556 - How Much is Too Much Information About My Other Relationships? Listener Q&A
Information disclosure in non-monogamous relationships
We’re diving into another listener question today about sharing information in non-monogamous relationships and polyamorous relationships, and how to make sharing important information easier on everyone involved. Today’s question is a conglomeration of a few different ones:
How should I talk to my partner about my other partners, and what should I tell them?
When should I share updates with my other partners?
How can I make that conversation easier?
What do I need to share and what is ok not to share?
How can I make sure I’m respecting my other partners’ privacy while also being honest and forthright?
We discuss these points throughout this episode, along with some compersion research by Dr. Sharon Flicker called “Your Happiness Is My Happiness: Predicting Positive Feelings for a Partner’s Consensual Extra-Dyadic Intimate Relations.” Some interesting takeaways regarding sharing information and non-monogamous relations that Dr. Flicker points out in this study are:
“Those who liked their metamour, felt close to them, and who knew more about their partner’s relationship with the metamour experienced higher compersion…In contrast, the strongest predictors of an individual’s response to a partner’s new flirtation or budding intimate connection were jealousy and attachment anxiety; in other words, feeling less secure about their relationship with their partner meant lower levels of compersion.”
According to a Narrative Review of many studies about non-mono versus mono people’s social views by David Rodriguez from 2024 in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, “CNM (consensually non-monogamous) people consider behaviors such as lying or withholding information from the partner as more indicative of infidelity and tend to be more lenient about explicit behaviors (e.g., extradyadic sex), which are typically conceived as infidelity by monogamous people.”
Listen to the full discussion in the episode, and if you want your question answered on a future Q&A episode, consider joining our exclusive Supercast community!
Transcript
If you find any transcription errors, please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: There's a couple of pieces that come up there. One is, like Dedeker said, finding the level of that sharing that works for your relationship, and that's going to change depending on the relationship. But I think also as the person receiving the information or wanting it, I know that's something that I ran into in my relationship with Emily early on when we were first opening up, and that Dedeker and I have had, it took us a while to find this as well, is how to communicate about a new relationship when you don't know, right? Where there is that sense that you're figuring it out, where you can have that situation where you might say, 'This relationship's great, it's going this way,' and then next week, it turns out it's totally not going that direction. I've had that situation where it's like, 'You misled me.' And it's like, 'Well, I just didn't know yet.' So I do feel like some of that is about finding the way to communicate about it that feels like you're not hiding things, but also acknowledging the fact that you don't always know how it's going to go, especially early on.
Jase: Welcome to the Multiamory Podcast. I'm Jase.
Emily: I'm Emily.
Dedeker: And I'm Dedeker.
Jase: We believe in looking to the future of relationships, not maintaining the status quo of the past.
Dedeker: Whether you're monogamous, polyamorous, swinging, casually dating, or if you just do relationships differently, we see you and we're here for you.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're going to be discussing a listener meta question. In this case, we don't mean metamour, but that this is a combination of several questions on a similar topic that essentially boils down to how much should I share with my partner about my other partners? And is there a way to make that sharing easier? This hits on an area of relationships that is particularly unique to polyamory and other forms of non-monogamy that involve pursuing separate relationships, because it's one that we don't have any cultural scripts for, and we've been conditioned to see this as one of the worst things you could ever talk about in your relationship. So we're going to dive into that today. If you're interested in learning about our fundamental communication tools that we reference all the time on this show, you can 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 multiamory.com/book or wherever fine books are sold.
Dedeker: A quick disclaimer before we start. We have spent a lot of time, many, many years, 11 in fact, studying relationships and communication styles, but part of what makes relationships so interesting is that they are all different.
Emily: Everybody's situation is unique. So of course, we always encourage you to use your own judgment, seek professional help if needed. Remember that you are the expert on your own life. And we're just three chuckleheads who podcast sometimes.
Jase: And with that, let's get to the question. So as I mentioned at the beginning, rather than this being one specific question, this is a combination of multiple questions as well as discussions we've seen over the years in the polyamory subreddit and our own online communities on Discord and Facebook. And basically it boils down to this. How should I talk to my partner about my other partners and what should I tell them? And within this, there's a few kind of subcategories, little overlapping parts. So there's four that I kind of boiled it down to. So one is when should I share updates with my other partners? The second is how do I have that conversation? How do I make that easier? The third is what do I need to share and what's okay to share? And then four is how can I make sure I'm respecting my other partner's privacy while also being honest and forthright in my other relationships? So why don't we start with the first two, which is about when should I share and how can I have that conversation? Because that's the one that I think is the most unique within polyamory and non-monogamy, where you're having separate relationships and that we just have no frame of reference for when we go into this.
