Ep 1: Relationship Transitions (LIVE)
Art by @la_jolie_minoise
People change. Relationships change. How can you navigate through those changes in a way that honors everyone involved? How can you and your partner(s) create an environment that supports evolution and growth? From monogamous to open, a couple to a triad, a partner to solo poly, to conscious uncoupling - what can you learn from other people’s experiences around transition?
Effy addresses relationship transitions through the experiences of a brave and diverse set of panelists.
To find more about Effy Blue and Jacqueline Misla, follow them at @wearecuriousfoxes, @coacheffyblue, and @jacquelinemisla on Instagram.
If you have a question that you would like to explore on the show, reach out to us and we may answer your question on one of our upcoming episodes. Leave us a voicemail at 646-450-9079 or email us at listening@wearecuriousfoxes.com
Follow us on social media for further resources on this topic:
fb.com/WeAreCuriousFoxes
instagram.com/wearecuriousfoxes
Join the conversation: fb.com/groups/CuriousFox
TRANSCRIPT:
Um Hi. Hello. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hello. I'm curious about curious about I'm curious about curious about building open, authentic, loving relationships. I'm curious about polyamory because it just mean that you're fucking all the time. How can I tell my parents that my partner is already married and curious about
Effy
BDSM? Break up with my partner and still be how can I become more involved in the BDSM? How do you know when you're too busy to have multiple romantic relations? Would it be like bringing up children with my best friend? Hi, I'm Effy Blue. And this is the Curious Fox podcast. Curious Fox is the community for those who challenge the status quo and love sex and relationships. We're based out of Brooklyn, New York, where we have been hosting monthly socials for the last three years. At our socials, we pick a theme grounded in love, sex and relationships, and explore the theme through personal stories. This month, we tackled relationships transitions, from monogamy to open relationships, from hierarchical poly to non hierarchical structure. Transitions come in all shapes and sizes. Do you wonder if you can navigate a conscious uncoupling go from being in a romantic relationship to friendship? Are you in a long distance open relationship? And now thinking about cohabiting people change? relationships change? How can you navigate through those changes in a way that honors everyone involved? Each month, a new set of panelists diverse and identity and experience, share their stories, and bravely answer questions from the audience. For a long time, we kept what was happening in the room in the room. However, we continuously got requests to record a discussion for those who couldn't be there. Respecting the privacy of the panelists and the guests has always been important to us. We thought a lot about how documentary room while maintaining the awesome vibe and enables people to share so vulnerably after a lot of pondering, we decided an audio only recording of the evening with opportunities for guests to ask questions anonymously provide a solution for this challenge. So here we are. This is episode one of the curious Fox podcast, I can not be more proud of our first attempt. The discussion was lively and intimate. And I'm grateful for the panelists who bravely share their stories with us. Everyone was engaged, and we had great questions and some enlightening answers. I really hope you enjoy the first installment of the curious Fox podcast. At the end of the episode, we'll share with you how you can be more involved in the podcast and the community. Happy listening. Good evening, everyone. We are gonna start before we start. I love doing this. I am always interested in who's new. who's been here before? Can I have a show of hands who are like regular foxes, people who've been coming more than five times? Yeah, we have some in the room. We have an awesome core community of foxes that come regularly who's brand new first time ever just walked in? Might not be sure where they are.
Okay. Anyway, not sure where they are? Okay, good. Okay, good. Okay, again, just before we start, I want to say we are recording it for a podcast. So we are recording everything that happens in the room audio only for a podcast. This is our big project for 2019. Curious Fox socials have been happening for two and a half years here for the last year. And then before that, we're meeting in another spot in Brooklyn. And we got so much feedback from people who couldn't be in the room. So we after the event, we normally write these cool reports called the fox notes, and we blast them out to our mailing list. And we had so many people saying I wish I could be there like I wasn't, you know, do you ever record these things? And we did it for we didn't do it for a long time for various reasons. And then we at some point, we're just like, Okay, we need to do this for people. And we have some awesome people who are volunteering their time right now. And and we just want to be really respectful of people's privacy. So we also want your participation. This is all about you. Curious Fox is about curiosity. We tell people my premise no promises, no pressure, just curiosity. We invite you with your curiosity, hence your actually your even your label says what are you curious about and our panel are going to share their stories with you. And then we're going to open it up to questions. This is we're going to have like an hour of q&a. If you don't want your voice we don't want you to be we do want your questions. If you don't want your voice heard. There are index cards and some pencils and pens around. You can write your questions and she can read them out and we'll answer them. That's kind of how we're getting about this privacy business. Thank you for your support and understanding. So there's a lot of new faces. So I'm gonna give you a quick one of the format, it's very fluid. Today we are going to talk about relationship transition. So every month we pick a theme anchored in love, sex and relationships. And we you know, we talk we explore this through different voices, we work really hard to put together a diverse panel, in experience and in story, as well as identity. And we explored the theme from a very sort of human every day. How are the individuals are doing it in their everyday lives kind of tongue. We'll start with sort of going down the panel. Everyone's going to share their story with you and and their transitional relationship transition story or personal transition story, we are gonna just ask them questions and give them more of an insight into what was working, what was good, how they grew. And all those nice juicy things, and then we're going to wrap it up in about an hour and a bit. So once every time so I'll let you know people sort of hold their questions back because they're shy. And then we you know, at the end, we have like quick rounds ahead. Don't be shy. Bring your curiosity ask all the questions. The panelists are awesome. They've been told if they don't want to answer anything, they'll just pass which I asked. They're no bad questions. We'll manage it. You don't have to worry about anything. Everybody clear? Everybody happy? Yes, I will do my introductions last because I've just been talking because I want to start the panel off from that direction. Is that okay? And they're gonna just go through and tell you who they are and why they're here and their story.
Unknown Speaker
Hi, everyone. I love Hello. I love I love hearing you refer to everyone as foxes. My name is Alex. I am 32 years old, my pronouns are she her. So I'm here today with my fiance Ryan, who is next to me, I engaged with the poly world initially, about five or six years ago through the kink world. I was in a relationship with someone who is part of a kink dynamic. And he was in a hierarchical relationship that was open non monogamous. And I was told that if I wanted to find more resources about BDSM, I should explore the poly community because there's a lot of overlap. I did that by going to some community events around New York City, primarily poly cocktails, which if you haven't attended, it's a monthly get together for people in the community. I sort of picked it up and then eventually put it down. I found that especially being new to the kink world I wanted, I wanted the the sense of security that I could get from a monogamous dynamic. And then several years later, after I'd been exploring kink for a period of time I met my now fiance, Ryan. So I guess that was probably about two years ago. Yeah. Throughout that I think I tried dating several people who first of all were like, strictly monogamous. And like, maybe were King stirs, but like really into spanking, which was like, was not my thing. And I would like try and try to make it work. But I found that our ethos did not line up. Like I found that when I when I talked to other people who were either open to poly or had been in poly non monogamous relationships, I was really drawn to their sense of transparency, and self awareness. Many relationships crashed and burned. Ryan and I met each other. And maybe like, on our third date, the topic of monogamy came up. And we both found that we had very, very similar feelings and ideals, which was in the long term for us, Monogamy was not sustainable. Nor was it ideal, I think that I wanted to be in a relationship with someone who, who trusted me enough to, to sort of like welcome my curiosity and sort of the idea that, you know, they didn't own me or my desire. So we both agree that, you know, it felt like our relationship was was going to be serious. And eventually, we might open up the relationship when it felt like it was appropriate. And essentially, that's what happened a little under a year ago, we were in a really good place. And Ryan was interested in exploring kink a little bit more, he was a little bit newer to the scene, and I wanted him to have that opportunity. Also, I was just super busy. Which like, you would be surprised how many how much of non monogamy is about logistics. And like convenience, I had so many meetings.
