414 - To Come Out or Not to Come Out with Martha Kauppi
Welcome back, Martha!
Martha Kauppi was last on the show for episode 340 to talk about polyamory and therapy. She’s rejoined us this week for an episode discussing the intersection of one’s professional and personal life and how it relates to coming out of the closet.
For newer listeners who are just meeting her, Martha is a therapist, author, speaker, and educator specializing in complex relational therapy, sex issues, and alternative family structures. She trains therapists all over the world to work more effectively with a broad range of sex issues, and with clients who are in open relationships. She is also the author of the groundbreaking new book Polyamory: A Clinical Toolkit for Therapists (and Their Clients).
During this episode, Martha addresses the following topics:
Her own coming out journey.
Reasoning behind keeping her relationship status private and what caused her to decide to come out now.
How her relationship with her clients has changed (if at all) since coming out.
Support amongst peers versus any pushback.
Some reasons people might decide not to come out.
Different degrees of outness.
Advice for someone who is planning to come out of the closet.
You can find more of Martha on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we are discussing coming out especially as it relates to the intersection of personal and professional lives. We're having this conversation with author and therapist Martha Kauppi. We last had Martha on the show on episode 340, which I'm already surprised at how long ago that was to discuss polyamory and therapy as well as Martha's book. Martha Kauppi is a therapist, author, speaker, and educator specializing in complex relational therapy, sex issues, and alternative family structures.
She trains therapists all over the world to work more effectively with a broad range of sex issues and with clients who are in open relationships. She's the author of Polyamory: A Clinical Toolkit for Therapists (and Their Clients). Today we're going to be talking about Martha's own coming out story and discuss ways that you can more effectively come out to your friends, family, and the world and make the decisions about when that's appropriate. Martha, thank you so much for coming back on the show.
Martha: I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me.
Dedeker: I just want to take a moment to gush a little bit that ever since we had you on the show, I've used your book so often since then both in referring it to other therapists and professionals, referring it to clients, like utilizing the particular tools and interventions. I just wanted to write out the gate give a preliminary and also secondary plug for your book to anyone out there listening who either works with clients who are non-monogamous or you yourself are non-monogamous and want some good tools. Really recommend your book. Thank you so much for putting it out into the world. How has the response been to your book in the past few years?
Martha: Really good. It's super exciting and thank you for the beautiful endorsement. The thing I love most about having written that book is hearing from people who have used it and who are enjoying it. I particularly love when I hear like, "We formed a book club and we're reading your book together this whole group of people in polyamorous relationships," or "I'm using it as a supplement to my therapy, it's really supporting the work that I'm doing."
There's an audiobook now, "I'm listening to the audiobook and I'm really just mainlining this whole concept of differentiation of self and trying to get it into my bones and this stuff makes me super happy." Why would you write a book in the first place? Obviously, it's to help people. It's really fun and exciting for me to get that feedback.
Dedeker: Yes. I just wanted to say in particular I think one of the tools that I found resonates with people the most is the NRE plan or how I plan to handle NRE exercise that you have that I don't think I've seen anyone else out there creating or using something similar. That's been such a helpful thing for me to be able to give to clients and to use in my own life to be totally honest.
Martha: NRE is a big challenge. People go into a polyamorous relationship and bam, they're an NRE. It's really unfortunate in a way that you get the biggest challenge first.
Jase: For our listeners, NRE, new relationship energy. The reason I mentioned that is I did have a coworker of mine listen to the podcast recently and he's like, "I did have one question, you kept saying NRE, is that a therapy thing?" I explained it and he was like, "Oh, that's so simple. That makes so much sense." I realized that sometimes we take for granted that everyone knows the same terms that we do.
Dedeker: Jase you talking to your coworker about these things, I think is relevant to what we're getting into in the episode today.
Jase: It is for sure. That's something that I was already out in a very public way by doing this podcast, but there's still every day those little decisions about, do I say something that points to the fact that there's something out about me or do I brush it under the rug? Do I avoid the topic? What is it? I'm sure that will come up in our conversation today.
Emily: To start out with Martha, you actually came to us and wanted to be on the show again to discuss your journey with coming out. Just to start out, I wanted to see what was that journey that you took in terms of coming out and can you discuss and go through your decision process during all of that time?
Martha: Sure. It's a complicated little twisting story, of course, like everybody else's. I've been out as a lesbian for many years. I've never really been in the closet as a lesbian. I came out as soon as I came out and that was in my late teens, early 20s. That was a really long time ago. I have had open relationships of some shape, more or less for my whole life and I didn't identify as polyamorous for a long time partly because of all of the misconceptions and assumptions that went along with it. For instance, the mythology that people who identify as polyamorous are also really promiscuous.
