493 - But What if I Want the Relationship Escalator?
What is the relationship escalator?
The relationship escalator is the social normative model of relationship progress, which assumes that “serious” romantic relationships should follow a series of stages by default, such as dating, exclusivity, cohabitation, marriage, kids, death.
Some of the other milestones that are less discussed:
From first date to having sex.
Removing barriers.
From dating to presenting as a couple.
The concept of the relationship escalator is fairly well known among non-monogamous folks, and there are many who actively try to get off of the relationship escalator or who are open to challenging relationship norms in general. However, there are some consensually non-monogamous people who do want particular milestones, and often they can feel isolated, criticized, or alienated for wanting those things.
Some pros to consider about the relationship escalator:
Our culture grants many social, emotional, and financial benefits to relationships that are perceived to be on the escalator (employer benefits, social validation).
There is a certain reality of biological timelines when it comes to having children. Even though advances in fertility technology are expanding people’s options, there are still limitations that need to be accounted for.
In America, we have an increasingly shaky social safety net, and access to physical care, financial support, and mental/emotional well being outside of a romantic relationship is unfortunately still difficult to come by. There is a history within the US of single women and single mothers in welfare programs being strongly encouraged by social workers and govt employees to get married as a solution to their economic problems.
If two people are in alignment on goals and values, moving along the relationship escalator together can be life-giving and relationship-affirming.
Some cons to think about regarding the relationship escalator:
Not everyone wants every single step on the escalator.
No going backwards and no going out of order.
Relationships that skip steps or stay off the escalator entirely are often discounted as not being real, serious, or worthy or pursuing.
Forces our romantic relationships to also bear the weight of many other roles: roommate, co-parent, healthcare provider, etc.
An emphasis on hitting milestones can lead to neglect of other areas of life and other aspects of the relationship.
Hitting particular milestones may carry the promise of more security and relationship fulfillment but may fall short and cause disappointment in reality.
If you want to step on the relationship escalator and stay there, there are many valid reasons for wanting to, just as there are plenty if you don’t want to get on it either. The area where problems tend to come up is the discrepancy between the pace of the escalator that you want versus what the other person wants.
Pace discrepancy: a difference between partners in the desired timeline for progressing through relationship milestones.
Dr. Alexandra Solomon
What influences the discrepancy?
Cultural expectations.
Personal readiness.
Age and life stage.
Shared goals, shared interest in escalation.
External stressors like money or lack of stable housing.
Things to ask yourself
In order to better understand why you might want some particular milestones or the escalator as a whole, here are some questions to ask yourself:
Why do I want this milestone?
Could I get these things any other way?
Why do I judge other people for not wanting this milestone?
Why do I judge someone for wanting this milestone?
Is this about economics?
If I knew for sure my partner would never be able to offer this milestone to me, does that change how I feel about the relationship?
Some helpful questions to ask others might be:
Have I actually expressed wanting this milestone? Or have I just assumed?
Understanding before persuading: what questions do you need to ask in order to really understand your partner’s stance on this?
Is there any middle ground or reframe we could experiment with regarding certain milestones?
There are also some markers of commitment and progress that aren’t on the relationship escalator but still are worth celebrating and thinking about:
Exchanging spare keys.
Giving each other nicknames.
First kink exploration.
Meeting family, friends, children.
Taking care of each other when you’re sick.
Being a plus one for events.
Opening up about vulnerable topics such as emotional state, past trauma, future dreams.
Navigating conflict successfully.
No one can tell you that you don’t want what you want, and you can’t tell anyone else they don’t want what they want.
Transcript
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Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're talking about the relationship escalator, a concept that's often criticized in non-monogamous spaces, and what happens if you're someone who wants to move up the relationship escalator with a partner or multiple partners. You might be dating multiple people who are already partnered or cohabiting with others, or you might be dating people who identify as solo, poly, or relationship anarchists. Maybe you feel that you want safety, a sense of stability, or you've always had a dream of living with a partner or raising children with a partner. If everyone else you're dating has either already hit these milestones with someone else or has no interest in these things, then what?
Today, we're going to dive into the cases for and against the relationship escalator, what the research says about how quickly people tend to escalate in relationships, and how to navigate moving up the relationship escalator. If you're interested in learning more about our fundamental communication tools that we reference on this show all the time, you can check out our book, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships, which covers some of our most used communication tools for all types of relationships. You can find links to buy it at multiamory.com/book or wherever fine books are sold. Also, the first nine episodes of this podcast cover some of our most widely used and shared communication tools, so you can go check those out there.
Dedeker: Before we move any further, let's drop in a very quick definition of the relationship escalator. This is the social and very normative model of relationship progress that assumes that any "serious romantic relationship" should follow a series of stages by default. These stages include things like dating, exclusivity, cohabitation, marriage, kids, death. I guess that's where it ends, depending on what your religious beliefs are.
Jase: Right.
Emily: Is that where you get off the escalator?
Dedeker: I don't know. Maybe you just keep on keeping on. I think in the afterlife, there may be other stages of the escalator we're not even aware of.
Jase: Right.
Emily: Whoa.
Jase: The escalator actually just continues straight on into the afterlife, yes.
Emily: I hope not.
Dedeker: Wait, there are these big, obvious milestones that are part of the escalator that get mentioned all the time, but I think that there's also these micro escalators, these little tiny escalators that we don't think about. For instance, like the escalator of moving from going on a first date with somebody to having sex with them for the first time, or if you're having sex with somebody, moving from having sex with them to removing barriers such as condoms.
Now, that is a very important milestone for some people. It is less of an important milestone for other people. If anything, I wish it was less of an important milestone in general, but many people consider that to be escalating the intimacy in a relationship. There's also the mini escalator that moves from, "We're dating each other," to, "Oh, now, we're a couple, and we're presenting as a couple in public or on social media."
Emily: Even things like meeting the parents or-
Dedeker: Yes, for sure.
Emily: -meeting each other's really close friends or siblings. I think those are milestones as well that we don't necessarily talk about but are still pretty meaningful and impactful in certain relationships.
Dedeker: Totally.
Jase: Have you ever been in a real-life place with many escalators?
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: I always think about subway stations in Japan where they'll have little escalators that go up four steps.
Dedeker: Right.
Jase: They're just these tiny little escalators for accessibility or whatever. I guess people who have trouble with the stairs can go up or down, but they're just so cute and tiny, these little itty bitty escalators in some--
Dedeker: It's a little baby escalator.