Unknown Speaker
So we started inching our way into non monogamy and it took several oh, gosh, I'm just chatting and chatting. I'm gonna wrap this up here in a second. First, it was, well, it's just kink. It's just other people in the kink community. And then, you know, we got on OKCupid and met people who were not part of the kink community, but interested in it. And so it was like, Oh, well, then it's just sex. And then I met someone who I developed feelings for and it was like, Oh, well, it's like a light relationship. And then initially, and then it sort of progressed from there. And there were definitely a lot of really difficult conversations that happened. Because like, I say that now like, well, and then this happened, and then we transition but it was more like I did something and fucked up. And we were like, Oh, you're emotionally involved. Like we need to talk about this now and so on. It's been a really interesting journey and I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna sort of wrap up there for now. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
Appreciate you leaving me to tell
Unknown Speaker
most of you very curious to hear how you tell it.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. My name is Ryan use he him pronouns about? Well over two years ago, a little over a little over two years ago I was getting out of a long, monogamous relationship that ended up being kind of sexless and depressing by the end. And when I got out of it, I realized this was my last opportunity to explore some of the things I wanted to explore. But it had yet mustered the courage to investigate before things started to sag. They haven't yet I swear, this is this is the good version. You know, you're getting me at really the peak. So save your judgments, please. So I went on some internet dating sites selecting for people who had a little bit a little bit of bend in their straw. And, and that might know a fiancee. You know, on the third date, we did agree that we had deep skepticism about the long term viability of monogamy, I think we'd both been in relationships that just ended up not working because we didn't feel accepted or some of our needs weren't being met, or a combination thereof. And then we shelve that for a while. And then about nine months ago, we decided to open up and we made some really interesting and by interesting, I mean, ignorant decisions. One of which was the first thing we did was started behaving as if we were single, but had someone we had to tell about everything we did. Right so I immediately went out and liberals like who wants to fuck and my, my, any I would stop me if I'm telling part of your story wrong. My beautiful loving, wonderful fiance went out into the world and immediately found a deep and potentially dysfunctional romantic entanglement. And, you know, and he also like the first time I had sex with someone who wasn't my fiancee, especially because kink has a bit more emotional baggage. For many people. It's not true for everyone, but especially for me as I was learning, you know, that caused a lot of pain and discomfort. And then when we realized that Alex was becoming romantically involved with the, with another person that required a lot of sort of tiptoeing around landmines. Well, more stepping on landmines. But so so we through a lot of pain and suffering in that relationship, we discovered we were doing something that that we, between ourselves, we were referring to as non consensual poly. And the way we understand this term is that we're following the rules we agreed upon. So the pain and suffering is irrelevant. And that I think is the big lesson we learned is that regardless of whether you whether we think we're doing everything, right, we have to be present for how our experiences feel, and the lived experience of what our policy dynamic is like. Because when we're not, we just end up being resentful and angry and pain. While occasionally go on going on dates that we then feel we have to hide from one another. I mean, it becomes very becomes painful in ways that are destructive. And so we took a step back, figured out what we were doing wrong, I went on to have a brief but intense romantic entanglement someone else and we, we decided that we would slow down the pacing and increase the communication. And I think that really helped us feel less shitty about everything we did have some moments like is this is probably right for us. And we're here so you know how that decision turned out. And that brings us to where we sit now. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
Hi, my name is Chi pronouns are she her. And I thought I would come in today to talk about my conscious uncoupling. And then realized I can't do that without telling a whole lot more of the story. So I had 20 years old, got into a relationship that ended up being monogamous for 11 years. We got married partway through that and moved to New York and my partner who I'll call C. Now ex partner, he decided he wanted to leave New York. And so we had this like, this choice point of what was going to happen. I wanted to stay here he wanted to leave but it was going to be nine months off in the future. So our relationship was not going well. And we realize for both of us it was best to end it but not right away. And so, in that I decided to ask about opening up our relationship as a way to get to know myself while our relationship was in decay. And he agreed, we had nothing less to lose at that point because the relationship was already dying. And so we had a lot of beautiful, open, honest conversations and took a leap to opening up. And as we became non monogamous, we also fell back in love. In that process, he found his love again for me. And as we're coming back together, I proposed closing the relationship again, we're like, No, this is giving us so much. Let's keep it open and see where it goes. We didn't really know what we wanted at the beginning. And of course, that's always shifting. But realize that theoretically, and personally, non monogamy made so much sense to us and that we were each interested in deeper emotional relationships. I also enjoy a lot of, you know, random make outs here and there, and he didn't care to hear about them. So we learned communication as well in terms of what each of us is interested in knowing about the other. But he was so supportive in in my developing deep relationships and sharing those troubles with him. At first, I was hiding all of the like that, Oh, I'm so invested in this other thing. It's scary for him to know. But no, he actually felt more connected to me when I shared what was going on for me. So we became open, we became polyamorous, I developed some long term partnerships, one of which is still still around this many years later, we opened up four years ago, and about a year after that seed decided he no longer wanted to live together, but we still wanted to be romantic partners. So that was a big disentanglement for US no longer having our dogs together no longer sharing space together after being together for 12 years at that point was heartbreaking. So hard. But we supported each other in it and continued to want to be connected even as the form was shifting. So about less than a year after we stopped living together see no longer wanted to be romantic partners or married. And that was a little over a year ago, or Gosh, two years ago now two years and was heartbreaking but again, because we had been doing this step by step and with so much love and connection and openness for each other, we're able to continue our connection so the divorce process took a while for some legal reasons and just like delaying a thing that I didn't want but then realized I did actually want you know when when he asked at one point like do you actually want to be married and like no, I really don't so even though I resisted because I felt pushed into it. It was actually my decision as well. And the divorce became final last Friday Yeah, thank you. And then we had a two hour phone call on Sunday talking about our relationships and our pain and he sent me the poems he wrote about our divorce and I I shared with him that I was crying with a lover for all whole long time on Saturday processing the grief of the younger me whose dreams are no longer but realizing that is the younger me that's not present meet us and actually want that so thank you. So now I have I would consider myself solo Polly, he would say the same for him. I have several beautiful deep partnerships one for three and a half years and other for two years. Another relationship transition would be going from what I would say French vanilla, not quite vanilla to very kinky. So thank you non monogamy for that. Yeah, and just really valuing having an uncoupling be so beautiful and connected and where we still consider each other family and deep support systems for each other.
Effy
Thank you. Thanks. That's beautiful. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
Hi, folks. First of all, I want to say thanks to Ryan for saying buck. I was like can I say fuck up here? ICE has been broken. So like filthy mouth. Get ready for it. Okay, so my name is Shavon on Grindr, my pronouns are listed as boy girl, et cetera. I don't care what you call me as long as he called me. I was introduced to Polly back in 2014. I would say it wasn't pico phase, but like the whole phase was on a downward turn. And like I'd been this like, you know, baby fever mode. Like I'm ready to settle down. I want to have kids like y'all I need to find somebody to make a life with because I don't want to be running after a toddler in my 50s. But I was in a bar in New York at a gig geeks event. GG and why it's fantastic. Shameless plug. Two o'clock in the morning, these two gorgeous men walk in, and I'm just you know, I'm bad at video games, but I like to hang out. So I'm just like dancing and having fun by myself listening to like Lady Gaga or whatever is playing and I want I'm not making up one of these guys. And I don't mind making out with this the other guy, and it didn't start a fight and I'm like, Oh, this is this is different, like, you know, I had been compulsory monogamous my entire life. Like, I'd heard the word polyamory, but it existed in much in the same way that like, you know, Greek democracy exists like some lofty idea I'd heard of. So compressed story, like we decided, like we liked each other, they were already dating. And we did the long distance thing for nine months. And because they were already seeing other people that allowed me to see other people during that month, you know, so that I didn't have to be alone. And then come September of the same year, I went to visit for two weeks, and wound up staying for three and a half years. One of the things like, you know, towards the middle of the relationship that like that, we all said, oh, like if we'd known them what we know now, something we would have done differently was like, you know, it was really impromptu. And like, it was a flippant decision for me to stay like I went to Ohio with two weeks worth of clothes. And I only had two weeks worth of clothes for like my first six months there because I hadn't been back to New York yet. I'm from a military family, I'm used to moving around a lot. So like uprooting my entire life and moving to a new state wasn't scary. For me. What was scary for me was for the first time in my life, like the the only other people who gave a shit about me were 400 miles away. And so like very early on, I'm like, I'm so which of you wants to be my emergency contact because like, right now, if I get hit by a bus, they're calling my mom, and she can't get here nearly as quickly as you can. And, you know, they knew that they were uprooting me from my life in New York, you know, I have a background in theater and culinary arts, and they're like, there's not much opportunity for that here. But we make good money, we'll take care of you. And so like arranging, you know, bank accounts and whatnot. And, you know, again, emergency contacts, and you know, just figuring out the logistics of how we make the three of us a unit, especially in a universe that only recognizes a couple, especially in a universe where you two have already been recognized as a couple for I think it was five years at the time. And then you know, this, this frilly, bouncy, bubbly black bitch just shows up like, Hi, I'm part of the group now.
