DSO Reacts: "You Want Me To Watch The Kids While You Go Out With Another Guy?"

Okay, if you're a frequent listener of the Dad Starting Over podcast and you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that sounds like me," well, you don't need another podcast episode. What you need is support. The Help for Men Brotherhood is where men go when they're done pretending that they got it all handled. You know, your dead bedrooms, your divorce, your loneliness, your rebuilding life. We have private forums, frequent live Zoom meetings, one-on-one coaching, courses, all my books at no additional charge. And yes, we get together in person. Real men and real conversations. So stop doing this alone and join the Help for Men Brotherhood today at help4men.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in the next member meeting. Hello everyone, DSO here from dadstartingover.com. Uh, last podcast that I did, podcast episode was titled DSO Reacts: Joe Rogan and Dr. Jordan Peterson Talk About Enforced Monogamy and Incels. Um, it wasn't the most downloaded episode to date, In fact, the one right before that one was, just as a little, just as a side note here, I thought this was interesting. It was one that I called, it was a response to a listener email, a female listener email called Dear DSO, I Don't Have Sexual Desire, But That's No Reason to Leave Me. Got huge numbers for some reason, so kind of interesting. But anyway, back to the React video. I say video because I did it for YouTube. You can actually watch Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson talking from the Joe Rogan podcast. You could also listen to it on the podcast itself. And it didn't get huge numbers, but what it did get was a lot of reaction, a lot of direct messages to me on Facebook and emails. The first two messages I got made me think, oh, maybe I should rethink this. First one was, "Dude, I only lasted about 10 minutes. It sucked. I'm sorry." I was like, "Well, at least give it a fighting chance and listen to the whole hour before you, you know, give it a failing grade, but okay, message received." And then the next one said, "It was good. I liked it, but you could loosen up a little bit and give some more thought. This wasn't really anything new." And I thought, "Well, that's good criticism." I like that. I can take that. And then I got all kinds of people saying, please do more of these, I love it. This is exactly the kind of stuff I love to listen to. So, hey, I'm no dummy. Sounds like I hit onto something here. So I thought, let's do another one of these DSO Reacts podcasts/videos. In this one, we're going to listen to an episode of a podcast called Where Should We Begin by Esther Perel. And for those that don't know, uh, I'm reading from her bio here on the website. Esther Perel— or rather from Wikipedia— Esther Perel is a Belgian psychotherapist of Polish-Jewish descent who has explored the tension between the need for security and the need for freedom in human relationships. Perel promoted the concept of, quote, erotic intelligence in her book Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence. Which has been translated to 24 languages. After publishing the book, she became an international advisor on sex and relationships. I really like Esther. I like her stuff. Her books, very good. I assume she writes them, you know, not a ghostwriter, so to speak, but very good stuff. She is in her early 60s. Good looking woman for her age, be honest with you. Very well spoken. If you watch, she has TED Talks. I don't know if you're familiar with TED Talks, a lot of good stuff. Smart people get in front of an audience to talk about a variety of different subjects. Hers is pretty good. Her book that I mentioned, The Mating Camp Captivity, is good. And she also has another one called The State of Affairs, which she goes on to talk about just what it is that brings about affairs in relationships and their effect on relationships and so forth. Good stuff. She's a smart cookie. I think though, from my own perspective, my opinion is that, um, she does— she is very much what you would call a progressive thinker, probably politically very much on the left-leaning progressive side. Nothing necessarily wrong with that. Hey, takes all kinds, all kinds of flavors. I'm very— as you may, may not know from listening to my stuff, I'm very open to a lot of different opinions. I don't really give a shit what your politics are, but her Um, you know, there's a saying, you can be too open-minded, right? If you're too open-minded, you just let any shit in. And, uh, I think that's where a lot of the progressives go wrong, is that they're good up to a point, and then next thing you know, they go right— they fall right off the table, and you're just like, okay, what the hell did you just say? I, I think this is a good example of this, this episode, um, that we're going to talk about here today., called from her podcast again, Where Should We Begin? The episode is titled— and this should tell you everything— You Want Me to Watch the Kids While You Go Out with Another Guy? So I saw that title and said, oh, I gotta listen to this one. Listen to this one, uh, about, you know, not all the way. I've listened to a little bit of it, enough for me to say, all right, pause, this would be a good— and actually, that was a while ago. I said I need to write an article about this. Never got around to it. Then I started these React things. I said, you know, I need to go back to that podcast and let's listen to it again. And let's talk about it step by step, because this is a phenomenon that is growing. And as the title may clue you in what we're talking about here, you want me to watch the kids while you go out with another guy. We're talking about a quote, open marriage here, open relationship. And it's surprising to many that it's women who are initiating this idea of an open marriage, which is basically— let's define this open marriage concept. Um, you and me— I'm speaking on behalf of the women— you and me, man, are primarily the couple here. Like, we're safe and secure in our relationship. We probably have kids together, a house together, all that fun stuff. But it's not enough for me. I'm not getting my needs met completely. Specifically on the erotic sexual side, you just ain't doing it for me anymore. So how about I go get my jollies elsewhere? And in all fairness, you should be able to go and get some too. You know, to many on paper, that sounds like a— it kind of makes sense. You know, the spark goes away in a relationship. Seems like a good— a quote, good solution to the matter. So what's the problem here? Well, I've heard these scenarios quite a bit. And for those that don't know, go to the website, dadstartingover.com, and go to the menu and click on coaching. Myself and 6 other gentlemen on there as part of the DSO team, we offer what we call coaching to people. And I've been doing it for years. And I've spoken to, you know, I tallied up the other day, and it was over 1,000 guys at this point that I've spoken to one-on-one. And you start to hear trends. And one of the trends is this open marriage thing. And from what I have seen, uh, and from what I've heard from also reading further online and other people's experiences, while it may sound good on paper to some, invariably what happens is that, uh, well, what you're seeing basically is kind of the mating game in action. A woman basically saying, you over there, you're safe, secure, but you just ain't doing it for me yet. I'm gonna go out in the world and see if I can find a replacement for you. I mean, that's basically what we're talking about here. And, um, I'm gonna test the waters and get my physical and sexual needs met. And if I happen to click and one of these guys is a good long-term partner on top of good sexual partner, you know, the good lover provider combination, and I'm gonna drop you like a bad habit. And I haven't listened all the way to this podcast, uh, this episode with Esther, so I'm not sure where this leads, but I thought it'd be interesting to explore and listen to their experiences and their perspectives from the man and the woman and Esther herself. Go in with an open mind, right? We're not going to go in and listen to this and say already this is a horrible, terrible situation. But let's be honest, it's probably a horrible, terrible situation. But let's give it a shot. Let's listen. And away we go.

So you meet at 12. You marry at 22. 22. And you were first for each other? Yes.

Yes.

First everything.

First dating, first boyfriend, first girlfriend.

First person we held hands with.

I mean.

Okay.

Wow.

They met at 12 years of age, so they're basically friends all through their young adolescent years into young adulthood, and they got married. And they were there first for everything. You know, this is kind of where I split with your more religious conservative types in that there is a lot of people, and I speak to a lot of guys that come from very orthodox religion, religious backgrounds. Mormons in the US, for whatever reason, I've spoken to a lot of Mormons. A couple of Orthodox Jewish guys. Very strict Muslim guys, and one of the things that they all tell me they have in common is within their religion and within their culture, it's, look, you don't have sex outside of marriage. Sexuality, period, should be kept under wraps until you say "I do," and then you cross your fingers basically that you're a good match sexually, physically with this person that you've chosen as your partner. So this, you know, leading up to the open marriage, which they're going to talk about, the fact that they were their first at the age of 22, it's not surprising. It may be as simple as, hey, we waited and shit, we rolled the dice and we lost. We thought, you know, cross our fingers that we're physically compatible as well as emotionally compatible. Obviously, they were friends and so forth enough to say, let's get married. But that doesn't necessarily mean that one's sexually attracted to the other, one is going to be sexually compatible with the other. And obviously things aren't working 100% or else they wouldn't be talking about this open marriage. But so that's where I differ in that my personal opinion is one of— I'm a little bit more pragmatic about it, I guess, a little bit more clinical, scientific about it. If you're going to be in a partnership with somebody at a sexual level, Maybe you should get good at the old sex thing. Maybe you should be good getting good at the, um, at the old relationship thing, forming a sexual, um, relationship with people. And how do you do that? You practice it. You go out and you get a girlfriend and another girlfriend, another girlfriend, some long-term, some not long-term, and you feel it out and you, um, you mature that way and you become better at it. And if you say, nah, I'm going to forego all that practice and just jump right into the deep end of the pool, well, good freaking luck. Maybe you'll be able to swim. But for a lot of folks, I think they find that the general theme that I hear from the guys from the more orthodox religions that follow this path is that they will— everything will be fine on the religion front— excuse me, on the marriage front, as far as the domestic side of things, the more provider-y side of things. But as far as the sexual lover side of things, it just falls apart pretty quickly. And it's pretty terrible. But let's continue on.