That doesn't describe me. I think of a label as being something that you choose for yourself as a shorthand way to give other people a way to make assumptions about you that you can tolerate.
Dedeker: I love that.
Jase: I love that summary.
Dedeker: I love that, yes.
Emily: I'm trying to
Dedeker: Write that down for sure because putting that caveat at the end I think is so key.
Jase: It's to give other people a shorthand to make assumptions about you that you're okay with or that you can tolerate.
Martha: That's right. Exactly. Because obviously there is no label that is adequate to describe anybody, there's no string of labels that's adequate. There just is no such thing. The only label that I really feel comfortable with is Martha. If you know me, you know something about me, and you probably have a sense of me and an impression of me that I feel comfortable with. If I'm going to give you a shorthand for making marginalizing assumptions about me, I'm going to be very careful about what label I pick. Lesbian is a label I feel very comfortable with because I'm in a 28-year-long same-sex relationship.
It's a no-brainer. It's hard to understand me at all without knowing that I'm in that relationship. Also, as identity labels have evolved over time, I would say pan is more accurate, but nobody knows what pan means. I just identify as queer, but what my life actually looks like is I'm in a same-sex relationship for 28 years. All of this was just evolving in my life and going along like it does and then I started this much more public career where I train therapists.
I have an online course training therapists to work with sex issues. I produce webinars. I speak at conferences. I wrote a book. A lot of people are looking at me. I really felt a brand new desire to have some privacy in my life. The more people looked at me, the less delighted I was with what I assumed they were assuming about me. That was really interesting and at the same time what was happening was, I was at the front of a room with an audience that I never thought I would have and the opportunity to help a lot of clinicians understand a lot of marginalized situations that I didn't think they otherwise did understand I had a platform. I was like, "Holy crap." I wanted to protect my platform.
I didn't want to just be that polyamorous lady who talks about polyamory. I didn't want polyamory to be the center of my career either. I wanted the center of my career to be training therapists to work with sex issues, not the same thing. I wanted to get underway with that. Then there's been just an ongoing internal question in my mind like, at what point do I become more aligned with my personal preference to be out and to be known congruently? Then how do I make that make sense within the relationships that are closest to me and the privacy preferences of the people who are close with me?
I think everybody who has a coming out question, especially about polyamory, it's very much complicated by the fact that your coming out process affects other people.
Dedeker: Yes. Always. It's also different in your situation in particular and not only for all the reasons that you listed but it's also navigating outness about your relationship format is maybe a little bit different as someone who's working as a therapist versus someone who's working as an accountant. Not that there's no impact on the accountant or things like that but it's like, I think around the therapy profession, we already have all these mores and conventions around just disclosure in general. How much can you disclose about what happens in your private life or what relationships you conduct? I want to circle back to that a little bit later.
I think that whenever anyone is grappling with coming out, there's always reasons for and against. It sounds like for a long time there were a lot of compelling reasons for you for keeping this private, the way that you want to angle yourself as a professional and the way that you want to be showing up in those particular spaces. For you, you alluded to having this personal preference of being out. I guess I'm wondering about all your reasons for what finally tipped the needle for you in deciding, no, this is something that I do want to do.
Martha: First of all, I think my career is at the point now where it would be hard to destroy it.
Dedeker: Oh, that helps.
Jase: That does help, yes.
Dedeker: That helps.
Martha: That helps a lot. What I love about teaching therapists about working with polyamory is when people feel comfortable telling me, "I really have a problem with this. I can't understand it, a lot comes up for me about it. Help me understand it." I like being somebody who can get on the inside of that and be beside somebody who's really grappling with it and help. I am a little worried that by coming out myself, I might lose my opportunity to have people be that vulnerable with me.
Dedeker: Sure. That makes sense.
Martha: I think I've gotten to a point in my career where I have done enough of it that I'm willing to risk it if that makes sense.
Jase: That's actually one of the other things that I wanted to ask about was, how that relationship with both clients but also with other therapists has changed if you've been able to see that yet. Has the impact been as big as you expected? Has it been different than you expected in terms of that way of, "Oh, I thought I could relate to you as an outsider but now I'm having to relate to you as you're an insider and I'm an outsider," have you noticed that change being as big as you thought it would be?
Martha: I haven't had a chance to notice it yet. I have two audiences to my work. One audience is therapists and the other audience is people in polyamorous relationships and people in other kinds of relationships that they want help with their relationships like the public. The people that I'm most interested in coming out to are the public. I'm most interested in, for instance, finding ways to help people in polyamorous relationships to strengthen their relationships. I'm working on that project right now. I think it's really important to think through some of these issues as being an important part of my trajectory about that.
