Inside a Polyamorous Relationship Part 2
Transcript
Speaker 1
Make love not war has joined patrion. What's Patrion us? It's an amazing website where fans like you can directly support artists like an Italian prince would do during the renaissance era for artists such as Leonardo de Vinci or Michelangelo. You don't have to donate a bag of gold and silver like a patron prints to be awesome. Simply go to www.patrion.com/make love, not war and click become a patron. It takes about three minutes and is very easy. If you feel like a wealthy Italian prince out donating a few bucks, well then you go ahead and own that feeling. Welcome to part two of our two part series titled inside a polyamorous relationship and part one. Alicia and Shane told us how they met in the process they took to open their relationship up to other people. In this episode, they will give us a look to the swinger lifestyle.
Speaker 2
Okay.
Speaker 3
In the swingers world, for the most part, you know the women are kind of in charge.
Speaker 1
What it's like when your partner goes on a date with someone else.
Speaker 2
The first time that your significant other goes out into the date is a weird thing.
Speaker 3
I like it when she's meeting New People and showed going a day and she'll come back, well, how was your day? And I'll, I'll say, what'd you guys talk about it? It's not like give me a word for word breakdown, but she'll tell me the things that were interesting to her and sometimes it's something I'll learn something new about her,
Speaker 1
how polyamory can help a couple communicate,
Speaker 3
but over all our communication is so much better. We have learned a lot in opening our relationship because you have to
Speaker 1
and how they juggle their time with their partners outside of their marriage.
Speaker 3
You know, after telling you communication and honesty, the next thing a poly person would be like, oh, but the scheduling,
Speaker 1
it's time for part two. Hi and welcome to make more love not war. This is Tara Harrison, a licensed professional counselor and relationship expert. This is her husband, Jeff Harrison. Have no qualifications whatsoever. Just a normal dude. Okay. Jeff, why don't you get us started. Do you ever take your boyfriends or girlfriends to the family, thanksgivings and things like that. I mean, they came to our daughter's wedding and helped, helped a lot. And um, my
Speaker 3
boyfriend actually came to Christmas Eve with my family, but there was like this whole big thing and people were sick and he ended up leaving. Um, so he kinda thought he was the only person in like all of our family who doesn't know anything as my dad. So he was a little nervous about like beer on my dad and then my dad was sick and wasn't there any way. But um, yeah, so her, um, my family is a,
Speaker 4
I'm an hour away, which isn't terribly far, but they're not around for a lot of the social stuff. Um, her brothers met several people. It, it's usually the people that are around for more than a year or two. Um, the people you date for six months that just kind of doesn't work out. They've missed these things. Um, but yeah, it's, our family's been very accepting of others and not terribly judgmental. When you meet somebody for the first time, has there ever been, do they all know that this is a poly situation or is there ever been time that they, they didn't know, they weren't, they didn't know they were getting into a relationship with somebody who has already with somebody.
Speaker 3
Oh No, no. That is upfront. Yeah. That comes back to the honesty and communication. The people that we have been in relationships with, like recently, you know, we met through that lifestyle. Um, you know, if,
Speaker 4
can you describe what that means when you say that? Is that a, is that a website type thing? Is that what I was saying about the poly a groups where they have a family dinner or there's.
Speaker 3
Right. So the person I was dating we had originally met like at a, at a poly dinner, and that they just have monthly. It's posted. You can come, you know, whatever. Um, and so if you go to poly dinner, yeah. You know what the situation is, right?
Speaker 4
Does that mean they're in a relationship? No, not necessarily. You can be poly and not being in a relationship. Um, so somebody may go to this kind of thing being completely single.
