512 - Before, During, and After Opening Up Your Relationship
Back to basics
When you’re wanting to be non-monogamous, it’s important to establish why you want it. Is it a lifestyle that you feel suited to, or one that you believe will help you become the most realized version of yourself? What are you hoping to gain from non-monogamy that you feel you can’t get out of a monogamous configuration?
Some things to keep in mind when starting a new relationship if you want to be non-monogamous:
Make your interest in non-monogamy clear as soon as possible, perhaps from the beginning if non-monogamy is something you’ve thought about for a long time.
Keep up the conversation as your relationship continues to change and grow. Remind your partner periodically that this is still something you are thinking about and interested in doing eventually. Brainstorm what this might look like for each of you.
Encourage them to do their research and use some of the discussion prompts in the later part of this episode to discuss what opening up would mean for each of you. Don’t forget to continue your education as well.
Non-monogamy requires a lot of unlearning of monogamous norms. This means reframing what a “committed” relationship looks like, thinking about how things like sex fit into the broader picture of your relationships, etc. Check out Jessica Fern’s book Polysecure and also our episodes with her, 291: Attachment Theory and Polyamory and 450: Polywise, a conversation with Jessica Fern and Dave Cooley.
Ideally, each of you will have your own personal understanding of non-monogamy before you start doing it in practice, and each of you will have your own reasons for wanting to engage in it. Try to find your “anchor” to non-monogamy or your reason for wanting it to be a part of your life.
Recognize that you can’t account for everything, and setbacks and challenges will happen regardless of how well prepared you are. You aren’t going to always know what is going to be a trigger until it happens. Don’t let it stop you from having fun and enjoying yourself!
During the initial opening up
Some things to keep in mind during the opening up phase and conversations to have with your partner:
Plan out what you’re going to say! Highlight the things that really matter to you about the relationship that you are in, what it has meant to you, and the excitement you feel for the possibility of the future of the relationship.
Express again why non-monogamy is important to you.
Explore what agreements and boundaries will look like with this new relationship configuration. The episodes we talk about these things in are:
178 The Basics of Boundaries
227 Rules and Agreements Ft. Boundaries
423 Boundaries are all about YourSELF
Get ready for the possibility of some growing pains. No matter how much you and your partner have prepared for this moment, there may still be some challenging feelings that arise when it actually happens.
Decide what this shift may mean for how you present yourself and your relationships to the world. Are you planning to be out about your non-monogamy? Would you rather only tell people who you trust and are closest to? This may be different for each of you, but given your friends and family’s open mindedness (or lack thereof) it might be something you choose to tell some people and not others.
Some troubleshooting you might have to discuss or work through in this emotionally turbulent time:
The role of sex in a relationship. Is sex an expression of love, or just another language used to get to know another person? Is sex something that can be done with people you don’t know very well, or should it only be with someone you are comfortable sharing deep intimacy with?
There may be different speeds between both people.
Differences in time management and how much time people can and should spend with another partner. A lot of monogamous relationships have an understanding that partners will be available to each other at any time, whenever they want. There is a bit more entitlement around each other’s time.
Non-monogamy generally favors a more autonomous lens, where time is a person’s own to do with as they see fit.
Non-monogamy is going to shine a light on any type of insecurity each of you might have. You might not even be aware those insecurities are present until you are forced to deal with them because of non-monogamy.
After opening up, how do you maintain things?
Some thoughts to consider after the initial opening up:
RADAR or regularly scheduled check-ins with partners help a lot! Also, discuss the following questions with partners:
What makes me feel safe in this relationship?
What makes me feel unsafe in this relationship?
Realize the journey is potentially going to be different for each of you based on your experience levels, personal background and baggage, and many, many other factors.
Let yourself grieve if you need to.
Being a good hinge partner can be very challenging as well as emotionally exhausting. Check back in on our episode 344: What Makes a Good Hinge Partner and make sure that you give yourself some time to decompress and do some personal self care when you need it.
NRE can be awesome and fun and amazing. It can also wreak havoc on your existing relationships. Check out our episodes on NRE like 190: Surviving and Thriving in NRE and 320: Limerence and NRE.
Check out various “Relationship Anarchy Smorgasbords” or “Non-Escalator Relationship Menus” to try to determine what it is that you want or don’t want in your relationships. This can be a great exercise to do with a partner at any time throughout your relationship and it can change and be amended over time as well. The Relationship Anarchy manifesto is always a fantastic read as well.
Find community. Community is one of the best ways to find people who understand what you are going through, where you don’t have to hide any parts of your relationship, and who can help you when the going gets tough.
It’s ok to break up.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're talking about opening up an existing monogamous relationship. Specifically the part at the beginning, the before, during, and after, saying the words, "I'd like to open up our relationship," or, "I want to try something different." That first really pivotal stage can be so important in setting the tone for how the rest of this process will look going forward as you're opening a relationship and it can be really scary. It can be really hard.
This is especially for those of you who have been primarily monogamous and are considering opening a relationship or maybe you've been non-monogamous in the past, have gone to monogamy, and now you want to look into exploring non-monogamy again.
