526 - How do you make space for a primary relationship while keeping a non-primary one? Listener Q&A
We’re back with another Q&A episode! Today we’re answering the following questions from our Supercast subscribers:
How fast is too fast? My now ex gained two other partners and broke up with some of their others within a month, now we're broken up. Are there red flags when it comes to rapid changes like this? Or is it simply personal differences?
Whiplashed in the PNW
How has your perspective on relationship hierarchy evolved, and how do you navigate it in your own relationships?
I'd love to hear your updates and - if you feel comfortable sharing it - personal take on hierarchy. I feel like I've walked a path similar to yours when it comes to relationship hierarchy.
Jase and Dedeker, I'm curious about how you define your partnership now. Have you adopted terms like "primary partners" or "anchor partners"? I'd be interested to know what language you use when discussing your relationship with potential new partners. Emily, now that you're dating again, what's your vision of what kind of a relationship structure you're looking for when it comes to hierarchies? How do you communicate it to potential partners?
In my past, I was in a long-term relationship that transitioned from monogamy to non-monogamy. We had built a strong foundation, and despite our intentions to avoid prescriptive hierarchy - and even though our descriptive hierarchy became less obvious when we shifted to long-distance - they remained my primary consideration in life decisions.
That relationship has since ended. Now, I'm building a new partnership (we've been together for a year) while we both date other people. Currently, neither of us has additional committed partners. Although we initially identified as leaning towards solo polyamory - maintaining separate living spaces and finances - we're recognising a somewhat hierarchical nature in our evolving relationship. I'm finding that the stability of a partnership where we significantly factor each other into our plans and decisions, while still maintaining separate households, aligns better with my needs and wants.
What aspects do you think are crucial to consider in my situation? I'm particularly interested in how your own experiences might offer insight here. How do you view the use of terms such as "anchor partners" or "primary partners"(or any other language you might prefer) when describing relationships that are central to one's life but not necessarily full-blown hierarchical?
Hierarchy-Hesitant in the Heart of Europe
Hello! I am a queer woman living in Honolulu in a long term relationship with a married woman named Carrie. I eventually want to be in a primary relationship with someone, but I'm having a hard time because I'm very in love with my partner and feel like I won't find anyone like her. We are both in the music industry and she is also autistic, so there's a level of connection that I don't anticipate finding with anyone else. I'm out of the NRE stage and deep in the LOVE stage. I'm having a hard time dating partially because of my own insecurity and partially because everyone else either seems to be a). monogamous or b). already in a highly coupled relationship. How do I sustain a secure relationship with her AND find someone else? Is this possible?
Horny and Hopeful in Honolulu
Visit multiamory.com/join to become a Supercast subscriber and have your question answered on a future Q&A episode!
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 diving into another listener Q&A episode. Today, we are talking about questions like how quickly should someone jump into another relationship after a breakup, how to make space in your life for a primary relationship, and how our views on hierarchy have changed over the years. If you would like to submit a question for the show in the future, go to multiamory.com/questions and fill out the form there.
Also, if you're interested in learning about our fundamental communication tools that we reference on the show and that can help in pretty much any situation, check out our book, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships, which covers our most-used communication tools for all types of relationships. You can find links to buy it at ultiamory.com/book, and you can also get our brand new audiobook version. You can find links to buy that there or wherever you get your books or audiobooks.
Emily: Quick disclaimer before we start. We have spent a lot of time studying healthy relationship communication, but we are not mind readers yet, and our advice is based solely on the limited information we have from these questions that were provided to us, so please just take it all with a grain of salt.
Dedeker: Every situation that we cover here is unique. If any of this sounds similar to what you're going through, we still encourage you to use your own judgment, seek professional help if needed, or remember that you are the only true expert on your own life and feelings. These questions have been edited for time and clarity.
Jase: All right. Question number 1. "How fast is too fast? My now ex gained two other partners and broke up with some of their others within a month. Now we are broken up. Are there red flags when it comes to rapid changes like this, or is it simply personal differences?" That's from Whiplashed in the Pacific Northwest.
Dedeker: What's the fastest that y'all have moved in a relationship? Completely subjective, however you want to answer the question.
Emily: Immediately.
Dedeker: What does immediately mean?
Emily: I was in the process of breaking up with someone and entered into a new relationship.
Jase: Yes. That's pretty fast.
Emily: Pretty immediate/almost before the last one ended entering into a new one.
Dedeker: That's not that weird, though. I do think, first of all,-
Emily: No. It's not. You're right.
Dedeker: -serial overlapping monogamy seems to be the way that people date.
Jase: The norm, yes.
Dedeker: The norm for the way people date these days. That's not that bizarre.
Jase: If I think about fast in a different way in terms of acquiring a large number of partners in quick succession, I feel like for me, that probably would have been just a time where I started two new relationships, probably in the span of a month from each other.
Emily: That feels pretty quick.