Jase: I think now when I see those, I'm going to think about some kind of small escalator, like maybe if I'm going on one of those with you, I'll reach out and hold your hand like it's our first time holding hands or something.
Dedeker: That's cute.
Emily: Alternatively, Hong Kong has the longest escalator in the world, and I'll bet on that one.
Jase: Really?
Dedeker: Do we ride on that one?
Jase: Oh, that one?
Emily: Yes, that one.
Jase: The outdoor escalator.
Emily: Correct. The mid-levels escalator, yes.
Dedeker: Yes, that's the one that carries you into the afterlife. That is so long.
Emily: Totally. 100%.
Jase: Amazing.
Dedeker: We can't talk about this without giving a shout-out to Amy Gahran, who wrote the book Stepping Off the Relationship Escalator. It's a great resource. You can also go back to our episode 164 titled The Relationship Escalator & Solo Polyamory where we did an interview with Amy.
Emily: Why are we talking about all of this today? I think that this concept is really well known to people who are consensually non-monogamous, and maybe less known to people who aren't in that sphere, although I will say that I've heard this in some of my social groups that are not particularly non-monogamous.
Dedeker: Oh, really?
Emily: I've heard it said, especially around my work.
Dedeker: Oh, the term is dissipating.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: Yes.
Emily: I think it's probably because I'm around a lot of younger people like 20-year-olds and stuff like that. Perhaps it has permeated into the more Gen Z circles.
Jase: That's cool.
Emily: Yes, it is. Their idea of relationships in general is definitely shifting. People are contemplating now, "Should I be non-monogamous, or should I have an open relationship? Should I try that for a while?" Things like that. It makes sense to me that people are questioning the relationship escalator a little bit more than perhaps they once were.
Also, people who are challenging the relationship norm of monogamy are more open to challenging other relationship norms such as following this default pattern of going from one milestone to the next to the next and removing the pressure to ride the relationship escalator. It's opened up this really great possibility for so many different types of relationships and so many milestones that can still be really meaningful, even if they don't hit those prescribed benchmarks. Also, at the same time, many people in the consensually non-monogamous community who do want particular milestones, such as marriage or cohabiting or having children, they can feel isolated and alienated or even criticized for wanting these things.
Dedeker: Yes. I can't tell you the number of times that I've had clients. It feels like they're making a shameful confession when they come to me and they say, "You know what, I've always known that I wanted to have a child and raise a child with a partner." I'm just like, "That's great. That's a good thing. That's good."
I do think that because we sometimes swing the pendulum so far in the direction of, "Oh, all these default relationship milestones and expectations are bad," which sometimes they can be, sometimes there can be a lot of pressure to do things that you just don't really want to do, I do see a lot of people in this community who then feel like they want something bad and carry some unnecessary shame around that.
Jase: Yes. It's like when we come from a place of feeling like everybody, everyone we know, all of society is really pressuring us to do this one thing, and we say, "Well, but what if I don't want to do that thing?" We feel like we really need to build up defenses or cases against it to say, "No, it's okay to not do that," because everyone says you should do that. Then, yes, it's like if enough people, or at least if your community has enough people who are really fighting against that thing that they feel is this oppressive pressure being put on them, it can end up doing the opposite and feeling like this pressure to conform in this different way. It's such a tricky thing to find that balance and constantly reevaluate.
Dedeker: Well, while we're here, I would like us to first lay out what are all the arguments against the relationship escalator, because I think actually a lot of the arguments that float around this community are pretty solid, to be totally honest.
Jase: For sure, yes. We've said many of them ourselves.
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: Yes, the start out-- arguments against the relationship escalator. One is just what we were talking about is that not everyone wants every single step on the escalator. Maybe you do want to have kids, but you don't want to live with a partner, or you don't want to get married, or something like that. Also, the reason why it's an escalator and not a staircase is because there's no going backwards and you can't go out of order, and so people will criticize that to say, "Our relationship essentially can't change backwards or else most people will assume it's over." If you used to live together and now you don't, that means your relationship's ending, it's going badly.
Dedeker: Or the idea that if you're in a relationship where you've determined, I really like this person and I want to keep seeing them, but I don't see myself living with them, or I wouldn't want to have kids with this person. That we do have this narrative that like, okay, then the relationship is just useless and it's casual and it's meaningless if it's not heading somewhere. If we're not on the escalator with this person, then we need to discount that relationship.
Emily: I remember the episode that we did with our research assistant, Kiana, about leaving a cohabiting situation and she's still married to a partner, but they no longer live together and she said she's probably not going to live with a partner ever again. That's totally fine. I think it's wonderful that her partner gets to live with somebody else now, and they all get to have a dynamic that really works for them in a way that suits them best.
Jase: Another criticism is that the relationship escalator, because it only goes in the one direction, it can end up forcing our romantic relationships and our romantic partners to take on these other roles that maybe we didn't even pick them out for those roles like roommate, co-parent, healthcare provider, personal trainer, finance coach, house cleaner, whatever it is that comes along with the baggage of those labels and those roles that go along with the relationship escalator. Then also that it puts a lot of emphasis on hitting these milestones that can tend to let us focus on the milestone itself rather than other areas of the relationship or even just other areas of our life that are important.
We've talked about this before, where people can be so focused on being exclusive or so focused on getting married or having kids that once they get there there's this sort of like, "Oh, I'm actually not that happy in this relationship, but I was just so focused on that goal. I was so goal-oriented that I worked really hard to get here and now I don't really like it that much." Then the final one related to that is hitting these milestones. You think, "Oh, well, once I get there, then I'll be happy, or once I get there, then I'll feel secure in my relationship." That often the reality is disappointing that you've just got to that point, but nothing about your relationship has actually changed.
Dedeker: Yes. I feel like there's so many people I've known who thought that-- let's just use the example of getting married, thought that getting married to someone might make them feel more secure in the relationship. Maybe it does for a little while, but then over time, it's like all the same insecurities will come creeping back in for yourself as a human being. Especially if there's already some insecure attachment in the relationship or there's already something dysfunctional in the relationship where the relationship itself is not feeling very secure, that's still going to be there even if you have rings on your fingers.
Emily: Yes. They're trying to find external validation or external security as opposed to internal security.
Dedeker: Sure.
Jase: I think this one comes up with a version of the escalator of we are dating non-monogamously and one person wants it to become monogamous and they think that'll make them feel secure.
