Monogamy, Non-Monogamy & Choosing Your Relationship Structure on Purpose

Both monogamy and non-monogamy are valid choices, but a lot of people default into the modern-day societal norm without even fully discussing it or considering the options that best align with us.  This episode provides an introduction to the different choices for relationship structures available. Whatever you choose, I encourage you to make it an intentional decision for you and your partner or partner. I also provide direct you to some resources that can really help. As a coach who has helped many couples navigate changes in their relationship structures, I highly recommend having a listen. 

Book list mentioned:

Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships (originally The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality)  by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá

Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy by Jessica Fern

Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships by Jessica Fern

Get my free email newsletter with helpful tips, plus a free guide to Finding Your Deepest Turn-Ons, and learn how to work with me at https://laurajurgens.com.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to Sex Help for Smart People. I'm Dr. Laura Jurgens. I'm here to help you have better sex, intimacy and relationships. So let's get at it. Hey, welcome to episode 66. So today we are gonna talk about relationship structures from. An intentional standpoint, and whether you're interested in exploring different relationship structures or like non-traditional relationship structures, doesn't matter.

[00:00:27] I invite you to consider this episode as just, you know, curiosity, with curiosity and an open-minded information because the, some of the ideas behind non-monogamy structures. Are actually really beneficial to consider if you are a person who wants to stick with the monogamous structure. But there's a lot of lessons about how we go about non-monogamy that can be really beneficial regardless of what you choose.

[00:00:57] And all of these relationship structures can be consciously chosen rather than just defaulted into, but a lot of us have all these baked in socialized assumptions about what is quote unquote ethical or what is. Acceptable or what, you know, we're worried about other people judging us. We're worried about our partner freaking out.

[00:01:19] We're worried about jealousy, all kinds of stuff, insecurity. And we sometimes then default to the socialized norm of quote unquote monogamy because we're afraid of all these other things. And that's, there's no. There's nothing wrong with monogamy. I think monogamy is a great structure if it's what you both like.

[00:01:41] It works great for a lot of people, but it doesn't work that great for a lot of people too, and they're not choosing it on purpose. They're like defaulting into it without even having a conversation. And so it's important I think to have a conversation with yourself and a conversation with your partner or partners about what.

[00:02:01] Kind of choices you wanna make, but all the choices, you know, are really have pros and cons and are valid. So we're gonna dive into it today and just thinking about. Some of the different styles that are available out there for relationship structures. So a monogamous relationship structure is the most commonly currently subscribed to structure in our culture right now, largely due to church influence over the past few hundred years, and completely valid when chosen.

[00:02:33] Purposefully it is. Just important to assess whether it aligns with your authentic desires and realistic expectations, and it does require. Mutual understanding and commitment to that structure, which a lot of people try to assume by default that everybody is fully on board and try to avoid talking about it and avoid talking about alternatives and.

[00:02:59] How that might impact their relationship, which means what winds up happening is there's a lot of pseudo monogamy, which I'm gonna put in a different category. That's like a, that's a different relationship structure. It's one where monogamy is the supposed stated agreement, but not the actual practice.

[00:03:17] And that is, you know, the statistics vary widely, but it's. At least one in four, maybe more like one in three relationships. It is very hard to say for sure when so many people are not being honest. Or are not even being honest with themselves about what they have done or are continuing to do. So there's a lot of pseudo monogamy out there, and there has been, since monogamy was invented, there has been a lot of lying and cheating about it since it was invented.

[00:03:50] And there's been a lot of creative interpretations of monogamy. Right. In part because people haven't had always the explicit conversation. Right. What about flirting? What about online flirting? What about kissing? What about whatever, you know? So all kinds of nuances, all kinds of things can kind of lead to misunderstandings between partners.

[00:04:14] Really serious rifts between partners, feelings of massive betrayal, like real devastation and hurt, and. That is, it's, it's sad to see how much lying and cheating there is right about things, but also it's not like that doesn't happen in non-monogamy, right? There is no sort of structure that prevents people from behaving badly.