Emily: Right.
Jase: I can't think of any analogous conversation that we have. Can you think of anything that's similar?
Dedeker: I don't know, because like a relationship where if you're not right at the gate, full board kitchen table polyamory, right? Where my partners just like know each other really well and are very comfortable with each other. If that's not your starting build, I guess, then, then yeah, it is kind of unique. It's almost kind of like, if you have a friend group that you haven't quite incorporated your partner into yet and you're sort of like sharing updates or information, like you're a little bit the go between there. But even that, I think is more.
Jase: Of the stakes aren't as high, right?
Dedeker: Yeah.
Emily: Yeah, they're definitely not as high. I mean, immediately my mind went to, if there is some sort of infidelity talking to a partner about that infidelity, the stakes are really high there.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Emily: But then there's also this implication that, okay, maybe the relationship is going to fall apart. And so ideally, that's not what's happening here, but it still can be charged in a way and be intense to hear about, especially if you don't have a lot of, I guess, history of non-monogamy with this partner. And this is maybe the first time in which you are starting to do this, starting to disclose things about another partnership.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Jase: And I think you've hit on the key challenge right there.
Emily: Right.
Jase: We've often talked about how moving from monogamy to non-monogamy is a lot of unlearning things, a lot of kind of getting rid of old assumptions or habits or things that we had. And I think this is the big one, that the only time that we culturally in a monogamous culture think about talking to our romantic intimate partner about another romantic intimate partner is that is infidelity, whether it's coming clean to them or getting caught about that. Maybe talking about past partners, maybe, but it's not quite the same, right? And so that's why I think this one is so challenging for people early on. Even if both partners were on board, we're like, Yep, polyamory is cool. This is what we want to do. We know that communicating is part of it. But there's still, I think, that really deeply ingrained fear of having that conversation or fear that it's going to be received badly. Or maybe fear that I'll receive it badly. And so I think that gets to this question of like, how do I do it? When do I do it?
Dedeker: Yeah, when I think about my early days, I think it's so weird because I was so studious in reading all the books and consuming as many resources as I possibly could. And so of course, many of the early resources, I think were very open about, yeah, like talking to your partner about other partners and like so much heavy emphasis on communication and I think my early polyamory practice, there was a lot of talking about that, I don't know about that, or talking about sexual health, I've never had to talk about these topics in my life. I think I'm just going to try to compartmentalize so that I don't have to as much as possible, because I just couldn't even fathom being able to talk in that way. I couldn't even imagine it. Again, there's the lack of the script. And so I really couldn't imagine it. And so I couldn't even see myself taking the risk to go there.
Emily: I think that in speaking about this as well, if you have a history of being able to talk to your friends about your intimate relationships in, I think, a way that you are describing, okay, we do certain things, we have these certain emotions that occur, speaking about it in a very specific way, in a very intimate way, versus somebody who doesn't have a lot of experience doing that, I think that that may kind of translate into your intimate relationships as well. Like, I know with my current partner, who really hasn't done any non-monogamy before meeting me, it's been a little bit trickier for him to talk about his other relationships and get into specifics. And I think part of that is because that's not the way in which he speaks to his friends about his relationships. He does it in a more general way. And so I really have to like, okay, well, what's going on? How are you feeling from an emotional standpoint? All of those things are a little bit trickier and more challenging for him, maybe just because he doesn't have a lot of experience doing that. Whereas with me, I'm a very open book and will talk to you two about super intimate details in my relationships and just how I'm feeling about them and what, how they're doing in terms of how they're going, how we're progressing, all of those things. And maybe he just has less experience doing that.
Jase: That's interesting, because I feel like I also don't tend to be super openly sharing about a lot of details of my relationships. But I do feel like I'm pretty good about trying to be as honest as I can about kind of how I'm feeling about them, how they're progressing, even if I think just Emily, you're naturally someone who wants to overshare, where he wants to just sort of talk about everything. And I feel like I tend to be a little less that. I feel like Dedeker also tends to be less... I'm curious what it is like for you with your friends, your friend groups and things like that. Do you feel like you also kind of more talk in generalities rather than getting into details?