Emily: Newsflash. No, from personal experience, it won't.
Dedeker: Well, okay. Here, I want to step into my favorite role, which is the argumentative devil's advocate role.
Jase: Were you big in debate class in school?
Dedeker: No, but all my teachers wanted me to do mock trial.
Emily: I bet. I'm not surprised.
Dedeker: No, I think if I actually had done mock trial, my life may have turned out very differently.
Jase: Yes, you would've ended up in the US--
Emily: A state senator or something. Yes.
Dedeker: Oh, I was thinking more maybe more of a lawyer or of some kind.
Jase: Okay. Sure.
Dedeker: Yes. I think that's definitely an alternate life path out of mine. Let's make some arguments in favor of the relationship escalator. Now, I do think that the dominant argument that's come from our mono-normative culture for hundreds of years has mostly been, "This is the way we do it. This is traditional, this is stability, this is financial security. This is morally good." Those are the arguments that we've had handed to us, but I wanted to get into, what are some actual good arguments that aren't appealing to tradition, for instance.
The first one off the top of my head is the fact that, fortunately or unfortunately, love it or hate it, our culture, and especially American culture, grants many benefits, social benefits, emotional benefits, financial benefits to relationships that are perceived to be on the escalator. I'm talking about things as simple as employer benefits. If your employer provides health insurance, most likely, they may extend that health insurance benefit to a spouse specifically. They're not extending it to your roommate that you've lived with for 20 years. They may not extend it to your co-parent that you're not married to. They will extend it to your spouse if they perceive that this is a traditionally escalated relationship.
Jase: I've seen this one changing in terms of how much you have to prove that, but yes, there is this assumption at least that they're an emotional, romantic escalator-type relationship. Even if you can get around it, you have to maybe fudge the details or just not mention so much the context of your relationship. Even though, legally, luckily, that is changing some.
Dedeker: Yes. We offer a lot of social validation to relationships that we perceive to be on the escalator. The whole plus one, two events, that invite being recognized by family and friends. I think that from the outside, especially if you have a bunch of normie family and friends, if they see, "Oh, my child or my cousin or my friend, now they're dating this person seemingly exclusively. Oh, now they're moving in together. Oh, now they're getting engaged." There's a certain amount of taking the relationship seriously or seeing it as real. That may not be offered to a relationship that doesn't seem to be hitting those same milestones, at least from an outside perspective.
Emily: For single people, I think there's just overall a stigma that comes with not being on a relationship escalator with somebody. That people just see you differently and maybe internally question what's going on there. What's wrong with that person? Why aren't they with another human? Things like that.
Dedeker: Yes. They may worry about you more so. Ironically, I think sometimes--
Emily: Family members.
Dedeker: Yes, family members may worry about you if they perceive that you're single, if they perceive that you're in a non-escalating relationship, more so than they might worry about you if you're in an escalating relationship that's secretly shady behind the scenes.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: Yes.
Dedeker: I think I've seen that one play out all the time.
Jase: I think what we're getting at here is that, I think we're still criticizing society a little bit for these things, that I do think it's fair to want those advantages. It's fair to say, "You know what? I could really use some of these advantages that come with this, like employer validation, the social validation, approval of my family." Those are not bad things to want. I just want to make that clear. That we're on the pro relationship escalator track right now. Another one to throw out there in this vein is I've seen some studies showing that men who are married get paid more on average than men who are not.
Emily: Wow.
Jase: Probably because of the social perception of, oh, a married person is dependable and reliable and respectable and also probably should be paid more because they probably have a family or something like that. I don't know what the thinking is, and I don't know how recent this study is, but stuff like that, you may find that it helps you out in certain areas.
Dedeker: Or you may just be like, "Yes, I need health insurance." Really, though. I've had some friends of mine who are very open about the fact that, "I have a chronic illness and I'm basically disabled and probably going to be for the rest of my life, and I need a partner who's willing to escalate in that direction of being able to maybe someday financially care for me and physically care for me as well." That is unfortunately a little harder to secure if we're thinking about a whole network of loose ties, for instance, or being a single person just trying to connect with friends. Again, knocking society a little bit that it's come to this, but at the same time, it's okay to want all the benefits that come along with escalation.
Another one that comes to mind, and I know this can be a little controversial, but there is a certain reality of biological timelines when it comes to producing children. Of course, there's been a ton of advances in fertility technology that expand people's options, people's abilities to wait longer before having children, but there are still limitations that need to be accounted for, not the least of which is that fertility technology is freaking expensive, and not accessible to everybody.
I know there's a lot of tech companies that are starting to offer options like egg freezing and sperm freezing and stuff like that, and even still, not accessible to everybody. Also not necessarily a choice anybody wants to make when they first get their job at that tech company. That's a part of it, too. That's another one where I've seen people come to me feeling ashamed where they're like, "I know I want to have kids and I feel like I'm running out of time and I need to get on this because I don't want to have to go the whole IVF route if I can help it. I feel like I need to find someone to escalate with in this particular direction." That is still a thing that needs to be accounted for.
A lot of people are just feeling that shakiness of, hey, biologically, maybe I'm running out of time, or just the shakiness of living in our particular culture where we don't have a very strong social safety net where access to physical care or financial support or mental/emotional wellbeing outside of a romantic relationship is still a little bit difficult to come by.
While I'm on my soapbox, I will just drop in the snippet that there is a history within the US of single women and single mothers in welfare programs being strongly encouraged by social workers and government employees to get married as a solution to their economic problems because getting married takes the pressure off of the government to have to provide the financial stability and support that theoretically marriage would provide.
Emily: Is that something they tell social workers to tell people?
Dedeker: I don't know if that's still considered. I will first say that I'm not an expert in this and I'm sure there's many people in our audience who know much more about this than I do. I don't know if that's what the standard is these days, but there is a history of that being an approach to single women and single mothers as an attempt to try to get them out of the welfare program.
Jase: Something else worth pointing out here is that we've been talking a lot about very, I guess I'd call them materialistic reasons or just logistical reasons, but there's also a certain emotional side to this. I remember early on when we were doing this show many years ago when we were first starting it that a friend of mine who was on board, for the most part, was struggling with this idea of, "I feel like I've lost the ability to be romantic in my relationships because of taken away all these normal ways of expressing romance." Like, "Oh, you're the only one for me, you're all I think about," those sorts of things. Then I think also the escalator part, feeling like, oh, well, this is now devalued, so how do I really show the depth to which I care about this person or how I feel about this person? Then also just for me to experience the romanticness from them as well.
