372 - Needs, Desires, Boundaries, and More
Needs, desires, boundaries, etc. revisited
When we discuss what we do and do not want in a relationship or in life, we use a lot of different terms. The ones we’re discussing here are: Needs, Wants, Desires, Expectations, Standards, Boundaries, Rules, and Agreements.
These fit into some groupings for us to discuss but there is a lot of overlap and interplay between them.
Needs versus wants or desires
Needs
Fundamental needs, similar to boundaries, such as being physically safe, need to eat, breathe, sleep.
Many “needs” are not “needs” but wants.
By calling a want a “need,” we easily fall into manipulation/ultimatums OR we are not giving our partner a chance to meet our desires.
Focuses on bare minimum.
Wants/Desires
Owning your desires and believing you deserve them.
A good partnership is more than just meeting needs.
By owning our desires and giving our partner the chance to meet them, we give them more ways to show love and we get to appreciate it more.
If they don’t want to accommodate our wants, that doesn’t mean they are a bad person, but it might mean this isn’t a good relationship for us.
Boundaries versus expectations or standards
Boundaries
Often used in place of wants or needs.
Can stop a conversation or imply rigidity.
Should be a last line of defense or as a red-flag signal.
If boundaries are a common thing being violated, that is not a healthy relationship and you should leave.
Expectations/Standards
Certain standards of behavior that you expect from any partner (and yourself).
Someone not meeting this doesn’t mean they are bad or hurtful but just that they don’t meet your expectations.
Someone failing to meet an expectation could end up being ok and you can adjust your expectations, but it is also fine if that means this isn’t a relationship you want to put energy into. Example: My partner rarely asks how my day went and just talks about their own. This isn’t a boundary violation for me but it still sucks and doesn’t fit my expectations for how an intimate partner or friend behaves.
Rules versus agreements
Rules
Can be a self-rule but more often are limiting others.
A rule is focused on limiting behavior or requiring a behavior.
Often very rigid (or super wordy to include exceptions).
Generally need to have consequences (and sadly end up hurting both people much of the time).
Increase desire to do the restricted thing or feels stifling.
Agreements
Two people establishing mutual expectations for behavior.
Leaves some flexibility (at least that would be ideal).
Focus on the positive behaviors desired rather than limiting behaviors.
Focus on the result of following the agreement, rather than on consequences for failing.
To review
Our word choices can have subtle or significant effects on our thinking. They can affect how our requests are received by our partners and friends, and stronger wording is not always better. Focusing on word choice is not a magic cure, but a starting place to change your communication habits and thinking.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory podcast, we're talking about the often neglected differences between things like needs and wants and expectations and boundaries and rules and agreements and other terms that are often used somewhat interchangeably. Specifically, today we're going to be looking at the mental and emotional impact that those different words can have and how they can affect our thinking and our communication rather than getting caught up in just how do you define one or another or one is good and another's bad.
Instead, we're looking at more qualitatively, how do these words affect us? How can we use them more effectively? What are some places where we might consider switching which terms we use when we're thinking about or speaking about what we want in our relationships and what we don't want in our relationships?
Dedeker: A lot of these ideas that we're going to cover today, we've talked about in other episodes, but usually in a more focused context. We had an episode that was all about rules versus agreeance boundaries, or we were talking about boundaries versus values or talking about specifically standards, things like that, but when trying to tease apart the way that these terms themselves affect our communication, it became clear that it's really less about pinning down a particular definition for a term, it's more about understanding how using different terms and different definitions can change not only how we communicate, but also how we actually think.
Jase: To start off, we're just going to cover some science just because it's fun, just because we love it. There hasn't been research on the psychological effects of using the word boundary versus rule or whatever it is but there for a long time has been a field of research on how language affects cognition. How do the words we use and the words that we know affect how we think? This is a field that's continually changing and there's lots of interesting reading on the subject, but we're just going to lightly go over some stuff here. In early 1900 is when we got the real birth of this field and we got what is now known as the Sapir Whorf hypothesis also known as linguistic--
Dedeker: Oh, that classic one.
Jase: Also known as a linguistic relativity. This has mostly has fallen out of favor in more recent times, but basically, the strong version of the hypothesis that they developed. This is first half of the 20th century, like the 1920s or something like that. Basically, they believed that language directly determines thought. If we have words for things, we can think about those things and if we don't, we can't. This is where we get things like-- This still floats around sometimes, but there's this thing of like, oh, there's this particular tribe that doesn't have a word for time and they don't have any tenses in their language, they don't experience time like the rest of us do.
