
Speaker 1: like gift giving or acts of service. That is a
Speaker 1: trigger for a lot of the women. I know. Your
Speaker 1: sex dribe has increased. Now, do you think it's because
Speaker 1: you're emerging from that phase of our lives that I
Speaker 1: don't think it's talked about enough of motherhood of a
Speaker 1: child of a certain age, and you're feeling more comfortable
Speaker 1: in your body. Again, what do you think is the
Speaker 1: reason I always felt good about my body. I've had
Speaker 1: really great body image my whole life. And what actually
Speaker 1: changed was I'm like the primary breadwinner in our house,
Speaker 1: and I work a lot, and I run a business,
Speaker 1: and I also try to be like an incredibly present
Speaker 1: mother and be a good wife, to be a good daughter,
Speaker 1: and be a good sister and a good friend. And
Speaker 1: so I think the pressures of early motherhood. I think
Speaker 1: all of that dampened my sex drive quite a bit.
Speaker 1: I'm in a care position with my family and my
Speaker 1: friends a lot, and so caring for other people all
Speaker 1: the time, I think to dampened my sex drive. And
Speaker 1: then COVID obliterated it with anxiety and sort of the
Speaker 1: world feeling more scary, more intense, So I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm coming out of this phase of having to do
Speaker 1: a lot of care externally, giving away a lot of
Speaker 1: my energy all the time, and I actually have some
Speaker 1: reserves left. I also feel really healthy in my body.
Speaker 1: And my husband after he got of a sect to me,
Speaker 1: that really helped because we weren't worried about getting pregnant,
Speaker 1: and so that helped because when we're having more sex
Speaker 1: at home and better sex and feeling more connected at
Speaker 1: home than that turns out my sex drive too. Being
Speaker 1: non monogamous has definitely impacted the sex aalysis had with
Speaker 1: their husband. For the better sex inside. My marriage is
Speaker 1: one more frequent, which is great. It's more intimate. It's
Speaker 1: been building for a decade and a half, and so
Speaker 1: we know each other's bodies so well. I joke that
Speaker 1: my sexual needs and desires and my body is kind
Speaker 1: of like a scavenger hunt because it keeps changing and
Speaker 1: there's dead ends and you have to like find different things.
Speaker 1: So my husband has to do extra work because my
Speaker 1: taste changed kind of frequently, like a shape shifter a bit.
Speaker 1: But he knows me so well that he follows that
Speaker 1: map and it's amazing and we can try anything together
Speaker 1: because we have so much trust and so much safety
Speaker 1: in our relationship that we want to try feel safe
Speaker 1: with him, and our bodies just fit together right, Like
Speaker 1: our kiss is perfect and it's different and better and
Speaker 1: sects outside My marriage is maybe more playful. It has
Speaker 1: new relationship energy with it, which I think most people
Speaker 1: know what that feels like. It's kind of like buyerworky
Speaker 1: and crazy and like tickling and exciting, and it's very
Speaker 1: exploratory because it's new people and you're getting to know
Speaker 1: somebody knew, whether it's a single serving interaction or like
Speaker 1: multiple engagements with that person. And I like the balance
Speaker 1: of having both. The one that I need is the
Speaker 1: one in my marriage. The one that I also to
Speaker 1: add in and want is this stuff outside in the marriage.
Speaker 1: I also asked Alice if she thought that sex with
Speaker 1: partners outside of her marriage has made her marriage stronger
Speaker 1: in a way, or even if it's made her a
Speaker 1: better mother. I think, like a thousand percent. We have
Speaker 1: had stretches in our marriage where we're monogamous, and that
Speaker 1: works for me too, but there again, it's chosen. But
Speaker 1: I am definitely happier, and I bring that happiness home
Speaker 1: with me when I get to be with other people
Speaker 1: and it lightens me up. I have a lot of
Speaker 1: anxiety from life, but it lowers my anxiety. It makes
Speaker 1: me just a nicer person to be around, truly. And
Speaker 1: then I bring that home and I am lighthearted at home,
Speaker 1: and I'm more compassionate at home. It's just it's actually
Speaker 1: better for all of us. We live in a society
Speaker 1: the defaults to monogamy for better or worse, and anything
Speaker 1: outside of that norm often gets judged. But more and
Speaker 1: more women are questioning those norms these days. And I
Speaker 1: have to say, after doing all these interviews, I think
Speaker 1: that there's a lot that monogamous couples, couples who would
Speaker 1: never consider an open marriage, can actually learn from open relationships.
