Welcome to the libido lounge where we focus on all things love, lust, and libido. We believe that fabulous sex is important to health as exercise and good food. Hey. I'm doctor Diane Mueller. You're the Bido Doc. In this podcast, we're gonna be talking about novelty in monogamy, how to keep things juicy and spicy and hot in those long term relationships. Alright. Novelty in monogamy.
This is one of my favorite conversations, and it's one of my favorite conversations because of how many times I get into conversations with clients, with friends, and the conversation is around like challenges with monogamy. And oftentimes people will then say, well, maybe I'll have an open relationship. Maybe I'll try swinging. Maybe I'll try polyamory. And then talking to people from that space and there's problems that couples go and they have in that space.
So, one of the things when we're thinking about the relationship style, if you are thinking if you're in a monogamous relationship and you're considering, say, opening your relationship up, having threesomes, having, you know, swinging type of relationship, a poly type of relationship. We'll explore, you know, those kind of nuances in other episodes.
But if you're thinking about this, one of the things that I would really encourage you to think about is to not look at these different relationship styles as solving all your relationship problems, right? Because one of the things that happens with monogamy and novelty is this law of familiarity where with the law of familiarity, we get so used to seeing somebody that we start to basically make groupings.
We start to basically form these things around like, oh, that's this person doing this thing, I know them, right? I know them like we start to see something that looks similar to something they did in the past and it's like, oh, yeah, that's just them. And so we stop seeing people with new whys because we group patterns together and therefore character things or things that they are doing that a partner is doing just gets lumped into this grouping of that's just them being them.
And when we do that, it can prevent us from seeing people with new eyes, that can really make a big difference with drive, it can make a big difference with reward from a dopamine standpoint. And so then one thing that some people consider is, okay, well maybe I need to try to open up my relationship. Now, maybe you're there, maybe you're not. This whole episode is not about that. We're gonna go more into this concept of novelty and how to keep things hot in monogamous relationships.
But before we go there, I do wanna spend a couple minutes on what I'm talking about now because because I see this so often in in couples that are struggling with keeping things hot, that just want that excitement and that, you know, that sexual chemistry and desire and all those hot sexy feelings and wanting that back again, but then saying that the way to get that back is through polyamory, through swinging and these other things. And I'm not saying pro or con one way or the other.
I'm saying these are different relationship styles that every couple needs to figure out and every individual needs to figure out, like, what is best for them and what is right for one individual and one couple is not gonna be the best thing for everything. But here's where people get into trouble. People get into trouble where they think this relationship style is going to solve all relationship problems.
And so it's very easy to kinda do this grasping type of thing where we're in one relationship style and we're like, Oh, if I try this other relationship style, I'm not gonna have problems. And that's not the way I would encourage you to look at this. So if you try different types of relationship styles, it might solve some problems. Right?
The newness that gets lost in long term monogamous relationships and that we're gonna talk about how to restore some of that, that newness oftentimes is something that in a swinging or a poly, an open type of relationship, very easy to access. Right? So that problem's gone.
But now we're introducing different problems and different challenges whether it's through, you know, dealing with complicated emotions of jealousy or what if two partners have a special event on the same night and somebody has to lose and so we have to navigate all of these different feelings. Right? So there's way more complications from that side most of the time that come up. So again, none of this is good or bad. None of this is right or wrong.
None of this is me making a case for any of these types of relationship styles. But what I am making a case for is rather than choosing a relationship to solve all the problems or relationship style, it's really important to say, oh, every relationship is gonna have challenges.
Every different type of relationship, whether it's monogamy, whether it's an open type of relationship, whether it's traditional, non traditional, every style of relationship is going to have its unique set of gifts and joys and things that happen, but also its unique sense of challenges and struggles and areas of growth and areas of attention.
So if you're in this if you're listening to this and you're in this zone of holy cow, like, I'm really sick of monogamy, I'm sick of, like, just the, you know, the blah blah blah, it's not exciting anymore. And if you find yourself fantasizing, which I have so have happened sometimes when people do, they fantasize about these other types of relationships. And if you find yourself fantasizing about that, first of all, nothing wrong with fantasizing.
You could even bring that fantasy into the bedroom if that feels appropriate. Right? So nothing wrong with that at all. But as far as the reality of making a relationship jump that's substantial like that, one of the things that I really encourage you to ask yourself is what types of problems, what types of challenges feel like your preferred types of challenges to have in your relationship? Because it's what is gonna happen is human life is not without challenge.
