9 Relationships of a Modern Marriage
Did you know that marriage as conventionally practiced in the 21st century (in a lot of the world at least) is actually like... 9 different relationships. In this episode, Libby explains those 9 relationships, and how what marriage is trying to do is pack a whole village into one other person. She asks the question, what could we do instead that might work better?
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Transcript
The vast majority of recorded history and how people saw marriage. And it is really, truly, nothing has never been anything like what we are currently trying to pack into modern marriage.
So today I want to talk about marriage and how truly, and honestly, and completely, truly ridiculous modern marriage is in my view. Now, why would I talk about marriage on a polyamory podcast? Well, a lot of people who choose to engage in polyamory are, are married or choose to be married or even want to be married. And I guess I want to just shed a light on how much our culture currently packs into marriage. And this is what I mean when say, I think it's just truly ridiculous because there are nine relationships in marriage, nine, nine different relationships with one person that you have potentially at least. So I'm gonna go over them briefly, and then I'm gonna go into them deeper, but let's just talk about this. So there's friendship, we're romantic relationship, a sexual relationship, a household relationship, a financial relationship, a familial relationship, potentially a co-parenting or pet parenting relationship, a co caregiver relationship.
And for a lot of people, a bedmate.
Now, it may not seem obvious to you that these are all completely separate relationships, but they are. If you think about it, all of these, like if you were to take a job and you were required to do all of these different things, they would all be separate jobs. being a friend is different, distinctly different from being a romantic partner. And that is distinctly different from sharing finances. And that is distinctly different from being a roommate and sharing domestic labor. And that is distinctly different from being a family member. All of these are distinct and different relationships, and it wasn't always this way. If you really want to blow your mind on the history of marriage, I really encourage you to read a book by Stephanie Coontz called "Marriage, a history" where she really goes over the vast majority of recorded history and how people saw marriage.
And it is really, truly, nothing has never been anything like what we are currently trying to pack into modern marriage. And, you know, Esther Perel talks about this in her book "Mating in Captivity" about how, how we really are now trying to pack an entire village into just two people. And, you know, she doesn't go so far as, too straight up endorse non-monogamy, but I think she does endorse, rebuilding your village, having a whole group of people to connect, to and support you and uplift you and nourish you rather than just this one other person. But I think even for people who embrace that idea of, yeah, no, I should have other friends. I should hang out with my family. I should do these other things with other people. It isn't all about just me and my partner. There's still this idea that a lot of these relationships within a marriage have to all work in order for the marriage to be successful.
And I just think that's wackadoodle, honestly. Like I have so many really close friends that I love in my life, who I consider, like people that I never wanna be separated from ever again, that I'm very deeply committed to. And I think almost none of them I would want to share finances with. Not because I don't love them, not because I don't trust them, has nothing to do with how I feel about them being financially solvent and having an approach, finances that is compatible with another person's. Those are just skills and values and philosophies, and they have to line up just right. You know like if I was going to go out and hire someone to be my financial advisor, I wouldn't be evaluating whether that person should be in that job with me based on how attracted I am to them or how well we do dishes together, or whether I think that they're gonna be a good parent to my child, right?
I would just be evaluating them on their ability to navigate finances and honor my values and how I wanna use money and operate my wealth and financial status, right? How I wanna spend what my relationship to spending is, et cetera. And yet, what is one of the number one ways that a marriage breaks up it's because of fights about money another way, another big way that a marriage might break up is, because sex isn't working and again, like why are we choosing our sexual partners based on how well we can do finances together or how well we can run a house hold together or how well we can parent together. Like those things have honestly, absolutely nothing to do with each other. Now they sure as heck can get in the way of each other. Like if I'm at you about the fact that you didn't do the dishes on Tuesday, I may not wanna have sex with you on Thursday. that's true. But honestly, how compatible you are as lovers and how compatible you are as co-parents or, family members or caregivers, or even bedmates like sleeping together. Sometimes you can have like really great sex together, but like really incompatible to share a bed and actually get a good night's sleep. So why are we mashing all of these things together into one relationship?
