John and Jamie Shouldn't Open Their Marriage
Meet John and Jamie, a made-up couple with a very real story. What do you think? Should they open their marriage?
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Show Links:
Emily Nagoski on Making Polyamory Work: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/makingpolywork/episodes/Maintenance-Sx-with-Emily-Nagoski-e2kpe5p/a-abbns15
Fair Play by Eve Rodsky: https://bookshop.org/a/91754/9780525541943
All About Love by bell hooks: https://bookshop.org/a/91754/9780060959470
(I also recommend The Will to Change by the same author)
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Also! Libby has created a workbook based on the most popular episodes of the podcast — with simple practices and reflection questions so that you can apply this stuff to your life.
Go to https://libbysinback.com/workbook to get your copy.
Transcript
Libby Sinback:
Opening your marriage and connecting to E M and polyamory culture will actually help you on the path of unlearning some of this shit. However, I think it's the hard way because do you know what's missing here? Neither of these people is inherently interested in having multiple sexual partners. They are just trying to find creative ways to make their marriage work. But bringing other people into this situation is just going to make hard things more complicated and the stakes way higher. And you're involving whole ass other people who honestly probably don't want to be used as marriage saving band aids. Welcome to making Polyamory work. Hi, I'm Libby Sinback and I want to thank you for being with me today. I'm committed to helping people who live in love outside the status quo have extraordinary relationships because relationships are at the core of our well being as humans.
Libby Sinback:
I think love is why we're here and how we heal. Today's episode is about a made up couple named John and Jamie. And yes, they are a completely made up couple, but their story is so common that you may see yourself in them. I want to state that for good reasons, which will be made clear in the episode, that I chose this couple to be a heterosexual couple who started out monogamous. If that in no way describes you, I still think it's worth listening to the episode because the things that affect this couple are things that are still in the air and water that we breathe if we live in a western industrial, colonial, capitalist culture, which many of my listeners do. So I don't want to say too much more about the episode now before you have a chance to just listen. And I'm still in the process of ironing out my offerings for 2026. I thought that I knew what I was doing and then some things shifted and so now I'm shifting and I'm really excited about the direction things are shifting, but I don't have a lot of answers about what's coming next.
Libby Sinback:
But if you want to stay in the know, I recommend you follow my Instagram account, sign up for my email list, and come to the community calls that I have every month. The next one is going to be on April 3, 2026 at 1:00pm Eastern Time. Okay, let's get on with the episode. So let me tell you about John and Jamie. John and Jamie started out as your typical heterosexual, monogamous married couple in the sense that they met in their 20s, they dated, they moved in together, then got married shortly after that, then had kids a few years later. After that when they met they were young and they had few responsibilities beyond their jobs. They were excited to connect and fall in love and seeing each other many times a week. And once they started having sex, they were having sex on nearly every date.
Libby Sinback:
To John, Jamie was everything he'd been looking for. She was smart, funny, sexy, and also caring and gorgeous. They enjoyed a lot of the same bands. Both enjoyed hiking and camping together. Both were dog people and they both loved traveling and going on adventures. John felt like he'd finally found someone to share his life with. It felt like a no brainer to get married. This was his person.
Libby Sinback:
And Jamie felt similarly about John. He was funny, sweet, easygoing and a little goofy. He really seemed to care about being a good man and a loving partner and was incredibly loyal. She'd seen so many of the men her friends were dating, men who would string her friends along and then dump them, or men who just really didn't have it together in life. But John was sincere, he was a real adult and he was ready to commit. They shared a lot of the same values. John supported Jamie and her interests and her work and cared about her orgasm. John had a good relationship with his family and considered himself a feminist.
Libby Sinback:
She felt like she'd gotten incredibly lucky to meet someone like him and everything was great. They got engaged, moved in together. But that's when some things changed about their sex life. Before they moved in together, sex was easy, effortless. It wasn't even clear who was initiating it. It just happened. John thought living together would mean they would have more sex. And instead the opposite seemed to be happening.