Dedeker: I don't know. When I think about how I share with my friend, with certain friends, when I'm talking about relationships, yeah, I like to be totally honest, I think it either it tends to be a little bit more general or sometimes can go very gossipy very quickly. Like, especially if we're talking about, I don't know, if I'm like struggling in the relationship or something like that, then I won't necessarily overshare, but I'll definitely get into the weeds with people. But that's interesting that you pointed out about your partner, Emily, because I feel like I grew up in a family situation where there wasn't really anyone in my close family that I could confide to about my relationships. Which made it really awkward once I had to be out of the closet about being non-monogamous, because it's like this was already not a channel that was open, you know? Like when I was dating people, like my family were not the ones to get the first updates at all, right? I know some people are much more open to talking about those things with their family or with a particular parent or stuff like that, and that was not me. And so even having to go that one degree more intimate of being open about the fact that I'm dating multiple people, like there was an extra layer of awkwardness, I think.
Jase: Yeah, that makes sense. And I could see that showing up within relationships as well, potentially. And I think this gets to a little bit of kind of what we'll get into in later parts of this question about like how much to share and how to do that. But just looking at when to share and kind of how to have that conversation, I do know that something that was a challenge early on and that maybe I wasn't prepared for was when you're feeling that new relationship energy, NRE, for the first time, where there can be this urge to want to gush about the new relationship to your friends or whoever, and maybe that's something that you would do, but with your existing partner, that can be more challenging. I think especially if both of you are newer in non-monogamy, that to come home and be like, oh my gosh, I'm so excited. It was so great. We had such a great time. That can feel threatening and scary to the partner who's receiving that, like going, oh gosh. When was the last time you were that excited about me? And that was not something that I think I was prepared for. It's hard to be prepared for that, right? Because you haven't maybe had that experience in a while. And so something that I've found for myself, I'm curious how this rings true with the two of you, is having more designated times when we have these sorts of conversations makes it so there's less of this, do I come home and gush right away? Do I, or do I call you up on the phone to tell you right away after I had this date? Or, you know, some new milestone happened, or is it like, oh, I wait. And then now that I've waited, now it feels weird. When should I bring it up? Like having some kind of regular time to check in is helpful. And I found that that varies, right? So with Dedeker, who I'm living with most of the year or all the time, it's having a radar, right? It's like having our regular check in gives us a time to have those updates. But then with my other partner, who I don't see as often, it tends to kind of come up more in the like, let's catch up on how things have been going. That's when that conversation comes up. Not all the time. And I'm starting to think that relationship is reaching a point where it might benefit from having more of a regular check in radar type thing where we can have those sorts of conversations. But I'm curious how that's how that's felt for the two of you.
Emily: Yeah, I, again, sort of have to ask in order to get information out. I'm just thinking of the last time in which my partner had a more verging on serious relationship where there was NRE, clearly. But even that NRE, it wasn't something that we discussed much, but that I saw happen when maybe they were across the room, like, texting, and I saw, like, a little smile occur. And I, I would witness those things fairly often. So that to me would be an indicator that it was something that was maybe progressing, that things were progressing there. I would watch them speak a lot or, or maybe ask like, how is this person doing? And then I would, I would get some updates. But in order to really have like a very serious conversation about it, I do think that these specific radar times are really beneficial or. Having maybe a once a week check-in of, oh, how are things progressing here? Because if you do it every day, sometimes it can be kind of like a prying, almost you're in this kind of anxious attachment state, and that is not always, in my opinion, super healthy slash super sexy if you are constantly just giving this impression that you're worried about the state of things in this other relationship.
Jase: So you're thinking, like, if you're coming asking for information about it, like asking too often feels like that.
Emily: Yeah, I felt that being the case in the particular instance that I'm thinking of, that I needed to kind of temper my me wanting to constantly ask, like, oh, how is it going? How, you know, what's the update and all of that? And what are you guys talking about? I felt like a sense of FOMO often. It wasn't necessarily that I was upset at all about the progression of the relationship, but rather that, like, I wasn't included in knowing how that progression was going, which you're not going to. But I think that that's part of the unlearning is this idea that when we are with partners, we are, like, sharing and building a life, and we get to, like, experience that life with them. And then when they are doing something outside of you that is completely separate from you, sometimes you get that feeling. Fear of missing out, at least I did. And I think that's the part that I needed to just kind of tamp down a little bit and be like, it's okay. They can have their own stuff that they're excited about with this other person. And I don't need to ask constantly or on a daily basis. Instead, I can sort of reserve that for maybe once a week or a couple times a month.