This is not true and actually, a pretty racist thing to think and that's the Hopi tribe for those who are wondering. Basically, they don't have a direct translation for the concept of time or the word time and they don't have tense in their language. Everything's as if it were the present tense, but it's not just the present tense, it's all tenses. There are other languages with variations on this like Japanese has a past tense, but no future tense, there's just a present / future.
Other languages have similar, we have tense or another or fewer or more than others, but the idea that the person then can't experience or conceptualize that thin because they don't have a word has just been shown to not be true. Basically, the simplest version of the argument is, well, if we couldn't conceptualize the thing, how would we have come up with the word in the first place? It doesn't make sense, but that has given way over time to a modified softer version of that hypothesis in the way language affects us.
Emily: Basically, people think that language does affect how we think, but it doesn't put hard limits on what we think or directly cause us to think a certain thing. There's a growing body of research showing empirical evidence for that connection between language and our thought processes, though it's challenging to isolate because it's really hard to differentiate what comes from language and what comes from other cultural factors. That makes a lot of sense. I'm sure that we, in our culture, do and think things very differently than somebody in Japanese culture, for instance. Which is a very different type of culture than what we have and we've talked a lot about that.
Different ways of relating to one another and some people tend to be very effusive whereas here we're all also about like personal identity and independence and that's less of a thing in other areas of the world, for instance.
Jase: How much is language? How much is culture? Where do they intersect? Which caused which? It's hard to tease that apart.
Emily: On a more psychological level, studies have shown that the words we use externally and in our own thoughts do have an impact on our emotions and our mental health. That makes a lot of sense considering if I tell myself like, oh, you're a bad person or you did this thing poorly or whatever, like yes, those words can impact how we feel about ourselves and how we feel about people in the world around us. We're not aware of any scientific evidence that our words or our thoughts affect the external world and we're talking about things like manifestations and The Secret, stuff like that. We want to be clear that manifestations are very different from affirmations.
We've talked a lot about affirmations on the show, but manifestations are different. There is plenty of evidence showing that this kind of thinking actually makes us less happy and less successful and the words that we used to talk to each other and ourselves do have an impact overall.
Dedeker: We can understand this phenomenon actually pretty intuitively. For instance, if you think about the fact that the sensations behind feeling excited are very, very similar to the sensations behind feeling nervous. This is something that blew my freaking mind a couple years ago in a meditation class where the teacher was intentionally guiding us through bringing up different imagery to produce different emotional states and be curious about what that felt like in our bodies. Seriously mind blown, I was like, oh my god, it's the same freaking thing. It's the same stuff. The same stuff is moving or activating or whatever in my body. It really is just about this particular label that I put on it in my mind.
Again, excited and nervous on a physiological level, very similar effects, but very different feelings in our minds. Similarly, we can look at referring to a setback that you run into in your day to day life as a challenge instead of referring to it as an insurmountable problem may affect the way that you approach it. There is also the classic aphorism of oh, never say never because that's referring to how absolute language like always a never in reality is really true and it can cause us to make assumptions or to give up on something.
This is starting to get into the basis of some of CBT of cognitive behavioral therapy, where we're looking at cognitive distortions and often it does come down to some of the language that we use and the labels that we attach to things that happen in our day to day life.
Jase: I think this topic is super fascinating, just how language affects things then, of course, there's this whole modality of therapy that's grown around a lot of these concepts, but that's not the main topic that we're here to talk about but I did want to cover a little bit of this research and look at how their words are not literal magic and that they don't manifest things in the external world, but they are very powerful and there is a pretty large body of research continuing to look into how our wording and how our choice of language affects us on this psychological and emotional level.
Now let's get to the main event. That is that we wanna look at some of these terms that are commonly used when we're talking about what we do and don't want in our relationships and in our lives. By relationships, we mean any relationship, also friendships, work relationships, and everything like that.
Something to keep in mind with this is that we don't want to police people's language. We're not saying, "Oh, if you use this word, it's bad, and this one's good, and if you use this, it has to mean this thing, and this one has to mean this other thing." That's not the point of this. We will talk a little bit about the distinctions between them, but it's more about let's look at what matters the most when you use a certain word.