To really think through my own coming-out issues before I really move into that sphere. It's less important to me to be out to the therapists because I think it's less relevant to the work that I do with them. For instance, as a coach or a therapist, when I'm working with a client who is either queer or gay or polyamorous or in any kind of ENM or CNM relationship, almost always I come out to them. If I'm in a group and it's a marginalized group, I mostly come out to my clients because I think it's fair for them to know that I have some shared understanding of the community and also a risk I think of making assumptions about them based on similarities that I falsely perceive between us.
I think there's a flip-side dial that bias works. I think it's just fair to disclose. I'm much more concerned about the congruence that I show to the public in that way because when I'm training therapists, I'm very congruent about how I train therapists and my personal life isn't really part of it. Interestingly, what I have heard from therapists mostly at this point is, "Oh, we just assumed that."
Emily: That was what I was going to ask. Because the three of us doing this podcast and talking about the things that we've talked about which generally has been polyamory for almost the last decade, people are going to have automatic assumptions about us. Generally that we're all polyamorous and that we're a triad, which is not true. I'm not polyamorous and we are not a triad and yet generally, that's where people go. I was wondering yes, you talk about these subjects and so my mind would go to that a person would automatically assume she must be also inclusive and also in with this crowd, essentially, and polyamorous in some way.
Has that been an issue, I guess, especially when you were not necessarily letting people know that in certain groups, like the therapist group that you were working with?
Martha: For the most part, one good thing about therapists is they're a little, maybe less likely to ask a question like that for no reason whatsoever or maybe. Although actually the only uncomfortable situations I've had actually were with therapists and not with the public, so go figure about that. I don't know, I've more heard things like-- I've always been out to my close friends and people who are close in my life or really close colleagues or whatever. I think it's important to me to feel known and it's hard to feel known when people are missing big pieces. I'm in a 28-year-long relationship and a 22-year-long relationship. It's not inconsequential.
Dedeker: It's the big pieces. Very big pieces.
Martha: Those are big pieces of my life. I'm out to those people anyway and once in a while I would hear something from someone, like somebody asked me or somebody said, "Martha is polyamorous, right?" Then I get to hear what their responses have been. "I guess you'll have to ask her," or "It's not really my story to share, go talk to Martha," or whatever they have chosen to say. I'm aware that sometimes people talk about me and I just haven't spent a lot of time worrying about it.
Jase: I wanted to go back to something that you mentioned a little bit before about how when it comes to non-monogamy, especially that often you're coming out affects other people as well. That jumped out to me as yes, that's true, and also in a way, the decision not to be out is also affecting more people. I guess I'm just curious to look at that a little bit. People that I talk to tend to be really focused on just one or the other.
Either, I'm upset because my partner is not out and I feel like I'm hidden and this is negatively affecting me and I'm upset about this. This is a problem or very much the other of like, I'm not out or maybe my partner isn't, and I can't be because I really want to try to protect them. It's interesting just to think about, yes, you might actually be experiencing both of those at the same time or maybe not even realizing that. I'm just curious how you've seen that show up for you and clients you work with or when talking to therapists about how they could help coach their clients about that.
Martha: I think it's a really sticky bunch of issues with lots of ethical subtleties about consent and control and privacy. It's just bony business. It's not really super crystal clear where there's just a right answer.
Dedeker: Dang it.
Martha: Exactly. What I tell therapists is never minimize the coming out process that your client might be struggling with. Don't assume that it's going to go easy. Don't assume there are going to be no negative consequences because people lose family relationships, custody, jobs, all kinds of relationships get thrown under the bus through the marginalization that goes along with being in an open relationship. Which seriously sucks and I think we've come a little ways, like most people don't get beat up anymore for coming out as a lesbian.
That's progress because I have been harassed on the streets for walking down the street with a female partner in the past and that hasn't happened for a couple of decades. Obviously, it's different in different areas and what different people and trans-people are still really struggling and it's tough. I think liberal therapists and liberal people generally, are at particular risk of saying, "We've come so far and that really won't be a problem because we all value diversity," and the truth of the matter is we're not as good at it as we'd like to believe.
Dedeker: Yes, definitely. Hard agree on that one. I'm wondering, and I know that of course there's always going to be caveats because like you said, it's always a sticky situation with many entwined, entangled areas of potential things to think about and worry about. It's going to depend on people's lives. Do you think that there's higher chances of a non-monogamous relationship working out if everyone involved in the network is a similar level of outness or do you feel like people have pretty successfully navigated having very, very different levels of outness?