I just want to throw that out there as another valid thing to feel, and maybe there's other ways that you could go about that, but I do think there is a certain argument to be made for some of these relationship escalator steps. I'm still not sure I'm convinced about them all having to go in order and that you can't ever go backwards, but at least the things on it, the individual steps of it themselves, if you remove them from the escalator and put them somewhere else, there are nice things about them. There can be these emotional parts to them as well, not just these logistical ones.
Dedeker: Totally. I think that if two people are in alignment on that with both their life goals and their values around these milestones moving up the relationship escalator together with somebody, it can be super life-giving and relationship-affirming. I don't ever want to make the argument that if you feel good about the relationship escalator, you've just been brainwashed by our society, but there's a lot of good things to be found here, like Jase was saying, not just the logistical.
Emily: I think especially if you do it with intentionality and know this is truly what I want for myself and for my life. We want to make it clear to all of you out there that if you do want the relationship escalator or if you want particular milestones within the escalator, there are really many, many valid reasons for doing so. Then on the flip side, if that's totally not what you want, and you don't want particular milestones or you don't want the relationship escalator in general, that's also very valid and very okay.
I think the big problem that arises in a lot of relationships, and I've had relationships where this has happened, is when there is a discrepancy between the escalator pace that you want and what another person wants, or if you don't want to be on the escalator at all and somebody else really does, that can prove to be a very big challenge for the relationship.
Jase: We've had some really amazing discussions about this in our private Patreon discussion group. That's our Discord, which is an amazing server with so many channels and so much activity in it, as well as our private Facebook group. Those are all accessible to people who join our Patreon at patreon.com/multiamory. If you are interested in that, go check it out. We have several different tiers with different things, but the basic one is access to those communities, and it's just a really cool place to get support and to have discussions about exactly these sorts of things. We're also going to take a moment to tell you about some sponsors of this show. It really does help support this show. Help us keep this going. If you take a moment, listen to them, and if they're interesting to you, use our promo codes. It does directly support our show.
Dedeker: We're back from the break, and we're going to dive into talking about pace discrepancy. I first learned this term from listening to Dr. Alexandra Solomon being interviewed on the podcast, Unfuck Your Brain, and pace discrepancy is a difference between partners in the desired timeline for progressing through relationship milestones.
I think from a more traditional perspective, this looks like one person is ready to get married, the other person is not ready to get married. I think from a non-monogamous perspective, it can look like one partner wants to cohabit with the whole polycule, and maybe one person, that polycule is really not ready for that, or it could look like two people start dating and one person really wants to turn this into a very deep attachment style relationship where we see each other all the time. The other person wants to keep it more casual or more comet-like. Just any time that there's a discrepancy between what one person wants for escalation and what the other person wants for escalation.
Jase: What might influence this pace difference? I bet a lot of people are already thinking about experiences they've had where there have been these discrepancies between themself and a partner in any kind of relationship, but it could be things like cultural expectations that maybe your family culture or just the culture at large that you live in has very different values about that or values that you agree with.
It could also just be your personal readiness in terms of your life where one partner might be still trying to figure out what kind of work they want to do or what they want to do with their life and the other feels like they're more established and now they're ready for something new, and maybe that is marriage or maybe that is entwinement or moving abroad with a partner or any number of big deal things to do together.
Emily: Some people may have past experiences that cause them to have a readiness, I think, for a lot of parts of the relationship escalator more quickly than other people might. For example, if your ex was really adamant about never wanting to get married and now you're with a new person who's open to that, maybe you want to hit that goal as soon as possible, or my ex was adamant about getting married and then put a lot of importance and pressure on that.
Gosh, I have a friend who this exactly happened to. She was once married and went through a really bad divorce and had a new partner who was like, "You're the one I want. I want you to be my wife," and she's like, "Whoa, whoa, no, thank you. I need to take a breath here because I was just married and it went really badly and I'd like to take some time before I do that again."
I think that discrepancy, honestly, is ultimately what ended that relationship. This is so, so true. That's really tough. Also, people just being at different ages and different life stages. Some people might have this I've been there, done that mentality with certain milestones and they're just not really interested in repeating them with other partners.
Dedeker: A really common complaint that I've heard from people who are maybe trying to date within their local community, especially from solo poly folks or people who come in single, people often complain, "I want to find a cohabiting partner or maybe a primary partner or something, but I'm dating all these people who are already partnered, these people who have already hit these milestones, they're already living with somebody or they already have kids or they've already been married or they've already done all this stuff and they're showing up. They're trying to be a good partner, but they don't want to be around for these particular milestones because they've already hit them."
Jase: It's funny. In some ways, I see also the opposite can happen of like, "I've been there, done that, so it's no big deal. Sure. Let's get married." I feel like I experienced this with people more like in our parents' generation where it's like they'll get divorced and then they're remarried a year later or just really quickly just because it's like, "Well, I don't know, I've done this a few times already, why not?" Maybe that also changes how big you see certain steps.
Dedeker: I know I've also heard from older people that sometimes once you're closer to the end of your life, it feels less important to wait all this time before choosing to cohabit with someone or get married to somebody or things like that. I still don't think that's a great excuse for marrying someone three months into the NRE, but maybe when I'm older, I will change my mind. Just ask me again in 30, 40, 50 years, and we'll do another update episode on this.
Jase: Do you still say, "Don't sign anything in the first year," at that point?
Emily: There you go. When two people meet and start a relationship together and realize that they have shared goals and shared interests in escalation, I think that makes a lot of sense why they would take that journey together and want to hit those certain milestones at a specific pace and go on the relationship escalator together. That makes a lot of sense to me. From a more practical standpoint, it's difficult to find housing that is affordable in this country. I know that for myself.
I just moved to New York City, which is one of the most expensive cities in the world, and it's really expensive to live alone. I am doing it right now, and part of me is like, "Maybe I should have lived with a roommate or someone." I don't know. Maybe that would have been a little bit easier financially. It's always that question of, maybe should we move in together just because it'll be more affordable? I've heard so many people say that, that they choose to cohabit with a significant other just because it costs less money.