Where does it change the emphasis of what we're talking about, where does it maybe change who we think is responsible when we use a different word for what we do or don't want? Stuff like that. As an example of the words that we'll be covering today, is things like needs, wants, desires, expectations, standards, boundaries, rules and agreements. The concepts we're going to talk about will carry over into other terms like deal-breakers, red flags or yellow flags, whatever other terms you want to use.
We're focusing on this core group at least what I've identified as this core group of terms that are used. I think you'll start to see as we go that they're related to other concepts and terms that come up a lot. For this, we're going to break them up into a few different groupings, but really, a lot of these can get exchanged with each other. We'll talk about their relationships as we go.
Emily: Let's start off with needs versus wants and desires. This word need is really interesting because I think it gets down to the brass tacks of what is it that you need that you have to have in everyday life? I guess also that is a differentiation between a want. A need is more intrinsic, it's like, you need to have food to survive, for instance. You need to have water to survive. Ideally, you have a place, or a roof over your head, or somewhere safe to be at night, things along those lines. When you're talking in the context of relationships, that's really interesting when we get into that, what is a need in a relationship, what do you actually need in order to be healthy and survive that relationship?
Jase: Well, I think that's interesting that you use the word survive there. Again, talking about definitions because when you think about a need, it's basic, super basic care, and the consequence of not getting a need such as air, water or food is that you die. It sets the stakes very high when you talk about something as a need. We don't always use it that way. People will go up to a restaurant and say, I need a Big Mac with fries or something. They'll say I need. I know for me as a kid, I was taught, that's very rude, to add a restaurant order by saying I need something instead of, I would like, or I want.
Emily: I agree.
Jase: Okay, good. Emily fax me up there. When I hear people do it, I'm always like, "Oh, ah, so rude." I'm sure most people don't even notice. I do think it's interesting to look at why are we using that word instead of another one, and how does it change how our request is received?
Dedeker: Here's the thing though, is that clearly when we're thinking about being in relationship, the stakes are not necessarily always as high as life and death. It's not those base-level needs of, if I don't have food, I'm going to die, but that doesn't mean that we're saying that means that you can't need anything in relationship necessarily. I guess it's a different standard that we're holding it to. It's a different standard of happiness, feeling safe or feeling secure. These are things that I actually do need in order to feel I can be in this relationship at all.
Jase: That's interesting because need, it's like I need it in order for something. We talked about those fundamental needs. It's like, I need these in order to live. It's like, I need this for what? I think maybe we don't always think about that second part of the question. Is I need this to be in this relationship at all? Is it I need this to feel comfortable right now? Is it that I need this to be happy? Again, to look at the emotional impact of it to talk about a need, and needs are so hot in relationships.
Dedeker: So hot right now.
Jase: To talk about my needs aren't being met.
Emily: Oh, yes. My needs aren't being met. Good point.
Jase: It's worth taking a moment to think about it, of what are we saying by that? What do we mean when we're talking about our needs? Need for what? Also, why are we using need instead of a want? That's what we're exploring in this section.
Emily: I need to make sure that I trust my partner and that they trust me. I need to make sure that my relationship is full of care and love. It could be anything.
Dedeker: Well, it all falls on the spectrum, right?
Emily: Yes, exactly.
Dedeker: I think what we're going to start teasing is the fact that sometimes by calling something a need, it can be really helpful and clarifying for yourself. This almost starts to get into boundary stuff that we'll talk about later. It can be helpful to know these are my needs in relationship. These are the bare minimum. This is the standard by which I just want to be in relationship or what I want to get out of my relationships.
Emily: Autonomy, in ways.
Dedeker: On the shadowy side of that is that we can apply the word need in such a way that we can fall into manipulation or ultimatums. I need you to let me see your phone so I can go through your text messages.
Jase: That would absolutely be the way that people would phrase something like that sometimes, right?
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: I think it's also interesting too, because then it's like, if you do these things that I say that I need, it's almost like well now you've hit the bare minimum. A need I think of has this connotation of this is the minimum. If I don't get this, I can't whatever, can't be in a relationship, can't be happy, can't feel safe, something like that. Maybe that's true. It's when we express something that we want, even something we want very much, but express it as a need, we're almost taking away some of the enjoyment we might get from getting that thing we want, because it's like, no, this is just base level. This is just need.