We all want a formula and a pat answer. I know that doesn't exist but I don't know. It's something that I've been trying to evaluate also with the clients that I work with and thinking about my own anecdotal dataset over several years of working with clients. I'm just curious about what your impressions have been.
Martha: I love that question. A big reason why I wrote that book was because in my own life and in my own relationships, a lot of the assumptions that we make about polyamory just are not true. I was like, "You know what, I probably need to speak up at some point and say actually that's not what I'm seeing." This is another one. I have one partner who's perfectly comfortable being out. I've got another partner who is not perfectly comfortable being out. For a number of years, I was not comfortable being out but generally speaking, it's more important to me to be out than it really is to either of my partners.
We've got some longstanding relationships here that are standing the test of time, despite some strong differences.
Dedeker: If you don't mind sharing from your personal experience, since these have been really long-term relationships, what do you feel like have been the compromises that have had to be made or the sacrifices that have had to be made in order to rectify the fact that this is all multiple people with very different opinions about how out one should be or not?
Martha: It's funny because outness has been the least of our challenges, I would say. we've had plenty of other things to grapple with, but outness is a challenge now a little bit as I start to feel like I want to come forward and speak up just because I am a pretty relational being. The way that I started that process was years ago sitting down with my partners and saying, "What do you want to do here? How do you feel about my choice about this? To or not to? What are the stakes?" We've all been talking about it for easily five years. This is not the kind of thing that I come up with on my own and then birth overnight and break the news over breakfast. It's not really how I roll.
Jase: I think even that is a great takeaway for people to realize, this isn't just a, "Oh yes, okay, I just decided one day. I guess for some people it is, but I think it makes sense since there are other people affected by it. It can, depending on your circumstance, maybe coming out's a trivial thing, but it could also be a really big thing with a lot of risk. Evaluating that and realizing, you know what, maybe it takes five years or one year or at least several months to really think about it rather than just getting fired up. Because I listened to a podcast episode about coming out, so I've got to do it right away.
Martha: There's definitely no, I've got to do it right away. I think this is the issue of differentiation, which is a relational process. The way those conversations have always gone is, "This is what I'm thinking, this is what I'm feeling. What do you think and what do you think and what are you feeling? What do you think about my decision? Do you think I'm making a good decision? How do you feel about how it reflects on you?" A conversation where we all get to know each other more deeply through that conversation. I was in no rush and I was in a very slowly unfolding process of growing a pretty big career.
Over time, just periodically I would check in about it like I would check in about any other big issue that affected all of us. "This is where I'm at about this now, what do you think about it? How do you feel about it? What's going on about it? Do you think I'm making good decisions about this? What am I missing that's important to you?"
Dedeker: As you're talking about that, I'm realizing that I think the scenarios where I've seen the most conflict and the most pain, and the most heartache among people who have very different opinions about how out one should be or they're at different places with outness, usually there isn't necessarily that sense of compromise. Usually, it's a situation where one person is like, "I can't be out because of X, Y, and Z reason. I can't post about you on social media. We have to go have dates in the next town over, so I don't run into anybody I know."
There isn't necessarily that sense of, "Let's talk about the impacts of this, and let's try to make this intentional. Let's try to take an inventory of what are the actual risk factors here and try to collaborate on this." I guess that what I'm hearing is there's something about bringing that spirit to it and always that balance of having good compassionate protective boundaries, but not being overly rigid, I suppose.
Martha: You don't always get your way really.
Dedeker: Dang it.
Martha: Dang it. I hate that about life, but every single damn day there's something I don't get my way about. There has to be a certain amount of just internal balance about the whole thing because I have both of those partners. I have the one that's like, "Sure, I'm happy to be out." Joanne's like, "Talk about me, name me, I don't care. No problem." My other partner's like "We can't go on a date." I get it. There's practically no issue around polyamory that I haven't been in both sides of it at one time or another, which really helps give you a little perspective about it all.
Emily: Probably makes you a better therapist.
Dedeker: I think it's an occupational hazard of being non-monogamous over a certain period of time. There's always going to be a turnabout where you're going to end up on both sides or all multiple sides of a situation.
Martha: That's one of the fun things about it as a therapist. You can be all dang in about that right now, but I think it's going to kick you sooner out later because you'll be on the other side of it. It's an inconvenient truth that the person who says, "I don't feel safe," wins. They get their way or you don't have consent. That's just the way it is but it doesn't have to be the end of the discussion. It can be, "What helps you feel safe? Under what circumstances would you feel safe? What could I do to help you feel safe? Is there any wiggle room in this? Where could we go? What would make sense to you?"
