Show Notes

For many generations the construct of monogamy has prevailed as the most acceptable form of union between consenting individuals. In recent decades that construct has be challenged and put to the test within the halls of the law, and in numerous therapeutic practices. In this conversation we keep an open mind and examine Monogamy from both our personal experience and professional knowledge.

In this episode we cover:

• What is Monogamy?

• What is Non-monogamy?

• Polygamy and Polyamory

• Infidelity

Transcript

Meredith Shirey (00:00):

I have spent my life, making myself ready for this person and finding the perfect person. And I found my quote, unquote soulmate. I found the one who completes me. So if I've done all that time and all that work, and then I finally find you and yet sheet on me, you know, I mean, it's like, Holy moly. Now we're in a crisis. We're in this existential crisis because I don't know who I am anymore because I built my life around finding you. And then I found you and then you screwed around on me.

[Theme Music]

Meredith Shirey (00:34):

I'm Meredith Shirey. I'm a licensed psychotherapist specializing in relationships.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (00:39):

And I'm Isaiah Vallejo-Juste, a divorce attorney.

Meredith Shirey (00:41):

This is a podcast about filling in the gaps of our relationships, the deeply personal choices we make for our families and ourselves.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (00:48):

And the impact that our actions have on the rest of our lives. This is Love Me or Leave Me.

Meredith Shirey (00:56):

Hey, everyone. Welcome back. On our last episode, we were talking about sex and we wanted to continue that conversation with a topic that probably sounds like it's pretty black and white, a cut and dry thing. But what we want to do is open this up in a way where hopefully this can give us a new way of talking about it, right? Changing the narrative and changing the lens a little bit. So we're actually going to be talking about monogamy, what it is, what it isn't and maybe what it means in today's world, because the term probably needs a little refreshing in, in our mental dictionaries. So because this is a very multifaceted topic and that can be very emotionally charged and have a lot of moral underpinnings for people. We might not always agree, but this is also why it's important because one of the best things about Isaiah and I's relationship is how different we are, because our differences are not a pain point. They're not weaknesses, they're actually our strengths. And it's one of the things that we both love about our professional relationship the most. And so even if we don't agree on things so, if we have different sides of it, we want to see that as part of a holistic conversation. So when you think of the word monogamy, what comes to mind?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (02:08):

I think it's kind of the ideal that kind of society traditionally has where you're in a relationship with one person for the rest of your life. That's what I think when I think of monogamy.

Meredith Shirey (02:19):

That very much reflects the more quote unquote traditional view of monogamy or how historically it has looked because even marriage was meant to be a monogamous relationship. But even the idea of what marriage is, that's actually taken quite a bit of evolution over time. So originally it was an economic arrangement. It wasn't meant to be romantic. And it was around the end of industrial revolution where we started saying, no, we want to have love matches. We don't want to just have to get married for lands and titles. And the same thing with monogamy. It used to mean one person for life. But now we think it to mean one person at a time.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (02:52):

Because especially nowadays where you can get divorced. So obviously you can be in multiple monogamous relationships throughout your lifetime. And you know, it's funny that you say economic partnerships, marriages are still viewed as economic partnerships, which is mostly in divorce. I don't know if during the marriage itself and people think of it like that, but in divorce and absolutely like that.

Meredith Shirey (03:13):

Is almost that traditional view of it in that way, where you're looking at an economically and in fairness in the dividing up, in the splitting up. So maybe if people actually took the more old school way of looking at getting into marriage, maybe, maybe divorce would actually take a turn.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (03:28):

That can definitely be the truth because it is an economic partnership. And I think sometimes people lose sight of that because your spouse is your economic partner legally. So people realizing that probably a good thing when it comes to monogamy itself, I think we should ask ourselves is monogamy even a natural thing for human beings to want to have monogamous relationships.

Meredith Shirey (03:48):

There's one side of the evolutionary argument or monogamy that says that humans as a social bonding species who have typically bonded in pairs, that that was actually very advantageous for us, that we were able to create more trust, share more resources. And then we were actually able to flourish more because of this pair bonding. Now the other side of that though, because of advances in medicine, people tend to have a much longer life span. So are we really supposed to stay with the same person for 60, 70 years? Yes. There are a lot of evolutionary advantages to being in the pair bonding, but that, that really only lasts for about five to seven years. So basically the viability of how long it would take to raise a child to be able to feed and care for themselves. I think you can argue it both ways of if it's quote unquote natural. I think that to your point, we've been socially setting it up to be the quote unquote norm, especially if you're in a committed relationship or like a more traditional legalized relationship like marriage. But, you know, I think it is interesting because especially in today's world, the ideas of non-monogamy and alternatives to traditional monogamy have really been at the forefront, especially in the dating world and when people are exploring relationships and I've seen this actually happen with couples a lot. And it's so interesting to watch that be navigated.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (05:10):

I think the 60 to 70 year marriage is definitely still the kind of ideal, but it's, isn't the norm. I mean, I don't even know if we can say that's the norm anymore, 50% of marriages break apart and not everybody gets married. So I don't know if we can really say that it's the norm anymore. What does it mean to be monogamous? What does it mean to be non-monogamous? What does that look like?