Dedeker: That's a really good segue to talk more specifically about the term wants or desires. Talk about those at the same time, because there's a lot of overlap there. I think when you step forward to say, I want this or I desire this, it requires taking ownership of it. Maybe believing that you deserve them or believing that it's okay to ask for them. I think to use that previous example, I actually would really want you to hand over your phone so that I can look through your text message. That feels more honest to me and more vulnerable. If you're just honest about like, "Yes. I'm super curious. I would love for that to happen."
Jase: I do want to be clear that that doesn't make it necessarily a healthy behavior.
Dedeker: No.
Jase: It does change the feeling of it for sure.
Emily: Yes. It feels less intrinsic to who you are as a person. I need something because fundamentally if I don't get it, it will alter something about my state of being and who I am. I want things because I want them because it would be nice to have. The differentiation there I think is pretty specific. I agree with you, Dedeker, that that gets more into vulnerabilities of my desire, my want is this, that may feel vulnerable and may feel like are you a person who's going to potentially fulfill that and how lovely that might be, but also it gives you the opportunity to say no.
Whereas a need, it would feel like you have to find someone or you have to be around people that fulfill those needs because if you don't, then you're not meeting a base level of what you must have in a relationship.
Jase: It's making me think too about this spectrum of confidence in being able to ask for what you want.
Dedeker: Whoa, boy.
Jase: I want to clarify with all of this, it's not saying want is good, saying need is bad. Not at all. It's just, let's look at this. Let's explore why we might be. On this spectrum, I'm just thinking if you have internalized this belief of, well, I don't really deserve to get the things that I want, maybe you'll express everything as a want. It's like, "Well maybe it'd be nice if we could do this. I like that. That'd be nice." Then it's like, "No." It's like, "Okay. That's fine." Right? That's low on that spectrum.
Then as you move up it maybe it's like, "No, I want to be more declarative about this. No, I need this." That's maybe a way to try to claim a little bit more of that. "No, I do deserve this. I need this." Then if you keep going up that spectrum then maybe you could go back into this, "This is what I want. Also I expect to get that. I want this and if I'm going to be in a relationship I should be getting things that I want." It's like that word is looped back around to have a different feeling. Emily, you just did some jazz hands. What was that about?
Emily: No, no. I just was thinking that it is potentially cyclical and I think that people can flip the two and that it is that question of let's potentially differentiate those two and ask ourselves because they may be very different things like a want, a need and that fundamental level of what it is that you need to function in a healthy relationship maybe different than your wants. I get it. I get like ideally you have all of it. That sounds great but you may not get all of that. As we've talked about before what do you need in a relationship to function healthily versus what would you like to happen in a relationship, but if it didn’t, would you still want to be with that person?
Jase: Right. Then just think like culturally how much-- Yes. Well, I'm not sure that I'm happy in this relationship because not really getting the stuff that I want out of it and people might go okay or they might go, you're just expecting too much or whatever, versus, I don’t know if I feel good about this relationship. It's just my needs aren’t being met. I think people might question that less. I don’t know if that's true. I'm sure it depends on--
Emily: Even though the two maybe conflated.
Jase: Right. I could see why people want to go to needs because I don’t have to feel as guilty about saying I have a need. At least that's the conversation that it gives for me is like I don’t have to feel as guilty versus if I'm complaining about not getting something I want people are like, "Well, you don’t always get what you want. Tough it out." That sucks.
Emily: If you try sometimes.
Jase: You get what you need, right? It's right there in the song.
Dedeker: There's it is.
Jase: This is reinforcing this.
Emily: Thing is the docile tense of McJugger. Yes.
Dedeker: I feel like is there maybe a little bit of a gender dynamic in some of this? Because when you said that phrase, Jase, of like I don’t know, I don’t know if I'm getting what I want out of this relationship, it felt like something where I feel like women would be a lot more uncomfortable saying that because I don’t know.
Jase: It's something that's right there too.
Dedeker: I feel like women in general are so socialize to feel like they're wanting too much at every single turn and to constantly shrink and shrink and shrink and shave down what your desires are until it feels like you've reached this bare minimum of these are the things that I need and once we start getting into wants, that starts to get a little bit touchy, but that's just my perspective.
Jase: It's interesting that if we keep playing this game and go down that road also looking at words that are used in a gendered way, women are more often referred to as being needy as a complaint ironically because maybe they feel like that’s the only thing they're allowed to ask for is something they say is a need. I don’t know. Just again playing with the words, it's not based on any thought prior to just thinking that through.
