567 - Is Toxic Individualism a Real Problem?
It’s Q&A time!
The listener question we’re discussing on this episode is:
This was inspired by this Reddit post I saw about not being able to share certain things with a partner (kind of ties into your recent episode about how much is too much information)
It just struck me as interesting that some of the comments on this post are quite individualistic. There seems to be the idea that you have to deal with certain things on your own, you shouldn't lean on your partner for that. Which to a certain extent of course is true, but also, you're allowed to lean on your partner for things!!! People are very quick to call things codependent, whereas, in my opinion any good relationship will have some dependency—that doesn't make it codependent.
Of course, within polyamory there's more room for being your own individual as opposed to the default monogamous "becoming one" with your partner, which will likely result in some codependency. I think being your own person is great, but when does this individualism go too far? When are you robbing yourself of the wonders of getting to share so much of yourself with one person?
(The ironic thing here is, of course that this default of becoming one with your partner and needing them to fulfil every single need, is probably in some way a consequence of individualism within our society. ;) )
Very curious to hear your thoughts on this. (Could maybe even be an interesting discussion topics for an entire episode?)
-Dependent individual
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Transcript
If you find any transcription errors, please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: I don't love the term toxic individualism because I feel like putting toxic before something is really just packaging it up to use it against somebody else. But what I do think we want to keep an eye out for is when we can get too hung up on the dogma of individualism rather than actually looking at each person's individual circumstance and individual situation. In my ideal world, we've got a lot more people in our lives that we can bring these kinds of conversations to. But I think in most people's real lives, they just don't have quite that big a community of people that understand them as an individual and that also can handle these sorts of conversations. On the other hand, I do think we have this bad cultural precedent of putting all of our emotional baggage on our partners. There's this cultural assumption that that's where all the emotional labor and all the processing and everything's gonna go. So I think on both sides, we have a little bit of an issue there.
Jase: Welcome to the Multiamory Podcast. I'm Jase.
Emily: I'm Emily.
Dedeker: And I'm Dedeker.
Dedeker: We believe in looking to the future of relationships, not maintaining the status quo of the past.
Emily: 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 answering a listener question, which is actually more of a discussion prompt this time. We had someone write in with a question wanting to get our thoughts about the push and pull between individualism as well as connection and sharing with a partner. And I just saw this and I thought, yeah, this is a cool topic to get into. And so we're gonna just have a real organic conversation about this today with the three of us. And so we're excited for you to join us in that discussion. If you're interested in learning more about our fundamental communication tools that we reference on this show all the time, you can check out our book, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships, which covers our most used communication tools for all types of relationships. And you can find links to buy it@multiamory.com/book or wherever fine books are sold.
Dedeker: Quick disclaimer before we start, we've spent a lot of time studying healthy relationship communication, but part of what makes relationships so interesting is that they're all different and every situation is unique. So we encourage you out there to use your own judgment and seek professional help if needed. Ultimately, you're the only true expert on your own life and feelings and your decisions are ultimately all your own. And this question has been edited for time and clarity.
Jase: Here's the question: what do you think of the sometimes toxic individualism within the polyamory community? Here's the full context. This was inspired by this Reddit post that I saw about not being able to share certain things with a partner. This kind of ties into your recent episode about how much is too much information? I think recent is being a little generous there, because that was a little while ago, but sure, we'll keep going. It struck me as interesting that some of the comments on this post are quite individualistic. There seems to be the idea that you have to deal with certain things on your own, you shouldn't lean on your partner for that. Which to a certain extent, of course, is true, but also, you're allowed to lean on your partner for things. People are very quick to call things codependent, whereas in my opinion, any good relationship will have some dependency that doesn't make it codependent. Of course, within polyamory, there's more room for being your own individual, as opposed to the default monogamous, quote, becoming one with your partner, which will likely result in some codependency. I think being your own person is great, but when does this individualism go too far? When are you robbing yourself of the wonders of getting to share so much of yourself with one person? I would even expand that to say multiple people, but they said one person here. The ironic thing here is, of course, that the default of becoming one with your partner and needing them to fulfill every need is probably in some way a consequence of individualism within our society. As a whole, which is an interesting point to bring up, that the fact that we're trapped in these two person units is already part of individualism, that we don't have larger networks than that. So we can get into all of this. They signed off by saying, very curious to hear your thoughts on this. Could maybe even be an interesting discussion topic for an entire episode. Well, I guess you're getting what you asked for here. So this is from dependent individual. Thank you, dependent, for writing in. From starting with this question, were there any thoughts that jumped to mind for either of you? Right away.