Speaker 3
Yeah, lucky, right? But they're going to understand, but they're going to understand that high. This is my husband. They'll be like, okay, cool. And it won't be a shock, but then, you know, if we're on a dating site, if you're poly, typically you put on there, I'm in a polyamorous relationship or I'm married and poly or I mean, you, you put it out there right away. And typically, um, you know, if you start talking to someone, like if I was going to start talking to someone new, I would say, okay. So does your wife know that you're poly? Oh yeah. Yeah. She knows. Okay, when can I meet her? So I had an issue with that. Oh
Speaker 4
Gosh, if I ever had an issue with that,
Speaker 3
I can't remember. I don't think so. If we did, it was a long time now traditional between swinger to polly and we've had friends who have that. You can just tell that the person is cheating, whether it's a male or a female, you know, those red flags start going off and
Speaker 4
right. It's Paul, we have a fairly new term. I mean, is this something that has caught, it feels like it's just caught on recently, is that more people are talking about it? Um,
Speaker 3
I mean, I think it's like anything, I think it's like Adhd or autism or not that I'm saying that they're the same type of thing, but you know, there's things that are so many people. All of a sudden they're like, oh, hey, have you heard this thing? Um, I don't really know when the word came about. You read more stuff than I do. It's been around for a while, but it's definitely something that more people are talking about or admitting to or.
Speaker 4
Yeah. And I don't know, this is complete speculation and I probably am going way out on a limb, but um, you know, with, with gay marriage being legalized, gay relationships are, you know, less. I'm weird. I don't know the right term. Yeah. Um, because it's, it's more of a normal thing. It's like, oh look, you know, there's a same sex couple who cares, and so we're the next, you know, we're one of the next things in line of alternative lifestyle because you, I heard in some of the poly circles when gay marriage was legalized, they're like, okay, great, we're gonna do next is we're going to be able to marry more than one person. Like, yeah, I don't think that's coming up. That's a lot more complex than just two people getting married because. So, so it may, it may be that it's the next sort of out there fringe relationship model that people are starting to talk about because I'm being, you know, two men being married is becoming more normal. That's just my uneducated opinion. When did you first hear the term? I, I guess I heard it and when I was talking to, I'm that friend of ours and so I started looking it up and going, Oh wow, this is a thing. And it's like, wow,
Speaker 3
eight or so years ago I guess for us, um, because I had a friend that I had met like through the swinging world, um, and we were just friends. We would go to Karaoke together. So I met his group of friends, um, and he was polyamorous, he was married but he had this girlfriend. So I kinda got an up close.
Speaker 4
Oh. And they all know and
Speaker 3
it along and hang out together. And that's kind of, I really liked that. Um, but I guess that was pretty much the same time a friend of ours told me about it. That all kind of, it was interesting. They all kind of came about at the same time. So can you help with what you guys consider the terminology of, you know, definition to you, you mentioned poly, what you see it to be. How do you define swinger and what would you just. Maybe this isn't even a term, but what I think of free love from the sixties is that, is that in that is that something was going to do this, you want me to do this to me? Swinger is much more casual, but even, I guess a step below casual because you know that you have friends with benefits so you still have a friendship with a relationship with.
Speaker 3
It's just maybe you're not dating, but you know, you, I've had friends with benefits, you know, partners who I text or we go out to eat or whatever have a physical relationship. But I, I don't consider myself their girlfriend. I don't consider them to be my boyfriend. Swinger. You Hook Up, you have sex, you know how um, I guess that would kind of be like the free love of the sixties. Although we don't maintain a connection though, right? Is it kind of like we're the most like a booty call? Yes. So I mean, you know, and that's the thing, it's going to look different for every person. Um, you know, there's, there's a friend of mine who is kind of in a swinger's group and um, and it's funny because to me they're swingers. They don't date each other, but they talk all the time and they text each other. They have a group message going on, they go out to eat or you know, so to me that's, that's like swinger with a of poly know. I mean, I, I guess I would say straight swinger would just be like, you go, you hook up, you go to a club, you hook up, but you don't have that relationship.