Meredith Shirey (05:31):

There are so many different versions of this? And there's the difference between if you are in a mostly monogamous relationship that's quote, unquote open or what I think the kids are calling these days consensual non-monogamy so consensual. Non-monogamy my understanding of it is that basically you have your primary partner, but then you were both open to having other sexual partners with the general understanding being you shouldn't be forming emotional attachments to these outside people. But again, there are a lot of nuances to that, and there's a lot of ebb and flow because is it possible to have sex with other people and not develop an emotional attachment? I don't know. So then there's polyamory versus polygamy and polyamory is the idea that you have multiple relationships. So it's not just that you have this primary partner and you can have sexual relationships with other people, but you can have completely separate other relationships simultaneously. And not that the other people are involved necessarily, but they all do know of one another. This isn't something that's shrouded in secrecy.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (06:36):

I definitely, uh, I've seen people have those types of relationships and to various degrees of success, as people are going to longer term relationships and long-term marriage is there are times where perhaps one spouse tells the other spouse that, Hey, you can do this, if you, if you want to do that, sometimes I think it probably more often than not, it's not necessarily consensual. And I know we're going to talk about that in the next episode when it comes to infidelity, but when it comes to consensual non-monogamy I definitely have seen that. It seems to work for someone and probably not work for others. I don't know what you've seen on your couch Meredith as to how consensual non-monogamy has impacted relationships.

Meredith Shirey (07:12):

I think it's hard to say one way or another, if it makes you more or less likely to continue the relationship, what I do know. And what I have seen though, is that it requires so much a galitary aneurysm and respect for one another openness and vulnerability and flexibility, the most flexible. So I think that those are the things that tend to trip people up. And so if they were to end things that's because the thing is to right that what our monogamy agreement right now might not look that way in another couple of weeks. So, so we were talking about the idea of if you're consensually non-monogamous and your general agreement is that we're allowed to have sex with other people, but we are not supposed to form an emotional attachment. So what happens then if one of us does form an emotional attachment, are we required to end that relationship and become strictly monogamous again? Are we allowed to open it up more and for it to be more of a polyamorous relationship? I don't know. And that's where the flexibility comes in. And I think that's where a lot of people have more trouble managing it and navigating it because of just the level of communication.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (08:19):

I know I'm the attorney here and I'm, I'm the one who's supposed to be all four agreements. Um, I don't know if it's necessarily possible for you to enter into that type of an agreement and say, okay, well, this is what we're going to do. And then you're going to come back to the agreement and say, well, this is what we agreed to. And you've broken that now that means we have to break up. Like, I don't think that's necessarily the case. I think if the two people want to try to make it work, they can, and they can revisit maybe some of the choices and maybe come together on a new agreement. And then maybe they sit on your couch to do that. Or maybe not right. If it's too far gone at that point, then it's too far gone. And then there's options to kind of end the relationship at point, I know that's completely different than polyamory polygamy, which are not the same things. How do you think that this could last in the long-term do you think that these types of relationships can last a lifetime?

Meredith Shirey (09:07):

I think that it really depends on the people in these relationships and it is entirely dependent on their dynamics and their ability to be flexible with one another. Because like you were saying before, this idea of breaking in agreement. Yeah. If these people going in to this open relationship, think of it like the 10 commandments that are set in stone, that will break up very, very quickly. Because again, you have to be so malleable, you almost have to think about like clay that never ever dries, right. You're constantly molding and shaping and reshaping. And I think that if you have two people who their dynamics, something about their dynamic works so much that they value each other and the connection enough to have that kind of flexibility, I think anything's possible now, is that the case for most people? No, because also people in non-monogamous relationships do cheat, right?