Dedeker: What I think we're seeing here in this person's observations and looking at the non-monogamy subculture as a whole, there's this mishmash of there's areas where this subculture is distinctly counterculture, but then there's always going to be areas where it also just happens to align with the dominant culture because it's impossible to completely hermetically seal yourself away. From dominant culture.
Jase: Okay.
Emily: What do you think dominant culture is in regards to being super individualistic or not?
Dedeker: I am making the assumption that dominant culture is American culture.
Emily: Okay.
Dedeker: That's just an assumption. Okay. I mean, we're steeped in resources and connected to other content creators who are largely American, right? So of course, and we're all American, so our bias is going to lead in that particular direction because When I think about individualism, that to me is very much associated with American culture, right? And that's not a groundbreaking observation by any stretch. But it is interesting to me because like what I see in this Reddit thread that this person is referencing, this idea that people are saying, Hey, don't go to your partner to process these things that happen with another partner. You need to deal with these particular things on your own, or you need to deal with these feelings on your own. To me, weirdly, I would make the argument that this runs counter culture to the dominant culture's definition of what a romantic relationship should be, which is, I think, very entwined, very entangled, and yeah, the unit of the couple is the primary unit, and therefore anything that happens outside of the couple is lower in the hierarchy, and therefore stuff like privacy, Privacy of other people involved takes a back burner because the most important thing is the unit that is the couple and the flow of information and communication between the couple. Sure.
Jase: Yeah.
Dedeker: Combined with the way that we've been socialized to think that, yeah, your primary singular partner needs to be your everything and that includes your emotional confidant in all things. Right. So I think that the ways that people try to give advice here, to me, I see as counterculture is like, no, you can't just turn to one partner for absolutely everything. There are some ways that you need to be able to regulate yourself, soothe yourself. And then there's certain information that maybe you shouldn't be giving to your partner, or maybe there's advice that you shouldn't be seeking from your partner necessarily, you should be seeking from somebody else. So on one side of the coin, I see it being counterculture. But then on the other side of the coin, I think this is the argument that the question asker is making that, yeah, this feels very distinctly American to castigate anything that looks like codependency, to really prioritize being able to stand on your own two feet and not rely on anybody. And so, yeah, there are these ways that it happens to align with these ways that we're socialized. Does that mean that one of those ways is inherently wrong or right? That I don't know. I just see it as an interesting maybe contradiction or paradox or just a mix. It's the subculture containing multitudes, y'all.
Jase: Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned the mainstream or counterculture thing. I think there's even sublevels beyond that where We might all say, okay, yeah, culturally there's this assumption that your partner has to be everything. They're your whole safety net, your whole social support, emotional support, everything. And then there's this idea that, oh, that's bad. We don't want to do that. But then there becomes this mainstream counterculture argument, which is like, you should never do any of that, right? And it's mainstream within this particular set of people who are critical of mainstream. And often it leaves out all this space in the middle or this space for exceptions. And it's weird where you can, in certain spaces, feel like you're being really challenging to people and really, sort of contrary to the establishment and to, you know, normal wisdom by actually leaning back a little bit more toward the mainstream within these certain subgroups that have really normalized or demonized a particular thing across the board instead of pulling out some nuance.
Emily: Dedeker, if I'm correct on what I was hearing you saying, I do agree with you that sometimes within dyadic relationships where there's a hinge between multiple partners, for instance, that going to your partner about something that's happening with a metamour, that sometimes feels as though that sort of information is something that probably shouldn't be said. And therefore you need to individually figure stuff out within that relationship. But then also I think about things like healing that is done within relationships that yes, while we do need to deal with our own shit and figure our own stuff out, that there is also a lot of healing that can be done internally within relationships that is really difficult to do on your own. I think about myself, for instance, that I had patterns of behavior in my last relationship from myself and my ex that caused me to, in my new relationship, believe that my partner now would react in a specific way. And it took multiple times of having conflict, for instance, and having my partner not react in the way that my ex did, but rather, a much more kind introspective communicative way that caused me to feel as though, okay, maybe this thing of old is not how people should be reacting towards something difficult, but rather it should be that we have some compassion and understanding towards each other. And I think that those internalized habitual patterns might have been really difficult for me to break had I not been in relationship with someone who did something so different. So that's where my mind goes immediately upon looking at this, is that yes, I agree we should all own our own shit, and we should, especially within multi-partner relationships, there are some things that probably should be kept within that relationship and maybe to oneself. But when it comes to certain types of healing, those can only be done within relationship or much more easily or maybe more quickly within relationship. And it's difficult to just say, now you got to figure that out on your own instead of actually getting the opportunity to work on something challenging with a partner.