First everything.

Mm-hmm. And with the permission of the church.

No, no, no. Very, very, very oppressive religious environment. And that fed and bled over into our families. A little bit. My parents were very, very afraid because it— for starters, I married outside of my ethnicity and they weren't expecting that. I had some really racist family members, extended family members who would make a lot of comments about how African Americans were a bad idea, more prone to divorce, more prone to leave me with a bunch of kids I didn't want.

Your family background was what?

Indian. Yeah. Um, you know, the religious beliefs that we grew up with were, "You date one person, that person needs to be the person you marry." There was a whole true love's wait purity culture phenomenon that we were very much in. And I used to stress and stress and stress about the finality of it all. Like, how do you know that you're it?

Let me ask you something. The doubt about this is because you never had another, so how could you know? Or the doubt is also, um, I basically did what I knew I should, and therefore I don't feel like I own it, as this is what I wanted to do. Oh, totally.

Like, none of these choices ever felt like my choices.

How does it apply to sexuality?

Oh, my sexuality has never been mine. It wasn't until this year that I actually— and that was part of this stance.

It hasn't never felt like it was yours because?

It was other people's rules, other people's definitions that shaped everything. Growing up, You know, I grew up abroad, and I actually think I had a pretty awesome rebellious mom who didn't want me to grow up to be what all of other women in my country are expected to be.

And the expectation was?

To be demure and to conduct yourself with, with, um, a submissiveness in some ways. I was never that way. I was loud and a tomboy and very opinionated and very, very curious. And then the church has their own much more rigid— it wasn't family that was as oppressive for me as the religion was. If I wore a tank top, which I did to youth group one time in rebellion, because I was like, why? My shoulders are going to make somebody else go to hell or somebody else sin? And I'm a Are you kidding me? And I did. And the immediate consequences and immediate shame and immediate pushing to the margins where I realized, like, as long as I believed in that construct, my sexuality was never mine. I remember hitting puberty and a sex drive, a libido showed up that I— it was blindsiding. And nobody else around me seemed to have that problem. And so I would sneak watching, you know, erotica on late night TV. I would spend a lot of time in the shower with a, you know, a handheld shower head and just so much shame.

Me too.

So she's really painting the picture of a person who She's kind of a sexual person, right? And in her childhood, she recognized that. She talks about she had puberty and then the bomb went off. And unfortunately, that combined with a— what sounds to be— what sounds like it's a very strict church background, which tried its damnedest to constrain that. And they do so with shame, unfortunately. And that's what I hear quite often. I hear this from the men, obviously the men that I'm talking to. I'm not talking to women in these one-on-one coaching sessions, but I hear that a lot from the Mormons and so forth, which is, um, I had this, these feelings and I wanted to do things with girls, but it was very much hammered into me, no, don't, and you're, um, you should be shamed for even considering that. And that, um that has quite an effect on people. And it sounds like, um, this, uh, this gal just did not fit within the confines of that, that structure with the church and so forth. A very super conservative, strict upbringing. Boy, that, that just wasn't her. And she was Miss Rebellious. And it sounds like she's taking that Miss Rebellious persona into her marriage. But let's continue on.

Yes, not to the same level.

So why, um, why do you think that she can say, you know, my sexuality belonged to my Indian culture, then it belonged to the church, then it belonged to you, it belongs to all these other Institutions, marriage, religion, family. You get the same messages, but you don't have the same inner turmoil.

I didn't get the same level of shame that she did. No one told me what to wear, right? No one tells boys, "Don't wear that because you're going to tempt the girls." So no one told me you're going to corrupt her by dating her. We did have the same rules of no sex before marriage. You do need to date the person you intend to marry.

You need to marry the person you intend to date. Yes.

Yes.

Took me a moment. This conversation really highlights the complexity of the power dynamic around sexuality. On the one hand, women are demure, deferential, submissive. They have no say. They have to cater to the man. On the other hand, they have the power to corrupt, the power to seduce, to tempt. By their sheer appearance, they will deflect him from his more honorable pursuits. And this two-sidedness of femininity The virtuous and the vixen is really what is being told here by these two people. They spent the same 10 years in the same religious school, and each one had their shaming, but it's a different imprint.

Yeah, I think that's very well put on Nestor's part, just the difference here in this particular church, in this particular background, how the— they both, uh, it sounds like they came from the same church. But they both internalized the teachings differently. And according to the husband here, he's, you know, I didn't get much in the way of shame as far as thou shalt not when it comes to certain behaviors and so forth. So I don't carry a lot of sexual shame from the religion. And to his point, he recognizes that, yeah, it's just a different flavor of shame for the gals. They were very much taught, as Esther eloquently points out here, that you woman, girl, should— you should be careful because you need to be put in your place and you need to defer to the man. You need to be more feminine, you need to be more agreeable, you need to be timid. But at the same time, you also carry a great deal of power in your sexuality. So that's why we need to keep that sexuality under wraps, because you just cause all kinds of chaos if you go out there and you start showing your shoulders. So yeah, it's a different world for men and women specifically in this religion, whatever it may be that they are in. It sounds like a Christian conservative religion. I'm not certain exactly what they are, but let's continue on.

I used to beg him. I'm like, let's just have sex. Like, what the heck is going to happen?

But that ardor, that Intensity of desire that you had when it wasn't allowed, did it come with you when you got married?

Well, so I spent 4 or 5 years that we were dating trying to shut it off and doing everything I could to shut it off, and it worked. And I never recovered that. I—

Oh, this is interesting. So she's saying that, uh, boy, she had all kinds of urges, and she's begging this guy, can we just have sex already? And he's sticking to his guns within the religion and saying, "Nope, not gonna do it." And so her method of coping with that was to say, "Well, let's just shut off the sexuality." So, way to go, um, religion there. Their religion just took this very sexual, normal, healthy gal and just, um, shut it all down. Her method of coping was, "Well, I guess I'm not a sexual human being anymore." Game?

Really angry, I think. Deep, deep, deep down. And it kind of got layered over.

The anger said what?

Sorry.

It's okay.

I don't know why this is bothering me now.

How could it not?

God, okay. I— I just hated being alive. It felt like— like life was just this uphill, never-ending struggle. And the only way to survive it and to not have it get worse was to be anything but myself. I think my whole personality was just antithetical in some ways to the way I should be if I wanted to be happy.

It's interesting that how many of us have heard of or know of or have partners, wives, girlfriends who tell us basically, you know, sex, sexuality is, it's there. I can appreciate it, but it's not all-encompassing, and it's not really a big part of me and my life. Some men have told me that their wives have sat them down and said, usually in response to the man being very needy and talking about, why don't we have sex anymore? The wife will often say, you know, I'm sorry, but to be honest with you, if you were to tell me you'll never ever do that again, I'd be okay with that. That's it. That's just how not important it is to me. Some women are wired that way. It could be argued that's because they are with their particular man. Give them with a different man who pushes her buttons and away she goes. That's another story. But this gal is telling us this sexuality thing was pretty damn important to her. And the fact that she wasn't getting any and the fact that she wasn't able to express that just really hit to the core of who the hell she was. This is the kind of gal that doesn't want to marry the first guy that she holds hands with. Right away, we're setting the table here for all kinds of disaster. This chick is not wired to say, "You and only you, the guy who I haven't had sex with, the guy who's the first guy I've ever held hands with, you're my husband?" Oh, Jesus. Anyone could see this is gonna end badly.

And the sexuality— I think was a bigger part of it than I realized. And then we did get married, and to flip that switch, oh my God, it was impossible. It was impossible to go from, you know, almost 10 years, if we look at when puberty first hit, to 10 years later going, "Oh yeah, now I want it all the time." I didn't. And everything about sex was, Scary and overwhelming. It was— we actually saw a therapist because I was like, is there something physically wrong with me? Because I can't tell the difference between pleasure and pain.

In what sense?

There were times where if he was touching me or kissing me, the sensation on my skin felt too much, felt overwhelming and felt jarring. And I couldn't figure out why. It fed this frustration that I felt like just kept building up and would show up in other ways.

Can I ask you something?

All right, let me pause there. So the knee-jerk simple thought solution, just a way to encapsulate all this, is one which I have a feeling with the direction this conversation is going, we're probably more right than we are wrong, is that she had all those feelings with him, right? And the fact that she's going to suggest here, "Hey, can we open the marriage?" kind of further proves the point. She's with this guy. This guy is not pushing buttons, um, for whatever reason. And here you go, I know you've been repressing your sexuality for all these years since the age of 14. Here's your dude. And her reaction is basically, "Don't touch me." get the hell away from me. I don't want anything to do with that sex with you. Now she can, you know, further dig into this and ruminate on the fact of why is this and what's the great metaphysical reason why I'm feeling this way and I'm confusing pleasure and pain. It may be as simple as, sweetheart, it's just him. You and him don't equal sexy. That's it. That's probably the case with majority of men out there. Just as with me, the majority of women that I may meet, I'm not gonna click in the same way that I click with my wife. It's just the way it is. There's nothing wrong with that. You know, it seems like we're overdramatizing here something which, to me, from the outside perspective, seems pretty damn simple.