Jase: It was, yes. It ended up being too much. I feel like often what I experienced in the past was when I was dating more, I would just end up in too many relationships and feel stretched too thin. That just wasn't sustainable for anybody, and no one was really happy with it. For myself. I think other people have many more partners than I ever had, and do make that work. At least for me and the way that my life is, that didn't work out for me when I did that years ago.
Emily: The question I have surrounding that specifically and what it sounds like this person's ex is doing as well, which is that they gained two other partners and broke up with some of their others within a month, and now we're broken up, is NRE tends to happen around an individual. If you have two people at the same time that you are entering into new relationships with, how does that work? Does the NRE get spread around? Is it just really intense for both? I don't know if I've actually done that ever. I'm trying to think back.
I think most of my new relationships, the NRE is maybe less with one, or it's more of a slow burn, or I had gotten to know them a little bit beforehand, and then we started dating versus getting into a new relationship with someone that's really intense and we see each other all the time and move things pretty quickly. That NRE feels more like a fast burn, like a really intense emotional journey. I can't imagine doing that with two people at once. It just seems really overwhelming. Then, also the potential of having more established partners at the same time and having to navigate that as well. That just seems like a lot to me. How about to the two of you?
Jase: When I'm thinking back to those situations, and this is actually where I wanted to go with this, is that I feel like in those situations, they were almost like more casual dating, but actually being in a relationship. It was in that weird middle ground between that, where it's like, "Yes, I like this person. I want to see them more often," but we're still getting to know each other. It's exciting because they're new, but it's not that, "Oh my God, this is so intense. I want to just be obsessed with this person all the time." It wasn't that feeling.
That's what I'm wondering with this question is if I were to just be psychoanalyzing someone who I have no first-person contact with at all, with this other person, maybe it's just that what they're really seeking is this trying to figure out what it is that they want, who they want to be with. If someone were just casually dating, I don't think we would think much of, "Oh, yes, they went on a couple of dates and didn't see a couple of people. No big deal." When it's in the context of, "They've got new partners and got rid of old partners," I wonder sometimes if maybe, especially when we're new in non-monogamy, we might rush to be like, "Oh, well then everyone's a partner then." Like, "Oh, all these are relationships now," instead of having to put them in the category of casual dating. Sometimes I think it could just be a labeling thing. I wouldn't say that behavior in itself is anything wrong or a warning sign or red flag or something like that.
Dedeker: Yes. I think this is a prompt for clarification. With the question asker saying, "My ex gained two other partners," it's hard to know. Is that what you called it? Is that what the ex called it? Like you were saying, Jase. I think this is a great conversation to have at the beginning of a relationship in general. First of all, I think it's a good question to ask yourself, "How fast feels too fast for me in my relationships?" What are the behaviors that I see that freak me out as far as, like, "Woah, this feels like this is too fast of an escalation, " or, "I feel this person is putting pressure on me to escalate really fast." This is a great question to ask someone you're potentially dating as well. "What do you know about yourself regarding your pace in dating? Have you ever felt like you've moved too fast with somebody? Have you ever felt like you moved too slow with somebody?" I think this is just a really right conversation to have as you're getting to know somebody.
Jase: Yes. I like phrasing the question as, "What have you done?" Like, "What have you noticed about yourself?" Rather than, "What do you want to do?" because I feel we're often not very good at predicting what we want to do, or maybe we might feel some shame about that, especially because we've all got this monogamous hangover going on, like this baggage that comes with it. I know that that has been a struggle, I think, for all of us, we've talked about before. Talking about it more in terms of, "What have you noticed from you in the past?" makes it so it's more a conversation about that. That I think can give you some insights into each other and where you're coming from, rather than setting yourself up for, "Oh, but you said you don't like to date fast, but then you started dating this person, and now I don't know what to think."
Emily: I also think what you were touching on a little bit before, both of you, about the conversation over what constitutes a partner and what doesn't. I think that's a really interesting question to ask as well. Seeing is there a tipping point at which somebody becomes a partner versus we're just trying things on, like hanging out a little bit, like seeing where things are going to go, seeing if the connection is going to develop into something more or not. I do think that the addition of somebody that is deemed a partner for an established partner can feel a little bit more intense, or maybe scary, or maybe, "Oh, is this a red flag if it's happening two people at once?" Then other people are getting broken up with at the same time. I can understand how maybe that idea is a little bit scarier, or a little bit more, "Is this a red flag?" The question asker is saying here, versus, this person has had some new connections and they're trying things out, and they're seeing where it's going to go.
I do think, just some of the nuance there in terms of terminology, and just what does partnership mean to you? I think that that is a really good talking point and question for, as you said, the beginning of a relationship.
Dedeker: Okay, well, but I have a, "Am I the asshole?" question for the two of you.
Emily: Go for it.
Jase: Okay.
Dedeker: As I've gotten older, I think that if I can't keep track of a partner's dating life, if I have a head-spin-y feeling because this person is dating so heavily, getting into relationships, dissolving relationships, and that's an extended process that keeps happening, I'm just turned off. If someone wants to date that way, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that, provided they're still being respectful and communicative with the people that they're dating. It's just something that to me, I'm like, "I don't know, man. I don't know if I can handle that head-spin-y feeling for a protracted period of time."