Dedeker: That's fascinating.
Jase: Yes. I guess the thing to take away from this before we start moving on to some of the other terms is just asking yourself some questions about why you might use one word or another and not to go to other people and say you can't say that's a need, that's a want, right? You're not going to get very far in the world just trying to police other people's language like that, but it can be really helpful thing to be aware of for yourself and just bring some extra thoughtfulness to the way you approach those things and maybe explore if you don’t feel like you deserve to get what you want in a relationship. Maybe explore that a little bit potentially with a coach or a therapist or something.
We're now going to go on to talking about boundaries, expectations, standards, rules and agreements, but first, we're going to take a quick break to talk about our sponsors for this show, some ways that you can support this show to help keep it coming to everyone out there for free. If you can take a moment to check those out and if any seem interesting to you, go use our promo codes. That will really help us a lot.
Now we're going to look at boundaries versus expectations or standards. Again, expectations and standards here, using interchangeably. Although maybe they're a little bit different but again, just discussing how those words affect how we think about these things. Starting off with boundaries. Boundaries much like needs, so hot, so hot. Everyone wants to talk about boundaries.
Dedeker: So hot these days. Yes.
Jase: I think that in itself is worth-- We're taking a moment to take that in because there's a couple parts of it. One is, they're hot because everyone goes boundaries equal good. Therefore, I should use them. At the same time, they're hot, so they're may be overused. Also a lot of people react on the opposite side of, "Ugh, if I hear the word boundary one more freaking time. I'm so fed up because they've been used so shittily against me or I've seen them used badly in other places."
It's very loaded, I think, on either side because they've been so hot now for so long. That’s just my impression at least looking around at the reactions I see to people talking about boundaries either being super positive or very negative.
Dedeker: Well, there's so much that I think has been crammed into that term both meaning-wise and functionally. It's like this term shows up and conceptually people are like, "This is such a validation for me being able to say no, to pursue things that I want, to not have to date people, to not have to put up with bad behavior or protect myself or for things be good." Right? Conceptually it's like, "Wow, what a great concept?"
Then on top of it, it also gets crammed in along with sometimes your standards or expectations which we're going to talk about a little bit and also crammed into it. Sometimes again the dark side of I can be as big of a jerk to you as I want to be in this name of boundaries. If I just drop in that word ,that means it's okay. This is my boundary. It's my boundary that you don’t leave your socks on the floor. It's almost like it's metastasized into something that's a little bit bigger than it is and it's getting tossed around in that way.
Emily: I see so many definitions of boundaries on the internet saying that it's essentially a fence around which people don't cross it. It's like here is my boundary. This is the place, which if you cross it there's going to be a consequence. Clearly, we don’t take stance. That’s not something that we agree with, but it is really interesting.
Dedeker: It's also not 100% wrong. It's a little bit of thing to pin down. It's like I could get on board with the whole--
Emily: It's going to get on them as supposed to you.
Dedeker: Yes. Well, I don’t know. I could get on board with the whole fence thing personally or the stock image woman drawing a chalk circle around her which is--
Emily: This is my boundary.
Dedeker: Yes. I could get on board with that expect for the fact that we take that image and then suddenly it's about no, no, no, you need to respect my fence or you broke my fence or you--
Emily: My fence.
Dedeker: The way the people use it, it starts to disintegrate the image, I think. I'm all about I'm going to construct this fence for myself and this helps me know where to move and where not to move and it helps let other people know where I can move or don’t move.
Emily: It's invisible fence. You're wearing a shirt collar and it buzzes when you go outside of the fence.
Dedeker: That’s the thing. I think it's like such a large concept that's gotten so many other things stuck to it like particles that it starts to fall apart a little bit.
Jase: Just to step back for a moment for our listeners who might just be tuning in to this, when you talk about boundaries, one of the distinctions that we like to make is that boundaries are something that can be 100% laterally enforced and protected by yourself. A boundary is not if you don’t pick your socks up off the floor, you've crossed my boundary and I'm going to punish you for it, which is why I think the fence metaphor is not great because if someone crosses your fence, it's like what do you do? You'd move out to your house?
You can't really laterally protect yourself or remove yourself in that situation. I don’t know if the fence metaphor perfectly works for the way that we like to talk about boundaries. Part of the reason we want to talk about it that way is because we want to find some way to differentiate it from other things like rules or agreements or expectations. I think this does get us to another part where some word might have a very different actual definition to other people or might just have a very different connotation. It is worth exploring that too.