Dedeker: Well, that's interesting because I think the thing that I see play out with clients, and I know I've experienced this as well, that to cut to the chase, I think the reality is that in every relationship provided the people involved are communicating, they're giving each other feedback, they're willing to experiment with different ways of disclosing information that then over time, I find most relationships organically find their level of disclosure that works for them, and it doesn't have to be exactly the same between both people. However, that process of navigating and trying to find what the organic level of disclosure is can be uncomfortable, it can be messy, there can be some missteps and It can feel awkward. And so sometimes people go to these extremes, right? So there is the extreme where we don't know how to talk about it, so we just don't, or we talk about it kind of awkwardly, right? And in your situation, Emily, that I think if it were me, if I'm noticing this urge constantly to be like, I keep needing to ask, I keep needing to claw this information out of my partner, or I even feel the urge to maybe ask more for more information that is perhaps appropriate for me to have. What that indicates to me is that like, there's enough of a blank slate here. There's like this relationship that my partner is in feels like a black box, and therefore I'm able to project all of my fears onto it, which then fuels that need to get more information, right? Try to open the box, figure out what's in the box, right? And so in that situation, we probably need to move the needle a little bit to feel like there's at least a little, just enough information kind of flowing through that like you're able to feel grounded. And I think it sounds like you eventually got to that place of like, okay, it's okay for there to be some mystery. It's okay for there to be some things that I don't know, but I also feel like I know just enough that I can settle to a certain extent. Right. And, like, trust my partner and know that we're going to have time to catch up on this.
Emily: That's a really interesting way of putting it. The black box thing and projecting all of the fears, because I know that's absolutely what was happening. And I think that that is partially a byproduct of him not being super open about what was occurring and his feelings and all of those things. And I think part of that is just like he was probably trying to figure out what the heck was going on there too.
Jase: And I wanted to bring that up.
Emily: And internally processing where again, I'm an external processor, so I'm like, just tell me what's happening. And we can process this together rather than him being like, I need to figure it out on my own. And then maybe eventually I'll come to you with some more information. But that's a really, I think, very good point that you bring up, Dedeker, that I will project a lot of my own fears onto the situation when I'm just not aware of the facts and not always getting the level or the amount of information that maybe I feel like I want.
Jase: Yeah, and I think there's a couple of pieces that come up there. One is, like Dedeker said, finding the level of that sharing that works for your relationship and that that's gonna change depending on the relationship. But I think also as the person receiving the information or wanting it, I know that something that ran into in my relationship with Emily early on when we were first opening up and that Dedeker and I have had, it took us a while to find this as well. Is how to communicate about a new relationship when you don't know, right? Where there is that kind of, that sense that you're figuring it out, where you can have that situation where you might say like, yeah, this relationship's great, it's going this way. And then next week it turns out it's totally not going that direction. And then to the partner that you told that to, it feels like, what? You told me it was this and now it's this. I've had that situation, right? Where it's like, you misled me. And it's like, well, I just didn't know yet. And then on the other hand, there is the kind of, not saying anything, because like, oh, I don't know, being vague when really the relationship is progressing in a certain way or becoming more entangled or more serious. And then it is feeling weird, like you withheld stuff. So I do feel like some of that is about finding the way to communicate about it that feels like you're not hiding things, but also acknowledging the fact that you don't always know how it's going to go, especially early on.
Dedeker: Well, but then I think people can take it to the opposite extreme,
Jase: for sure.
Dedeker: which is just the firehose blast in your face of so much information and way more information than maybe is appropriate for your partner to know or to hear. Or sometimes you can be the one really trying to crank the wheel on the fire hose to be like, no, no, no. Give me more information. More, more, more, more, more. I need more details, even when that's not necessarily serving you. Like, I can't tell you the number of times, you know, I'll do an intake with a client who's just like, yeah, you know, my partner started dating someone new, and it's been like, really challenging for me because they engage in X, Y, and Z sexual acts and then, like, we haven't engaged in that in a while. And then, like. And then he tells her this in bed. And then, like. And I'm just like, why do you know this? Why do you know that information? Now, of course, granted, everybody's relationship is their own relationship. There may be some relationships where that's how you share information with each other, and that's totally okay. Most of the time when I'm hearing this, That's not the case. This has not been intentionally decided. This has just been somebody either oversharing or somebody mining digging too greedily into and unearthing the Balrog of really, really uncomfortable information and I think we've all been there.