How did the anger—

Mm-hmm. —show up?

And the nice man here became the recipient— Punching bag. Of something.

Totally. Totally.

You know that, right?

No. I knew, I know she was angry. Was, is angry.

You were not puzzled by her lack of interest, lack of response? No, I was affected by her.

For lack of interest, lack of response.

I mean, I'm happy you have good denial, but there's a limit. I don't think she was angry at me. No, she wasn't angry at you. She was angry, period, at all the repressive systems that she had to face. But you were the recipient of it. Yes. Okay. Yes.

Yeah. And I mean, and the anger was It was so hard to nail down. I was angry at the sexuality and my own identity within that. I was angry at the financial consequences of just the life we had.

I mean, we were— Yeah, not only are we kind of first-generation successful marriage in the family, but we're first-generation college— Education. First-generation. —graduates. We have a lot— So much. —of— Skol dat.

He just jumped over that whole, we're the first generation successful marriage. So they come from broken families. It's kind of surprising given the conservative religious background. I assumed that they came from a long line of people that stuck together no matter what, but he just kind of jumped right over that. So it sounds like some baggage there in terms of not only the repressed sexual stuff, but they come from broken families. And they're also painting the picture of just how stressful the financial situation was. So you have a woman who's thrown into a relationship with a guy that obviously the sex stuff is— it just ain't there. Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say something that's not so nice and not so politically correct. And but we're all thinking it, aren't we? This guy does not sound like the sexiest dude in the world. I've not seen the guy. Obviously, I'm not sitting there next to the guy. I don't know what's going on, but at least via audio in the 12 minutes that we've listened here to this, no, he does not paint himself as the most attractive male in the world. This isn't what I would call Mr. Casanova here, is he? Let's be honest, the guy's a bit of a— he's a bit of a turnip. I don't know how else to explain it. You know, you just, you sit and you go, well, let's listen to these people. And then you hear the guy speak, and two words into it, you're like, oh, I see. This is just not Mr. Sexy. Um, you have Miss Sexy over here who's just like, dude, I've been a whore dog since 14. I've been needing it, I've been wanting it, and here you go, here's your dude. Well, no freaking wonder this woman's wandering off and she's having an existential crisis. This guy just ain't cutting it. He ain't gonna cut it for the majority of women out there. This guy has all the, uh, all the masculinity of a turnip. I don't know how else to explain it. Um, yeah, that's my first thought. Sorry, dude, but, um, yeah. So get that out of the way. Let's continue on, shall we?

But right now you have the debts. Yes, you have the degrees. We do. We have my parents. You have You have your parents, you have your children. Yes. And you have tremendous strengths. You have tremendous resources and strengths. And you have each other.

I know.

So Esther just laid the table there. I may be putting— she may get to this point, but what Esther has described there is that You have all of the domestic safety, um, provider-y stuff covered. You guys have your degrees, jobs. Yeah, there's the stress of money. Well, welcome to the real world. Who doesn't have that? Um, kids. She just mentioned kids there, so they already procreated. Wonderful. And, um, you got all that covered, and yet here we are. Husband and wife talking about, um, Miss Sexy here wanting to run off with other men. And it sounds like she already is running off with other men. Getting ahead of ourselves in the story. So what's up with that?

I know this life would not be possible without him by my side.

There's no way. You taking this in?

I love you. You okay? I love you.

Mm-hmm.

Well, you don't get emotional very often.

The dude gets emotional because he knows what's going on here. Dude, you're the nice guy. They think they've used the word nice a couple of times here already. You're the nice guy. The quintessential nice guy. You're the provider. You're giving me all kinds of safety, comfort, and, uh, I wouldn't be able to have this life without you. And there he is thinking, probably— I'm putting words in his mouth, he may get to it— then why the heck do you have to run off and fuck other men? That sounds crude, doesn't it? Sorry for the language, but that's what he's thinking. That's what any normal human being, any normal man in this situation would think. If I'm providing you with all these things and I'm such a wonderful, awesome man and Jesus Christ, we have two kids together. Why do you need to run off and get your needs met elsewhere? Let's continue on.

Just take it in. Because in the last month she's been talking so much about other men that you don't even know enough about how important, special, and an anchor you are in her life.

Now this is something that A lot of women have a very difficult time wrapping their mind around, especially in these situations. Um, I don't think Esther and the other woman realize with every word that they have that, that, that builds towards this— I, I'm just picturing them kind of patting them on, on his head and saying, "There, there, dude. You don't realize you're a good provider. That should provide you with comfort, right? That should make you feel better." you know, putting their arm around him saying, oh, dry your tears, young man. Sure, you're not sexy, and sure, I don't want you sexually, and sure, I need other men, but man, you're really good at babysitting and you're really good at a paycheck. Doesn't that make you feel better? And no, ladies, it doesn't. A lot of women have a very hard time understanding that, and a lot of women have a very hard time understanding just what a mind-f it is for these guys to be in this position A lot of men in his position become suicidal, uh, or it could be argued even worse, they become homicidal. In this, you know, crimes of passion result from this sort of thing. I'm giving, giving, giving, providing, providing, and yet my mate is seeking the most carnal, basic need elsewhere— the need to, um, have sex with others. Which, if you want to dig even further in a very primal nature point of view, why is she running off and having sex? Why does anybody have sex with another person? Well, because nature has implanted us with this urge and this desire so we can procreate. So what she's saying basically is, with her very primal action, um, you, thank you for, um, helping me make a couple of babies and providing and being my anchor and so forth, but I need to run out and see if there's some other better candidates to propagate you know, genetic material and so forth. And that's, at a very primal level, the ultimate, um, insult, isn't it? And I think that's something that Esther and the other woman here just don't quite get.

It's gotten really lost. She couldn't even begin The explorations that she's on.

Oh, Jesus Christ, Esther, please. This— her method of comforting this man is to say, if it wasn't for you, she wouldn't even be able to explore her sexuality with these other men. How in the hell is that any kind of a comforting thing? That, that to me right there shows that Esther's ability to empathize with the man in this situation is next to nothing. She really dropped the ball there. And to me, that's a pretty horrible thing to say.

This wasn't an established, stable, safe harbour.

She said that. She said that a lot. Part of me, when I hear that, feels like, "Thanks for the last decade. Thanks for the past." That's a past. Newman are my future. I'm going off on my own now. So I know it is valuable. A part of me feels like it's a past and it's done.

Even though she comes back to the relationship and to you and brings and shares with you what she's learning and discovering. Okay.

If it sounds like I'm getting a little pissed off, it's because I am. Again, the tone deafness, the lack of empathy, the lack of understanding. This guy is basically, you know, he doesn't have the biggest set of balls in the world. Let's be honest with you. At least that's the impression that we're getting from the guy. So what he wants to say is that the woman's saying, hey, thanks for everything, but I'm gonna go fuck other men. And what are you gonna do about it, mister? And it's kind of what he's hinting around. And Esther keeps coming back with, "Yeah, dude, but you're her husband. She keeps coming back to you. And she comes back to you and actually shares the stories of her love and adventures with these other men. Doesn't that mean something to you? Isn't that special?" Jesus Christ, no, it's not special. It's just a way for the woman to dig the knife in even further.

Yeah, it's, I mean, that's good also, but that doesn't eliminate the other feeling. Mm-hmm, I get it. I guess there's a lot of questions that come with it. Is it, do you need me to watch the kids while you go? Oh my God, with the other guys. Are you appreciative that we have this 10-year foundation and now we have a house and kids and now you can go play with the other guys?

So you, you wonder if you're a convenience?

Yes. Well, good for him. So he's calling her out in a roundabout way. I think he could have been a lot more blunt and a little bit more angry with it. You can see the emotion rising in the guy. And I don't know if you caught when he said, "You just need me to watch the kids." Did you hear the woman, his wife, go, "Oh my God." Just the disdain, just the ugh. Mind you, while she was rambling on about all of this stuff, he didn't say a word. There's very much— it's very obvious who's wearing the pants in the relationship. Excuse me. And it's one of, uh, if he's expressing what I consider to be very normal, healthy human response to all of this, is just shut down with kind of a, "Oh my God, dude, come on, get over yourself." Am I here to be stability for you while you go have fun elsewhere? So—

One of the things we talked about before any of this started was the boundaries and the kind of the regu— how do we regulate what role these other relationships— Mm-mm, mm-mm.

Wait a sec. Stay with him for a moment.

Instead of wanting to fix it? That's hard.

Well, interestingly, because you come with such an institutional background, you answer in institutional terms. Even the way you just walked in, you know, you came and you say there is India, then there is the church, then there is marriage, and now there is polyamory. It's just the next institution.