If you're interested Ain learning about some of our fundamental communication tools that we reference a lot in here, definitely check out our book, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships. It covers a lot of our tools like radar, which is going to get mentioned later on in this episode. Then also you can check out some of our first few episodes, which are our toolkit of our most commonly used tools. We will also be making many references to older episodes for you to go check out in this one if you're interested in exploring certain topics that we bring up.
Emily: It's been a minute since we've done an Episode like this, about opening up about beginning the first stages of non-monogamy in general. I thought it would be fun to do this, but also, I'm going through this right now. It's been a few months so I've been talking about it a touch on the show, that I am now opening back up from a previously monogamous relationship that was my long nine-year relationship. Because I left that, I'm now exploring non-monogamy again. Part of this Episode is a little bit about that, but what I have learned along the way and maybe some better practices than what I ended up doing as well.
Dedeker: I'm glad that we're covering this again. I think a few weeks ago I did an interview, I don't even remember, for some publication, and they asked me, "What are your top tips for people just starting to open up?" It's like my eyes glaze over and I can see our entire back catalog.
Emily: Oh boy.
Jase: 500 episodes.
Dedeker: The whole matrix just comes flying by me like a Windows screensaver and my mind goes completely blank and I end up saying something really unexciting like, "I don't know. Go listen to my podcast, I guess." I'm glad that we're coming back around to this more specifically.
Emily: Absolutely. I do want to put the caveat on this, that a lot of this comes from my specific experience. Your experience out there is going to be potentially very different than what I went through. Again, I'm a person who was very, very steeped in non-monogamy for a period of time. Then through a lot of different circumstances, mostly being that my partner who I lived with gave me an ultimatum and said, "I'm not going to be with you anymore if we are practicing non-monogamy."
I decided to close up that part of my life and stay monogamous with him, but it was really difficult for me I think in a lot of ways. It was hard to shut off that part of myself. Now that I'm out of that relationship, I entered into an additional new relationship. I ended up talking about the fact that I wanted to be non-monogamous from the beginning. Then here's what happened and what I have learned along the way.
That's a very specific way in which to approach non-monogamy. A lot of you out there probably are going to just realize, "Hey, I want to be with other people, and therefore I want to bring this to my existing monogamous partner and say I want to open up." I do think that a lot of these things will still apply, but there may be different nuances to your specific situation.
Jase: Getting into this, let's talk briefly about the structure of this episode. I mentioned before, we're going to talk about the before, the during, and after that crucial phase of beginning that conversation about opening up the relationship. Part one is going to be the before. That's all the personal work that you're going to want to do to understand why you want to do this and how you want to bring this up. The during is about how to have that conversation effectively.
Then the after is going into the beginning of that journey together or not. We'll get to that when we get there. Starting out with the before, for you, as the person who wants to open up this relationship, it's really important to establish why or at least the beginnings of your why you want to do this. As Emily mentioned, for her, she had done it in the past and has also been part of this podcast and knows a lot about it.
For her, there was this sense of, "I know this is what I want to do. I just need to figure out how to get back into it and also figure out how to have this conversation with a partner that has not done it before." For other people, I think for many people it's more, "I don't know for sure that it's going to be great or that it's what I want, but it feels like there's something there that's calling to me." That there's something there that's interesting about this. Doing some exploring about that can be really helpful.
For example, is it just a way of dating that feels more suited to you? Does it seem like a way for you to become a more fully realized version of yourself? Is it about wanting freedom? Is it specifically about sexual connections or is it more other types of connections? Maybe it's more wanting your partner to have that freedom and not even so much that you really want to get out there dating.
There's a lot of different angles that you could approach this from. What is it that you're hoping to gain from non-monogamy that you feel like you're not getting currently or that you think might broaden your horizons or anything like that? On that subject, how about for us? What do we feel like are the things that drew us to it initially and has that changed at all?
Dedeker: Well, when I think back the 200 years ago when I first had a conversation-
Emily: Good Lord.
Dedeker: -like this with a monogamous partner--
Emily: It was you who brought it.
Dedeker: It was I who brought it.
Emily: Of course.
Dedeker: I did all but make a PowerPoint presentation. A lot of reflection-
Emily: Of course.
Dedeker: -then reading the whole two books that existed out there-
Jase: Correct.
Emily: -and all the dusty live journal entries that existed. To oversimplify it, I think I was motivated by sex and by shame. What I mean by that is at that point with my monogamous partner, I really wanted to get more sexually adventurous in general. He seemed very, very disinterested in that. Would shoot down a lot of stuff that I would bring to him. I think he was working through some of his own stuff. We were also in our early 20s, which it's a real-time. It's a real-time.
That was part of it. Also, I had already spent a lot of time, ever since my early teenage years, feeling this really strong sense of shame any time I felt attraction to someone who wasn't my partner. Any time I develop little crushes on a person who wasn't my partner, and I really internalized the sense that that means there's something bad and wrong about me. I'm broken in some way because I've not been taught any differently.
I do think non-monogamy provided this pathway to feel like, "Oh, maybe I don't have to feel like there's something wrong with me. Maybe this is actually normal and I cannot just normalize it, but also lean into that." I think that's what it was for me way back in the day.
Emily: How about you, Jase? I was a part of this too because you came to me.