Emily: I do think that the potential for feeling a lot of unrest as a person who is watching your partner do this, especially if they are also choosing to end relationships at a speed that is similar to the relationships that they are having that are new, I would be worried like, "Am I on precarious footing here? Is there the potential that I'm just going to get tossed to the wayside as quickly as they are grabbing new partners as well?" That would feel a little scary to me, and maybe unnerving.
Jase: Yes. I think you're starting to hit on the core of the question here, because the question says, "How fast is too fast?" It feels like what they're really saying is, "I had this partner who gained these two new partners, broke up with a few partners, and then eventually broke up with me," or, "We're broken up now," I guess they didn't clarify who broke up with whom, but this like, "Are there red flags?"
I think that it sounds like where we're all landing is, "Well, there's nothing inherently wrong with that." We don't know how they're doing it, we don't know how they're treating everyone, but just on its surface, there isn't necessarily anything weird or bad about it, but that's not really the question. I think that the question asker, what I would say is, "How does that feel for you?" Like Dedeker mentioned.
For me, if I feel like I can't keep track of it, I'm like, "Maybe I'll step back from this. That's just not the space I want to be in," and that's fine. We always try to emphasize that it's okay to break up, or it's okay to de-escalate, because yes, people have to be compatible with each other. It's not just a question of, are they doing it right? I think that's maybe an interesting experience for you of that person starting to date more people quickly, did that feel weird to you? You're like, "I don't really want to be in a relationship that feels like that." Maybe that's something valuable for you to learn, and also that might change over time. In terms of, is it a red flag? Maybe for you it is right now.
Emily: This is a question that I've actually wanted to ask you, Jase, recently because I do think that there was a point in your life when you were a little bit younger when we were starting out as non-monogamous partners, and then when you and Dedeker were a little bit more new, in terms of your partnership, that I felt like you dated quite a lot, and as you said--
Jase: I did, yes.
Dedeker: Yes, that was my earliest impression of Jase.
Emily: Exactly.
Dedeker: Not the first impression, but an early impression was like, "Wow." Had a little bit of a head-spin-y feeling.
Emily: "This guy's dating a lot."
Jase: Fair.
Emily: Yes, but that was very much a product of I think being newly non-monogamous, to a degree, and then also just being this hot guy, going out and--
Dedeker: Being fucking young and hot in Los Angeles, yes, man.
Emily: Yes, exactly. 100%. I do just wonder, we don't know the ages of these people at all, but part of it may just be simply that they are enjoying their youth, their beauty, and their fun, just being young non-monogamous people in the scene, and want to take advantage of that and see what happens.
I don't know, I know for myself, and I know for all three of us, we have changed so drastically in terms of the emotional bandwidth that we have to have partnerships enter our lives at all, regardless of how often we see that person. I feel like just the barrier to entry to even have a person enter our life at this point is really high.
Dedeker: It's like Fort Knox up in here.
Emily: Exactly, it takes years, or it just takes a really long courtship or whatever, and so it's just very different at this point, in our lives versus where you were, Jase, a decade ago.
Jase: Yes. I will say, I don't actually think that's tied to age per se, because I feel like I've also seen lots of people who, especially if they come to non-monogamy later in life, or find that suddenly their space and bandwidth frees up quite a bit, they can also date quite a lot. I think that's something else to take into account.
Emily: Maybe that's a, "We don't got no time."
Jase: One is, it's all new. It's all new, it's exciting to explore. It's like, "Wow, I can do this. This is great," and then also at the time I was, I would say, underemployed is the term we use, right? Where I had a lot of time. I didn't have a lot of money, but I had a lot of time. That also freed me up and my energy to pursue these relationships. I think in some ways, too, that pursuing those relationships was, for me, a way of, I guess having something to be interested in when I felt like job-wise, I don't have a lot going on right now.
For better or worse, that was going on with that. I think it ebbed and flowed over time. Yes, I did date quite a bit. I did also just really enjoy the process of dating. I think something else to take into account here is, like we mentioned, they were talking about this person getting new partners. I'm like, "Does that mean they're just dating people?" because I do feel like we approach that differently in terms of the amount of ourselves that we put into a relationship if it's like, "This is a partnership I'm forming," or it's like, "Yes, we've gone on a few dates, and we're seeing what's here." I feel like that's more of what I was doing a lot of, even though some of them did end up being relationships for some amount of time.
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: I think another good question to ask when you're at the beginning of dating somebody, or forming a relationship with somebody, especially if it's non-monogamous is, just open-ended, what is dating like for you? How do you know when you are in seeking mode? How do you know when you're in partner acquisition mode? To make it sound really dry and clinical. Again, not for the purpose of, I don't know, trying to pathologize the other person, or trying to get them to give the right answer; truly open-ended, to get a sense of, "What is doing this like for them? What motivates them? What excites them? What turns them off in this process?" I think that can also tell you a lot as well.
