Choosing (Hotter) Monogamy: Dr. Diane Mueller

“Choosing (Hotter) Monogamy: Dr. Diane Mueller”

a Girl Boner podcast transcript

Diane: It became a matter of choice. What of these pros and cons in these different relationship structures, what things from a standpoint of challenge did I like the least? And what things was I more interested in working with? Now I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am choosing this relationship style  because it’s really the right thing for me.

[encouraging, acoustic music]

August/narration:

Dr. Diane Mueller is a Naturopathic Doctor and Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. Early on, she grew up in a “very Catholic, conservative household.”

Diane: …and there was just a lot of shame around sex. My genitals were described as “down there.”

August/narration:

One of the most profound things she remembers was how her grandmother talked about sex.

Diane:

God rest her soul, like wonderful woman. But the way she would describe it is, “You have to feed the dog, meaning your husband, or he will go to the neighbor.” So it was very presented to me as this dutiful thing that was really about the woman pleasing the man or the man would go out and cheat on her. And it would be her fault if she wasn’t pleasing the man the way that he wanted.

It really left this stigma, or this scar, this belief in me that sex was something that was not for the woman to enjoy. And it really shut me down that way.

August/narration:

She said her process of coming into her sexuality was “very, very complicated.”

Diane: I was really nervous around my sexuality. I didn’t believe in talking about it. I’d never masturbated.

August/narration:

She was about 20 when something unfolded that would change everything.

Diane: I started developing this vaginal-ish pain. It was really annoying because it was keeping me up at night and it was super impactful. And I went to several doctors and did the standard test, UTIs, STI testing. I had had one partner at that point in my life. And everything luckily was negative.

August/narration:

Still, she knew something was wrong. So she talked to her roommate about it.

Diane: And she was extremely open about talking about her masturbation practice.

One day after describing all of my pain she handed me a book called Sex for One by Betty Dodson, and that book was mind blowing to me, because it’s a book on masturbation, but it also is going through stories that were so similar to mine.

So, one night I got super brave and I tried masturbating for my first time. It was crazy because my pain went away. I don’t remember orgasming or anything like that, but just the pure act of self-pleasure made the pain go away. So the next night I tried it again, ’cause the pain was back, tried it again, and masturbation made the pain go away again.

That happened a few more nights and then the pain was just gone and it has never come back.

It kind of started making me question those earlier things I was programmed around, even in the terms of, religion. Like, okay, if, God creates everything, how can he create something that is healing me, that is part of my body that is about pleasure, that is about healing and it be bad? This just does not add up to me.

August/narration:

Later in her 20s, Diane started seeing someone who would challenge what she’d learned about relationships, too. Before that, she’d only really known about monogamy.

Diane: I met a very kind man. We started hanging out a lot and we started dating. And we had a discussion one night, a really open and honest discussion around where we were going in our life. And what we realized in this discussion was we completely were falling in love with each other.

We absolutely adored each other, but it was very clear that he was on such a different trajectory than I was. A lot of our values were different. Where we were looking to be in five years were different.

August/narration:

They started talking about exploring polyamory.

Diane: …and I don’t even think we called it that back then. I didn’t know anything. I didn’t read any books or any of it.

August/narration:

Still, they decided to give it a try.

Diane: And we started calling it openness because we ended up feeling like, hey, this is a better situation for us of how we can still explore this, but also honor the fact that, we both know this is not where each of us is going and staying open to other people.

August/narration:

Together, they started dating another woman.

Diane: So we almost formed like a triad and it was still an open triad scenario. And in the triad there’s really multiple relationships, right? There’s the relationship between each individual person and one other person, and then there’s the threesome relationship. It was navigating a lot of things.

Then at one point it started becoming more evident that these other two were much more on a trajectory of being in alignment than I was.

We had kind of rules and strategies around like equal time and making sure we have timing for everybody to have their individual time and group time and all of this.

And at one point I was not chosen, essentially, for a time that was previously allocated to me. that was probably the most, deep feeling of jealousy that I had ever had in my entire life.

