330 - Identity in Relationships
Identity and individuality
For a lot of us, especially in the United States, a lot of our identity is determined by what we do and what our jobs are, and it’s possible that sometimes our identities get a bit lost when we’re dating others or even that our identities hinge on the failure or success of a relationship.
Erik Erikson, an ego psychologist with a number of theories on identity development, created the Eight Stages of Psychosocial Development, and defined identity as:
“A fundamental organizing principle which develops constantly throughout the lifespan.”
Erik Erikson, ego psychologist
Erikson posited that one’s identity is made up of a multitude of things, most of which occur when that person is moving from adolescence to adulthood (stage 5 of his scale of psychosocial development). These aspects of one’s identity include:
Relationship to others.
Many experiences.
Beliefs.
Values.
Memories.
In regards to our relationships, Erikson theorized that inadequate development of sense of self in stage 5 could affect the relationships one forms in the next stage, which is Intimacy & Isolation. This stage is meant for one to successfully cultivate meaningful relationships with others. If unsuccessful, weaker relationships are formed and the individual feels isolated and alone.
Identity and relationships
Our relationships with others always impact our identities and our sense of self. There are several studies and papers that have been conducted regarding this topic, and some of the findings have suggested:
There are two ways relationships change our sense of self:
Your concept can expand so that you develop new personal traits or make the traits that you already have more noticeable. On the other hand, it can also shrink your sense of self. It may also even suppress some traits that your partner might not like about you.
Your perception of positive or negative changes can change. Even if a negative event in a relationship occurs, it can still bring about a positive self change or vice versa.
Additionally, there are four types of self-concept changes that can happen when our lives become more entwined with someone’s:
Self-expansion: New and positive information is added to our concept of self. This might happen when we begin incorporating aspects of our partner’s personalities into our own through novel experiences and exciting activities.
Self-contraction: Our positive self-concept starts to get lost. Perhaps a partner does not share an interest with us so that interest starts to fade over time and eventually is gone altogether.
Self-pruning: Loss or suppression of the negative traits of our self-concept. This actually improves our own concept of self because we are reducing the traits we see as negative. For example, our partners may help us eat more healthily, engage in fun and new activities or help us shed an unhealthy habit.
Self-adulteration: Adding negative traits to our self-concept. This can happen due to criticism coming from a partner, feelings of resentment or anger over a long period of time, etc.
Transcript
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Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory podcast, we're talking about identity and how relationships can affect our identities in many different ways. Sometimes relationships strengthen your personal identity and enhance the best parts of you, while other relationships may cause you to feel as though you're losing your identity. We're going to talk about some of the research surrounding identity, ways that relationships all through one's identity, and some actionable tools to help you retain your identity when you are entangled with one or multiple people.
Emily: This is a big discussed, very briefly. It encompassed last week's episode, but it was entwined in your episode, Jase, on external and internal validation, but I was interested in doing an episode on identity specifically because I felt like when I was a kid and when I was a young person in relationships, and even into my 20s a bit, that my identity got lost in the relationship to a degree.
I don't know if this is something that you too felt, and I've heard other people that are non-monogamous and some people that are monogamous just saying, "My identity is really intertwined with those, with whom I in relationships." I was interested in that idea and wondered if there were ways to better retain your identity, or if that's the thing that we should even be worrying about. That was a catalyst and a jumping-off point for this episode.
Dedeker: For me, in my experience, I definitely felt a shift for myself when I shifted out of using my partner or partners as markers of my identity, and it shifted along with a lot of things, it corresponded with a shift toward a, first of all, just developing my own identity and doing more interesting stuff that I loved, and not being very not being as passive, be shifting away from hierarchy as much, see, doing less like posting on social media of myself and my partners.
I don't know. It's interesting if I look back on that, that there is definitely a number of things that I don't know what the correlation or causation directions are there necessarily, but I don't know if for me, it was tied to non-monogamy. I think it was tied to some other things going on in my life.
Jase: It's funny because I think about it and I think in some ways I've had relationships where that's happened, where I've-- Especially if someone had a really strong identity in a certain way that I would get pulled into that, and in some cases afterward, it's like almost like walking out of a fog, it's this like, "Gosh, where have I been in the last year?" Or whatever it was.
Then other times I feel like I've come out of it with a new attribute, one that I've kept and have liked. It's interesting to look at that in itself, adapting parts of someone else's identity or just their interests or things like that, isn't necessarily bad but it could be. I don't know. It's an interesting thing to think about.