Speaker 3
Really the most basic version for me is swinging is just physical. It's a, there are some swingers. They won't, don't want you to kiss. It's just sex that's very, it's not very often but, but it's, it's just real casual physical. Only now you may go to the club and hook up with the same person multiple times. Um, and you may be friends with them and, and do other things outside of that, but they, they seem to be really reluctant to allow an emotional connection to develop. Whereas Pali is more about emotional. You can have, um, it's like any relationship, you can have somebody you're dating and be very emotionally tight and not have much
Speaker 4
of a physical relationship, you know, where you're only getting together physically, you know, occasionally, but you're talking every day. Um, so it's much more of an emotional connection. It's a relationship and not so much a like is that a booty call? That's in a nutshell. Yeah. But like everything else, there's a spectrum and there's a wide variety of swingers styles. There's a wide variety of poly styles. We know people that um, you know, the husband's not poly and the wife is, and he's only poly in the sense that he's okay with it, but he doesn't date anyone else and she does. Um, so it was a, it was a big variety. It's a very wide spectrum of, of relationship styles. When you talk about a swinger clubs, are we talking about like a nightclub or is this like you go to somebody like house or is this like, what does that actually mean? They're similar but different clubs. So there, it's a business establishment.
Speaker 4
Yeah, it's a, it's a private club. They don't like to call it a business because I think that turned into a legal problem. So it's considered a private club. Um, and so you don't pay a fee to get in, you donate because it becomes a very sex on premise pharmacist. So it becomes a real legal sticky thing. There are house parties that are a different thing. It's somebody, I mean, I'd come to a house just like this one and to a house party at her house this size is, you know, in a neighborhood just like this, it's smaller. Um, I mean it is house so you can only have so many people there. Uh, those tend to be a core group of people that are, they're all friends at swing together and maybe a few extras that they're like, hey, I have a friend that wants to come and try it out because the swinger groups do like variety.
Speaker 4
So. But they do like have people coming in. I mean they, you know, they have music, they have a dance floor, they have, you know, food. It's a club. It's not like a warehouse or some place like a rave kind of know it's laid out like a house. I mean there's, there's like the dance area, there's different conversational areas. There's semi private rooms with beds, there's more private areas, they're all kind of a little bit different, but they're basically set up to where you can come, socialize, meet somebody that you're interested in, talk to them long enough to see if they're interested in wandering off to one of the other rooms and go and play around and then go home. Is this usually an invitation to come to one of these things? Like you have to be brought with somebody and know the secret code or something like that? Um,
Speaker 3
if you're a single to go to a swingers club, I mean if you're a single male, a certain number can get in on their own. Otherwise you need to be escorted by a woman. They don't want to be overrun with just a bunch of single guys. And in the swingers world, for the most part, you know, the women are kind of in charge. I'm the women kind of make.
Speaker 4
Well, I think, I think the people that are not familiar with swinging, I think assume that women are being taken advantage of and being used for men's pleasure. And it's the women. Um, have all the control, I'm no means no is very important in the swinger world. If you are a guy that is not listening to the word no, you get a reputation and you don't get to play anymore. So no means no. Uh, and it's, it's like the number one swearing role. Um, and yeah, so the women have a lot of a say and control, which is great. Um,
Speaker 3
yeah. So what I'm hearing as a theme throughout everything we're talking about is that emotional safety is hugely important. Having the trust in each other is hugely important. Having open communication and, and also have an understanding of, uh, of the basis that you're operating from together as a, as a couple. Yeah, definitely. I mean, this, this has changed our communications so much. Are we communicate for the most part. I mean, you know, there's days that I'm like, why you suck to communication today. Um, and there's days that he sucks at communication. I mean it's just how it is, but over all our communication is so much better and it's easier to talk about some things. I mean, some things I, you know, it's still hard to talk about. I mean obviously, but we have learned a lot in opening our relationship because you have to, I mean, if you're going to make it work, you have to communicate. There's no way you just, it just won't work. Otherwise.