Jase: We've all done it, for sure.
Dedeker: We've all been there and I just want to say that some polyamorous people think if I'm not comfortable hearing absolutely everything, then that indicates like maybe I'm a bad polyamorous person or I have issues with this or I'm not cut out for this. And I just want to say I don't think that's the case. Yeah. The uncomfortable example I always put on the table is the fact that most people don't want to hear about their parents sex lives. It doesn't necessarily mean that they hope their parents never have sex or never have happiness or never have pleasure. It's just.
Jase: Just don't want to hear about it.
Dedeker: And like, and that is okay. If that's where thinking about your partner's sex life with somebody else lives for you, that doesn't mean that that you're broken, that doesn't mean that you're secretly, you know, rooting against them or anything like that. Like, it is just okay for there to be some information that is uncomfortable to hold and, like, you don't have to hold it.
Emily: Yeah, I think what I have done so far in this current relationship that I'm in is ask or basically he will ask me, what is it that you want to know? And I will try to ask very specific questions about what occurred maybe on that date that they went on or how things are progressing if there have been new milestones in terms of emotional progression, for instance, or any number of things, things that I feel like, okay, I'm comfortable with and can actually hear and receive at this moment. And I will, you know, hopefully I'll get satisfactory answers from that. Standpoint, I think sometimes the disconnect happens when I'm like, I feel like from witnessing you, there's more going on than what you are telling me. And sometimes that has been a little bit challenging where, or, or if I hear how the other person, you know, my metamour has reacted, I'm like, it seems like what you are telling me about your feelings are not equivalent to their feelings. And so, what's going on there and.
Jase: Something doesn't line up.
Emily: Yeah. And I think that that's the challenge. And I understand the feeling like I need to kind of soften everything for my partner to make them feel okay about this situation. And I do think that that sometimes comes into play here. But in my opinion, asking the question of what is it that you want to know? What is it that you feel comfortable with? And even when you are starting to date someone, asking the question of like, how much would you like to know about what's going on? Is that going to be a case by case basis or just overall what level of disclosure is okay with you? What level of disclosure is okay with them? And how can we kind of reconcile all of that and be in this communal sort of situation together?
Jase: Yeah, I think that's a good segue into the second half of this question about what to share and how much to share. We're going to take a quick break before we get into that. We've got our sponsors for this show. Please do give them a listen. They do help support our show and let us keep putting this content out there into the world for everyone for free. And of course, if you would like to join our amazing community and get access to early releases of ad free episodes, as well as things like our monthly video processing groups that you can join in person or in virtual person with other people and talk about these things, you can go to multiamory.com/join and join our amazing community there.
Jase: So in preparing for this episode, I looked up a couple of studies, one of which we actually just talked about a few weeks ago, just that have some information a little relevant to this. And I also was kind of looking at creating a scale of amount of sharing. Uh, so none of this is super fully fleshed out, but I wanted to share it with you two so that we can kind of think about that. But first to start off with the studies. So one is a 2024 study by Dr. Sharon M. Flicker. Called Your Happiness Is My Happiness: Predicting Positive Feelings for a Partner's Consensual Extra-Dyadic Intimate Relations. It's a very academic sounding title there, but basically it's about compersion. How do you feel about your partner's other relationships? And they looked at compersion in three different areas. One was just like, how comfortable do you feel with your partner's other relationships? One is how excited do you feel about their new or potential intimate relationships. And then the third one is how sexually excited you are about knowing that they're having intimacy with other people. And I did think it was kind of interesting that that third one about the sexual excitement they found was sort of the odd one out in terms of not correlating as clearly with the other two and with the various predictors of this, which backs up anecdotally my experience where I feel like that I would put more into the sense of like a kink Kind of, it's, you kind of have that or you don't and that you might be excited by it and also feel really shitty about your metamours and your partner's other relationships, or you might not have that, but feel good about it. So, yeah, for me personally, I think that one, and this study kind of backs that up, that it's sort of a separate category that I personally would not even put in the category of compersion. I think it's kind of a different thing. And whether you have that or not, cool, but we're gonna focus more on the other two, which is just sort of feeling comfortable with your partner's other relationships and feeling excitement or happiness for them. When they get a new relationship or they might be getting into a new relationship. And we talked about this a few episodes ago, but basically they found that for people who liked their metamour and who felt close to them, but for this episode and who knew more about their partner's relationship with their metamour tended to experience higher compersion. So, like, feeling good about that relationship. So this is an argument for sharing more, right? Or at least giving insights into how that relationship's going. And then they also found that the strongest predictor of an individual's response to a partner's new flirtation or budding intimate connection were jealousy and attachment anxiety. So in other words, feeling less secure about their current relationship meant that they had lower levels of compersion, which also tracks.