Emily: I've definitely met those people who are such a we in their relationship. The relationship really is their identity and the family and all of those things, and maybe that's, again, tied to values to a degree, but that their success or failure as a human being is intrinsically tied to the relationship. I just wondered like, is that okay? Is that a good thing? I guess if someone once that in their life, then sure, that's great for them. It's an interesting thing that I think a lot of non-monogamous people perhaps don't really feel that way.
Jase: I think also looking at couples who do a lot of that, we talk of like-- Especially when it's a we about an opinion about something where it's like, "We both really love this thing", or, "We both-- We", whatever. Sometimes that's true and maybe that's what brought them together or why they stayed together because we've found that we really have this common love of a thing, but sometimes it's a little more one person than the other, and those lines get blurred of who was really the one who brought this part of that identity to the relationship.
Let's start out by defining identity. Erik Erikson-- I can't get over this name. Erik Erikson, who was an ego psychologist and who created the eight stages of psychosocial development. I did a rainbow gesture with my hand just there, like bump, bump, bump. The eight stages of psychosocial development, defined identity as, "A fundamental organizing principle, which develops constantly throughout the lifespan." That piece is important there. We will continue to talk about him and his theories on identity development throughout the episode.
Dedeker: Of course, that begs the question, how do we determine individual identity? What is the self? That age-old question, is it just a feeling that we have? Is it tied to a specific declaration of oneself? Does it need to be neatly packaged up underneath a particular label? Is it attached to particular behaviors or actions that we do? Or is it something that is just plain difficult to put into words?
Does it change depending on your culture? For instance, in the US, much of our identity is determined by what we do and what our jobs are, which is different in other cultures.
Emily: How the two of you determined your identities, or if someone were to say, "Who are you, Jase and Decker?" What would you say about your identity? What would that look like? I wrote down some things that I thought that it might sound like, but I wonder how close I am.
Dedeker: Like you wrote scripts for us?
Emily: No, no, no. But by all means, say something different than what I wrote down, but I was just trying to come up with what I thought your identities were. Like mine, "I'm Emily, I'm an actor, a podcast host, and an ethical vegan." Those are three things that are really important to me. That's all who I am and what I do. Again, in the US that is tied to what your occupation is to a degree. Dedeker, how would you identify yourself?
Dedeker: It's a weird time for you to ask me that because I'm reading another book by Pema Chödrön who's a Buddhist nun and who posed this question of herself of like, "If I stripped away, everything people thought about me and stripped away this notion that people have of me being this spiritual leader or this author, or this famous person, or even stripped away this identity as a nun, then who am I? What am I?"
I've been doing a lot of morning meditation about that, of, "If I strip away all the things that I do and my relationships, or the places that I go, or the foods that I eat, or the hobbies that I have, then who am I?" There's not much there, but that's actually quite comforting to me right now. I'm sorry, you caught me on a day where I'm much more open to being like, "No identity whatsoever", and that's wonderful.
Jase: I haven't been reading that book recently or ever. Mine would be pretty similar to what you said, Emily, in terms of it would largely be related to what I do. It'd be like, "I'm Jase, I'm a podcaster, and a programmer for a visual effects company." Maybe I'd say, "I'm polyamorous", or something.
I might not lead with that though. It depends if I also wanted to maybe date this person, I think, that kind of defense. Or what kind of conversation I wanted to have, even if I didn't want to date them. I think when you're introducing yourself, that's part of the question of whatever I say in introducing myself as also what I'm putting out there as potential conversation topics.
Emily: It's a good plan. Dedeker would just--
Jase: I'd say my identity- right.
Emily: Yes, your identity helps you get into conversation with these people that you may or may not want to date.
Jase: What Dedeker is just saying, "Fuck off, I don't want to talk to you about anything".
Dedeker: Basically, yes. That's very me. Just like, "Don't ask me these questions".
Emily: I said that you were an author-
Jase: If you don't know who I am
Emily: Maybe they should know. But yes, that you're an author and help people communicate-
Dedeker: Realistically, if I'm at a party, it's the same response as Jase's, for you just rattle off a list of your jobs. That's the polite thing to do. Then people take that was a cue to either ask questions or not, or find points in common and then we roll along from there. Yes, I don't know. I guess I lead with telling people that I'm a relationship coach. Then it's the slow drip of information of seeing how much they can tolerate as far as things like non-monogamy and positive sexuality and things like that. We don't always get that far.
Emily: Well, that's good.
Jase: One of the stages of Erik Erikson's stages of psychosocial development is the identity versus role confusion stage which occurs during adolescents. The major event at this stage is the development of what he calls ego identity, which one article explained it as the conscious sense of self that we develop through social interaction which is constantly changing due to new experiences and information we acquire in our daily interactions with others.