Well, I think before I go into even further why these are why this is a problem, I do wanna, I do wanna say that. I think understand why there's two reasons. I think the first one is the, the, the positive reason, which is that it, it is comforting to maybe have all of your needs met in one place. You know, it's a little bit like going to a big box store that has everything you need. You only have to go to that one store to get what you need. One-stop shopping, it's efficient. And, you know, if we always go to the same person for all of our things and we know that person is going to be there, then there's some security in that as well. I also think though, there that having your relationship, your marriage be a one stop shop for all of your needs also makes it fragile.
And I think that fragility, that hyper dependence can also create kind of a not healthy kind of security. Like if, you know, you have to come to me around, you know, if, if you know that you can only access sex through me and we also pay our bills together, then those two things mashing together can make, make me feel confident that I'm gonna get sex because we share finances together. And that's an important tether to you. and your wellbeing. But gosh, even just saying that out loud, doesn't that sound kind of icky, right? Like let's say there is an income disparity in a marriage partnership or an income dependence where one person isn't working because they're watching the kids or whatever. And then there's this feeling of, oh, well, this person is the person who is my financial wellbeing. I better meet their sexual needs.
So there some coercion that goes on there when you pile all of the various things that you need to have a good life into one person. And I do think that is why a lot of marriages, not all, not even maybe the majority, but it's fairly common for marriages to be some form of abusive. And I think that's because we've set up this structure that really creates so much dependency that you're vulnerable to each other. And it's very easy to even inadvertently take advantage of that. I think one of the gifts that comes from like starting to chip away at some of these ideas, which I think exiting monogamy as like this requirement for commitment and life partnership, is that you, you know, as you chip away that one thing you notice, oh, well, okay, we didn't need monogamy. Maybe we don't need this other thing.
Maybe I don't have to sleep in the bed with you every night. Maybe we can be co-parents at not lovers, or maybe we can be lovers, but I co-parent with someone else. You know, when you start to really chip away at it, you see that these things really aren't, or don't have to be interdependent on each other. In fact, they're, they're, like I said, they're really separate things. And so you, you don't actually need every single aspect of what we would call a marriage in order to have a loving, healthy, committed, even life partnership, like a secure, attached life partnership. It doesn't have to have all of these things in order to make it work. And, and that doesn't mean you can't have all these things. Like if all of those things just happen to line up, like you really love sleeping in the bed with someone you really love taking care of them when they're sick and, and they, you love how they take care of you and they're sick.
And they're really great at showing up in an emergency. And they're a really great co-parent and they're really great to your family and they get along well with your family members. And, and they're really good at sending Christmas cards and they're good with money. And the, the way that they're good with money is compatible with the way that you're good with money. And you share domestic labor really well. And you really like fucking each other, and you have a really good romantic interplay with each other. And you're really, really good friends. And you like to do a lot of stuff together. Cool. That's great. Good for you. But I don't actually think that's most people,I don't think that's most people. And of course, then there's the idea of, well, you're not gonna get everything you want. So somewhere along the way, you have to settle.
You have to settle for, maybe you get a, some of these things they're good. And then you have to just give up on the ones that aren't good, or just deal with them or suck it up or suffer. Right. but there are big costs to doing that. If you have someone who's a good sex partner, but not a good friend, you might feel sexually satisfied, but you might feel very emotionally lonely. If you have someone who is a great co-parent, but a really poor domestic partner, you may feel really like you're knocking it out of the park, raising these kids together, but you're exhausted at the end of the day because you're carrying more of the domestic labor load than you should be. And of course, financial wellbeing, because we live in this crushing capitalist society. If you're not in a good place financially, the stress that that can cause you and just leak into every other aspect of your life is tremendous.