Unknown Speaker
Literally, my first Thanksgiving in Ohio. We'll call him John did not tell his family I was coming.
Unknown Speaker
Didn't tell them I was coming. I didn't tell them who I was. I just showed up like, like some college kid who doesn't have a home to go to. Luckily, like I like everyone took it very well. They didn't ask him any questions like, I was, I was like, I was like, Look, you didn't ask me to lie. I'm not gonna lie. If anybody asked me who I am. I'm gonna tell them who I am. And like, you know, I'm Kiki, and with the cousins, and like, the under 30 crowd at the Thanksgiving and like, you know, by the, by the end of the night, I'm like, oh, yeah, you know, your, um, your cousin has seen my insides like, we've been positive inside each other. I love that man. Like, I, I love him with all my heart and mind. And so like, you know, I mean, we, we still Kiki, like, We're no longer together and I still Kiki with his family on occasion. Conversely, you know, we'll call him Mike. Yeah, Mike, I didn't meet Mike's family. I was in Ohio for like, two years before I was officially introduced. It's going it's going to LA for me to meet his mother. And family has always been really important to me. So I was I was like, Look, you know, she doesn't have to love me, but she has to know exist. Like, you know, we have to be at least cordial because if if you expect me to be around for the rest of your life, like, I'm not gonna hide from your mother. That's not who I am. That's not who I was raised to be. And if you're ashamed of me, then I ain't got time for this. Anyway. That was that was a bit of a low blow because like I knew he wasn't ashamed of me and like, you know, it's not it's not fair to kick a dog while he's down and like I was hitting him where it hurts but like I was hurting because I was like, oh, like, I mean, John did it wrong, but I met his family in the first two months I was here. What do you mean? You haven't told, like, you haven't told your father about me and your mother only knows my name. The first time I spoke to his mother, he just unceremoniously threw the phone at me. And I'm like, Hi, ma'am. How might you know? And I couldn't give him shit about it, because I asked for this. So I like I'm trying to make small talk with a woman that like I've never met. But like, it's, that was like one of the biggest leaps for us. And because I was only supposed to be there for two weeks, and we didn't have any of these conversations. Like, we were really just like, learning as we go and like, damage control. And then to add to the situation, they were leaders of the local poly organization. So I went from having never been Polly, having only supposed to been in this town for two weeks, to being the face of polyamory for southern Ohio. And I'm like, Okay, well damn. Black, queer, like pescatarian how many slashes do I want to add to my name? But I said, like, you know, I want to do this community justice. And I certainly don't want to lie to these college students about like, what polyamory is, what polyamory is supposed to be what polyamory is supposed to look like. So I dived in headfirst. And I was all over Tumblr, and I was reading books. And like, you know, I'm not I was new to polyamory, but I've always been a people person. I've always been in the theater. I'm accustomed to diving into the minds of unfamiliar characters. And so I took all that with me. And like, I mean, a number, a number of relationships. It was like, well, y'all seem to make y'all seem to be making Polly work really? Well, like, can you help me with our relationship? And there were times in those three and a half years where I'm like, we have when we're at home, we don't speak. It's just that my grandmother raised me that, like, the nonsense you're going through at home, stays at home. And like, you know, especially the only Polly faces, you know, I wasn't going to be the reason that someone said, Well, no, obviously Polly doesn't work the one Polly threadpool we know, they're in shambles. So you know, it was it was about, you know, for a while it was about, you know, saving face. And you know, presenting well, until things did get better again. Long. At the end of the three and a half years, it turned out we wanted different things. What I will say to their credit is that for the majority of our relationship, we were very open about our feelings.
Unknown Speaker
They called themselves relationships and our kiss. I mean, personally, I would I mean, and maybe this is my own saltiness talking. I'm like, No, you're kind of hierarchical. You just like, what you call yourself and what you practice aren't necessarily the same thing. But as people who were relationship anarchist, in theory, we attempted to allow our relationship to be what it needed to be in every good in any given moment. And we were constantly reevaluating what our needs were, the shape our relationship was taking. And as new people came and went from our relationship, you know, we allowed room for that change. But in look at, by the end of our journey together, I've always had a very firm idea of what I want, in my head, like, my end goal is solid, I can see it, it's the road there that I don't know. And that's why I allow, you know, I allow, I allow the universe to say, Hey, move to Ohio with these boys you barely know, like, and, you know, see what happens. But like, from my perspective, you know, they're on very specific paths, but they lack a vision for where they want to go. And that became very frustrating for me. I'm like, you know, if you don't want kids, that's fine. Let me know so I can make a decision. If you want to spend the rest of your life here, that's fine. Let me know so that I can make a decision. And every time it was time to make a decision, they would kick the can down the road. another year, another two years, okay, we're gonna buy this house. Oh, are we staying here? No, we're gonna buy this house. We're gonna live here for five years, and then we'll decide if we want to stay here. And that's fine for them. But that didn't work for me. And eventually, it felt from my perspective that I was the one who was always compromising. And that may or may not have been true, but when you feel like You're the one who's always compromising, that leads to resentment. And, to this day, I love them, I don't want to hate them. So I said, in order to prevent me from resenting you, I have to be I have to, I have to walk away from this. And then there was the whole transition of decoupling all those things we set up over three and a half years, you know, me no longer having access to his bank account, me finding a place to move out. I mean, they weren't kicking me out. But you're moving into a house, you're you're, you know, making a life in this new home. I don't want to set up shop in this house, and then, you know, move out in three months. That's not as far as I'm concerned. That's not fair to you, as far as they were concerned. Well, you moved here to be with us, it'd be, it'd be unfair for us to just be like, Alright, bye. So like, we were all very fair about, you know, the decoupling situation. But for me, I was like, Okay, I need to be out of here by the time you move into your new house, so that you don't have to deal with, you know, moving my stuff twice or whatever. And I wound up moving into a place with some friends on the other side of the town for the summer before. Moving back to New York, just after my 30th birthday. I my farewell to Athens, Ohio, was going to Vegas to see my idol Mariah Carey, and I didn't cry about anything that no actually in the Catholic concert. The only thing I sobbed about was how beautiful she was and how close I was to the state. Nothing else existed in that moment. i That's my permanent Facebook profile picture. And so, when I came back from Vegas biggest mistake I ever made, I told my mother that we broke up. Because I was gonna I was like, You know what, I'm 30. Now, I'm going to toughed it out, you know, if I got to find some shit job here and save up my money, and then move back to New York or move to Indiana with my other partner or move to Atlanta, have some partners there, whatever I have to do. I'm gonna figure this out on my own. My mother said, my mother hurt. Y'all broke up. Also, what are you doing? We owe you you don't live with them anymore. Oh, you're coming home. She's like, you're coming home. I can be there next week. And I'm like, Nah, Mom, I already paid for the ticket to Vegas from Ohio. Let me do Vegas first. And we'll figure that out when I get back. And yeah, so once I got back from Vegas, my mom was like I'm so your stuffs packed, right? Because it's time to go. And so now I'm back in New York, because mommy came and rescued me. Yeah.