Emily: I found that to be really interesting because right away it's our identity based off of our interactions with other people, not like the intrinsic internal identity about how we feel about ourselves but rather, again, the external validation or feedback that we're getting from other people that shapes our identity and who we become.
Jase: It's like the stuff we talked about last week about the looking glass self of this is how we develop our sense of who we are as an individual based on how we compare to others, and also how we contrast with them. Like that's how I know who I am because of how I'm different and similar to you.
Emily: Totally.
Dedeker: Erikson believed that, of course, there's a lot of different things that influence a person's individual identity and much of these things occur or are crystallized when we're moving specifically from adolescence to adulthood. That includes things like a person's relationship to others and how those go just a person's experiences day to day, a person's beliefs, a person's values, which we learned from the values episode can be heavily influenced by your parents and your family of origin could also be influenced by your memories. Perhaps memories from your childhood, your family, past traumas, et cetera.
Emily: Stages of psychosocial development is called identity versus role confusion. When an individual has a strong idea of their own personal identity, it does create a sense of self that helps an individual interact with the world in various ways. Again, this article from verywellmind.com which talked a lot about Erikson's theory, it states that identity provides the following.
First self-sameness, a sense of continuity within the self and in interaction with others, also uniqueness, on the opposite end of that. A frame to differentiate between self and interaction with others, and then psychosocial development, which are mental and physical health for adolescents. All of these things, as Dedeker said, are crystallizing during this phase, which is really interesting.
Dedeker: It's really interesting that it speaks to both sides of that same coin of identity providing both the sense that I can gel with the people around me, but I'm also unique at the same time. Let's talk a little bit about the other side of that, the role confusion. The other side of this particular stage of psychological development. When we're teenagers identity usually comes from exploration of the self, our ability to try on many different types of identities. Of course, we see that a lot with younger kids, we've all been through it ourselves. We all went through various phases. I'm sure. I know I certainly did.
Emily: Like I had a horse phase, a figure skating phase.
Dedeker: The figure skating phase is still a phase. It's still a
Emily: That’s true, well it waxed and waned, but yes, that absolutely also is a part of my identity. I had an acting phase that never left, sort of thing.
Jase: If it counts as a phase then if it doesn't go away?
Emily: Maybe not. It just was a solidification of an identity.
Dedeker: What about you, Jase?
Jase: I also had a calligraphy phase.
Emily: Really? Pretty, I like that.
Jase: Anytime we would have holiday dinners for several years, my mom would have to write all the place cards to put around the table for the grandparents and whoever.
Emily: It's adorable.
Jase: Yes. I don't know. The ones that I remember now are the ones that stuck around, and so I don't know if I would call them a phase, like music.
Emily: Yes. You're a music- Exactly.
Jase: That wasn't a phase, that's something I kept doing.
Dedeker: Hold on. Here's maybe-- If this is a little bit too vulnerable for the podcast, you don't have to disclose this but if you think back to some of your earliest email addresses and earliest internet handles, what is that-? You don't have to tell us what they are. I don't want to share mine.
Emily: Also, do you know what mine was?
Dedeker: Does that tell you anything about the phases that you were going through at that time, and what identities you were trying on?
Emily: I thought mine was so fricking cool. Mine was anactorsnightmare13@aol.com.
Jase: Wow.
Dedeker: Wow.
Emily: Like the play Actor's Nightmare. Like I am an actor's nightmare because I'm going to take your role from you someday. Then I really liked the number 13. Freaking ridiculous asinine person. I definitely had a lot of fun with that one.
Dedeker: How old were you when you land on that one?
Emily: I think I was like 12, 13, which also hence the number.
Dedeker: Cool.
Emily: Also I had my license plate for many years was actress. With the c.
Jase: What about you, Jase?
Jase: It was still on theme with something that's not just a phase, but maybe the way of expressing it was the phase for half. Perhaps.
Emily: There you go. Like really out there people.
Jase: Similarly, my LiveJournal, my name was Jasethebass because I was a bass player.
Emily: Cute.
Dedeker: That's cute.
Jase: Also, my first website that I ever made on GeoCities when I was 12 or whatever, was all about a character of mine from a tabletop role-playing game. It's all about his world and stuff like that.
Dedeker: Didn't your brother shared that he had an email address that-- I forget what the full handle was but it was something rouge? It was because he was meeting to spell road.
Jase: Right. He misspelled it, then he just kept it for a long time. Yes.
Dedeker: All my early handles were often tied to the media that I was super into back then.
Jase: Like.
Dedeker: Very nerdy stuff, anime-inspired stuff, or like Star Wars stuff, or stuff like that. I guess some of that hasn't changed but I was trying on some of that much more otaku-ish, much more nerdy role when I was preteen through teenager. That's fascinating. That's stuff that I'm always curious to hear about from people. We go through this phase of many phases of trying on all these different hats, trying all these different ways of being.
