507 - Putting Your Values into Action with Jaime Gama
Welcome Jaime!
We’re excited to be joined by the lovely Jaime Gama from @gotitasdepoliamor on Instagram. Jaime is a psychologist with a master's in Gestalt psychotherapy who specializes in ethical relationships, both monogamous and non-monogamous. He uses his account to share his experience and journey deconstructing the ways he connects with his partners. At the moment he offers webinars, on-line sessions and is working on writing his first book.
Some of the topics and questions we discuss with Jaime during this episode are:
Not identifying as polyamorous, despite running Gotitas de Poliamor.
What would you say to people who are having a hard time finding the write label or word for the type of relationships they want to align with?
Is there one common question or topic request that you get from people that you’re sick of?
You prefer to use the term “ethical relationships” to “ethical non-monogamy.” Why is that?
Was there a particular moment when you realized you wanted to abandon the term ENM?
What do you consider to be the four fundamental pillars of ethical relationships?
What’s your take on the opinion that “ethical” should be dropped altogether?
What’s been your experience dating people new to non-monogamy?
Have you had any positive experiences dating newbies?
What is one thing you wish you could implant into the brain of anyone who is new to non-monogamy but considering it?
Your master’s thesis research focused on masculinity, homosexuality, and polyamory, and you found that community carries a lot of weight. Tell us more about that.
What are the ways that you’ve experienced community supporting your own journey?
You primarily produce content for the Spanish speaking non-monogamous community. Have you seen any major cultural differences play out between the Spanish-speaking non-monogamous world and the English-speaking non-monogamous world? Are there things that seem to be universal?
What are the things you wish for the non-mono community as a whole?
Where would you like to see us all heading in the future?
What keeps you coming back to this work?
Find more about Jaime on Instagram @gotitasdepoliamor, or at www.gotitasdepoliamor.com.
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 are joined by Jaime Gama of the popular Instagram account, gotitasdepoliamor. Jaime is a psychologist with a master's in gestalt psychotherapy who specializes in ethical relationships, both monogamous and non-monogamous. He uses his Instagram account to share his experience and journey, deconstructing the ways that he connects with partners. At the moment, he offers webinars, online sessions and is working on writing his first book. Jaime, thank you so much for joining us.
Jaime: Thank you for inviting me, this is a dream come true. This is literally a dream come true.
Dedeker: Jaime, you've invited us onto your account so many times to do Instagram lives and literally was like weeks ago, I was like, "Oh my God, we've never extended the invite for you to come on our show, we need to rectify this." I want to start out with the big news, or at least what was big news to me. Despite running this extremely popular Instagram account that mostly focuses on non-monogamy, I, like many people, was shocked to find out that you've never actually identified as polyamorous. What gives, why have you been lying and deceiving us this entire time?
Emily: Oh gosh.
Jaime: I know everybody said, but I've never said it and people will be like, "No, you said on this video," and I'm like, "Go back and watch it. I've never said I'm polyamorous." I've used the ambiamorous label sometimes for a little bit but I've never really identified as polyamorous. It's hard. I think that polyamory is very much like, it can be very fitting for some personalities, my partner's actually very polyamorous. They're fine with sharing themselves and sharing their love and working through their jealousy but for me, I can do polyamory, I have done polyamory.
I've had a polyamorous relationship for like five, six years and it works perfectly. It's just, it takes so much work that I know this is not something I really need in my life. I am polyamorous at the time because of circumstances, but I think non-monogamy, like having an open relationship, non-monogamy in general is more for me so I identify as non-monogamous and that's it.
Dedeker: That's so interesting. I feel like that's so different from the ways a lot of people talk about identity. I do think the rise of the term ambiamory has been great because it does help to speak to this particular experience that you're talking about. I do think that so many people are like, "Either I'm polyamorous or I'm not. Either I'm non-monogamous or I'm not and if I don't identify as polyamorous, but I am in a polyamorous relationship, there must be something going horribly wrong with my life or with what my partners expect of me."
Jaime: I think also the idea is when people ask me, I'm like, cooking doesn't make me a chef. I'm a teacher I don't teach at the moment, but it's part of who I am. I did for like almost 20 years and it's more of who I identify as, what makes sense to me, to my values, to the kind of life I want to have. I think when people get really stuck on, "I do this, so I must be this," then it's really hard for you to be flexible and explore other things. Even like change your mind when I was like, I'm monogamous, my partner I've been with for 10 years, he introduced himself as polyamorous.
I was like, "No, I don't know what that is, but I really don't like it and I hate that I'm monogamous." He agreed to be monogamous with me and eventually, when we opened to polyamory, it was an experiment for me as in I want to see if I can do it and how to do it and I did. Every time I had a new relationship, it was very much like starting over into the, "Hmm, but is this really who I am?" I do it and it doesn't go against my values, it just takes so much work for me. When I see how my partners just do it more easily, I'm like, it really shouldn't be this much work and I don't need it so no.
Emily: Something that my partner who I am opening up with, it's the first time for him, definitely not the first time for me, but the first time in a very long time. Something that we're kind of exploring and talking about is how some people are more just sort of intrinsically okay with non-monogamy or polyamory, that it's just easier for certain people inherently versus others. Would you agree with that? That some people are more in the realm of, "I'm more comfortable with monogamy or I'm more comfortable with maybe calling myself open but not necessarily polyamorous."
Jaime: Yes. I think it's very much a personality thing and of course, culture, and even age. Nowadays children are so much more open to non-monogamy. In my day, you could not do this but now, my partner, he's dating a bunch of people and all these people are like 25, 20-something and they're very open. It's very easy for them to do this. Again, it's like being gay. When I came out, I don't know how many years ago, it was still a, "Oh my god, I'm gay, I don't know what to do. Nobody's gay. I'm the only gay person in the universe and I'm going to be alone forever, nobody will love me."