Effy
Welcome back. Thank you. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
Okay, Hi, I'm Alan 30, hetero male to male pronouns. And my story is, you know, oddly, not dissimilar to Gs, which is funny, because I think we met about four years ago around the timeframe that you discussed. So let's try and get through this without going through too many detours. I met my best friend, when I was in fifth grade. We started becoming closer friends in eighth grade, and started dating around the senior year of high school. Cut to end of senior year, or halfway through senior year of college, we got engaged, we were living in New Jersey, I had a we were already kind of living together. In a during, like, during the summers and winter breaks, I was only going to school about an hour away from where she lived, or where we lived. Anyway. We got married. So I was 22 at the time. And we lived together in New Jersey on our own for a couple of years, kind of realized that suburban Jersey life was not for us. We started looking at homes in New York. And my point she wanted to live in a cooperative living space. So we started looking at those. And I don't know if any of you have ever lived in one, but it's kind of tough to find a place to live as a couple in you know, in cooperative situations. So some of the places that we came across were where we kind of got our first introduction to polyamory as a concept, we ended up moving into our own space with some other roommates and shift into another space shortly after that, but the the concept of you know, non monogamy state as a kind of underlying current in our lives for a couple of years. Then she started to have you know, she started to feel like she wanted to get out of New York. And one summer she went to work on a farm in Vermont for the summer. Within a week of her going up there I ended up hanging out at Union pool which I did not realize how to wrap up Question. But I ended up making out somebody at the bar. I. Yeah. So we, when I saw her again in person, we talked about it. And the question was, you know, well, did you enjoy this is this you know, a friend of ours had said, Don't tell her if it's not something you are going to do. Again, I told her not not specifically because I was going to but because I enjoyed it. So that started the, I guess that kick started. Finally, after years of talking about the process or opening up, we stuck around New York for a couple more years, she continued going back to this farm in Vermont for the summers, we eventually moved out of town and up to Maine, with in our own space. And we lived there for about a year and a half, just us kind of first time living alone together. And then we realized that that was not the right place for us. So we came back to New York, and ended up in a community house with a bunch of roommates, she decided to head back up to Vermont, this one passed this past summer, she was actually asked to go back up there by the owners of the farm. I kind of had a moment when she was up there. And I was living in this community home that I I never really wanted to live in a big community. And, you know, over the years, there had been a lot of just kind of growth and understanding that we, we were different, we are different people we want different things. We we love each other very much. She's you know, my best friend, but I kind of had that realization that I need to move out of this place and not have roommates. You know, us living together when it was in Maine was was fine, but it just none of it quite felt right. And you know, later on to this the fact that we realized at some point that we had drastically different libidos. So, at some point this summer, we had a long drawn out conversation. I remember I was sitting on the west side, Riverside Park, whatever it's called near 23rd street, and talk for like an hour and and realize that I should find my own place to live. And she was going to stay up on this farm for the foreseeable future. So
Unknown Speaker
where we're at now is, we're best friends. We're still legally married, there's no reason to change that. At least for the you know, there's no reason to change that right now. But I am living on my own here in the city. She is living up on this farm and her community that she's built and grown over the last couple of years. We see each other you know, a couple of times a month maybe you know the winter she comes down here to be somewhere warm. This weekend, this past weekend she was calls me on Friday, she's like I need to come down this weekend. It's I can't do anything is to call Leah come on down. So you know, we hang out. We we it's pretty platonic at this point. But we enjoy each other's company. You know, I'm now dating as solo, Polly, I guess is the most succinct way to put it. Yeah, that I think that kind of sums it up.
Effy
Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Awesome stories. I have so many questions. Before I start my questions, I do want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for for all the shares. This is awesome stories, and intimate and gorgeous. And thank you. So I'll give you a short synopsis of who I am. Because I do this all the time. So like the little snippets every time, my name is Fe blue. I'm a relationship coach. I work with people who are curious about transitioning into or have hit a roadblock in open relationships, non monogamy, polyamory, whatever they are trying to tackle, I coach around this idea of relationship by design. I think regardless of what our end design is, we should actively and consciously design our relationships in a way that we can thrive in them. And thriving looks different for different people. So a good place to start is to figure out what thriving looks like for you. It looks like for your partner or partners, and then design the rest of it around that idea. Personally, I go by she her pronouns. I practice what people say when people call in I love them equal kitchen table poly, meaning I have multiple parent loving partners. And every now and then we can sit around a table, break bread, hang out, share what's going on. And everyone's sort of very loving and caring for one another. I actually have recent transition in my life for a long time my living situation was my partner and his wife lived on the first floor of the building that we live in. I lived on the second floor on my own and then on the third floor were our friends. was for a long time. So we lived in this building together with separate apartments. And, you know, it's, it's an interesting relationship that partner and I have been dating for four years, his wife and I are not romantically involved, but very closest, as people as friends, I consider her to be an ally, a friend, fellow strong woman, she's, you know, have a lot of love and respect for her. And it's mutual, it's that to me, actually, out of all the relationships I have in my life, that is the one that is the the most interesting and different dynamic, it's not something that you see very often, in fact, you get told, it should be the other way around. Like, if you love the same person, especially as a woman, if you'd love to see in person you should be fighting. And we don't, we're very loving. But another so this was like this for a long time. He and I were dating for four years, they were together for five years, they got married, two years ago, I was actually in their, in their wedding as their best man. And, and it was, it was awesome. And then I moved into the second floor, maybe two years ago. And then about two months ago, my other partner, my life partner, moved in with me, that's a big transition, because I love living on my own. And, in fact, it you know, the only way that the closest that I would ever come to living with somebody else was on the second floor of the building, you know, and but in the last sort of, sort of, officially the last two, since since November, my my partner lived in moved in with me, that's with us. And we're just in the sort of transitioning into cohabiting also looking at what that relationship looks like. Now, for the four of us, my partner downstairs, and I have what I call a legacy relationship, right? It's, it's what I brought into this newer relationship, which is about over a year old. So is that is interesting, because then sort of I come with this other relationship. And, and it's been really interesting to see that, that legacy relationships transition into now accommodating for this other person that I deeply love, and to see that the relationship between my partner from downstairs and my roommates partner,
get close with one another, and sort of really build that relationship that's really interesting. And then also just in our relationship, so my roommate partner, is like being roommates, right? Transitioning from dealing, you know, love to future planning, seeing what we, you know, what, what we want in life to now like living in the same roof, which is very, very different, especially, you know, we have different, you know, different ways that we think about living and basically cleanliness, that kind of stuff, also like tidiness, you know, all the roommate stuff. And then how do we keep this relationship? How do we sort of separate the relationship from the roommate stuff, right? And how do we manage that transition and not let you know, the dishes in the sink, be the thing that splits us up, because it's just not, you know, that's not what it's about, right? When you're living together, you sometimes lose sight of that. And then ultimately, like, the dishes in the sink is not really that important, right. But you have to manage that transition into CO living, which can be which can be different. So that's really sort of a little snippet of what goes on with me, but this is not about me. And this is about my awesome panel. And you guys, so I want to open the floor up to questions. I have a bunch so I you know, if nobody has one, I'll start off. But I you know, I encourage you to get your questions in early and upfront. So any questions again? So if you are okay to talk, just put your hand up and you'll get a mic. If you want a card to write your question on, put your fist up and you'll get a card and the pen. So hands up for Mike There you go. fist up for paper, no, just fire. Question for you, Fe.
Unknown Speaker
So when you're transitioning to having a roommate partner, how do you deal with the politics of bringing people home? And do you have rules about that?
Effy
Good question. We were very fortunate that we actually have a two bedroom apartment. And we're just fortunate that we've worked out that was possible. Um, it's not something we've had to deal with yet. The idea is that we have that second bedroom is set up to be a bedroom and I imagined that's what we would use if needed. We it's not something we were still tackling the dishes in the sink. But I you know, I think the again the other sort of caveat is the way that we live in the building we have space and which is so rare for for New York living we have downstairs upstairs third floor, multiple, like two bedrooms in our apartment, a basement downstairs, so we kind of have space and we don't have to tackle that issue. We have had we've we've had incidents before and I think what ended up happening is the person that doesn't want to be there. often what's happening, went to our guest bedroom. So it was like this is happening, do I want to be a part of it? Maybe a little bit. Actually, this is not what I want to be a part of, I'm gonna go and sleep in the guest bedroom. And that's kind of how we have we've handled in a kind of fluid way. But I, again, I realized that we have space, if you don't have space, that is a conversation that that you need to you need to have with your partner. And I want to actually pass on that maybe like volley that that question to you guys. Do you? Do you live together? We do? Do you see people at home? Do you bring data home?
Unknown Speaker
We haven't brought dates home to spend the night unless we're together. However, as a policy, if we believe that a person is going to be someone that we're seeing over a period of time or recurring or turn into a relationship, then we will bring them home for dinner pretty early on to meet the other person. And that's been very, very helpful.
Effy
And do you have any just just again, holding the question? Oh, do you have any agreements on bringing dates home solo? And then what happens? Who sleeps? Well?
Unknown Speaker
I don't think it's gotten to the point where one of us needs to be second child. I remember in college, yeah, Ally comes home, and there's a sock on the door. But there have been moments where, like, so the shared calendar is like a, like a poly enabler.
Unknown Speaker
In a very good way. Yes. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker
I'm sure there would be legislation against shared calendars if they only knew. Because sometimes what I'll do is notice that Alex has a thing when I know back Hey, is it do you mind if I have so and so over and we negotiate our boundaries? And and what? We use the hell yes or no rule? And so it feels like a hell yes, for both of us, then we boldly go. Sure.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. And I found that I sorry, I oftentimes feel very guilty if I have to be away for a long time. And so if I'm going to be out of the apartment until one in the morning, and Ryan has a partner over, that's definitely a hell yes. For me, we figure that out pretty quickly.
Unknown Speaker
If it helps you.
Unknown Speaker
Back and fair, spare.