Dedeker: She was a witness.
Jase: Right. An active participant, I would say.
Emily: Indeed.
Jase: Not just a witness. For me, it was a longer time coming where through high school and the first part of college would identify pretty strongly as a jealous person. I was also pretty religious at the time. For me, there was this big pivot in my senior year of college of realizing that jealousy and love aren't the same thing, and kind of this wanting to possess or control someone else is not love. It's not an indicator of love, which was just the way I was taught.
It sounds silly to say it and I don't think I ever thought of it exactly that way, but for me, that was this big pivotal moment. Then it was many years after that when I actually finally learned, "Oh, this is a thing that people do and have written a few books about at the time." There's like one podcast about it. There were some things about it that for me it was almost more like just my values lined up with it. It was the things that matter to me and my values fit with this better.
Just logically speaking, I guess, because I hadn't done it yet. It was that like, "Okay, I want to try actually doing this thing that lines up with what feels like we all should be able to do." At least that's where I was coming from at the time. I think for me now it's more hard to imagine doing it any other way. Monogamy seems so much harder for everybody involved and not really for any benefit, at least to me, from my perspective.
Emily: I will say, when you brought this idea to me, I could understand it pretty immediately from a theoretical standpoint that I knew as a young person, I had been in a relationship, but then liked other people at the same time. Couldn't really do anything about it outside of kissing them in the school play because I wanted to feel something exciting.
Dedeker: Creating very elaborate structures to be able to get that need met.
Emily: There you go. Exactly. I could understand how people could have feelings for more than one person at once, but because of all of the things that we're taught, I just didn't think that one was allowed to do that. It wasn't until I started realizing and having my own experiences within non-monogamy that I was like, "Wow, I'm really learning so much about myself that I didn't really know before just because I was adhering to this one relationship box at a time."
That I felt put a lot of limits on my own personal development and therefore I wasn't able to blossom and bloom in the ways that I was hoping to, especially as a young person. I think in the ways that I currently am, again, now that you're able to see yourself through the lens of others. When you get to do that through multiple people at once, it's really quite impressive and awesome to see the depth of who you can become. I love that and I love seeing that in my partners as well.
Jase: Yes, I remember for you pretty early on there was a big theme of feeling like you were able to be a fuller person because each person that you dated brought out a different side of you, helped you learn new things about yourself. I remember early on that being a theme that you really identified as like, "This is cool." This feels good.
Emily: Yes. It was shocking, again, in retrospect to see how much that shut down once I got really very deeply entrenched in the monogamous relationship-
Dedeker: Sure.
Emily: -that I was in for nine years. Now that I'm out of it, I'm like, "Okay, we're not going to do that again. We need to stop doing that." If you find yourself being the person who is drawn to non-monogamy, here's some things to think about. Even when you're starting a new relationship with someone, if you're single, for instance, this may be a little bit different if you are currently in a monogamous relationship, although these things can still percolate in your mind.
If for instance, you are single and starting a new relationship with someone and you've realized, "Hey, I think I want to be non-monogamous in my next relationship," then make that known to a potential partner as soon as possible. Maybe start discussing it with them when you're just starting to date them as you're getting to know them. Continue to keep that up as your relationship continues to change and grow. Also, see, is that a deal breaker right off the bat for somebody?
I got into a relationship with someone shortly after I ended my long-term relationship, and I wanted that person to make sure that they knew non-monogamy is a thing that I'm going to want to do again. Maybe I'm entering into a functionally monogamous relationship with you right now, but it's not always going to be that way. Know that about me. If you need to tap out now, that's fine, but if you want to engage in something with me, then this is going to be a part of our relationship for sure.
Remind your partner periodically of that because I think often people can get, not necessarily complacent, but comfortable in the place that they're in, in a relationship and realize, "Hey, I feel like we're just going along like every relationship that I've had." That is monogamously, we're sort of checking off the boxes, we're sort of moving up the relationship escalator in these ways that feel pretty normal. Therefore, I do think that it's important to keep up the understanding that this could still enter into the relationship at some point.
Jase: Now, if you are in an existing relationship and you're thinking this, I think that, again, trying to start having these conversations on the earlier side is good. Rather than coming in with your fully fleshed out budgets for the next year, PowerPoints, action items, all of that can be a shock if they didn't see it coming at all. I would say even in that situation, there's a certain amount you want to do some self-introspection first that we're talking about here.
Also sooner is generally better because it gives you more time to both have time to think about it and not just you, but also your partner gets more time to think about it and understand as best as possible. Because it is sometimes a very difficult shift for people to wrap their minds around, like Emily was getting at.
Emily: Absolutely. A lot of that also is just doing some research. Now since the three of us have become non-monogamous, the research and the podcasts, and the books have multiplied and multiplied and multiplied. There is so, so much more information out there now than there was 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, and beyond.
Definitely do some research on your own so that you're able to hopefully bring the best stuff that you've found to your partner and encourage them to listen to it as well. When you're starting to actually get into, let's maybe do this thing, let's actually go out there and open up our relationship instead of just thinking about it or talking about it or having it be a theoretical thing.