[00:04:42] All the partners involved have to bring their own integrity to the table. Well, regardless of what your agreements are, there's always the chance that somebody could break them, and that does happen. So non-monogamy is not sort of a way to cheat proof a relationship, although it can help. It really depends on whether somebody has a tendency to do those kinds of things and has a tendency to be so terrified of being honest that they will hide it.

[00:05:09] You know, those kinds of stuff. Key things about monogamy that surprise people. One of them, of course, is that it's not cheat proofing. Another one is that it's actually very natural for humans. If you are curious about the. History of human sexuality. I really recommend the Great Book Sex at Dawn. It talks a lot about, you know, our nearest social sexual relatives in the Apes, which are Bonobos and they're very socially sexual, just like humans are.

[00:05:41] Also, you know, female bonobos run around, like rubbing each other's clitoris as part of their, you know, group bonding. There's also a lot of history about sort of like. And anthropology around hunter gatherers. Even in modern hunter gatherer societies, of which there are not that many left, there's a lot of beliefs around multiple paternity.

[00:06:03] So they think that a woman gives birth to a baby after many men have contributed semen to help make that baby. And that is because there's a lot of. Multiple partner activity, right? There's a, a lot of biological evidence that this has been the norm for humans for a very long time over evolutionary history because we know now that eggs actually choose sperm and can choose and distinguish sperm among multiple donors during a single session.

[00:06:36] Women's multiple orgasm tendency is another line of evidence. Generally looking at the anthropology of just a complete lack of privacy for human tribes, lots of group sex seems to be the norm. There's evidence of same sex activity for a very long time and in across all kinds of species in the animal kingdom.

[00:06:56] So what is quote unquote natural is not what the church tells us. And so just be onto it about that, right? That even if you grew up with a lot of religious training that. What the church says is the norm has really been something that they've tried to enforce over the last few hundred years. And I'm not saying anything against religion or if you have religious foundations to your beliefs around relationship structure, that is also totally okay, but we might as well kind of know where it comes from, right?

[00:07:30] There's no need to bury your head in the sand. It's totally okay as a choice. Totally valid to choose to be monogamous. Also valid to choose to be non-monogamous. But one of the things I'm just trying to say is that it's not like unnatural. Alright. Another thing about non-monogamy that sometimes surprises people and is that you can do either monogamy or non-monogamy ethically.

[00:07:54] And what one person sees as cheating is not the same for everyone, and I will argue, nor is it always. Unethical or such a bad thing. So for example, if a partner or like a spouse is in a multi-year coma or has severe Alzheimer's or whatever, they are not available to actually consent. You cannot get their consent.

[00:08:19] I personally, this is just me. I'm not saying this is for you. Other people will disagree with me, and that's my point actually. But I personally don't think that it is unethical for someone to. Non consensually outsource sex or have another relationship without having agreement from that person. Another example might be somebody quote unquote cheating because she's, you know, a mom trying to feed her kids and she's doesn't have a job.

[00:08:49] She's been raising children and she, she's an abusive spouse and she needs to actually switch partners and have somebody else be able to feed them before. Leaving the abuser so she might actually start having a sexual relationship with somebody else to try to find somebody who is not going to be beating her anymore and still be able to feed her children.

[00:09:13] I personally, I don't know what the right answer is in that situation. It's a horrible situation. I hope nobody's ever in, but I am not gonna sit here and be self-righteous and judge and say that. She should be somehow telling her partner that she's screwing somebody else that is not. My role in the world, I don't have, I don't believe I have that right to judge.

[00:09:35] So for that reason, because there's so much nuance and there's so much gray area, and I think both monogamy and non-monogamy can be done ethically, and that ethical line can be really hard to tell, and it's not really my job to do it. I think the term open or consensual, non-monogamy is much better and less judgy or self-righteous than the term that's often used, which is.