My thinking is why don't we try breaking these things apart? Not necessarily chipping them off. Like we don't necessarily have to say, we're not gonna do this together. And we are gonna just do these things together. Although I think that's actually great. I think that being willing to say, Hey, like we're compatible in these ways, but not these ways. Can we just take this part out and keep these other parts can be a really empowering, freeing, beautiful thing. You know, I know people who really have chosen like their life partner and their life partner doesn't want to have children, but they do. And so then they find another partner who they choose to co-parent with. And then they have this person that is, you know, really invested in their life and they share a lot of things together. Maybe they even share a home together, maybe this, and like lives part-time with their life partner and then part-time with their co-parent. Maybe they share finances with no one maybe they're they, they contribute financially to one household with their kid. And they contribute financially to the other household with their life partner. Maybe they have a retirement fund with their life partner and maybe their co-parent has like own situation, or maybe they have their another partner in their midst who they've set up their retirement with, with like their best friend or maybe with their sister or something like that. There are just so many opportunities here when you start to break things apart. Now, as I'm saying all of this, I have this feeling like some of you listening might be starting to panic because maybe you're married. And maybe you recognize that some of these things don't actually all super duper perfectly work, but the thought of chipping them away out of your marriage and giving them to someone else or having to form another connection with someone else to create some of these different kinds of relationship sounds absolutely terrifying. And I wanna acknowledge that because again, there's security in getting all of these things met in one person and having to create other relationships to get these kinds of needs met or to create the broader safety net for yourself is a lot of work or it, maybe it is. Maybe it's not, maybe if we were all doing this, it would actually be not that much work at all, but because we're all kind of like in this scarcity mindset of, we better go get someone to do all of these things with, we're not opening ourselves to more opportunities that we could create with other people. Now, I think what I really want here is like a cultural shift and I'm not going to get a cultural shift probably with one podcast episode . And honestly, without a cultural shift, it can be very hard to think about how can I start to break apart some of these things that may not be working in my marriage or life partnership, maybe how do I make some shifts that might work for me and make our relationships better by cutting out the things that we are really just failing at, or are creating a lot of friction with each other and are getting in the way of the things that we really enjoy and love about each other.
And so my offer to you is this, just start talking about it, honestly, maybe even make a list of these different relationships. You know, we have, like I said, we've got friendship, you know, which is, you know, the way you show up with each other, the way you listen and support each other emotionally the ways that you give hugs and reminders of how much you value each other, you do fun things together. You delight each other's being, you tell jokes, that's the friendship part. Right? And I do think that parts essential to pretty much any relationship that's gonna last. But then, you know, there's the romantic aspect and not everybody has the same idea of how romance is supposed to work. Some people aren't romantic at all, they're aromantic. And so this is one point of compatibility. How are you on the R romance factor?
Do you like to go on the same kinds of dates? Do you find the same kinds of things romantic? Do you like doing coupley things together? Do you kiss and hold hands and otherwise display affection that would be described as romantic? So then there's the sexual relationship. So that's play in the erotic realm together, maybe being naked, exploring your fetishes, playing, you know, having genital, touching, arousal, desire, all of that stuff. And, you know, orgasms can be on the table too, but it's not necessary for a healthy sexual relationship orgasms aren't necessary. So then there's the household relationship, like, how is that going? How do you share domestic labor? How do you negotiate? How do use allocate and reallocate shared household resources? How do you like to maintain your dwelling? Because everybody has a different level of what they want to maintain different levels of cleanliness, et cetera.
And and then how do you just exist in space together without intentional time together? Like how does that, how that incidental time go? How do you, you know, and what level of noise do you like in your space and what kinds of decorations do you like to have, you know, are those things compatible or are they not? Cuz not everybody is meant to live together, even if they love each other. And then financial, like I said before, like, do your incomes impact each other in a way that is workable for you? Do you feel comfortable pooling financial resources to make financial investments? And do you agree on what those financial investments should be? Do you agree how you should spend money and how you should save? Do you want to plan for retirement together? Do you support each other in your financial success?