Dedeker: Well, I think that our job in relationships, it's always multifold, it's multidimensional, it's always multiple jobs. And that's because we occupy multiple positions in the sense that, yes, you enter a relationship as an individual and you also connect with somebody else and maybe if you're dating or in a relationship very traditionally, yes, you do become a unit. But then I think what becomes a little bit tricky is when you're non monogamous, you occupy this in between space where you're both making decisions for yourself individually that benefit you, but you're also trying to bear in mind that you have a relationship or maybe multiple relationships where your decisions also need to take into account the other person as well and what benefits them as well. And so it's like you're straddling these multiple positions. And I find that when it comes to those habitual patterns that come up or any difficult feelings that come up for you or insecurity or challenges in the relationship, I find it's pretty much never one extreme or the other in the sense that it's never, almost never, big asterisk, almost never. Oh, this entire burden is on you as the individual to deal with. And it's also almost never, oh, this is just 100% on your partner to fix and to solve. And where I see people get into trouble is misplacing weight in one camp or the other. Right. So a couple examples of this is that all the time, I'll have a new client who comes to me and they'll just unload this laundry list of all the challenges they're running up in their relationship and Often it can be related to, yeah, I'm having just these really difficult feelings that's coming up around my partner's other partner. And when my partner's with them, they go out and they make all these terrible decisions and they come home really inebriated and intoxicated and they're terrible to me. And then they try to lie to me about it the next day. And I've tried to confront them on this and they're very defensive and it's really hard. And so then I will follow up and be like, okay, so what are you hoping for in our work together? And usually sometimes people will give me some version of essentially, I want you to make me so enlightened that none of this bothers me, right? So sometimes someone comes to me and they have put the emotional burden on themselves so much. So yeah, they've gone this extreme individual, they've taken this extreme individual stance. And sometimes that's sadly a product of feeling like I can't get anywhere with my partner, right? Like I can't ask them for something or we run into too much conflict. And so I need to just solely take it on myself individually, right? And so those are the people that I have to nudge in a particular direction of like, no, this isn't just on you. Sure, there's some things that you you can do, but you're not gonna be able to handle this 100% on your own. Your partner needs to be a team player here as well, right? But then I also see some people who weigh things to the opposite extreme where they blame everything on their partner, right? And any little bit of emotional discomfort or insecurity or unsureness or any kind of emotional upset, their job then becomes about how can I hem in my partner or control them or manipulate them or get them to do what it is that I want so that I don't have to experience this. And those are people I have to nudge. And honestly, I think it's harder to.
Emily: Nudge the other direction.
Dedeker: It's harder to nudge the other direction.
Emily: I agree that it is.
Jase: Yeah.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Emily: I mean, being on the side that you were talking about, the former side that you were speaking of, of being like, I really just need to figure out how to not worry about this or not feel so bad about this particular thing that's going on.
Dedeker: Totally. Yeah.
Emily: Yeah. And I do think that so much of our individualistic culture teaches us that, It is best to just take it upon yourself to figure out the problem and fix it. And I think for certain personalities too, I can see you, for instance, doing that and deciding, I am the type A personality that is going to just fix it and figure it out and put it away.
Dedeker: And that only took my therapist five years before she very, very gently, very gently was like, you strike me as the type. Who likes to go it alone. And I think in this particular situation, that might not be the best approach for you.
Emily: Were you like, I said, F you.
Jase: If I'm never speaking to you again.
Dedeker: How dare you.
Jase: I'll do my own therapy.
Emily: Yeah, goodness. There you go. Exactly. So, no, I agree. Absolutely. There is nuance. There is a lot of both that needs to happen, ideally. But there's also, understanding, I think, that we, as individuals, can't do everything ourselves. And I don't know. I would like to think that as much as I possibly can, because it allows me some grace for myself to know that I am not the only person that can fix the situation or make it better. But rather that when it comes to the multiple people in my life, if I am having conflict with someone or an internal challenge with someone, it is also up to me to be able to lay that information so that they can help most effectively, make the problem better on their end as well, if possible, unless I'm so off base that, no, it's just a me problem.