[00:09:59] Ethical non-monogamy, e and m as if it's somehow more ethical to be open or consensual than it always is to not necessarily be open or consensual anyway. That's an aside. Another thing that sometimes people don't realize about non-monogamy, I mentioned before, cheating and lying actually also happens in non-monogamy.

[00:10:19] There's not a good behavior of or guarantee, it's not like you get a stamp that everybody's going to always be honest. Each partner has to bring that themselves. Also, another common misconception, non-monogamy is not an approach for problem relationships. If you have a lot of conflict in your relationship, non just opening your relationship is.

[00:10:45] Going to escalate that conflict and not actually solve it most of the time. Non-monogamy typically requires so much more attunement, communication, mutual care, and just like work on your own security and your like. Just expressing love and connection with your partner in order to manage and prevent a lot of the jealousy.

[00:11:10] Non-monogamy requires a lot of that. Couples typically, if they're successful at the transition in opening a relationship, typically become closer because they have to in order to make it successful. And I think that's some of the stuff that is actually useful for monogamous couples to learn is starting to really have to communicate around consciously choosing what you're doing.

[00:11:32] And that's one of the reasons why I put this podcast out in the world so that you can think about it and then maybe talk about it even if you wanna stay monogamous forever. So. Another thing is just that non-monogamy is a huge subject, so I highly recommend Jessica Fern's books, both Poly Secure, which is where I would start, and poly wise are great books on non-monogamy and helpful.

[00:11:58] There's a whole helpful section if you're curious at all about attachment styles. The beginning of Polys Secure has a really great description of attachment styles, whether or not you. Are interested in polyamory or not. Another issue is that it is really important whether you're thinking about monogamy or non-monogamy, to consider health risks and STIs, if they're in monogamy, if there is cheating, and if it's like pseudo monogamy.

[00:12:25] This is really important and one of the things that comes up a lot for partners and one of the things that can be. Just one of the issues about the betrayals, right, is that there is a serious health risk to partners who are not able to choose for themselves how to manage their risk level in a cheating situation, whether you're in a monogamous or non-monogamous cheating situation, if you are lying, there is a health risk.

[00:12:49] An STI risk for the partner, and they are not allowed to choose it because you didn't disclose that and that's a big issue. Another thing just to think about, I wanna be aware, is that there is. A lot of lingo, so non-monogamy, I will just say caution. Getting too hardcore or getting too attached to all the lingo.

[00:13:14] It can really obscure the important parts, which are communication, agency choice, being explicit. Caring for each other with mutual respect. Like if you get hung up on, well, you know, we said we were defining it as, you know, non-hierarchical polyamory, but now you're saying, but now you're acting as if you wanna have relationship anarchy and blah, blah, blah.

[00:13:42] I'm gonna define all that stuff in a minute for you, but I just wanna see. Please avoid going into the languaging weeds and getting super attached to that instead of actually listening to your partner and making explicit agreements based on being human beings. You can easily, there's all kinds of people who will tell you, there's all kinds of people on the internet who will tell, or in books who will tell you, quote unquote how to do.

[00:14:07] Open relationships and they are not the expert on you and your partnerships. You are the only expert. And so when you are looking for guides, take them all with grains of salt, including me. Take, always take me with grain of salt, but like I love critical thinkers. I always want you to be a critical thinker.

[00:14:29] Take everything through your own lens and decide what's right for you. You can pick and choose. You don't have to have the like prefabbed meal. You get to pick and choose from your own smorgasbord. Okay, so with that said, just to familiarize you with a few of the non-monogamy options out there that are kind of the big ones that you'll hear bandied about.

[00:14:55] So number one is Monogamish, and I love this Stan Savage, who's like. Hopefully you know him. He is a well-known sex columnist. He has the Savage Love column that's been syndicated through all kinds of weeklies around the country for ages. He's just like a wonderful personality and a, a sex expert out there.

[00:15:16] He, I think maybe the one who coined this term because that's when I first was introduced to it when he was describing. His relationship structure. This means just mostly monogamous with occasional exceptions, and those exceptions are negotiated. Obviously with the partners. They may include things like occasional threesomes, limited play with others, playing with another couple, or sometimes just like a hall pass kind of situation.

