594 - Open Up Your Relationship in X Easy Steps

How many steps to open up a relationship?

In the spirit of the internet’s favorite genre of relationship advice, we’ve put together a classic multi-step guide based on information, advice, and tips from different therapists, journalists, coaches, forums, and of course, Reddit.

Some experts disagree about different tactics, but we managed to compile a possible list of steps to open up a relationship:

1. Get honest with yourself about your why before talking to your partner.

2. Have the “why” conversation before the “what” conversation.

3. Do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis: past conflicts, past hurts unrepaired, etc. Don’t be surprised if new stuff comes to the surface; that can be a good thing.

4. Talk through structure explicitly (solo dating versus together, hierarchy or no hierarchy, disclosure levels) rather than assuming shared understanding. Understand that it can keep changing.

5. Write down what you land on in a living reference doc, not a binding contract.

6. Start small with a deliberate check-in point, not just “see how it goes.”

7. Build a recurring check-in practice, and expect it to keep evolving.

What was the most important step you took when opening up your relationship?

Transcript

If you find any transcription errors, please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.

Emily: The 2-year rule for NRE decision-making. We actually say 1-year rule, but 2-year, that's even more great.

Dedeker: Okay, so as in wait 2 years?

Emily: Yes.

Dedeker: Wait until you've been in a relationship with somebody for 2 years before making any major life-changing decisions like moving across country, changing jobs.

Emily: Yeah.

Dedeker: Breaking up with somebody directly related to your feelings of NRE for somebody else? Correct. That's what this rule is. Love it. Two years? Sure. Let's make it five.

Jase: Yeah, why not? Welcome to the Multiamory Podcast. I'm Jase.

Emily: I'm Emily.

Dedeker: And I'm Dedeker.

Emily: 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: Forms I know I did, forcing me to form myself to fit. On this episode of the Multiamory podcast, we're talking about the internet's favorite genre of relationship advice: the 'X easy steps to open up your relationship' guide. We scoured the internet looking for tips from therapists, coaches, journalists, forums, magazines, and of course Reddit to take a survey of what everyone agrees on, what they disagree on, what everyone agrees is bad, and what we can take away from all of it. Today we're going to go through this wilderness of tips and try to figure out if we can make our own version of a guide to opening up your relationship in some number of steps.

Emily: I want the two of you to go back in time, many years ago now, to think back to when magazines were more of a thing where you would buy a magazine and sit down with it and look for something that would give you a how-to guide on this subject, how to open up your relationship. Is that something that the two of you ever did, maybe in actual magazine form or on Reddit or on a blog post on the internet?

Dedeker: Actually, yes, a real life magazine. And not just any magazine. I was briefly subscribed to American Girl magazine.

Emily: I love—

Dedeker: I was, but that's not how I learned about open relationships. Although, in this day and age, I wouldn't be surprised.

Emily: Yeah, maybe there you go.

Jase: Maybe there's a polyamorous American Girl now.

Emily: Well, maybe there will be.

Dedeker: Polly the American Girl. No, I was briefly subscribed to Filament magazine, which was a magazine, a little indie mag out of the UK that was pretty much the only women's porn magazine that existed in the UK at the time.

Emily: Wow.

Dedeker: Not only was it porn and it was great because it was all meant to be specifically tailored to the female gaze type of porn. But they also did interviews with video game designers and artists and stuff like that. And yes, I remember they did have an article that was about consensual nonmonogamy, and I think that was how I learned about The Ethical Slut. Wow, a thing. Yes, if I recall correctly. But back in my day, if you weren't subscribed to the only women's porn magazine in the UK, there were the two books, right? There was The Ethical Slut and there was Sex at Dawn. Those are my two starters. And then it was just dusty LiveJournal entries in dark corners of the internet.

Emily: Yeah. How about you, Jase? I'm interested because you were the one that kind of brought this to me at the time when we were together, when we were living together, and when we were opening up our relationship. And I guess I'm curious, did you look at anything beforehand? Did you have a plan to talk about it? I'm trying to remember this.

Jase: No, definitely did not have any sort of plan, or I didn't really know much about it.

Emily: I'm trying to think.

Jase: Yeah, I think my only touchpoint was more in the theoretical sense of, I know there are people who have open relationships. That's all I knew of at the time. It's like, I know that that exists in the world. Everyone kind of tells you it doesn't work. And so I didn't really have anything contrary to that. But for us at that time, it was sort of what we have now is fine. But we're happy, we like each other, but it wasn't working. And so it was kind of a little bit of a Hail Mary of, what about trying this? What if we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater and try something else?

Emily: Sure.

Jase: And so, no, I didn't really know anything going in. And I think it just happened that very early on in talking to people, we got recommended books like The Ethical Slut and Sex at Dawn to be those intro books. But it wasn't ever something that I came across in any content that I consumed. The closest thing would probably be when I was in middle school, I had a friend that had HBO at his aunt's house in the summers. We would have sleepovers and would watch the late night HBO, and the show Real Sex, which was their documentary show about sex, and it would explore all different sorts of things. I'm pretty sure there was some kind of nonmonogamy on there, probably more in the swingery or play party kinky sense of it rather than polyamory specifically. I don't remember anything with that word or anything that sounds like what I would think of as polyamory. But if anywhere, that would have been it. They weren't giving you a guide on it.

Emily: Yeah.

Dedeker: Do you know what's going to age me real quick is if I share with you that I bought my physical copy of The Ethical Slut at the Waldenbooks on Sunset and Vine in Hollywood before it was Borders.