Effy
Any, any other questions?
Unknown Speaker
Hi. First of all, I would like to thank Alan Chawan, and GE for using positive vocabulary when referring to people that you're no longer in a relationship with. But it's a very difficult thing to do. And what I would like to ask you is like, how did you get to that point, because I know that when we separate a romantic relationship into something else, it's very easy to fall into that negative space, like that relationship was no good. For whatever reason, how did you get to that place to be able to comfortably use positive language?
Unknown Speaker
I think part of it was learning that just because the relationship ends, it's not a failure, and having to learn that over and over again, because I would still tell myself old stories, and then realize no, everything that we have is still so worthwhile. And it's not really over right, the story is still continuing. And I think just deeply valuing this person's presence in my life and having someone who knows me, so well over such a long course of time, I didn't want to burn that bridge. So I think for me, it was just intuition from the beginning, that I still want to be connected to this person, even when things were horrible is like I still, there's still something here. So just valuing that and working towards it.
Unknown Speaker
I feel like my answer is a bit more selfish. I love me, and I love the decisions that I've made.
Unknown Speaker
And I wasn't crazy for four and a half years, like, you know, there were good things about them. And if I step outside myself and say, and like, if I were looking at a friend's relationship, like, okay, it didn't work out. But you know, y'all had a good thing going for a while. And I still love them. And I still like, you know, they've infected all my favorite songs. And some days, I'll be listening to a song that I've been listening to since I was five years old, but now it reminds me of them, and I'm bawling in the bottom of my shower. And like hating them isn't going to fix that. And you know, just just because you can't be around someone at it for a period of time doesn't mean you love them any less. I just had to recognize that I loved myself enough to walk away from it. And it doesn't change what we had, even though we can no longer be together.
Unknown Speaker
I mean, I still refer to her as my partner. It's no longer necessarily a sexual relationship. But she's still my best friend. She's still probably the most the most significant relation Friendship in my life currently, we talk on the phone most days. So it's just an evolution in this. Yeah. So love her. That's awesome.
Unknown Speaker
Hi. So this is actually for Alex. So a lot of your transition, you use the phrase that you actually fucked up in the sense that you were kind of doing it and then realize later on that, oh, that's something that you need us to talk about. Do you feel that that was better for finding out what you wanted in a relationship? Or would you have rather had talked about it beforehand? And kind of figure that out later on? Definitely.
Unknown Speaker
I don't know that. I would say it was better or just more effective. Because, you know, I found that outside of the monogamous construct, I have no script or understanding of how to ask for what I need, I have an understanding of like, what I should need, and then that gut feeling that's like, Oh, I'm attracted to this person, you know, and I, I should shut that down immediately. So oftentimes, I just found that I was like, I was acting out of like, old beliefs and habits. We, Ryan and I talk a lot about social scripting and how that plays out in our relationship or in our non monogamous relationships. But um, yeah, it was just a gut feeling like, I felt like I was doing something wrong. And so I would hide it, I wouldn't communicate it. Because that has always been the practice in terms of monogamous relationships, you don't share that, you know, you want to make out with your coworker or whatever, you keep that down. And so it took me a while to figure out that this was a safe place for me to talk about that. And most of the time, it was because I waited until that attraction had escalated to the point that it did become a problem, because I was then hiding something from my partner, who was just like, you know, if you told me the truth, like, it might have been uncomfortable, and then we would have talked about it, but like, in my head, I'm like, that doesn't know we, the relationship would explode. But it doesn't. That's not what this is about.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, she got to that point. What made it easier for me was like, being involved in queer relationships, that that playbook that everyone has was already thrown out the window. And so it's like, Okay, we have to talk about what this is going to be because like, you know, you're not going to get me pregnant, and I'm not going to have your children and like, you are already married. So like, you know, what does your life it's about, it's about shaping this relationship for, for what it needs to be for each of you, and creating a space where you're comfortable having uncomfortable conversations. Like, and that was, that was the red flag for me, like when we were no, when we were when we stopped communicating just to keep the peace. That was the death knell for us. So it's about maintaining this, this environment of communication.
Effy
And I want to kind of add to that, I totally agree with you. And I want to add to that, and give you almost like the flip side of that as well. So sometimes, communication is great, it is the most important skill you can have in life, but definitely in relationships. And most importantly, in non monogamous relationships. When you are discussing a relationship and sort of coming up with your agreements, and all that kind of stuff, there is a difference between what your intellectual mind thinks that that is the right, you know, what you want, and what you think you want. And like that, and then there is the feeling when it's happening, right, you might have agreed on a bunch of things, you know, on your kitchen table with your pen and paper write about when it's right, what it's gonna feel like, and then you have some agreements, and then you actually go and do the thing, and it feels awful, it feels awful for you, or it feels awful for the other person. So talking is great. And at some point, you kind of have to experience it, and then go back to what you've discussed and refine, right? And when you're doing that, the important thing is to look at those experiences as like experiences sort of in silo and experiments. And, and not make it about the whole relationship. Like it's not about you broke our agreements, or like, our agreements don't work anymore. But like, we had to go, we've figured some stuff out, when to experience it, it didn't feel good. Let's come back and refine and allow that change the flow of change. If we were talking about evolution, we're talking about change, allow that change to happen, and then just keep propping it up with communication revision. And I think that's important as well, like communication is great. But like, do to thing revise as well. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. Hi, how's
Unknown Speaker
it going? So I guess my question for actually all of you because all of you have been in primarily relationships for a very long time. I guess yourself the longest 11 years. 11 years and yourself also. For me. I'm my career Ain't relationship we've been together 12 years, monogamous for 11. And then Polly for the last year for about Yeah, for the past year or so. So, when my partner and I started seeing each other social media didn't really exist, online dating didn't really exist. I think at the time, MySpace was the biggest thing, that so now, you know, getting into poly in dating, the dating game has changed. So, I, you know, I only recently learned what ghosting was, I had no idea what that was until it happened to me, and I was explaining it to someone else. And so my question to you guys, for those of you that have been together for a long time, a when you experience, you know, some of these dating issues that you've never experienced before, and are experiencing for the first time as you discuss that with your or did you discuss that with your partners? And then you know, what came about that? Or did you just, you know, I guess keep it to yourself? I guess, no, what do you choose to share and what do you choose not to share? That's number one. And then while it's a two part question, so having for myself having been going to a lot of the poly socials, so you know, people that either a, you know, ghosted you or whatnot, you're still running into these people. At the social, so it's like, okay, how awkward How am I supposed to react? You know, because mostly, if you're not, you know, in the policy and and you date someone who doesn't work out the chances of you running into them, all right, New York City is a small place, maybe you do, but nine times out of 10, you don't. But some of these people, you're seeing them constantly, constantly, like, alright, you did this to me. So do I bring it up? Or not bring it up? So I saw how do you deal with that aspect of their relationship?