Like, Tony Robbins says it so well. He says something along the lines of the problem with humans is that they think they are not supposed to have any. Right? And I love when he says that because that's essentially what I'm talking about here around, like, no matter what type of relationship it is, it's gonna come with challenges.
So the question is, do you prefer when thinking about novelty in in monogamy and what we're talking about here, do you prefer that challenge of how to keep it hot in context of a novel relation or a monogamous monogamous long term relationship? Or do you prefer the challenge of dealing and working with having multiple partners, but then dealing with emotions and challenges and things that come up with that? Right? So different challenges. Neither one of those are right.
Neither one of those wrong. They're different, and we get to choose. Right? That's what's so amazing as, you know, as humans, as we get to choose some of these things and the relationships we wanna have. So that being said, now that we have addressed that, how do we keep novelty in monogamy? And, of course, the longer we've been with a partner, the more this can come up. But, you know, there is that honeymoon period when we date somebody. Right?
And that honeymoon period is built upon these emotions that come up because we don't have that law of familiarity, which means if we haven't been around somebody enough, we're not starting this process that the psychological concept of the law of familiarity says. We're not starting this process of saying, like, oh, that person did this thing, and so it's kinda like that other thing.
So that's just them being them, and we don't notice this, and we don't notice this new thing because we it's so easy to just group them. Right? When somebody's new, every little thing that they're doing is like, woah. That's interesting. We're paying attention. We are interested. We give them feedback. It's exciting. We wanna know more as another human. We've never seen this. Right? How do all these qualities fit together?
It's, like, it's so unique, and that keeps our dopamine system really high. That keeps that floods us with dopamine. You know that hold that dopamine kind of addiction around, like, oh, he texted, and then, like, my heart rates, you know, my heart, like, skips a beat, and it can be exciting. Right? All of those little dopamine things can happen. Right? So they and I it's not that they can't happen in long term monogamy.
Is that because of the law of familiarity, because of the tendency of humans to stop seeing the other person so much, because we're used to them, and so we stop seeing the little things that we haven't seen before, the little things that do provide interest and value. We we can stop seeing them because we get so used to just how we think of them. Right?
And it's so easy then to lose that dopamine motivation from a sexual drive standpoint because we just have them lumped into this is how that person is. So how do we get out of that? Well, the first thing we get out of, you know, that we can actually like, how we change is the first thing is to realize this is happening. So when we take a step back and we actually say, oh, right. I have not really deeply looked at my partner in a way that is, like, new in a really long time.
That's the first thing to be aware of. Like, when's the last time you've actually looked at your partner and been like, I've never noticed that quality before. Oh, that's different. Or, I don't actually know what his life was like in the third grade. Right? So anytime we're actually essentially using and saying stuff like that and asking these types of questions, we're actually bringing back more of this novelty.
So one of the first things to really, say, get out of the rut of novelty and monogamy is curiosity. And so this can begin by thinking about, like, what are things about your partner that maybe you've never asked? And there's there's these little there's these games online. There's these, like, card games you can get where it charges, like, these, like, sexy time card games where some of it is, like, asking your partner a question about maybe a sex position. Right?
So some of it is sexual, but some of it is also not sexual. Some of these questions are like, tell me about your favorite teacher in grade school. Right? And so the questions are designed to help stimulate thought. And the idea of stimulating thought from a sex perspective and a novelty perspective is to help start seeing a partner that you've maybe been with for years and decades to help start seeing them with different eyes. Right?
And, you know, even things that you might have known a decade ago, like, you know, what are your hopes and dreams? What do you want? What do you want life? What do you want your ideal house to look like? What do you want your retirement to look like? Like, you know, what do you want your last ten years of your life to look like? Those might be different questions you knew a decade ago, but they might not be the same now. So part of the novelty and monogamy is really not just it's about sex.
It's about sexual novelty, but it's also about emotional novelty. And these two are actually very, very connected because they both have this forefront of curiosity that's really needed. So with questions, we can begin to see partners through different eyes. Right? So we can also begin to intentionally, you know, start each day with an intention. Right? A literal intention.
You can write this down, put this on your mirror, say, I'm gonna look for something in my partner I've never seen before today. Right? And to create a practice every day to really pay attention to little details, you know, how they respond to something, like, you know, a phrase maybe you've never caught them say before, you know, the way they brush up against you on a couch, maybe you didn't notice that, maybe you're just used to it and you don't even like comprehend it anymore.