Jase: Before it was Borders.

Dedeker: Before we eliminated all bookstores.

Jase: They don't exist anymore in the country.

Dedeker: Yes. Wow.

Emily: Wow. That's amazing. I— yeah, I remember, I think, did we get it off of Amazon or something, Jase? I don't know.

Jase: Probably. Actually, you know what? There was still that Borders in Hollywood at the time that was previously a Waldenbooks. We actually might have gone there.

Dedeker: At the very same— well, clearly they did carry copies of The Ethical Slut.

Jase: Clearly.

Dedeker: Yes.

Jase: Yes.

Emily: Honestly, this is something maybe just for us to recognize as we go through all of this is that to me, the greatest teacher about nonmonogamy was actually doing it and then being around people that sort of knew what they were doing and having that osmosis into what it was that we ended up using as best practices moving forward. So I do think that it was great that during those formative times for you and me, Jase, that we met somebody like Dedeker who had been doing it a little bit longer, and there were some better practices that came out of that. Of course, a lot of tumult too in those early days, even from you as well, Ded.

Jase: But we did quickly meet a lot of other people too. I think that's important.

Emily: Yeah.

Jase: Is that we had a community of people to talk to that weren't people we were dating.

Emily: Correct.

Jase: Like some of them were not people we were dating.

Emily: Yeah.

Jase: I think that's important.

Emily: It was both. It was some people that we were dating and some people that we weren't, but it was in the air in a way that made it feel very normalized. And that is not necessarily something that you can just manufacture. So I want everyone to keep that in mind just because even though we're gonna go through all of these different tricks and tips to understand that all of this is not absolute and that there is going to be things that work for some people and things that are not going to necessarily work for a different set of individuals. So just to keep all of that in mind, and sometimes community can be one of the best ways to learn as well. But as we go through this, let's kind of talk about the four main camps of advice that we pulled from. So they're gonna often use each other's language. They don't always agree. And then some of the advice that we found contradicts itself. So those camps include licensed therapists and consensually nonmonogamous coaches. We also have things from journalistic roundups, listicles. I feel like we saw a lot of those back in the day of like, here's all of the different ways that you can tell your boyfriend that you want to open up your relationship. There are community and lived experience writers. So personal essayists, I would say people that are sort of in our camp, they have lived experience. They have been doing this for a while. And so they're talking about their experience online. And then finally, we have academic researchers. So many of the people that we've spoken about on this show before, some of their research is going to be here as well. To start out with, let's talk about some of the really clear patterns and the things that basically everybody agrees on.

Dedeker: Yeah, I feel like before we dive into the recurring patterns that we see, I just want to acknowledge how, first of all, so interesting that you acknowledge the rise of the listicle in the 2010s. And where I don't think it was necessarily just that all this nonmonogamy advice came out of that particular cultural moment, but I do think that human beings crave a simplification of complex topics. So it makes perfect sense that that manifested as all these listicles. I think now it's the short-form content, so it's the same phenomenon of craving a simplification of a complex topic into something very short and digestible. When I get interviewed, especially by more normie outlets, people still want to ask the question, 'So what are the steps you would recommend that people take?' And I try my best to answer as wisely and succinctly as I can, but it's hard. Opening up a relationship or pursuing nonmonogamy is a pretty individual and subjective experience, and it is hard to map out 10 easy steps.

Emily: Very, absolutely. So as we go through the clear patterns, these are the things that basically everyone agrees on. Not all of them are tactics, but yes, we want to kind of frame them as more best practices. These are the things that most people agree on, the clear patterns that we've found as we kind of go through all of the information. I am interested to see if all of us agree on everything that we're about to talk about here. There is the potential that we will disagree with some of this, but I would say that looking at all of the information in front of us, these patterns come up over and over again. So they've been repeated by many different people and sources as well. All right. So the first thing is lead with why and not with what. So essentially what I got from this was you're leading with, I would like to become nonmonogamous because X, or I'm interested in opening up a relationship because I think it would add a lot of value to what it is that we're currently doing and exploring.

Jase: Yeah, this reminds me of the whole anchor conversation that we've talked about before.

Emily: Totally.

Jase: It can be challenging, especially when you're unlearning so much and doing something new that seems scary and all of that. And that if you don't have a clear reason why you're doing it, it can be hard to keep working through that, right? It can be hard to stay motivated to do the unlearning or do the understanding of what's going on. So I would, I'm definitely on board with this one of looking at the why in addition to the what. And maybe your why is just, this seems like a way to do relationships that makes more sense to me or aligns with my values. It doesn't have to be a why like, it's going to solve X problem that we have, or it's going to satisfy X urge that I have that's not being met. It doesn't have to be something like that. It could also just be, this feels like a way that makes logical sense to me. I want to try to actually do it in real life or something like that. Definitely.

Emily: The next one is don't act until you've had a full conversation. And what I gleaned from this is unfortunately sometimes what does happen when you get yourself into nonmonogamy is you end up maybe pining for someone for a really long time. Then perhaps you have a moment where you're making out with that person. You find yourself in a situation where you've effectively cheated on your partner, and then you come to your partner and say, I want to open up a relationship.

Jase: Right, it's not a, not a good foot to start on.

Emily: No, that's not particularly ethical. So I would definitely agree with this, that this is not the time to go out and act on your impulses or act on your wants and desires before actually having a talk with your partner.