I think it's one way of looking at it, that she's institutionalized and she's framing everything in that way. But I think it's also another way of looking at it is she's very much the masculine presence in this relationship, isn't she? She's dictating much of it, and she's listening to this guy emote, and she rolls her eyes at it, and she's just like, basically, all right, I hear you emoting, mister. Let's shut you up and figure out how to navigate this world so I can get my pleasure outside of the relationship. And still, uh, keep your nagging and whining to a minimum. Let's see how we can resolve this. And the way that Esther's kind of framed it is within— well, here you are projecting what all of these institutions in your life have done, regimenting and so forth. To which I would say, no, she's just being controlling, and she's the masculine presence, and that's probably what she's done since day one with this relationship. It's just their, um, It's just the way they do things. He sits back and reacts in the more quote-unquote feminine mindset, and she's the more masculine, leader-y mindset.

And I'm not sure that is very helpful. Yeah. Sometimes it's better not to name the framework so that people can actually explore without the repercussions of heavily loaded terms: monogamous, polyamorous. In this instance, for this couple, these two words have become so antagonistic that they feel that their relationship may vanish because of it. These two people have no desire to split up, but they need to find a way to experience freedom that isn't hurtful to the other and acceptance that isn't a betrayal of oneself. And you—

So, they need to find ways to express their individuality, their independence, their sexuality, without hurting each other. So, how can she go out and get her jollies with other men without hurting him? She can't. That's it. It's impossible. You might as well say, how is it I can jab this knife into your stomach repeatedly without you saying, "Ow, stop it." You just can't. It's the nature of the game. He committed to her and only her, and he expected a wife, and he expected fidelity. And she is basically saying, "I don't think so." And when he expresses any emotion that points to, "I don't like that, and it hurts me, and here's why," it's like, "Hmm, how can we stop that hurt?" but allow me to keep hurting you. You see where I'm going with this? It doesn't make any sense. They're going to keep going in circles.

Well, that this in itself is new for them, and so he's writing away furiously, trying to capture the words that I myself am only sketching as I try to make sense of their dilemma. Instead of talking about sexuality and what has happened to sexuality sexuality for you and in your marriage and with each other, etc. We're busy talking about a transition from monogamy to polyamory, from one institution to another. And for somebody who has been fighting institutions, you are damn loyal to them. The fact that there may be elements of that doesn't mean that you have to start to think in this either-or fashion. That creates a kind of a binary between the two of you. You know, one person's happiness is the other person's misery. One person's exploration is the other person's commodification. He becomes the caretaker, the parent, the useful guy. The other ones are the funny guys, the ones with whom you have meaningful transformative experiences. You're going like this with your head the whole time. Which one of those words is the ones that—

The meaningful transformative experiences.

Right. Every relationship has to straddle security and adventure. Right? Fun and stability. Familiarity and exploration. And what I'm hearing you say is, It sucks to know that I become stability and reliability and the anchor, but the waves are somewhere else.

That's it. So Esther realizes what he's saying and what he's feeling. So let's see where they go with it.

And I want to ride the waves with her too. So we're gonna have to enter the labyrinth. Together without naming, without labeling anything, just simply make sense of what's happened, and then we'll see if there are tags that we need to put on this or not.

I love that.

Hmm? What has been the sexual relationship between the two of you?

So as soon as we got married, Yeah. We'd been following all the rules and not having sex. Right.

But you were drawn to each other, petting all the time, kissing all the time, you know, playing at the borders. Yes. Loving the ambiguity of it all. Excited and frustrated. Yes.

What else? Yeah, she brings up a good point. I know where she's going with this. And this is something that I've heard from a lot of the guys like the Mormons and your Orthodox Jewish and so forth that I've spoken to. Is that it's this dating phase, the courtship phase without sex, is almost a quasi-erotic thing. The fighting the urge for a period of months and years, going right to the edge, they may be kissing, heavy petting, but no, we got to stop ourselves, is in a way kind of an erotic experience. And it's exciting going right to the edge and then turning around, going right to the edge and turning around and doing that for a period of years. And then what I hear is these guys finally get to the point of, yahoo, we can finally cross that line, let's do it. And then they realize, oh, that wasn't that great. Well, it'll get better, and it never gets better. And then, uh, yeah, not so good things happen afterward. And I think that's what we're seeing here. Everything was great, and then when they were finally able to consummate the act, yeah, not so much. But what the wife will then say is, well, it's because I have all of this emotional, mental baggage around sex, and that's why I wasn't able to do that. And I think a far more simple and probable excuse is just not with this guy.

The notion that one hasn't had sex because one hasn't had intercourse is an outdated notion that no longer reflects, and maybe never reflected, how we behave, how we feel toward each other, the erotic energy that two people can share in the midst of the denial of the act. What switches afterwards is that they have the permission for the act of intercourse, and the sexuality becomes narrowed down to the act, and the energy vanishes. Being sexual is more than just having the act of intercourse in sex. We have got to broaden the definition.

And this is a very female-centric point of view that Esther is saying here, by my definition anyway. Much of the sexual desire in women— not all women, of course, let's not go down that road— But it's enough of a trend for us to say, and Esther is hinting at this, that for, hey, for us ladies, the forbidden, oh boy, that is very enticing. It's, um, that, that really triggers the sexual desire within us. See that over there? You can't have that. Well, shit, now I want it more. And, um, that's what happened at the beginning stages of their courtship. It was that, um, 'You can't have this guy.' 'Yeah, but I would like to explore my sexuality and have fun with him.' 'No, you can't.' Well, that just builds and builds and builds, doesn't it? Eventually, when you finally say, 'Okay, now you can,' ah, kind of loses its luster. This is what a lot of men report. 'We were so hot and heavy and sexual,' you know, for non-religious types, non-super religious types like these guys, 'and we had a sexy relationship and a lot of sex and a lot of fun. And as soon as we said I do, that's when I noticed things started cooling. And as soon as we had a kid, that's when it just died. And a lot of men will look at that very black and white and say, well, that's the old bait and switch. She was pretending to like it. And then when she found out she had me for sure, she didn't want me anymore. I say, no, that's not necessarily the case. What happened was that within the confines, or rather outside of the confines, of a stable, you're here no matter what relationship, that sexuality is able to flourish within the mind of your girl, of your future wife. She's way turned on within that. But as soon as it's, you are a for sure thing, you're not going away, and that comfort and stability hits, it turns that knob way down. Actually, it turns that knob down a little bit at a time. And as soon as the kids hit, oh geez, it just turns that knob almost completely off, if not completely off for some women. Just the way a lot of women are wired. And I think a lot of these— a lot of this is kind of overdramatized, what we're hearing here, to be quite honest with you. You know, I kind of roll my eyes at some of this. It's just like, you wanted it, and as soon as you got it, oh wow, you know what, I don't want this anymore. Let's go explore some other people and see what else other people have. Maybe I want that more. I think that's basically it. Let's be real simple. Let's be real honest here and keep it simple.

When we would talk about like, what the heck should sex be? Can you just tell me what it should be? Because if you ask me, I don't need it. I could go the rest of my life without it and it'd be fine.

Okay, hold up. What? I have to— I got to pause here. What the hell? This whole thing up to this very point has been this woman saying, "I'm such a sexual creature. I've been such a sexual creature since the age of 14. I haven't been able to explore. I'm in this marriage. Eh, I don't want him. I want to go out and explore and have sex with other men." And out of the other corner of her mouth, she's saying, "What does sex mean to you? I'm fine without it." That's confusing all the hell. This guy must— his head must just be spinning. So since we have—

since we're here, we're married, we must have sex. What is sex to you? What is good sex to you? And he would always say the thing that you want guys to say, which is, I wanted to— I want— I want you to feel pleasure. I want to know that I can pleasure you.

And okay, so I understand where she was getting out with that. So what she was saying was when they got married and she's having talks with this guy and she's telling him, "Hey, you don't turn—" Let's be honest, what she's saying is, "Hey, turnip, you don't turn me on. I don't want sex with you in any way, shape, or form. What do you want? At least give me some nugget of information that can show me that you're kind of a sexual human being and that, you know, try and turn me on here. Go. What do you got?" And the guy's just like, "I just want to please you." And I said, "Oh, Jesus Christ, this guy." Uh, that's, that's something a lot of these quote nice guys do, which is, um, they frame their sexuality in a very codependent kind of way. What can I do for you? If I can't do something for you and please you, then this whole sex thing is just a mystery to me. I don't know what to do. When a more quote masculine frame would be one of very dominating— well, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to bend you over and do this to you. I'm going to take you here. I'm going to take you there. I'm going to, you know, very dominant, masculine, manly frame. And right away she's, she's, she's saying in a roundabout way, you know, honestly, I gave him a shot and I tried to say, let's see what you got. And all he could come up with, I want to please you. I want to please you. And that just turned me off even more.

What stressed me out so bad because it's like, I don't even know what that means. I have no idea what that means. I remember something he always wanted was to go down on me. And it was traumatizing.