[00:15:43] They can range from flirting and kissing to more like, you know. Swinging from the rafters, butt sex, whatever. You can do whatever you want in this structure, but it's generally understood to be mostly monogamous, hence the monogamish. Alright, number two. Is kind of a catchall, which is like open relationships or open marriage.

[00:16:08] There's a lot of different definitions of this, a lot of different ways to implement it, and it's meant to be sort of a general terminology that doesn't give a lot of specifics because people are defining it more clearly for themselves. So in this, partners are creating their own boundaries and agreements.

[00:16:22] It's a little bit more of a catchall for whatever nuanced agreements you wanna make. Some types of things that could even fall into that, but are different terminology. Categories are hierarchical and non-hierarchical, non-monogamy. Those are, that is like hard to get outta my face right now. It's a lot of consonants.

[00:16:46] So hierarchical non-monogamy just means there's a primary partner who receives. Preferential time connection, intimacy, and this may or may not be what's called a nesting partner, which is just someone you live with. There's secondary partners that may have different levels of commitment after that primary partner, another version, the sort of opposite of that would be non-hierarchical, non-monogamy.

[00:17:16] Sometimes called solo polyamory, and those can be slightly similar or different, but basically partners are expected to be equal in importance. There's no determined relationship precedence, and the solo polyamory part just means that you have multiple partners without a primary relationship. So it's kind of similar.

[00:17:35] Another, but you can be non hierarch. Anyway, there's a Venn diagram of that. I won't get into the whole thing. They're not exactly the same, but they have some overlap. Another category is what's called relationship anarchy. And sometimes people misunderstand this, especially if you don't know much about actual anarchy as a governmental, non-governmental system.

[00:17:56] Act. The actual, like anarchy as a philosophy system requires a lot of. Meetings, consensus building a lot of organization, and that is the same for relationship anarchy. So it basically means you have individual agreements with different partners. There's no preset rules beyond what you mutually create, but you do spend quite a bit of time creating those agreements based on ongoing communication, and those can evolve.

[00:18:25] All right. Another term you'll hear bandied about is polyamory, and that really just focuses on the capacity to love multiple people in a romantic or sexual way. And you can even be polyamorous without being sexual with multiple people. But you can be a person who feels romantic love for multiple people at a time, and.

[00:18:53] This implies emotional connections rather than just purely physical ones. It is typically quite distinct from situations like swinging where feelings are really supposedly discouraged. So this includes feelings, polyamory includes feelings. You're allowed to have feelings for multiple people at the same time.

[00:19:14] And in fact, a lot of people actually identify as polyamorous. So it's. It can be a structure, but it can also be an identity. Just like somebody might be gay, they might also be polyamorous. Which means that they just find themselves able to be romantically attached to multiple people at the same time, and that's totally okay and totally valid.

[00:19:39] That does not mean anything bad about anybody. That's just like a capacity, and you may identify as that. You can identify as polyamorous and still choose to be monogamous, but it might be challenging. A lot of times people who identify as polyamorous really want some sort of open relationship structure.

[00:19:58] But not necessarily. All right. The last one I'll say is swinging, which is typically like a partner swapping arrangement. It is traditionally focused more on physical rather than emotional connection, and it often has its own kind of community norms and practices, and including sometimes some pretty stereotypical gender norms.

[00:20:21] So that can happen. I would just say like. You know, an example is some swinging communities can feel pretty sexist and as if men's pleasure is more important than women's and they tend to be really hetero dominant unless they're explicitly queer. And that just is, you know, part of that kind of subculture culture.

[00:20:39] So if you are looking for community as a non-monogamous person, or a non-monogamous couple, or throuple, or. Poly, which just means a group of polyamorous people of some unknown number. See, I told you there was gonna be a shit ton of lingo, so you gotta watch out for it. It's kind of like biology when it's a biology professor and the student's eyes would just like glaze over 'cause of all the language and you're like, take a breath.