Jase: I hope this has been helpful and has given some things to think about. I know that the question was very short and to the point, and we gave an answer that was very much not any of that.
Dedeker: That's our guarantee to you. That we'll also be the Multiamory treatment, no matter how short your question is.
Emily: We've talked a lot about that.
Jase: Yes, we're going to try to look at a lot of different angles and not come down with a solid answer.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: Yes, I actually thought that this was a cool discussion, and something we haven't really talked about a ton, about that more intense dating time in my life or in our lives, because it's been quite a while now. Thank you for writing in and asking that question.
Emily: All right, and now it is time for Question 2. "How is your perspective on relationship hierarchy evolved, and how do you navigate it in your own relationships? I'd love to hear your updates, and if you feel comfortable sharing it, personal take on hierarchy. I feel like I've walked a path similar to yours when it comes to relationship hierarchy. Jase and Dedeker, I'm curious about how you define your partnership now. Have you adopted terms like "primary partners" or "anchor partners"? I'd be interested to know what language you use when discussing your relationship with potential new partners.
Emily, now that you're dating again, what's your vision of what kind of a relationship structure you're looking for when it comes to hierarchies? How do you communicate it to potential partners? In my past, I was in a long-term relationship that transitioned from monogamy to non-monogamy. We had built a strong foundation, and despite our intentions to avoid prescriptive hierarchy, and even though our descriptive hierarchy became less obvious when we shifted to long distance, they remained my primary consideration in life decisions. That relationship has since ended. Now I'm building a new partnership. We've been together for a year, while we both date other people. Currently, neither of us has, additionally, committed partners.
Although we initially identified as leaning towards solo-polyamory, maintaining separate living spaces and finances, we're recognizing a somewhat hierarchical nature in our evolving relationship. I'm finding that the stability of a partnership where we significantly factor each other into our plans and decisions, while still maintaining separate households aligns better with my needs and wants.
What aspects do you think are crucial to consider in my situation? I'm particularly interested in how your own experiences might offer insight here. How do you view the use of terms such as "anchor partners" or "primary partners" or any other language you might prefer when describing relationships that are central to one's life but not necessarily full-blown hierarchical? Sincerely, Hierarchy Hesitant in the heart of Europe." I wonder where in the heart of Europe.
Dedeker: Wow. We've really been given a list of interview questions.
Emily: Yes. I think a lot of this is really interesting. It has really evolved over time. I appreciate that they asked me what it is that I do with potential partnerships now and what it is that I want, because that has been really going around in my head a lot lately. Just what is it?
Dedeker: Yes, what do you got? Just lay it out. We have the whole therapy session. Let's do it. This person asked for it; they're going to get it.
Emily: All right, fine. Here we go. I left my very long-term relationship and jumped right into a new relationship immediately, as I had said in the previous question. Because of that, I found myself going right back into a lot of the same things that I had done in that previous relationship, like spending all my time with this person, going and spending evenings cooking dinner. They basically were just a stand-in for my last relationship in a lot of ways.
I also found that that person, therefore, started thinking that, "Okay, we're going to move in together. We're going to do all of these relationship escalatory things that just happen when you start having a really intense relationship with someone." That scared the out of me and made me realize, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. I just am putting myself in a situation again that I didn't really think about, and that I actually don't really want.
I moved to New York. I live alone. I love it. I love my apartment. I love living exactly the way that I want to and not having anyone tell me what I need to do or having to negotiate anything about the way in which I live with anyone else. The relationship that I'm in now, which I started when I was still in a relationship with that partner, and I'm no longer in a relationship with him now, but we live separately. We're very autonomous. He does his own thing. I do my own thing. He's seeing additional people.
I have not found new partnerships yet, but I'm hoping maybe I will eventually. I found that while I really appreciate and enjoy being separate in a lot of ways from him, there is still some primacy there in my thinking about him in my life, which is really interesting. I think I'm okay with that. There was a point at which, and this came up in our Solo Polyamory episode, where I was like, "Maybe I'm going to be solo polyamorist and I'm just going to worry about myself and think about myself."
While I think that is really helpful and good for me at this particular time in my life, I also think that I would love to have a partnership where it takes precedence, and it, in some way, is a relationship where I'm building something with somebody and have additional possibility for partnerships that happen around that. Now, if another partnership came into my life and became as important to me in various ways as the established partnership, maybe my mind would change, or things would change a little bit.
Now that hasn't happened yet, and so I'm not sure exactly what will occur. Right now I'm feeling really good about having some sense of this person is extremely important in my life and I feel like my decisions about what I do include that person and they are in many ways at the center of my life, not just, I have my work and I have my personal projects and I have things that I personally am working on in order to heal and in order to become a better human, but I also really care deeply about this partnership.
All of that is to say, I think that the idea of having some sort of relationship that is more primary seems like something that I'd be interested in and that I am currently interested in but I'm also really excited that one of my primary relationships is with myself and that I am prioritizing myself in a way that I haven't in years.