I think that now there's more openness, it's more of a conversation about monogamy, people are more willing to explore it. I think that also, in my case, I don't have a lot of time. I am very sensitive, I'm autistic and I need a lot of-- okay, also, I guess I'm going to say this, one of my partners told me one day because I told him I hate polyamory and he's like, "No, you don't, you hate polyamory with beginners." I was like, "Oh yes, you're right"
Jase: Interesting.
Jaime: I was talking to a friend like an hour ago about that because he and I have this very beautiful relationship. It's very QPR, but I told him the same thing and I was like, "You know what? That's not true. I could date you and I could date this other person that I have in my life because they know how to do it. I need a lot of structure, I need a lot of certainty." I think that a lot of people now are more into going with the flow, more relaxed, they can adapt better. I think it's more about personality probably.
Jase: Yes, I could see that, that's so fascinating, and so many people struggle with identity and labels when it comes to their relationship practice. I guess I'm curious, what would you say to people who are struggling with that themselves being like, "I don't know if I just haven't learned how to do it yet, how much I'm still just unlearning all the baggage I had from before or how much is about, maybe I haven't found the right label for myself, or maybe I'm in the wrong type of relationship"? What kind of advice do you give to people in that situation?
Jaime: I would say yes, you have not, and you probably won't in a very long time. It's going to be very uncomfortable because I think I was like, that's also part of why I don't use the label polyamorous. It doesn't feel right. It's like putting on a coat that's a little too big, but then monogamy feels very tight. I'm not really exactly sure. When I talk about labels, I always say that I prefer labels to like a cookie cutter mold because to get into a mold, you have to cut pieces of yourself to fit in what it's supposed to be.
I think a lot people confuse that with a label, to me a label is like you have a buffet and you have some dishes with a little label that describes what's in there. If the dish changes or you want to add something to it, you don't cut the little piece of shrimp to make it look like a cake, you change the label to adapt to whatever else inside it. What I would say is you can identify as, I don't know, a bisexual, polyamorous person today and tomorrow I'll be like, "You know what? I actually don't feel comfortable with this. Let me try this other thing on."
I think a big part of why people don't do this, and I myself included, is I don't want to seem flaky or fake because then-- I'm very public. My life is very public. The first time I said I'm not polyamorous, I was just very afraid of the reaction people are going to have. Then I'm thinking, but also if I break up with my partners, what are people going to say? That is not real love and it really doesn't work and you know how this all works. I think that starting to be flexible with myself about the identity that I have and knowing that I'm changing all the time.
The Jaime that is here with you today would never have talked about any of this 10 years ago or be like, "No, polyamory doesn't work. It's just being promiscuous." I was very different person and who knows where I'm going to be in 10 years. It's more, don't look for a label, just weigh it as you go.
Dedeker: You are right. You started to speak to this, that some of this is wrapped in the experience of being a public figure and having your life be very public and having people who consume your content project all kinds of stuff onto you. I know the three of us could probably vent about that for several hours about all the stuff people project onto us and our relationship and what it means and what it must look like in our identities and stuff like that. I guess I'm curious about when you "come out" as not actually identifying as polyamorous, although it sounds like you were never really in the closet about that.
It's just people projected onto it. What was the nature of people giving you pushback on that?
Jaime: It was more people were projecting onto me and they were sure that I said it all the time. There were people who were going back to my videos trying to catch me on my lie.
Jase: Gosh.
Jaime: It's not what it is, but it did make me wonder. I had a partner that I was with for a few years. We broke up. I asked him what he needed from me since we were very public. I really know who he was. He said, "I just don't want you to talk about our breakup on your channel or any podcast or anywhere," which is really hard because everybody knew him. Hundreds of thousands of people who are asking and I have to be very careful on what I said, how I said it, because I don't lie, but I also have to make sure that I respect my partner's privacy.
I think that the one thing that I'm very thankful for is my community is very loving, very compassionate. I have had haters, like three in the last four years. I never get hate. All my community is wonderful, very accepting. At one point I was like, "I don't want to talk about this. I don't feel comfortable." I was received with a, "That's okay. Thank you for taking care of yourself. We appreciate it." When I get this thing with the polyamory thing, a lot of people just go from, "That's not true," and they notice like, "It doesn't matter. Tell me more. Who are you? What are you? I want to know more."
Again, I'm so lucky. I'm so incredibly lucky that that's my virtual community.
Dedeker: Yes, I think we've also been pretty lucky that our virtual community is also surprisingly loving and compassionate and understanding, all things considered for being in a community that's largely on the internet.
Emily: Absolutely. Is there a common question or topic request that you get from people that you're just super over, that you're sick of talking about at this point?
Jaime: So many. There are too many.
Emily: Can you name a couple?
Jaime: Oh my God. A lot of these questions come from the internet using words like attachment style, narcissism, love bonding, gaslighting. Anytime they ask that, but the one that it makes me very frustrated and frustrates me a lot, people ask me, "Is it okay if I feel," and it makes me very angry, not because of them, but because somebody somewhere made them believe that whatever they were feeling is wrong so much so that they had to ask someone else if it's okay that they feel the way I feel.
It makes me very upset because I'm like, "I wish I could go to that moment in your life and be like, 'No, don't believe that person. I don't know who they are.' No, you can feel however you want to feel." Whenever I get questions or comments that start with, "Is it okay, or, is it good to feel whatever?" I don't even read the question. I step up that. I'm like, "Yes, it's okay to feel that way because that's how you feel." Then let's talk about the question. I think a lot of people are looking for this outside validation.