Jase: I might even take this a step further to say it's not just that, because we've talked about that before, where it's like people do it, people do open up relationships from someone's already kind of gotten invested in someone else, or even started having affectionate or physical times with them, but it's not a good start. It tends to be less likely to work out than talking about it before you get to that point. But I think there's also that aspect of we talk about it, we say, hey, I want to open up our relationship, like, okay, I think I could do that, and then the next day you go out and find a date. That I think is also worth looking at. It's exciting, yes, but resist some of that urge to just rush and start doing it right away until you've spent time going back and forth communicating about what does this really mean? How do we want to do this? And realize you're going to make mistakes anyway, but the more you can just avoid immediately rushing into it.

Emily: Totally.

Jase: On the flip side, we've also seen people who talk about it forever and never actually do it. So if that's not a step in here, then that should be too.

Emily: For sure. The next one is to dip a toe in before diving in. And the way that this was described is going to maybe a Polyamorous Munch, or look at an app together, for instance, like Field or some other app that's nonmonogamy-friendly, or even going to a sex club together and seeing what that's like, what it is like maybe watching other people together and maybe even dipping your toe in getting intimate with someone together or separately.

Dedeker: I'm not sure how I feel about this one because I think this is one of the ones to see what you thought. Yeah. I think this is one of the ones that can make sense on paper and for some people can work out great. Again, I think it's a little bit of an oversimplification of a complex process, right? That I think that we'd like to believe, oh, we just kind of gradually make our way from the bunny hill to the harder and harder courses and it'll go smoothly and in this linear fashion and it'll be just great. And that does happen for some people and it really doesn't happen for other people. Right? This is a piece of advice where I think that when you don't know what it is that you want or what you're really interested in, and let's say you decide with your partner, oh, let's go to a sex party to dip our toes in the water and see. And maybe you're not the person who's gonna want the sex party scene, that's not your nonmonogamy. Maybe that'll give you some helpful data, like, oh, I don't really like this. But also you could get scared feeling like, oh, this is what nonmonogamy has to be, or this is what non-monogamous people are like, and this is not necessarily my scene. Now, that being said, I don't necessarily think that the opposite advice should be applied in all situations of just like, let her rip, you know, dive deep in. But I don't know, I guess I would want people to take a grain of salt with any of that kind of early baby step style exploration.

Jase: I think maybe there's an aspect of this that it depends on what kind of nonmonogamy you think you're interested in. And if you're treating it as let's kind of see what people are doing to see if this might be something we're into, then I could see value in that, right? Of going to some kind of play event or something. Most places are going to make you do some kind of introductory series anyway, which could be good for you, right? Could be good to get a sense of like without even going to one, is this the type of vibe I like? And then I'd say the same would be going to a polyamory event. That is not specifically a looking for partners kind of event, but more of a discussion or processing group type thing can also be a useful way to see, do these conversations I'm having with people, do they seem like something I would want to do to kind of get a variety of how people do it? So I could see some value there, but I agree that it's a little bit like make sure the baby step actually makes sense for what you're trying to figure out.

Emily: Well, to go along with that, the next one is go at the pace of the most hesitant partner. This is one that is talked about a lot.

Jase: Mm-hmm.

Emily: I don't think that it's necessarily wrong, but I do think that there are times in which this stalls out forever and then you never get to practice nonmonogamy in any capacity that actually is really doing it and really giving it a good college try. So that's the only part of this that makes me a little hesitant and makes me be like, well, is there some sort of compromise that we can take from this where it's not just always deciding like we have to be very, very slow in our approach?

Dedeker: Yeah, that one's so tough. This is where it starts to get into— this is so case by case and person by person because, yeah, I do think under ideal conditions, deciding or agreeing, okay, my partner is the more hesitant one and so I'm going to give them a lot of space to be the one to make the first steps, right? To be the first one to go meet someone on an app or go on a date, or the first one to go have sex with somebody else or things like that. I think under ideal conditions That's a wonderful idea. And we're not always under ideal conditions, even if both of you are maybe equally motivated to explore. But if you're waiting on the conditions to be right for them to match with somebody, before we can move things forward, then that could hold you back. But this is a situation where it's so hard. This is case by case, I think, to calibrate that. What's the right amount of push-pull of not going at a completely breakneck speed where you are doing the going fast and breaking things version of opening up your relationship, but also where you're not just overcommitting yourselves to making sure everything feels 110% safe and not risky at all, because that's probably never gonna arrive.

Jase: Yeah, I think it's also going at the pace of the slower person works if that person is at least going at a pace.

Emily: Sure.

Jase: Because sometimes what happens is the slower person's the one who's just not motivated, and so they're not moving forward, or they are just feeling like, oh well, I have to even though I don't really want to. And so then you might want to negotiate, like, is that because you're cool with doing this and you don't want to go on dates? Because that can work. They could decide, I don't want to go on dates for a while. You can go do that though. Again, so it's very case by case.

Emily: Yeah, for sure. I think the consent question always has to come into play with all of this. Are both parties consenting to a nonmonogamous relationship? And in case, what you were just speaking about, Jase, of someone realizing, I want my partner to get to explore other people. That's really important to them. Maybe for whatever reason, I can't sleep with multiple people or sleep with them even, and therefore I want my partner to get to experience other intimacy. And I'm okay with this, even though maybe I don't want to. Something that you brought up, Jase, when you were saying that, that our nonmonogamy at the time was kind of a Hail Mary. Was this idea that nonmonogamy won't fix a broken relationship. We got lucky because we stayed together for another 2 and a half years after that. But I do think that just like having a kid won't fix a broken relationship, nonmonogamy also will not fix a relationship that is sort of in the last gasp where it is going to maybe not work out. And so I do think that this is good advice. This is probably something that maybe to jumpstart and invigorate something that is maybe missing certain elements, that maybe that's a fun thing to try on and to explore. But if you feel like, wow, we are really having a terrible time here, let's try nonmonogamy to try to save it. I don't know that that's the best course of action.