And now? Now I love it.

Now I love it. He's a fantastic lover.

I really am. Would you like me to shake your hand? Congratulations. Oh my God, he really—

If you could see me now, I'm just cringing, like, ugh, just wincing in pain at this. When she's married one-on-one with this guy, uh, the thought of him going down, in her words, on him, performing oral sex on her, just repulsed her. Ugh, couldn't stand it. And Esther says, and now he's an amazing lover. Well, what changed? Well, I think we're getting to it here. What changed is that she went off and got her needs met elsewhere by other men. So she goes out and she gets horned up by other guys and she comes home to him. Let me tell you what I did with these other guys. It's kind of a new kinky fun thing. Now that they've introduced sexuality, titillation, eroticism into the relationship, unfortunately for this guy, this poor schmuck, It's at the— they're sacrificing his dignity as a man in order to bring the eroticism into the relationship. And your more psychological types may say, "Yeah, we need to erode his ego or break it down a little bit in order to—" No, no, it's nothing to do with that. This is at a very primal, very basic level. The most insulting thing that they could do to this guy. You one-on-one? Eh, forget it. Let me go out and get my sexual needs met elsewhere and come back to you. All right, now I'm turned on. Let's do this. And they're literally laughing about this. And Mr. Turnip there is just like, I am an amazing lover. Oh, Jesus Christ. Anyway, continuing on.

He is amazing.

And the same behaviors The same touch that felt so violating. Yes. Feels intensely pleasurable. Yes. That should tell you something.

It should tell you that you're not a long-term monogamous relationship type of woman. And I've— I'll say this until I'm blue in the face. That doesn't mean this wife is a terrible person. It really doesn't. She's a human being. Not every human being has the skills, the temperament, the personality, whatever you want to call it, to say, "I'm a wife to this man and a sexual partner to this man and only this man." It's obvious that this woman belongs to that camp, isn't it? It ain't for her. Yet she's going to try and shoehorn herself into this monogamous relationship and hurt a man and presumably down the line, probably a couple of kids in the process. When a lot of this could have been avoided, when she should have, for lack of a better term, manned the eff up early on and said, "Marriage to this guy? No thank you." But she didn't. And now here they are.

You know, to me, that is so powerful because in some interesting way, what it speaks to is that It is not about the sexual activity, behavior, touch itself, since the same movements of him, the same touches of him that felt so violating is now such an intense source of pleasure. The sex is not the issue. Yeah. The context of the sex. Is the issue. The meaning you gave it has fundamentally changed. What I'm imagining— when I felt that this is something I have to do because I'm your freaking wife, because now it's part of the should, because it's still part of that institution that imposes it on me, I experienced the whole thing as a violation, as an oppression. But now that I consider myself an emancipated, free, autonomous, sexually liberated woman who went and explored her own sexuality elsewhere, and I feel like I own it. You can do all of this to me and I love it.

Oh my God.

Wow, they are really overdramatizing this. It's not— I get where they're coming from, and she's got a point. Now the woman's in the mind frame of, ah, I'm me, I can explore. This is— this going out and exploring my sexuality with other men and so forth That's me. Oh, now I feel like me. Now I feel comfortable in my own skin. Now I feel erotic and sexual. Here I am, husband. What do you think? And again, we can just keep going in circles. His response has been like, I feel like I'm being used here. I feel like I'm being kind of— my feelings and my thoughts are just being set aside so you can run out and do whatever. And I'm Mr. Safety and Security here. I'm not sure I'm quite comfortable with that. And their reaction is, enough of that horseshit. How about me and my, uh, me exploring my sexuality, huh? Hey, we're having sex, aren't you happy? Do they care if he is or not is the question. Does the wife care if he's happy or not?

Doesn't seem like she is. I don't think I've processed—

I knew the second part at all. I didn't get the first part.

What made you come up with the idea of exploring elsewhere?

It had always been in the back of my mind.

Right.

Then why the sam fuck did you get married? Excuse my language. Continue on.

What happened was I got off birth control. And I got off birth control because I was trying to find any solution to help alleviate depression and anxiety. And oh my goodness, the physical libido came back.

Let's stop there. She's hitting on something that I want to explore a little bit because I don't think a lot of people fully appreciate the impact that these outside hormonal cocktails that we take in the form of birth control, some kind of hormonal therapy, or some kind of outside drug that may end up, as a side effect, inhibit your hormonal processes in the body. So for example, if you are on some kind of cancer treatment, some of those are known to purposely, or as a, as a, as a side effect, to oppress certain hormones in the body, which in turn completely change your physical as well as your mental and emotional makeup. And as a side product, your libido, your sex drive. Hormones, holy crap, are everything. Um, if you don't believe me, uh, let me inject you guys with some estrogen. You know, nice shot of estrogen in your butt, uh, you know, a period of a few weeks. After the end of that few weeks, you're going to be crying, you're going to be blubbering, you're going to be uh, retaining water. Your breasts are going to grow. Um, you're going to have no desire for sex, probably. Uh, you're just going to be a completely different human being just from me injecting this liquid into your body. On the other hand, let me give you some testosterone. If you're like a lot of men, you're going to gain muscle, probably some new hair in places you didn't know you had. Your skin will be oilier, and as a result, you're going to have probably more acne. Your sexual desire may go through the roof. For some men, it actually has the opposite result where they, they report that, "No, my libido has dropped." Again, all these very dramatic things as a result of me just shooting this chemical into your butt. This female birth control, taking the pill, has changed the sexual landscape a great deal. We could go on and on about how, why that is. But, um, this woman is right in saying for a lot of women, taking that little pill changes them completely. And that's not being melodramatic. I mean, they go from A to B, Jekyll and Hyde. They're just completely different people. And there was a study done, and I don't have it here, um, to quote exactly, but I remember the study showing that women's preferences for mates, who they say, yes, I want this guy as a boyfriend or husband, who they pick when they're on the pill, uh, is vastly different than who they pick when they're off the pill. How different? Now, how interesting is that? Um, it seems to be they look for more softer provider features, if you will, while on the pill. And when they're off, they're looking for, uh, Mr. Hunky Lover Man. So she's saying she had all kinds of issues with anxiety and depression and so forth, and she was looking for some kind of, uh, you know, trying out different things to alleviate that. And she said, I wonder what's going to happen when I go off the pill. Well, lo and behold, her sex drive went through the roof. That's not unheard of at all.

And I couldn't control it. It felt like going back to being 14 years old. It started with just going— I letting myself go back to, I wonder what it would be like to kiss other people.

Interesting. So some of you hearing me going, you know, I just went on that 5-minute speech about the importance of hormones and how birth control can have pretty profound effects. Some of you may say, I wonder if I should have my wife go off the pill. I wonder what that would result in. Well, for this guy, wife went off the pill. Instead of jumping his bones and saying, hey, sorry about that no sex drive thing, let's get to it, mister. Instead of that, her response was, sure would like to fuck other guys. That happens, hey, especially with women like this. Who are not wired for this marriage thing and who have been saying since the age of 14, "I'm a very sexual creature and I like to go out and explore this." This, um, the cat's out of the bag now. So, and her response is basically, "I wanna go out and fuck other men." And his response is, "Well, okay, I guess." And here they are.

What's interesting about the thoughts may not just be the particular nature of those thoughts, But it's the fact that you allowed yourself to have thoughts that were themselves the expression of finally owning your sexuality piece by piece. If you own it, then you're not just experiencing it as a subjugation and a submission, which I think was your first sentence when you walked in. Yes. This is as much a conversation about sex and sexuality sexuality as it is a conversation about power.

Say more there.

Ownership is a power. It's a redistribution of the power. By the way, he never had a sense that he owned it and it was his part. This is your shtick, let's be really clear.

Right, right. Completely true. You did nothing.

This had nothing to do with you. And in her case, freedom is generally in the territory of the forbidden. Mm-hmm. Yes. What's free about doing what you're allowed? Correct. When I wrote Mating in Captivity, there were a number of questions that guided my entire exploration on the nature of erotic desire in long-term relationships. And one was, why is the forbidden so erotic? It's not just because it's forbidden. Forbidden and transgressive, and therefore it becomes alluring. It's that in the forbidden lies the freedom and the autonomy.

So what Esther was saying there basically is that, um, she's trying to explore what is it about this, uh, and this is a very female point of view that she's given here because a lot of guys are listening to that going, uh, not necessarily, I don't need the forbidden. To get turned on? Well, some women do. Why is that? And Esther's contention is that, well, it's because that's when we are fully in control of ourselves and we are able to express our full self. So let that sink in. She is saying that for some women— actually, she's actually framing it as women in general, or people in general, I should say— but is that when you're confined and when you're constrained by something such as marriage, you're never your true self. And obviously that's why sexuality can't fully blossom and bloom. And it's not until you are able to, lack of a better term, be promiscuous and be free with your sexuality, that that sexuality can bloom. It's almost as if she's saying it's completely impossible within the confines of marriage for this sexuality to reach its apex. Kind of interesting.