Jase: Well, so I actually want to. To move this conversation to be a little more concrete. I feel like we've been covering it from, like. Like we're holding it at a little bit of a distance, and we're kind of thinking about it a little bit theoretically, but to get into some of the concerns that. This question asker brought up, as well as some of the recurring themes in this thread, which were about, it tended to have to do with hinge situations, like you were mentioning, Emily, of talking to the hinge about your metamore, or you as the hinge talking to one partner about the other, that kind of dynamic, as well as, I guess, yeah, what we've been talking about, just are you putting too much emotional labor on your one partner that you really should be dealing with yourself? And I feel like there, related, but slightly different in those situations. And I think that in the past, thinking years ago, we've tended to land fairly hard on the more respecting privacy side of things. And I think that's kind of, again, that mainstream within the counterculture of consensual non monogamy is has landed there too, of this sort of, no, you should never say anything to them. You can't process anything with them. You can't go to them. They're not someone who should talk about those relationships. Even though I think in practice, most people do all those things, but there's kind of this sense that idealistically, we have to adhere to this, keeping those separate, right? Of not allowing any triangulation, not allowing someone else to poison your relationship with someone else. And I think that's the piece I wanted to start with is that I think a lot of that advice tends to come up from people earlier in their polyamory journey or with a partner who's really struggling with it. And who is upset by a metamour, maybe they're all new, maybe one of them is whatever, but they're upset by this metamour. And then they're sort of complaining to the partner they have in common, right? They're complaining to the hinge about this metamore or they're blaming issues that they have on their relationship on that metamore. Or it's that I'm complaining to you about my other relationship. And so you're going to jump on, oh, they're terrible, they're bad. And now you're sabotaging that relationship. Or something, right? Those sort of complicated dynamics. And this is something that I found in my own life and also talking to people who've been in their relationships longer and have been non-monogamous for a good portion of that, that just isn't the way it works anymore. There's not quite that sense of, oh, if I talk to my partner about this, they're just going to try to sabotage this because there is a comfort and a familiarity and a level of experience in those people. And I think that's getting into this higher level stuff that just doesn't get talked about as often because people consume a lot of these resources earlier on when I think that triangulation is a bigger danger because there's just a lot more growing pains of adjusting to this way of doing things that then it's solidified as a value rather than realizing maybe this was just something you needed to focus on at the beginning to fall out of those bad habits you had of that being the person who gets to dictate everything or that being who you can vent to. But that maybe there's actually room on the other side of that to open that back up a little bit more. Hmm. What are your thoughts on that? Do you hate everything I just said? Do you love it? Like, where does it make your mind go? I'm curious, 'cause you've never talked about this before.
Emily: I think ideally, in a secure, compassionate, understanding relationship with multiple people, it is normal to once in a while speak about your other partners when you are having a challenge with them, especially if everyone cares about each other and is chill. For it to not necessarily be a judgment call on that other individual, but simply saying, hey, I just want you to know, I might seem a little down tonight because I've been having this issue with so-and-so, and it's something that we're working through. It just seems to be a recurring issue right now. It's not really about anything to do with them as a person. It just is something that the two of us have butt heads over for whatever reason, and. It's been weighing on me, so I just want to kind of tee one and let you know about that thing. I think it makes sense that stuff like that comes up. I understand, of course, that the ways in which we speak about our partners may color the ways in which our other partners may feel about them. But hopefully, metamours will also have their own relationships with one another enough to gain individual thoughts about them. And not let a partner's particular discussions or challenges that they may have with them be the deciding factor in how they see this individual.
Dedeker: I don't know. Are you talking about the hinges? The hinge in this hypothetical scenario takes on the burden of, for better or worse, kind of running PR management, image management, as in how one of their partners perceives the other partner. I mean, because we've all seen this situation, and not just with multi-partner situations, right? It's like we've all seen a situation where a friend complains about a partner, right, all the time. And then you're just like, well, I never hear anything good about your partner, right? So it's really hard for me to.
Emily: Be supportive of you.
Dedeker: Been there done that. Yeah, exactly.
Emily: We've all been there, done that.
Dedeker: I think we've all been there in like different positions.
Jase: Right.
Dedeker: Yeah, right.
Emily: And you know, those positions I've tried as an individual to also learn from and hope that overall the ways in which I speak about my partner are giving them the benefit of the doubt to a degree and helping the people around me see them as a full individual and not just from my own cognitive biases. So maybe yes to a degree, but also, I would like to think at a higher level type of polyamory when you have been practicing it for a long period of time, that if you do get into challenges with another partner, that if it comes up, you are able to talk about it with compassion and understanding, and that the other person involved also gets, okay, this might be a blip in the relationship. This might be a challenging thing that's occurring right at this moment. But it doesn't mean that, all of a sudden, I have to hate this guy or hate this person, you know?