Because it's usually not just a brick wall if you can lean in with some curiosity and actually find out what's going on for that person who's feeling so unsafe.
Dedeker: I'm also going to extrapolate that that feeling of a lack of safety or a lack of security, I imagine is not just something that can come from the person who maybe doesn't feel safe enough to be totally out, but can also come from the person who feels hidden for instance. That can feel like, "I don't feel secure in this relationship because I feel like I'm being hidden." It sounds like it's just important for there to not be brick walls between us in negotiating and navigating those things.
Martha: Yes. There's a question there I think that's a fine line between the experience of hiding. I am hiding or you are hiding me. I have control over whether I'm hiding. I don't have control over what you're doing and I'm not sure I should have. I think there's just an uncomfortable truth there about consent. If you don't want to disclose this aspect of yourself, I have got no right to ask you to but also, maybe you don't have a right to ask me not to disclose what my life looks like to the people that are important to me and to the world. Does that make sense? What do you think about that?
Dedeker: I think that's when it gets into like you were saying of we don't always get our way. I do think in any relationship, there's always going to be a push-pull and there's always going to be areas of disagreement. I think it is about just learning to can we find ways around this? Can we find ways to still fundamentally love and accept each other even though we're in different places with this? That gets complicated because the fact that choosing to be out or choosing to not be out does have impact. I guess I'll take the safe answer and just be like, "Oh man, that's a tricky one. That's a real tough one."
Jase: The thing that it brings up for me is that is just the fact that it is an ongoing conversation and that there is nuance to every piece of it. To every individual person's decisions about that as well as how those affect each other. The reason why I want to bring that up is because before we started recording, we were all talking about advice columnists to newspapers and stuff, and how often to be a hit in that area, you tend to have to come down pretty hard on one side or another and maybe give people some tough love or maybe even be a little bit mean sometimes because that's like, "Wow, sensational hot take."
It really leads us to this idea of, "Oh, if I just decide what the right ethical decision is or what the right thing is to do, then I can just apply that in all situations, and then I'll always be right. Anyone who disagrees with me is just categorically wrong." There's so much of that in that, I'll just say some of the more popular relationship advice podcasts compared to ours. You just tend to come down more on that. Maybe this isn't actually healthy but it's hot takes. Just to bring that up as a reminder to people of it's not just a black-and-white decision, it's not just "Oh, if this then do that and now you are in the right." It is this ongoing nuanced conversation that you can't know every single circumstance that might come up and just make some formula that you can apply.
Emily: So many of us want I think a quick fix and a quick answer but as you said, this was a decision that occurred over a long period of time and also changed due to circumstance and your circumstances changed where you said at the top of the show, "I feel like my career can't be destroyed now, it's pretty undestroyable and so, therefore, I feel more comfortable coming out." That's I think a big thing that we all have to view there are maybe certain points in our life where we feel more or less able to do things that might have been more challenging at a certain point in our life than they are currently. That can continue to change throughout the course of our lives.
Martha: The whole thing evolves, relationships evolve. I'm thinking about how frustrating it's been for me sometimes to have a partner that doesn't feel comfortable being seen in public with me for instance and it's really tough. Also when I can lean in with curiosity and ask what that's about, what's going on and what's the fear and what's at stake, what are they experiencing, what's really going on there? Then every single time we do that with any aspect of our relationship I end up coming around to, "Oh, you know what, I withdraw the request. I don't want you to have to go somewhere where you feel so uncomfortable and that would be massively uncomfortable for me actually."
The more I understand what's going on for the people who I really care about, the more leeway I have about what I can live with.
Jase: We want to go on to talk about some of these coming out topics more broadly and talk about some ways that people can explore this in their own lives. First, we're going to take a quick break to talk about some ways that you can support this show. If this is content that you enjoy and want to help us keep putting out there into the world for free, the best thing you can do is take a moment to listen to our advertisers, if any seem interesting to you, go check them out. It does directly support our show and we really appreciate your help with that.
Dedeker: We're back. Speaking of things shifting and changing, relationships shifting and changing I know all of us who've been in this scene for a long period of time have seen a lot of change. A lot of transformation about how comfortable people are to be out about no monogamy, how many people are comfortable talking about it publicly. We've seen an explosion I think in resources, in public figures and celebrities who are out about this and so the landscape has definitely shifted. I was wondering that even in this environment right now, what are some of the reasons that you see why people may still decide to stay closeted?
Martha: Other than losing a job, losing a relationship with your mother or your grandmother, or custody of your children?
Dedeker: All those small things, small potatoes.