Dedeker: Now, it's become a joke within the non-monogamous community, this whole, "Oh, monogamy in this economy," meme that like, yes, you have to move in with your polycule because how else are you going to afford a house otherwise? I wanted to dive into if there's any research about this. There's not a ton of research specifically on the relationship escalator, at least not in those particular terms.
I did find that there's a fairly robust body of research that looks at escalation into cohabitation and marriage, specifically those big milestones. I pulled out two studies to look at. The first one is a 2018 study done by Sharon Sassler et al. It's called Transitions from Sexual Relationships into Cohabitation and Beyond. That was published in the journal Demography.
Jase: I'm assuming beyond means the escalator into the afterlife.
Dedeker: That's the one, yes. That's the one.
Jase: Great.
Dedeker: With this study, analyzed data from the 2006 to 2013 National Survey of Family Growth, they looked at a sample size of over 6,000 women, specifically between the ages of 18 and 44. They found that escalating into cohabitation is most common early on in sexual relationships. For instance, in this study, nearly one-quarter of women had become cohabitating within six months of becoming sexually involved with somebody.
Emily: Whoa, calm down, everyone. Good Lord.
Jase: It's not surprising at all, but it is alarming.
Dedeker: No. Nearly half of these women's most recent sexual relationships became cohabiting unions by 24 months. As in within two years, about half of this sample size started living. Now, that feels pretty normal to me from what I see among my friend group and my peer group.
Emily: I'm just like, does nobody hook up anymore? Because if meaning their most recent sexual encounter, yes, okay, sure. I guess for some people who are--
Dedeker: It's the most recent sexual relationship.
Emily: Relationship. Yes. Who are monogamous, okay, that makes sense. It's just fascinating. I think every single person that you get into a sexual relationship with, are you going to cohabit with in 24 months?
Dedeker: You know what?
Emily: Probably not.
Dedeker: You know what? What I think is probably going on here is I doubt that the researchers would call it a sexual relationship if it was just a hookup, right?
Jase: Maybe they're defining it differently.
Dedeker: Yes, I think they may be defining it differently because I think here on the Multiamory Podcast, of course, we'd be like, "Yes, your hookup partner, that's still a relationship." I think in normie-land, they don't think that as much.
Emily: Got it.
Jase: Okay, that makes sense. Yes, that it is a relationship that then is also having sex. I think that's a romantic relationship that now is also having sex.
Dedeker: Now, I love this quote, "The relative risk of cohabiting," first of all, I just--
Jase: Wow, what a way to say that.
Emily: Risk of cohabiting.
Dedeker: "The relative risk of cohabiting for women who have been sexually involved for six or fewer months was 49.1% greater than for women who had been dating for 13 to 18 months. In fact, the odds of cohabiting decrease substantially with increased duration in a relationship." I think this is highlighting, yes, when you're in NRE with someone, moving in with them sounds like the best thing in the world. Then when you date them long enough to see how much of a slob they are.
Jase: Oh, goodness. It doesn't have to be that.
Dedeker: For the NRE to fade, maybe then you're less likely to want to move in with them right away. That's my interpretation of the data.
Emily: The risk for falling into a cohabiting place with someone.
Dedeker: You're at greater risk when you're six months into the relationship than when you're a year plus into the relationship.
Jase: I think this is a really good example, though, of a very confusing way to present statistics.
Dedeker: Sure.
Jase: Because they're essentially saying you're most likely to-- 25% were at risk or fell into the risk of cohabiting within that first six months. Then they're basically saying, if you make it past that first six months, you're less likely to cohabit if you haven't already, basically. It's a little bit-- it's not like, oh, yes, then those ones that lived together stopped living together. It's just a confusing way to present the statistics. It does make a very good case for you're much more likely to make that decision while you're in NRE.
I think the question I have, though, is, is it that if you didn't cohabit within that first six months, it's because you were just more level-headed about it, or you knew very clearly you didn't want to cohabit with someone, or was it this relationship, just, I knew, poof, right away, I like this person, but I do not want to live with them? We don't know what the factors were that contributed to that.
Dedeker: They also looked at transitions escalating from cohabitation to marriage, and they found that that tends to happen much more gradually. They found only one in six women got married within the first year of moving in together with a partner, and that most couples who live together take longer than a year to get married if they choose to get married at all. This speaks to the broader trends, I think, especially among our generation, where fewer people are getting married.
I think more people are cohabiting, and that feels as close to getting married as maybe it did for our parents' generation. Sometimes there's a little bit less of that pressure to escalate specifically into legal marriage. Now, Emily shared about money challenges, lack of stable housing influencing the decision to move in with somebody. There's another study also done by Sharon Sassler, called The Tempo of Relationship Progression Among Low-Income Couples. This was published in social science research.
In this study, the researchers analyzed data of 700 low-income married or cohabiting couples. This data was drawn from the 2006 Marital and Relationship Survey. In that sample, about three-quarters of the sample had begun living with their partner within six months of the start of the relationship. This seems to imply that if you are low-income, your risk of cohabiting within the first six months of a relationship increases.
Which makes sense that if you're in a shaky housing situation or a shaking income situation and you're in a relationship that feels pretty good and you're high on NRE, then it's like, not only is this a great idea because I'm head over heels in love with this person and want to move in with them, but also it's probably going to help provide an almost immediate relief to my shaky economic situation.
Emily: This is why we need more affordable housing.
Dedeker: Exactly. For everybody.
Emily: Yes, absolutely. So that people don't get into situations that they later realize, "Maybe I shouldn't have done that, maybe I shouldn't have moved in that quickly."
Dedeker: That's how people get stuck also.
Jase: Right, because then I'm financially here and I can't afford to not be in this relationship. Yes, you can end up stuck for sure. Though, I know that myself, there have been times where the decision to live together has been, I would say, significantly financial when I had a lot less money. I've had lots of friends who've even stated it very clearly of like, "Oh, yes, we realized that if the two of us lived in this studio apartment together, it would cost us half as much money."
Dedeker: We've made that exact mistake. How dare you call out that exact mistake.
Emily: Listen, nobody is living in this studio apartment with me except for the cat that is sitting below me.
Dedeker: Even then, cat's on shaky ground. One falls through, Henry. Out on the street.
Jase: No. It is very realistic. It is very, very tempting. That's a valid reason, right? If you can cut your living cost in half and you think you like this person enough, that's a pretty compelling argument. That's hard to argue against, at least in a world where housing is expensive. If you've hit this point in the episode and you're realizing, yes, there are some valid reasons on both sides of this for me. Maybe I'm struggling with it. Maybe I and my partner are not quite seeing eye to eye on this. Maybe we haven't discussed it yet, but we probably should because we're getting to a point where we might be starting to make these kinds of decisions about how we want to escalate our relationship.
