February 28, 2023 • 30 mins
Can one partner give you everything? In this episode, we talk to "Monique,” a woman in her fifties who was happy with her husband, but not getting her sexual needs fulfilled by him. "Monique" decided to explore her sexuality and desires outside of her marriage and her affairs have made her a better mother, a better wife, and helped her regain the identity she felt she lost after kids. She says that she thinks her husband might suspect she is having these affairs, but that he doesn't mind because of how they make her a better and more grounded person. Dr. Gail Saltz also joins to discuss the impact motherhood has on women’s sexual desire and we speak with sex expert Dr. Ashley Thompson who breaks down the myth that your spouse should be able to fulfill every one of your needs – a falsehood that can place a lot of pressure on a partner.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We know why we're here. We're just going to have
knockout sex for the next couple of hours and then
you know, Patmian, Yeah, and I'll leave the hotel. And
I albeit, I thought that was just the ticket. This
is she wants more. I'm your host, Joe Piazza. Last
(00:23):
week we heard from Katie. Katie had been shamed for
her affair and forced to lead behind her any higher
life and moved to a new city. This week, we're
going to be hearing from Monique. Monique isn't her real name,
but everything she told me is true. And I promised
that Monique is going to make you rethink almost everything
that you think you know about women, their sexual desires
(00:46):
and monogamy. Let's just say you like to play tennis,
and you're really good at it, like really good, and
at some point you go to your partner and you say,
you know what, I really need to a tennis with
somebody who plays tennis at my lovel one. Nobody would say,
oh no, don't go find that person. You'd be like, yeah,
(01:06):
I probably get it. You know, you love this, this
is one of your favorite things in the whole world.
Go find somebody who's into it as you are. If
you take out tennis and say really fun, really great sex, yeah,
then suddenly it's not the same kind of activity. In
American culture, we don't really accept non monogamous relationships, and
(01:30):
we also expect one partner to fulfill absolutely all of
our needs financial partner, lover, intellectual, equal, friend, soulmate, person
to watch all of our television shows with. But that
notion of one person fulfilling every single thing that we
(01:52):
need in life, checking off every single one of our
boxes does not exist in most other parts of the world.
For sample, in France, were more than half of the
population find it morally acceptable for married people to have affairs.
When I was doing research for my book How to
Be Married, I interviewed dozens of frenchwomen about monogamy and
(02:14):
they told me something that I still think about seven
years after I wrote that book. They said that just
having the option of being with another man, and the
fact that their husbands or their long term boyfriends also
had the option to be with another woman, that gave
them both a sense of freedom and agency that we
(02:36):
don't always feel in our marriages in the United States.
But before we get into how having an affair shifted
Monique's understanding of monogamy. I wanted to find out why
she decided to cheat on her husband in the first place.
Tell me a little bit about when you decided to
first start having an affair. How did that come about?
(03:00):
I mean my mid fifties. I have two children, they
are pretty much grown, and I have been married this
year thirty years. There was one evening where we had
had some wine and started talking and I kind of
trotted out my bucket list, like I thought, Hey, the
(03:20):
kids are in a good place. When you have small children,
typically your intimate relationship takes a little bit of a
back seat. So I was thinking, oh, now's the time.
Right here. We are in northern California and it's a
very open and accepting place. I was thinking there might
be some unconventional animus that we could pursue. I had
(03:45):
had a really wonderful threesome when I was in college,
and I thought that that would be something that I
would like to repeat. You know, it was fun being
with a woman, and I thought, you know, and in
his right mind is going to turn down a woman
telling him, Yeah, I'd really like to bring another woman
into our bed. But you know, he just wasn't interested.
(04:09):
I just wanted to dispoisse things up. And the response
I got was kind of like why Monique was so
disappointed by her husband's answer. She was craving something different,
something more exciting, something passionate, especially after having her kids
and then finally getting back in touch with her body.
(04:31):
But her husband, it was just content with the status quo.
And even though Monique had grown up Catholic in an
area where everyone just accepted monogamy was the only thing
that you could do, she was starting to get more
exposed to people with less traditional lifestyles. So Monique started
looking for what else was out there. I guess heard
(04:55):
of me was kind of looking to see if any
of the things that I was into we're actually available,
And of course, you know that's just naive. You go
online and of course anything you're into is available. So
it was just a matter I think, then, of deciding
to take an opportunity. So you went online, How do
you even start when you go online? And then what
(05:18):
made you finally take the plunge and do it the
first time? So you know, back in the day, it
was craigslist. You know, you could go on craigslist and
you could find anything, you know, from adult nursing relationship
to garden furniture, I mean really whatever you needed, and
you could find it on Craigslist. I got I got
(05:39):
a great patio set, see and I sold mine. So
I think that was when I just, you know, I
had been one of the things that I had kind
of broached with my spouse was besides the three way,
I'd always been kind of loosely interested and BDSM And
(06:01):
I know that that's very specific and that you know,
either you're into it or you're not, But that was
kind of where I started. So I saw, you know,
that was obviously an easy thing, but I also found,
you know, there was this couple looking for a unicorn.