Unknown Speaker
Because I've got a timely one. So, I mean, it's been interesting for me, because we started dating when I was 17. She's really the only person I ever dated until we opened up a relationship. But I was 2526. And so dealing with a lot of these things that I guess I haven't had to deal with a lot because my dating had been kind of casual up to that point. I'm just like, a few dates, nothing that developed into any sort of capital our relationship. Although, recently I've as I've been more on my own, I've discovered that, you know, I have a place that I could bring people back to I wanted to actually the first night I moved into my place, I end up having to date, literally, she came over, it was like, I need to get my couch up, right. Sorry, I don't usually put days to you know, manual labor. But she's like, Yeah, I can I can get with that. The interesting thing for me is having come out come from this relationship that's been, you know, a primary one of my life, I have a much more of a connection between, like sex and emotions than I feel like people that are maybe have dated in you know, had not not had primary relationships for that long time, half. So I had this date. And we ended up in various states of doing things. But I didn't want to have sex, I think she was put off by that. And I realized now that I may, I might not have made it clear about my connection between, like, sex intimacy, and, you know, being extremely casual and everything. I did talk to my, my partner, best friend about that. In, not directly but kind of, it's a thing that I've recognized is is becoming, I'm just becoming more aware of, she didn't, you know, have much feedback to give or anything like that, but you know, she's there to listen, you know, provide that kind of emotional support in some way. I'm going to be at this woman's house on Friday for a, an event. So I might run into her there. I don't know, I'll it'll I've seen people that like I've had messages with on OKCupid or whatever. And like, we talked a little bit and they disappeared, or maybe we had a date, that was fine. And I think the general approach to that is just kind of be cordial. You know, Hey, how's it going? And, you know, it's clear, they don't want to talk about it. I I texted her, and was like, hey, like, I wanted to follow up on the other night, just because I feel like I didn't explain where I was at fully. And she didn't get back to me like, alright, that's fine. I think it's just be cordial. And, you know, it didn't work out clearly. And maybe there's no need to push on it for, you know, what's it gonna, what's it gonna bring you?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, so dating for the first time after, you know, my, my foreign partner, he was my third sex partner and I'd never really done much dating. So all of a sudden dating for the first time at 31 like that first kiss is like, oh my god, what is this? You know? So we actually did disgust so much along the way, my first breakup, my partner bought me flowers, and like comforted me about the breakup, and just held space for the relationships that I was experiencing. And so we talked a lot about it. Part of it is probably because we had been in couples counseling, and he had trained psychologists now. And so we just talk a lot and share all those things. But I also reached out to him when I was having a, you know, after our partnership ended, and having a conversation with a current partner that might be shifting the relationship and being really uncertain about things like I absolutely go to my ex and talk to him about as much as he is willing to listen. But that's also a big piece, right? Of like, how much does he actually want to hear? How much do I want to share. And that's been a moving target along the way. But I found it very valuable to be able to share while also like learning that sometimes it's not the time and finding other outlets to share, like learning early on as my, you know, excited extrovert, butterfly self, I like come home, and I wanted to tell him everything and he didn't want to hear it. He was you know, like, introverted doesn't care about this, like random makeout I had. So I called a friend on my walk home instead. And like learning, yeah, learning those kinds of dynamics, in terms of continuing to see people out in the community. Yeah, it's gonna happen. And so always cordial. And kind of trusting that everyone is taking care of themselves. So if this relationship ended, or we had like, a hard thing, and then neither of us wanted to talk about it, or I could sense that this this person, I went on, you know, like, two dates with didn't want to talk about as like, okay, that's just not a good fit, I need the relationship to be able to, like, engage with those hard conversations. So, okay, that's not going to happen. But sure, we can see each other and hug and maybe kiss at a party, maybe not. And, yeah, just trying not to have hard feelings. And, you know, finding someone else to talk to you about it. If I if I am really upset, not bringing it out into public.
Unknown Speaker
I specifically asked my partner the other week, like, how much do you want to hear?
Effy
That's a great question. I find I took so as a part of my job, right. So I'm also my own relationships are a bit of a lab of myself. Like, I'm always like, analyzing looking at them. And I do speak to my partners, about dates, and, and many other things and about how I feel about other religions, like my other relationships, what I find the most valuable thing why I do it is the feedback that I get, because sometimes you you don't have that outside perspective, right. So one of my sort of favorite things is like a personal development, like relationship nerd is you can get into like a loggerheads with one partner. And it's like it ends up becoming, you know, you said they said about, you know, you, you're really critical. No, I'm not, you're really critical. No, I'm not right. When you have two partners going, you know, she was a little critical, right? You're like, you're like, Oh, okay. So there's two of them. And there's me. And they have, you know, I'm the common experience. So maybe I should listen, right? So one of the anything, just why you want to share is is an A, I'm just saying it's like, why, like being clear about why you want to share is helpful, right? Do you just want to download? Or like, do you want to what do you want out of it, and being clear about that with your partners, I think is helpful, but whether it's dates or other relationships, and that kind of stuff. I do it mostly for self reflection, because it's like, I get two different feedbacks. It's like doing a survey, right. And I'm interested in the common sort of the common feedback. And then in terms of bumping into people who ghost you, with the poly community in New York City are small, and people hate one another. This is going to happen, you're going to you're going to bump into people that you've got they ghosted, you, or you know, or people that you dated when a couple of dates with and it didn't work out or had a long term relationship with and now, you know, dating your best friend, that's just the nature of the community. And I think you just learned to be cordial, and you kind of exactly all the things that that Ji said, you're just like, cordial, respectful. You know, you're as close as far from them as you like. So I would say anybody have anything to add?
Unknown Speaker
I mean, like, before, I knew I was poly, like, the gay will the gay world in New York City is positively incestuous. Like, like, and the more the more the more like, specific your community is, the smaller that pool is going to be. And unless you want to be downright ostracized and be like, you know, the crazy bitch of the group, like you just let that go. It's like oh, like you know, I'll I'll wave and say hello when we see each other at a party and if you turn around like you didn't see me All right, then like, we won't talk tonight. Like, that's fine. There's plenty of digging to see when it comes to like, telling your partners about other dates, like one of my partners was really into it. It's like oh my god dish, tell me everything. What color was his eyes? Like? What did y'all eat for dinner? The other partner he, like, you know, it didn't upset him. But like, he didn't really give a damn about the other people I was seeing because like, we were into different types and plays, like, that person sounds miserable. I don't like Did you have fun? I'm glad you had fun. But like, it's, it's a matter of knowing your partner well enough to know how much they want to hear. And also, as, as someone who's like, as your partner, it's like having a best friend, like, you're gonna want to tell them things, and they're gonna want to hear things and like, you play with how much of that is allowed for the two of you.
Effy
And sometimes it could also be, I think this is what you're talking to Alex is like, but if you leave it too late, by the time you're talking about it, you kind of dropping a bombshell, like when you like, oh, I met this person. And there was a connection is much easier to talk about than like, three months later. I mean, like, I met this person, there was a question. There was a there was a connection. We went on three dates, we've had a, you know, a sleepover, I think I'm in love. Here you go. And you're like, Whoa, where does that come from? Right? Like that comes from nowhere. And then that's way more like, feels so much more bigger than like this kind of drip. Like, like, communicate with the change, right? So I met somebody, there was a connection, I think I might, you know, ask them out for date. You don't ask him for permission as such, but you're just like, communicating change, right? So by the time you're saying, I think I love this person, that your partner that you're talking to isn't like in shock and that doesn't know what they're doing and like feeling really unsafe and insecure, all that kind of stuff. So like that drip conversation if it makes sense within your relationship. Of course, you can agree with your partner to have your Don't Ask Don't Tell whatever you've agreed to is that's what you should go by. If you thinking about like best practice, that will be kind of my my suggestion.
Unknown Speaker
What I had one thing about getting ghosted as an expert on the subject. Well, I so so I have a headless kink profile on OkCupid. And a lot is about half the people I match with, like, ooh, kink, what is that I'm actually terrified. You know, and when, when that happens, my number one coping mechanism is to complain Alex about it. And to her credit, she's always like, that person stupid, or like, you're right, I feel better. However, what I what I noticed, when I, when I made my debut into the dating world, after a previous long term relationship, that was not ideal for a couple of reasons. I noticed that I got attached to other people ghosting me when I felt that I hadn't, hadn't accurately portrayed who I am. And I got attached to that rejection because I was critical of how I had behaved myself. And, and so when I so I think a lot about being integral both in communication in in interaction and living my poly life and my dating life and my kink life according to my values, so that when someone else ghosts, me, I can reasonably I can say, with a straight face to myself that there are a lot of reasons to suffer. The like the Buddha's suffering, right life is suffering. I cannot possibly understand or predict what's going on for another person, but I can be compassionate to whatever thing was happening for them that made them want to avoid a deeply unpleasant conversation. Even if that conversation consists of, hey, not feeling it, you're great. You know, I don't want to imply that everyone that I go on a day with has this deep existential moment of suffering. Not exactly how I want to market myself in the world. But I do try to have, you know, present evidence not excluded, I do try to like, take a little bit more of a global perspective on on you, like, you never know what these people are dealing with. And that is a really good excuse for me to be cordial and be kind when I see someone else in the world now, when I may have out of integrity with my own values or do something stupid, that's when I'm like, please don't reject me. I was just being stupid. You know, I'm sorry. And that's when, you know, I thought about this because you said that text message. Right? You said, I think I need to explain this a little better and whatever. I've never gotten a response to that text message, but I've sent it multiple times, because that's an integrity thing for me, you know?