However, people who can't or for some reason are unable to explore adequately in order to develop that strong sense of self, they will develop what Erikson called, "Role confusion", which is general disorientation with respect to who you are in your place or your direction in life.
This really echoes for me stuff that I've heard and can very much relate to of a lot of queer kids who never really got to explore, specifically their queer identities or their queer versions of their identities when they were younger, which can lead to a lot of, I think, really wonderful journeys later on but also sometimes a lot of disorientation and confusion as well, missing out on this really important part of one's childhood and adolescence.
Emily: My cousin, his kids are exploring their gender identity and sexuality, and getting to really truly explore that in a way that I have never personally seen young children get to do, and it's really awesome. I feel like they're going to grow up in such a way that there'll be able to fully express themselves very soon in life. That's something that, for myself, I had never felt specifically like I was able to do that until much later in life. That's really awesome.
Jase: Then after this phase of the role confusion and creating this sense of self, we move into the next of Erikson's stages of psychosocial development, and that's when we're developing our intimacy versus isolation. This stage takes place now in early adulthood. We've gone through our adolescent phase of phases and now we're from 19 to 40.
Dedeker: Wide range.
Jase: He identifies -it's pretty big- the early adulthood is going pretty far. We're all still in it. He says that success during this stage will result in a person cultivating meaningful, loving relationships with other people or conversely to be left with weaker relationships and more feelings of isolation or loneliness. Erikson argued that developing a strong sense of self in that previous stage could have an impact on the types of relationships one forms, as well as the health and the durability of those connections.
Dedeker: Something to remember is that, again, this is all just a psychosocial theory but, of course, there are interesting things that we can still take from it in terms of learning about ourselves, learning about the ways in which we relate to ourselves and to others. Of course, it's another reminder that it's good to allow our children or the young people around us to explore different sides of themselves to help them cultivate their individual identity.
Also, if we ourselves were not able to explore our identities or experiment with our identities as much as we would have liked to when we were children, we shouldn't take this information like it's set in stone. It's a death sentence, there's no going back and there's no fixing it because the ship has sailed. Actually, there's an article written by Gabriel Orenstein and
Lindsay Lewis that was published by the National Center for Biotechnical Information, and they're commenting on Erikson's stages of psychosocial development and I'm going to quote from this article.
They say, "The sequential layout of Erickson stages of psychosocial development might initially suggest that stage outcomes become fixed once the next stage is engaged. While there is a fixed sequence, resolution can be a lifelong process reactivated at various times, depending on life events that affect the ego strength or mal developed belief patterns, thus the developmental stages and formation of identity is an ever-evolving process as opposed to a rigid concrete system." To sum that all up, it just means that our identities shift and change over time, they're dynamic, they're ever-evolving. We're never static or fixed or stuck in any one way in our identity.
Jase: I would imagine that a lot of people who are later in life than you are, or than we are, would tell you like, "Yes, I've been still a lot of different people during my life." There's the classic story of the couple who's been married for 50 years or whatever and you ask, "What's that like?" The answer is, "Oh, I've actually been married to 10 different people. They all happen to have the same name and live in the same body, but they all were very different people over the course of our life together." I think that's true of ourselves, too.
Dedeker: We're going to take a quick break. We're going to be moving along to talk about how relationships affect our identities in both positive and negative ways. We're going to be talking about specifically how non-monogamy comes into play with all of this but first, we're going to let you know about our sponsors for this week's episode and ways that you can support the show so that we can keep it coming for free.
Emily: Alrighty, welcome back everyone. How do relationships affect our identity both in positive ways and in negative ways? Because regardless of how strong our sense of self or sense of identity is and how much we feel, all of those things are very intact, we still are going to be effected by the relationships that we have with other people, regardless of whether or not those are romantic relationships or familial relationships, friendships, just the person that you talk to on the side of the road. It's still going to affect you. Maybe not that one so much, but the intense relationships absolutely.
A 2014 paper by Brent Mattingly, Gary Lewandowski, and Kevin McIntyre, which is titled, "You make me a better/worse person”: A two-dimensional model of relationship. self-change. Amazing.
Dedeker: What a mouthful.
Jase: I read that initially, as you make me a better/worser person. Worser person than a worse person.
Dedeker: Even worser.
Jase: Yes.
Emily: Yes, even worser. No. It argues that there are two ways, relationships change our concept of self. The first way is the size of your concept can change. It can either expand so that you develop new personality traits and make those traits that you already have more noticeable or conversely, it can trick your sense of self. It might also suppress some traits that your partner might not like about you.