I did not have the strategies to know how to work with that or deal with that. And that largely led to me just ending that sort of arrangement. And at that point in life, I basically decided, okay, I am now never doing that again.

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August/narration:

Ten years later, though, in her mid-30s, Diane revisited polyamory.

Diane: At that time I was so much deeper in my own work around personal development. I had done meditation retreats, and really a lot of inner work to just explore and to understand myself better.

I was more aware of resources. So I started reading things on both sides of the story. A Mating in Captivity, Sex at Dawn, Ethical Slut.

This was right around the time the book PolySecure came out as well. And I had already studied things like attachment theory, so I was aware of some of my attachment tendencies at that time.

So I went into the second round of polyamory a lot more resourced and understanding what my own personal boundaries were and how to navigate these kind of conversations and how to sit in the discomfort of jealousy. In polyamory they call it compersion, the idea of really deeply understanding another human’s desires and needs and being honestly happy for somebody you care about, to experience another way of having joy in their life.

So I think it was very different for me from a standpoint of jealousy. I didn’t have so much of that the second time around.

August/narration:

For Diane, polyamory involved holding space for many relationships, she said, and learning to navigate people’s different agreements and boundaries.

Diane: My partner at the time, my main partner at the time, he started dating somebody that had a lot less boundaries on like her needs than any of my partners.

For example, she was allowed in the context of her other relationships, like their arrangements were that she could go away for weekend getaways or even week-long getaways. I did not have that in any of my other relationships.

August/narration:

At one point, Diane’s main partner went on a week-long Mexico vacation with the woman. Some mixed feelings came up for Diane around that –

Diane: But I was able to be more just be accepting of that and supportive of that. It didn’t cause any fights. You know, we worked through it real fine. It was just like conversation, not a big deal.

And then I was able to take that time and say, okay, well you’re doing that, what do I wanna do? So, you know, I had my girlfriends over, we had a great week of like girl time.

August/narration:

In other words, Diane had a much more pleasurable and less challenging time compared to her earlier poly days. When that was the case and she still didn’t feel aligned with ethical nonmonogamy, though, she knew it was time for a change.

Diane: It was great from a standpoint of like second poly compared to first. There weren’t like nights of breaking down and crying all night, like with the first time around. It was very well resourced and conversations were great and communication was good. But there was still a lot of time of spending time like communicating around people’s feelings and like a new partner gets brought in and we have to reorganize like, well, they have this boundary, so how does this affect you over here? And it was like this big puzzle of orienting to everybody’s new boundaries.

August/narration:

She also found it challenging to navigate parts of her sexual health with multiple partners.

Diane: A couple times, somebody had different practices around their boundaries were for safety from an STI perspective.

And there was one moment where I had to make a choice for my own sexual safety, not to have sexual relations with my primary partner for about a period of 60 days so I could ensure that testing was okay and all of that.

August/narration:

It just felt like a lot to her. And not in challenging, yet fulfilling, ways. She started to wonder if she’d be better off infusing the parts of polyamory she did enjoy, things like more newness, novelty, and compersion, into monogamy.

Diane: It became a matter of choice. What of these pros and cons in these different relationship structures, what things from a standpoint of challenge did I like the least? And what things was I more interested in working with?

And so when I started asking myself those kind of questions, I really began to realize that for me, the challenges that come with monogamy around finding that passion still. And that desire still and that novelty and that curiosity and that interest and all of those things, were actually way more interesting to me as challenges to work through.

August/narration:

And so, it was time to for a heart to heart with her primary partner.

Diane: He was realizing that more beyond a shadow of a doubt, poly was absolutely the relationship structure for him.

August/narration:

So, they broke up.

Diane said that going back to monogamy felt, and has stayed,“amazing.” She’s currently four years into a relationship. And feels more certain than ever.

Diane: Now I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am choosing this relationship style not because of my upbringing, not because of society, not because of cultural conditioning. I’m actually choosing this relationship structure. Because it’s really the right thing for me.

August/narration:

And she applies lessons from her poly experiences to the relationship. For example, defining the relationship structure and agreements — things that don’t always get talked about with monogamy.