The idea is to make curiosity a practice so that within every day of novelty or every day of monogamy, you're coming back in a curious way to be like, Okay, how can I see something different in my partner? The way Esther Perel says it in her amazing work of With Mating in Captivity in that book and all the amazing work she does is I love her how she talks about this topic because she says it's not about just it's it's about, like, not about a new partner.
It's about seeing your current partner with new eyes. Right? So it's about how can we begin to be curious to see a partner with new eyes. Now, when we're talking about sex and when we're talking about novelty and sex, this is another point where curiosity is so, so, so important, especially when it comes to trying new things, right? Because one of the things oftentimes that can happen in long term monogamous relationships is sex looks very similar.
It can look like the exact same trajectory, like you kiss for this amount of time, and then the clothes come off, and you have sex in this position. Maybe you change positions once. Maybe there's orgasm. It's over. Right? And so that's an example of one of the things that can happen. Or maybe there's three or four variations of that, but it's a, b, c, d, e. Maybe it's a, b, c, d, f, e. So there's, like, these tiny little variations, but it's largely the same.
So the more you can really begin to engage in your you know, with your partner around this particular topic, it's so, so, so important because you start asking questions around like, you know, what are your sexual fantasies? Have you ever considered a sex toy? Have you ever considered anal? Have you ever considered a partner? You know, all of these things, and, like, you're all you're just collecting information. If you could try one different thing in the bedroom, what would it be? Right?
All of these different type of thing types of things around, like, what you're going for is information and trying to find ways of bringing more novelty in it. Another thing is getting a Karma Sutra book. Right? So a Karma Sutra book is about positions, and it's like showing various positions. So you can go through these books as a a super sexy project to do together. And you can go through these books and this and look and be like, oh, that's a new position.
We've never tried that position, and intentionally do that position. Right? I really like the idea of scheduling sex and especially scheduling a you know, if you're trying to bring more novelty and monogamy, schedule once a week a curious sex night. You know? A sex night where you're gonna do something, you're gonna do a different position, maybe you're gonna do it in a different place in the house.
Like, you know, I know some people that, like, have these secret sex dates in their closet when the kids are home because that's, like, real far away from the kids. Right? So, again, we wanna consider, like, what you know, where can you change the location? Can you change the position? Can you change what you're wearing? Can you you know, some people play do role play, wigs. There's a lot of different ways to start changing things up in ways that allow for it to feel less novel.
And then when you do that, the other thing that you're really trying to pay attention to are things about the sexual experience that maybe you didn't notice in the past. Right? Maybe you didn't notice how how, you know, in strong your partner grabs your hip and thrusts you, for example. Right? Maybe you've never noticed that. Maybe that's good feedback for them. But the secret to getting out of familiarity and busting through the law of familiarity really is curiosity.
And the more we can be curious with our partner from an emotional standpoint, the more we can also be curious about our partner from a sexual standpoint. You know, another example of something to do is to go to a porn store together. Right? Go to a porn store, like a sex store, basically, is what I mean, not a porn store, sex store, and look around at various sex toys. Maybe you wanna bring one home. Maybe you wanna try one. Maybe you've tried these things before.
Maybe you've never tried these things. But these are the types of things that the more we can be open to making the experience unique and different, the more we can bring in these fun ways that that start to bring that novelty and that curiosity because that's what it is pre monogamy or pre When you're just in that dating and you haven't committed yet. Right? It's this feeling of like, I'm so curious about this other human and I wanna know them.
And so that's in order to really create that excitement in monogamy. Some of what we're doing is bringing intentionally bringing that curiosity back, and we want to basically do that over and over and over again.
So make sure you tune into my next episode on passionate communication because when it comes to these questions around curiosity and having these questions, we wanna talk about passionate communication, sexual communication, how to basically communicate in a way where you are gonna be loved and heard, and these types of conversations which can sometimes damage the ego are going to really help you feel better and better and better and closer and closer and closer.
So we're gonna talk about that on our next episode. So please do share this information with a friend. Please send my my podcast link around. Thank you again for being part of this episode today and always remember to stay classy and be sexy. See you in the next one. Thank you for listening to the Libido Lounge. Please don't keep me a secret. Please share this with your friends. You can find me on YouTube, on Instagram, as well as how to work with me at mylibidodoc.com.