This is more talking about those romantic relationships. If you are living with a partner, or if you have someone that you're very romantically or, whatever entwined with, then you may either suppress or enlarge your sense of self. Then the second one is the valence of your self-concept can be altered as well, which this means the perception of positive or negative changes occur.
Even if a negative event in a relationship occurs, it can still bring about a positive self-change or vice versa. Maybe like you had a really rough time with a partner, but then out of that comes like, "Okay, I no longer smoke", or something like that. A positive thing might occur even out of a negative event or vice versa.
Dedeker: Do you think that would apply to having just a really bad breakup or just a bad relationship in general, and as the result of that, you experience really nice post-traumatic self-growth or positive changes within yourself as the result of leaving or getting through that bad relationship? Do you think that falls into this umbrella?
Emily: I think absolutely. Yes. It's interesting because this says you make me a better or worse person, but it doesn't necessarily discuss staying within the relationship because our relationships are going to change this whether or not we're in them or leave them. For better or for worse, potentially.
Jase: Yes. They could affect you in both cases but differently. Well, Brent, Gary, and Kevin, you got something to write about in your next paper. In addition to that, there are four types of self-concept changes that happen when we get closer to our partners and our lives get more intertwined. A lot of this comes from an article in psychology today called Ways Our Relationships Change Who We Are. That's right there on the cover.
Of these four things, the first one is self-expansion. That's, "New and positive information is added to our concept of self", like the size of your concept that Emily talked about before from that other paper, this idea that your sense of self could expand. This might happen when we begin incorporating aspects of our partner's personality into our own or through novel experiences and exciting activities. Just today. My mom and I went through a Taco Bell drive-through earlier.
Dedeker: Where're you going with this?
Jase: We had to go to the bank and we went to there's taco bell drive through, and I got the hottest of the hot sauces to put on mine. She commented at one point and she was just like," It's so funny to me that you ended up really liking spicy things." No one else in my family really does. I certainly didn't when I was younger, and I thought about, and I was like, "It's when I was with one particular partner who really likes spicy stuff that I learned to like it and I still love it since then." I was like, "Ha, that's an example of this self-expansion".
Dedeker: Well, this reminds me what a lot of people report when they finally experienced some healthy form of non-monogamy, but for them it is this very big expansive experience of like, "Whoa, first of all, just the novel experience of maybe if this is your situation, maybe being in a longer-term relationship and dating at the same time and seeing the different parts of yourself that come out there", or the experience of just being in relationship with multiple people and seeing the different aspects of yourself that get highlighted in different areas that the self-expansion thing feels like it really rings true for a lot of non-monogamous folk.
Emily: Totally.
Jase: The second one is self-contraction. Our positive self-concept starts to get lost. Perhaps the partner doesn't share an interest that we have, so that interest starts to fade. I could argue maybe also if you're just constantly doing their interests and not your own also could be a way. Maybe it's not because they don't like it, but just you let them dominate what you ended up doing and you just lose that part of yourself. That's the other side of that size of concept that was in that, "You make me a better/worse person" article from me before.
The third one is self-pruning, which is lost or suppression of the negative traits of our self-concept. This actually improves our own self-concept by reducing, by getting rid of the things that we see as negative. Maybe in a particular relationship, we learn more about how to eat healthily or to learn how to engage in more productive activities and let go of some of the more destructive or addictive behaviors we had before, or kicking an unhealthy habit, like maybe quitting smoking because your partner hates it or something like that.
There's the self-expansion, which is increasing positive, self-contraction, which is losing some of the positive traits, self-pruning, which is losing negative traits and then lastly, self-adulteration, which is adding negative traits to our self-concept. This can happen due to criticism coming from a partner, feelings of anger or resentment in a relationship that might lead us to pick up more negative traits. As a callback to last week, maybe in our trying to cope with those things, we develop some negative antisocial traits as a way of defending ourself against external criticism, things like that. Or maybe you start smoking because you date someone who does.
Emily: God. I have seen that one happen before.
Dedeker: The same authors also conducted two studies that looked at connections between a change in self and relationship satisfaction. Their paper, which is titled When We Changes Me, The Two-Dimensional Model of Relational Self-Change and Relationship Outcomes. There were some really interesting findings.
Jase: Two-dimensional. They love two-dimensional things.
Emily: Well, they love the quippy opening colon and then
Dedeker: Yes, is hot.
Emily: What the actual paper is. Very, very hot.
Dedeker: In their first study they looked at 55 adults in romantic relationships. Relatively smallish sample size, 69% of them were married.
Jase: Nice.