Jase: I think it's good to think about in those terms, too, where this might not be a static trait of a person. Some of it can change over time based on your situation and based on what you need in your life. I think that when I look back on the 11 and a half years that Dedeker and I have been dating, it's ebbed and flowed, I think in terms of how, I guess "primary" it felt. I don't know that we've ever had a lot of need to use that label. I tend more often to default to describing it more.
Dedeker: I do the same. I have to sit down and give them a two-hour talk of, "This is my relationship with Jase. Also, let me just lay out for you my entire relationship history while we're at it, and my whole history of non-monogamy." It tends to get more nitty-gritty.
Jase: Right. I find that for myself, I tend to not like using "primary partner" or "anchor partner" or "nesting partner." In a certain circumstance, I might use that term if it's like, "This conversation doesn't need to go deep, I just need to quickly communicate a rough idea of what's going on." Maybe I would use that terminology. More often, if it's someone where that nuance is going to matter to them, that also deserves that bigger conversation.
That more involved thing of like, "Hey, I have this relationship, I live with this person. We also have a lot of history together." Then also that Emily's this really important person in my life and that I have this podcast that takes up a lot of my extra time outside of work. There's not just this relationship taking up my time, but also a lot of other things that are intertwined with that relationship. Just trying to be really clear about what availability I have in my life and also what things I will prioritize in my life. These things are there as priorities because I tend to take my commitments to things pretty seriously. Whether that's work, a podcast, or a relationship, I'll tend to take that seriously. I think sometimes it involves several conversations, it involves a lot of conversations to get to that point.
I think you could look at it in some ways and say, "Well, because I live with Dedeker, I'm going to think about how my decisions affect her more than I would if we didn't." It's that weird thing of I don't feel like that's because I've decided she's primary and that I want to prioritize her needs when making my other decisions, but it's just practically in real life that makes sense. It'd be a jerk not to because I live with her. It's like our space is shared, the decisions I make with her. We also share a car; we only have one car between the two of us. That also has to factor in.
In some ways, even with friends, I'll be like, "Oh, let me check and make sure Dedeker doesn't need the car," or, "maybe we can meet somewhere else closer to me, so I can get over there. You could pick me up." Just logistically realizing those things are present. I guess in the same way I would think about that with a job or with Multiamory.
Emily: Yes. I didn't even bring up the fact that multiamory factors into that, but because in my relationship that was so long, it was such a point of contention between the two of us that I think my relationship with the two of you is so strong and there are some insecure people out there who would see that as not okay. I would encourage those who are looking at hierarchy in general to also factor in relationships like this that are incredibly meaningful, that somebody has to be okay with in order to be in relationship with you. I know that whomever I'm--
Dedeker: Do you have an anchor podcast?
Emily: I have an anchor podcast, so yes, I use that podcast.
Dedeker: A nesting podcast.
Emily: Yes. That is a primary relationship in my life, so deal with it.
Dedeker: Well, okay, so can I lay some stits and stats on you purely just from my brain?
Jase: I love that.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: Wait, are these real stits and stats or you just made them up from your brain?
Dedeker: No, they're real. I'm not making them up. Eli Sheff posted this on their blog not too long ago. Apparently, pretty current research does show that non-monogamous people, regardless of whether or not they identify as hierarchical or non-hierarchical, the majority of them do choose to share their limited resources like time, money, a car with one person more so than other people. There's this thing where I think that as we've seen over the past decade in the non-monogamy subculture, there's this aspiration of non-hierarchy is the correct way to do things.
I do think it is important to aspire to that, honestly. I do think it is important for us to examine those unquestioned power structures and decision-making structures. I think we all have to go through that, and there's a certain reality of how our culture is set up and how just the reality of life is set up for dealing with these limited resources. Now, the reason why I go into my whole relationship history with people is that I think some people, especially coming from monogamy, first entry into non-monogamy was very clearly hierarchical. Very clearly like, "Yes, this is the primary partner and everyone else is secondary," or, "This is the primary partner and everyone else is just a hookup," and then started questioning that and then swinging much harder into like, "No, no, no, non-hierarchy is definitely the way to go. That's the thing that I have to live up to."
Then, for several years, I'll be honest, especially looking through this lens of how I shared my limited resources, like time and money, I felt like I really was trying to accomplish that with two partners. It's like even with my partner who lived abroad, I was trying really hard to make sure that I'm spending at least an equitable amount of time with both my partners. Same thing with money as well.
Emily: I felt like you did a good job of that.
Dedeker: Thank you. I think I did a good job, too.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: I would agree.
Emily: I was always pretty impressed by your commitment to that, Dedeker. You have been my model that two is the perfect number.
Jase: Interesting.
Emily: But then I don't know if it's possible to do, for at least me, for the kind of life that I lead, I'm not sure if more than two would work.
Dedeker: Sure.
Emily: More than two partnerships.