Libby Sinback:
John pretty much always wanted sex, but he tried to be patient and wait for Jamie to show that she was interested. Sometimes he'd get frustrated and try to get something going. He'd rub her back or stroke her hair or kiss her neck to get her in the mood. And sometimes that worked and sometimes he'd be rebuffed. She'd say she was tired or she had a headache. They still managed to have sex two or three times a week, which John felt like was pretty good. So he didn't worry too much about it. Though if more than a week went by, he did start to worry and feel a little down.
Libby Sinback:
Then they had kids and the sex range really dropped off. At first John understood with a postpartum body, with nursing, with late night wake ups. Of course Jamie was tired, so he gave her time. But then she started recoiling at his touch sometimes and seemed to be avoiding him physically more. At bedtime she would initiate still like about once a week. But half the time she didn't really seem into it and they just got through it together. He started feeling really down and depressed and lonely. Sometimes he'd watch porn and masturbate, and sometimes that was nice.
Libby Sinback:
But sometimes it made him feel even more lonely and resentful. Otherwise, the marriage was great. Jamie was an incredible mother. Their kids. While a lot of work brought a lot of joy into John's life, they took trips together as a family, enjoyed the holidays together. John was doing well at his job, and he felt like he was a good husband. He helped out a lot with the kids. He did whatever Jamie asked him to do around the house, and he was generally really easygoing.
Libby Sinback:
He'd let Janie make a lot of the big decisions in the family since she really seemed to know what she wanted and he didn't want to fight with her anyway. And despite getting older and having two babies, he still found her sexy as hell. He didn't understand why things had changed in the bedroom, but not having sex was making him wonder if Jamie even wanted him anymore. He knew that she loved him, but he started to wonder why. Jamie's experience was different. Moving in together and getting married wasn't exactly what she had expected. All of a sudden, she started to feel this pressure to have sex that hadn't been there before. She could feel John's desire every time he touched her.
Libby Sinback:
And sometimes she was just tired or full of food or was just not thinking about it. She felt like she was supposed to be horny all the time and felt guilty that she wasn't. But she still loved John a lot. And when they did have sex, it was nice. John was easygoing and loving and often deferred to Jamie. Letting Jamie manage their social calendar, plan their camping trips, and pick which restaurant they would go to on their date nights. Jamie was glad that John was willing to help out so much around the house. He did chores eagerly, although only if she asked.
Libby Sinback:
He never noticed on his own when the floor needed to be vacuumed or when the dishes needed to be done. She always had to tell him. John was so eager to please, but Jamie found herself wishing he would initiate things more. The only thing he did seem to initiate was sex, and even that was kind of indirect. He'd cuddle up against her after they got into bed at night, rubbing her back, which felt good, but then he'd start touching her more sexually and it felt like a struggle for her to get into it. Her mind was usually elsewhere, either on work or on laundry. That needed to be done or something else on her to do list. And his sexual advances seemed to come come out of nowhere.
Libby Sinback:
Sometimes she'd force herself to be open to it, and sometimes it was nice when she did that, but other times she just tried to get through it. Jamie really didn't like having to reject John. He always seemed a little disappointed and sometimes even frustrated when she wasn't up for it. She started to notice that when more than a few days went by without them having sex, John would get a little sulky and moody and sometimes snappy when they did things together that she'd planned. Sometimes he'd be a little more checked out. She noticed that shifted significantly when they did have sex. He was way more attentive, more connected, and more plugged into their shared life. All of this got way more amplified when they had kids.
Libby Sinback:
Having young kids exhausted Jamie. First, it was the sheer physicality of having little kids. She would regularly end a day utterly touched out having had kids on her every minute. She'd started working from home so she would be more available to the kids. But that just meant she was juggling and context, switching all the time between parenting and her job from the time she woke up until the time she went to slee sleep. As the kids got older, things got more complex. Now there were sports and summer camps and playdates and parent teacher conferences and homework, not to mention screen time policies and making sure everyone ate a healthy meal. John helped out a lot with everything from diaper changes to school pickups.