We explained to me what a unicorn is. A unicorn
is basically somebody who comes in with a couple's looking
(06:23):
for a third and I think that the tougher thing
is often it's easier to find a woman who's willing
to play with the guy but not the woman, So
to find somebody who's into both sides of the couple
is a little bit harder, Hence the unicorn. But anyway,
(06:43):
I decided to answer this ad and I met this
couple and I thought they were great, and then it
petered out, so that actually never happened, but I think
in my mind that kind of opened the door where
I was just like, Okay, this is going to have
to be something you do. So even though her first
attempt failed, Monique could not get this out of our head,
(07:07):
and she tried Craigslist again. This time she crafted a
really good ad and got what she thought was the
perfect response. So, you know, we kept corresponding and he
was single and initially not at all on board. He
(07:27):
wasn't going for a married woman. He was looking for
a single person. But then at some point we decided
to have a beer together that was very low key,
and you know, after that we met again, and then
at some point it happened. Was kind of unplanned, I think,
(07:48):
because he had always said he wasn't interested in a
married woman, and you know, at that point, I wasn't
even really sure what this saw about. But you know,
like I said, once you kind of opened your mind
to the possibility, there must have been a certain electricity there.
(08:10):
And he was a lot more experienced, so that was
really exciting. And I saw this person for twelve years,
twelve years. That's a long time. How did you keep
it separate from what are the logistics? How do you talk?
How do you meet? How do you keep everything a secret?
(08:33):
I think the trick is that sounds nasty in a
way because I think most people associate affairs with like
crazy passion. But it really wasn't like that. It was
pretty calculated. We kept everything The email really depended a
lot on his work schedule and availability at the time.
(08:57):
I was working part time, and I would go down
and see him, but usually during the day and definitely
never anywhere near where either of us lived, and I
never went to his house. We never came to mind,
I think, despite the fact that we were doing this
on enough for twelve years. I bet you if you
asked him what are her children's names, he wouldn't know.
(09:20):
So it was very compartmentalized. It was you were able
to be like, this is sex and my marriage is
something else. Yeah, you know, and often I've actually said
this to friends of mine. You know. The weird thing
about monogamy is it's like saying red is your favorite color,
(09:40):
and then you have to wear red and only red
for the rest of your days. What if I wake
up and I feel like wearing yellow is that me?
And red isn't my favorite color anymore? No, of course not.
And you would think that somebody was either a lunatic
or an artist if they were the same color every
single day, or ate the same food like I only
(10:00):
eat proccoli, you would think they're a lunatic or a toddler. Really,
my son only it's chicken nuggets, and I do think
he is a lunatic. Yeah, well, you know, you're exactly right.
But at that point you're telling your kids, oh, you know,
just take a bite, just try it, because you want
them to have a broad experience of life. And this
(10:22):
is the thing. You kind of sit there and you
look back and you think, well, yes, I'm married and
I raised two children. There's some lovely stability that goes
with that. But you do, as a grown up close
yourself off to a lot of experiences. Different people bring
different things to the table, and it's just like I
(10:43):
just happen to really like a full table. Within the
last fifty years, there's been the shift that we need
to get absolutely everything from our monogamous partner. This idea
that our partners should complete us, our partners should make
us better people. That's doctor Ashley Thompson. Doctor Thompson is
(11:06):
the director of the Sexuality and Relationships Science Lab at
the University of Minnesota, Duluth. She's a sex professor and
a really good one. I asked doctor Thompson what the research,
the actual research says about monogamy and if it's really
possible for one partner to satisfy all of our needs.
(11:31):
We have a variety of needs in our relationship. If
all of your needs are met but one, let's say
emotional needs aren't being met, I would still argue that
you're in a pretty damn good relationship if the majority
of your needs are being met. But that's looked at
negatively by society, right, and so I would argue that
as a society, we need to shift these ideas about
getting everything from a partner and normalizing that it's okay
(11:54):
to go to somebody else for emotional fulfillment whatever those
needs might be, and every other need, but the sexual
need is being met by your partner. Again, I would say,
you're doing pretty great. But sex again, is this taboo
area that, oh, this person's having to go outside of
the relationship to get their sexual needs met. Oh what
an awful human right, so taboo, so terrible. It's like,
(12:16):
we're placing such pressure on our partner that, let's be honest,
nobody can fulfill every single one of our needs. Like
the Jerry McGuire, You complete me, Yes, that's exactly it.
Jerry McGuire remember that movie. I remember when I first
(12:40):
thought as a very impressionable teenager or twenty something, and
I thought that line was so freaking stupid. Of course,
one person isn't going to complete me. And that is why,
since I got married seven years ago, I'll have male
friends and female friends and work colleagues and all sorts
(13:04):
of people that I go to besides my husband for
fun and yeah, occasional bitching about the man that I'm
married to. But I've got to say, I've never considered
going outside of my marriage to find sex, to find
different kinds of sex, maybe even better sex. But I
(13:27):
think I haven't thought about it because sex is this
huge cultural taboo. But maybe it shouldn't be. Maybe finding
a different sexual partner is just like Monique said, it's
just like going out there and finding someone else to
play tennis with. Or is that taking things too far?
(13:48):
We'll find out more. After a quick break, when we
learn more about monique story, we're back what she wants more.
Monique's twelve year affair opened her up to a lot
more sexual experimentation, and once she opened that door, it
(14:13):
was impossible to shut it again. There wasn't a lot
that was out of bounds. So that was really exciting.
