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Is Monogamy the Problem? Or is it Monotony?

Summary

In this episode, Dr. Emma explores the difference between a conscious, chosen monogamous relationship and one that has quietly slipped into routine, predictability, and emotional distance. Rather than debating relationship structures, she invites listeners into a deeper question: What are we actually creating inside the relationship container we’ve chosen?

Drawing from existential philosophy, modern relationship science, and her clinical work with long-term couples, Dr. Emma explains how desire doesn’t usually disappear because of betrayal or catastrophe. More often, it fades through routines, exhaustion, and the gradual loss of curiosity.

The episode introduces a practical, research-informed tool—the Preferred Scenario Exercise—to help couples move from default sexual scripts to conscious, collaborative experiences rooted in each partner’s authentic preferences.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• Why monogamy is best understood as a container for meaning
• How monotony—not monogamy—quietly suffocates desire
• The role of curiosity in sustaining long-term intimacy
• How cultural expectations, history, and longevity have reshaped modern relationships
• Why the opposite of passion isn’t conflict—it’s disinterest
• How couples drift into predictable sexual scripts
• The surprising power of starting with sexual curiosity to revive connection elsewhere
• A step-by-step explanation of the Preferred Scenario Exercise (get yours here)
• A real-life style example of how one couple used the exercise to rekindle curiosity

The Core Idea

Desire doesn’t vanish because love is gone.
It fades when curiosity disappears.

Healthy long-term relationships aren’t built on perfect encounters. They’re built on the willingness to stay interested, stay open, and keep choosing each other as evolving individuals.

The Preferred Scenario Exercise

Each partner privately reflects on their answers to five questions:

1. When am I most open to being sexual?
2. What kind of atmosphere feels best to me?
3. How do I want the experience to begin?
4. What kind of flow or pacing do I prefer?
5. How would I like the experience to end?

Partners then share their scenarios and take turns bringing each one to life—approaching intimacy as a collaborative, evolving experience rather than a fixed script.

Get a downloadable version of this exercise FREE on my Substack: The Intimate Philosopher: Things Left Unsaid

Reflection Questions

• When was the last time I told my partner what truly invites me into pleasure?
• Are we choosing each other consciously, or living on default settings?
• When did curiosity start to fade in our relationship?
• If my intimate life weren’t based on habit, what would it look like?
• When was the last time I told my partner what truly invites me into pleasure?

Closing Thought

Love was never meant to be a fixed script.
It is a living practice—
a series of conscious choices made in the presence of another human being.

And the real question isn’t whether your relationship structure is “right.”
It’s whether you’re being real inside the container you’re building together.

Chapters

00:00 Exploring Relationship Structures

03:01 The Paradoxes of Commitment and Freedom

06:03 Monogamy vs. Monotony

08:50 Curiosity as the Antidote to Monotony

11:46 The Role of Effort in Relationships

15:18 Breaking the Monotony Phase

18:12 Preferred Sexual Scenarios

21:00 Understanding Default Sexual Scripts

24:01 The Importance of Communication in Intimacy

26:56 Case Study: Maya and Daniel

30:13 Refining Preferences for a Healthy Sexual Relationship

33:01 Conscious Choices in Love

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The Receipts

If you love when things get EXTRA nerdy, this section of the show notes is for you!

The ideas explored in this episode are grounded in contemporary relationship science, sex therapy literature, and sociological research on long-term intimacy. While the conversation is meant to be accessible and reflective, the themes of desire, boredom, relationship structure, and modern expectations for partnership are supported by peer-reviewed studies and established clinical frameworks. The following sources provide scholarly context for the episode’s core claims about monogamy, monotony, sexual scripts, and the role of curiosity in sustaining desire over time.

While I do interpret the data through my own clinical training, lived experiences, and philosophical lens, I aim to provide clear foundations for those interpretations. All links were checked and verified at the time of recording, and you’re always welcome to explore the original sources directly.

de Oliveira, L., Štulhofer, A., Tafro, A., Carvalho, J., & Nobre, P. (2023). Sexual boredom and sexual desire in long-term relationships: a latent profile analysis. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 20(1), 14–21. https://doi.org/10.1093/jsxmed/qdac018

Finkel, E.J., Hui, C. M., Carswell, K. L., Larson, G. M. (2014). The Suffocation of Marriage: Climbing Mount Maslow without Enough Oxygen. Psychological Inquiry, 25, 1-41. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2014.863723

McCarthy, B. (2015). Sex made simple: Clinical strategies for sexual issues in therapy. PESI Publishing Media. 

Sheff, E. (2020). Non-monogamy and the new monogamy. In The Routledge Handbook of the Sociology of Sex and Sexualities.

Sheff, E. (2014). The Polyamorists Next Door. Rowman & Littlefield.

Stang, P., Weiss, M., Jainta, S., & Krauss, S. (2025). Sexuality and Boredom. American Journal of Science Education Research: AJSER-241 https://www.cmjpublishers.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/sexuality-and-boredom.pdf

van Greevenbroek, R., Patel, D., Singh, A., (2023). “Like a candy shop with forbidden fruits”: Exploring sexual desire of cohabitating millennial couples with technology. In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1842–1860. https://doi.org/10.1145/3563657.3596080

Xiberras, Reb. (2023). The exploration of sexual desire in long-term diverse couples. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369385620_The_exploration_of_sexual_desire_in_long-term_diverse_couples