Dedeker: Yes. I think again if we zoom that and just look at the word I think the way that it's been used often these days is it automatically implies some rigidity. I think it automatically can stop a conversation. This isn’t to say that if you do have a firm boundary that means you should be loosey-goosey about it or you shouldn’t defend it, but it is the thing where sometimes I think it is used as a pass for just stopping a conversation and just like, "No. You can't question this whatsoever."
Jase: Sometimes that's good. Sometimes it's like yes, this is rigid and there is no room for discussion and that is the point. Sometimes that can be serving you but sometimes if we default to try to make everything a boundary, when really maybe a want could be a more accurate way to talk about it, especially if we can internalize that we do deserve to get what we want. Maybe that could actually be more effective, but it just depends.
What I see is that, when we carelessly go, "A boundary must be good. I'll try to make everything a boundary," we then end up eating away at what makes boundaries really useful and helpful, because we love boundaries. I know, we're talking about a lot of the problems with them here but they are really great. They're a really important thing to have. We can often get to using them too broadly and too many situations and get too focused on that. At least that's my impression of it. Again, that's based on my experience with the word and how I interpret the word and the connotations, and what I've seen people do with it.
Dedeker: Let's bring in the similar concept of expectations or standards. We're talking about things that are standards of behavior that you are expecting from somebody else, maybe from yourself as well. There's a little bit more of an outward focus here, I think. This is what boundaries tends to get wrapped up in as well. I think if you have an expectation, and someone doesn't need it, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're bad or they're hurtful or that they violated your boundaries, just they didn't meet your expectations.
For instance, it could be, "Hey, I expect that you'll be on time for when we meet up at six o'clock tonight." They didn't meet that expectation. They showed up late or whatever and that's hurtful and that's disappointing, and maybe you'll have a conversation with them. That's not like they violated your boundary. Maybe your boundary is like, I'm not going to maintain a friendship with someone who is constantly late or I'm not going to be the one to pick the time or whatever your boundary may be. I don't know. It just starts to get tricky the way that people think about these things.
Emily: These expectations and standards, in my opinion sometimes are internalized so much that they're not healthily communicated or communicated at all, for that matter, and that, I think, can be pretty challenging because, again, so many of us are socialized, especially if you're socialized and have monogamous relationships that your standards of behavior are going to be the same as someone else's and that your expectations for how people act, and how you should act, and how the world at large should act are all blanket across the board the same. That's simply not the case. I think especially with boundaries or expectations and standards, things really need to be talked out and really need to be discussed because so often, they're just not.
Dedeker: Honestly, I think this starts to get to the heart of what we were talking about with a needs versus wants thing, that for some reason, in the current zeitgeist, you're using the word boundary, puts a level of acceptability on something that maybe it's just an expectation that we have or a standard, just something that we want from someone in relationship. It could be I want monogamy or I expect a clean house or have this particular--
Emily: I want to get married, for instance, but then if you don't get that, does that mean that you're going to leave or does it mean-- It doesn't mean like it's an ultimatum type thing or a deal-breaker rather.
Dedeker: I think that, again, it's like the weird feeling that we have attached to these different terms that if I say I expect X, Y, and Z, that's maybe a little bit more vulnerable. Maybe that opens me up to more judgment and criticism because that is me taking a step forward and saying, "I think that I deserve these things or I think that it's okay for me to expect these things," versus I have this boundary of X, Y, Z, that's maybe a little bit harder for people to question at least right now.
Jase: When looking at the word, expectations, at least for me, this is one that I feel like I would be less likely to express something that I expected in my relationship as, hey, partner, I have an expectation of this behavior from you.
Emily: Sure.
Jase: To me it feels weird, and maybe it wouldn't to someone else. Whereas, I really want you to be on time for our dates. That's something that means a lot to me. That's important to me, would be more likely how I would express it. I think in terms of thinking internally or maybe talking about it with your friends or your therapist or something, expectation's an interesting one, because it's for those things that do have a little wiggle room.
I think, Dedeker, your example of being on time is really interesting. If it's like, "Hey, it upsets me when my partner shows up late to a date." I think that's pretty normal for a lot of people to be upset if someone's late to show up to something with you. It feels bad. We also get that it happens sometimes. Some people just have a harder time managing time than others and some people just maybe are less thoughtful than others or just stuff happens. Trains break down, cars break down, meetings run long. It happens.