Dedeker: I think especially when you're looking at sharing things like time and money. For instance, for many, many years, like when I would come back to Los Angeles and would be living with Jase for a few months at a time, I would try my best to still pay rent or contribute to rent. Then, same thing with my partner, when I'd go back to Singapore or Australia, I would still try to pay rent when I was there. It's like I was trying to create as much of a non-hierarchical structure as I possibly could, and I think that that worked out.
Then, when my partner abroad ended the relationship, I really had a big--
Emily: Crisis of faith.
Dedeker: Yes, a crisis of faith. What I really hated was that, oh my God, now I'm in this structure where essentially I'm default monogamous with Jase, and somebody else has taken away this non-hierarchical structure from me. I was performing as such a good non-hierarchical polyamorous person, and now, because this relationship ended, all of a sudden, I look like every monogamous normie out there. I hate that. Oh my God.
Now the new chapter as I've been starting to newly date and form relationships, the thing that really threw me for a loop and I shared this with my newest partner that I've been dating was I realized I have not been in a situation where I've been with one partner an extremely long amount of time and now I'm starting a brand new relationship. Because I feel like for a long time, that two-partner situation I had, like those relationships weren't that much.
Jase: Maybe only started two or three years apart rather than 11 years apart.
Dedeker: Exactly.
Emily: 11 is a long time. Holy shit.
Dedeker: Now I'm in a situation where a lot of people who are opening up for 25 years of monogamy or whatever are in this situation where, wow, there's this relationship where I've built my whole life around this person and we own property together and maybe we have kids together and pets together and all this history, and now I'm starting from zero with somebody. That's a situation where it's like, yes, there's instantly a built-in hierarchy there. I realized for me, "Oh, this is new. I haven't approached dating like this before."
That's also what I'm figuring out. Again, with anyone new that I've been dating, I've also been giving them the long, hard TED Talk around, "This is really how much time the podcast actually takes in my life." There's this complicated dynamic where the partner that I live with is also one of my business partners. That's a lot of time that I end up spending with this person, not just in a personal capacity, but also in a professional capacity. For me now, it's like trying to balance the fact, like, yes, there is this built-in hierarchy essentially, but also trying to be very honest about what my relationship ethics still is in the face of that.
Trying to verbalize, like these are the ways that I see couple privilege potentially playing out and the things that I want to do to counteract that to the best of my ability, like this newer partner is always left out of the decision making or they're always an afterthought or they always get the crumbs of my time or energy, or things like that, or they're never going to be the plus one or they're never going to-- The ways that I try to counteract the shape of my life right now so that at least anyone who's dating me still feels respected, cared for, and important.
That's why all of this, I don't feel like I can sum up by just saying on my dating app, "I'm non-hierarchical," or, "I am hierarchical."
Emily: You are more nuance.
Dedeker: I'm sorry you got to get the TED Talk.
Jase: You have to listen to the multi-hour, multi-phase version of this.
Emily: That adds a whole other nuance to it when you are work partners as well, which is currently what I am with my partner.
Dedeker: Oh, yes, you got that, too.
Emily: Yes, we work at a restaurant together. I said this to him yesterday. I was like, "You're not only my partner in life, but you're my partner in work." That's what you have, too, Dedeker in a different way. I have that with the two of you. Unfortunately, sometimes I feel like the three of us have to really, really make intentional time in order to see each other outside of the confines of this podcast.
Jase: Sure.
Dedeker: There is that, for sure.
Emily: I wish that we had more time together to not just be working, but because this podcast takes up so much time, and we have lives, too, it's tough.
Dedeker: To be fair, though, sometimes, some of the time that's taken up is that if we have not had enough time to hang out with each other, the three of us,-
Emily: That's true. We fuck around beforehand.
Dedeker: -then we get on what's supposed to be a very important meeting, and then, yes, we fuck around for about an hour talking about our lives and cracking jokes. It finds a way. Life finds a way, is what I'll say.
Emily: Life does find a way. Yes.
Jase: I did want to throw in that I think that talking about us doing the podcast together and how much that factors in is maybe very specific to our situation, but I think you could extrapolate that out into other situations, too. A situation I ran into a lot was I'd be dating someone and there might be some jealousy or envy that would come up with them feeling like I'm spending so much more time with Dedeker than I am with them. Often, it would be because we're doing podcast stuff. We're planning things, we're doing calls, we're recording episodes.
Dedeker: Actively arguing with each other about business stuff.
Jase: Right.
Emily: My ex, whom I lived with, was extremely jealous of our dynamic just because I do spend so much time with you two. Even if it's virtual at this point.
Jase: It was that thing of like, say I'd spend all day doing Multiamory stuff, and then someone's like, "Oh, I want to see you." I'm like, "Oh, I have plans with Dedeker tomorrow," or tonight, or something.
Dedeker: "Dude, you can't see her."
Jase: They're like, "You just spent all day with her." It's like, "I wasn't spending time with her in a partner-fun way." Sure, we have fun on Multiamory, but it's still work. I think that for people who are parents or who even just live together, there's a lot of stuff where you're spending time with the person you live with or spending time with the person that you raise kids with, that's not you having fun hanging out with each other.