Do you invest in each other financially, et cetera. All right. So that's another thing then there's the family member aspect. So not everybody's families get along with everybody. Else's families. Not everybody has the same idea about how to do holidays. Not everybody has the aim, rituals or expectations that are compatible with each other. And you know, sometimes obviously you grow into that and you figure it out. Maybe you, weren't a person who sent Christmas and birthday cards and thank you cards, but you learn how to do that. Or you create together meaningful and consistent rituals. Maybe you plan legacies and wills together, et cetera. Maybe you are deeply connected to each other's past and you know, keep track of ancestry and that kind of stuff. But maybe you wanna stay out of all of that. Maybe family is just a bunch of drama or trauma to you.
So not everybody has to be like family to each other. Another one is co-parenting. So, you know, what's really cool actually is that there are a lot of people now who are looking at co-parenting as its own relationship and not necessarily tying in romantic sexual, familial, financial relationships to the co-parenting relationship. I mean, obviously in a lot of ways you're gonna be financially tied together. If you raise a child together because the child requires financial investment, but you can also, you know, treat it like a project that you're doing together where you're both investing separately rather than you're pushing all of the money together. And then you're investing it together with the kid. But like co-parenting compatibility is a really tough one. Like, what are your values? How do you wanna interact with your child? How do you want to express your aspirations for them through how you guide them, how you nurture them, how you discipline them, how do, how are you at the labor of caregiving and how are you at sharing that with each other?
What's your attitude towards having an outside caregiver or having family do caregiving? Are you able to get the child or children, the help and resources they need, if they need outside support, how do you navigate doctor's appointments and teacher meetings and, and all of those things because like, and I, and gosh, relationships with other parents and are those things compatible. Another relationship that I think is worth taking a look at is being a co caregiver. So what I mean by that is, you know, are you there to support each other through hard times? Are you available in an emergency? Are you good in an emergency? Or can you be the person to take your partner to the hospital or the emergency room? Can you advocate with healthcare providers on their behalf? Are you aware of the big events in your partner's life and able to, you know, support those things?
Are they aware of yours? Are they able to support you in those things? And are you able to be a person who can be counted on to be there? If your partners support needs change, and they need like more, more intensive caregiving or they need someone to coordinate the caregiving? Are you the person who is able to do that with them? And then my last one and I have this last, I have no idea why, but the last one relationship that I have is bedmate. And I gotta tell you, some people might argue with me that bedmate is its own relationship, but I really think it is. And I'll tell you why you spend six to eight to 10 hours in your bed every night. So that is a sign, significant chunk of your life that you are in a particular space. So compatibility for sleeping together, I think is really important.
Do you like the same kind of mattress? Do you like the same kind of sheets? Do you share sheets well with each other? Do you have compatible levels of light sleeper versus heavy sleeper? Like someone who's a light sleeper and the other person is like a heavy sleeper and they move around a lot and they snore might be really incompatible with someone who's a light sleeper. Do you have compatible temperature needs in your sleep? Cuz some people sleep hot and some people sleep super cold. And how do you navigate the compatibility there? Some people really like to be touched and held and cuddled all night long and some people absolutely can't sleep that way. And you know, this is one of those things. This is actually how my husband and my partner ended up getting together is because I don't like being touched when I sleep.
And my two partners who are also partners to each other, they both like to cuddle while they're sleeping. And I always felt really bad when we would share a bed together with either of them. I would kind of have to exile them to their side of the bed at a certain point so that I could sleep because I really needed to sleep. And I always felt bad about that. And so I remember one night I said to both of them, I said, you know, if y'all wanna just like go cuddle in bed together and sleep that way. Like I'm not gonna feel abandoned if that was some be something that would be enjoyable to both you. And at this point they were good friends and they'd already done some like awake cuddling. But the minute I sent them off to the room together, well, I mean, , it was a short hop, skip and a jump from cuddling together to a full blown relationship.