Speaker 4
I agree with that. Um, yeah. I think that we. So when we'd had disagreements earlier before, you know, and I'm not saying that opening the relationship is what made all the difference. It made a difference. I think we would still be, even if we kept it close, I think we'd still be married and still be doing stuff, but I think I've learned a lot more about myself and I've learned a lot more about her through this process and I think because we've had open discussions and really honest discussions about how we feel and what's going on and how it's impacting each of us in different ways. Um, it has made us understand each other far more. And so our disagreements and our arguments are fewer. And you know, there, there's, there's just not as many because we understand each other so much better now than even years to have the patience of a saint.
Speaker 4
Do you have any examples on something that you were surprised about that you learned from her? From all this cheese? I have no idea. That's a tough one. It's hard to think of on the fly. So many things that you've learned from her. I don't think there's not, there's no huge revelation where my really, I never knew that it's a lot of little small things that they combined make a big change. It's, I mean sometimes it's as simple as a. I was upset with her a while back and I don't remember the details, but I remember being upset and she knew I was upset and she was asking me why I was upset and I was like, I couldn't, I asked, I said I need a couple of days to sort of, or at least some time to sort it out and figure out why. Because right now I'm angry and I don't know why.
Speaker 4
Um, and I finally figured out that I was just upset. It wasn't, it was very weird because it was something she said and it was just the way she said it. Um, and had she and I said, I was like, had you just said it with these two words different, I would've taken it completely different and I think I was in, I was in a bad mood maybe that day or something and I just took it wrong. Um, and so it was just a conversation about how to, how to say this thing. I don't know, I'm messing this up really bad, but, um, but it's these little things. It's very, very small changes. It's not the big revelation where she's like, well, you know, I was born a man, but I didn't tell you. I'm surprised. I think there's a huge and surprising. We've known each other for a long time. There's no big, huge surprise. It's a lot of small tweaks to how we relate to each other. Do you feel like you were holding things back before you opened up the relationship? I, um, I don't know how to answer that. Um, I can say that, um, when we would have an argument early in our relationship, I was not good at expressing my feelings and she would want to talk about stuff and I wouldn't, I would just, I was not comfortable with exposing myself, I guess, or vulnerable, being vulnerable or perhaps admitting my fault in this situation, which might've been closer to the accurate thing. Still Vulnerable, right? Yes. Um, and, and it's
Speaker 4
having an honest conversation and being open takes practice. It's courage. It's not something you can just go, okay, today I'm just going to blurt everything out.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Sometimes that happens. It's scary. So I'm, well, I hear that introspection and the self knowledge has been huge and how you've connected more deeply with each other. And so part of this process for you is that in negotiating these things, that understanding these things about each other, you have to understand yourself first. So then you bring that to the table and when you understand yourself better, you're more open to being vulnerable because you feel more in touch with yourself. And then with that, you can, you can really connect with each other better and more authentic way. Right? I think that some of what it has helped me with is realize that I can say things that maybe would have been scary before and he is going to be okay with it and it's not. He's going to be like, okay, not a big deal. Um, you know, even if it's just being able to say, oh my God, look at that guy over there. He is so cute. And he's like, you want to go talk to him? Well, no, no, I don't want you to go talk to him. I'll bring him over to meet me. But you know, just that you can be yourself and yourself is okay.
Speaker 5
Yeah.
Speaker 4
All the parts of you. Yeah, I, I've learned a lot more about her. Um, I, one of the things I really enjoy is I'm, I'm,
Speaker 4
I like it when she's meeting new people and she'll go on a date and she'll come back and I'm like, well, how was your date? You know, what was. And I'll, I'll say, well, did you guys talk about. And it's not like, give me a word for word breakdown, but she'll tell me the things that were interesting to her and sometimes it's something I'll learn something new about her where she's like, well, we were talking about this and I realized I really liked this or this. I know it's just things that, that we've never talked about because of our experiences. And if she dated somebody that has a different experiences, they're gonna have a different conversation. Um, it's not, it's not really clear, but I've learned a lot about her by hearing about her conversations with other people or being around them. Um, so it's just sort of seeing another angle. Yes. Yeah, I would say that's, that's a good way to say it.