In the last part of this episode, we're going to get into some tools that you can use to help evaluate this both for yourself as well as with a partner so that you can come at these decisions from the place of being informed and trying to make the best decisions possible, rather than just going with the knee jerk response that maybe you've done before, or that's the opposite of what you've done before, whatever your situation may be.
We're going to take a quick break before that to talk about a couple more sponsors. Again, really, it helps us so much if you check them out, if they're interesting to you. If not, just give them a listen and then move on to the tools. That's also fine. Then, of course, you can join our exclusive community and get ad-free episodes if you would like by going to patreon.com/multiamory.
Emily: It is time for the tools. What are we going to do about all this? What are some actionable takeaways? If you find that you're in a relationship where you want the escalator, somebody else doesn't, or vice versa. First, ask yourself some questions. I think this is really important just because so many of us may feel internally that we want something, and yet we don't really know why we want it. We don't really think about it. Then, ultimately, we don't ever tell that to our partner so that we can see eye to eye or understand each other better when it comes to this discrepancy.
Jase: If we don't tell ourselves, we can't really tell our partner very well.
Emily: Exactly. First, ask yourself, why do I even want this milestone? Why do I want this thing in my life? Is it because my parents did it? Is it because I see other people around me doing it and I want to live up to that expectation? What's really the purpose of this?
Dedeker: Or is it just I've had this dream since I was a child?
Emily: Sure.
Dedeker: The purpose of this exercise isn't for you to gaslight yourself out of wanting a particular milestone, but it is to actually get to the bottom of what's here for you.
Emily: What do you want for--
Jase: Any of those answers are valid. Just go for the truth rather than what you think is right.
Emily: Ask yourself also, could I get these things any other way?
Dedeker: I know an example that I think comes up in the non-monogamous community is some people have maybe realized, yes, I've always known that I've wanted to raise a child, and I'm okay if that's my meta's child, for instance. I'm okay if that's me stepping into a co-parenting role with a child that's not biologically mine, or something like that now. Then some people are very clear of, yes, I want to raise a child and I don't want it to be that situation. I think just asking this question just to get curious of, are there any other pathways for this particular milestone or for the things that I'm wanting out of this particular milestone?
Emily: Also ask yourself, why do I judge other people for not wanting this milestone? If that is, in fact, something that you do. I think a lot of us maybe look at other people who don't want to get married, for instance, or who don't want to have kids, and you may have an internal idea about who that person is, just because they don't want that thing. It's a great idea to just question that within yourself to see, what's going on there? Why do I think this way? You can also ask yourself, why do I judge someone for wanting this milestone on the flip side?
Jase: This is bringing up a memory for me of what was this, I guess, high school. At some point, I was having a conversation with a friend and I was basically making the point of we shouldn't judge people. His argument was, well, we judge people all the time. It's the negative judging that you're talking about. That we do constantly evaluate, and based on things we perceive about people, we make judgements about what we think that means about them. That that's just how we get by and how we survive in the world.
While I don't totally agree with all of his points that he made during that conversation, I think it's worth pointing that out here when you ask these questions of, why do I judge? Maybe rather than why do I judge, but how do I judge? How do I perceive people who don't want this? How do I perceive people that do? That might be a way to think about this rather than judge meaning judgy like a negative thing. Just what do I think about people who want this or don't want this? That might help me understand what I am worried about thinking or not thinking about myself.
Dedeker: Or about a partner. If we take, let's say, just marriage as an example that, let's say, if you're the one who really wants to get married and you realize, yes, I judge people who don't want to get married as people who are commitment-phobes or not serious or aren't respectful of the relationship. Then on the flip side, maybe if you're the person who doesn't want marriage, you may realize, yes, I judge the people who do want to get married as people who are clingy and too sentimental or too traditional. I think that can help to unlock sometimes the seed of the conflict because sometimes in the seed of the conflict is what you're projecting onto your partner who wants this thing that you don't want or vice versa.
Emily: You can ask yourself also, again, is this just about economics? Meaning, am I going to get things in my life because I am with this person? Am I going to get healthcare because we're going on a specific escalator step? Am I going to be able to get a more affordable housing, for example? All of these things may cause you to want to go on the relationship escalator. I think that's perfectly valid, but it also may give you an idea of, should I be doing these things, or are there other ways again that I can achieve these things without necessarily moving in with a partner, for example?
Dedeker: Maybe a good follow-up question to that would be to ask yourself if I was financially stable or housing stable, would I still want to make this particular escalation, or would I still want this with somebody? Maybe you still would. I think that could be a good clarifying question, or maybe it's like, if I was financially stable, maybe I'd want to move in with this person, but I'd want to wait a year or two years or something like that. There could be a lot of rich information there as well.
Emily: Absolutely. I think that's huge. Finally, a question that is really big for yourself is, if I knew for sure that my partner would never be able to offer this milestone to me, does that change how I feel about the relationship? This one's extremely powerful because I think that these kinds of questions can, in essence, potentially make or break the relationship.
At least it can give you some clarity in terms of knowing this is what I want for this relationship and maybe these are things that I'm going to be able to have in this relationship, but other things I'm not going to be able to have. That may at least change the trajectory of the relationship or how you feel about it or the level that it means in your life, for instance. There's a lot of different factors there, or maybe it also is, I don't want to be in this relationship because I don't think that this is going to ever happen for me.
Jase: I think that it is worth asking that question because you may find that if I knew for sure that they would never be able to offer that milestone to me, that then I could mourn that, but then be okay. Maybe that actually could be helpful, too. It really could go either direction of helping you get clarity to say to them, "This really is this important to me," and then, yes, maybe the relationship will last or not based on that. At least knowing that is, I think, really crucial.
We've talked about this before in terms of dating someone where one partner wants to be monogamous and the other wants to be non-monogamous, that sometimes you'll end up in this situation where both keeps hoping the other will come around to their way of wanting to do things and just neither one is happy for a very long time, and then eventually the relationship ends. If you were more clear of like, "What if I assume they'll never change on this, do I still want to be in this relationship," can at least help you avoid that situation where you're stuck, "Oh, now I've wasted 10 years thinking they'd eventually want to get married, and now I feel like I've got this time pressure that I didn't have before," for example.