Emily: LA traffic.
Jase: Right, any number of things. To go back to that, and think, "Okay, I don't like it when a partner shows up late for a date." If I frame this as a boundary of I won't be in a relationship or I won't go on dates with someone who shows up late by their nature, at least in the way that we talk about them, boundaries are rigid, and that's part of their power is they protect you. They're like that last line of defense. If that's your boundary, a partner shows up late to a date once, boom, you're gone. No more dates with that person.
Versus an expectation of, I expect my partner to show up on time for a date. If it doesn't happen, I am disappointed. If it perpetually doesn't happen, I might say, "Oh, you know what, this is not meeting my expectations. I'm going to stop dating this person." It has that wiggle room intentionally because it's not like I'm at risk of being very seriously, emotionally hurt by this.
Sure, it hurts, it sucks, but at least for me, it's not to that level. Maybe for you, it is and then it is a boundary like literally once it happens, I'm gone. Just being aware of how these two terms carry a very different weight and rigidity and might be more or less appropriate in certain situations.
Emily: Now, finally, let's move on to rules versus agreements. I think these two things are done and said pretty interchangeably. Let's first start with rules. Rules are really interesting in non-monogamous spaces, and I think also in people just opening up for the first time. I hear a lot of media stuff of like, well, if you're going to get in a threesome, or a triad or something, then you first need to establish ground rules-
Dedeker: Ground rules…love that.
Emily: -something like that. Ground rules I hear so often.
Dedeker: It's also a weird recursive thing because like so many of these other terms, now I think the non-monogamous community has picked up on oh, the term rules equals bad.
Emily: Is bad.
Dedeker: Just call it literally anything else. Call it an expectation, a standard, a boundary, an agreement, a contract. Call it-
Emily: A contract.
Dedeker: -literally anything else, but a rule.
Jase: Well, it's interesting, too, because we mentioned this when we were talking about standards, like standards for your own behavior. You could just as well express that with, "Oh, I have a personal rule for how I behave in this situation." Yes, sure. Well, people use the term that way too. Again, these are not about like, this can only be one thing or another, but more just being aware of what terms we're using.
Emily: That's true. Rules to me tend to feel quite rigid and as though they have a consequence if they're broken. It's up to people to figure out what that consequence is, I guess, and I know that we've talked a lot about rules on this show, and how if you do have a rule, and then you break it, potentially, it can mean like a variety of things for everybody involved, not just the two people that maybe have that rule, especially in non-monogamy.
Jase: I think also something worth noting about rules is that they tend to be focused on a limitation.
Dedeker: I was going to say it's like, they're subtractive, I suppose.
Jase: Okay. That's a cool way of--
Dedeker: The term subtractive.
Emily: Subtractive.
Jase: For sure.
Dedeker: I'm thinking about the rules that you grew up in elementary school where it's like, no talking, no passing notes. I don't know what it is, like, where it's usually a list of like, no, no, no, no, no, usually restriction-based.
Jase: Absolutely. I don't think that always has to be the case. It could be, as a rule, when this happens, I do this, just as a way to express the fact that this happens with a lot of regularity and that, pretty strictly consistently always happens. Again, it's like a colloquial saying. I guess the emphasis is on rigid and the emphasis is on limiting a certain behavior usually.
Emily: Well, and then limiting, I think so many people when they feel limited by something, it makes them want to do something more.
Jase: Right. There is that side of it, too.
Emily: When we have that desire as humans, especially I think when we're young to be like, no I'm going to do something different than what's allowed or whatever. I'm going to break free of that punk rock, yes.
Jase: Often, I'll see a sign that's do not under any circumstances do such and such. Honestly, I never would've considered wanting to do that thing, but now it's all I can think about.
Emily: Now I'm going to do it. What about agreements?
Dedeker: I guess with agreements, we have an image of two or more people who are coming together to establish some mutual expectations for behavior. I tend to think of it as a little bit more additive. I guess the feeling that it brings to my mind is two or more people being like, let's try to do X, Y, Z or let's give each other the benefit of the doubt or let's be compassionate. I get very much a let us feeling, but that's just me.
Jase: For the together feeling.