In fact, often you can end up where you have basically no time doing that with each other. I think that's also a factor to take in if you are living together or have some other kind of mutual commitment of realizing that it's not just about that time, but also that we need our quality time together as well. I think that can be hard to communicate or hard for us to even realize that that's going on. That I think also factors into this thing of is that about primariness? Sure, you could call it that, but it's also just a practical, "I'm trying to maintain these relationships as much as I can." Again, why you need the two-hour talk and not just putting the anchor partner or whatever label on it.
Dedeker: Let me draw this two-hour talk to a close. This person, at the end, asks, "What aspects do you think are crucial to consider in my situation?" The phrase that comes to mind for me is authentic intentionality. I'll break it down in reverse, intentionality around clearly you're someone who thinks about this, and it sounds like you and your partner are willing to think about these things and talk about these things. You're not just on autopilot, like a lot of relationships are. You're aware of the fact that we are spending more time together, and we're building something together, and this is starting to create a little bit of a hierarchy.
I think that, yes, keep those conversations open and intentional about what it is that you want to build. The question asker mentions these specifics of wanting the stability of a partnership where we factor into each other's plans and decisions while still maintaining separate households. Being able to align each other with that intention is great. Then the authentic part of it is where I'm like, don't feel like I need to artificially hold myself away from this person that I care about in order to create this sense of I'm being a good polyamorous person who's not being hierarchical.
I think if that's your motivation, then just don't. Just don't. If it's authentic that you want to spend time with this person and you want to, I don't know, build your households next to each other because it seems like that's cool, I'm like, yes, go for it. That's what's authentic to you. You're also maintaining the intentionality so that we're not just on autopilot and assuming that we know the direction this is going.
Jase: Love that.
Dedeker: Here's our last question for today. How do you make space for a primary relationship while still keeping your non-primary relationship? "Hello, I'm a queer woman living in Honolulu in a long-term relationship with a married woman. I eventually want to be in a primary relationship with someone, but I'm having a hard time because I'm very in love with my partner and feel like I won't find anyone like her. We're both in the music industry. She's also autistic, so there's a level of connection that I don't anticipate finding with anyone else. I'm out of the NRE stage and deep in the love stage. I'm having a hard time dating, partially because of my own insecurity and partially because everyone else either seems to be A, monogamous, or B, already in a highly coupled relationship. How do I sustain a secure relationship with her and find someone else? Is this possible?" That is from Horny and Hopeful in Honolulu. That's what I aspire to be every single day.
Emily: Yes, Horny and Hopeful in Honolulu.
Dedeker: I feel like it's hard in this day and age to be both horny and hopeful.
Emily: Indeed.
Jase: That's true, yes.
Dedeker: And in Honolulu.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: And in Honolulu. Yes.
Dedeker: Yes. I have some questions. I find myself wondering. There's a dynamic that I see sometimes where if someone is dating someone who's very clearly married, coupled up, clearly in a primary relationship, and they're not offering that same primary level relationship to their new partner, there can be this either implicit or sometimes explicitly stated pressure. You need to go find your own primary partner.
That's how this is going to work is you need to go out there like, "I'm happy to stay in a relationship with you, but you need to go out and find your own primary." Now, question asker didn't say anything about that. I don't know if that's the dynamic, but I feel like that could be something underlying this. There's a little bit of this implication of like, "Well, because I'm already married, I can't offer you something that feels primaryish, so you can go find that." It sounds like the question asker is like, "I don't know if I want to go find that. I'm really enjoying what we have."
Jase: Could also just be an internal pressure of feeling like I should have that thing too, because maybe I don't have the stability from this relationship that I would like, or maybe it doesn't take up as much of my life as I would like it to. Yes, it could come from any place, really.
Emily: I have a friend who recently entered into a triad-type relationship with two women who are dating, they live together, and they are planning on getting married within the next year. He thinks, maybe not realizes, but he keeps saying to me that this is going to end in disaster, or it's not going to work out because the two of them are going to get married, and I'm just going to be not as important to them anymore. I would really like to find what they have. I would like to find somebody to spend my life with.
Even though we're having a great time, there's a lot of feelings, I love being around them. I kept saying to him, like, "What do you actually think is going to happen here? What is going to occur when they do get married? Why does that have to necessarily change the dynamic in such a way that it's going to blow up this relationship?" With this, I understand the want of, "I want to find somebody too, that I can live with, spend my life with, call maybe a primary partner," because right now I don't have that with this person that I love. I want to find that version of something like that for myself.
I don't think that it needs to be this big worry, that it's just going to end super poorly, or it's not going to be really important in your life in the way that maybe it currently is. I know that this person is not necessarily saying that, but it is fascinating to see. I got to find a version of this that my partner already has because I don't have it. That's the only thing that's going to make me happy.
Jase: Yes. To try to bring it back to the question itself, though, about, "How do I make room for that? How do I open myself up to that?" I think something that is interesting about that situation is a lot of times, when people think about a primary partner, and it sounds like this woman that you've been in a relationship with, falls into this category, where the primary relationship is also the older relationship, it's the longer relationship.