Jase: A big part of the shift to non-monogamy is the challenge of shifting paradigms. Something that we often say is that non-monogamy requires a lot more unlearning than it takes learning. I think there's also learning involved too, but a lot of it is realizing what things you've taken for granted or what things you've gotten used to assuming are just facts or are just universal in relationships that might not be. This could mean reframing what commitment looks like in relationships. Thinking about how things like sex fit into the broader picture of your relationships.
Realizing that partners can't and shouldn't have to provide everything to you. For example, the first chapter in Jessica Fern's book, Polywise, is all about changing paradigms and is a great resource for this part of the journey. You can check out her book and also our Episode we did with her way back in 291 about attachment theory and polyamory. Or you can hear our discussion with her and her co-author about the book, Polywise in Episode 450 called Polywise: A Conversation with Jessica Fern and Dave Cooley.
Dedeker: Ideally, you're able to take the time and do some of that personal exploratory work to develop your own personal understanding of non-monogamy and what it actually means to you before you dive into doing it in practice. Ideally like your partner is also able to have that time to develop it. We really like this idea that Lola Phoenix introduced to us of finding your anchor to non-monogamy, your reason for wanting it to be a part of your life.
You can go check out our interview that we did with Lola Phoenix, that was in Episode 378 titled The Anxious Person's Guide to Non-Monogamy, which is also the title of the fantastic book that Lola Phoenix wrote. Basically, they shared that anchors are important in non-monogamy because they help us deal with the very natural parts of having anxiety when you're trying a new type of relationship style in a context that has given us no cultural scripts for following it.
That means that it's important to take the time to develop an anchor outside of just, "Maybe I want to have more sex with more people." Or an anchor outside of just, "Well, my partner really wants to do it so I have to try it if I don't want them to leave me." Really seeking that deeper personal reason.
Emily: Do recognize that through all of this theory and all of the time that it's taking you to think about this and to read the books and listen to the podcast, you really can't account for absolutely everything. There are going to be setbacks and challenges that happen regardless of how well-prepared you are. You're not necessarily going to know what's going to trigger you or cause jealousy to come up or any number of things until you actually jump in and do the thing.
Don't let it stop you from having fun and enjoying yourself, but realize that stuff's going to come up and that's totally okay. Now we want to move on to the, during part of opening up your relationship. For me, my partner and I talked a lot about the possibility of non-monogamy even before it was even a potential issue, even before I started developing feelings for a co-worker and realized, "Oh boy, here we are. The time has come. I now am very interested in opening up my relationships so that I can also explore things with this new person."
With all of that said, because I had started talking to my existing partner about it before, I thought, "Okay, this conversation is probably going to be fine, fairly easy," but when it actually happened, I was super, super nervous about it. There was a lot of baggage from my past relationship and doing something similar and knowing that that conversation went very, very poorly. I was worried about this going really poorly. I think in retrospect it went fairly well, but I want to give hopefully some tips to you all so that a similar conversation for you will also go well.
I think it's definitely not a bad idea to plan out what you are going to say ahead of time. You can highlight the things that really matter to you about the relationship that you're in, what that relationship has meant to you, all of the wonderful things about it. Also, the excitement that you feel for the possibility of a future in this relationship as well. Through all of that work that you have previously done in terms of figuring out what it is that non-monogamy means to you and why you want to do that, try to highlight those things in this conversation as well.
For me, again, I wanted to really emphasize the fact that it's this true, authentic representation of who I am. If I am not able to do that, I feel like I'm not particularly the best and most authentic version of myself. For you, that might be something completely different. If you are opening up a long-term monogamous relationship, that might be something even more different and even more challenging in this moment. It's really going to be unique and tailored to your specific situation.
Jase: Yes. I like that note that you made about emphasizing what you do appreciate about this relationship to help make it clear that this is something you do want to do together with this partner in this relationship/ Not just a half-hearted way of saying you don't want to be with them anymore. I think for a lot of us, that's where we might default to thinking, "Oh, they don't want to say they want to break up with me so they're doing this halfway thing." I think that's how we've been taught to think about like opening up a marriage or something. It's a thing you do right before the end.
Emily: Exactly. I will say my partner acknowledged the fact that the NRE of our relationship was starting to fade and therefore he wondered if it was coinciding with me wanting to do this with another person. I reiterated to him I had had feelings and thoughts about what if I started a relationship with this person for months even before I brought it to my existing relationship. I had to do all of that internal work about do I really want to get myself back into a non-monogamous paradigm. Is that something that I want to put my partner through?
Is it something I want to put myself through? Am I going to be able to actually do this again, all of those things. I wanted to get really clear with myself before I brought it to their attention that, yes, this is something that I really want to start doing. On that note, I think this is a thing that a lot of people get tripped up on is that they decide, "Okay, I am going to have some sort of experience with this new person that I'm interested in before bringing it to my existing partner."
A lot of relationships start non-monogamously through some form of infidelity or cheating, and I really wanted to make sure that that was not what happened here. In this instance for me, I did talk to this new person about, "Hey, would that be something that you're interested in because I am non-monogamous? Would you be interested in exploring that with me before I talked to my existing partner about it." I didn't do anything physical or really emotional with that person until I talked to my existing partner about it before.