Martha: Gee, those are not small potatoes, obviously. There's that. I think that's real.
Dedeker: I will just jump in to say that I appreciate you reiterating that because that is something I run into for sure. I think like you were saying where some therapists maybe are inclined to dismiss or diminutize the stress of coming out that a client may be going through that. We are still living in a world with these huge, huge, huge ass consequences on the line for some people.
Emily: Especially certain parts of the world or certain parts of the country, for instance, like again the three of us, they live in Seattle and I live in Los Angeles. At least in my circle of friends, it feels as though there's no way that that would be an issue. Yet I think to so many people out there, that absolutely is a decision between am I going to lose my job or my custody of my kid or whatever.
Dedeker: My support network.
Emily: Exactly. Any number of things. It's again circumstantial based on where you are even in the world.
Martha: Yes it is. I think it's complicated. I think it can be one of those things that has a big value judgment attached to it too. I think one of the things I want to put out there is I don't think there should be a big value judgment attached to it. I think it's a personal decision whether you come out or not it's a complicated one. It's terrific fodder for therapy or coaching because it's a deep dive into what you want, what you have at stake, and of moving towards the life that you want and the way that you want to move towards that. Which is going to always surface blocks.
If you're not out already and there's a part of you that wants to be out, there's also a part of you that does not or you would already have done it so there for sure is going to be some internal tension about it and I think it's fair.
Jase: I was actually wondering if we could come back to in our professional lives coming out or even in our personal lives too but something that I've been thinking about a lot recently and I'm actually involved with a working group that has to do with non-monogamy and polyamory in the workplace advocating for more companies to adopt policies to protect people who are in non-monogamous relationships as well as looking at how companies might adjust things like their benefits and things like that even to better reflect this community that is a very large part of their workforce even if they don't know it.
Anyway, this stuff's all been on my mind quite a bit lately. The thing I wanted to talk about was the idea of I guess that people talk about outness as a binary. You either are or are not. I find that, in reality, it's a much more nuanced question and it can end up in this situation where there's almost daily decisions of am I out or not in this particular interaction with this particular person. I guess navigating that difference between let's say I want to be out, what's the difference between being out in a way that I'm not actively hiding this versus being out in like I have to throw this in everybody's face in every single interaction that I have.
Put it on all of my social media posts and wood it on a name tag, put it on my business card there's a big world of difference between those two things. I'm curious it sounds like you're doing a little bit of that where you're out now but it's not like you're doing a big press release I guess besides being on this show. It's not like you have to force everyone to sit down and talk about it which I think is how some people think of it. It's like "Oh, I've got to sit down everyone I know and give them this announcement," or "I've got to write up this big thing."
Dedeker: Have a forum.
Jase: Exactly.
Martha: To me like I said, I've been thinking about coming out issues since I was 19. I think you come out for yourself for your own reasons and you handle it within your relationships partly because you want to be known. Somebody once asks me, "Why would you even come out as a lesbian?" Because if I don't, you assume I'm straight and it's exactly the same. If I don't tell you that I'm in two significant relationships, you will certainly assume that I'm in one especially if one of them is much more hidden than the other. Unless of course, I write a 450-page book about it in which case--
Dedeker: Which does help. I found it does help sometimes.
Emily: Definitely.
Martha: Turns out people start making assumptions. I think that's why you would come out is so that people would know you. To me, you would sit down and talk to the people that you feel like don't really know you. They know a part of you and the rest of it that they're making assumptions about, they're making incorrect assumptions about you and you want to clear up that record so that you can have a feeling of being known. You're paying a price or taking a risk potentially in exchange for your desire to feel authentically known. The risk you're taking is that they might not be comfortable with your identity or your situation.
Dedeker: I think what I've learned from at least my own experience with this as someone who has been let's call it officially out for at least a decade that for me, there are still certain areas of my life where this is a challenge. For instance for myself obviously, I've been professionally out for a long time because that's been the basis of what I do between doing the podcast or between working with non-monogamous clients all the time. For a long time, I've been, I guess I would say partially out, especially in the realm of dating, or partner acquisition.
Because it's really important to me to make sure that there are some ethics there, and people are able to consent and know what it is that they're getting into, and things like that. For a long time, when it comes to making friends, for instance, that's an area that I struggle. That's an area where I struggle with, is this worth the risk in this interaction to be this vulnerable with someone that I'm getting to know? Is it worth the risk of the fact that I may end up in a three-hour conversation now with this person where maybe they won't respond very well?
I think for myself when it comes to specifically friends, it's this weird in-between area for me that I still struggle with. I'm curious about hearing from the rest of you, if you feel like that has matched your own experiences of certain areas of life, it feels easier to step into this in other areas, it feels a little bit harder, or maybe that's just me.