Dedeker: Okay, I'm going to argue with this one. I wasn't intending to argue with all of these, but my contrarian nature is coming forth. I'm not arguing the opposite. I'm not going to argue that it will fix your broken relationship. What I will argue is, this is a very common piece of advice. Even people who are not experts, just people who are nonmonogamy-experienced themselves, whip this one out a lot because it's not wrong. However, what I've seen and lived through is it's very hard for people most of the time to actually see that they are in a broken relationship, or to see that the writing's on the wall and the relationship is not going to work. It's very hard for people to come to that conclusion.

Emily: Interesting.

Dedeker: Most of the people who need to hear that advice are not in a position to actually hear it. Sure, sure. The better piece of advice, if I were going to adjust it, isn't telling people 'nonmonogamy is not going to fix your broken relationship, so don't even think about it.' I would adjust it to: 'Nonmonogamy is going to highlight anything that is broken in your relationship, so be ready for that.'

Emily: That's good.

Dedeker: That it's unlikely to show up and be just a complete balm to absolutely everything. I think even if you're in a healthy relationship, that it's going to highlight the areas, it's going to stress test the areas that have been unrepaired, where your communication is not functioning very well, where your values may align or misalign between the two of you. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a thing to be prepared for.

Jase: I might say if the thing that's not working well is how you communicate with each other, that might be one where this just isn't going to work.

Dedeker: Sure.

Jase: I would argue maybe just that whole relationship is better to not do. If it's truly like we cannot figure out how to communicate in a healthy and respectful way with each other, this is definitely not going to fix it. So I would put that at least as one category of like that's a problem. We're gonna keep exploring our way through this forest of tips and advice, but we're gonna take a quick break to talk about our sponsors for this show. Thank you to them for supporting us, letting us put this content into the world every week for free. If you would like to support us more directly, get access to ad-free episodes, things like that, we have an amazing community that you can join at multiamory.com/join. And for as little as $5 a month, you can get into that community there and get those ad-free episodes and our video processing groups. It would be amazing to have you there.

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Emily: Moving on to more of these things that people generally agreed with and some of the patterns that we found is writing things down in a contract. 'Contract' kind of feels like a bad word to me, but essentially putting together a list of agreements. I'm going to say that because I think that that's the best frame of reference for this, not necessarily rules.

Dedeker: Oh, but I've seen people pitch it as a contract or I've seen coaches or therapists even be like, sell you or use as a lead magnet. They're like, here's your template for making your own open relationship contract or something like that. Yeah, very common.

Emily: Many people said was to essentially write things down as a living reference, not binding law. I do agree with that. This is probably something that's going to change multiple times throughout the course of one's relationship. Maybe even you will find eventually that you can throw the contract out the window. But I think that the point that they're trying to make and that maybe you were making as well, Dedeker, is that it's nice to have something in writing when you're starting out potentially, because that makes everything feel maybe a little bit less scary.

Dedeker: For some people can make it feel less scary. I think for some people where communication can sometimes be a little dodgy. And I think especially if you're early on that sometimes you can have a tendency to hear the things you want to hear.

Jase: That's what I was going to say. I think that's the value of writing it down.

Dedeker: Yeah. And so that is probably the value of writing it down. I've never had any existing contracts.

Emily: Me neither.

Jase: Me neither. Yeah.

Dedeker: I've written my own constitution and we did cover this in, if you go back and listen to episode 541 titled Make Agreements with Yourself, Not with Your Partner, that was sort of our thesis statement there is I think it's more valuable to write down for yourself what you want, the way you want to show up.

Emily: Well, and that's the thing, right? Is that's kind of our whole thing is that you make agreements with yourself, you make boundaries with yourself, and that that is really all that you can change or move the needle on is your own reaction to things, not necessarily your partner's reaction. So I do think that while we would like the scope of the relationship to look a very specific way and the two of us make agreements that these things change over time and shit happens.

Jase: Yeah, I would put this into a category of not a classic pattern or a primary thing to follow, but more a tool to reach for if you're having problems, like repeatedly having conversations where you come to an agreement, and then the next week someone does something that feels against it. And they say, 'No, we said this,' and you're like, 'But I thought we said this.' This could be a tool to write things down to force you to be more explicit. Because when we're talking about uncomfortable stuff, it's easy to be vague, hoping we're understood without having to say outright that 'I'll be having sex with somebody else' or something that feels uncomfortable. We can use euphemisms. Someone might say 'being intimate with someone' and they think that means having sex and you think it means cuddling, and then expectations are mismatched. I think this is a tool to reach for if you feel it would help with your communication. I think it can be very helpful, even though I've never done it myself.

Emily: Yeah. The next one is one that we love and talk about on the show all the time, and that's having frequent check-ins. So any sort of state of the union can help the relationship sort of see where it is that we are at at any particular moment in time. We tend to recommend monthly radars, monthly relationship check-ins.

Jase: I think when you're opening up, I'd say even more often.

Emily: I was about to say that, yes, that maybe even weekly you at least have a shorter version of How are we doing? What are we feeling? Do things need to shift or move in any particular direction? What do we like that we're doing? What do we not like, etc.? So just having frequent check-ins, I think, especially during this stage, is really, really important.