Speaker 6
Now let me ask you something about just overall,
Speaker 4
just society kind of thought process, sort of macro kind of thing.
Speaker 6
Do you feel. What would, what would you say if everybody's minds were erased and just didn't have any of the religious stuff? Didn't have all the, all the stuff that, what you would consider quote unquote holds people back from doing this. Do you. And we could just go like the, it just erase boom. Here we are today. Do you think more people would like, do you think this is just more of what our nature would do is to be more of a poly type situation or what do you think?
Speaker 3
Yes, I think so. Okay. I think, I mean, you know, not for everyone. I think there's always going to be, you know, people, whether it's even if it's not a religious upbringing, just it's, that's just not what they like or not what they're interested in. But I think if all of the stigma was erase all of the, the religious upbringing was erased. Um, yeah, I mean I think probably more people would be more comfortable with it. I mean it gives you a great support system. It gives you, you know, just more of that core people to help you get through life with.
Speaker 2
Yeah
Speaker 6
know, just like having a team. Somebody is good at this thing, someone's good at that thing. You guys can all work together and build off of each other. Like somebody may be able to, you know, work with their hands. And another one is good in the garden, you know, you just all together.
Speaker 3
Yeah, I mean it really is, you know, my own little community. I definitely, I mean, my poly family, I get the most support from them. Um, you know, I was sick last spring and I was out of work for three and a half months and you know, there were some time early in that, that I couldn't be home by myself. I'm just because I just needed someone there physically. I needed someone else there and you know, he had to go on a job or he couldn't be there and you know, my poly community stepped up and I mean I laugh and want to call it my babysitter for the day, but, you know, they took turns and they came and stayed with me and took me places. And you know, who I don't know who wouldn't want that.
Speaker 4
It, it's, it's, um, it's hard to imagine America without a lot of religious over Thompson. Uh, so I think if it wasn't looked down upon or frowned upon, more people would probably do it. But at the same time, relationships are work. I'm having one relationship, if you're not doing the work is, that's required to keep that relationship going. Um, relationships or work, you're, the payoff is Craig. Um, it's worth the effort, but you have to put in the time and the effort to make a relationship work. And if you are going to multiply that by two or three, it's more work. Um, and so you have to be able to
Speaker 4
put the time and the effort in to that other person. Um, you know, we live together. So I see her every day that I'm home. Um, and so while there's work being done, I don't necessarily have to go out of my way because, you know, she'll come out of the one room into another. I'm like, oh, hey, hello. I'm the outside relationships. I have to put the effort in. I have to make sure that I'm communicating with that person and making sure that they know that I'm interested in is still around. So having, I know what society would look like where more people were doing it. There will be interesting. But yeah, it's um, I don't think it's for everyone. I think there are a lot of people that are lazy and they're, they're one relationship, um, and I think they would have a hard time with, with an extra one. I think one of the two people involved that they are involved in is going to feel slighted because they're not, they don't have enough to give to everybody.
Speaker 3
No, I think that's a really important point. And goes back to you knowing. You talked earlier about knowing your limits and things like that.
Speaker 4
So
Speaker 3
with the self knowledge, it really goes back to the self care of knowing that you are taking good care of yourself and filling yourself up so that you can be present and all your relationships.
Speaker 4
Yeah. Now this is even, I don't even know why we haven't talked about this sooner, but what about scheduling of time to be with the other person? I mean because I mean there's got to be times when you wanted to spend time with him and he's already doing something with someone else and you're like, oh
Speaker 3
yeah, I mean, how do you logistically do that? And that is hard and that, you know, after telling you communication and honesty, the next thing a poly person would be like, oh, but the scheduling, um, you know, and that it's a struggle, you know, it, it is hard sometimes because you or in our situation, you know, we have this primary relationship and so, you know, we want time to spend time together and then you know, this other person wants time and how do you give him enough time and can you give them enough time? And I don't, I mean, I don't know, it goes back to communication and talking about it and calendars and we live in the digital age, which calendar Google calendar, shared calendar
Speaker 4
calendars are, you know, we have apple. And so, um, we have shared calendars on there where my phone will light up and say, well, it's just added this thing and I know that she's got a plan on this. But like everything else, um, you prioritize if we have something that's a family thing, a wedding or a funeral or something, well that's going to be primary. And then precedent. And then she'll say so and so asked me to dinner on Thursday, what's going on in Thursday? I don't have anything going on Thursday. She's like, okay, well I'm going to go on. No, go to dinner with so and so.