I'd had one aboordive attempt at anal sex when I
was a young person, but I had kind of wanted
to try it again and my husband was just like,
(14:34):
no way, I'm not doing that, And I really wanted
to find out what it was like. You know, that
was exciting. Did he do the BDSM that you were
curious about? No, that was someone else. You know, this
guy that I was with for twelve years. He was
by far and away and not the only person that
I hooked up with in that time. Every once in
(14:56):
a while, other opportunities would present them thousand Once you've
done it at once, now it's just like, hmm, do
I really want to pass up on that? So I
did actually meet a couple and we did involve BD sent.
The whole scene was a birthday present for a partner
could have been listening very closely to some of the
(15:18):
fantasies that she had related and decided that it was
a high time to make some of them happen. So
he was looking for a third person for them. She
wanted to submit to a woman, and she wanted like
a kind of Victorian scene. So you know, there was
a costume and boots and the strap on and a
(15:42):
good time was had by all. But after that, you know,
it was like, gee, that was fun, thanks a lot,
and that was it. Like we didn't see each other
again after that. Maybe they did other things with other
people and it was wonderful. And this is the thing
I feel like some of the people that I've been
with a lot of it is just the opportunity to
(16:06):
meet on an intimate level the kind of person that
I would probably not otherwise encountering. For example, I went
on a conference and met at the bar a very
much younger man in his twenties, and at that point
I was fifty, and you know, we start talking. That's
(16:29):
how I know I knew how old he was. But
he seemed extremely self possessed, you know, really pulled together, intelligent.
We're having this nice conversation because what else am I
going to do on there about myself anyway, And at
some point I'm thinking, Jesus, guy's flirting with me, and
of course my fifty year old brain is going, yeah,
I know, he just said he was twenty seventy. I'm
(16:50):
just imagining things. But I'm like, are you flirting with me?
And it's like, god, yeah, you know, it's just like
I'm trying, and I'm like, right, I've been very blocker
than you've been alive, and he's just like, so, you know,
that kind of adventurousness is really a turn on for me.
(17:11):
And we did end up hooking up, and it was
really like, when else am I ever going to interact
with somebody that age? You know, those are my children's friends,
and that would be weird and inappropriate. So we you know,
we ended up spending the weekend together. He picked my
brains about being an older woman and with lots of experience,
(17:33):
and we talked about all sorts of stuff, and after that,
I ended up googling him later, just like cool, Okay,
that's interesting. He actually turned out to be that accomplished
and I'm so glad we crossed paths. I could have
said no to that experience just because I wouldn't have
gained so many interesting insights. It didn't harm him, it
(17:55):
didn't harm me. I could have passed up on something
really great for no good reason. So a lot of
it is about more than sex. It's expanding your world,
it's meeting new people. Yeah, I think so. I don't
know that that was what I was looking for when
I started, but that has been a wonderful side effect.
(18:15):
I think people don't go into it necessarily thinking that.
I think sex, probably, but it's the number one driver.
You've been doing this so long, it's hard to say
exactly what it was that away. Do you think your
marriage is better now for you having explored things side
of your marriage? Oh my god. Yeah. You know. I
wanted things that my spouse wasn't interested in, And I
(18:39):
think that just the fact that I feel fulfilled and
I'm not nagging my spouse for things that he's not
interested or obligated to give me, I think that's good.
You know, I think if you scratch the service of
a lot of marriages, you'd see that you don't want
to shame your partner or hurt that. And it's hard
(19:01):
to explain that it really isn't about them, but it
really isn't. And I really think for women, especially when
your kids are really little, everybody's on you all the time,
and that's lovely, but I think it can be crazy making.
And I just found reserving the time that I spent
in my affair it was very nurturing for me in
(19:28):
that it really helped me recharge my batteries as a person,
independent of my role as a mother or a wife,
or way journer, you know, all these other halts that
I wore. This was just for me. I often wonder,
and I know slur on therapy. Therapy is great, it
(19:49):
truly helped people, But sometimes I wonder if some of
the things that you want from a therapist, like somebody
in a safe space who's going to listen to you,
you can get a lot of that from an affair
if you choose the right person, because that person is
also not necessarily at all involved in your life, so
(20:10):
they can be quite dispassionate when it comes to things
like that. And also often, like the girlfriends that I've
had that have spent the longest in therapy, a lot
of it was kind of esteem issues, and it's like, well,
you know, having a lover can definitely give you a
boost in that respect. I mean, I feel like I'm
(20:31):
a pretty self confident person to begin with, but that
doesn't hurt either. Plus, nothing like orgasm can make a
woman's serene. Women want to feel and need to feel
like they're desirable and their bodies are like amazing and
(20:52):
they're sexy, and so yeah, having somebody who gives you
all of that, who gives you that feeling, it's addictive,
it's intoxicating. That's doctor Gail Saltz. She's a psychiatrist, best
selling author, columnist, podcast host, and TV commentator. Get this
all of the things. I asked her if it was
(21:15):
common for women to feel a loss of identity, like
Monique says, after marriage and kids. There are definitely joys
and peaks of joy in having children, but it's stressful
and it increases your responsibility exponentially in every sort of way.
And the lion's share of that generally falls on women.
(21:37):
So you know, you're happy, you met someone, you got married.
It's wonderful, it's wonderful. And now what while at least
seventy percent of everything housework, taking care of your life
and his life or her life and children, it ends
up being you. A lot of women might say it's
hard to be like I'm fulfilled while I'm chronically underslept
(22:04):
doing some things that don't actually feel that glorified, like vacuuming,
and then they are stuck in it, like they already
established their pattern and it's really hard to back out of.