Which is perfectly fine, which I can totally give out, but it makes me sad that they can't even get to the, "I want to work on communication on my relationships or jealousy" because they're stuck in the part of, "Is it okay for me to feel?" "Yes, it's okay for you to feel frustration, anger, even happiness." They were like, "My partner broke up with his partner and I'm very happy. I'm a horrible person." I'm like, "That doesn't make you a horrible person. You can't control how you feel, and it's okay to feel whatever you feel. What you do with it is not necessarily okay," which we have learned to see a difference.
I guess that that's the one, and again, not because it's wrong. People can ask me that all the time if they want to. It just is frustrating to know that's the history behind it.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: Yes, that's a great observation to make. To come back to this thing about labels and identity. Talking about not identifying as polyamorous for you, and there's more about just trying to figure out what it is you're doing, holding that a little more loosely. Something else that you mentioned when we were preparing for this is that you prefer the term "ethical relationship" to "ethical non-monogamy" specifically. What do you mean by that? When do you prefer that term over the other?
Jaime: This is something that I need to do some research on because at least in Spanish, I have seen nobody else talk about ethical relationships. I'm like, "Did I start talking about this?" I don't know. I have a book coming up. I have some articles and I'm like, "This is--" Anyway. This comes a lot from you actually. I had you to thank and to blame for where I am at the moment-
Dedeker: Oh no
Jase: Oh yes.
Jaime: You know, because I learned a lot. You were my beginning into non-monogamy polyamory. Your community helped me through a lot. A lot of what I've heard from you was, how to focus on what the people need, or who people are in their relationship. My Instagram accounts called polyamory drops, that's the translation, but the full name is polyamory drops for the aches of monogamy. When I started exploring this, I realized that all the tools that I found for non-monogamy, for polyamory were great for monogamy.
I felt so much-- There's so much criticism over monogamy being wrong that I wanted to bring some light into, no, it's not about being monogamous or fully amorous or open or whatever. It's just about how you handle your relationships. I still don't learn more about that from my master's thesis. My idea was to create some kind of resource or something for therapists to use when they receive non-monogamous clients, because there aren't that many of us out there who work with non-monogamous clients and people have very bad experiences with it.
Then I realized, what is it that makes it ethical for me to have a relationship with someone else? So then as I was reading books and listening to you and having my experiences, I was like, "I want in my personal case, it's like having agency, honesty, communication, and compassion." Those are the four pillars of my ethical relationships. I apply that to any relationship; my family, my partners, my friends, even the person I interact with for five seconds anywhere online or in person.
Because to me, it's, I still have this hierarchy in my head, in my heart of, I get more attention and priority to my partners because that's who I am. That's what I do, but that doesn't mean that any of these pillars suffer with my other people. Some of my partners, I do have them first. I'm planning on moving to another country. I want to talk to them about it. I want to do a party. They're the first people I think of because that's how I was brought up, and I like it. I do it that way. I know there's people who are like, "Let's take hierarchy away from relationships," and you can do that.
That's great but f I do this party with someone, with one my partners and a friend comes up with a problem, I'm still going to follow my own ethics in the way I relate to that person. I also think that taking that label away for me has given me more freedom to explore relationships.
Again, I don't have to be polyamorous to be in an ethical polyamorous relationship. I don't have to be monogamous to be in an ethical monogamous relationship.
Jase: I like that from the point of view of creating a framework for therapists in particular, because something that I feel like we do so often on our show is we'll see these tools out there, like things that the Gottmans have come up with or different research, and we say, "This could apply just as well to a close friend or a coworker or your mom or whoever it is." I like the idea of taking that and putting it in front of the therapists more in that language of saying, "Hey, what if--"
Instead of saying, "Okay, it's this type of relationship, I'm going to put this sort of framework on it, and this type of relationship, I'll put this other framework of saying, what if there's this one unifying ethical relationship framework that can get applied wherever it is and gives you this touch point to check in with of, is this an ethical relationship regardless of the other parts of the structure about it?" I think that's an interesting way to approach it. Again, from a therapeutic point of view, I think that could be really helpful for people.
Jaime: Yes. I think also when I started my account again, I was very happy for a while until I got this other accounts whose name I will not say because they hate me. We started like, "We started posting at the same time." I was like, "Yes, let's do it together." Then they started going very much like anti-monogamy and anti-anything that even resembled monogamy. I was like, "No. If you want to call your partner, your boyfriend, go for it." They were like, "No, that's being patriarchal," and they just attacked me until they blocked, an I was like, "Okay, we see things very differently."
Emily: Gosh.
Jaime: Part of this whole ethical thing for me is if that word works for you if you want to have a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a partner, and you want to get married and have this life that they told you. It doesn't go against your values. You're not hurting anybody else. Everything's consensual. It's being reviewed over time so you know you're changing. That's okay. You don't have to always be deconstructing absolutely everything because then people confuse that with destroying their identity.
Deconstructing, it's just taking things apart and finding out which of these parts actually belong to my identity, which don't, but people think, "No, destroy everything and start over," which you don't have to do. There's parts of you and your relationships and things that still work for you. You just have to make sure that they align with your values today.
Emily: Do you feel like some of the things that you have learned in your non-monogamous relationships can still apply to any monogamous couplings that you may have at some point in your life again?
Jaime: Oh, yes. Everything. Absolutely everything. I was talking to one of my partners today about how monogamy helps dump some obstacles and ignore a lot of things that I cannot do anymore. Even relationship check-ins, talking about-- I use your radar of course all the time with all my clients in front of everybody, the smorgasbord, I do all those things. When I have clients who are monogamous, I tell them about these tools, and they're like, "I'm monogamous." "That's okay. What does this version look like to you?"