Emily: Yeah.
Jase: Seems intuitive. And then And related to this too, there was another study. This was actually a narrative review where they looked at a bunch of other studies. This is by David Rodriguez in 2024 in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. And the quote here was that CNM, consensually non-monogamous, people consider behaviors such as lying or withholding information from the partner as more indicative of infidelity and tend to be more lenient about explicit behaviors, for example, having sex with somebody else. And that basically pointing out the contrast where in normal monogamous culture, it's considered that it's kind of thought of like being a little bit secretive is more okay than actually having sex with somebody else. And that in non-monogamy it's kind of flipped. Or it's like, even if maybe you went outside of our agreements a little bit, like you had sex with this new person and I didn't even realize that was a potential thing you were gonna do today, that I'd be more forgiving of that than if I felt like you were secret, like you were keeping that from me, that you had been dodgy about it. And I think that, like realizing that that's the more important thing is really important in conversations like you're having, Emily. We're saying like, you're telling me things, but then it feels like something doesn't quite line up here. How do we fix that, right?
Dedeker: Yeah.
Jase: How do I make it more comfortable for you to share more honestly with me? Or how do I help you learn how to talk about your relationship more clearly, or maybe realizing my partner just totally is not tuned into what the person he's dating is feeling about this. But kind of trying to get to the bottom of that, because that feeling of something doesn't line up, that's the thing I see go wrong so often.
Dedeker: But I think that, because I've been in that situation before too, of how much to poke at that.
Jase: Sure.
Dedeker: And ask questions versus how much just be like, okay, I guess I don't know. I guess I'll just let them figure it out.
Emily: Yeah, it's a challenging position to be in, especially, I think, as the person who has done this before and who knows a little bit more about non-monogamy just because I know that I got to a level of comfortability in my past relationships about how much I disclosed and didn't, and how much my partners disclosed and didn't about their relationships. And I felt pretty secure in that disclosure. With this, I think, yeah, it is just challenging because it's an unknown all around. And I think as time goes on, that'll become less challenging, of course. But sure, I do wonder sometimes if that lack of disclosure is just a byproduct of them. Maybe being on a different page with their partner or maybe just not knowing themselves and trying to figure out also, like, how comfortable do I feel speaking about this in a more intimate way, in a more specific way?
Dedeker: Yeah.
Jase: And I guess I'm, I meant that not so much of, like, you should pry and try to get to the bottom of it, but more I'm thinking about if you're looking at sort of the long-term health of your relationship, that this is something you're going to want to figure out together, hopefully.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Emily: Right.
Jase: And hopefully this isn't just something that pushes you further and further apart while you're, you know, nagging them over wanting this information and saying, like, you're lying to me somehow. I don't know how, but you are. Like, we can kind of get into that cycle of, like, paranoia and jealousy and stuff.
Emily: And totally.
Jase: Maybe it's Justified. Maybe it's not. But ideally, if your relationship's going to be successful, you're not stuck in that cycle, right? That you're finding some way to negotiate this. And so, so with that, I kind of wanted to look at this as a spectrum. So if we have basically a spectrum of how much you're sharing, like how much you're disclosing, how much you're sharing with your partner or partners, where on the, on the one hand, we have the low info, and I'm not going to put this so low as a fully like, don't ask, don't tell, keep this all secret from me, but think of it close to that. Of sort of like a, we've agreed that I want to know the least amount possible while still having a functioning, healthy relationship. And then on the other hand, we have like the kitchen table poly, like we're all up in each other's lives, sitting on each other's laps, lap sitting polyamory, like that, that side. And so looking at this with sexual details, like intimacy, sexual details, right? That on the low end, we have, I don't want to know about it, right? I want to know that you had sex so that we have like a sexual risk awareness. But like that's it, right?