And how can having an affair change that for a woman,
a woman who is suck in that chronic stress cycle,
(22:24):
who has lost her sense of identity, Yeah, hugely, because
you know, instead of thinking about vacuuming or having a
baby hang off a boob while she mops, thinking of
that image of herself, she's thinking about being like a
goddess in bed, like he thinks I'm the hottest thing.
(22:45):
So women insects do a tremendous amount of self observation,
and desire comes for women from a great amount of
self observing imagining whoever is doing it to them, imagining
themselves through that person's eyes. So if you're thinking like,
(23:09):
I'm exhausted, I don't really feel like doing anything with
you my partner. Ps, I'm being touched all day by
little kids, and so I'm really pretty touched out and
it's the same old Samuel, and so it doesn't have
that excitement for me having someone new who's just like, please,
you got to find a way to be with me.
So I'm exciting. I find you exciting. You see yourself
(23:34):
through me. Now we're like kind of in a frenzy.
It's secret, it's risky. That totally increases the excitement a
million percent. And so you might be mopping and having
kids on your hip that you're thinking about this other
thing and it's making things better. Stay with us because
(23:56):
after the break, we're going to learn all about some
of Monique's most opening sexual experiences. You're listening. She wants more.
What are some of the best, most fun, most eye
(24:17):
opening sexual experiences that you've had since she started doing this.
So one that was really kind of crazy, that very
young person that I was telling him about was a
scientist in engineering, so somebody who was deeply committed to
optimizing the experience, very inventive in a kind of Tinkerer
(24:40):
sort of way. So he loved like machines, so toys
on some level, our machines, right. He also mcgi wrote
a bunch of sex toys from stuff You bought at Staples.
What Yeah, so like, what what can you what can
you buy a Staples? You can buy a lot of
(25:01):
interesting clips for one, you know, and I'm just like, hmm, okay.
He bought this like bendible ruler, but he kind of
bent it into shape and it was like phenomenal. It
was the craziest thing. So it's that kind of stuff
like I would never go to Staples thinking, oh, what
(25:22):
can I buy here that I can use as a
sex toy? But this guy was that guy. He kind
of thought about these things like they were puzzles, Like
if I can make her come once, how do I
make her come like ten times? Like this increase the
you know, like it's just a better delivery. And you
know that was amazing somebody who's actually sitting there thinking
(25:46):
about this. I love the optimization. Do you think your
husband knows Yeah? Really, why do you think that just
kind of oblique remarks? Use man the other things. I
think he knows me very well. I mean that's why
we've had such a good marriage for so long. And
(26:07):
I was always a very very sexual person. He's too
smart to think that all of that is just suddenly
sublimated when you get married, so I think that he
has wisely decided as long as his needs are being met,
you know, like my private life is my private life,
and I think that that's actually a pretty healthy attitude.
(26:30):
The question that nobody ever asks is, Okay, imagine this
scenario if your wife had a lover, but at the
same time that made her sexier, like she would buy
lingerie or try things that she never did before. However
you define like an increase in hotness. Wouldn't she want that?
(26:57):
I always wonder, because they do all those surveys, is like,
you know, would you cheat if you knew for sure,
like they could guarantee that your spouse would never find out?
And how it? What's the percentage? It's like crazy high, right, Okay,
So all of you, it's not that you're naturally monogamous,
you're just cowardly. You do it if you knew you
couldn't get caught. But you don't do it because you
(27:19):
have fear. Well, I don't know that being motivated by
fear automatically equals virtue, but you know, if you are
confident and sexually fulfilled, you are just a better, more
grounded person in your day to day life. You know,
if it puts a little spring in my step. I
(27:41):
think those things have benefited not you know, my spouse,
but also other people. You know, my kids for example.
One of the things I did not want to be.
You know these people who start, you notice that their
children's lives start filling in the gaps in their own life. Yeah,
my kids sack your team, just this, my kid did this,
(28:01):
My kid did that. Don't get me wrong, I'm in
samely proud of my children. However, I do understand that
their achievements are not my achievements. And I'm looking at
these some of these women going you drained to yourself
like whatever interest that you have that you drained are
And I was like, I'm not going to be that person.
(28:23):
I have my own interests. I'm sure maybe people take
up quilting. I don't know. You know what other people
do that gets them in the zone, But this does
it for me. I think the problem we have in
society is there's still so much stigma around polyamory and
around consensual no monogamy. So many people are scared to
(28:47):
open up their relationship or sport for fear of being stigmatized,
or for fear of being negatively evaluated. That's doctor Ashley Thompson. Again.
There is a substantial, a non ignorable number of people,
but women in particular, who actually report positive outcomes from
their experiences with infidelity or their experiences with secondary partners.
(29:10):
So I love sort of challenging this narrative, and one
way to do that is to just increase the discourse.
Let's talk about it. We shouldn't be afraid to be,
you know, looking into these things and exploring these things.