Emily: That's not to give a partner an ultimatum or something, but it is to at least give yourself some clarity.
Jase: Yes. All right. Those are some questions for yourself. Now, some questions that you can ask others. One is, have I actually expressed wanting this milestone or have I just assumed?
Emily: Ooh, big one.
Jase: I think this one reminds me of the whole, "Oh, I just keep waiting for him to propose with this assumption that he knows that I want that and that everyone would assume that and that it's on him to do that." That's the old-school example. I think this can show up in a lot of other ways as well.
Another one is to focus on understanding before persuading. This is the whole seek to understand before seeking to be understood. It's what questions do you need to ask in order to really understand your partner's stance on this or to really understand why they want this. Basically, get them to ask those questions that you just asked yourself. See if they can do that, too, so that then you can come together and get to the bottom of what's really underneath this. What's really going on here? Whether it's their desire to do this thing or not to do this thing. Then is there a middle ground or a reframe that we could experiment with regarding certain milestones?
For example, if it's about moving in together, what if instead, we created a shared space that meets both partners' needs for independence and togetherness? This could look a bunch of different ways. I'm curious to hear if you two have some ideas, but maybe it's whoever has the larger place creating more of a space that's like your together area, even if you're not both on that lease together and you don't both live there all the time.
Dedeker: In the past, I really appreciated it when a partner has cleared out a closet space or storage space where, yes, maybe I'm not on the lease and maybe I'm not living there full-time but I have a little mini home that's there.
Jase: Got some changes of clothes and your extra toiletries and stuff.
Dedeker: Yes. I think even more than just leaving the toothbrush there, right? Or maybe even if we're living separately, we're spending enough time together and we're still inviting a sense of, how do we for each other's homes here? As in, do we offer to exchange domestic labor? It's not just I come over to your house and we trash it, having a grand old time and then I leave, and then it's up to you to clean up after me. I don't know. I'm thinking about things like these in-between markers that can still be negotiated and can still be on the table.
Emily: I think often when people are not living together and they come over to hang out at somebody's house, it's a date every single time. If you can implement, we're going to be co-working together just for a day or doing menial tasks around the house or something, things that are not necessarily we're going on a date and we're making this super duper special and gussied up all the time. That it's just a little bit more every day is a nice thing.
I've also thought about the potential of living with a partner again and how I would probably want my own space that is truly mine. I did have that in my last home that I lived in with a partner, and it was great. It was especially great when I broke up with him because then I had my own space to be in while I was still living there. I think just a place to get away that is your own and that you can have as a sanctuary is important, and that can be a way to still have a milestone with another person but still also retain some personal autonomy.
Dedeker: Another thing that I like to encourage folks to look at or think about are all of the non-escalator markers of commitment and progress in the relationship. I think years ago, somebody asked me-- I forget if this was just a friend asking me or if I was doing an interview, but somebody asked me some version of the question of, "If you've chosen to forego something like getting married or having kids with a partner, how do you know that things are deepening and moving forward in the relationship?"
Jase: It's like that question about romance of saying, "Oh, I feel like I missed some of the romance or how do I be romantic still?" Yes, that's a great question.
Dedeker: This question, I think, was actually a lot deeper than maybe the question ask or realized. At least it hit me quite deeply. First of all, my brain went into the direction of, oh, it seems like it's maybe a Western construct to assume we always have to be building and growing and making progress in a relationship for it to be real. That's one channel that opened up. Then I spent more time really chewing on, what are the things that I look for that let me know that this relationship is getting deeper, it's moving forward?
I know for myself at the time, and I think still now, I'm looking at things like, how much of myself can I bring to the relationship? How vulnerable can I be with this person? Am I continuing to be able to be more and more vulnerable and show more and more of my tender parts with this person, and are they able to show more of their tender parts with me and we're able to receive that from each other and be kind to each other and hold each other? That, for me, it felt more of this emotional sense. That, to me, I think that that's the escalation that I look at is starting out with someone when I'm first dating them and not feeling very vulnerable, maybe, and seeing that change and shift over time.
Emily: That's the difference between you and me. I'm vulnerable immediately-
Dedeker: Really?
Emily: -and sometimes I feel like--
Dedeker: Oh, that's true. You're right.
Emily: Sometimes I feel almost like parts of myself are a little bit less vulnerable as I get to know a person, which maybe isn't a good thing.
Dedeker: Sure. No, I think that happens in a relationship because in a relationship, then we have more opportunities to poke at each other and hurt each other when we are vulnerable. I think that happens in every relationship, even healthy ones. That is the process of trying to repair that, but then when it doesn't get repaired then, yes, I totally have done that, have seen that, then it escalates in this weird direction of being more contracted, wanting to conceal more rather than reveal to a partner. Yes, we are the opposite. I'm an oyster at the beginning of a relationship.
Emily: For sure.
Dedeker: You got to earn that pearl. That's all I'm saying.
Emily: Definitely not. I'm a flower that's already open and like, "Come here, baby."
Dedeker: I think there's also a lot of other milestones or markers on the table, potentially. Things like maybe you exchange spare keys to each other's place, and that's a particular marker of trust in this other person. Maybe you give each other nicknames or pet names, or I think like Emily mentioned at the top of the episode, maybe meeting family or introducing someone to your friends or to your children.
A marker could be the first time you explore a particular kink together, or the first time that you decide to take care of each other when somebody's sick, or the first time that you've been able to navigate conflict successfully, because I think even if you're in a very decidedly non-escalator relationship, at least non-traditional escalator relationship, you're still going to run into conflict. Hitting your first conflict at all, I think, is a great milestone to hit and then getting to the other side of it, also a great milestone to hit. I was wondering if y'all could think of any others in that land.
Emily: This is actually a big one, but putting somebody down as an emergency contact-
Dedeker: Oh, yes.
Emily: -is a really big one. I've had partners who've never done that with me, even though we lived together for a long time, or people doing it pretty immediately. That's just an interesting-- I think it matters to some people more than others, for instance.
Dedeker: I think talking about money is one that came up for me. Even if you're never going to financially entwine with this person. Maybe you're never going to buy property together or share the rent together, but still talking about it, because chances are, unless you're going out with this person and never spending any money whatsoever, you're in somewhat of a financial relationship that needs to be negotiated with the other person. I do think being able to open up about that is, I think, a particular marker.