Jase: Yeah, it lets things change without it feeling like anyone's getting blindsided by it because you're talking about it regularly and it kind of sets up this expectation that we're exploring this and checking in and figuring this out as we go rather than we've decided and now That's locked in, done, good to go, right?

Emily: And we would be remiss to not talk about the low-hanging fruit of jealousy, which is always going to be there, especially at the very beginning of relationships that are opening up. But it is to be expected. The goal, I think, when you're approaching jealous feelings or discussing jealousy with your partner is not elimination, but rather just responding to it, getting curious, asking questions, seeing why it is bringing this specific emotion within you? What is it that you have to learn from it and can take away from it? There's so many things to talk about when it comes to jealousy. You can look at many, many of our past episodes on that. All right. Now we are going to get into some tactics and tools where the experts and all of the different people out there on the internet disagree.

Jase: So now I like that the ones where everyone agrees, Dedecker still managed to disagree with most of them. And all of us have some objections.

Dedeker: Yeah.

Emily: That's very true, actually.

Dedeker: So I think that if you like listening to me on a podcast, imagine what it's like to be in relationship with—

Emily: oh boy, she has thoughts, ladies and gentlemen. She has thoughts. Yes. So again, this is where we're going to continue to debate, and you know, for you all out there, maybe think about whether or not this is a thing that's okay in your relationship. Generally, I think most of these we're not going to be okay with, but there are some people out there who cite these things as specific ways in which to open up a relationship and that these things are legitimate and they're great to do and you all should do them out there.

Jase: So bring it on. Bring it on.

Emily: All right. The first one is Don't Ask Don't Tell. And some people are totally in favor of this. Some people frame it— okay, specifically someone that we have had on this show and that we really love this person's work. They framed Don't Ask Don't Tell as a legitimate way to manage a partner's emotional bandwidth. So I think that when it comes to Don't Ask Don't Tell, if the two of you really just don't want to ever hear about what the heck is going on in each other's relationships, like it's an out of sight out of mind thing, maybe for a time that can work. But I don't think that this is a long-term solution to the maybe internal problems that one might have with nonmonogamy?

Dedeker: Well, again, Don't Ask Don't Tell falls on a spectrum, as we've seen.

Emily: Yes.

Dedeker: And I think that the extreme end of it, where it is just this blanket statement and it really is essentially the equivalent of, cheat on me and just don't tell me, and I'm just gonna pretend that that's not happening, that that's very clearly dysfunctional. But then sometimes the stuff that gets included under the umbrella of Don't Ask Don't Tell are varying degrees of just how much specific information are you going to share with me about what happens in your other relationships. And as you go along that spectrum, I think there's healthy versions of that and unhealthy versions of that, right? Like, I think the comparison I often make is something like how you maybe don't want to hear the graphic sexual details of your parents having sex. And that doesn't mean that you don't want your parents to have sex, it's just that you're like, I don't want to hear about it.

Jase: Sure.

Dedeker: And yeah, it's weird and uncomfortable to me. And I'm like, that's okay. And I think it's kind of the same with partnership too, that you can kind of sort out there are certain specific details that just squick me out or make me uncomfortable, or maybe give my brain food to just cook up into a horrible nightmare meal. If you know that about yourself, then you can be very specific about, hey, I don't need to know about XYZ.

Jase: Yeah, I would agree that it's important to not overshare too, and not assume that just because you want to hear things means your partner does. Right? That maybe you do want to hear all the juicy details of their sexual exploits, and that's hot to you. It doesn't mean that it is for them. Yeah, maybe it's not for you. But I do think there's a certain amount of calibrating how much detail you want. But I've just never seen a real, "Hide this from me completely" that works. And I just think it leads to so many more problems than the view that it's trying to solve. It's more just like, maybe you shouldn't be doing this then, if it really is truly hide this from me as if you're cheating kind of levels. And we've seen that, we've seen people do it for a while, but I've never seen it work out. And maybe someone out there has, but it's just— I just see it cause a lot of problems.

Emily: Another one was reading a partner's texts or messages with a Metamour, quote, for transparency. So this comes up as something that couples actually do I think that this is a violation of privacy generally. This would be really hard for me to say, yeah, okay, go nuts. Especially at the beginning of the relationship when you're really worried about everything. I think that it's good to establish that there are some things in relationship that should be private and that that is okay. And that we as humans are entitled to privacy and that sometimes that's going to exist with other people. And I personally struggle with this. I think that it's hard sometimes to know that your partner may be having feelings for somebody else, and yet at the same time they are entitled to that. And so I think this is a tough one for a lot of people because there's a lot of advice out there also in monogamous relationships that people should be allowed to do this. And I just— it really doesn't fly with me. It does not sit well with me.

Dedeker: Yes, totally agree with everything you said. And here's where I'm going to sprinkle in a little more controversy. I'm curious about how you feel in general about things like a partner being able to access your phone if they needed to for logistical reasons or having access to passwords for accounts or—

Emily: My partner has my password. He has always asked whenever he has my phone. We were driving recently and I was trying to get back to the two of you and I was like, hey, can you write Jase and Dedeker on my behalf, for instance? So he has my password. He did it. And there, that was that. But there's a lot of trust in place in that relationship. And I think that that's another nuance that you have to look at here, because if there's not trust in the relationship, I think adding this to the equation does not breed trust.

Dedeker: Right.

Jase: You're not fixing the problem by doing this.