If it means that we can feel better about ourselves, right,
if it means that we can be happier and more satisfied,
why wouldn't be That's all for this week's episode. Next
(29:32):
week's episode. It's a different kind of episode than the
ones we've been making so far, and a very different
kind of affair than what you've heard so far. That's
all next week, so tune in. She Wants More was
inspired by the book A Passion for More by Susan
Shapiro Bearish. It was adapted for audio by executive producers
(29:55):
Merrill Poster, Kara Peiffer, and Susan Shapiro Bearish. She Wants
More is hosted and reported by me Joe Piazza. Jennifer
Bassett is our lead producer and story editor. Our sound
design is by Jessica Crunchich. Our theme was composed by
Anna Stumf and Hamilton Lighthouser. Our executive producers for iHeart
(30:16):
are Ally Perry and Nikki Betore. She wants More as
a production of iHeart Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeart,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
We know why we're here. We're just going to have
knockout sex for the next couple of hours and then
you know, Patmian, Yeah, and I'll leave the hotel. And
I albeit, I thought that was just the ticket. This
is she wants more. I'm your host, Joe Piazza. Last
(00:23):
week we heard from Katie. Katie had been shamed for
her affair and forced to lead behind her any higher
life and moved to a new city. This week, we're
going to be hearing from Monique. Monique isn't her real name,
but everything she told me is true. And I promised
that Monique is going to make you rethink almost everything
that you think you know about women, their sexual desires
(00:46):
and monogamy. Let's just say you like to play tennis,
and you're really good at it, like really good, and
at some point you go to your partner and you say,
you know what, I really need to a tennis with
somebody who plays tennis at my lovel one. Nobody would say,
oh no, don't go find that person. You'd be like, yeah,
(01:06):
I probably get it. You know, you love this, this
is one of your favorite things in the whole world.
Go find somebody who's into it as you are. If
you take out tennis and say really fun, really great sex, yeah,
then suddenly it's not the same kind of activity. In
American culture, we don't really accept non monogamous relationships, and
(01:30):
we also expect one partner to fulfill absolutely all of
our needs financial partner, lover, intellectual, equal, friend, soulmate, person
to watch all of our television shows with. But that
notion of one person fulfilling every single thing that we
(01:52):
need in life, checking off every single one of our
boxes does not exist in most other parts of the world.
For sample, in France, were more than half of the
population find it morally acceptable for married people to have affairs.
When I was doing research for my book How to
Be Married, I interviewed dozens of frenchwomen about monogamy and
(02:14):
they told me something that I still think about seven
years after I wrote that book. They said that just
having the option of being with another man, and the
fact that their husbands or their long term boyfriends also
had the option to be with another woman, that gave
them both a sense of freedom and agency that we
(02:36):
don't always feel in our marriages in the United States.
But before we get into how having an affair shifted
Monique's understanding of monogamy. I wanted to find out why
she decided to cheat on her husband in the first place.
Tell me a little bit about when you decided to
first start having an affair. How did that come about?
(03:00):
I mean my mid fifties. I have two children, they
are pretty much grown, and I have been married this
year thirty years. There was one evening where we had
had some wine and started talking and I kind of
trotted out my bucket list, like I thought, Hey, the
(03:20):
kids are in a good place. When you have small children,
typically your intimate relationship takes a little bit of a
back seat. So I was thinking, oh, now's the time.
Right here. We are in northern California and it's a
very open and accepting place. I was thinking there might
be some unconventional animus that we could pursue. I had
(03:45):
had a really wonderful threesome when I was in college,
and I thought that that would be something that I
would like to repeat. You know, it was fun being
with a woman, and I thought, you know, and in
his right mind is going to turn down a woman
telling him, Yeah, I'd really like to bring another woman
into our bed. But you know, he just wasn't interested.
(04:09):
I just wanted to dispoisse things up. And the response
I got was kind of like why Monique was so
disappointed by her husband's answer. She was craving something different,
something more exciting, something passionate, especially after having her kids
and then finally getting back in touch with her body.
(04:31):
But her husband, it was just content with the status quo.
And even though Monique had grown up Catholic in an
area where everyone just accepted monogamy was the only thing
that you could do, she was starting to get more
exposed to people with less traditional lifestyles. So Monique started
looking for what else was out there. I guess heard
(04:55):
of me was kind of looking to see if any
of the things that I was into we're actually available,
And of course, you know that's just naive. You go
online and of course anything you're into is available. So
it was just a matter I think, then, of deciding
to take an opportunity. So you went online, How do
you even start when you go online? And then what
(05:18):
made you finally take the plunge and do it the
first time? So you know, back in the day, it
was craigslist. You know, you could go on craigslist and
you could find anything, you know, from adult nursing relationship
to garden furniture, I mean really whatever you needed, and
you could find it on Craigslist. I got I got
(05:39):
a great patio set, see and I sold mine. So
I think that was when I just, you know, I
had been one of the things that I had kind
of broached with my spouse was besides the three way,
I'd always been kind of loosely interested and BDSM And
(06:01):
I know that that's very specific and that you know,
either you're into it or you're not, But that was
kind of where I started. So I saw, you know,
that was obviously an easy thing, but I also found,
you know, there was this couple looking for a unicorn.
We explained to me what a unicorn is. A unicorn
is basically somebody who comes in with a couple's looking
(06:23):
for a third and I think that the tougher thing
is often it's easier to find a woman who's willing
to play with the guy but not the woman, So
to find somebody who's into both sides of the couple
is a little bit harder, Hence the unicorn. But anyway,
(06:43):
I decided to answer this ad and I met this
couple and I thought they were great, and then it
petered out, so that actually never happened, but I think
in my mind that kind of opened the door where
I was just like, Okay, this is going to have
to be something you do. So even though her first
attempt failed, Monique could not get this out of our head,
(07:07):
and she tried Craigslist again. This time she crafted a
really good ad and got what she thought was the
perfect response. So, you know, we kept corresponding and he
was single and initially not at all on board. He
(07:27):
wasn't going for a married woman. He was looking for
a single person. But then at some point we decided
to have a beer together that was very low key,
and you know, after that we met again, and then
at some point it happened. Was kind of unplanned, I think,
(07:48):
because he had always said he wasn't interested in a
married woman, and you know, at that point, I wasn't
even really sure what this saw about. But you know,
like I said, once you kind of opened your mind
to the possibility, there must have been a certain electricity there.