Emily: For sure.
Jase: I think that one took me about 10 years to finally get to that phase with Dedeker for you to share more--
Dedeker: That's not true, no. We started talking about money much more vulnerably. I want to say five years ago or so.
Jase: Okay, sure. Still, that was several years in. I'd say that was a pretty late marker of, "Okay, now the trust has gotten even to this next level."
Dedeker: It was just a couple of weeks ago. We didn't plan this or anything. It just came up organically in a conversation. What was it? The first time where we were like, "Here, literally look at all of my bank accounts."
Jase: That's what I'm saying, that it took more than 10 years to get to that point.
Emily: I did that with my current partner a couple months in because I was moving here and I was like, "Okay, here's what I have-
Dedeker: Okay, I guess that makes sense.
Emily: -and this is what I'm working with." That's so funny. Gosh, we're so different.
Dedeker: Jase opened up about the fact that, "You have this fear that I have this secret. Maybe I have a secret bank account that I'm saving all this money in for the purpose of being able to leave you, basically."
Emily: Oh, you said that.
Jase: I said that.
Emily: I said that to Jase. I don't think I ever said that.
Dedeker: No. Which, by the way, I'm in favor of everyone being able to have enough money to do your own savings. I do think everyone should have a bug-out fund, as it were, at least enough money that can serve as a bug-out fund.
Jase: Yes.
Dedeker: Good job.
Jase: No, I was more worried that you had millions of dollars stockpiled in this.
Emily: I could also see that being the case.
Jase: Right? That's what I'm saying.
Emily: 100%.
Dedeker: I'm just going to say your fears are not unfounded because I would be the type to have a secret bank account with millions of dollars.
Emily: We know.
Dedeker: That's not the case, though, right? Jase, you saw the--
Jase: I did see it.
Dedeker: I showed you everything.
Jase: There were not millions.
Dedeker: There's not millions in any account.
Emily: Damn.
Jase: Oh, goodness. Okay, wow. We're getting off track a little bit here. You asked the question of what are some other markers, other things like that. One that I think we've talked about on this show before is just making a one-up or just telling people this relationship is significant. That that was one that I shared that I had that conversation with my mom at one point, where I think she always felt like my relationship with Dedeker was just less serious because she'd never been told otherwise. When I asked the question of, "What would it take for you to realize this relationship was really significant?" She's like, "Oh, you just did it. You just had to tell me. I didn't know."
Emily: Oh, that's good.
Jase: Because people are looking for these markers. They're looking for, "How do I know what this person means to you?" It could also just be telling them.
Dedeker: Yes. In service of this, we always recommend, whip out the non-escalator relationship menu or the relationship anarchy smorgasbord. If you Google those things or if you search our back catalog, you can find the episodes where we covered that. It's a great place to start for thinking about these things, especially early on in a relationship.
Jase: Then, of course, doing radar. This is one of our biggest hits. This is the one on the cover of our CD that says, featuring the single radar, on it, as anyone probably would have that label on it. Using radar, which is our framework for doing a monthly check-in. Having something that's regular, so it's not just we have to have one conversation right now and make all these decisions that now we're stuck adhering to, but that we can have this regular check-in every month or however often works for you to talk about how we're feeling about certain milestones, what are our goals together in this relationship, what are the things that we want to focus on, what are the things that we want to change.
This can give you a great way to feel like we're actively maintaining this relationship, we're making progress, we're moving forward, but it gets to be whatever you want to focus on each month rather than putting it on these external goals that you're constantly getting to reevaluate and then see how you do in your goals each month. You can go check that out. It's in one of our first nine episodes or in our book, of course, multiamory.com/book, or episode 147, or multiamory.com/radar. There's so many ways to get this information. Also, if you just look up Multiamory RADAR, you'll probably find some resources about it.
Dedeker: The last tool that I want to leave people with I call, you want what you want. I'm going to share a story from my last relationship to highlight this. My last breakup, which happened a few months ago, one of the points of conflict in that relationship was a pace discrepancy issue. I would say that he very much wanted some particular milestones on the relationship escalator and wanted them with somebody like yesterday. His timeline was very, very urgent and I was very much like, "Whoa, buddy, I don't know if I'm ready for all that. I'm open to these milestones, but I don't know if I'm ready."
Some of the ones in particular that he wanted was, he was really interested in cohabitating with somebody and he was also really interested in being able to start a business with a partner in particular. I never said this to him, but in my brain, I would always think, "Dude, I've been cohabiting with a partner for a while and running a business with a partner for even longer," and I'm like, "You don't want that." In my brain--
Emily: It's the exact same thing when people say, "I want to start a podcast." No, you don't.
Dedeker: In my brain all the time because I would turn around, it's like I would have an argument with him about that and then I would turn around and jump into one of our meetings where the three of us are arguing about some business decision or whatever and where I'm just like, "No, this is stressful. This is hard. This is like, you know--"
Emily: Time-consuming.
Dedeker: "This is time-consuming, energy-consuming. This is not as fun as I think he thinks that it's going to be." I realized I could never say that to him because no one can tell you that you do not want what you want, and you cannot tell anyone else that they don't want what they want. I think especially in that situation, where even if I told him those things, it's not like he would hear it. It's not like I'd be able to convince him. It's not like he would take my word for it. I'm like, "Oh, you say that actually running a business with a partner is stressful. Okay, I guess I don't want that anymore."
Jase: It also might not be true for him, right?
Dedeker: Exactly.
Jase: Maybe that would be the best thing ever for him.
Dedeker: Yes, especially if he doesn't do a podcast or something like that. I think that was an important lesson for me that I just wanted to drop in here that there may be that temptation if you're in a position where there's a pace discrepancy with you and your partner. Maybe you are that person who's in the been there, done that phase. Maybe you're like, "Trust me, you don't want a baby. Babies are so stressful," or, "Trust me, you don't want to get married. It's brought up all these complications, and it's better for us to not be married."
It's not that your arguments aren't valid or your feelings aren't valid, but it's like this other person's feelings and wants are valid, too. Just bear that in mind that you will probably save yourself a lot of suffering by letting go of that urge to convince somebody that they shouldn't want the milestone that they want.
Jase: Yes, I think changing that focus to more being clear on what you want and don't want, reevaluating that if necessary, and understanding why. I think maybe that gives you a better foundation to come to rather than just trying to convince the other person why they should have different values.
Emily: Absolutely.