Again, this might be different for you based on your own set of agreements, and rules, and boundaries, et cetera. For me, I think it is important to offer your partner some understanding than just diving into some sort of sexual relationship or physical relationship with another person is probably going to be really difficult for them to hear about after the fact. Even if you've primed them that the non-monogamy can be a thing potentially in your life.
Jase: Yes, especially early on, you need to have a good foundation of trust and openness going into this. Starting with something that feels dishonest and deteriorates that trust is most of the time, honestly, it's just not going to work out. You will have done too much damage that you can't recover from it. I'm just being blunt there. It's very likely that if you do that and try to then move to non-monogamy after doing something secret, it makes it 10 times harder and often doesn't work.
Most of the time it doesn't work. That's not to say it never does. There are some people who have had examples of that being their transition into non-monogamy and it's worked out for them longer term, but it's just not a great way to start. It really sets you up at a disadvantage.
Dedeker: I've also found that if you find yourself caught in that place where maybe you're in a monogamous relationship, and the reason you're interested in opening up is because you have an interest in somebody else. I've seen people try to do all sorts of semi-shady things in the sense of being like, "Well, I'll tell my partner that I want to be non-monogamous. I won't tell them about my interest in this person, and then I'll just like wait a couple weeks and then pretend like I suddenly have this interest in this person." I've just found people feel into that stuff.
Emily: Sure.
Dedeker: I don't really believe in a lot of woo-woo stuff, but I do think that sometimes people can intuit when you have someone waiting in the wings and that's why. Some people are totally chill with that. This is not everybody by any means, but some people it creates a little bit more of a sense of suspicion I think.
Jase: I think also even if they don't get that sense right away, after the fact it'll be like, "Wait a minute, something doesn't feel right here. This happened too quick, there seems to be too much history here, there is something." That even if you didn't have someone you were already interested in and then you went 0 to 60 really fast with a new person pretty quickly, that's going to be hard also. We're going to get into that a little more as we're talking here.
Again it's deteriorating that trust if it feels like, "Oh, you're talking about being open, but you weren't actually open with me," it's really going to set you up at a disadvantage. I think part of that is acknowledging by bringing this up earlier than later with your partner, it can give more time for those conversations instead of, "I've barely been holding back from making out with this person for years now, and now I want to talk about this." That's going to feel harder for them to receive. Earlier is almost always going to be better.
Dedeker: Emily touched a little bit on rules, agreements, boundaries, et cetera. This is a topic in and of its own. We've recorded multiple podcast episodes about this. You will find six zillion Reddit posts about this. Almost every non-monogamy book covers this. I think fortunately there's a lot of different opinions floating around that you can consult and see what resonates with you. We highly recommend going back and looking at our three episodes on these topics.
You can also read our book chapter specifically about boundaries because now is the time to be exploring what agreements look like for you with this other partner. What your own boundaries look like with this new relationship configuration. If you want to go check out those episodes there, 178, The Basics of Boundaries, 227 which is called Rules and Agreements feat. Boundaries because Jase was being clever with that one. Then 423, Boundaries are all about YourSELF.
That's very important to do that education and that work and thinking about it. Also, many people assume, well, if we just get the right agreements in place or if I just get my boundaries straight, then it's all going to go great, which is not necessarily the case. You have to get ready for the possibility of some growing pains. No matter how much you've prepared for this moment, no matter how much you and your partner together have prepared, there's probably still going to be some challenging feelings.
The really frustrating fact is that as human beings, we have a hard time predicting how we're actually going to feel about something when it happens. It's very easy to get caught off guard and get upset or tripped up by the things that you didn't anticipate were going to land on you that way.
Emily: Yes, definitely the first weekend that I spent with a new partner, my existing partner had a challenging time and I definitely needed to perform some aftercare and some kindness and really spend time with them to help alleviate the pain that they were going through. To reassure them that I really cared about them and that I wanted everything to be okay with them as well. I do think that there's a huge possibility that that could happen because this is a totally new thing especially if the person that you are bringing this to has never done non-monogamy in any way, shape or form before. It's a very new experience for everyone involved.
Jase: Along with that, something that's worth bringing up in this conversation, especially if your partner is on board to give this a try with you, is to think for yourself but also to have a conversation together about how this shift might change the way you present yourself and your relationships to the world. Are you planning to be out about your non-monogamy or would you rather only tell people that are more close, trusted confidants?
This answer might be different for both of you, and it's important to be respectful of someone who feels like they don't feel safe to be as out that if their spouse, for example, is very out about it, they're in effect outing their spouse even if they didn't want to be. It's a really important conversation to have to understand do we post online pictures of ourselves with other partners? Do we want to agree on some terms for how we would describe those?
Keep in mind, this will likely change over the course of being non-monogamous, but it's worth starting that conversation early so that someone doesn't have a shock of suddenly a coworker or a family member bringing this up to them and having a conversation they were not ready to have because of something that you posted.
Dedeker: Ultimately, I think what underlines all of this is, at the end of the day, if you're going to move forward in exploring non-monogamy with someone who is new to it, you need to get consent in some form. Now, this gets a little bit tricky because I've seen people who have opened up their relationship and then this idea of consent gets a little bit weird. This idea of, "Well, I didn't consent for you to have oral sex with this other person," where it's like, "Well, it's not really your body that you're consenting to."