Dedeker: This is another one where again, especially the non-monogamous community it can be slapped on literally, whatever it is that you want with the feeling that like, it's agreement, that means it's softer, that means it's better, but, I suppose, for me, it seems to focus on what are the positive things that we want to bring about or what are the positive behaviors or what is it that we're aspiring to create, as opposed to what are the things we're trying to protect ourselves against?
I suppose there's maybe more of an emphasis on like, how can we help each other to follow this agreement rather than have this veiled threat or there are going to be consequences if we fail? Then I hear people say the word or the phrase, "He broke my agreement" all the time as well, which I get why people say that but the one I literally hear, like at least once a day at my freaking job is he broke my agreement and had unprotected sex with so, and so, that's the one that often comes to the table.
Jase: That touches on something that is important about this. That so often these discussions get caught up in, by definition, is that actually a rule or a boundary or a whatever else, or is it an agreement, or if you call it this, it's better than calling it this other thing. That's what I wanted us to really intentionally move away from in this episode is instead to just talk about how it changes the way we think about these things because that's a great example of, you could probably phrase that using all of these terms. It's like, I need my partner to use protection with everyone else. If they don't do that, they haven't met my need. This is very important to me, but I want my partner to use protection with everyone else.
I have a boundary that I won't be with someone if they use protection with someone else, or maybe I have a boundary, I want to have sex with someone who has unprotected sex with someone else. You could phrase it as a boundary or it could be just, I have an expectation my partner uses protection with everyone or something like that. I just expect that. If they don't meet that, maybe I'll reconsider this relationship or it could be a rule.
I have a rule that you have to do this in order to have sex with me, or this is an agreement that we had. You could use any of those terms for just as strict or not strict of a thing in terms of how you would react to it. I do think that some might carry more accurate nuance in terms of communicating the level of seriousness you have about that and who you think is responsible for executing the consequences of that.
Emily: It seems like, regardless of whatever word you use, you need to get on the same page with your partner about what it is that that word means to each of you.
Jase: That's a great point.
Emily: How you're going to utilize that word and that thing and your relationship, or even if you are going to, because certainly many people may not have rules, but if they do, then you got to figure out what that means and what that's going to look like.
Dedeker: It is important to have those conversations because, again for me thinking about agreements, I think about them as if there's an option to renegotiate the agreement at some point potentially. It's different from like I'm signing a contract and if I tried it like there's no renegotiating the contract, there's only breaking the contract. The idea that I could say, we made this particular agreement and maybe, I don't know if I can agree to it anymore or I actually want to change it or things like that where there can be that conversation, but maybe there can't be that conversation if I'm bumping up against somebody's boundary.
I can't be like, "I need to renegotiate your boundary with you" necessarily. Maybe I can make a request of actually, it'd be great if I could do this thing that maybe makes you feel you need to put up a boundary or something that. I can make that request, but I can't quite renegotiate in a mutual way. The way that I think you might with an agreement. It can be I'm so sorry because it can be so boring to get into semantics.
Ultimately. the takeaway is like what Emily said, when you agree to something with a partner or your partner expresses a boundary or you decide it's a rule or you set up an expectation or standard or whatever, actually take the time to listen and figure out what does this mean? What is the whole ecosystem in the context of what this means?
Jase I think conscious word choice is important too.
Emily: For sure.
Jase: If you do establish those, then you can be more conscious about it. When you say this is a boundary, it could communicate very clearly to your partner or your friends, this is an absolutely non-negotiable thing. This is the last line of defense. I don't expect we will actually bump up against this. If we do, we're already having problems. If you establish that that's what that means, that's clear and then we can focus on let's focus on what we want to agree with and what our expectations are. That boundary just acts as that last line of defense, but just getting clear on that. Maybe for you, it's like, we like talking about things as rules. That actually just feel comfortable to us because it feels more firm.
What does that mean? Is that something we can renegotiate? These words do change a little bit depending on how you decide to use them. That's also part of the point of this is that people who try to go to a dictionary to justify their usage of a word or argue against someone else's have the cause and effect backward a little bit. Dictionaries define how we actually use words as humans. The dictionary wasn't written first and then we started using those words. It actually goes the other way around.
That's worth thinking about. Emily's point is great about having those conversations and allowing yourself to be intentional and ask questions about why you're using which ones and maybe another one would serve you better and help you develop more confidence or more compassionate communication or just getting to focus more on how excited you are to get the things you want instead of just, am I getting my bare minimum met?