Speaker 1: When we decided to be monogamous right in the beginning,
Speaker 1: when he asked me, are we monogamous and we asked
Speaker 1: if we could be, I meant yes, And it felt
Speaker 1: good to say yes. It felt good to put attention
Speaker 1: to what we were building in that moment. And also
Speaker 1: I think there was just a part of me that
Speaker 1: knew that it was going to be okay and we
Speaker 1: weren't going to stay in that place, But it felt
Speaker 1: really good to put one hundred percent of my energy
Speaker 1: and attention into building this and cultivating this relationship, and
Speaker 1: so it never felt contained by it because it was chosen.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the difference of like going into
Speaker 1: default monogamy, where women, especially women feel repressed or owned
Speaker 1: or contained, versus choosing monogamy, which which I just want
Speaker 1: to be with my partner and I'm saying that, and
Speaker 1: I own that and it's mine, and that feels totally
Speaker 1: different to me. And so in the beginning of our relationship,
Speaker 1: we had chosen a monogamy which felt amazing, and then
Speaker 1: when it didn't feel so amazing because I wanted to
Speaker 1: do other things, I did them and he said it
Speaker 1: was okay. And then we continued to open and open
Speaker 1: from that point and we still talk about it. I
Speaker 1: don't just go out and not tell him what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: I don't keep him in the dark of anything. I
Speaker 1: want to make sure that it feels okay if I'm
Speaker 1: going to go out and have a date with someone else.
Speaker 1: I think that there's this stereotype of marriage, and I
Speaker 1: mean we hear it all the time of like, oh,
Speaker 1: like if in a hetero marriage, like men complaining about
Speaker 1: their wives, for example, and like wives nagging their husbands,
Speaker 1: and like all of those like stereotypes. That's what I
Speaker 1: was really fed as a child, Like that's what I
Speaker 1: heard all over. There wasn't even any like queer couples
Speaker 1: that I was exposed to and new, and so it
Speaker 1: was all this heteronormative, patriarchal bullshit that totally didn't make
Speaker 1: sense to me. As early as I could remember, I
Speaker 1: didn't know that you could construct a whole type of
Speaker 1: relationship that you wanted and that you can co create
Speaker 1: with somebody else's relationship you actually want, friendship or as
Speaker 1: a sexual or romantic partner. As we mentioned, Alice and
Speaker 1: her husband share a daughter. She's young, too young to
Speaker 1: talk about these things, but that won't always be the case,
Speaker 1: and kids also pick up on everything. I really wanted
Speaker 1: to know how Alice and her husband might need to
Speaker 1: broach their open marriage at some point. I don't think
Speaker 1: she knows what monogamy is. She just I think has
Speaker 1: an assumption that she's heard me and her dad say,
Speaker 1: like people don't own each other, They don't own each
Speaker 1: lenge bodies Like Mom could go do what she wants,
Speaker 1: Dad could go do what he wants. And it's not
Speaker 1: sexual right because she doesn't even she's not even old
Speaker 1: enough to understand what that is yet. But it's about
Speaker 1: like releasing this idea of ownership and so she can
Speaker 1: actually choose. She might choose to be monogamous at some point,
Speaker 1: but I don't want anyone to tell her what to
Speaker 1: do with herself, you know. I want her to choose
Speaker 1: it if she wants to choose it. And so the
Speaker 1: way we framed it so far far is just about
Speaker 1: like engaging in the world, like Mom goes and does
Speaker 1: this thing. Mom stays out all night sometimes Dad does
Speaker 1: this thing, and Dad goes on vacation by himself sometimes,
Speaker 1: like it's part of that conversation. So it feels very
Speaker 1: like it's happening organically that she's knowing about this. It
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like something I have to like come out
Speaker 1: about because it's just something I do. Like coming out
Speaker 1: and being queer and having people know that feels important
Speaker 1: because that's an identity. But like I don't identify as polyamorous.
Speaker 1: It's just like it's what I do. It's in my
Speaker 1: life and it fulfills this thing because I'm just a
Speaker 1: really highly sexual person, and I specifically am like I
Speaker 1: like to engage with other people in a sexual way.
Speaker 1: We'll be back after a short break. We're back. For
Speaker 1: some people, it's easy to keep things completely physical. We've
Speaker 1: heard from plenty of women on the show who've managed
Speaker 1: to do just that. But for every one of those women,
Speaker 1: we've talked to someone who's crossed an emotional line and
Speaker 1: fallen deeper than they expected. I asked Alice if that
Speaker 1: had ever happened to her. I've had a few people
Speaker 1: like tell me they love me, and I'm like, so,
Speaker 1: I think this might be the end of that relationship
Speaker 1: because I don't want to get more complicated than that.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's just I try to feel out
Speaker 1: each relationship and see what feels the safe is, because truly,
Speaker 1: the thing I like about them is a sexual piece.