Meredith Shirey (09:56):

Because if you break the, the agreement in any way, or if I feel betrayed, then that's infidelity. And, and again, we're going to get way more into infidelity in the next episode, because that's also a much more complicated topic than we probably give it credence for. But the point is is that it can work, but there are a lot of complications. And I think most people tend to not want to have the kind of flexibility it would require to make that non-monogamous relationship work longterm at the same time. The other side of it, I heard about this fascinating study where they're looking at the outcomes of child adjustment from polyamorous families. And I think people had this idea that they would have had poor adjustment outcomes because of these non-traditional relationships with the parents. But because there were so many more children involved in loving these children and caring for them and helping to raise them, they actually had much better adjustments. So the idea that it takes a village, you know, it's, it's the idea of not putting so much pressure just on these two parents, but actually giving them a whole network of people. And so from that standpoint, they actually had much healthier adjustments. So, you know, fewer instances of anxiety, depression, behavioral issues, that kind of thing.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (11:13):

Yeah. I'd be interested to read that study and see how long the study followed the individuals for if they follow the children through adulthood or not. Because I think at the end of the day, as a parent, you don't necessarily want to create a well adjusted seven year old. You want to create a well-adjusted adult. That's very true. When we look at child studies, really adult studies are kind of weird to see how the children have progressed in time. Many, a polyamorous families are looking to become legally accepted and that has led to a lot of complications in the law. So you have places like California that has a third parent law, New York has some case law on it as well. But what happens is that the case law is jumbled. There's no definitive answer yet from the court of appeals, at least not what I've seen, what the courts are kind of saying is that maybe estimate we know depending on where you are.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (12:01):

And then what if you move, if you live in a state that recognizes your legal rights and move to a different state, well, what happens to your legal rights? And those are the kinds of things that we have to look to shore up depending upon what we're doing. So if we have a polyamorous family that has children, obviously they're going to want to make sure that all of them have rights to the kid or to the children. And then that presents the problems of what happens. If there's a breakup, are we splitting the time three ways or four ways. These are things that really have to be thought out. What happens with child support? What happens with property rights and all different types of things?

Meredith Shirey (12:32):

Is there even a way then to have a polyamorous family in the legal sense? Because I thought that polygamy meaning like marriage, like legal marriage of more than one person at one time, wasn't legal in the US.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (12:44):

That's true. Polygamy is illegal. Is it possible? It's possible it's happening absolutely happening within the United States.

Meredith Shirey (12:50):

So wait, so you can have a polyamorous family and not be in a polygamous marriage.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (12:54):

Yes. Because usually only, only two of the people are married from what I've read. Anyway. So from what I've read, there are a bunch of cases where there's two people who are married and then another person joins the relationship. And there have been certain cases where that's recognized. I mean, there, there was a couple that I've read about where all three people were allowed to be on the birth certificate. I'm not sure, however, this birth certificates don't always enable rental rights. So I'm not sure how that would be interpreted and they've got a breakup, but one way that comes around important is what happens if there's a death, you know, let's say one of the parties dies it's would a party's eyes. There's only one parent left. That's not the parent that's quote unquote recognized. You may have the child end up in foster care or end up with some distant relative that he or she doesn't know.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (13:38):

So these are some of the outcomes that you really kind of have to prepare for. Um, if you're in this type of relationship, really need to make sure that your healthcare practices are right. Your wills are right. Everything has to kind of reflect what it is that you want. If you're going to do this, because you've been have various negative effects that you didn't necessarily prepare for them, and that can have negative effects upon your partners, but also upon your children. So you need to make sure that you have that kind of stuff worked out because the legal system in and of itself in my opinion, is not there yet.

Meredith Shirey (14:07):

You know, again, one of the differences that's a strength between us, right? So you're married and you have two children. I'm not married. I don't have children. So it makes sense that in some ways too, we're going to think about this differently because I'm not necessarily thinking about this from the lens of bringing my family. Whereas I think for you, it becomes much more complicated because you're an extremely connected from your children.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (14:27):

But also as an attorney and somebody who divorces people for a living. So I come into a situation where something is ending and now we're going to talk about people's rights. So the minute I see things like that, my mind goes to, okay, well, how can those people protect themselves? Because if they move out of state, so if they're in California, they have legal status and they move to, let's say, I don't know, someplace, any other state that they will wont have legal status. Then how does that break down in their marriage? And what happens if there's a breakup and how are they going to see each other? What happens if they get sick and they want to go see their spouse in the hospital and they can't, or who's making the health decisions if there's no healthcare proxy. There's so many things that can happen negatively. If these types of relationships, rather aren't set up in a quote, unquote, legal man,

Meredith Shirey (15:12):

Have any ideas or opinions on, should people start out opening the relationship or could they start monogamous and then move to non-monogamous?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (15:20):

I think there are certainly people who start like that and certain people will evolve to that. And certain people who don't want that at all. And I think that you have to figure out what it is with your partner, that you want to do. You can consider your internal matters of what your belief structure is, what your face is. And then it comes to a conclusion. If you're going to go from, let's saying a monogamous relationship, quote, unquote, to a non-monogamous type of relationship, I think you better be ready to get negative feedback. I'll tell you that, you know, one of the big reasons people get divorced, and again, we'll talk about this in the next episode, revolves around issues of infidelity and a lot of issues transitioning from, from a monogamous or non-monogamous relationship may be viewed as issues of infidelity when it comes to the person who's receiving that, that new information.

