Welcome, Amanda!

Today we have a special guest joining us to help us answer some of our Patreon listener questions. Amanda Katherine (she/they) — — is on a mission to help you face your fears, speak your truth and get you one step closer to living your f*ck yes life.

She has worked as a trauma informed coach, writer and facilitator since 2016 and as an artist, actor and storyteller for the better part of two decades. In 2018, they launched their podcast, Live Your F*ck Yes Life — the space to be for conscious conversations and candid shares around shit nobody really fcking talks about. In 2019, she shared her journey of navigating a preventative double mastectomy at the age of 27 in her self published book, I Chopped Off My Tits. And she’s spent the last few years facilitating and supporting queer folks and recovering people pleasers through her Live Your F*ck Yes Life events & workshops and 1:1 coaching around all things relationship anarchy, non monogamy, coming out later in life, demisexuality, grief and beyond.

Today’s questions

1. “My husband (they/them) and I have been together for 7 years. We had a major break in trust last year and after doing some processing, decided to deescalate our relationship pretty significantly. At the same time, I was escalating my relationship with my other partner (we've been together for about 2 years). My husband and I have remained best friends, but pretty strictly platonically. My other partner ended up moving in this summer, and we have a pretty healthy family dynamic, but we are still figuring out how to navigate this new experience together. My husband and I are now interested in spending more intentional time together to get to know each other again and reescalate some aspects. I am pretty busy in my everyday life though. I worry, after only having one romantic+ relationship with my other partner for the last year, how I should go about splitting my time so my current relationship doesn't suffer while I work on the one with my husband? What's the best way to navigate this to ensure my other partner doesn't feel deprioritized during this time? I love both of them so much.”

2. “What can they share about their experiences with deescalation? Do they have any tips or tools? I identify as Ambiamorous. Post-divorce, I entered a relationship with a polyamorist and have been practicing polyamory with them as one of my partners for over 3 years. It feels like we've been deescalating. It's really hard to figure out what's expected of me amongst all the changes. Any tips there? Should we redo the relationship smorgasboard? Should we explicitly renegotiate everything?”

3. “My partner and I have had a close relationship of different kinds (best friends, dating, queerplatonic) over many years and have recently transitioned to a serious, committed romantic relationship. They knew I was non-monogamous when we got together and they are on board philosophically, but they have cPTSD and their experience of being in non-monogamy was very similar to what Irene Morning talked about on the "polyamory paradox" episode where it became dangerous for them. My other relationship ended and so we've decided to intentionally become monogamous for a set period of time, focus on our own relationship, and then re-evaluate. If we do decide to open up again, what advice do you have for doing that in a way that is mindful of both of our needs and also respectful of anyone else we may get involved with?”

4. “My partner and I have both long identified as non monogamous, and when we met we were each in long term relationships with other people and entered into a very non hierarchical poly model. Fast forward most of a decade, and we are both experiencing desires for having a single home with the other, matrimony, and even for monogamy that we never expected of ourselves or the relationship. For roughly two years, neither of us has been interested in pursuing new relationships, and even sometimes sad that it isn’t just the two of us. We’d love to hear your thoughts on some of the questions that have come out of this: What does ‘fair’ look like when relationships are aspiring to different levels of entanglement? How do you reconcile the feeling of unprecedented contentment and fulfillment with a major identity crisis and poly imposter syndrome? (And, less existentially, what the hell is going on? Is this normal?)”

Check out Amanda’s podcast here, find her on Instagram @liveyourfuckyeslife and TikTok @myfuckyeslife, or connect with her on her website. If you’re interested in her book, it can be found here too.