There can be a sense of primariness. Like we talked about before, just by nature of we know each other so well and we have all this history. In this situation, it is tricky because if that's the archetype of a primary partner, that's not something you can find at first, right? It's something that has to be built over time. One way to think about this is it's-- You're in an interesting and I think cool situation where you could end up in a situation where you have a more primary, really entangled, spending a lot of your time with someone relationship, but have this other, I guess you'd call them a secondary partner, but that you actually have a lot longer history with.
That is somewhat unique. I think that just tends to not be how it shows up as often, right? When we use those primary and secondary labels. Realizing that, that it's not going to look like the normal archetype of it, because time doesn't work backwards like that. Then, also, I would say, realizing that those sorts of partnerships have to be built over time. It sounds like maybe at the heart of this question is how do I make time for dating and getting into new relationships, and letting myself be willing to invest in those when I'm still maintaining this relationship?
Then the question is more that it's like I've got my own insecurity. Then, also, everyone else seems to be either monogamous or already in a highly coupled relationship. Really, they're two separate things, right? On the one hand, there's the, I would say, just opening yourself up to going on more dates to explore that side of yourself, to see if someone feels like there's something there to connect with. There's also that challenge of how do I meet people who are not monogamous or not already in highly coupled relationships?
That one, I think, comes down to trying to expose yourself to more people if possible. That could be through dating apps, could be through finding more in-person communities. I know all these things are easier said than done. I think it really does just come down to you're not going to start dating if you're not meeting people, and if you're only meeting monogamous people, how can I find different ways to meet people? Where can I find communities that either overlap more with non-monogamy or being willing to date people that are open to non-monogamy, even though they haven't done it yet? It really all depends on what access you have to community and what people are around.
Dedeker: I just want to make sure that if this person does take a step to find another partner, that it's because it's what they want, as opposed to feeling like I'm not getting what I need in this relationship that I really love, and so I need to overcompensate by finding somebody else to fill those gaps, or I need to find somebody else because I feel like I should. Again, maybe easier said than done to do that analysis, but I think it's important to ask that question.
Emily: Yes, I do wonder if they had more secondary-type relationships or just additional people in their life that they have fun with, that they maybe hook up with, that they enjoy spending their time with, but that doesn't necessarily take that primary structure. If they had that in addition to this relationship that they already have, that's established, I wonder if that would also fill a certain type of role or give them what it is that they're seeking that maybe they're not necessarily finding here.
Jase: I've found that with people I know who are monogamous and who feel like that, or maybe I'm getting to a certain point in my life where I really want to find someone to get married and have kids with, that they can be in a similar situation of feeling like there's all this pressure to find it. It's so hard to find someone else who wants that thing right now, who's also available in my area and compatible with me, and all of those things.
I think what Emily's getting at brings up a good point, too, of yes, is this just about wanting more fulfillment, more connection in my life? Maybe opening yourself up to having other relationships that might not be starting out on this clear path toward primariness, one, you might find actually this is quite fulfilling, and this, this does actually fit more with what I want, or some of those relationships could end up becoming more primary over time. Just to not pre-limit your options too much to just situations that seem so clearly like they're heading in this one direction.
Emily: They're saying horny and hopefully, that makes me think-
Dedeker: Follow your desire.
Emily: Exactly. -that they want additional people to have sex with and have fun with. Maybe that will lead to something more. Maybe, also, you just want to have fun with some more sexual partners, and that's totally fine.
Jase: Yes. Just being open to the different possibilities so that then you can see where those go over time might be the way I would suggest approaching it. I know it's frustrating, though, if you're like, "But I really want that." I guess it's just that the fact of it is that primary-type relationship is not something you can just find a whole cloth right there as it is; it has to be built over time, and that's always going to take time.
I bet if you talk to a lot of people in primary relationships, you'll see a whole variety of different ways that they first started that relationship, too. Actually, that'd be a fun project, talk to all of the non-monogamous people you know who have primary relationships, or even monogamous people, and just get that sense of where did that relationship start? What did you think of it at the start? How did it get to where it is now? Not really to help with your question, but just because that'd be fun.
Emily: Horny and hopeful in Honolulu. We hope that answered your question a bit. Good luck out there. We hope that you find additional partners or just additional experiences that fulfill you, whatever that may look like. That was our final question of the week. We have one more for all of you out there that is going to be on our Instagram stories this week. That is, "How have your views on hierarchy changed over the years?" Probably they have. There was definitely that point in time where hierarchy was a big no-no, but now I feel like it's resurging, it's becoming hot again, to a degree, a little bit. I don't know.
Dedeker: A little hot.
Jase: It'd be interesting to hear people's takes on that.
Emily: Maybe not. Maybe I'm so wrong.
Dedeker: Maybe more nuanced, maybe.
Emily: More nuanced, yes.
Jase: I like that.
Emily: It's not totally the worst thing in the world anymore.