Speaker 3
I'm like, okay, well have a good time. Um, yeah, it's, we just, you just talk about it. You just say what's going on on the 17th? I don't know. Okay, well I'm gonna make a plan with this other person. Okay. I mean it is hard and sometimes feelings get hurt because you know, maybe you can't spend as much time as you want with that person because, you know, I do have a person that I live with and so I can't just be like, Hey, I'm going to stay at your place for three days and no one will care. Well, someone's going to care about things like the holidays, like Valentine's Day. Are you doing to Valentine's Day were the. Again, that's going to look different for different people. You know, if you are single poly and you may have a couple of relationships, that could be a really issue with us.
Speaker 3
We're married, so it's assumed. Well thirsty puppy, you know it. It's kind of assumed, well we're gonna spend Christmas together and you know, the person I was dating, you know, we would go, hey, when do you want to do our Christmas? Or if it's thanksgiving, well we know we're gonna probably go to his parents for Thanksgiving and divorced parents have been doing this for a long time where they, you know, you have two christmases because this year I have the kid on Christmas Day. You don't. So scheduling, it's, it's not an obstacle that you can't overcome it. It's just another thing you have to just put into factor. And honestly like with us Valentine's Day, I mean we've never really been a big. Like we might give each other a card, we might not. We really don't do gifts and we're both okay with that. And so my boyfriend was really big on that. We're, oh, we're, we were going to dinner, we're doing gifts. And I finally broke them up the gift thing, but you know, so that worked out well for us. I could go have dinner with him. Everybody was okay with relief. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3
He took me out of Valentine's. I'm like, okay, what do you do? I'm going to sit at home and play Halo, so we're all going to be happy about it. Yes. So I mean again, that's also going to depend on who you ask, what their situation looks like, but it can be tricky. Is there anything else that y'all would want to say or things that you'd like someone to know about polyamory here to try to sell more of a sort of a, you know, it's just normal. It's not. Yeah, I mean it's weird if you're not used to it, but it does take getting used to it. It does take a little getting used to, for um,
Speaker 4
you know, the first time that your, your significant other goes out on a date is a weird thing now. But um, but at the same time when she comes, you know, it comes in after having a really fun time with, with going out somewhere and she's like, you can see how happy she is now. Excited. She is about having a fun date. It's great. I like that. She's happy, so. Yup. I agree.
Speaker 6
Well, thank you. That is so fascinating. All this stuff. I mean I, I, I didn't even hadn't even heard this term till recently, so for me this was really educational to hear from your point of view and to hear how much of a community it is and everything is. So I guess would probably be shocking to most people to hear that because most people would think that there's probably more conflicts. I mean, I think you were saying that relationships are difficult with just one person. I mean
Speaker 4
difficult. Yeah. We have to put, to put the word difficult. That's another topic. I go into details. I did not use the word difficult. I said it takes effort and work to make it. Yeah,
Speaker 6
I can totally understand what I mean. I think most guys would probably be like, you know, I think I get yelled at by enough. Women are.
Speaker 4
I can.
Speaker 6
Fascinating to hear you all's point of view.
Speaker 1
Well thanks. Yes. Thank you so much for coming. Thanks for having us. As always, I welcome your questions, comments, and love for you to be on the show. If you're interested, please email me@makelovenotwaratGmail.com. You can also contact me via twitter. My handle is at terra harrison. You can also support us on Patrion www.patrion.com/mate. More love not war. Thanks for listening.