Speaker 1: Like I don't need a bunch of other partners. I
Speaker 1: had a long term connection with one person and it
Speaker 1: developed into something else, and that happened sort of organically
Speaker 1: and maybe accidentally, and it was complicated for us. That
Speaker 1: was when we had more talking involved, and then it
Speaker 1: ended because things in and it didn't work in our
Speaker 1: lives anymore. But the way we navigated it was the
Speaker 1: same way as we navigate all the rest of the
Speaker 1: stuff is like does my husband feel like a priority?
Speaker 1: Is my time being spent mostly at home? How communicative
Speaker 1: and honest story being about everything? And so we just
Speaker 1: followed all the rules and it worked out fine. What
Speaker 1: we know in the literature is yes, by and large,
Speaker 1: open relationships. So these pessentially non monogamous relationships are beneficial,
Speaker 1: caveat being that they need to be communicated. That's doctor
Speaker 1: Ashley Thompson again. Remember her, she's the sex professor, an
Speaker 1: expert that we talked to in episode three. Doctor Thompson
Speaker 1: has done a lot of research in open marriages, consensual
Speaker 1: non monogamy, and here's what she's found. So when you
Speaker 1: see people really strategically introduced polyamory or open relationships into
Speaker 1: maybe what was once a monogamous relationship, if they talk
Speaker 1: about it with their partner, figure out what's acceptable and
Speaker 1: what's not, it overwhelmingly is a positive experience. And so
Speaker 1: consensual no monogamy can help out there where you know what,
Speaker 1: maybe your primary relationship is fantastic, but you're missing a
Speaker 1: few things here, and you can get those things there
Speaker 1: without breaching trust in a way that everyone is accepting
Speaker 1: of it just seems to me like a win win.
Speaker 1: Why not if everyone's cool with it, let's get all
Speaker 1: our needs met in whatever ways we need. Maybe this
Speaker 1: is a win win. Your sexual needs get met and
Speaker 1: no one gets lied to, no one's betrayed. The stigma
Speaker 1: of extramarital relationships can be eroded. But that in itself
Speaker 1: kind of feels like a world that a lot of
Speaker 1: people in our society still won't be able to accept.
Speaker 1: But what I hope you take from this is that
Speaker 1: by talking about it, by having these real and honest
Speaker 1: conversations about different models of being partnered with another human being,
Speaker 1: those conversations might help us start being more comfortable figuring
Speaker 1: out what does make us happy and to start asking
Speaker 1: for it. If this podcast has made you wonder whether
Speaker 1: everyone is having an affair right now, whether it's just
Speaker 1: completely pervasive and you're the only one who's left out,
Speaker 1: you're not alone. But I also don't think that's true.
Speaker 1: I believe monogamy still works for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: But I gotta tell you that through my reporting, I
Speaker 1: found that having an affair, that finding someone to do
Speaker 1: it with seems to be easier than ever, and that,
Speaker 1: like many things in our life, from getting groceries to
Speaker 1: call in a cab, is mostly due to changes in technology.
Speaker 1: Technology has made it easier than ever to have extramarital affairs,
Speaker 1: and it has also really shifted our understanding of what
Speaker 1: exactly a boundary is. Could an affair mean casual flirting
Speaker 1: on Facebook message? Could an affair means someone activate a
Speaker 1: remote vibrator from MC content and away. That's the thing,
Speaker 1: by the way it is, and we are diving into
Speaker 1: all of it next week. We're talking about why affairs
Speaker 1: are easier than ever before, how women use technology to
Speaker 1: get away with them, and how they juggle multiple affairs
Speaker 1: while working, taking care of kids and everything else that
Speaker 1: women do. This is She Wants More. I'm your host
Speaker 1: Joe Piazza. She Wants More was inspired by the book
Speaker 1: A Passion for More by Susan Shapiro Bearish. It was
Speaker 1: adapted for audio by executive producers Merrill Poster, Karat Pfeiffer,
Speaker 1: and Susan Shapiro Bearish. She Wants More is hosted and
Speaker 1: reported by me Joe Piazza. Jennifer Bassett is our lead producer.
Speaker 1: And story editor. Our sound design is by Jessica Crinchich.
Speaker 1: Our theme was composed by Anna Stumpf and Hamilton Lighthouser.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers for iHeart are Ali Ry and Nikki Etour.
Speaker 1: She Wants More as a production of iHeart Podcasts. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.