Emily: Interesting, I don't know. Yes. I feel like it comes up in what I've been a part of in my life in terms of polyamory, and then also the podcast in general. It does tend to start coming up as I've gotten to know someone a little bit more. There is a certain level of, I'm not going to just disclose that immediately. Because yes, it is a potentially vulnerable, discussion-based thing that's going to take a long period of time. Also, some emotional intimacy that you don't always want to have to get into with every single person you meet.
Perhaps, yes. Although I don't think of it that structured, but that has tended to be the trajectory towards which I start talking about these things with people that I meet.
Jase: I would say for me, and again, this has been on my mind a lot lately, but for me, it's all in professional circumstances. Maybe because I put all my mental effort there, when it comes to friends, I'm like, "No, this has to be something that I can come out with, and talk to you about, or else, this is not worth it to me." Because I've got enough friendly social interactions through work, where I do feel like I need to be much more guarded, and keep more of myself private. Maybe even always walk that line of how much do I let them assume all the typical stuff they're going to assume about me.
Is that worth even having that conversation, or is it better to just have that, not get in the way? I think that the thing that's really shown up for me is that since being publicly out because of the podcast so that any person could within two seconds of Googling me know all of that about me. There's no even pretense of that being secret from anyone who even tries to look anything about me. As a result of that, I've found that I tend to be much more withdrawn about my personal life with coworkers and much less open to any kind of fun, flirty, or sexual conversation.
Sexual harassment's a big thing, and there's rules against that, but it is also a normal part of conversation amongst coworkers, especially who are close, who have a little bit of that. We acknowledge those things and joke about them, and I find that as a way of protecting myself, have instead withdrawn in that area since I can't really withdraw in my outness about polyamory if that makes sense. For me, that's part of the risk evaluation I've had to make.
Dedeker: Do you feel it's like in the work sphere needing to be extra super normative?
Jase: In the work sphere, almost like really needing to lean into, I am basically entirely asexual, and aromantic, and this is not a thing I think about, or talk to about, or have any cares about at all, because I'm out as polyamorous and bisexual and all these things.
Emily: It's all over, yes.
Jase: It's more that.
Dedeker: You don't want anyone to feel like-- because you shared with me recently that you posted about our book on LinkedIn, which is fantastic. On your LinkedIn, which doesn't--
Jase: Which is very scary for me. Which is very scary for me to do.
Dedeker: Which you've built out to be not a LinkedIn, that's about being a non-monogamy podcaster. It's about your whole other career.
Jase: I do mention the podcast on there, but I lead with my other career.
Dedeker: With the idea, you don't want anyone to be like, "Oh, Jase, is this bisexual polyamory guy," and not wanting any kind--
Jase: Now I think he's hitting on me all the time.
Dedeker: Now I think he's hitting on me.
Jase: That's what I don't want.
Martha: That actually sounds really similar to my issue, although mine's not about sex. About how vulnerable are people going to be willing to be with me if they think that everything that I do, and teach is pushing a personal agenda? When the truth of the matter is, I have no personal agenda about it. It's fine by me if you are, or are not monogamous or polyamorous, whatever. I really do work for people to be congruent within themselves.
Dedeker: I think that's something I've had to work with, and also sometimes, struggle with in my own practice because the reality is that a big portion of my practice, a surprising percentage of my practice isn't working with people who are not interested in non-monogamy. Sometimes in helping people uncover and know that they're not non-monogamous, and they shouldn't be coerced by a partner into non-monogamy. There's always going to be that perception from the outside that it's like, "Oh, if myself and my partner go work with somebody who's openly polyamorous, clearly, they're going to be pushing a completely pro-non-monogamy agenda.
Not be able to hear anything to the contrary or help advocate for any other viewpoint there." That's definitely something that I feel like I've struggled with in being out with clients at all, even though, I think the benefits of being out with a client far outweighs that particular risk in my personal experience.
Martha: You don't have to be out to your client for them to assume that either. I think that's definitely something that has happened for me. I start right out. I really love working with mono-poly relationships, as you probably know from my book. There's just a special place in my heart for people who identify as monogamous, and who are considering, or actually being in an open relationship. Partly, I have that big space in my heart for that, because my partner, Joanne, is one of them, and she's a very happy mono. If she wanted to go have another relationship, she could, but it's just not the way she rolls.