I had a client the other day actually, she was with a person who didn't want to use labels. Then she was like, "But I like my relationship. I'm very happy with it." Then they got together, still without labels, and this person started seeing someone else, still no labels. This person was so confused. She's like, "I don't know what's wrong. Everything is fine, but I don't know what's happening." I gave her the smorgasbord and I said, "Okay. I want you to look at this. Which of these are the relationship you are with this person?" She said, "I want to be exclusive emotionally and sexually."
I was like, "Great. Don't call that monogamy. That's what you want at the moment. Does he want this? What does that mean?" Because even thinking about sex, monogamy is centered about sex. That's the most important thing in monogamy where people get crazy about like, "Polyamory is promiscuous." "Yes, but monogamy requires sex or it doesn't work." Cheating is the ultimate sin in monogamy. When they come to me and they're like, "How do you get over cheating or how do you prevent cheating?"
I always ask them, "What is sex to you?" They go, "It's sex." "Yes, but what does that mean?" Because I had a partner who we decided to close our relationship and be exclusive. One day I asked him, "What do you think about making out?" He's like, "That's not sex." "That is totally sex. Excuse me, but that is sex." He was like, "No, I don't care. We can make a whole lot of it." I said, "I don't like that. I want to talk about this." In his case, for example, being monogamous would have been us together emotionally, exclusive, and sexually, but making out with other people.
This extends as far as liking people's posts on social media or sending each other nudes or which of these things actually make you monogamous? Not just where you or who you sleep with. That's what I think makes a better monogamous relationship when it's not just sex in the traditional way, but when I think about what kind of relationship I want with you in exclusive ways, that's what I learned from polyamory and all the other kinds of non-monogamy.
Dedeker: Yes. It's like I do think that within non-monogamy, we get or at least maybe a required skill is a little bit of that deconstruction skill. To see it all as a buffet as opposed to just a package deal that we just have to deal with and we don't even look inside the box of what comes with the package deal, we just assume it has all the things that we want in there, and then we're upset if it's not in there. There's something in there that we didn't want. I want to bring it back to your ethical relationships concept because this is the kind of thing that strikes me that you have developed a lot of clarity around your own values in relationship.
Which is not something that a lot of people have necessarily. I think we can all agree that knowing your values is important. I think a lot of people are like, "I don't even know how to figure out my values." I know this framework, the pillars that you mentioned. I know you said that this came out of trying to develop a tool for a therapist as a part of your master's work. I was wondering for you personally, was there a moment in time or a chapter of your life where you feel like you've got that clarity about what your values were in relationship?
Jaime: Yes. I'm going to cry.
Dedeker: Oh.
Jaime: All right. When my partner who was the longest and I started opening to polyamory, it was an accident kind of. We met this person-- This is classic textbook. We met this person, we slept with them, they came back. One day they slept over, and then suddenly we were like, "What are we doing?" Eventually, my partner actually said, "You know you're in love with this person." I said, "No, I don't do that. I'm not polyamorous." I was like, "Oh, no. I am in love with this person." Then this person started dating someone else, and it just became, it was chaos. It was bad.
One of the things that I learned with him, he was very much about his own space. He wanted to be free. It was freedom. He doesn't want labels. He doesn't want to say I love you. He doesn't want to hold hands. He wants to be free. That made a lot of sense to me. I didn't understand why it hurt so much that he wanted to be free. Then I thought, "I'm clearly codependent because I don't want to be free. I don't want to be away from you. I want to be with you, so I am toxic."
The other thing he did, for example, is he would not tell me things that happened in his relationship, but he wouldn't lie to me. I would always find out because that just happens. I find out all the time. It was always feeling like there was another surprise around the corners that break my heart and I feel insecure or something was going to go bad. Eventually, we came to the point of, "Yes, tell me everything." It hurt worse because then he just felt like he was just throwing all this information. I didn't know how to handle. That was a very important relationship in my life.
It was a struggle on and off for like three or four years. When I was doing a master's thesis and I like philosophy and just getting all these concepts, I thought, "Yes, freedom is important, but what does that mean to me? Because I want to be free to limit myself. I am free to decide to not have sex with anybody else. I am free to be exclusive with you, and people don't get that that's a freedom." To me, it was, "Okay, so freedom is one. How do I understand freedom? It's like my agency. I have agency, I am free, but I have to consider who you are as well if I want a relationship with you. For that, I have to be honest."
Honesty is not just about not lying. I never lie because I'm autistic, but I'm not always honest. If I don't give you all the truth or if I say something that I know you're going to perceive differently, I'm not being honest. Honesty to me is representing myself for the value there will be honesty or authenticity. How I have to represent myself the most authentically I can and share all the information that affects you and affects us. Then for this to work, in my ethical framework, it was with this person. Otherwise, I cannot give my consent.
Because I am consenting to a relationship with you where you don't post photos with anybody else or me, but then suddenly I open Instagram and there you are with this other person that I now hate for absolutely no reason. Then for that, I use the-- That's where my commitment, the value of the commitment comes from. Like, I can offer you this. What can you offer me? What can you give me? On the Internet, we have-- I don't think the English has this issue, but in Spanish, we have a concept called the responsibility of affection or emotional responsibility.
That's a rough translation. Everybody uses this term however they want to. The way people use it or weaponize it is, "I am responsible for my feelings and so are you so I'm going to do whatever I want and I told you, so you can decide to leave or stay." That very easily becomes coercion or becomes manipulation. Then the part that was missing from my framework, which is the compassion part, which is the love part. I keep in mind how my actions are going to affect you. It doesn't mean I'll stop doing it, but before I make my choices, I understand it's going to affect you and how, and I assume good faith from you.