Emily: Exactly. Right. That's interesting.

Dedeker: That makes sense. That makes sense.

Jase: Yeah. I was going to say that to me, it's actually less about the privacy piece and more about the trust piece.

Emily: Sure.

Jase: Because I can imagine, you bring up the privacy thing and someone says, oh, well, I tell any new person that I date that this is what our relationship dynamic is. So by texting me, they are inherently consenting to this, right? Like walking into a concert where they say we're filming this concert. By being here, you're consenting to be on the film. I'm like, sure. Sure, you could cover your bases legally, consensually, privacy, whatever like that. And maybe the partner doesn't care. But to me, it's about trust. Kind of like you were getting at, Emily. It's like you're not building trust by opening up the gateway to not trust.

Emily: Well, it's like an excuse to find something that makes you say, aha, I don't trust you because of this. And look at the thing that you did. Maybe not always, but I think that it can kind of worm its way into becoming that.

Jase: And I just think it's a bit of a weird thing too, in that humans haven't really ever had this option before of, my whole conversation history with this person is observable.

Dedeker: Well, maybe at a time when you're exchanging letters.

Jase: Perhaps, yeah.

Emily: Sure.

Jase: You can break into their little stash of letters. Sure.

Dedeker: You need to find the 1850s listicle that's like, "What to do when your paramour has found your secret stash of love letters." There you go. Yeah. I'm sure it happened.

Emily: Yeah.

Jase: I'm sure. I'm sure it happened. But just the wealth of data and how much we have recorded in our phones, I just think is very different.

Emily: Yeah.

Jase: I just kind of think it's more like if this is the thing you think you need to do, there's much bigger problems to solve here and that this is not the way to solve it.

Emily: For sure.

Jase: That's, that's where I would come down on that particular one.

Emily: The next one is the 2-year rule for NRE decision-making. We actually say 1-year rule, but 2-year, I mean, that's even more great. I'm all for it. Even better.

Dedeker: Okay, so as in wait 2 years.

Emily: Yes.

Jase: Before what?

Dedeker: Wait until you've been in a relationship with somebody for 2 years before making any major life-changing decisions like moving across country, changing jobs.

Emily: Yeah.

Dedeker: Breaking up with somebody directly related to your feelings of NRE for somebody else? Correct. That's what this rule is.

Emily: Love it.

Dedeker: Two years? Sure. Let's make it five.

Jase: Yeah, why not?

Emily: I mean, it's funny, right? Because I just hit 2 years with my current partner and, while I'm the second longest relationship of his life, he's not even close to the first longest relationship of mine. So I'm like, 2 years is nothing, you know? So yeah, I agree. I really do.

Dedeker: You're like, dude, you can wait another 12 years. Come on. Before you move in together.

Emily: Yeah. No, I just, be careful is all that we're saying. And it's a good thing to recognize if one partner is in super NRE with somebody that is not the partner that they opened up with to just, as Dedeker says, keep your head in the clouds, put your feet on the ground. Love that.

Dedeker: And also, urgency is not your friend. The one that I find myself whipping out on clients a lot is, literally, NRE chemicals put your nervous system into the state of activation. Yes, that is survival activation that makes everything feel freaking urgent. And that can be beautiful and wonderful and passionate and romantic, and that's all great. And also, truly, urgency is not your friend unless you're trapped in a burning building. That's pretty much the only time that urgency is actually going to help you. And so it's okay. It's okay to cool it. You don't gotta move in right away.

Emily: Yeah.

Jase: Yeah. The version of that that I've often whipped out on people is if someone's really caught up in, oh, but this just feels so right, they're the one, this is cosmic, however they're saying it, it's kind of this, that might be true. And if it is, it's still gonna be true in a year. That if you really are meant to be, then that meant to be, if you believe that way, that there is sort of a meant to be, that that can happen, then that's gonna keep being true over time. You don't need to rush to lock something in in order to guarantee fate. That you can't have it both ways, I guess is what I'm saying.

Emily: The next one is the geographic or the mile radius restrictions on partners. So this is almost like having a hall pass. If, for instance, you're out on a work trip that's over 100 miles away, you can go nuts. If a partner is not anywhere near where you are, then have fun. Enjoy yourself.

Jase: I think the controversial thing I have to add to this one is just that I think for certain types of relationships, for certain types of nonmonogamy, I'm like, yeah, sure, go for it.

Dedeker: Interesting.

Jase: I don't see this one as a specific contributor to problems like some of the other ones I've had an issue with.

Dedeker: But don't you— okay, but don't you think— because the thing I've always assumed with the 100-mile rule is that it has to be handholding with Don't Ask Don't Tell for most people. That's my assumption, is that it's like, okay, sure, go to your conference in Vegas, keep it in Vegas, I don't want to know what you did, just have fun, whatever, and I hope you get tested or something.

Jase: I was not assuming those two things go together.

Dedeker: Okay, interesting.

Jase: I was thinking it'd still be like, oh yeah, I had this hookup at my conference or whatever. If you have this open relationship where it's like, yeah, we can hook up with people but we're not really pursuing ongoing relationships. That, that's kind of the category this falls into for me. And I've known people who, even if they do have longer-term relationships, that there's also kind of this sense of like, someone I'm going to date who's local and I'm going to see more often, there's a little more of a vetting process or checking in beforehand versus I'm on a trip, there's a fun hookup that can happen. Cool. That's fine. I guess I can see room for having some different standards in different situations like that. That said, with all of this, you can't make a rule and expect it to last forever, or you can't have an arrangement and expect it to last forever, right? Things could change. You might go, hey, this person I met at this conference, they're moving into town and I do really like them. Yeah, there's a new set of conversations and hopefully that's fine. I hope this isn't— we're doing this because this is the only way I can tolerate the thought of doing this.