Here's the thing. If she comes home, this newfound woman, and brings all this energy to you, that tells me that the problem wasn't you or her connection or disconnection or lack of attraction for you. But the way she was trapped inside— otherwise people don't come back to their partner with it.

Okay, let's give the benefit of the doubt here. Let's be open-minded, right? Let's try to empathize with the woman. Let's say that, um, she does in fact now have absolute 100% genuine sexual attraction and desire for her man, this, this husband here, the turnip. But only, only if she gets her jollies met elsewhere too. If the fact is that I'm only turned on by you, husband, if I'm getting dicked down by some other guy— sorry, being crude there— if I'm getting sex with some other dude, in my mind as the man, as the very simple-minded man— and that's a good thing, by the way, being simple minded when it comes to this stuff, because in our mind it is pretty simple. Does that not then prove that no, you don't have genuine sexual attraction to me? Um, I'm trying to put the shoe on the other foot. If I go to my wife and I were to sit and she says, hey, I'm feeling frisky, let's do it tonight, and I say, you know, I will, but, um, only if I can go watch some porn for about a half hour. Or worse, let me go visit the neighbor chick next door and do her real quick and I'll come back. And if the wife said to me, um, I know, what are you doing? You know, why do you need to go look at porn? Or why do you need to go have sex with a neighbor chick? Say, well, it's the only way that I can have sex with you. I would hope that my wife's next step is to call the attorney and file for divorce. That's fucking hurtful and terrible thing to say, but How they're framing this is, this is a very liberating thing. Don't you think, Mr. Husband? Huh? You know, elbowing him. Huh? Look at you, Mr. Lucky. She goes out and has sex with other people. See, it's not you after all. It's her. It's her flavor of sexuality. I don't know. What do you guys think? Would you be hurt if you had mind-blowingly awesome 'Porn, no sex, but only if your wife goes out and has sex with others beforehand. Otherwise, she's a dead fish.' How does that make you feel?

They are confirmed that indeed there's something that they lack vis-à-vis their partner that they can experience elsewhere.

How do you know she won't with her next partner?

Oh.

That's better than you. There are some ways in that I already feel replaced. Texting. Oh my God, I swear to God.

So listen, this wife pisses me off. Um, I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt, I really am. I'm being open here. But here's this guy saying It's not so cut and dry, Esther. This isn't she's run off getting her jollies and she's coming in and everything's great. Oh no, no, no. She's starting to form emotional connections with these other men. And I can see this by way of texting. So I'm putting words in his mouth here, but I assume he's gonna go, you know, we're having dinner at home, me and the kids, and she's over there smiling and giggling and tapping away at her phone. How the hell can I not be affected by that. She's forming emotional relationships with others. I don't like it. And you hear the wife's response in the background. She's done this already a couple of times in this conversation, that, oh God, like, uh, rolling her eyes at this guy. She has no respect for this man. And why should she? He set the table as much as she has. She's given him all kinds of tests throughout this whole thing. What do you think, mister? And he's saying, I guess that's fine. So of course she has no respect for him. Continuing on.

You can say, "I don't want to replace you. You're still my best friend. However, when we are together, the first thing you do when you wake up, the last thing you do when you go to bed is check your text messages. A lot of time when we have family time, One time during sex. What? One time while I was putting on the condom, checked the text message. And so it is not only in my head that attention is being taken away from me and applied—

Damn, Turnip's finally, uh, letting it out. I like it. Go, dude, let her have it. Yeah, this ain't so cut and dry, sweet cheeks. Jesus Christ, do you hear what this guy's saying? She's texting her lovers while he's in the process of putting a condom on. Oh my God, in the middle of sex, family time. Again, I'm a dude oversimplifying here, but she's done. You're just a paycheck. You're just the comfort. Let's be real here. Let's stop with all this psychobabble horseshit of, uh, this just pisses me off. I hear this, I hear this kind of stuff all the time. And so many men have been fooled into thinking that this is a genuine Plan B alternative to the normal monogamous relationship. And there could be an argument that it is, if in fact the other side is like, I'm cool with it. I get my jollies met elsewhere too, and we're making it work, and we've been making it work for decades. And, you know, I'm sure I have yet to hear that, but I'm sure it exists out there and the case can be made. But that's not the situation here. This is one side is extremely hurt, and rightfully so, and the other side is basically putting her middle finger saying, yeah, what are you gonna do about it?

Other people.

But what I've told him is, after about him What was that?

Don't bet him. Oh. Because you're new at this, and he may be on to something. True. There's a real learning here. There's jealousy.

Oh, interesting.

There's competition. There is needing reassurance. There is your needing to make more effort towards showing how much he is important rather than spend your time in asking him to adapt to the importance of others. OK.

So, you know, the wife, her reactions to this— oh, I didn't think about— yeah, pisses me off even more. I'm not a fan of this wife anymore, sorry. But, um, you know, you'll often hear me say relationships are work. Um, could be debate what exactly that means. What is work? Well, it means effort. It means concerted, um, you know, I do this and this, not this. I have to look after my mate. And as soon as you say, you know, I do, and as soon as you pop out kids, that work increases exponentially. That's just the way— that's just the way relationships are. And if you think that introducing other human beings into the relationship in the form of other lovers is going to make everything great and knock that work level down, you're full— no, I'm sorry, you're in for a rude awakening. It will actually make the level of work go up exponentially, just like Esther says here. You're gonna have to be cognizant of your man and his feelings here, sweetheart. You're gonna have to tend to him. You're gonna have to reassure him. You're gonna have to do a lot more than just texting while he's putting on a condom or texting while you're having dinner with the family to your lovers. That shows that you don't know what the hell you're doing and you're not doing this whole polyamory thing right. And as an aside, I'm not sure there is a quote right way to do it and not Totally fuck everything up, but that's for another podcast. Anyway, moving on.

He's stretching far and beyond. Yes. If he says, you know, were you texting others, this comes from that place that now says, you know, I used to know that I'm the only one and number one. Now you tell me I am still number one. I'm certainly not the only one. But I don't always feel enough, number one.

I feel at a bit of a loss on how to help.

The first thing would be to switch the narrative from the discovery of my polyamorous side to, "I'm just so happy I found a way back to us." Ah. Instead of putting the emphasis on what you found elsewhere. It's what elsewhere has allowed you to actually experience with him.

Now, what Esther says sounds great on paper. I don't know if you can hear in your audio, but I can hear my headphones, they are furiously writing away. I assume it's the man who's writing all these notes. He's a typical dude, a fixer, trying to right the ship here. And when she was saying this, you can hear somebody furiously writing away. Basically what she just said, you need to change the narrative here, sweetheart. It's not so much about, hey, I'm gonna go get dicked down by these other guys and I come back all happy. No, I need to say, this is what allows us to reconnect as a couple. This is what allows us to become a happier you and me. And the woman's like, yeah. And I'm sitting back there going, hold on a second. Um, changing the narrative, just the language alone, sounds somewhat sociopathic, doesn't it? Um, it's almost like telling this woman, we all realize what it is you're doing here, sweetheart. You need to do a better sales job to the guy over here, or else you're going to lose him, and that safety net's going to go away. So you need to reframe things, and you need to, quote, change the narrative here. It needs to be less about your sexual adventure and more about you and him reconnecting. And the wife's like, "Yeah, I can see a point." It's like, Jesus. If it's not genuine, then don't say it. And I don't know how long they've been going at it by the time this was recorded. Sounds like a while. And they've had every opportunity to express it in that way, but they didn't, because that's not what's happening here.

Who doesn't want to come back to the place that gives you Security and freedom at the same time.

If I went, okay, listen, sex isn't working between us. I'm going to go look for someone that makes me happy, that makes me feel more like a man. Mm-hmm. Wouldn't that choice increase the chances of breaking up the marriage?

That's— Well, good for him. So he's just— let me put the shoe on the other foot moment, see how this sounds.

Kind of what this feels like. I'm gonna go look for someone, some— an experience that makes me feel more like a woman.

But I'm not looking for something because you didn't fill it. It's not like I'm going, "Oh, yeah, I want someone who does X, Y, Z because you don't." So you're not looking for someone that does XYZ.

What if you find someone?

My heart is completely in. I don't want anything compromising us. But what I need you to do is to trust that it's not freedom without you.

Ugh. Roundabout way, she's saying you need to shut the eff up. You need to stop whining, you need to stop complaining. Her tone is very disdainful towards him when he expresses emotion. When he points out, you know, what you're doing is not so nice, her tone gets pretty mean towards him. I don't know if you can pick that up.

The freedom isn't to leave you and pursue others. It's to hold your hand while I get to experience more. Say that again. The freedom isn't about leaving you behind and running away. The freedom is about doing this with you. I still want to be tethered to you, and sometimes that means running around and enjoying new experiences, and sometimes you can come with me, sometimes you may not want to, but at the end of the day, I'm still connected to you. But I do get to— this room to be able to— explore.