Dedeker: Nice. The participants completed questionnaires that asked questions about their concept of self and their relationship. They took these questionnaires at two points in time, six weeks in between. Basically, they found that scoring higher in self-expansion and self-pruning in the first survey was associated with a greater-
Emily: Those are like the positive things that we just talked about before.
Dedeker: My size of concept expands and I'm pruning out bad habits or bad behaviors. The people who reported that in the first survey, that was associated with greater relationship satisfaction when they took the survey again, six weeks later. Then, scoring higher in the self-contraction and self-adulteration. The size of your self-concept shrinks or you're taking on more negative facets to your identity, and essentially having a negative concept of self on the first survey was associated with less relationship satisfaction six weeks later. They found similar results occurred when they asked people about relationship commitment as well.
They came to the conclusion that this suggests that the concept of self changes over time, and one's relationship will continue to impact one sense of self over a long period of time. Then in their second study, they did that with 147 adults in relationships. 76% were in what they labeled as an exclusive relationship. We're assuming that means monogamy, and same thing they completed a one-time survey about their concept of self and the relationship that they were in. It was the same thing, that those who scored high in self-expansion and self-pruning and low in self-contraction and self-adulteration had more positive relationships. They were less likely to end the relationship, they wanted to compromise and accommodate their partner's needs, and they're also very committed to the relationship.
Both of these studies essentially show that if your relationship positively impacts your sense of self, then how you feel about the relationship will also be positively affected. You're also going to be more likely to treat your partner better and want to continue to cultivate and maintain the relationship. I think this speaks to-- I don't know, I feel like I always toss out this very sometimes trite aphorism about relationships being about us trying to lift each other up and help make each other into better human beings, but it seems like there's something to that that holds water as far as if we feel like our relationship is helping us to become better people and make our identity closer to something that we want to be, we're going to be happier with the relationship.
Jase: Science.
Emily: Great. Absolutely.
Jase: Next time you whip out that effort, Dedeker, you pause for a moment, then you go, "It's science." Then people will be like, "Oh, yeah, I guess I should take it serious".
Dedeker: I'll whip that out with my clients. It will go over great.
Jase: It's science.
Emily: I'm sure. Something that we're going to talk a little bit more about in the bonus episode is this concept called human givers syndrome, which is essentially the fact that women and people with marginalized identities are more likely to be givers in relationships versus takers in relationships. Those in more privileged positions, men and people with more privileged identities are going to be more takers. We'll get more into that into the bonus episode, but basically, those who are the human givers are more in a support role than their privileged partners, and those privileged partners are essentially more likely to take up space, feel emboldened to achieve their goals.
They'll expect a very much giver role from their partners that they are there to support them and to lift them up in various ways. This is just something I wanted to throw out there because if you are in a privileged position, in a variety of ways in your own personal identity, then definitely maybe take a look at this in your own relationship and work towards minimizing oppression and patriarchy and all of that stuff in your own relationships.
Dedeker: That seems to suggest that also the identity that you already have before entering the relationship can also influence the role that you end up taking on in the relationship,
Emily: In the relationship, absolutely. Something to be aware of even before we cultivate our own identity, we simply have an identity by being who we are when we come out of the womb.
Jase: It also makes me think about, from last week when we were talking about one of the ways of coping with a fear of abandonment or not being loved is to become a people pleaser. I think this one is interesting to look at it in this concept then of if you're minimizing yourself and getting rid of positive traits and not expressing yourself for the sake of your partner, that not only is that you're just losing your sense of self, but also according to this research, being less likely to be happy in the relationship and less likely to stay in it. Even though you might think you're doing it to serve this relationship, it might actually not be. It might actually be eating to its downfall.
Similar to what Emily was saying is to be aware if you are on the other side of that, not only might your partner not be aware that they're having that tendency, but you're also probably not aware of, like Emily said, how much space you take up or how much more dominant your preferences might be, but to you that might just seem like, "Oh, if my partner is just going along with this, they must just like these things too or they must want that." To be aware of that and have more intentional conversations and be more aware of trying to make that more equal, because again, that will help the satisfaction of your relationship and potentially help it to last.
Emily: Relationships can cause a person to lose themselves, but on the flip side, they can cause lasting and healthy change in a person's identity and on their life. I was super curious as well to explore whether or not non-monogamy would allow an individual to maintain their personal identity more than if they were in a monogamous relationship. I didn't know if there was anything out there regarding this. We looked some stuff up, but before we get to that, I have a question for the two of you. Do you feel as though you'd have been able to maintain your personal identity more now that you're engaged in polyamory than when you were in monogamous relationships?
Jase: Overall, I would say yes. I think it's varied by relationship, but overall I would say the trend would be yes.