Now I forget the question you asked me, but I think I answered it.
Dedeker: You answered it.
Jaime: I just–
Dedeker: A plus.
Emily: I think just values for people in general, especially, I think those coming from more of a monogamous framework are really difficult for some people to even understand, like what is it that I want in a relationship, and what is it that I need, and what are my values? That's something that I'm trying to explore right now with my partner. Yes, what are those things in general, and how does one figure them out? It sounds like from what I'm hearing, you figured that out just by understanding, "Okay. I'm having an emotional reaction to something that's occurring that my partner is doing, and, therefore, it seems like I value something that is different than that thing that is happening in my relationship."
Would you say that that's how you got to your values?
Jaime: Yes. Actually, remember the point I was trying to make, which I forgot because I got distracted because that's who I am. Exactly. The idea is values. They teach values and it's like, oh, free and responsibility and love, but they don't tell us what they look like. In my case, it was like freedom can look different for you and for me. One of the things that I learned from our relationship is validating his freedom. For him being free was having no labels. He was having no physical affection outside of the apartment, and that's fine. That's something I should have learned from you three a lot.
Being able to validate the experience of the other person. The way I understood it then is, it's not the value, it's how I apply it in my life and what it looks like. If it's so vague, saying freedom, saying honesty, respect, I hate that word. Yay for respect but I hate it. Nobody uses it correctly. Usually, respect is you're not respecting me means you're not doing what I want you to do. When I ask people, "Think of respect, I think of what it looks like in action. What actions do you do?" That's how I help people get from this vague ethereal value to more of an actionable thing that they can use. From authenticity to honesty saying things.
Jase: I think it's also bringing up something that I feel like we've talked about before, but maybe it could go into more depth on, but is the situation like you described where this partner valued freedom and for him that looked a certain way. You would say, "I also value freedom. I think that's a good value, but for me, it means this other thing like that it manifests differently in my relationships." The idea that those two things might be incompatible, that for those people it's like, "Yes, this isn't going to work out.
Not because either of us is wrong, or even because we really disagree on our values, but just we want to experience it in a different way." I think that's something that when people are looking for these quick rules to follow or these guidelines of like, oh, is this abuse or is it not? If it is, then it's bad. If it's not, then it has to be good. That's where you get into those situations, like you were saying, of, is it okay for me to feel X. We can get caught up in this idea that if something checks these boxes, then it's not only right in the bigger sense, but also if it is right, then I should be okay with it.
None of that's necessarily true. I think that finding structures where people can understand, "Yes, I've got my values and I have what I want, and that just might not work with somebody else, but neither of us has to be bad. Neither of us has to be wrong." I think that's a really hard place for people to get to. Or at least that's what I've noticed.
Jaime: That requires responsibility. My challenge started out as me just sharing my experience because I needed you three and I found you, and then I realized there was no you three in Spanish. I started sharing stuff in Spanish, which was just quotes from books, because I thought people know things. I'm just quoting people who know. Then one of my partner at the time said, "Why don't you write what you think?" I said, "Because no one cares what I think. It doesn't matter." Here I am. Mostly it's because my experience comes very much from, I don't know the right way.
This is the way I do it. People come to me all the time being like, "Is this narcissist? Was my ex a narcissist?" I'm like, "Okay, how do you feel today?" "No, but tell me about my ex." "I don't want to talk about your ex. I don't care about the abuser. I care about the victim. Tell me how you feel, and we'll work on what you need." Otherwise, people start using words like narcissist to saying, "I didn't like it." Or even ethical. Like now I say, oh, it's an ethical relationship. It's not ethical to not reply to my texts. No, you don't like it. You have to think about words.
Jase: It's tough with those words that we put a lot of value behind. Ethical is a good example that if you can identify that something is or isn't ethical, you can use that as a sledgehammer to just say, this thing is or isn't okay, same with abuse. Violence is another term that I see people try to find ways to either label something as that or not just as a way to more strongly say, "I don't like that thing and I think you're a bad person because of whatever," and that's not helpful.
Dedeker: It's making me think about the value of autonomy. Which is something that I think, especially a lot of non-monogamous people profess to have, myself included. Where I've seen that start to slide to it, it reminds me of the story you're sharing about this partner just wanting freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom. It starts to feel like, I think whenever someone is extremely vocal about how much they value autonomy, my impression is it feels like a very reactionary thing to like, "I don't want anyone to tell me what to do," which is in itself valid.
I think for a lot of people it's maybe like a childhood trauma response, but that's a whole other thing to get into. It's just like, "No one can control me. No one can control me. No one can control me." I do think that unfortunately in the non-monogamy community, we have a lot of people who have been burned by bad controlling monogamy or bad controlling, messy, opening up the relationship processes. They come out of that experience with this extreme pendulum swing to the other side of, like, "No, I'm autonomous. I will submit to no one.
I like the way that you're coming back to agency because I feel like agency and autonomy live in the same neighborhood, but they're slightly different. Where I see people talking about autonomy in the sense of, like, "I don't want to be controlled. I'm my own person." I feel like when you're describing agency and about how the freedom to limit yourself is also still a freedom, it's like agency speaks more to this, like, "I am empowered to be able to make my own choices and speak up for what it is that I want, and maintain my own boundaries." Which, at the end of the day, is still autonomous.
You're still acting as an autonomous being, but it feels a little bit less, I suppose, reactionary, if that all makes sense.