Now, but what the man was saying is, I recognize all this. He's not, you know, I'm sure this has been hammered into his head through all these months of her doing this, her point of view. But his point of view is that number one, it hurts me, I don't like it. And number two is that you are increasing your chances of disconnecting from me and forming bonds with other men. You're gonna find some dude that pushes all your buttons, and you're gonna say husband schmusband, I'm moving on to this guy. That's his concern. And she keeps coming back to him saying, no, no, no, no, I have no desire to do that. You don't understand. That's not in me. I'm not wired that way, etc. Sorry, sweet cheeks. You're a human being. We're all wired that way. And you've just increased your chances of going on to plan B exponentially by running out and having sex with other men. Husband's not stupid. That's what he's saying. It's going to happen. It's just a matter of time.

I don't know if that helps at all.

That helps. What helped? Um, what she made you repeat. The freedom? You're not running away. You're trying to hold my hand and explore. Mm-hmm. The exploring It feels like I'm a horse in the stable and she comes along and says, "Hey, I want to come ride you now." Great. I love being ridden. Let's go. Okay, thanks for the ride. Go have fun riding the next horse. And the next day is another horse, and the next day another horse, and—

How often does it happen? But there's so much the next day.

Up to twice a week was our agreement.

And how often does it happen? I don't know.

I don't count. Twice a month. Twice a month. So it's okay, not tomorrow, but used to be I was the horse. You were my horse. I'm your horse. Yay, we love each other. We're horses.

Yes, but when you were the horse, she didn't ride you often.

And that's what she said. She asked me one time, is it worth it? We have better sex. We have more sex. We have better sex. Unquestionably. Are you more connected?

Not just— what do we mean here when we say better sex? What's better in your mind?

It's more passionate. It's more intimate. There's more freedom.

Okay.

She's into it. Mm-hmm. It's not a duty. Mm-hmm. Everything I imagined sex to be— the church says no sex till marriage, and in my head, it was, "Okay, as soon as we get married, we're gonna have awesome sex." And everything that I imagined the awesome sex to be is here. In our sex life. And so she asks me all the time, is it worth it? Is me going out with others—

That's a terrible question. I told her— I'm sorry. No, that's okay. That's true. So what would I replace it with? You are constantly trying to justify what you're doing. Yes. If you do that, then you're not free. The best, you tell him, "I'm so pleased by what's happening between us." You— the difference in the models is that when you were the only one, the model was based on exclusiveness. Yes. And exclusiveness is everything that cannot happen elsewhere. Software that is unique to us. What you're switching to now is a model that is based on specialness. You know, the exclusiveness doesn't tell you anything about the quality of the interaction.

My God, this woman, everything's an epiphany. But, um, again, we're doing this whole, um, changing the narrative. Sweetheart, you're, you're selling this incorrectly to your man. If you want this to go smoothly, if you want him to shut the fuck up, if you want him to stop talking about his hurt feelings, you need to do a better sales job. And keep— Esther keeps coming back to this, and the man doesn't have the balls to stand up for himself and say, this is horseshit, um, you guys are talking about me like a small child here, you know, how not to hurt his feelings and how to, how to keep the kid from spazzing out too much. I don't know, um, this is pretty bad stuff. Uh, this is pretty nefarious behavior on the part of the wife, uh, not taking into account— again, I'm— if you put the shoe on the other foot, and if I were to go to my wife and say the only way I'm going to be able to get up for some crazy awesome sex between the you and I is if I run off and go to the neighbor real quick, um, that's hurtful. And if I don't care how I frame it in terms of, no, no, you don't understand, this allows me to be a more complete man and allows me to recognize my autonomy as a man and explore my sexuality, and you should feel good for me, honey. And she said— my wife would then say, well, then how come we can't just you and me? Why do you have to run off to the, um, to the neighbor? I don't understand. And if I were to react and be, you know, angry about it like this woman is, I'm like, ugh, why do you have to frame it that way, wife? And basically they're telling the guy he's stupid for doing so. He just doesn't get it. No, he gets it. It's hurtful. I don't care how you frame it. But I'm rambling. Let's continue on.

It just emphasizes the boundary.

That's what I I think I've said is that there's kind of, there's two different types of specialness. There's special because it's exclusive. Now she is trying to convince me we are special by degrees. It's, I'm not the only one. I'm the most intimate or I'm the most, so it's special by degrees.

By the quality of the experience. The quality, yes.

And I understand that, but there is a sadness at the loss of the exclusive specialness here. I'm one of the horses in the stable now, and maybe I'm your favorite horse, right? But I'm one of the horses.

I hate this horse analogy. Like, you're one of the— you're not one of the guys. Like, it would be maybe one of if I had multiple lives built with multiple men and we had children together and plans together and dreams together. Then maybe— and how the hell somebody would manage that is beyond me— you are not one of anything. You are the only. There is no one else who has your role in my life. There is no one else who I feel about the way I feel about you.

There's no— yet. And he's going to come— I would hope he comes back and says, yet. It's just a matter of time until I'm going to be replaced, and I don't like it.

I've committed to no one else. I've built with, fought for, fought beside. Like, there is no one else. I hate hearing the horses in a stable thing.

I want you to hear that, though. She's been trying to say this for a while. That doesn't mean to take away the jealousy or the fears or anything. Those feelings are normal. But you also want to hear what she just told you, because you are trapped in a— I've lost my place and I've lost my exclusive role. And now I'm one of many and I'm interchangeable. And she's trying very hard to tell you, you are not.

You know, it's interesting. There's very much a role switch of the masculine-feminine here, isn't there? She's very much the masculine presence and he's very much the feminine. I'm thinking of the, oh, you know, stereotypical Hollywood kind of super masculine— you think of like your mafioso type guy who gets caught by his wife with one of his gumars, one of the women that he's screwing around with, and the wife throws a fit and starts throwing stuff around the house. And you know what happens? The mafia guy goes up and squeezes the wife and looks at her in the eye and says, "Baby, you know, you'll always be my woman. Don't forget, those girls mean nothing to me. You know, they're just sex, but you'll always be my woman, all right? You're my partner, and you're my this and that." And they hug and they kiss, and yay, everything's better. That's kind of what we're seeing here. He's just this demure little housewife who's left behind while the husband runs off and on business trips and has affairs, and she finds, you know, a little lipstick on the collar or a little love note from some woman, and he's got to explain it away. "Baby, you'll always be my wife." And, "Okay, it's fine." We're kind of rewinding the hands of time. This sounds like your old typical 1950s housewife, and he's in that role, and he's very uncomfortable in that role. And here's a couple of women telling him, "You shouldn't be so uncomfortable. It can be kind of freeing if you think about it." It's a bunch of horseshit if you ask me.

Here is this woman who is coming and finally freely giving herself to him. But because she got the juice somewhere else, he would rather live as a king of a desert than a prince of a fertile land. This is the trap that men are in.

It feels like there's this cap on my happiness. I'm 6 months into a new job and my boss can give me a great review and say, I'm randomly going to give you a raise because you're doing really good work. And I get really proud of myself. I think, oh, but my wife sleeps with other men. And so there's this cap on my happiness. I don't feel wrong. Just— Demoted. Demoted and—

And less of a man? Does it play itself there too?

That is something I've imagined maybe other people might think in my situation. But you don't— But I don't.

You know, he's very careful, isn't he? He's, uh, do you feel like less of a man? Because he knows he's fallen into a trap He says yes, because, well, that's a very stereotypical patriarchal masculine horseshit nonsense in the mind of a lot of progressive types. But the answer is, yeah, of course I feel less of a man. Which is why, you know, the question would be, do you tell your coworkers about your relationship? Where your wife goes around, screws other men? He's gonna say, no, of course I don't. Well, why not? Because it's embarrassing. Why is it embarrassing? Because people will think less of me. My boss will think less of me. There will go— all the promotions will go out the window because everyone will be like, "Ugh, what a turnip. Look at this guy." And I don't want them to think of me that way. So yeah, I feel less of a man in this situation. There's nothing wrong with saying that. But boy, he doesn't want to say it, does he? He's like, "Other people may think about it, but not me." This poor guy. Jesus Christ.

There's a little thought of what kind of man lets his wife do this.

That's what I was thinking.

And the response to that is, "She's not yours to own." So that thought doesn't stay—

stay around. But you've also said, on the same vein, um, man, we bumped heads over one statement he would say, which is, "I don't like sharing you." I'm like, "I'm not yours to share." Mm-hmm. And the owner's the same. And I've told him that. I'm like, I feel like I'm yours to own. Feel like this is more the controlling.