This starts to get a little bit weird, but ultimately because the relationship itself and the structure of the relationship is something the two of you are deciding, there has to be some form of buy-in on both sides. This is especially important because in a lot of situations, one person is super on board for non-monogamy, and maybe the other person is less convinced. In Polywise, she gives a few examples of statements that can reflect varying expressions of consent.
These to me feel very similar to this idea of the anchor, or I feel like I could see these being interwoven with the idea of one's personal anchor to non-monogamy as in the sense of, "Yes, I really want to do this for myself. I think this could be really valuable for my exploration." Or, "I really want to do this for us. I could see how this could bring us closer together," or, "We could really have a lot of fun with this." Or it could be something like, "I'm curious about this and I'm willing to experiment," or, "I can see how this could be important for our relationship so I'm willing to give it a try."
Even this idea of, "This maybe would not have been my first choice, but I'm consenting to giving this a try and seeing if it can work before deciding, okay, I'm going to leave this relationship," if that is true for you. Again, even this idea that maybe you're not the one who is super extra excited, but if at least there's enough buy-in to be like, "I'm committed to trying this for X period of time," it's really important to make sure both people involved can come to that place together.
Emily: There's a great quote from Jessica in Polywise and I'm going to read it here. "There are also numerous times in our lives when, because of another commitment, be it to a partner, child, work or significant personal goal, we are willing to do things we’re not 100% excited about or potentially wouldn’t have decided to do on our own. We accept taking on the inconveniences and discomforts associated with the decision because we know it’s important to the relationship or goal that we value.
Perhaps there is no direct payoff for us, but we recognize the benefit the decision has for the relationship, and thus, for us, it’s worth it. This is often the starting point for many partners who would not have chosen nonmonogamy on their own. They love their partner so much that they’re willing to try it, even in the face of uncertainty and apprehension. In cases like these, the important thing is that the choice be conscious, clear, and uncoerced."
I will say I think that's the place in which my established partner came to wanting to try non-monogamy with me. We had a lot of conversations like this. He recognized that there was the potential for the ability to meet and have great experiences with other people outside of our relationship, and that there's a lot of possibility and excitement and adventure involved in that. I think, again, from a theoretical standpoint, he was excited about that possibility. Hopefully, that's a nice good starting place for somebody to come to non-monogamy.
Jase: I think part of the key there too is that it's an ongoing conversation, right? In these ones where it's, "I'm willing to try this," or, "We'll see how it goes." That's saying, "Yes, I am willingly consenting to try doing this, but that doesn't necessarily mean this is going to work for me and this is going to be good." This is all part of an ongoing conversation and not just like, "Oh, you agreed to it this once, so now we're going to steamroll ahead." I think that's a really key part to this whole consent is that it's ongoing.
Emily: A lot of checking. Of course, differences may arise between each of you when you're looking at how comfortable you are with non-monogamy or not. That was really interesting for me to see just the differences between myself and my partner, again, because I have been so steeped in this podcast. This reality and this paradigm for the better part of my adult life really, and I understand that people can have feelings for more than one person at once.
Just because you do so it doesn't necessarily take away from the relationships that you have already established. I think a lot of other things like the role of sex in a relationship, this question of is sex an expression of love, and do you have to be in love with someone in order to have sex with them or is it a language that you can use to get to know somebody? Maybe somebody that you just met, or maybe somebody that you don't know that well or your friend in a different context, et cetera.
Maybe the speed of non-monogamy or the speed of how quickly or not quickly you jump into something can be different for you or your partner. That is something I think that happened to me and Jase. Jase was dating a lot of people right off the bat and really excited about it, and I think really thriving pretty initially within non-monogamy. I was going on a lot of very shitty dates. I felt really upset about the situation that I was in that wasn't working out as well for me.
We took a step back for a little while for about three months. That was a conscious decision that we made. Finally, I was interested in getting back into it and sleeping ultimately with a person that I had known in my past. That sort of took us finally on the journey that we then went on in non-monogamy which was that we opened up our relationship fully then.
Jase: Yes. There's a little bit of chance in there I guess depending on how your experiences go with other people as well. That's, again, a hard thing to predict. Sometimes you'd think it's going to go one way and it goes the opposite.
Dedeker: Ultimately, while we're on the topic of talking about the differences that may come up as you're exploring this thing, the thing that happens when you make a shift, especially if you're making a shift specifically into polyamory and to certain types of non-monogamy. You are making this big shift away from being solely a unit that makes decisions together to people who make joint decisions together, but also two people who are making individual decisions.
People who are going out and having an independent dating life, for instance, or an independent sex life. I do think there's an inherent tension to that. It's not necessarily bad. I think that if people can negotiate what they think is appropriate there of like how do we manage the needs of ourselves together in a relationship as well as our individual needs, I really think so much of it comes down to that.
Things like amount of time spent together or what types of sexual exploration we're both interested in or how do we manage insecurities. All these things I do think when there's conflicts sometimes come down to that fact that it's not just about us and our relationship, it's also about us as individuals. Just dropping that in as something to think about. If you're running into areas of difference here that are creating conflict, is like that could be part of it.