Jaime: Yes, it is, and I think this is the way non-monogamy, polyamory started off. I read difficult Difficult Loves, for example. To me, it's very individualistic. It's very much all individual with autonomy, like, you have to be autonomous.
Dedeker: You Americans love that too, also.
Jaime: Everybody here wants it. I'm like, I'm glad you read it. It's not what I like, but it's a good starting point. I agree it's a reaction, when people say this, whenever I'm helping couples go through agreements, anytime one of them says freedom, I stop them. I'm like, okay, let's just go over that. I want to make sure that you're not a prisoner of your freedom. That the only way for you to feel free is to feel nothing. We have to understand also control because people think control means you are making me uncomfortable because I have no boundaries or I don't know how to set boundaries.
Anything you say is going to feel controlling. What I tell them is, for someone to control you, they need to have power over you. It could be emotional power, psychological power physical power, sexual power over you. Otherwise, they cannot control you. I say, for an example, "I want you to give me your phone right now." They're like, "No." See, I can't control you. Now if I have something to take away from you, even my love, your security, then I am but are you being controlled or are you giving up your power because you don't know how to set boundaries or you don't want to make people uncomfortable?
Then you're not being controlled. You're just blaming everybody else and giving away your power. The idea of autonomy, the word itself is being able to move on my own or being able to move by myself. We're all autonomous unless it's an abusive relationship, in which case none of this applies. Again, I think it's important for people to understand that not everything is abusive. It's going the same way. I think a lot of non-monogamous and polyamorous people who are very radical, they're trying to go away from monogamy and codependence and whatever else they say.
They end up doing a 360 and getting to the same place where everything has to be free and nothing can be monogamous and you cannot be with anybody. It's the exact, you're still a prisoner of those concepts that are not necessarily yours. It's more, let's go from the golden meme. Aristotle was like, vices are the extremes. Let's think for ourselves.
Jase: There's definitely a lot there when it comes to just all those things. I also think about how one of the big challenges that comes up, especially when people are first moving into deprogramming themselves from the way they were brought up to think monogamously, that I think sometimes part of that journey is needing to swing a little farther the other way. You're trying to compensate for how many voices there are in your head, telling you the other thing or how many voices you perceive in the world telling you that you're wrong for trying to do something else.
Again, in a certain way, I want to say, yes, I think there's a space for that and that's good for people to be able to swing there, but hopefully, they can come back to more of a place of autonomy and in the middle and not get totally locked into that radicalism like you were talking about and ending up as a prisoner of that. It was interesting to think about.
Jaime: Which is going back to the similar thing with identity. Like, "Am I trying to fit in this mold of non-monogamy," which is probably what we do. You jump from monogamy to non-monogamy to whatever it's supposed to be. Then you're like, "Wait, this label doesn't really fit me." The label should be written by you according to your own values. You will know what those values are and that's okay. You can just go back and look at your relationships and see which of these things make me happy, which make me unhappy. Both of those can give you ideas of values.
If I think of honesty, I had partners who lied to me a lot and I still trusted them. I think about partners who never lied to me and I still doubted them. What's up with that? It's not about lying or not lying, it's about how am I compatible with the way they live their lives. I had a partner who would never say, "I love you," to me. He demonstrated in so many other ways and I kept saying, "I just don't feel secure. I don't feel safe with you." One day I was like, "No, I just feel safe. I just don't feel loved." I didn't realize that because the way you are showing me love is not the way I need it to be.
I am not that person that I thought I was that required this type of love. I am this other person, but I only knew it through messing up with you.
Dedeker: Boy, been there 600 times.
Emily: When you get in those scenarios, do you find, okay, it's time to end the relationship?
Jaime: Of course, I'm a therapist. I immediately identify red flags and toxic dynamics, and I'm like, "This is not good for you or me. We should happily just break up." I go into my-- no, of course not. I'm very stubborn, and I'm like, "No, I want to make it work because I'm a therapist and I know how to do this." I do think that it's okay to stay and change some things. It's like the Guttmans with the 69-- there's just 69% of things that will never-- confidence will never get sold.
Emily: Perpetual problems.
Jaime: Exactly. Things that are never-- for example, my partner I live with, he will never be on time to anything, and he will never take the dogs out on time, and that's okay. We'll fight over that for the rest of our lives, but that doesn't infringe of my values or his. I had another partner who-- I get really triggered by drugs in general, and I told him this before we started dating, this is one of my big triggers. There's nothing wrong with people doing part or any other drug. Everybody can live their lives. It triggers me because of my history.
He said, "Oh, I just do one edible every three months." I was like, "Paul, I could handle that maybe." Then it turned out that he was doing more than that and he didn't tell me this. I said, "You are hiding information from me. You're lying to me and you have a big red flag for me. You're triggering me and I can't really feel safe with you, but let's try to make this work because I think that love can conquer all." Of course, it didn't, because sometimes I want to try and it doesn't always work.
Dedeker: Sorry. I just wanted to drop in a super quick side note, just that I do want to write a whole episode about denial one of these days. I just wanted to put a pin in that. Please, go ahead.
Emily: I love that. I think that that's something that probably all three of us, all four of us have struggled with. It sounds like you have as well, is that especially when you are a creator of platforms like these, where you're constantly talking about all of the ways in which-- all of the tools that we have for our relationships and how to make them better. Then in your own relationships, there are certain times where it just doesn't work no matter what you throw at the issue. It's really difficult. It's really difficult to not feel like a fraud, I think in those moments.
I did that for years and years and years in my last relationship. I think what you're saying is sometimes it's just not going to work. If two people aren't compatible in very specific ways that matter through finding out their values, then there's not a lot you can do.