And that makes me so happy, honestly. I have to say one of the most freeing things for me was to say, actually I like sleeping alone. I like really like sleeping alone. Don't always wanna sleep with another person. Sometimes I don't mind it, but I actually just often sleep better alone and I sleep better in my bed. So another thing I don't really like is going and sleeping at other people's houses, I'll do it because you know, my partners will like it, but honestly, getting a good night's sleep for me just because of all of my sensory stuff that happens when I'm trying to sleep, it can be really tricky and challenging to not have things just so there are lots of places where I'm gonna compromise sleeping is a tough one for me. So my invitation to you absent a cultural change where we just begin each of these individual relationships separate from each other and not assume that they're all definitely gonna go together and go swimmingly within a marriage.
My invitation is that if you are married or in a committed life partnership of some kind that you really take a look at what you're assuming about, how all of these different relationships are supposed to be going, maybe evaluate how, where you are in, in each of these different relationships, how satisfying they are for you, how satisfying they seem to be for your partner and consider whether some of them you might wanna change or let go of, and whether there might be other places where you could get those needs met. And I mean, honestly I think this is why a lot of married couples end up pursuing non-monogamy or polyamory because the sexual relationship has gotten so messed up by the domestic relationship and maybe the family relationship and maybe the caregiver relationship and maybe even the bedmate relationship that they feel this need to go find a sexual relationship outside of the marriage.
And, and sometimes that's fine because maybe the other relationships that are within the marriage are really, really good and really, really well invested in and like the sexual relationship just isn't working and okay, great. Go get that somewhere else. That's beautiful. And that's wonderful, but also if you did have a really good sexual relationship and you wanna be able to get it back and these other relationships are actually going poorly and getting in the way, it might be worth getting rid of those instead so if you're really bad domestic partners, but you were really good sex partners, maybe consider living apart and getting together just for the sex and the romance wild idea. right. And that's just one idea that you could do, but so instead of, you know, bringing another relationship into the mix and hoping that, you know, alleviates the sexual pressure in the relationship, if you really wanna be having sex with each other and it was there, see if you can get it back by getting rid of some other relationship that might not be working and finding out another way to get that need met.
And if you are a person who is not married or does not have a life partner at this moment, Hey, here's your opportunity to go into a relationship like that. If that's something you're looking for with your eyes wide open, and maybe when you begin to pursue a partnership with someone who you see as a good potential life partner, you can really think about, well, why am I thinking that this person is a good life partner? Is it because we consistently have sex and never get tired of each other? Or is it because we have similar values around finances? Do I think that they're gonna be a good co-parent because they really love kids. And I do like, what is it that is really checking the boxes for you and what are the boxes that you're not paying attention or that you're willing to compromise on and maybe discuss with your partner, whether those boxes are just not boxes you check with each other.
So to recap, marriage is ridiculous. sorry. I'm sorry. I mean, I say this as a person who's married, but oh my God, it's ridiculous to try to have all these relationships in one relationship. You like great if it works for you like super, , I really wanna celebrate an honor if you're able to find that one-stop shop, but I mean, even, I can't find everything I need at a big box store, like target, right? I can't always find what I need, especially now with supply chain issues anyway, but like consider, consider these nine different relationships that are smashed into this one and consider whether you might be happier and you might be a more loving partner to the person that you love or the people that you love. If you considered honoring the parts that work really well and either accommodating, adjusting, or letting go of the parts that don't, it doesn't have to be a rejection.
If you say, Hey, I don't wanna sleep in the same bed with you anymore. Or I don't think we live well together, or I actually want this other person to be my person who comes with me to the hospital because they're so good at talking to the nurses on my behalf, when I'm feeling overwhelmed, that doesn't have to be a rejection. That can be a celebration of what you're good at and where you intersect beautifully together and really protecting that. And then not setting your partner up for failure for the things that they're not good at. And by doing that, we can have, first of all, a broader network of support that can hold us and care for us and that we can care for other people and hold other P people. But also we're just way more open and caring and loving and secure with each other. So think on it.