Jase: With that, we're going to get into the after. Now that you've had this conversation, how do we start moving forward with this and what are some things to look out for to try to keep this communication up, to keep doing all these things we've been talking about here.
Dedeker: Of course, we could spend many, many, many more hours talking about this before and during part of the conversation, and to a certain extent, we have already. Go listen to our back catalog of 500 plus episodes where we've dove into a lot more of these topics much more in-depth. We hope that we've given you at least a little bit of a primer to help support you through the work before initiating this kind of conversation with a partner and what happens during that conversation.
Then we have just some closing thoughts as we send you off into this amazing journey to follow that non-monogamy sunset over the horizon or whatever it is that it means to you. First one is probably being do some check-ins. There's a whole reason why we created RADAR. Again, go look up multiamory.com/radar. You'll find all of our resources about this particular check-in formula.
You don't have to do that formula specifically, but we do highly, highly, highly recommend that people incorporate some sort of regular relationship check-in. Whether you're non-monogamous or monogamous, whether you're just newly opening up, or you have no interest in opening up ever. We highly recommend really opening up the channel of communication in your relationship and about your relationship.
Jase: Specifically, if you are opening up a relationship right now, do those check-ins much more frequently than you normally would. Because it's going to be a whirlwind of new feelings and new experiences and things to figure out. Definitely schedule those often, I would say, at least weekly, especially during the first little while after you've opened up.
Emily: I think one of the things that can allow you to do effective check-ins is to feel safe in your relationship from an emotional standpoint. If you don't feel safe, you're probably not going to be able to do those check-ins well or be as honest as you possibly can be with how you're feeling in your check-ins. Something that my therapist brought to me is he gave me discussion prompts to have with my partner on a weekly basis. The first one is, "What makes me feel safe in this relationship, and what makes me feel unsafe in this relationship?"
Then my partner can turn around and do that as well. What makes me feel safe, what makes me feel unsafe, and see, what can you do about those things? What are some actionable ways to change that script? To change the narrative and to move forward hopefully so that the two of you feel safer coming to each other when times are tough. Because they probably will be as you're moving through this.
Jase: It's a scary thing to do. Anything you can do to feel safer, makes it easier. Also realize that this journey is going to be different for each of you based on not only your experience levels with it, but also your personal background, your upbringing, baggage you might have. Like we mentioned earlier, the random chance, the luck of the draw on, do you have good dates? Do you meet people that are compatible with you that you have a good time with, or do you have a more negative experience?
Do you have a harder time getting the dates you want? You're both going to have different experiences from each other, likely different from what you expect going in, and that this will change over time. I've definitely noticed in my relationship with Dedeker, for example, over the last 10 years, has really varied from time to time of who of us is dating more, who has more serious relationships than the other, but--
Dedeker: Who's having a good time in their other relationships, and who's having a bad time in their other relationships?
Jase: Yes. Because relationships in general have all those different ups and downs and challenges along the way. Just realizing that there's this big aspect that's out of your control, and that you can't really predict very well going in of just what each of your unique experiences are going to be.
Emily: Speaking of experiences, it's been really interesting for me to hear the experiences of both of these people that I'm dating. Because my existing partner, I opened up a relationship with him where I was essentially monogamous with him for six months. His experience of opening up is very different than my newer partner who came into it as the new guy, as the person who gets to experience the NRE with me, stuff like that.
He feels pretty great, whereas my other partner for a long time did not feel pretty great, and it was pretty challenging for him often to go through that. He said something to me to the effect of, "I feel like I'm going through a grieving process for our relationship. I'm feeling the loss of what it once was, and I realize now it's probably never going to be that way again." I think that's true regardless of how you open up.
Because if you were monogamous for a time, you're not anymore. Even if you decide to close the relationship back up again, it's still going to be a different relationship than it was before this even was a possibility within the two of your lives. I do think it's important to take the time to grieve that for both of you, and then hopefully look forward to what's ahead and maybe what the relationship can become past this and through this.
Jase: I think in particular, that grieving process often comes from even unconsciously or consciously having this clear vision of where you thought the relationship was going. Which is definitely the case here where you were open about wanting to be non-monogamous from the beginning. Because that wasn't actively happening, he was able to have this, like you said, more typical normal vision of what he thought this was going to look like.
Then there is this grieving process, and I think the harder you have held on to that ideal in the past about where it's going, the bigger that grieving process can be and the harder that can be. Whereas for other people, that might not be as much of a thing. I do think it's worth being aware that there can be some big feelings that come up there, and that they might not be great. This might not be a positive experience for both people. That's also a possibility.
Dedeker: I'm sorry if you are to listen to it later, the list is already just chock full of Multiamory episodes. I'm going to add a couple more to your pile, which is to listen to our Episode 334, What Makes a Good Hinge Partner? If you were heading into a situation where the first time in your life you are a hinge, as in you have two partners at once, and you're the hinge in between the two of them. I very firmly believe that hinging is a skill, and it is a skill that can be developed.