(08:10):
And he was a lot more experienced, so that was
really exciting. And I saw this person for twelve years,
twelve years. That's a long time. How did you keep
it separate from what are the logistics? How do you talk?
How do you meet? How do you keep everything a secret?
(08:33):
I think the trick is that sounds nasty in a
way because I think most people associate affairs with like
crazy passion. But it really wasn't like that. It was
pretty calculated. We kept everything The email really depended a
lot on his work schedule and availability at the time.
(08:57):
I was working part time, and I would go down
and see him, but usually during the day and definitely
never anywhere near where either of us lived, and I
never went to his house. We never came to mind,
I think, despite the fact that we were doing this
on enough for twelve years. I bet you if you
asked him what are her children's names, he wouldn't know.
(09:20):
So it was very compartmentalized. It was you were able
to be like, this is sex and my marriage is
something else. Yeah, you know, and often I've actually said
this to friends of mine. You know. The weird thing
about monogamy is it's like saying red is your favorite color,
(09:40):
and then you have to wear red and only red
for the rest of your days. What if I wake
up and I feel like wearing yellow is that me?
And red isn't my favorite color anymore? No, of course not.
And you would think that somebody was either a lunatic
or an artist if they were the same color every
single day, or ate the same food like I only
(10:00):
eat proccoli, you would think they're a lunatic or a toddler. Really,
my son only it's chicken nuggets, and I do think
he is a lunatic. Yeah, well, you know, you're exactly right.
But at that point you're telling your kids, oh, you know,
just take a bite, just try it, because you want
them to have a broad experience of life. And this
(10:22):
is the thing. You kind of sit there and you
look back and you think, well, yes, I'm married and
I raised two children. There's some lovely stability that goes
with that. But you do, as a grown up close
yourself off to a lot of experiences. Different people bring
different things to the table, and it's just like I
(10:43):
just happen to really like a full table. Within the
last fifty years, there's been the shift that we need
to get absolutely everything from our monogamous partner. This idea
that our partners should complete us, our partners should make
us better people. That's doctor Ashley Thompson. Doctor Thompson is
(11:06):
the director of the Sexuality and Relationships Science Lab at
the University of Minnesota, Duluth. She's a sex professor and
a really good one. I asked doctor Thompson what the research,
the actual research says about monogamy and if it's really
possible for one partner to satisfy all of our needs.
(11:31):
We have a variety of needs in our relationship. If
all of your needs are met but one, let's say
emotional needs aren't being met, I would still argue that
you're in a pretty damn good relationship if the majority
of your needs are being met. But that's looked at
negatively by society, right, and so I would argue that
as a society, we need to shift these ideas about
getting everything from a partner and normalizing that it's okay
(11:54):
to go to somebody else for emotional fulfillment whatever those
needs might be, and every other need, but the sexual
need is being met by your partner. Again, I would say,
you're doing pretty great. But sex again, is this taboo
area that, oh, this person's having to go outside of
the relationship to get their sexual needs met. Oh what
an awful human right, so taboo, so terrible. It's like,
(12:16):
we're placing such pressure on our partner that, let's be honest,
nobody can fulfill every single one of our needs. Like
the Jerry McGuire, You complete me, Yes, that's exactly it.
Jerry McGuire remember that movie. I remember when I first
(12:40):
thought as a very impressionable teenager or twenty something, and
I thought that line was so freaking stupid. Of course,
one person isn't going to complete me. And that is why,
since I got married seven years ago, I'll have male
friends and female friends and work colleagues and all sorts
(13:04):
of people that I go to besides my husband for
fun and yeah, occasional bitching about the man that I'm
married to. But I've got to say, I've never considered
going outside of my marriage to find sex, to find
different kinds of sex, maybe even better sex. But I
(13:27):
think I haven't thought about it because sex is this
huge cultural taboo. But maybe it shouldn't be. Maybe finding
a different sexual partner is just like Monique said, it's
just like going out there and finding someone else to
play tennis with. Or is that taking things too far?
(13:48):
We'll find out more. After a quick break, when we
learn more about monique story, we're back what she wants more.
Monique's twelve year affair opened her up to a lot
more sexual experimentation, and once she opened that door, it
(14:13):
was impossible to shut it again. There wasn't a lot
that was out of bounds. So that was really exciting.
I'd had one aboordive attempt at anal sex when I
was a young person, but I had kind of wanted
to try it again and my husband was just like,
(14:34):
no way, I'm not doing that, And I really wanted
to find out what it was like. You know, that
was exciting. Did he do the BDSM that you were
curious about? No, that was someone else. You know, this
guy that I was with for twelve years. He was
by far and away and not the only person that
I hooked up with in that time. Every once in
(14:56):
a while, other opportunities would present them thousand Once you've
done it at once, now it's just like, hmm, do
I really want to pass up on that? So I
did actually meet a couple and we did involve BD sent.