Dedeker: Sure.

Jase: Then maybe not. Maybe that's not a good solution, but I don't think it's the 100-mile rule that's the problem. It's more like the motivation behind it, if that makes sense.

Dedeker: That's why you got to start with your why, as everybody says.

Emily: Love that.

Jase: So true.

Emily: This next one I definitely have done before, and I think that I'm on the side of doing it, but maybe not for the reason that people cited, which is to meet the Metamour immediately as an anxiety reducer. So, yeah, of course, this idea that your imagination is maybe gonna invent someone that's scarier or more perfect than the real person out there, and so it's good to meet that person so that it humanizes them so that the two of you can get on the same page or at least understand and acknowledge, okay, here we are, we're human, we both care about this person. And I do think that if it's done just simply because you want to reduce anxiety, internally and maybe externally for that person as well. I'm not sure that that's necessarily the best reason to immediately meet a Metamour. Maybe you gotta come up with a better reasoning than just that.

Dedeker: Just have a better reason. Well, I will say, yes, I've done this in the past. It has been helpful. I agree. Humanizing people, I think, especially in a low-stakes context, or even early on, like before a meta becomes super important or super entangled in your partner's life, sometimes that's even the best, right? Of like, I've really gotten to know this person under more neutral conditions, and that can help a lot. Where I do see this backfire for people is misplacing a relationship issue onto a Metamour to fix. Now, what I mean by that is either, let's say I really want to meet my Metamour because I feel super insecure in my relationship, and I just think, oh, if I can work it out with the Metamour and really get confirmation from them that they don't want to steal my partner and that they don't want to be mean to me, that that's going to make me feel better. Or I've been through this too, of I really want to meet my Metamour because I feel like my partner is not doing a good enough job presenting me as a full human being, right? Or making me visible. And so I feel like I need to shove myself into my Metamour's field of view so that they know that I'm here and I'm present and important. Yeah, that can muddy the waters.

Jase: I do find, especially if my partner is dating someone who is new to nonmonogamy themself, there is something to me about meeting that person, even if it's just saying hi, just kind of like, oh hey, good to meet you, see you, you know, we were just hanging out, now you're gonna hang out, or something like that, to kind of, I guess, in a way, prove that they get it and that they're not just doing the whole hear what you want to hear thing and assuming, like, sure, I'm not a real relationship, or that I'm whatever. Like, I guess I wouldn't put that as a rule for my own sake, but sometimes I do feel like, yeah, if I think this person's a newbie, I want to meet them earlier just to make sure they get that this is a real thing and that I'm real.

Emily: I've done that as well. Yeah, I've wanted to do that as well, for sure.

Jase: I don't know if I'd put it as an opening up, like, tip or best practice, but more like, if you want to, I think it's okay to ask for it too.

Dedeker: Yeah.

Jase: We're going to take one more quick break to talk about our sponsors before we go on to our conclusions of what we think that our steps could be for this. We really appreciate our sponsors for letting us do this for free every week and helping us afford to keep the lights on and pay our assistants and all of that. So thank you so much to them. Please use the promo codes that we mention or that are in our show notes. And then of course you can join directly. We have a sliding scale to make it affordable for everyone. You can contribute as much as you want or as little as $5 a month and get access to our ad-free episodes that come out a day early, as well as access to our community where we have discussion threads for every episode and our monthly video processing groups. It's a really cool group to be part of, and we would love to have you join us.

Dedeker: Support for Multiamory comes from VB Health. So shopping for supplements can suck. I think we all know this, that if you've ever browsed a supplement aisle, whether that's online or in a store, it can feel like navigating a minefield. There's so many options, there's all these big promises, there's these huge marketing budgets, you have no idea what the ingredients are, and of course you have that question If I take this one, is it actually going to be safe and effective, or am I just wasting my money? But our sponsor for today, VB Health, is going to help with that.

Emily: VB Health is a physician-owned, woman-owned company based in Denver that creates doctor-formulated supplements for daily health and sexual wellness with a focus on creating formulas that actually work. They offer supplements for a variety of aspects of sexual health, including libido support for all genders, vaginal health probiotics, and male fertility and sexual function support. Also, they have other stuff like Energy Boost, which is a reformulated pre-workout aimed at both endurance and strength athletes, and I love it. I know Dedeker takes it too. Whenever I go to the gym, I use it, and it just helps me boost energy, boost mood, focus, and then it doesn't have the typical side effects of additional caffeine.

Dedeker: VB Health has a simple mission: to create supplements that actually work. If you're curious about adding research-backed sexual health supplements to your routine, go to vb.health and use code MULTIAMORY for 10% off your order. That's VB health with code MULTIAMORY, or just click the link in our show notes.

Jase: This episode is sponsored by Dipsea. It's pretty unanimous that sleep experts agree looking at your phone or another bright screen before falling asleep is really bad for your sleep, is not helpful. But I find that often I want something to help me unwind and occupy my brain for a little bit, and I found that instead of doing something looking at a screen or even looking at my bright Kindle, is listening to a story, listening to an audiobook or a story, something like that. And our sponsor Dipsea is an amazing place to do that. They have an app that's full of short, spicy audio stories. Just put your headphones in, put your phone down face down so the screen's not shining at you, and it feels like a more positive way to end my night. And I always find that I drift off to sleep much easier that way.