Libby Sinback:
But Jamie was the one figuring out who was doing what. John deferred to Jamie on pretty much every decision, which felt simpler at first because at least they weren't fighting like some of her friends were. But when Jamie learned about decision fatigue, she could really relate. Decision fatigue? She thought. How about decision exhaustion? It felt like there were always a million things on her to do list, and sometimes it was overwhelming. She wanted to want to have sex, but she couldn't really get excited about it anymore. And sometimes when John would touch her, she'd get really pissed off but not know why. John wasn't doing anything wrong.
Libby Sinback:
Not at all. He was still hot. And he was a good husband and an involved father. And it was great that he still thought she was sexy too. What was wrong with her? Because John would still get grumpy and less engaged and sometimes snappy when sex wasn't happening. Sex with John became an item on Jamie's to do list. She'd read somewhere that it's normal to have to work at making sex happen after kids. And she really wanted to be a good wife and hold up her end of the marriage in that way.
Libby Sinback:
Sometimes she'd have a glass of wine or a THC gummy to help her get in the mood. And sometimes she'd even read one of her sexy romance novels to get aroused before going to bed. And sometimes it was fun. But what she felt more often was relieved rather than gratified. John would say, we should do that more often, and Jamie would feel a little tug in her belly that she didn't understand. But it wasn't excitement. Opening the marriage was Jamie's idea. At a certain point, Jamie was finding that she couldn't get herself in the mood anymore and that she really didn't want to have sex with John at all.
Libby Sinback:
She felt really guilty about it. She was tired of feeling responsible for John's sexual gratification on top of everything else on her plate. John seemed increasingly down and disconnected, and she really wanted him to be happy for her sake as much as his. And John was pretty down. But he was also scared. He was scared he was failing at his marriage in some way. He was scared he was failing Jamie. And when he couldn't figure out how, because he did whatever she wanted, he helped in all the ways.
Libby Sinback:
He was a good provider financially. He. He would get mad and resentful that things weren't paying off. The thought of his marriage falling apart was so unacceptable to him, but he believed that if there was no sex, then there was something wrong. Also, he was scared of living the rest of his life in a sexless marriage. Sex was so important to John. He didn't understand why Jamie didn't want him anymore. Jamie thought that opening the marriage so that John could have sex would take the pressure off things.
Libby Sinback:
She wasn't interested that much in dating herself, although maybe down the line she might. John was torn. He really didn't want to lose his marriage to Jamie, and he was tired of being rejected and feeling unwanted and lonely. Jamie's suggestion to open the marriage was intriguing, and it also felt generous and loving to him. It showed she cared, and so he was open to trying it. Maybe this will help, he thought. I'm going to pause here. If anything in this story resonates with you or stirs something in you, I want to invite you right now to get curious about it.
Libby Sinback:
What sensations are showing up? What feelings? What thoughts? What images? How are you feeling toward John? What about Jamie? Do you see yourself in them? Or do you see anybody you know in them? To John and Jamie opening their marriage seems totally reasonable. Their marriage isn't broken. They love each other. They have a deep commitment to staying together. This one thing just isn't working. Why not get creative so that nobody has to suffer? They'd bought into the idea that they didn't need to own each other's bodies in order to feel secure together and that it wasn't reasonable to get all your needs met by just one person. Yet I titled this episode what I titled it and I'm standing by it. I do not think John and Jamie should open their marriage.
Libby Sinback:
And here's in my experience, opening a marriage like this is bringing a whole lot of complexity to an already tricky situation without even touching the root cause of what's happening between them. And here are the two things that I see at the root cause Number one, Jamie is carrying the mental load of the family. At times she feels she's the manager and John is the employee. And sometimes she probably even feels like she's his mom. That power dynamic is one reason Jamie's sexual interest in John has flown the it's really hard to desire someone that you feel like you're parenting. Another reason is that the mental load is stressful to hold all by yourself. Jamie is always managing a million to dos in her head, which means there's no space for her to slow down and feel grounded enough to connect to her own desire and pleasure. That's why she longs for a good soak in the tub with a good book before she'd ever desire sex.