Jaime: I think one of the things I also learned from you, again, just seriously, I admire you because you've changed my life forever. One of those things that I did was you always share your stories of things that worked and didn't work. It was the first time I felt human. A lot of the times I was reading books or content creators of polyamory. I was like, "I am clearly toxic. I feel jealous. I'm never going to find love ever because I'm very controlling apparently. When I heard you talking about those experiences, I'm like, "I need to share this too."
When sometimes people start getting like, "Oh, you're the guru of polyamory." Like, "I'm very not.
Emily: We say the same thing.
Jaime: Let me just give you a reel on how I messed up last week because that didn't work out." I think it's very important. We're always human. This is not going to work out all the time. This still can be incredible. I love radar and my partner I've been with forever, when I say, "We should do a radar," he's like, "I hate that word." I'm like, "I know." Then we don't do it. I had one who was like, "Oh, my God, what's the next radar?" I'm like, "I know. I'm so excited." I was sharing that sometimes it doesn't work and that's okay.
Dedeker: My knee-jerk reaction is I wanted to be like, "Yes, radar sucks sometimes, honestly."
Emily: It does.
Dedeker: I'll say that as the one partially responsible for making them. It takes forever.
Emily: It does. It's long and it's arduous. Eventually, I couldn't really do it with my ex, but I want to do it again with somebody who is super game to do it, because I think that it can be awesome. With as much emotional processing as I'm doing in my current relationship, I feel like it could make that better by putting a specific container of time instead of it being every freaking day. Somebody has to be okay with that.
Dedeker: We could talk more about dating newbies, I'm just saying.
Emily: I am interested in that to a degree just because I'm going through it right now with two people and just the intersection with finding people who don't know your content and--
Jaime: It's impossible.
Emily: It is, unless they're new. One of my partners said to me, he was like, "I had this thought that maybe to impress you a little bit, should I go and listen to your podcast a time?"
Jaime: No.
Emily: I was like, "Never do that." He said, "I realized that that probably wasn't a good idea. I wanted to get to know you without having listened to it." I thought that was really sexy. Besides that, in terms of dating new people, is it possible to do that well, especially when you're bringing a non-monogamous paradigm to someone who has only ever been a certain way, especially if they're older too? Like, whoa, that adds a whole additional realm of challenge potentially.
Jaime: I think it just goes back to being compatible. This person I started dating a few months ago, there's many reasons why I fell in love with him. One of those times was we were on Zoom, and he took out a notebook for his to-do list and he had colored pens to color code everything. I was like, "You are going to love radar. You and I, this is going to work perfectly." In case you don't know what it is--
Dedeker: You're going to love the whole polyamory Google Calendar thing. Funny.
Jaime: Yes, exactly. This other person I had, he was major at communication. I was like, " Ugh." I told him I was trying for social communication. He's like, "This is so cool." I'm like, "Right. Let's talk about more tools to communicate," but some people don't want that and that's okay. I agree with the whole dating newbies thing. When I meet someone and they ask me what I do for a living, it's the sexiest thing you can ask me. I'm like, "You have no idea who I am, and I'm so happy." They're like, "Should I google you?"
I'm like, "Please do not google me or go on Instagram until we start really dating so you can get to know me." Otherwise, people get these ideas of, if you only see the three videos where I talk about something good, they're like, "Oh, you have a perfectly good relationship." I'm like, "I'm not." Getting to know the real me-- I'm new at this relationship too. I don't know you. This is a new thing for me. Of course, it's not the same thing as someone who has never talked about their feelings before, but let's just sharing that well.
Dedeker: I'm going to make the same joke that I made. We just did an interview on the Evolving Love podcast a little while ago, and they express very much the same thing, that it is hard when you create content, when you're a known quantity, when you're an educator. Finding people who don't already have some parasocial relationship with you who are in this sphere. I made the joke that, if anyone listening out there thinks any of us are hot and you really want to date us, stop listening right now, right this moment.
Jaime: Oh, my God. I'm going to steal that.
Dedeker: Switch off your podcast player. Wait until you forget who we even are, and then maybe if we cross paths, maybe then it'll be just like the most amazing 2024 rom-com that ever existed.
Jaime: Definitely completely. I went out with a person once, the second date, she didn't tell me she knew me. The first date I was like, "Okay, so before we go any further, it was a good lunch, that I have a few questions." He was like, "I know, I know. Here are your answers." He told me the answers to all my questions for our first date because I said them once in a live stream. I was so freaked out. I'm like, "You don't get how creepy this is. You're impressing me. You're freaking me out."
Emily: Whoa.
Dedeker: To bring it to maybe a more general audience level, I think that there are some people out there who just refuse to date "newbies", any non-monogamy newbies or polyamory newbies. Other people say, "No, you can't say that because that's gatekeeping." I guess I'm curious of your take on that.
Jaime: It's just people are so extreme. If you say, "I don't like dating newbies," they hear, "You should never date a newbie and they don't belong with us, deconstructed people," which is not what we're saying. I don't like mayonnaise. I'm not saying that nobody should ever eat mayonnaise because it's evil. I do think that it can be a preference. It's also a general statement. I might meet someone tomorrow that I love and adore and they happen to be a newbie, and I will try it. It's not my default. It's not what I'm looking for.
Me personally, I want to date someone who at least has some grasp, because I don't want to teach you. I want a partner. I don't want someone to mentor. I think this thing of gatekeeping, because it happens everywhere. If I express something I like, it's okay. I can like that person. I can like this. If I say I like older men who are taller than me, who have a bigger body than me and they're bearded. That is so misogynistic. I'm like, "Look, I don't like women. I'm gay." That is wrong. What about trans? I don't know.