Meredith Shirey (16:08):

And I think this is a real, really big line to draw here too, is that when we're talking about consensual, non-monogamy, we're separating that entirely from infidelity, because we're basically talking about the difference between privacy and secrecy. And I think we had mentioned that a little bit in the last episode is infidelity is shrouded in secrecy. That is where you're not being honest. You're not being forthcoming and you're not allowing your partner to be part of the conversation or the decision non-monogamy is entirely different where you have both come to the decision and the agreement on this and that both people are aware and are entitled to whatever information they want about this. You would probably give up a little bit of privacy, but again, for the idea that I'm respecting my partner's wishes, because we want to avoid the secrecy and the secrecy again, is where that really crosses into infidelity.

Meredith Shirey (16:58):

I have seen people who bring up non-monogamy to their partner and it feels very threatening to their partner because when we moved to marriage, being a romance, made it a love match, where I have spent my life making myself ready for this person and finding the perfect person. And I found my quote, unquote, soulmate. I found the one who completes me. So if I've done all that time and all that work, and then I finally find you and yet cheat on me, you know, I mean, it's like, Holy Molly. Now we're in a crisis. We're in this existential crisis because I don't know who I am anymore because I built my life around finding you. And then I found you, and then you screw it around on me. So you see how like that can get so slippery so quickly, the idea of consensual non-monogamy is more of a nuanced way of saying, okay, if we can't necessarily expect total sexual fidelity, is there a way to preserve the relationship where we don't have to go through that crisis? I don't know.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (17:55):

Yeah. I, I wouldn't know that either. I think you have to ask each individual kind of couple, and that's like an individual couple basis to decide whether or not that's something that they could do. I could see people being okay with that saying, you know, people who have been okay with that. And I can see the flip side of that as well. Whatever what I'm saying is that that conversation needs to be handled very delicately because also that the conversation can lead to the ending of relationships. So we just have to be careful in that regard.

Meredith Shirey (18:22):

It's not for everybody. And that's why you're going to take so much flexibility to make this work, because if one person wants it and the other doesn't, it doesn't happen. Right. You have to have both people who are entirely on gourd and a very egalitarian in a very, very open and transparent way of looking at this where you value the relationship so much that maybe this other part isn't as important cures. Sometimes when I've actually seen this work in a really interesting way, if you've had a couple who've been together for a very, very long time. And, you know, as we get older, especially if we've been with someone for 30, 40 years, it's natural that we, our sex life over time is going to probably decline a little bit. We're not going to have as much sexual interest as we once did due to age, or again, due to just our history with this person who knows, we might care about them very, very deeply.

Meredith Shirey (19:11):

And so if we have such a wonderful partnership, but maybe we don't connect sexually anymore. And then when we don't connect sexually, that creates all these fights and issues of conflict and stress on our relationship. If we could both say, Hmm, if there's a different way to mediate this, where we can preserve our wonderful relationship and then also eliminate that conflict, because we're now not picking on each other for that. Maybe there's an option here. And that's where I think you can see it actually working very positively. But again, even then there's a honeymoon phase where as soon as things change, as soon as one person isn't feeling okay, you have to be very, very attentive and flexible and make sure that the person who's feeling threatened or feeling less sure about this arrangement can feel good and comfortable and secure again. And so whatever accommodations you need to do to give them back that place of security, that's what it takes to preserve the relationship. And I think that's why to your point when we see it not working, it's because that is such a tricky balancing act and tight rope to walk that it's hard for people to maintain that over time.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (20:14):

That's why that's a good thing that our next episode is about infidelity, because you can see how the issues regarding monogamy and what monogamy means can sometimes overlap with transition and to issues regarding infidelity and cheating on your partner. So I think, you know, at least my takeaway from this episode is one of open-mindedness because we live in a very open world where we are now like gathering all this different type of information in different ways. And our thoughts are expanding at an exponential pace. I think the idea is to like, just continue in our relationship, honestly, and honest in our communications And kind of see where the future takes us.

[Theme Music]

Rich Hackman [Producer] (20:59):

Love me or leave me as a podcast production of the board brand. This podcast is for informational purposes only it does not constitute medical or legal advice and is not a substitute for professional consultation, diagnoses or treatment, always follow up with a licensed attorney or healthcare professional who can address your specific needs. Thanks for listening.