Unknown Speaker
Sure. Just one more thing about communication. Ryan and I found that in the beginning, we were so thrilled and excited. It was like Christmas morning. We wanted to talk about Polly all the time. And so we were talking about OKCupid we're sending each other screw mean shots at cetera, et cetera. And then we were sometimes doing that in the middle of the workday, sort of just gliding past the fact that some of these conversations might be emotionally fraught for the other person, and you have no idea when you're going to cross that boundary. But you might have just derailed the other person's entire afternoon. And now you have to have a two hour conversation to pick that apart. So and we oftentimes were working from home together at the same time, like, individually on OKCupid, in different rooms, and then running into the other room. So essentially, we very quickly realized that we needed a container for those conversations. And we literally use that phrase, Hey, can I open the container right now is now a good time. Because when I have the attention span of a nap, fly, and Ryan might bring up something that like, requires my attention, he needs my attention. And I need to be in a place where I can devote that attention to him, and be prepared that it might be a longer conversation. So I found that really, really helpful. Because I can often say like, No, I don't want to talk about that, right now. I gotta, I gotta like, take a nap or something, can we talk about this in two hours, and then and then I'll be ready.
Effy
That's pretty good. And I'll add to that in a little bit, is just talking about polio all the time. That does happen and like find other things to talk about to, to like, ease it up sometimes, especially because you do have to talk about the relationship conversations, like it happens, especially when you setting things up at the beginning. And if you have multiple relationships, what you end up sometimes isn't just that's what all you think about. And that's just what's occupying your mind. And that's exhausting, that's exhausting, mentally is exhausting emotionally. So like, find a hobby, you know, start start doing something else. And just don't make your like, don't make your whole life, your relationship, your identity or how you spend your time mental energy effort. Just relationships, and this is coming from a relationship coach. So I'm telling you, you know, like, just watch out for that and also connect over other things connect over cooking, connect over your friends connect over other things, as well as this, you know, Polly relationship that you nurturing as well as I would say.
Unknown Speaker
So it sounds like most of you have been in pretty long term serious partnerships. I'm curious if you've ever had moments where one of your new partners does something or says something or just their existence triggers your existing partners in a way that makes it really hard to like, where you almost have to force a choice between your current partner and the new partner, or where it could be that like, in navigating the presence of a new partner, especially if you're early in this existing relationship, you can end up hitting some snags where you say, or do things that make for problems in that primary dynamic. How have you navigated that? Would you recommend, basically, what happens when you trigger your partner with the existence of other people and does it force the end of one of the two relationships
Unknown Speaker
so so like I said, like, you know, like, this was my first poly relationship, when I when I jumped in headfirst and was like, Screw it, we're doing it, you know, get you screw your feet, let's get our neck wet. And for a minute, and I don't know how to swim. So like, I wasn't even treading water. Like, you know, I was drowning for a minute there. Like, I didn't understand what I was getting myself into. And one of my partners, other partners had been around longer than I had. But for whatever reason, did not choose to live with them. And like, we like, we had to, like figure out like, what we meant to each other, and how we were going to be around each other. Because, you know, I had this lofty idea in my head. Well, it's poly so we're all gonna love each other and live on his beak hippie commune, and everything's gonna be perfect. And they were like, no, like, you're cooling on but like, I don't want to date you and like, I don't necessarily want to be you around you very often. And I would just like, now we're best friends. But like, at that time, I was just like, I don't know if any of this is going to work if like you if they can't love me then then like, they're going to taint your idea of me and then like, you know, this is all this is all for not why we're here. But like it really it. You have to circle around back and say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, is this is this a weed problem or is this a me problem? And if it's a me problem, then you know, okay, take some time, self reflect, come back, come back a new person and see how you feel again. And one of the one of the nuggets my partner gave me when we were together was whenever a new person comes into a relationship If you're not adding a person to the relationship, that old relationship dies, and the three, four or five of you are starting something new together, your past is still there, your past is still important. But in order to create something that's sustainable, you know, you can't say, oh, well, you know, we're watching Doctor Who, because it's Tuesday night, and we always watch the Doctor Who on Tuesday night, you don't have you either love it or shove it. Like it's a, it's about making that space for one another and making that space for you know, I mean, dealing with moving in with one partner, and it's like, I don't like the I don't like the way you leave your toothbrush on the sink covered in toothpaste, you're gross, like, double that, or triple that. And so it's really about, you know, owning What's your problem, and then working through what's our problem.
Unknown Speaker
I saw I misspoke before I did have one relationship in this time that I've been with my partner, that was a bit more significant. And that was probably the the, probably that was definitely the most challenging. One. In that my my partner best friend values, time spent together very highly. And so there were some points of there were some struggles, when the three of us were actually together because this partner, that the not my best friend, so the partner lived out of state, so she would come and visit occasionally. And I think that dynamic, not quite working well. And the challenges with time spent actually ended up being one of the things that caused that long distance relationship. And that being said, with this new evolution of of my current relationship into some, you know, me being dating, you know, dating mores solo, Polly, but still having this, you know, intense emotional relationship with my best friend. I can't say I'm specifically looking forward to figuring out all the things if I should come into a another strong emotional relationship, because I'm certainly open to that we've discussed that, theoretically, that'd be fine for me to, you know, move on to. But I, I am aware that that is going to be a challenge
Effy
you didn't have it seemed that you had something to add. I wanted to mention
Unknown Speaker
Unix. I feel like Ryan believes I have something to contribute. We're not I'm sorry to speak for you. Yeah, I, I think it's a great and it's an important question. And it's something to think about. And I feel like we have each been on both sides of that equation. Initially, I was seeing a man and romantically things escalated. It used essentially was like the first guy that I went out with, you know, once we'd opened up, it got fairly emotionally involved very, very quickly. And Ryan and I had agreed on physical boundaries for each day, we would discuss it at length, and then you know, that's like, in theory, you know, as you're saying earlier versus in practice, and then I would come home from that date. And we'd have a lot of really, like, I could see that Ryan was in pain that it was it was really, really challenging. And I thought throughout well, like, Why didn't do anything wrong, because I did all the things. In fact, I did less like we only kissed once, you know, it took it took that happening over and over and over and sang. You know, like, I think for a while too I just thought like, well, this, this has to do with with like, this is Ben Brian side of the street. Not not that like maybe we need to rethink the way that we're approaching this because you're the person that I love and you're in a lot of pain. And maybe like just the logistical sort of physical boundaries are not enough. Ryan talked about consensual versus non consensual poly, like when Ryan started seeing someone who he was emotionally involved with, you know, very quickly who he could see, you know, becoming a secondary partner. I experienced a lot of that pain and thought, you know, felt like I was dying. And we realized really quickly that that we were moving way, way too fast. In fact, like everything that we'd ever learned dating monogamously didn't often those things did not apply. So We needed to establish proper boundaries, which were like, no texting every day in the beginning, because that pulls us away from each other, like spaced that out, don't don't get super stoned off of each other's pheromones, like Wait. You know, see each other once, wait another two weeks, then go out on another day. And like when Ryan met someone who was like, really, really lovely, and was like, willing and generous enough to step back and slow it down. What I think a friend of mine said, it was like, if the relationship ended with that person, it was like they'd be crashing, driving 17 miles per hour versus 70. So we decided to take it very, very slowly and found that physical boundaries weren't enough if the other person was in pain, and it was not a hell yes, we needed to reconsider. Our approach is that,
Unknown Speaker
yeah, you know, just to respond specifically to the language you use you were using the word trigger. And I think that means different things to different people. For me, I have a lot of baggage behind my chair, now I have a lot of baggage in my past about abandonment and inadequacy stuff. And that's like, like, perfect storm in poly land. And so, and I think this speaks directly to what you said about me versus we, because I've been to just enough therapy to understand my problems would not fix them. I, I decided that it was all a me problem. You know, and, and so I wasn't I didn't have the tools to stand up for the fact that I thought there was something about our relationship that was creating this, this unnecessary amount of, of pain. It took me getting involved in a romantic relationship. And and Alex experiencing that same suffering for us to realize that we were doing something wrong. So So I think the the most succinct version of our answer is like, if it feels like it's forcing a decision point for you, then there might be structural flaws in your approach. And that's not going to be true all the time. Because there are people who have had to make hard relationship choices. When we started getting close to the bandsaw, we realized it wasn't because we needed to make that choice, but because we we had had set up the systems the wrong way, if that makes sense.
Unknown Speaker
Right Way might not necessarily be your right, you just got to play with it.