It's a skill that we don't necessarily come born with. I think good hinges are made, not born. Go check that out. Also, go check out our Episode 190, which is, Surviving and Thriving in NRE, and Episode 320, Limerence and NRE. In case you don't know, NRE refers to new relationship energy, that big, exciting, wonderful chemical cocktail that we all go through when you're first getting to know someone first, having sex with someone first, falling in love with someone. It's awesome, it's fun, it's amazing.
It can also absolutely wreak havoc on your existing relationships and on your own mental health. Go check that out. I think if you've never had the experience of being in an existing relationship and then experiencing NRE with someone new, I think it's really good to head into that situation having more education and awareness ahead of time rather than getting to that point and then getting all spun out about what the heck is happening to me. As I always tell people, find a way to have your head in the clouds, but also keep your feet planted firmly on the ground.
Jase: As you're exploring this as well, check out variations of the relationship anarchy smorgasbord or the non-escalator relationship menus. These are different ways of approaching the same thing, but of looking at all the different things that could be part of a relationship and listing them all out visually. You can look at it, and it can be a great exercise to do with a partner and throughout your relationship to see which parts of this do we want in our relationship, which parts don't we want.
Which parts are we starting to see more of in our relationship, which parts do we maybe not want to do as much as well? Of course, a shout-out to the relationship anarchy manifesto. If you look that up, it's a fantastic, very short, but beautifully written guide to the ideals behind relationship anarchy, and why you might want to pick apart all of these different pieces of what can make up a relationship instead of just assuming, "Ah, dating means all of these come prepackaged with it." That's especially important, I think, as you're dating multiple people.
Next is finding community. This one is hugely important. Community is one of the best ways to find people who understand what you're going through. Where you don't have to hide this part of your relationship, and who can help you when the going gets tough, and who've been there before. Who've gone through some of these things, or maybe you can help as they're going through something for the first time.
We have our amazing community on Discord that you can join by going to multiamory.com/join. Also finding a local in-person community is hugely valuable. Do some searching, try to look for anything that's in your area. Because just having people to talk to about it is invaluable, especially a community where the focus is not on just finding new people to date, but of actually making friends and people that you can talk to about these things.
Emily: We did want to end this and remind everyone out there that it is okay to break up if you ultimately realize one or both of you that you are not compatible in terms of the ways in which you want to conduct your relationships. I realized for myself, non-monogamy is something that I want to have in my life and be a part of my life. Unfortunately, my partnership that I have been talking about throughout this episode, he realized that non-monogamy is not something that he wants in his life. We gave it a good trying.
I think we did a lot of the things that we talked about here very well, and we had a lot of great check-ins and a lot of discussion. In terms of the emotional turmoil that it brought on to him, we realized and he realized that it was probably just not going to be a thing that ultimately was going to work out for the two of us. I realized for myself, instead of ending that part of my life like I did in the past with my last big relationship, I knew the right thing for me was to continue going on this journey of non-monogamy.
That meant that the way in which I was conducting that relationship with romance and with sex and physical affection that, that was probably not going to work out for the two of us. We have since deescalated, we're still really close, we're still colleagues and good friends. I am excited to see where that relationship is going to continue to go and how it's going to continue to blossom, but it's not necessarily going to in this romantic way as it once was.
I think that's okay. That's okay for all of you out there to hear and to know that sometimes it doesn't work out in the way that you want it to. On either side if you realize this is not something that's going to work for me, then change what it is that you're doing and decide, okay, I really know that I am non-monogamous and I want to continue doing that. Or I really know that I exist better in a monogamous setting and with monogamous relationships and I'm going to continue to do that and that means that this relationship isn't right for me.
As shitty as that is, it's probably far kinder to do that to everyone involved than to continue just bending and breaking in a way that isn't healthy for either of you.
Jase: Yes. I think that's a great example of the consent conversation that we were talking about in the middle section there too where there's a lot of different levels to it. There's wanting to know that you're willingly buying into trying it, for example, if you're just starting it. Also like you mentioned, Emily, you realized for you, you don't want to consent to being monogamous because that just doesn't line up for you. Then realizing that because of those two things being true, that being in this relationship as it was wasn't going to work out.
Rather than seeing that as a failure, it's like, no, this was a result of us being as honest and authentic and giving it a good try and really having real conversations about it. Getting to this conclusion honestly and constructively rather than one or the other of you just going along suffering because you don't really want to and just trying to keep the relationship together.
Emily: Which is what I did last time. Let me tell you it doesn't work or you'd end up in a relationship for a lot longer than you should. The fallout of that is probably going to be way worse than it would've been if you had just been honest about what it is that the two of you needed from the start.
Jase: Sometimes that takes time to figure out, right?
Emily: Sure.
Jase: That if you hadn't had that experience, maybe you might do that again in the future because you didn't get to learn that about yourself. I do want to put that out there as well that all of this is a learning process for everybody involved all the way along. What I mean by this is life, all of your life is a learning process and it is for everybody else as well.
Emily: All righty, everyone. Well, we really hope this helps some of you out there how to open up your relationship before, during, and after. I hope also some of you out there find that you thrive in this. Maybe even you were the person whose partner came to you to want to open up and at first you were a little trepidatious about it and then realize, "Hey, this is awesome, I really am thriving in this and I love it." For all of you out there, that's the case, that's awesome, and congratulations and we wish you all the best.