Jase: It makes me think about other relationships we have and how much do we generally think it's okay to share details about our relationships with them, too? Yeah. I just, again, I always try to come up with What are similar relationships to just sort of get a reality check on myself of what's, what would I think is normal in those situations? And you bring up the thing with a friend who there's the situation where you only ever talk to your friend or your mom or whoever it is when something's going wrong in the relationship. And so their experience is only bad of this person.
Emily: Yeah.
Jase: Then there's also the thing of, maybe your friend does like this person, but the first time you say something bad, they just jump all over that. Bad thing. And they're like, oh, my gosh, yeah. Like, oh, you should get back at them. You should do the. And they give you terrible advice, right? Of very much Revenge based advice or maybe based on their own frustrations in their own dating life or things like that. And I think that for a lot of us, we have friends or family members in our life who give better or worse advice or who are better or worse at being supportive in certain areas. if you think about the non-monogamy piece, there's that as well. Right? That there are certain friends you talk to about it, that they're just always going to have a negative color on your relationships because it's non monogamous. And they just feel like, oh, that weirds me out. There must be something wrong there. I could see that being a little bit of a proxy for this assumption that if I talk to my partner about something going on with a different partner, their perception is going to be colored negative because their competition, because they're this other partner. That's that kind of that monogamy hangover. Right. And I think we all experience that early on. And I think that's why we give that advice to not have them be the person you come to. But I've experienced several times over the last few years with Dedeker and also with other relationships that lasted longer, where it's sometimes that person is the best person to come to because they have insights into you as a person who also dates you, who also is intimate with you, or who also has sex with you, or whatever the factors are, that in a weird way, they're uniquely qualified a little bit if you're able to have that conversation in a way that feels like they're there to support you, you're supporting them, and that you're not violating that other partner's privacy in a way that would be upsetting to them. And I think that's also another area where it's not so cut and dry. We want these really clear answers because they let us know what to do, and then also they let us know when to say someone else did something wrong. Because we have this clear line of, this is always okay, this is never okay. But I feel like that's a tricky one too, right? Some people are like, oh yeah, you talk to your mom about me or your friends about me, or you've talked about me on the podcast that you do, that they're like, yeah, yeah, that's totally fine. And other people be like, Whoa, do not ever do that about me. And I do think that that just varies a little bit by the relationship and by the situation and what you're talking about and how you do it. I don't think that's something we can make these hard and fast rules that we can just always follow and that's always right.
Dedeker: Well, yeah, but I mean, again, I think for the, to lean in the other direction of, no, maybe you should be turning towards a partner or multiple partners to talk about what's going on with other partners. If I'm going to make the case for that, I still think there's a lot of stuff that needs to be in place. There's a lot of conditions that need to be in place for that to be more likely to succeed. And again, thinking about you and me, Jase, I think that if you ever bring anything to me, first of all, it's like, yeah, you need to trust me. That I can try to be as objective as possible. Of course, I can't be 100% objective, right? But that I can put my own agenda to the side and listen to what you're struggling with. And if it's especially related to, Hey, I'm coming to you because you know me really well and I want advice around this particular thing. So it's like, I think you have to trust me that I can listen in that particular way. But then I also sort of have to not be too attached to the outcome. There, right? If I give you my opinions or give you my advice, I still have to understand that you are an individual at the end of the day, and you're still gonna make your own decisions. And so, I can't be super hung up on, oh, he came to me and asked me for advice, and I told him to do this, and then he didn't do it because that's toxic.
Jase: Yeah.
Dedeker: Yeah, I've gotta fix it, right? Because that's gonna plant yet another seed. I also think some of this comes down to, you have to know yourself and you have to know your partner, in a sense. So the example that I'll share is, I dated someone who, boy, even though he would have the best intention around maintaining privacy, right? Around what's going on in his other relationship, with very little prodding, he would just, what's the phrase? He sings like a canary. What's the phrase? When someone spills it all.
Jase: They spill the beans, yeah.
Emily: You sing like a canary.
Dedeker: Yeah. Just spill everything. With the tiniest prodding, not even me trying to be sneaky, not even me trying to be manipulative, not even, I could just the lightest follow-up question and then just, all the information would come out. And so I had to learn, I mean, it's hard because on the one hand, I'm definitely someone who thrives on information and also loves gossip. And so if I'm unchecked, I'm like, yes, give it to me. Give it all to me. I want to know all about the mess that's going on in your relationship. That part I need to keep.
Jase: Let me make some popcorn real quick.
Emily: Just have that thought.
Dedeker: Yeah. But I also have to know, okay, I need to be very careful with my follow-up questions, or I need to be very clear around what kind of support are you hoping for here, or what's your purpose in opening up to me and sharing this with me. But that also relies on me not letting my more nefarious gossip-seeking impulses to run the show.