Dedeker: For some reason, the question that comes to mind for me is at any point in time, if I were to go on a first date, if I was going to go into the dating market and market myself as an interesting, cool, fun person, do I feel like I have my own personal identity? Then yes, I would say so. I would say so. I don't know, but then again, I don't know. I think a lot about people in much more traditional heterosexual monogamous relationships where I think that sometimes we lose a sense of needing to necessarily be interesting, I guess, if that makes sense.
Jae: Once we are in the relationship.
Dedeker: Yes. Of needing to pursue our own hobbies, our own interests, or even our own friendships or our own support systems outside of the relationship. I think that those are things that when we lose those things, those do start to foster sometimes a lost sense of identity. I can at least appreciate that in my experience in non-monogamous relationships, it feels a little bit easier to grasp those things, to grasp doing my own thing or having my own friends, having other partners, having other support networks.
Do I think that it's only polyamory that's led to that? Not necessarily, but I think that, like we were saying earlier, I do think that there's a certain subset of non-monogamous values, like, let's say, independence and autonomy that I think fosters and encourages people to not just get stuck in the couple identity.
Emily: Well, we're about to talk about that with some research.
Dedeker: We couldn't find any empirical studies on the maintenance of independence within non-monogamous relationships or the maintenance of identity independence, but we did find an academic paper called Investigation of Consensually Non-Monogamous Relationships. Theories, Methods, and New Directions. This was done by TerrI Conley, Jes Matsick, Amy Moors, and Ali Ziegler. The papers suggested that personal independence and fulfillment of personal needs distinguishes polyamorous relationships from monogamous ones, but they also clarify that this needs further research.
This is back in 2017. They cite clinical psychologist and author Deborah Anapol, and she says, "Polyamorous relationships tend to put more emphasis on allowing for individual autonomy and, if it's important to you to maintain a sense of yourself as an individual, in addition to any group or couple identity you might adopt, polyamory could be right for you".
Jase: I think that that does seem to track with what we've experienced ourselves. I feel like I have seen that in other people as well. I think, especially if you are someone who tends to let your identity get subsumed by your partner, that maybe especially in that case, that it just helps open that up and keeps you thinking a little bit more about how interesting you are and what you're doing yourself as well, instead of just how you relate to that one person. We also have an article called Monogamy, Non-monogamy, and Identity by Christine Overall. This was from the journal Hypatia, which is a peer-reviewed feminist philosophy journal that was started in the '80s. First, a quick caveat, this is an older piece and it feels like an older piece when you read it. Even though it's in a peer-reviewed feminist philosophy journal, it's still super heteronormative. Even though it talks about lesbian relationships, it still relies very heavily on male, female, gender binary as a conceptual framework that everything's based on top of.
Even though the article is very gendered, it does still provide a useful starting point to talk about how our understanding of sex is gendered and how that intern can influence our experience of monogamy and non-monogamy. It examines the construction of the female self in Western society and argues that this self is largely constructed in relation to its sexual partners, unlike the male self, which is built and identified around itself rather than just in relation to the sexual partners. This is largely the result of patriarchy. Emily started touching on this earlier when she was talking about the human giver's syndrome. It very much seems related to that.
Emily: A quote from the article is women, "I suggest are generally expected to incorporate the sexual partner into their own identity, the social construction of women to encompass those with whom they are sexual is reinforced for heterosexual women by the definition of the heterosexual couple as the building block of the culture." The author is examining the influence of monogamous and non-monogamous pairings. They argue essentially that this way of sexual relating so that if you get trapped and sucked into your partner's identity, simply because they are your sexual partner, they're the person that you're in twined with because women are socialized to do this and expand their sense of self just to incorporate the person that they're matched with, that this is bad for women, this is bad for people in general. It can create emotional turmoil for the monogamous female partner.
But this author essentially says that the solution is not to adopt a more masculine or individualist sense of self because that can result in a loss of intimacy. Rather the solution overall seems to align pretty closely with things like relationship anarchy, which is just to focus on other people, focused on your friends, focus on building relationships outside of that one main sexual relationship that you may have, so include non-sexual relationships in your identity, make sure that they are equally intimate and critical to your sense of self.
Just invest in your friends and it's cool. This essentially provides a concrete solution to this construct of femininity in the west. We talk about non-monogamy in this way that it gives us more room to love and we can love just more than one person and we can consider things like non-sexual relationships and non-romantic love as part of the development of our sense of self. Even though she does it in this fairly gendered way, I appreciate the fact that she does get into talking about how important it is to invest in your friends and invest in those relationships that aren't just your romantic partner.