[00:21:07] Don't get a, don't get too overwhelmed by it. Right? But if you. Are worried sometimes people are worried that they're going to lose acceptance in their community if they come out as being in an open relationship or being polyamorous in some way. Right. Especially if you're in a more conservative community.

[00:21:27] And that can be scary for people. They can be legitimately afraid sometimes of losing connections or jobs because people are judgy and think that they know better and think that they have an I. The, the sort of read on the ethics of the universe, but there's also on the other side, there's a lot of non-monogamous community building out there, and there's a lot of really accepting people.

[00:21:53] And you might find more accepting people by virtue of being in a non-monogamous community. So you may enjoy the new connections you make, even more than ones that might be. You know, disapproving, and it's also nobody's business but yours. So you don't have to tell people. And you can do things pretty discreetly if you want, but it is useful to find some communities that are aligned with you.

[00:22:19] Okay, so all of that said, I just wanna invite you to choose your relationship structure intentionally rather than just defaulting to cultural assumptions, because that can be really confining and it can be one of the things that leads to partners being disconnected and even some of the, like cheating and lying because people just feel like they're not.

[00:22:44] They would be a bad person. They can't let somebody know that this is what they want to do. They kind of split it off and almost compartmentalize their cheating from the rest of their life. So they can try to maintain some sort of sense of identity. It can be really, really challenging, but in my experience, the people who are typically doing a lot of the cheating are not people who are inherently polyamorous.

[00:23:07] They're just people who don't mind cheating and lying. And there is, I have. Seen no overlap between people who are inherently capable of loving multiple people at once, romantically, and people who cheat. I don't like, I think obviously there's some, right, there's some Venn diagram of overlap, but it's not high.

[00:23:28] In my experience, I've met a lot of polyamorous people with a very high level of integrity, and that's actually what led them to, they didn't want to be a cheater, and so they really. Thought long and hard, and they took a lot of personal risk and they got a lot of help so that they could have a discussion with their partner honestly and openly.

[00:23:52] And I have a lot of respect for that because I respect people doing hard emotional things and being honest. But it's important to create whatever you want your structure is okay. It's up to you. It's just important to create your own definition, right? So. Defining your relationship based on what works for you and your partners.

[00:24:12] The freedoms that you need. The secure agreements that you need to feel okay and that you understand what's going on, and that you're not gonna be like rocked with insecurity constantly, right? There may be a period of that during an adjustment, but you wanna think about how you wanna show up together, right?

[00:24:27] And the focus is really on mutual agreements. I think that's more important than external definitions. And allowing personal authenticity as like the guiding principle for your relationship choice and allowing it to be a living process, right? If, especially if you go with non-monogamy, you will probably renegotiate periodically and you'll need to have a lot of conversation.

[00:24:51] So. The take home exercise I have for you today is just to spend some time considering what you actually want in terms of relationship structure and why. The big thing is why be sure that you like your reasons. If they're all fear-based, you may not like them that much, right? Just consider if you are considering opening your relationship.

[00:25:15] I also just wanna say I strongly suggest getting some help and support. There are a lot of people who are qualified to do that. You do have to look for them. I do it, but there's also other coaches, quite a lot of them, a lot of Somatica coaches do this type of work, and also there's therapists who specialize in polyamory and opening relationships.

[00:25:40] So there is specialized help out there for this, and it really does help to have someone else. Besides your partner to facilitate and support the two of you. Because if you are in a relationship that has been monogamous and you're thinking about changing that it is a rewarding journey, but can be really fraught and difficult.

[00:26:05] So getting help is a really good idea. Okay. Regardless of whether that's you or not, I just wanna invite you to reflect, and I hope this has been. Useful. I'll see you here next week. Hey, if you're curious about how you could have better sex and connections, go grab my free guide. Find Your Secret Turnons.

[00:26:25] It's right on my website, www.laurajurgens.com, and the link is in the show notes. I'll see you here next time.