Jase: That's a good point. Yeah, that's a good thing to be aware of. Yeah, I guess I just, it's hard when people want answers because everyone's answer is going to differ so much, right? And I think that one of the challenges that we see a lot with group threads like this is that someone may be coming in with a question about a particular situation, right? And we get this when we do question and answer episodes as well, right? Where they're coming in with some certain context and Some of it they've told us, some of it we've had to guess. And then what'll often happen is then somebody gives some kind of response to that based on that question, and then someone gives a response that's actually kind of based more on that response in general than it is about how it relates to the original content, or they just have a really different perception of it because of their own different lived experience.
Dedeker: So are you saying that Reddit might not be the best place for like really thoughtful nuanced conversations to take place?
Jase: It's almost like I'm saying that. Yes. Almost like that. No, I just think it's a really interesting phenomenon to watch and to think about how... I think the same thing happens when we have discussions in really large groups too, where it's easy to then comment on a comment that's then on a comment, and it kind of ends up in these really extreme places that then to the initial question asker, because the question is still kind of focused around them, but it's gotten really intense in certain ways that that can feel hard to take, right? That can feel personal or it can feel like, well, no one's helping me here. I came for help and now they're all just arguing with each other.
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Dedeker: Well, okay, but to bring it back to the individualism thing, do the two of you think that toxic individualism as a concept is something that we need to actively be aware of within our little corner of subculture? Or do you think this is all overblown?
Emily: I do think that it can be a way to sort of not have to deal with certain things, certain challenges that your partner may be having. And that's where when you are projecting this image or idea of hyper individualism onto another person, that's where I fear that it might be something that's not healthy. Or if you internally also are saying, I have to fix everything on my own and I am never going to go to anyone else for anything because I have to be the one to figure it out and I have to be the one to fix my own problems. But, you know, similarly, if you are saying if a partner comes to you with a challenge that they have been having and they, for instance, feel insecure about something, which is really easy to do in any relationship, and especially non-monogamy for a variety of reasons, and if they talk to you about their insecurities that they're having for whatever reason. And if you come back to them and say, listen, I understand what you're going through, or maybe I can empathize with it to a degree, but ultimately it's not my problem. And that's something that you need to figure out. Like that, to me, is an issue. While I don't disagree that a lot of times insecurities do stem from, I mean, so many different places, and many of them are internal, and many of them happen because of our youths or times in past relationships or our relationships with our parents or whatever it might be. And yes, sometimes that's internal work to do. I also don't think that it's incorrect to look at the state of the relationship and the way that you're feeling about something and question, hey, am I correct in this assumption that maybe I'm having this insecurity because of not being secure within the relationship for a particular reason? And it's those types of things that I think you can go to a partner about and say, I'm feeling uncomfortable here because of this, and that doesn't feel like something that I only should need to work on. So I do think on either end, in the extremes, yes, it is an issue. And like you said, Dedeker, many of us have this pull towards one or the other, and many of us have been in relationships where a partner may have a pull towards one or the other or is telling you, you need to be the one to fix this. I'm not going to go there, go to a therapist, go talk to somebody other than me, and then report back when you've got it fixed. And that's just not realistic or particularly kind in my opinion.