Diane: So for example, I do not care if he has female friends. He can go out to dinner with his female friends. I do not care. I can meet them. I don’t have to meet them. Doesn’t matter.

August/narration:

And they’ve discussed those things – conversations her time with poly gave her tools for.

Diane: And the skillset that I developed over time has allowed me to create a monogamous relationship that still doesn’t feel like it’s restrictive.

And I think some of the lessons I learned from polyamory really helped with that.

August/narration:

If you’re monogamous and wondering if polyamory might be right for you, Diane suggests finding a coach or therapist who specializes in ethical nonmonogamy.

A qualified professional can help guide you through various decisions, without pressuring you toward one or the other. You might end up realizing that, YES! Some form of ethical non-monogamy is your best move.

Or you might realize that while you thought opening your relationship made the most sense, there’s a totally different motivation underneath. Or an in-between sort of option that’s even better.

Diane: One of the things that I’ve heard come up a lot is where some couples go in like thinking they want to open up, and then when they start asking why and you really get to the why and you really kind of dissect that and understand like what you’re looking for in the relationship and what is maybe missing or what you’re trying to get out of life.

Sometimes the why actually can lead people to understand more of if they truly want it or if they’re just looking for a different version of what monogamy is.

August/narration:

As Diane learned through her own journey, there are many different reasons someone might be best suited for monogamy. Your genetics might even play a role, according to some animal studies.  Specifically involving…

Diane: Prairie voles. Prairie voles are studied a lot because they, they have a unique ability to bond in the animal kingdom. And one of the things that’s been studied is vasopressin.

August/narration:

A lot of people know oxytocin as the hormone linkd with bonding, cuddling, love and orgasm.

Diane: And it does help us bond and it is amazing.But there’s a second hormone that helps us bond as well, and that’s called vasopressin. And what the studies on prairie voles have seen is that when there are less vasopressin receptors, usually due to genetics, so basically that means that vasopressin has a smaller ability to impact the brain, that there is a significantly more tendency to be non-monogamous.

There’s also some genetic theories around it that people that have a that stronger vasopressin response in their brain are more genetically wired for monogamy.

August/narration:

Regardless of your reason, there’s a lot you can do to make a monogamous relationship more intentional and sexy. Diane recommends two fun practices.

First, make a Yes, No, Maybe list.

Diane: Sit down and fantasize and make a list of like. Yes, I would love to try this, or no, I would never try this. See what comes through your head, like, you know, or maybe I would try that, right? So do that individually and then have a hot date night, like schedule it, put on something sexy…and go through your list. Start exploring.

Sex and intimacy as adults is one of the few places where it’s  almost…it’s safe in many ways to just completely allow your fantasies to come to the surface. Not every fantasy is gonna be right for a couple and one person might be more interested than the other, and that might be something to talk through. But I think really creating that safe space to explore fantasies and doing a yes, no, maybe list so you can then begin to go and like, wow, we actually never did this.

August/narration:

You can find a fill-in Yes, No, Maybe list in Girl Boner Journal, by the way, if you could use ideas or guidance.

Diane also recommends what she calls Boujee Sex Nights.

Diane: Even if it’s just once a month, where you set some time aside and you set this time aside for not just sex for this pure night of intimacy and pleasure.

And you can really then have a special night where it’s like, okay, now we’re gonna explore this new fantasy. Now we’re gonna take the time to give each other hour long sensual massage. Now we’re gonna try bringing in that new sex toy or that blindfold. Now we’re gonna try that role play.

August/narration:

And, she said, make it a priority.

Diane: I tell people, the dishes are always gonna be there. But if you don’t take care of your sexual spark, it is not So, it has to be something where it’s like, I’m leaving the dishes today and I’m actually saying I’m attending to this, this part of the relationship.

[acoustic chord riff]

August/narration:

Learn more about Dr. Diane Mueller and take her libido quiz at libidocode.com. Join her hot and modern monogamy club or get her free e-book at hotterlife.com.

If you’re enjoying Girl Boner Radio, please text a link to your friends. I’d also so appreciate a rating on Spotify or the Apple Podcasts app. Thanks so much for listening.