The whole scene was a birthday present for a partner
could have been listening very closely to some of the
(15:18):
fantasies that she had related and decided that it was
a high time to make some of them happen. So
he was looking for a third person for them. She
wanted to submit to a woman, and she wanted like
a kind of Victorian scene. So you know, there was
a costume and boots and the strap on and a
(15:42):
good time was had by all. But after that, you know,
it was like, gee, that was fun, thanks a lot,
and that was it. Like we didn't see each other
again after that. Maybe they did other things with other
people and it was wonderful. And this is the thing
I feel like some of the people that I've been
with a lot of it is just the opportunity to
(16:06):
meet on an intimate level the kind of person that
I would probably not otherwise encountering. For example, I went
on a conference and met at the bar a very
much younger man in his twenties, and at that point
I was fifty, and you know, we start talking. That's
(16:29):
how I know I knew how old he was. But
he seemed extremely self possessed, you know, really pulled together, intelligent.
We're having this nice conversation because what else am I
going to do on there about myself anyway, And at
some point I'm thinking, Jesus, guy's flirting with me, and
of course my fifty year old brain is going, yeah,
I know, he just said he was twenty seventy. I'm
(16:50):
just imagining things. But I'm like, are you flirting with me?
And it's like, god, yeah, you know, it's just like
I'm trying, and I'm like, right, I've been very blocker
than you've been alive, and he's just like, so, you know,
that kind of adventurousness is really a turn on for me.
(17:11):
And we did end up hooking up, and it was
really like, when else am I ever going to interact
with somebody that age? You know, those are my children's friends,
and that would be weird and inappropriate. So we you know,
we ended up spending the weekend together. He picked my
brains about being an older woman and with lots of experience,
(17:33):
and we talked about all sorts of stuff, and after that,
I ended up googling him later, just like cool, Okay,
that's interesting. He actually turned out to be that accomplished
and I'm so glad we crossed paths. I could have
said no to that experience just because I wouldn't have
gained so many interesting insights. It didn't harm him, it
(17:55):
didn't harm me. I could have passed up on something
really great for no good reason. So a lot of
it is about more than sex. It's expanding your world,
it's meeting new people. Yeah, I think so. I don't
know that that was what I was looking for when
I started, but that has been a wonderful side effect.
(18:15):
I think people don't go into it necessarily thinking that.
I think sex, probably, but it's the number one driver.
You've been doing this so long, it's hard to say
exactly what it was that away. Do you think your
marriage is better now for you having explored things side
of your marriage? Oh my god. Yeah. You know. I
wanted things that my spouse wasn't interested in, And I
(18:39):
think that just the fact that I feel fulfilled and
I'm not nagging my spouse for things that he's not
interested or obligated to give me, I think that's good.
You know, I think if you scratch the service of
a lot of marriages, you'd see that you don't want
to shame your partner or hurt that. And it's hard
(19:01):
to explain that it really isn't about them, but it
really isn't. And I really think for women, especially when
your kids are really little, everybody's on you all the time,
and that's lovely, but I think it can be crazy making.
And I just found reserving the time that I spent
in my affair it was very nurturing for me in
(19:28):
that it really helped me recharge my batteries as a person,
independent of my role as a mother or a wife,
or way journer, you know, all these other halts that
I wore. This was just for me. I often wonder,
and I know slur on therapy. Therapy is great, it
(19:49):
truly helped people, But sometimes I wonder if some of
the things that you want from a therapist, like somebody
in a safe space who's going to listen to you,
you can get a lot of that from an affair
if you choose the right person, because that person is
also not necessarily at all involved in your life, so
(20:10):
they can be quite dispassionate when it comes to things
like that. And also often, like the girlfriends that I've
had that have spent the longest in therapy, a lot
of it was kind of esteem issues, and it's like, well,
you know, having a lover can definitely give you a
boost in that respect. I mean, I feel like I'm
(20:31):
a pretty self confident person to begin with, but that
doesn't hurt either. Plus, nothing like orgasm can make a
woman's serene. Women want to feel and need to feel
like they're desirable and their bodies are like amazing and
(20:52):
they're sexy, and so yeah, having somebody who gives you
all of that, who gives you that feeling, it's addictive,
it's intoxicating. That's doctor Gail Saltz. She's a psychiatrist, best
selling author, columnist, podcast host, and TV commentator. Get this
all of the things. I asked her if it was
(21:15):
common for women to feel a loss of identity, like
Monique says, after marriage and kids. There are definitely joys
and peaks of joy in having children, but it's stressful
and it increases your responsibility exponentially in every sort of way.
And the lion's share of that generally falls on women.
(21:37):
So you know, you're happy, you met someone, you got married.
It's wonderful, it's wonderful. And now what while at least
seventy percent of everything housework, taking care of your life
and his life or her life and children, it ends
up being you. A lot of women might say it's
hard to be like I'm fulfilled while I'm chronically underslept
(22:04):
doing some things that don't actually feel that glorified, like vacuuming,
and then they are stuck in it, like they already
established their pattern and it's really hard to back out of.
And how can having an affair change that for a woman,
a woman who is suck in that chronic stress cycle,
(22:24):
who has lost her sense of identity, Yeah, hugely, because
you know, instead of thinking about vacuuming or having a
baby hang off a boob while she mops, thinking of
that image of herself, she's thinking about being like a
goddess in bed, like he thinks I'm the hottest thing.