Jase: Gosh, yeah. I think to try to answer your question, Dedeker, do I think toxic individualism is a problem that we should be aware of or on the lookout for? I would say I don't love the term toxic individualism because I feel like putting toxic before something is really just packaging it up to use it against somebody else. But what I do think we want to keep an eye out for is when we can get too hung up on the dogma of individualism rather than actually looking at each person's individual circumstance and individual situation. Right? I would say in my ideal world, we've got a lot more people in our lives. So we have many more people in our lives that we can bring these kinds of conversations to. But I think in most people's real lives, they just don't have quite that big a community of people that understand them as an individual and that also can handle these sorts of conversations, right? I think that we don't have access to as much of that as we could, or as would be nice to have, so that then we can spread that load across multiple people. On the other hand, I do think we have this bad cultural precedent of putting all of our emotional baggage on our partners, especially if our partner happens to be a woman. Right? Then there's this cultural assumption that that's where all the emotional labor and all the processing and everything's going to go. So I think on both sides, we have a little bit of an issue there, right? Of saying you have to deal with everything yourself, I think, is a problem and I think can be really alienating to people who are early on in their non-monogamy journeys because they haven't had enough experience yet to understand what are the things that are on me to fix, what's on my partner to change, They're still figuring that out. I always make the analogy of thinking of yourself when you were maybe a teenager and very first started doing any kind of dating or flirting or any of that. It's like you didn't have a sense of perspective yet of, what do you accept in your life? What do you actually want in your life? What's not okay? And for some of us, it takes us until our 50s or 60s to finally figure that out. But I think when we go to non-monogamy, we're kind of having to start over a little bit on that because we have to to throw out a lot of these assumptions or a lot of these rules we had. And so we want to take a shortcut by getting new rules. And so I guess I would just say it's something worth being aware of in discussions where they feel like they're landing too hard on an answer to a question being like a universal truth rather than, I think in your situation, it seems like sharing with your partner is not a good idea here. Or like, I know if I were your partner, I would feel like you're putting a lot of of stuff on me that isn't mine to deal with. Maybe your partner's happy to do that, but like, I would just caution you about that. So I guess I just, what I want is more compassion and more willingness to be there and engage in the conversations, but I also know that takes way more work to do. And that's always the challenge we have. It's like everyone needs more support, but everyone doesn't have the bandwidth to give all the support that's needed out there. I know we fall into this problem. I fall into this with my friends, even much less the much larger community. So it is a challenge and I don't have good answers for it, But I do think something to be aware of, yeah.
Emily: Yeah, it's an abstract question because we don't have the nuance of the specific situation. But overall, I mean, what you said, Jase, I think is so true. And yes, it is an issue, but sometimes it's not. And sometimes it is understandable.
Dedeker: Can we just make that every single episode of Multiamory? Yes, it is an issue. And then sometimes it's also not an issue.
Jase: Thank you for joining us for this episode today.
Emily: But like I said before, we've all been in, I think, relationships where it has been an issue.
Jase: Yeah, exactly. I think there's some times where you do kind of need someone to smack you upside the head and be like, Stop it. Stop trying to fix all the problems for your metamour. Or stop going to your partner about this. This is not the person to go to. And then other times where, yeah, you are kind of trapped in alone and, you know, you want to reach out to that person and just be like, Stop trying to fix this all yourself. This is not a you problem. This is-- Other people are involved in this too. They need to be involved. I think both of those situations exist, but a lot of times there's somewhere in between.
Emily: Yeah.
Dedeker: I keep having a memory of a conversation that you and I had, Jase, early on in our relationship. I want to say, like, year two, maybe. Okay. Which was a fraught time in our relationship. It was a real grow-up or breakup phase of our relationship.
Emily: And... Look at you now.
Dedeker: I know. Look at us now, 500 episodes later. But I remember that at that time that there was a lot of tension between us around time spent together versus time spent apart, right? And as I am, you know, the cloth from which I am cut is that of the lady who dust enjoys spending a lot of time alone and tends to take things on her own two shoulders and feels like she's solely responsible for keeping the world running and definitely falls into this more hyper-individualistic camp. And I remember you said to me that, you had gone away and you had kind of reflected, or maybe you had sought some counsel with some close friends or something like that, that you came back to me and you said, you know, the more I think about it, the more I realize it's okay for me to not want to be alone. It's okay for me to not want to be just by myself. It's okay for me to want to be not just around you, but to spend time around people. That doesn't make me. Codependent or weak or something like that. Which, first of all, reflecting on it, I think it's so interesting that, especially as a man, for you to be the one to say that, because I do think that, my perception is that men get that message of rugged individualism even harder, and that if we perceive a man to struggle with being alone or to want to spend time with someone or want to be around our friends, I think we're more likely to judge him as being a little needy or weak or, or something like that.
Jase: Yeah, I think culturally there's that baggage there for sure.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Emily: Dedeker, I did the other day see on Instagram that the number one zodiac sign who doesn't need anyone else is Virgo. And I immediately thought of you. And it's funny because, you know, you also are-- the two of you are one of the healthier relationships that I know and that I have witnessed that I have gotten the privilege to witness for so long. And yet, I also understand that out of the two of you, you operate in such a way that you could be by yourself, I think, very comfortably. But I think that the two of you together are so unique and special and awesome. But I do think, Jase, the cancer that you are, you want to swim in a sea of a bunch of people, including in people feelings and tears and all of those things.
Dedeker: Well, it is so funny, actually, looking back on that in retrospect, because I think now, Jase, you are much more like, get everyone away from me.
Emily: No, everyone needs to be alone.