Effy
This is just This is the whole relationship by design, you know, idea is like you have to figure out your own design, had to go through the process and figure out what's right for you. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker
So I have a question. We've been talking a lot about, like, say, your, your nesting partner, or your primary partner, or the person that, you know, you are opening up this partnership with, and how you make it work with them, and being sensitive to each other's emotions and things. But I, I feel like there's a lack in, in talking about maybe the other people that you're bringing into, you know, this fold of, of your, you know, whatever your structure is, and I find that, like, you know, my partner and I, we date together, as well as, like with the possibility of like, offshoots, if there's like, you know, only a connection between like a couple of the other people and like, you know, totally, like, there's no reason to stop, like a beautiful relationship. But I find that, you know, especially people who are trying to understand polyamory and who are monogamous, and they're like, oh, like, how is this affecting your relationship? And like, isn't this thing like tearing you apart and jealousy, blah, blah, blah, but they never think about the other people. And I think the other people as you know, in terms of like, coming into something sorry. That is pre existing. Have the harder, you know, just, yeah, sure. But just they have, like, they have, they have, you know, maybe not harder or just as difficult of like, you know, a thing to deal with. And so, you know, there was this one instance where somebody was like, oh, like we wanted to progress to being more intimate. And she was like, Oh, well, like, really like, my partner wants to meet you first. And to me, it was like, fuck you. I'm not dating your partner. Like cool like I you know, I want to respect these boundaries, but also like this is this is our relationship and your partner. Like is of course like Something that is in, you know, your other realm, but the fact that it's like invading this is kind of almost not seeing me as an individual person, you know. And so like, we try to, like, be very mindful of that, because also like, people coming into like a preexisting thing is like moving to, it's like if you ever move to a different like school, and you get into a group of friends that already have like, a history, and they'll have their jokes and stuff, and you're like, I really want to, like, I wish I knew all your inside jokes, but you don't. And so you feel like a lesser friend. I feel like that's like something that everybody can like, you know. I don't know, empathize with and I've been talking a lot. Sorry. But anyway, I want to hear your thoughts on like, you know, seeing these other people as people and, you know, I feel like putting boundaries on like, how often you can text somebody, it's almost not seeing them as necessarily, like, even the possibility of them being like a true partner. I'm not letting that flourish? I don't know. But
Unknown Speaker
I appreciate the question. It's bringing up a few different situations for me that I wanted to share. And this is also coming from the perspective of someone who values kitchen table Polly, and nonhierarchical, Polly. So even when I was with the nesting partner, we were aiming towards non hierarchical, which was actually quite difficult to do for us when we were nesting. So just all of that is context. But I have found in new relationships, especially when they have existing partners, I ask, okay, what are what are boundaries, where, where, where are spaces where this relationship cannot go, because I need to know that early on before my heart is on the table. So one of my new lovers has a nesting partner, and I didn't know what that would mean for the depth that we can go. And I learned where where they're at, but it actually doesn't impact the depth. So I am willing to go forward, but I have to ask and find that out. First, I had the situation of when my ex husband I were living together and I started a new relationship with someone that three and a half years later, I'm still with but at the time, he was nesting with someone and I was one of several partners he had and I felt very secondary tertiary had to deal with a lot of pain in that process. And I was scared to talk about it. And for a long time, because I was still new and didn't know what was up. But I, I hear you and really want to make sure that we value all of our people, regardless of how long we have been with them what our titles and labels are. But we're all people in this connection space together.
Unknown Speaker
I love people, but I love myself the most. And I was I was you know, I was diplomatic. But I was very stern very early on. I said, Look, I love you, I want you but I don't need you. And if you're not going to treat me like you want me here, then I can go do other things. And I there. I mean, a transition for me was going from being this outsider coming in to being the insider bringing in other outsiders and like someone mentioned to me the campfire rule which I which I have value very much, you know, leave the space better than when you found it. And so, especially, I call myself the the gateway drug of poly, like I I keep coming across these people who are monogamous and like we're friends and then like, I've never done this poly thing, but you seem pretty cool. Let's try this out. And I'm like, okay, kid gloves. All right, what does Polly mean to you? Okay, what would like you know, how involved do you want to be and like, I'm very much about making the new partner welcome. Like, you know, like I was saying before, you know, your old relationship is dead. And the relationship now is, whoever was involved before, and this other person not plus this other person, and it's because if you don't make that person feel included, if we don't respect that person's boundaries and desires, then they're not going to stick around long and so you're just gonna have a string of the short term partners who all wind up feeling like you, you used to them and so it's it's pay attention to people pay attention to their needs, and like your, your partner is always going to be like, I mean, structurally speaking, like, you know, if y'all pay a mortgage together, like there are going to be some things that you know, you have to refer to your partner for that you don't have to refer to your boyfriend for but it's about making sure that you know, that boyfriend still feels important that boyfriend still feels loved. That boyfriend still feels like his opinion matters.
Effy
Yeah, I think I also one ad I've actually been that the, I've moved away from primary and secondary language. In my practice, I, if I'm dealing with a couple who are sort of looking at outside relationships, I go, I talked about core relationship and auxiliary relationships, because I feel like the primary secondary is, has its connotations. And, you know, the words that we use affect our behavior. So I, you know, I understand the definition that they want to have. But because of the value because of the value in the human that you're dating, that's why I've moved away. Now we talk about core relationship and auxiliary relationships. And I've been that auxiliary relationship for my longest poly relationship is I'm, you know, they, you know, they're now married, and I'm the third person. And I have a very clear idea of what I want as an auxiliary partner. And so I like what ji said, I check in with, like, what is what is your relationship? What's available, right? And, and I think like, if I match that availability, do I have my needs met my expectations, met all that kind of stuff. And I think as a if you're, if you are in a court, if you are the part of the core couple, and you're dating, I think you do need to explain that to your, the people that you're dating. And I think, again, then they have the choice of, you know, if you're saying, I need to check in with my partner, every time I always schedule a date, you know, I need to know, we have a thing about taking things really slowly. Like those are the things that need to be discussed upfront, so that you can value those people, I think, and I think, you know, then the people that you're dating are, they know what they're getting themselves into. And I think that's really important. That's the best thing. And as the person who are dating, you also need to know what you need, and be able to, like, be able to say no to a relationship, it's not available, like a lot of the time I hear people in pain saying, I just want more from this partner where they don't have, you know, they have this other partner or they have other partners, or they have restrictions. You know, it's just might not be right for you, because it's just the availability that you need is not there. So it's worth it's worth thinking about. We're running out of time, there's always more questions that we have time for.
Unknown Speaker
Just because the event is almost over doesn't mean the conversation has to be over, we have lots of ways that we want you to connect with us. So if you see there are signs everywhere we are in Facebook, we are in an Instagram, we are recording this. So there's a podcast, we are on Patreon, where if you depending on the level, you'll be able to ask us specific questions and do Google Hangouts or get videos with your specific answers. And so there are a lot of ways if you didn't get to ask a question today, if something comes up later, if you and your partner partners have conversations and something gets triggered, there are a lot of ways for you to continue to be engaged in this community outside of the events that happen monthly.
Effy
They're awesome. Thank you. Thank you. It's perfect because I have some thank yous before we wrap up this this particular part of the event. So before we sort of wrap up there are some thank yous first and foremost, my panelists, thank you so much it is it the you know, thank you. Curious Fox is about this, you know, it's not about us, we just put chairs out and send out Facebook, Facebook invites is about this. And we you know, we talk about how people bravely share. And that's that's what they do they come and bravely share their experiences and answer all the questions. So thank you so much for doing that. Appreciate that. And there's some personal thank yous you just heard from Jackie, she's awesome. Jackie's my collaborator, my very new collaborator, curious Fox, I've been doing this for two and a half years, Jackie joined about a month ago, and life has changed in a good way. So she's now an integral part of curious Fox organization, community. It's even the folks who've, who know us say hi to her here. And I'm very grateful what she's doing. Thank you very much. I also want to thank my assistant, Laura, who's at the back typing away also made it happen. Thank you, Laura. I want to thank Thomas who's doing the recording in his own time. So I really appreciate that. Quick, thank you to Levi, who spent a lot of time with me, advising me on podcast stuff, we are curious. foxes.com is our website. I mean, our social media handles on Facebook and Instagram are the same. And same with Patreon. We are curious Fox is on Patreon. This is something that we've recently set up
Unknown Speaker
goal is that we again keep hearing from folks that maybe they can't make it into the room or they're not in New York, but they're somewhere else or I want to share this with a friend. And so we want to make this information in this community accessible as much as possible, and get engagement as much as possible. And so with Patreon, there's going to be different ways in which you can engage and support the work that we're doing. This is not a lucrative experience. This is just right. This is really just caring about this work. And so doing it and so all the money that you give via any of the platforms really just helps us continue to do this and expand this and do more topics and more events, etc.
Effy
So, yeah, and we love you and thank you for being here. Stay curious, curious, curious. Thank you, Jake. Curious, stay curious.
Still Curios?