If I meet a trans person who fits the description. It's not about that, but they always take it to this extreme that has to be very controversial. I think if you don't want to make newbies because you don't want to, that's fine. Just don't tell people to not do it. Because life is what it is, you will find a newbie that you will love and fall in love with, and then you have to post about it like I did. Then during a year they'd be like, "Didn't you say you didn't want a newbie long distance? You've been with me for a year." I'm like, "I know, intern. I know."
Jase: Coming up to the end here, I just wanted to ask you quickly about your master's thesis that you're working on. Could you give us the outline of what that's about and maybe any highlights from what you found in researching that?
Jaime: It took me forever to do it, which is funny because it wasn't-- It's a longer story, but it was on masculinity and gay men who identify as polyamorous. My idea was how hierarchy comes into play in those relationships and what helps them, helps us have a more functional relationship. My hypothesis initially was it's going to be about masculinity, especially for Latinos, like for Mexicans, we come from this family where the man has to be the macho and we have to be the alpha. It's got to get in the way because we're going to be fighting everybody for the power and whatever, but what I found, and I was very happy, was that community was the most important thing.
From my sample, the people who actually were having a more thriving, more functional relationship in polyamory or otherwise, it was focused on polyamory. It was those who found their people, someone they could feel supported by, or they could tell their story to, and they found a community. Those who didn't have a community would fall back into patterns of masculinity, hierarchy, violence, aggression. It wasn't even like having someone to give you a reality check. It was just feeling like, I'm not alone so I can talk about this and by talking about this, I feel empathy. I feel validated.
Then I can hear the other person and validate them too, and then find your experience that helps them feel like there's many ways to do it. I'm not alone, so the first thing I felt when I started getting to non-monogamy and being gay. I'm the only one, and if I do it wrong, it's because I am bad, I am wrong. Having a community that supports me has always been like the thing. I always tell people when they want to start polyamory-- They're like, "What's the first thing you would tell someone who wants to start non-monogamy." I'm like, "Find your people first."
Find someone, one, two, three people who will go on the journey with you, not being your partners because you will break up with those people and you need someone to cry with.
Emily: Love that.
Jase: I love that. That's really cool that that's what you found in your research and putting that together, even though it wasn't what you were seeking out to find. You thought it was going to be something else. I think that's really cool, and yes, definitely goes back to one of the things that I feel like I always try to tell people is find whatever your local community is and go there not to date, but go there just to make friends, just to connect with people because that's the core you need first. Before you need partners, you need that.
You need some frame of reference about what real normal people, normal is maybe a stretch, but what real people experience, the stories they go through, having that there in place is just so, so important. That's really cool that that is what you found in your research.
Dedeker: Jaime, you've been making content and educating for a long time, doing research, supporting people. You do live streams, from what I can tell, every 30 seconds or so is what it feels like. I get your notifications on my phone and it's like, I get to build up this really nice little mental inventory of the Spanish version of different relationship terms. It is very helpful for my own education, but in the midst of talking about the stuff that's going on in your personal life and dealing with people sending you so many questions or people giving you flak or whatever, what keeps you going at the end of the day? What keeps you coming back to this work?
Jaime: I'm autistic.
Dedeker: That's the most non-monogamous answer to possibly give.
Jaime: That's the best answer I can give. I like doing it. I like helping people. I'm not an angel. I am very selfish. I have a lot of issues, but I really like helping people. I really like understanding people. There's always something new happening. At this point, honestly, this year, I'm starting to feel like, "Okay, maybe I've said everything I wanted to say." There's this video that Therapy Jeff posted, he was on your podcast too.
Dedeker: Yes, he was.
Jaime: He posted a video saying that he feels like he already said everything he had to say about relationships and he said, take a break. When I saw that one, I was with my partner, I was like, I feel him so much. I feel so seen at the moment because I do need a break because every single second of my life is thinking about content, thinking about relationships and talking about relationships because that's what I do already.
Emily: That's why we only do this once a week and not constantly. That's the only way, I think.
Jaime: It's very smart.
Dedeker: Yes, I need good longevity.
Jaime: It's very, very smart, but I think it's also very nice. I like it. It makes me happy. It's fun. I use it every day in my relationships too, anyway, and I have a beautiful community. Honestly, when I'm sad or depressed, I do a livestream and it makes me so happy because people are just wonderful. Somebody will ask a question, somebody else will say it, and my favorites are I'm like, "I feel a little sad," and you see all this empathy, motivation going up there, and like, "It's okay to feel sad. We're here with you. You don't have to feel any other way.
If you want to talk about it, that's fine." It's so great. It's so beautiful. That's why I do it.
Jase: That's awesome.
Emily: That's awesome. Wow. How lovely. This has been really wonderful, Jaime. We could definitely go on and on and hopefully, you'll come back eventually and we'll get to do another one of these and maybe vice versa on your show as well. For everyone out there who doesn't know who you are, which would be astounding, but for those who don't know who you are, where can people find more of you and your work?
Jaime: First, thank you. I'm so happy. I'm so happy, I have no words. Thank you so much. Most of my content is in Spanish. I have live streams with you, with other content creators, therapists in English. You can find me on Instagram as gotitasdepolyamor, which is polyamorydrops, or on TikTok as amemoseticamente, which is let's love ethically, but if you google my name and polyamory, I'll show up. I don't do a lot of content in English because I'm happy to go to other English-speaking countries and not be recognized. I can date Americans and some other people because they don't know who I am.
Emily: There you go. Love that.
Jaime: That's my secret.
Dedeker: Jaime, why do you think Jase and I go to Japan all the time?
Jaime: I think that's the secret. You find someone who doesn't speak your language.
Emily: Yes, I love that.