Jase: It's funny, no, I feel like I actually learned from you a little bit, Dedeker, how to enjoy being alone more or how to appreciate that. And I think also maybe just my own insecurities adjusting or changing or certain ones getting replaced with other ones, you know, however it goes. But yeah, I do feel like that's been an interesting one to see how much more comfortable I am with being alone than I was. Even before I met either of you, there was a time where, the one time I lived by myself for half a year was the worst time of my life. Like, so terrible and depressed and sad and upset and, not-- See, those.
Dedeker: Are always the best times of my life.
Emily: I was like, I'm living my best life right now.
Jase: Living alone.
Emily: Me and Henry.
Dedeker: Well, okay, but, okay, for me to try to put a button on this-- yeah, I think that I would express the same that I think from Jase, I've learned-- to not lean on my own shoulder so much and that I'm not actually the one keeping the world running, although sometimes I still secretly believe that I am.
Jase: Yeah, I don't think you've believed me yet when I've told you you're not.
Dedeker: I'm working on it. I'm working on it. But, you know, this is something where, of course, the more I reflect on it, I realize, yeah, we never evolved to be alone. We were never meant to be alone. Now, we can't just sit and cry about that and just spend all our days mourning that or pushing against that, right? I think that our wistful longing for a oh my God, if we could just go back to the land and just create our little commune and live off the grid, then everything would be great. And, and some people are successful at that. Some people are not. I think most people are not because our environment is just not set up for that anymore. So I'm very much a pragmatist in that regard where I think in the, as a 21st century human, we need to be adaptable in order to get our emotional and social needs met. And therefore that means we do need to learn how to be individuals because you know, unfortunately, fortunately, however you want to slice it, that's sort of how our environment is set up right now. In the context of a relationship, I'm like, yeah, I think you do need to learn how to regulate yourself, how to soothe yourself. I think you do need to learn that, not everything can be taken to your partner or partners. Right. I think you need to be adaptable and have those skills. And also because we were never meant to be this hyper individualistic and this atomized. You don't need to feel bad for the times when you do want to turn towards and lean in to your loved ones, your friends. That's not a bad thing.
Emily: See, it's exactly what I said. It's a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B. Yeah.
Dedeker: Just like everything.
Jase: Yeah.
Dedeker: We will never be able to reassure you with hard and fast answers. Sorry, listeners, if you're still with us. Someone will have clicked away already. If you're brand new to this podcast, sorry to disappoint you in advance.
Jase: I do want to wrap up with maybe a little bit of a call to action on this, to go back to this thing that what a lot of us want is more support in our lives, more people to really understand what we're going through. And right now we live in a time where it's really quite easy to get these kind of collective answers from the internet or to find these sound bites of maybe wisdom, you know, on people's Instagrams, on creators, podcasts or things like that, right? Because we're trying to put information out there. Everyone's trying to be helpful in their own special way, but ultimately those don't always apply to you, right? Like pieces of advice apply at certain times and maybe opposite advice applies better in other times, and that there's not someone there to do that for you. And so I guess what I'm saying is, in addition to being willing to reach out and connect with people about it, I would also say if you're in a community, I think our private Discord community is really good about this, but if someone has something they're dealing with, of offering, if you have the bandwidth and the time, to say, do you want to chat about that a little bit one-on-one? Or I'm available this afternoon if you want to jump in a voice chat or something to give that personal touch. And I feel like this shows up everywhere, not just in relationships. Anytime I'm dealing with an issue with a company and I can actually talk to a person in real time, things get solved much quicker. And I'm always like, oh, thank you, finally. But I feel like when it comes to this kind of really personal stuff, that's even more important. So just to throw that out there, if you're someone who has that bandwidth, if you're someone who has the energy to give, to offer it sometimes. And then on the other side, to realize that just because someone gives you advice doesn't mean they're right. And that sometimes the best advice was hearing their advice and learning for yourself. I actually don't want to do that. That's also helpful. Including us. Sure. That's also helpful. It's great to get just something outside of you. I think that getting to talk about it, getting to have someone reflect with you, that can be good, and you also don't have to take their advice.
Emily: A hundred percent.
Jase: Thank you to Dependent Individual for writing in with this question, with this great discussion prompt. I really appreciate it, and we look forward to talking with all of you about this more. First of all, we have our Question of the Week, which we're posting on our Instagram, which is, Is polyamory advice too individualistic? We would love to hear from all of you there. You can find us@multiamorypodcast on Instagram. Also, if you want to discuss this in much more depth, maybe even individually with some people, the best place to share your thoughts with other listeners is in the episode discussion channel in our Discord server, or you can post in our private Facebook. 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@multiamory_podcast.
Jase: Multiamory is created and produced by Dedeker Winston, Emily Matlack, 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