Dedeker: I'm super excited that we're sponsored by Dipsea again. I'm a huge fan of this app. They have a library of over 1,000 stories. They're written by professional writers. They're produced with a full voice cast and professional sound design so that you're totally immersed in the story. And whatever you're into, they have something for you, I can promise you that. You can filter it by trope, by spiciness level. They have queer stories, they have poly stories, they have romantic stories, they have mythological stories. Seriously, everything that you could possibly want, they have it. It's a safe space to explore your desires. And also, again, if you just need a healthy way to unwind, they have sleep stories as well.

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Emily: All right, we have put our heads together and from all of the stuff that we just read, from all of the research that we did into this episode—

Jase: All the disagreements we had.

Emily: We decided that if somebody were to ask us what steps to take to open up a relationship, we came up with these seven. We're going to go through them and hopefully some will help you. Of course, yours might be very different, but these are the steps the three of us would take if we had to do it all over again. The first one is to get honest with yourself about your 'why' before talking to your partner, especially if you are the one initiating. Maybe write it down, figure out your anchor. This is the reason why opening up a relationship would be a great thing to do.

Jase: And then two is to actually come together with your partner and still start with that why. So obviously getting into the conversation might actually be several conversations of first bringing it to them saying, hey, I'm thinking about this thing and here's why. Maybe they'll need time to process that. This might honestly be several conversations, but to hopefully get it around to the point where if they're willing to go on this journey with you to focus on that why before you get into all the details of the what is it going to look like? You might have to talk about that a little, but focus on the why this matters, what you want to get from this, what's important to you about this, and hopefully find those for each of you.

Dedeker: So if I was going to add a step, and if it's related to the whole, yeah, nonmonogamy is not going to fix your broken relationship, I think an important step is to maybe take an inventory of what are the parts of your relationship that you think are— maybe I'd classify as weaknesses. So that could be things like past conflicts or past hurts that are still unrepaired? Is there any kind of recurring argument or recurring communication pattern that doesn't feel very good? Just to know that those things will probably be triggered by putting it under the stress of opening up a relationship, and also to not be surprised if new stuff comes to the surface. That may not necessarily be a bad thing, that can be a good thing, but just be prepared for that.

Emily: The next one is to be explicit. So talk through the structure of what it is that you want this relationship to look rather than assuming shared understanding. So it can definitely keep changing, but right when you are beginning to open up your relationship, talk about how you want that to look. So are you going to have explicit hierarchy in your relationship? What sort of disclosure levels do each of you want? Are you going to date solo or together or any other number of things? What is this going to look like for the two of you?

Jase: Yeah, I think that that makes sense. I think with the hierarchy piece, that can be a dirty word, but I think it's worth exploring, like, what kind of built-in hierarchy might we already have?

Emily: Yeah.

Jase: Even just being clear on what is that going to look like, because we've known each other longer, or we live together, or whatever, right? Whatever sort of level of entwinement you have. So then going on from that, we ended up deciding, surprising everyone including me, to keep this step 5, which is to write down your discussions, to write down some of the things that you're figuring out, not as a contract, not as a set of rules. Don't try to write out rules. Don't try to write out, if this happens, then we do this, if that, then this. Because what we used to talk about a lot on this show is just you can't come up with all the possibilities. There's just too many. And it's more important to focus on the why and how do we take care of each other and what is it that we want our relationship to be like. But to write these things down, get a little bit clear on what kind of communication do you want to try, because you don't know yet either. But having it written down will just help with that communication, help it to make sense. And with this, I would say the Relationship Anarchy smorgasbord is also really helpful because sometimes it can be like, oh well, I'm okay with you like dating people but not hooking up with people. It's like, well, what does that distinction really mean at the beginning of a relationship, right? Like, what's the difference between I'm dating and it didn't work out and I just had a hookup? Things like that. Whereas if you go to The Relationship Anarchy Smorgasbord, you can kind of spell out more specifically, hey, these sorts of things are going to be part of what we'll do, or these ones I'm not so sure about, these whatever, to kind of give you again something in writing, but also to kind of get it out of just what's jumbling around in your head and onto a screen, I guess.

Dedeker: Okay, and our final two steps is to decide a deliberate check-in point at the very beginning. This is something I really wish that I had done when I was first opening up a relationship, is deciding whether it's time-bound of like, okay, let's try X agreements or X conditions for a month and then check in, or this week and then check in, rather than I kind of was just like, okay, I guess we're doing this now, let's just see how it goes. So I do think it's good to like start out with a container at the very beginning And then if that container works for you, then the next step, you can keep that going. You can build in a recurring check-in practice with your partner and just expect that things will keep evolving.

Emily: All right, so 7 is the number. You can open up your relationship in 7 easy steps.

Dedeker: We just decided, science says, science says, yeah, only 7 steps.

Emily: There you go.

Dedeker: Anyone can do it.

Emily: Anyone can do it. Wow. Well, we hope that you enjoyed going down that rabbit hole of opening up your relationship in X Easy Steps. X Easy Steps. And we have a question for you that's going to be on our Instagram this week. What was the single most important step you took when opening up your relationship? The best place to share your thoughts with other listeners is in the episode discussion channel in our Discord server, or you can post on our private Facebook 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 @Multiamory_podcast. Multiamory is created and produced by Jace Lindgren, Dedeker Winston, and me, Emily Matlack. Our production assistant is 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.