Libby Sinback:
Sexual desire is most accessible when we are in our parasympathetic nervous system our rest and digest. But for Jamie, sex itself has become a stressor, another item on her to do list and a source of guilt and fear. If John starts going out and spending time with a new sexual partner, gets excited about that person, starts initiating scheduling time with them, planning dates, et cetera. Jamie is likely to get pretty upset about this. One, she'll likely feel something that Jessica Fern calls justice jealousy, where a partner starts doing something like initiating and planning for one partner that they don't do for you. And two, she'll likely feel resentful because she's still overloaded with their life together and now he's off having fun with someone else, giving that person all of his good playful initiating energy. And she's probably doing the logistical coordinating on top of that to make space for that to happen. Second thing, John has made sex the keystone of feeling good about himself and his relationship.
Libby Sinback:
Sex is proof that he's wanted, trusted and worthy. It's also proof that he has succeeded at life and marriage. When John wants sex, he not only wants an orgasm, he wants touch. He wants to let go. He wants his partner's surrender. He wants to feel less lonely. Sex is the only place where he can be soft and vulnerable, open and naked, both physically and emotionally. It's the place where he's the most human, where he feels validated, alive and free.
Libby Sinback:
With all of that riding on this one activity, of course John feels terrible when he doesn't have it. However, having it with someone else won't likely address the pain of not having it with his wife. Or if it does, it may only amplify how much it hurts that it's not with her. He may discover that having sex with others without love and connection does help him feel wanted and worthy and attractive, but it also might not address the loneliness or the need for the openness and vulnerability. And having sex with love and connection both might make him think he's with the wrong person. And it might feel really threatening to Jamie because he's getting so many of his basic human needs met with another person rather than with her. And his attention is going to likely be very focused in that direction. Never mind if Jamie actually starts dating someone else and having sex with them, that will likely send John into a tailspin rather than making things better.
Libby Sinback:
Opening up a marriage like this is more likely to tear things open. And it doesn't actually have to go like that because this story has nothing to do with John and Jamie as people and everything to do with shitty social scripts that come with patriarchal monogamy. Buckle up kids, cause there are a lot of them. Shitty social script 1. If you're a man, a woman wanting to have sex with you is proof of your worthiness, validity and value. Shitty social script 2. A successful marriage is one that involves a lot of sex throughout the entirety of the marriage, with no breaks or lulls or anything. And if you're not having sex, then you've let the marriage go.
Libby Sinback:
Shitty social script number three. Women are the gatekeepers of sex, and therefore the ones responsible for making it available. To be a good partner means you meet your man's sexual needs. Shitty social script 4. Men can't be soft or vulnerable outside of the bedroom because it's not manly. Shitty social script number five. If you're a man who wants to be a good feminist, the best way to do that is to give your power away to your female partner to let her call the shots and Lead the way. You're a good partner as long as you never cheat and are willing to help with the chores and childcare whenever your partner asks.
Libby Sinback:
Shitty social script number six. Women naturally know the best way to care for children and to manage a family, including extended family relationships, holidays, family trips, weekly schedules, and what goes in their kid's lunchbox. Shitty social script 7. Women are naturally the default parent and all communication and coordination about the children should go through them. If dad is with the kids, he's a saint for babysitting. Shitty social script number eight. Sexual desire is something you either have spontaneously or you don't, rather than something that can be cultivated and tended to. Shitty social script 9.
Libby Sinback:
Being a good wife means meeting everyone else's needs before your own. Your value is in what you do for others. Shitty social script number 10. Good sex involves everyone having an orgasm. Being a good lover as a man means caring about a woman's orgasm. And sex is over only when the man has an orgasm. Stopping in the middle is unacceptable. That's actually a lot of scripts, but I just put it in one for brevity's sake.