I know for sure that it can work, I know for sure it can work in the long run, and I really love working for those people. I start right out by saying, "I am not ever going to tell you what you should do. If you decide, at the point that you decide, whether you do, or don't want to be in this relationship, I'm going to back your play. I don't have an agenda that you need to decide to open your relationship or to stay with this person. That's not my job. My job is to help you get clear on what you want through exploring what's possible for you and what you're curious about.
You can explore a lot of stuff and imagine a lot of things, and feel much more comfortable than you ever thought you would feel and still decide not to do it. That would be just fine. It's going to be your decision." I'm trying to help people see that thinking about something, dreaming about something, imagining something is not the same as actually doing it. Because I don't think we can really explore any possibility if we're scared that we're going to get boxed into it by not just our partner, but also our therapist. That would never do.
Dedeker: I think that there's so much research that supports the fact that as human beings, we're just really bad at actually predicting how we're going to feel about something once we're actually in it. Once our ideals crash into the reel that then things end up feeling very different.
Emily: We've talked for almost an hour, but we're coming up on the end here. I guess my final question to you would be, if you were to give perhaps a couple of pieces of advice to someone who is contemplating coming out, what would you say to them?
Martha: I think I would recommend that you take a little time to figure out how you think coming out is going to benefit you. What do you imagine the costs might be to you? Remember that thing about labels, and who this is all to serve. The coming out process should serve you. It's not something you owe to anybody. How is it going to serve you? Hopefully, it'll serve you really beautifully, because you'll get to be known really well, and truly by the people that you care about. If you're worried that that's not what's going to happen, take it slow. Just take it slow, it's an evolution.
I think one mistake is thinking that the way that I feel today is the way I'm always going to feel, or the way that my partner feels today is the way they're always going to feel. I'm getting really scared, like, "Oh, it's going to be awful like this forever, or whatever." It's not. Everything evolves over time. Everything shifts, and if you decide not to come out today, you can always come out tomorrow, or next year. The same for anybody important in your life.
Jase: I think in general that advice is really good. One of just remembering that what you're feeling right now is not necessarily how you're going to feel forever. In fact, is almost guaranteed, but it is not how you're going to feel forever. Both on the micro-scale and on the macro-scale. These things change over time. We change as humans. Then also that idea that you don't have to do it right now. We often cheekily say on this show, things like, "Don't sign anything in the first year." To emphasize this idea that, yes, you're very excited about this relationship right now, but if it's really as good as you think it is, waiting a year isn't going to hurt that.
I think the idea too with coming out, it's like if there's a part of me that's scared, this is still going to be just as great a year from now or whenever I decide to do it. That said, don't drag your feet indefinitely if it is something you do want to do. I think that's just such a valuable lesson too. I feel like we often feel like, "I have this thought in my head, I've got to rush to do it right now," instead of just saying, "You know what, I can take my time. I can also do it gradually. It doesn't have to be a big press release." I think that's such a valuable takeaway. Thank you for sharing that.
Martha: I think it's also good to get some advisory help. Ask the people who are closest in your life, they may have a perception like, "Oh, I think your mom will be fine with it," or, "Oh, I don't think your mom's going to be fine with it at all." They know you and they know your family. That's your advisory staff. I think it's a good idea to get some reflection from other people.
Jase: Martha, can you tell our listeners where they can find more of you and your work, get your book, all those things?
Martha: Absolutely. My website is instituteforrelationalintimacy.com. I know it's a mouthful. You can just google Martha Kauppi and you'll find me in 100 different ways. My book is on Amazon and everywhere else as well. There's an audible version as well. Polyamory: A Clinical Toolkit for Therapists (and Their Clients) with 25 big-old worksheets for your self-help project.
Jase: Awesome.
Martha: I'm working on putting together a coaching program for people in polyamorous relationships to give a little support to the therapists and the coaches by helping people create good solid skill-set for workable polyamory so that they can continue their more depthful projects with the people that they have ongoing relationships with therapeutically, or in terms of a coaching relationship. That's on my mind a lot. I'm really interested in helping the therapists do a better job and feel more confident so that the clients can have better functioning polyamorous relationships and then helping coaching clients themselves because I definitely can't see them all as a coach.
I can't see hardly any of them as a coach. I'm just one girl with a lot of projects.
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Dedeker: No, doing the Lord's work, if I may say so because there's just not enough resources out there for therapists and other counselors specifically. We're starting to see that change. I'm starting to see more people cropping up doing this kind of work of helping therapists and counselors feel more empowered here. We could definitely use more. Thank you so much for I think, that particular aspect of your work.
Martha: That's sweet. Thank you for calling it the Lord's work. I think that's awesome.
Martha: That's not usually the feedback I get.
Emily: We're saying it a little tongue and cheek, but you're welcome.
Martha: I love it.