And instead of responding, I'm gonna give you different responses a little bit, because it doesn't mean there's no validity to what you say, right? Just so we— if you said, you know, he already said it, she doesn't belong to me, you know, you're having conversations with patriarchy, you know. Yes, but you can— oh God. To say, "You're so generous. I thank you. I love you ever more for it," rather than, you know, have another discussion with the institution. Talk to your husband. To me, this is less a story of monogamy, and certainly not of polyamory, as it is the story of how did this woman go about finding a way to finally, for the first time in her life, connect in a full way with her own sexuality and come to her husband as a desiring woman.

They're kind of going away from the topic, but going back to the subject of him not feeling like a man and so forth, I've said this to many men that I talk to, that the irony in all this is that everyone, including the wife, would have far more respect for this man if he were to say, "Hey, good for you for recognizing your sexuality and good for you for wanting to explore it, but it's not going to be under the framework of a marriage with me. I'm sorry, that's just not going to cut it for me, sweetheart. I get it. Cat's already out of the bag. There's no going back now. But I say we do this amicably and we split." You live your life, I'll live mine. And I'll find somebody who does want to live within an exclusive sexual relationship with me long term. It may take a while for me to find that person. But that's fine. But staying with you under these circumstances? No, it's not gonna happen. It's just not for me. And that doesn't make you a bad person, wife. Hey, do what you need to do. But it's not going to be with me as husband. I'm sorry. I have every right to say that, just as you have every right to say what you want to say. So best of luck to you. High five. Go get them. Enjoy. I'll be over here doing my thing. That's— she would respect that. She would be hurt by that. She'd be probably blown away by that, like, where the hell did that come from? I didn't see that coming. I thought I'd be able to have my cake and eat it too. I thought he would always play the part of Mr. Provider while I go off and do my thing. I guess not. Oh shit. But at least she would respect you. And imagine if that guy went to all his friends and coworkers and they said, how's it going at home? Said, well, my wife suggested an open marriage and she wants to go out and have sex with other men. Oh shit, what'd you do? I told her, uh, you know, thanks but no thanks, it's not for me, and we're splitting up. And that boss, that everyone at work, those friends would all say, good for you, dude. All right, I can see that. I'd probably do the same thing. But instead he's got this shame. I don't want to be a patriarchal asshole. I don't want to be domineering, and I don't want to be controlling. I don't want to— I don't want to— I don't want her to think that I own her. And I said, oh God, this guy, this guy needs to go away to a masculinity boot camp or something. Just his tone is overall just so weak, and it's just angering. And you just want to put your arms around this guy and say, you know, come with me for a month or two, we need to talk. I think this guy represents a good portion of the men out there. And as you can see, and she represents a good portion of the women out there. She's wearing the pants in the family. And she needs somebody to push back a little bit. She needs a man. And she's saying that with her action. She's got with this guy by virtue of her religious background and the societal pressure, and so forth. She picked him. And now she's like, "Oh, shit, shouldn't have done that." And she's very much taken control of everything from A to Z in this relationship. And you can see where it's getting him. It's not very good.

But at the same time, it does create in him, you know, old feelings. "Am I a pushover?" That's not a new thought. "Am I kind or am I stupid?" Mm-hmm. You know, that's an old question for you, and it gets evoked here, I think. Mm-hmm. Yeah?

I did not know this. Me neither. Huh? What? Me either. You didn't know? Seriously? No, he's—

Am I kind or am I stupid? That's a good way of putting it.

What words do you use? Am I a pushover?

And it probably would have stopped there. Am I kind or am I a pushover? Am I kind or am I a weakling?

Yes, I think that that's an old question and it is evoked in this situation, understandably so. And don't squelch it. I would hate it if we tried to have this conversation end just with a nice bow tie. It's not. You're in the middle of something. You need to be very active, proactive, and careful so that you don't take your enthusiasm and it overrides everything. You try to listen to him and not to constantly bring it back to you because you have a hard time knowing that you are the cause of some of the feelings. So you want these feelings to not be there.

Every time the man inches towards this very obvious and very healthy and very normal mind frame of, hey, I'm, I'm being fucked over here, um, what's in it for me, so to speak, why, why am I agreeing to this again, um, the wife becomes irate and, and shuts him down pretty quickly. Why is that? What's she so afraid of? Well, she's afraid of losing the framework of the strong, safe, secure relationship, the security, the providership that the man provides in the relationship, because she sees him inching towards that. Can't have the guy wake up. He may go, he may pull the, pull the the handle and eject, right? Can't have him do that. So she has to squash that real quick. And when she— and he doesn't like when she veers off into this talk of going out and meeting other men. And he tries to express, I don't like that. Well, why? Because he realizes what that means, um, the end of the relationship. It's almost— and I think Esther is kind of in a roundabout way saying this, Either you two need to let the other fully express all your feelings on the matter, or put your fingers in your ears and say la la la, and both of you shut up and not mention it and just go on living your life and let her explore. And you, Mr. Over There, shut up and let her do her thing. And, and it really all comes back to— it's very, uh, it's very female-centric All of this, the more I think about it, the more I verbalize it, the more we come around to it's all very much revolves around her and her sexuality. You know what we haven't heard at all in this talk, in the last 40-some-odd minutes of this, I know we're going on an hour and a half, hour and 40 minutes of this talk, but the podcast itself has only gone on for about 42 minutes of Esther talking, is One of— no one has mentioned his sexual needs, him exploring, etc., etc. Is he going out and meeting other women? What's he think? Forming relationships with others? Everything very much points to he's just sitting at home twiddling his thumbs waiting for a wife to come home. And no one's asking, is that fair? Is that healthy? Is that good? Is that what he wants? I have a feeling he's the type to say, "That's not me. I don't want to do that. I'm a monogamous person. That's not in me to do that." What he doesn't have is the balls to say, "And therefore I'm putting up boundaries that that's what I expect from my partners." He can't take it that far because the other side has shamed him into not saying that.

They are. They're normal. They're fine. They're part of the story. And make room for it. Just don't compare yourself to a horse. And understand something: this is a work in progress, like your marriage is. It may not be your destination. It may be a stop on the road. The truth is that she doesn't know. She can say it's done Wonders, "I don't want to leave you. It's because you hold my hand that I feel the strength to explore elsewhere. It will only bring good to us." But the truth is that she cannot promise this. So his fear is legitimate, and he cannot be the only carrier of that fear. He cannot be the only person who holds the vulnerability that comes with that change. What happens when we want to convince somebody to move over to our side is that we only want to give them the mirror of all the great things that come with our choice, our decision, what we stand for. If we are able to speak about the positive and negative aspects of our choice, then it lets the other person off the hook of having to only speak about the dangers and the risks. They both need to be able to carry both sides.

Okay, well, that is it. So I— that's a good way of wrapping it up. They both need to be open and honest about this, but they, they aren't because the, uh, the grand theme here is that we cannot let this institution of this marriage and this relationship fail. Um, we have to keep this going no matter what. And that's basically the premise for Esther's business, right, as a therapist. Is that she, uh, she has a bunch of people coming to her saying, look at all this shit going on with our relationship. And in this case, the very simple solution is to turn to the man and say, what the fuck are you doing, dude? This obviously isn't what you want. Get the fuck out. And but they don't want to do that. She doesn't want to do that. Esther doesn't want to do— nobody wants to do that because this grand theme of no, no, no, the relationship over everything else, that hurts a lot of people. A lot of people get hurt over that narrative, and I understand that narrative more than anyone. Um, I love my wife to death, and I hope that we're together until the day we die. I really do. She's a wonderful woman. But if she tried to pull this shit with me, it would hurt, and I would do my crying, and I would do all that, trust me. But I would also have the wherewithal and the, uh, the self-confidence, the self-love You know, life is too short. I love myself way too much to put up with something like this. That's what that guy needs to hear. He needs— somebody needs to look at him. Mr. Psychotherapist Esther needs to look at him in the eye and say, what happened to you, dude? What happened to you as a kid that brought you to this point? Because I'm looking at a scared, hurt little boy here who just had his world turned upside down. And if instead of saying Hey, I recognize when I'm in danger. Let me pull the cord and get the hell out of here. You're hanging on for dear life, and I don't understand why. That's what he needs to hear. He doesn't need to hear this. You need to set your feelings aside. You just need to look at things from her point of view, and you just go along for the ride and deal with it. That's basically what, you know, they can talk in circles about it. He needs to be able to express and so forth, but the endgame is the relationship must go on no matter what. To which I say, why? Because those two kids? I can see that point. But, um, geez, I hope one of those kids— no, it goes for— I was gonna say I hope one of those kids isn't a boy because he sees this is what— this is how men behave. But it goes the other way too. If, uh, they're girls, they see this is how women behave, and this is the kind of man I need to attract. This type of shit's generational. And they hinted at a little bit that the broken marriages in the past Doesn't surprise me one bit. Well, that went on a little long, but that's the end of this one. Uh, thank you so much for listening, and if you liked it, let me know. If you have ideas or podcasts or videos for me to, uh, break down like this, uh, I'm all ears. But, uh, so let me know. But, uh, thank you so much for listening, and, uh, you have a great day.