(22:45):
So women insects do a tremendous amount of self observation,
and desire comes for women from a great amount of
self observing imagining whoever is doing it to them, imagining
themselves through that person's eyes. So if you're thinking like,
(23:09):
I'm exhausted, I don't really feel like doing anything with
you my partner. Ps, I'm being touched all day by
little kids, and so I'm really pretty touched out and
it's the same old Samuel, and so it doesn't have
that excitement for me having someone new who's just like, please,
you got to find a way to be with me.
So I'm exciting. I find you exciting. You see yourself
(23:34):
through me. Now we're like kind of in a frenzy.
It's secret, it's risky. That totally increases the excitement a
million percent. And so you might be mopping and having
kids on your hip that you're thinking about this other
thing and it's making things better. Stay with us because
(23:56):
after the break, we're going to learn all about some
of Monique's most opening sexual experiences. You're listening. She wants more.
What are some of the best, most fun, most eye
(24:17):
opening sexual experiences that you've had since she started doing this.
So one that was really kind of crazy, that very
young person that I was telling him about was a
scientist in engineering, so somebody who was deeply committed to
optimizing the experience, very inventive in a kind of Tinkerer
(24:40):
sort of way. So he loved like machines, so toys
on some level, our machines, right. He also mcgi wrote
a bunch of sex toys from stuff You bought at Staples.
What Yeah, so like, what what can you what can
you buy a Staples? You can buy a lot of
(25:01):
interesting clips for one, you know, and I'm just like, hmm, okay.
He bought this like bendible ruler, but he kind of
bent it into shape and it was like phenomenal. It
was the craziest thing. So it's that kind of stuff
like I would never go to Staples thinking, oh, what
(25:22):
can I buy here that I can use as a
sex toy? But this guy was that guy. He kind
of thought about these things like they were puzzles, Like
if I can make her come once, how do I
make her come like ten times? Like this increase the
you know, like it's just a better delivery. And you
know that was amazing somebody who's actually sitting there thinking
(25:46):
about this. I love the optimization. Do you think your
husband knows Yeah? Really, why do you think that just
kind of oblique remarks? Use man the other things. I
think he knows me very well. I mean that's why
we've had such a good marriage for so long. And
(26:07):
I was always a very very sexual person. He's too
smart to think that all of that is just suddenly
sublimated when you get married, so I think that he
has wisely decided as long as his needs are being met,
you know, like my private life is my private life,
and I think that that's actually a pretty healthy attitude.
(26:30):
The question that nobody ever asks is, Okay, imagine this
scenario if your wife had a lover, but at the
same time that made her sexier, like she would buy
lingerie or try things that she never did before. However
you define like an increase in hotness. Wouldn't she want that?
(26:57):
I always wonder, because they do all those surveys, is like,
you know, would you cheat if you knew for sure,
like they could guarantee that your spouse would never find out?
And how it? What's the percentage? It's like crazy high, right, Okay,
So all of you, it's not that you're naturally monogamous,
you're just cowardly. You do it if you knew you
couldn't get caught. But you don't do it because you
(27:19):
have fear. Well, I don't know that being motivated by
fear automatically equals virtue, but you know, if you are
confident and sexually fulfilled, you are just a better, more
grounded person in your day to day life. You know,
if it puts a little spring in my step. I
(27:41):
think those things have benefited not you know, my spouse,
but also other people. You know, my kids for example.
One of the things I did not want to be.
You know these people who start, you notice that their
children's lives start filling in the gaps in their own life. Yeah,
my kids sack your team, just this, my kid did this,
(28:01):
My kid did that. Don't get me wrong, I'm in
samely proud of my children. However, I do understand that
their achievements are not my achievements. And I'm looking at
these some of these women going you drained to yourself
like whatever interest that you have that you drained are
And I was like, I'm not going to be that person.
(28:23):
I have my own interests. I'm sure maybe people take
up quilting. I don't know. You know what other people
do that gets them in the zone, But this does
it for me. I think the problem we have in
society is there's still so much stigma around polyamory and
around consensual no monogamy. So many people are scared to
(28:47):
open up their relationship or sport for fear of being stigmatized,
or for fear of being negatively evaluated. That's doctor Ashley Thompson. Again.
There is a substantial, a non ignorable number of people,
but women in particular, who actually report positive outcomes from
their experiences with infidelity or their experiences with secondary partners.
(29:10):
So I love sort of challenging this narrative, and one
way to do that is to just increase the discourse.
Let's talk about it. We shouldn't be afraid to be,
you know, looking into these things and exploring these things.
If it means that we can feel better about ourselves, right,
if it means that we can be happier and more satisfied,
why wouldn't be That's all for this week's episode. Next
(29:32):
week's episode. It's a different kind of episode than the
ones we've been making so far, and a very different
kind of affair than what you've heard so far. That's
all next week, so tune in. She Wants More was
inspired by the book A Passion for More by Susan
Shapiro Bearish. It was adapted for audio by executive producers
(29:55):
Merrill Poster, Kara Peiffer, and Susan Shapiro Bearish. She Wants
More is hosted and reported by me Joe Piazza. Jennifer
Bassett is our lead producer and story editor. Our sound
design is by Jessica Crunchich. Our theme was composed by
Anna Stumf and Hamilton Lighthouser. Our executive producers for iHeart
(30:16):
are Ally Perry and Nikki Betore. She wants More as
a production of iHeart Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeart,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Popular Podcasts
1. Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
2. Stuff You Missed in History Class
Join Holly and Tracy as they bring you the greatest and strangest Stuff You Missed In History Class in this podcast by iHeartRadio.
3. Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.