Libby Sinback:
Shitty social script number 11. Erotic or sensual touch should always lead to sex, and if it doesn't, you're a tease. Shitty social script number 12. If you're a man, your horniness is either out of your control and your partner's job to manage or or it's evil and dangerous and something to be ashamed of and the only one who can take that shame away is your partner. Honestly guys, I could go on because there are so many of these and just saying them out loud right now stirs a lot in me because I believe so many of these myself and I didn't realize how harmful they were to me and to my relationship to sex and to my partners. I feel lucky because I had access to people and resources and partners who helped me deconstruct a lot of these ideas. And my spouse and I were already non monogamous before we got married and had kids, so it wasn't something we did to save our marriage. But these scripts do serious damage to so many long term partnerships and not even just heterosexual ones.
Libby Sinback:
Do you see how much harm this is causing John and Jamie, who otherwise might have so many more pathways to a happy life together? There is nothing wrong with John or Jamie. They aren't broken or bad. They were just handed a pack of bullshit and that bullshit hurts so many couples. Now I do want to say that opening your marriage and connecting to E M and polyamory culture will actually help you on the path of unlearning some of this shit. However, I think it's the hard way because do you know what's missing here? Neither of these people is inherently interested in having multiple sexual partners. They are just trying to find creative ways to make their marriage work. But bringing other people into this situation is just going to make hard things more complicated and the stakes way higher. And you're involving whole ass other people who honestly probably don't want to be used as marriage saving band aids.
Libby Sinback:
But if they unpack these social scripts, Jamie might learn to stop over functioning so that John can take more ownership and leadership in their family dynamic. Then she'll feel less alone spinning all the plates and less like a manager in their relationship. Having more space to just be having someone handling more of the endless to dos means the decks of her mind will be clear for her to connect to her desire and her own pleasure. John might learn that his desire for sex is actually a desire for a lot of things that aren't sex, including connection, touch, vulnerability, play, surrender and feeling worthy. He realizes that if he starts developing his own connections to some of the neglected parts of his humanity, he feels more open to all the ways that he and Jamie connect. He learns to sink into the pleasure of touch for its own sake, whether or not it actually leads to sex. And that helps Jamie do the same. They start making out naked before bed.
Libby Sinback:
And sometimes that leads to sex, and sometimes it doesn't. John also learns how to own his own desires rather than making Jamie the conduit for them. He realizes that his own feelings of worthiness can be rooted in him living into his own values independent of whether sex is happening or not. Which oddly makes Jamie way more attracted to him. From here, maybe their sex has the opportunity to get more creative and playful, less following a standard goal oriented script. John learns that Jamie has responsive desire. So if he wants sex with her, it'll help if he makes sure the laundry in the room gets folded, that the kids are in bed, and that there's sexy music playing. And maybe he sent her a few flirty texts throughout the day of things he's excited about doing together later that night.
Libby Sinback:
He's excited about stoking her desire and she's grateful for his leadership there. And hey, if all that happens and they still want to have sex with other people too, great. But then it's not going to be to fix something broken. It'll be to honor that for them, love and sex can be abundant and shared rather than scarce or hoarded. But maybe between the kids, work, family and friends, they're happy with just each other. So to recap, if you're listening to this and you're like, holy crap, I see myself or my partner or my marriage in John and Jamie. But we didn't know what we didn't know. And now we're in a big mess, just like you said we would be.
Libby Sinback:
Look, you're not alone and all is not lost. You can still address these crappy scripts and address the things at the root of what's not working for y'. All. It will be a bit like untangling a necklace. You may have to go slow, be gentle and compassionate with yourselves, and face some hard realities. But. But for your sakes, and for the sake of everyone you love, I really think it's worth doing. Not only will you be less likely to be a polyamory cautionary tale, it's also a tremendous opportunity to transform your relationship into something that is, in its own way, revolutionary.
Libby Sinback:
Hey, real quick, before we get back to the episode, if you've been listening to this show for a while and you've been nodding along but then feeling stuck and making these ideas part of your reality, well, I made something for you. It's a workbook based on the most popular episodes of the show, with simple practices and reflection questions so that you can apply this stuff to your life. Just head to libbysinback.com workbook and grab your copy.