Dedeker: Okay. But I think if I can add an asterisk onto that, because, because, yeah, I think with sexual details, I tend to be in that camp of like, yeah, it's important to me to know when a relationship has become sexual, just so that I know that as, yeah, again, as far as managing risk and decision making and things like that. But you do need to take it a step farther, right? Because you have to know what being sexual means, like what kind of exposure if you're, you know, if you're having penetrative sex and you use a barrier for that, but you don't use a barrier for oral sex, it's like that's a Important detail to know. And that doesn't mean that you need to give your partner like a blow by blow of what happened exactly what happened in your last sexual encounter. But I do think it is important to be honest about those things. And if those things change or right, even if something like a condom breaks, for instance, it's like, well, still like an exposure vector in it. And I promise it doesn't have to be all jazz hands, all drama, right?
Emily: But just letting people know.
Dedeker: Yeah, just be. Be the sex ed teacher you never had. Just very clear, upfront, compassionate, good sense of humor. You gotta be the sex ed teacher that you wanna be in the world. What did Gandhi say?
Jase: Be the sex ed you wanna see in the world.
Emily: That's the one.
Jase: I think that's the one.
Dedeker: Exactly. Be the sex ed you want to see in the world.
Jase: Yeah, yeah. And then, so on the one hand, we have the low info side, which Dedeker makes a great point of like, It doesn't have to include whether we did or didn't have sex or what types of sex on each date, but more we are in general having this kind of sex and this sorts of protection, yes or no, and then updating if that changes. And then we have like the middle area, which is more of the more general conversation, I guess I would say. And then on the high end might be, I want to get all the explicit details. Now with the Metamour's consent. And this is one that I do think is important to talk about ideally before you're going on these other dates and having these other relationships is establishing, is there going to be an expectation that you want to know all those details? Because one, it's a good chance to explore, like Emily said, maybe I don't actually need all this information. Or like Dedeker was saying, she's had clients who do that of maybe you don't actually need to have all that information. But then also when you're going into your relationship to be able to say, like, for example, with my newish partner, we had that conversation of how much do you normally share with your partner about your other relationships? How much do you tell them? Because that's an important thing to know, right? Of like, oh, well, my partner expects to hear all these details. And I might say, I don't want anyone to know any details about me. That might just be an incompatibility, right? They're just, okay, we can't do that. That this won't work with the way that we both do our relationships. And I think that's better to find sooner earlier on instead of later. We're realizing you've shared stuff they weren't comfortable with or finding out that you're hiding stuff from your partner now involving sexual risk because your new partner said, I don't want you to talk about these things. But now that's creating a situation where your other partner doesn't know about the STI status of the partner you're with or something like that. So kind of knowing those things going in and understanding that those could just be things that don't work out and are not compatible. Instead of thinking like, oh, there's got to be some way around so that anything, any two people or any three people, whatever, can have this interconnected relationship. Have you seen anything like that, Dedz, with your clients? I would imagine that that kind of thing comes up a fair amount.
Dedeker: Yeah, I've definitely seen some drama go down around sharing sexual health status because, yeah, some people, and I totally understand this argument, feel like, well, my sexual health status, that's completely private. And so how dare you share that with someone else that you're having sex with? And I totally get that. I, I know I've seen some people come up with a middle ground of, okay, so like, let's say you are sexually active with three people, and let's say that one of those partners is HSV2 positive, but like they feel like, I don't want you to tell your other partners that I'm HSV2 positive. like that's private. I don't really want to share that. So then the, you know, the, the V in the middle of this can maybe communicate something when they're negotiating with any new sexual partners. They can express like, Hey, in my network of people that I'm sleeping with right now, there is somebody who is HSV2 positive. This is the type of contact that we have and this is how they manage it, but without specifically naming the person that it is. Now, in some situations that will work out great where you're able to maintain anonymity in other situations, it may just by the circumstances just be obvious about who you're talking about, for instance. So sometimes that's not always great. So, I mean, in my experience, anytime I've ever slept with somebody, long-term or short-term, who has an STI or anything like that, they've always been people who've been very upfront and very comfortable with talking about it and not don't necessarily feel like, oh, you can't tell anybody else. Like, obviously they probably wouldn't want me to like shout it on the street corner necessarily, but that they feel comfortable, you know, yeah, this is just a part of being sexually active with multiple people as you talk about these things. So I don't know, all these things take a little bit of massaging. And I think that if you're finding yourself getting a little entrenched in your stance, for instance, around what you think you should or shouldn't share or what your partner thinks they should or shouldn't have access to as far as information goes. If you're feeling really entrenched and you're polarized against each other, instead of being like, I'll go listen to the Multiamory Podcast and, oh, here's an episode where they're going to tell me exactly the right formula to follow. I'm sorry. If you made it this far, you know that we're not. But I would say that that's probably an opportunity to start to examine and ask some questions of, like, why do I feel so entrenched around this? Why does it feel so threatening to me to either have to share this information? Or to not get this particular information. Not to say that your desires are wrong, but sometimes this can be attached to some early stuff, to some attachment wounds, to some coping mechanisms. This is a good place to get curious about yourself and also about your partner if you're finding that this is where you're ending up.