Dedeker: As we close here, let's talk about some actionable tools on how to actually maintain your identity in a relationship, whether that's a relationship with one person, or with multiple people, anything in between. We pulled some resources from an article entitled Five Ways to Ensure You Maintain Your Identity in a Relationship. That includes a lot of stuff that we've already covered in the episode. Things like continue to see the friends that you had before your relationship. This is so, so, so important. We've talked on the show so many times about losing friends, essentially once they're in a committed, exclusive relationship, or once they get married, that they just disappear and never to be heard from again.
It includes things like pursue the personal projects that define you, or that excite you. Focus on your own personal development, go ahead and take a weekend away without your significant other. This doesn't have to necessarily be a whole weekend away, but it could involve things like going to see a movie that you want to see by yourself or with your friends. If your significant other doesn't want to still making plans with your friends or with other partners. Even if, let's say, I think that it's easiest for people to lose their sense of identity often with a more traditional cohabiting or living partner, or living life partner, things like that. That's why things like other partners can be great for this as well.
Lastly, don't feel guilty about saying no, whether that's no to a hobby, no to a particular activity, no to something that your partner likes, but that you don't like. It's okay. Being able to say no is what helps you preserve your identity as well.
Jse: I think a part of that saying no, and this is just something that's been on my mind about some other people that I care about, some conversations I've been having is being able to say no because you don't want to. That's to just be like, "No, I'd rather not. You should totally do that, that sounds great. I just don't want to go watch that movie", or, "I don't want to go do that activity".
Versus the, "Well, okay. I heard I should say no to these things." It's like, "Oh no, I've got a lot of stuff to do", or, "Oh, I'm supposed to call stones or like having to come up with an excuse that I think part of the benefit of being able to say no and communicate that in a compassionate way to your partner, that it gives them practice learning how to accept your no as well. That it's also a way for them to get to understand you better and to have more of that compromise and give them the tools to help you not lose yourself as well. If they're not willing to support that, then we've got bigger things to look at in this relationship.
Dedeker: Ultimately, some of the tenants of something like solo polyamory can be a good example to follow in terms of maintaining your own identity in a relationship which, after all, that's really what solo polyamory tends to be at its core. It's maintaining the sense of autonomy, independence, and individuality while also having relationships with other people.
Jase: There's one more article we wanted to share that has some really cool tools and tips and things to help you identify your sense of self and how to keep that. These come from the same article we talked about earlier in the episode from very well mind and talks about how to strengthen your identity. Discusses four things to talk about. Number one is to identify your values. Guess what? Multiamory did an episode on this, it's 319. You should go check it out.
Emily: How long ago?
Jase: Not that long ago. Check out 319 if you haven't already to figure out what it is that moves you, what it is that drives you, what's important to you. This can help you maintain your identity and have conviction about your decisions, regardless of who else is shaping your life. It doesn't mean they can't shape it, but it gives you a better sense of where you're coming from in that. Part number two is spend time alone to get to know yourself better. This one is especially important if you live with a partner or if you just spend all of your free time with a loved one.
Just make sure to incorporate alone time into your week so that you can rest so that you can recharge focus on just getting to know yourself. Intentionally giving yourself a space to be a little bit bored with yourself, to then find the things that you want to do and find what matters to you and have that reset time where you're not making decisions about how you conduct yourself and what you do based on what you think someone else will think of that. Really just having that reset time with yourself so that you can bring your best self to your relationship as well, in addition to just helping you maintain your identity.
Emily: The next one is practice self-compassion. Just be gentle with yourself and understand that you, as we said before, are an ever-changing and ever-evolving human being. Challenges, hardships, things like that are going to occur. It's important that you offer yourself some love and some grace and do things like self-soothing techniques, self-care nights, meditation, yoga and masturbation, things like that. That's all great and that can help you strengthen your identity.
Then also become skilled at things you enjoy. Hobbies are fantastic. Go learn a new skill. Even if you're in a relationship, just take time to go out and practice your own hobbies that are separate from the hobbies of your partner. It's fun to do things together, but it's also really fun to cultivate new skills on your own, so you might find a new friend, meet a new person and to have something to talk about
Jase: To have something to share, exactly. If you do something separately, you have more stuff to talk about with your partner too. It's just really exciting.
Emily: It's a very good point. Absolutely. It's super important. This was our giant dive into a bunch of research on identity and some actionable tools, things like that. We hope that you got a lot out of this episode, and we're really curious to hear about you and your identities and how you identify yourself and how that's shaped yourself in your relationships. In the bonus, we are going to talk about the human giver syndrome like we spoke about before, and also the superwoman schema. Our call to action question, which will be on our Instagram stories today is, how do you maintain your personal identity in your relationships? We'd love to hear your answers to that.