Is My Relationship Normal

She said no for ten years. Then she said "fine."

Our listener figured opening her marriage was a win-win. He'd finally get his needs met, and she'd finally get the couch to herself. Then he slept with a mom she sees at school drop-off. Then she downloaded Tinder and surprised everyone, including herself. For a few months, their marriage was better than it had been in years.

And then it all went sideways.

Dr. Brittany Woolford and Dr. Mallaree Blake get into what happens when "open" is used as a fix instead of a decision: why "just sex, no feelings" was never going to hold, whether you can cheat when you're allowed to sleep with other people (you can), and why so many husbands are blindsided once the door is actually open. Plus the research number that should make any couple pause before downloading an app.

If you've ever said "fine" when you meant something else, this one's for you.

Have a story you can't tell your friends? Share it anonymously through the form here. We'll clean it up, so you can just get it out.

We're licensed psychologists, but this podcast isn't therapy, and we never use real client stories.

*Research and books mentioned

Haupert, Gesselman, Moors, Fisher & Garcia (2017). Prevalence of experiences with consensual nonmonogamous relationships: Findings from two national samples of single Americans. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy. The source of the "1 in 5" stat, and every respondent was single.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27096488/

Infidelity Survey, Wheatley Institution & Institute for Family Studies (2019). Nationally representative: about 3% of Americans are currently in a consensually non-monogamous relationship, and 12% ever have been.

https://ifstudies.org/blog/national-survey-reveals-generational-differences-in-consensual-nonmonogamy-

Rogge, Hangen & Crasta (2019). Getting Clear on What You Want: Delineating Types of Consensual Non-Monogamy. Journal of Sex Research. Fully negotiated arrangements looked like monogamous ones. About 60% of people in one-sided arrangements reported significant dissatisfaction, roughly three times the rate.

https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/do-open-relationships-work-405232/

Thompson, Hart, Stefaniak & Harvey (2018). Exploring Heterosexual Adults' Endorsement of the Sexual Double Standard among Initiators of Consensually Nonmonogamous Relationship Behaviors. Sex Roles. Women who proposed opening up were judged more favorably than men. Swinging was judged more favorably than polyamory or an open relationship.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-017-0866-4

Justin Lehmiller, Tell Me What You Want (2018). A survey of more than 4,000 Americans' sexual fantasies. Group sex topped the list.

Tammy Nelson, The New Monogamy: Redefining Your Relationship After Infidelity (New Harbinger, 2012).Relationship agreements and contracts, especially after an affair.

https://www.newharbinger.com/9781608823161/the-new-monogamy/

John Gottman & Nan Silver, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. Where the finding that 69% of relationship problems are perpetual comes from.

John Gottman & Nan Silver, What Makes Love Last? (2012). The weekly "State of the Union" check-in.

Multiamory (podcast and book, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships). The RADAR check-in for couples navigating non-monogamy.

https://www.multiamory.com/book

"I can't tell if I'm crazy for being mad or crazy for not being more mad."

That is the first line of this week's listener story, and it is the question underneath a lot of relationships that look fine from the outside.

Her husband has a work wife. That is not her name for the woman. It is his. It is how she is saved in his phone, and it is how he introduces her to the family. He shares his location with her and not with his wife. They have a standing Tuesday dinner. Last year the two of them wore matching costumes to a work party his wife attended. He invited the work wife and her husband along on a family vacation, and spent more time with her than with his own kids.

When his wife brings any of it up, he gets defensive, tells her that a close relationship with this woman is helping his career, and asks when the last time was that she planned a date night.

Brittany and Mallaree are, for the record, each other's work wives. So they explore what dynamics might be oaky in this type of relationship and when it can go too far.

They get into why jealousy is information and not a character flaw, why "my boundary is that you can't go to happy hour" is not a boundary, what monogamous couples could borrow from the way non-monogamous couples actually talk about fidelity, and why the most useful sentence this wife could say has nothing to do with the other woman at all.

Also in this one: the Mike Pence rule, the myth that you need shared interests to have a good marriage, and the TikTok trend where two people call you at the same time to see who you call back first.

Normal, or not normal? They land on an answer.

Mentioned in this episode

The New Monogamy: Redefining Your Relationship After Infidelity by Tammy Nelson, PhD

Have a story you want us to weigh in on?

Our submission form is completely anonymous. Tell us what is going on and we may read it on the show. Complete this form.

New relationship story every Monday. Find us on Instagram @ismyrelationshipnormal

Dr. Brittany Woolford and Dr. Mallaree Blake are licensed psychologists. This podcast is for education and entertainment. It is not therapy, and it is not advice for your specific situation.

*A note on a statistic Dr. Woolford mentioned in the show: the claim that 70 to 75% of relationships that begin as affairs end is widely repeated, but it comes from clinical experience, not research. No study has tracked these relationships over time. The closest evidence looks at relationships formed by pulling someone away from an existing partner (Foster et al., 2014, Journal of Research in Personality), which found lower commitment, satisfaction, and investment. Those samples were young dating couples rather than married adults, and the researchers found that personality traits explained much of the effect. So it may say more about the people than about how the relationship started.

Music licensed through Soundstripe.

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She's 41, two kids, fourteen years in, and she still loves her husband. She just can't remember the last time she wanted him.

This week's relationship story submission asks the question “is this just what happens now? And if it is, isn't the loving thing to stop making it a crisis and just keep faking it?”

Brittany and Mallaree get into what's actually happening when desire seems to go offline and why "just push through it" quietly makes things worse, the difference between the kind of wanting you've been told to expect and the kind most of us actually have, and the moment a partner who simply misses you tips into something unhealthy.

Is it normal? Yes. Is it something you just have to accept? No.

Got a story you're quietly wondering about? Share it anonymously here

If this one landed, follow the show and send it to the person you were thinking about while you listened.

They didn't text back.

We all have different reactions to being left on read, but this reaction could actually be based on your attachment style.

In this first episode, Dr. Brittany Woolford and Dr. Mallaree Blake lay out the attachment framework they'll be returning to in nearly every episode of this show, and discuss how these attachment styles play out in their own relationships.

Along the way we discuss a divorce at twenty-seven with no roadmap and nobody to ask. The early, lawless years of Tinder. A first date conducted over video in 2020, and a relationship that got very serious very fast in a 500-square-foot studio apartment.

You'll also find out who we are and why we have any business having opinions about your relationship. That part matters more than it used to, given how much of what you're hearing about relationships comes from people who've never told you where they learned it.

Starting next episode, this show is built entirely from your relationship stories and answer “is this normal?” Submit yours anonymously: anonymous form link

Follow: @ismyrelationshipnormal