Emily: Yeah, I do think that some flexibility in all of this is really important just because, yes, I understand wanting a sense of privacy, but Again, we're all in community together, which means that there is going to be some information that's going to be necessary and, I think, kind and healthy to speak to one another about. And that's also why, again, I'm going to advocate for there being some sense of understanding and comradery between metamours that it becomes more challenging when that's not the case. And I'm, again, thinking of my own situation where that wasn't the case. And I did feel like we were at odds with one another because I never even met this person. And I was simply hearing about things secondhand about challenges that they were having with the whole non-monogamy structure in general. And so if you don't have that, if you don't have a level of understanding there, I think that the rigidity just becomes really difficult for all people involved. And it's really difficult to enter into this type of configuration from a relational standpoint without understanding that there's going to be constant change and constant dynamics evolving. If you're not okay with that, then maybe this type of relationship structure isn't necessarily the best one for you.
Jase: Yeah, it does require a certain amount of willingness to be open. And it's interesting how you said be in a community.
Emily: Because that's why I like it. I like the opportunity to be in community. And I know that that's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's just so nice to have some understanding between people, between metamours, which is this really wacky, different type of relationship that we are not ever taught how to deal with and how to be in that type of loving, compassionate camaraderie with one another. But when it is good, it is so good, and it can be so cool. It's wonderful. And so I just so encourage people to like figure your shit out if you can, if you are able. And I'm not, I understand.
Jase: Emily's bringing the tough love today.
Dedeker: That's not everyone. Okay, no, no, no.
Emily: But I do think that it is as important if you can.
Dedeker: No, but that's a really good place to land on. As far as disclosure, just figure your shit out. You know, be open, communicate.
Emily: I'm saying this to myself as well.
Dedeker: Yeah, figure out, by the way, what's the stuff that makes you uncomfortable? What's the stuff that challenges you? What's the stuff that feels exciting to you? Like have an open channel. Communication about that with your partner. We always encourage people put on your scientist pants and hat and goggles and experiment with things, you know, about the level of disclosure, and you'll find your way to what works for your relationship.
Jase: Yeah, it's like figure your shit out, but also realize it's okay to change over time as you learn and as you realize, actually, let's switch that up. So I'll give a final plug here for doing Radar. It's our monthly relationship check-in. A lot of people know about it, but if you don't, you can go to multiamory.com/radar. Read up about it there. We've got multiple episodes where we've talked about it, and it's in our book, of course. But having like a way that you can check in monthly gives you a really good opportunity to not only try to figure out these things when you're not right in the middle of having that disclosure conversation, and then also to adjust them over time. So you can change direction slightly, tweak things, and find what works for the two of you. All right, well, thank you, I guess, not to just this one question asker, but to everyone over the years who has posted this online in various places or or asked us about this. And we would love to hear from all of you. We have our question of the week, which we'll put on our Instagram stories, which is how often do you update your partners on your other relationships? Very curious to hear what people have to say about that. And of course, if you want to discuss this further, the best place to share your thoughts with other listeners is in our episode discussion channel in our Discord server, where we have a separate thread for each episode as they come out so that you can have conversations about it there, or you can post in our private Facebook group. Group. You can get access to these groups and join our exclusive community by going to multiamory.com/join. In addition, you can share with us publicly on Instagram at multiamorypodcast.
Jase: Multiamory is created and produced by Emily Matlack, Dedeker Winston, and me, Jase Lindgren. Our production assistants are Rachel Schenewerk and Carson Collins. Our theme song is Forms I Know I Did by Josh and Anand from the Fractal Cave EP. The full transcript is available on this episode's page on multiamory.com.