Danielle Young: Hello, hello, and welcome to Fine, I'll Talk About It, the podcast where we say the quiet parts out loud, real unfiltered talk that's straight to the points, and no fake positivity. I'm your host, Danielle Young, and today I'm joined by Jess Williams. Jess is a licensed clinical social worker and therapist who specializes in working with non-monogamous clients, both as individuals, couples, and extended relationship structures. On today's episode, we are talking about polyamory, clearing up misconceptions, unpacking agreements in communication, and examining how shame and social norms shape non-monogamous relationships. Jess, welcome to Fine, I'll talk about it.
Jess Williams: Thank so much, Danielle.
Danielle Young: Yeah, thank you so much for being here. I know when we talked before, I was super excited to have you on because this is definitely a subject that I would love to dive into and talk about because I feel like this is one of those taboo subjects where people are secretly curious but don't want to actually say out loud that they're curious about it. So we're doing it for them.
Jess Williams: Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, sure. They can just listen to the podcast and then they don't have to actually, you know, say it out loud. Yeah.
Danielle Young: Yeah, yep, that's why we're here. So why we start off by just telling us a little bit about you and how you got into this line of work.
Jess Williams: Yeah, I am a therapist. I my own private practice. I have been a social worker for, ⁓ my I'm old, almost 10 years now. I just looked at year ⁓ and it's all relative. I've owned my own practice for little over three years, but I did some therapy in groups and stuff before that.
Danielle Young: You're not as old as me.
Jess Williams: And I, you know, in terms of how did I get into this work? ⁓ boy. I mean, I, is, it ⁓ started as a personal venture. My husband of 10-ish years now, and I opened a relationship several years ago to polyamory. And so so doing, and you know, trying to get support for that, I realized like, there's not a lot of- education around about this. And I've had some great therapists, he's had some great therapists, you know, everyone in my my family, as I call them, has but you know, it's just like you said, it's such a taboo subject. And yeah, I was just kind of realizing like, oh, this is like really a hard thing that people like really need support for. And really like non truly non judgmental support, not so much the kind of like
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: do you but I'm just gonna secretly judge you over here kind of support, you know ⁓ and so yeah, that was like Part of it and then I just found this was kind of amazing. I just started getting clients who were not monogamous I was not like stating this out loud at the time I was not sharing this like it wasn't advertising in this way ⁓ but would just get folks come in and very generically talk about like There's this thing like I want to talk about but I'm really embarrassed and I don't know who to talk about it with and then
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: that would be what it is. And I'm like, but you could not possibly know this, but you're in the right place, you know? And so it's just sort of this like cosmic thing where I'm just with was kind of like collecting these people unintentionally. And ⁓ yeah, just realizing there was really a need for this. And so I rebranded practice last year to kind of like really intentionally directly point in this direction. so that I was being more obvious and you know, advertising as such, so can find me, you know. ⁓
Danielle Young: Yeah. how you polyamory? Like in real life, not in theory, but you know.
Jess Williams: ⁓ yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the fun thing about the real life definition is that there like is, it could look 1.2 billion different ways, right? And so would say the real life definition as generically as possible ⁓ be a relationship structure in which people are open to, consenting to, agreeing to all that good stuff, having more than one romantic partner simultaneously. that may be also meaning ⁓ than one sexual partner, but not always. Not everyone who's polyamorous, mean not everyone in the world, but not everyone who's polyamorous, you know, experiences sex drive at all, wants to have sex in general. And not everyone in polyamory has sex as part of all of their relationships either, but it can be.
Danielle Young: Gotcha. And what do people misunderstand the most polyamory?
Jess Williams: man. The most? I mean, I think there's a couple things. I think one is the sex thing. Interestingly, people lot of times assume like, everyone just like you're polyamorous because you just want to like fuck around. ⁓ I mean, like one, is that a Like that is what people want and everyone's consenting to having multiple sexual partners or whatever the case like, I'm like, okay, so like.
Danielle Young: Right.
Jess Williams: It's their life, it's not your life, who cares? But, you know, secondarily, no, that's like really not just what that's not like, I think paint it as this like, very tunnel vision, like, this is this is what everyone's doing, right? So the sex thing, I find funny in that way. ⁓ then I think other thing is this idea of like, there's their polyamory must mean like, there's no commitment. Or like, something must be wrong in someone's relationship in order for them to want to do this. maybe they weren't getting the kind of commitment they needed or maybe some other thing. And so yeah, there's a lot of like rhetoric around like, what does it mean to be committed? And like, why do people assume that polyamory can't have that?
Danielle Young: Yeah, socially conditioned ⁓ think that, you two people only and that's it. You know, ⁓ yeah, And, ⁓ know, it's like you said, a lot of people consider, well, how do you not consider that cheating?
Jess Williams: Yeah, we're very dialogic as a culture. Yeah. it's that is I would say probably one of the most single most fascinating things to me is the cheating thing because in my experience I have had people react to cheating actual not polyamory though you can cheat in polyamory but actual cheating know where everything's a secret people are lying etc as if that's more normal than polyamory, than what I and my clients are doing with our lives, right? in some ways, is it more normal in that it's more common? Sure, maybe. But I just think it's interesting that like, if you are gonna choose to consent to a structure in which you are not lying, there is no cheating. That's part of cheating is the deceit, right? That that is, for a lot people, viewed as poorly, if not,
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: worse. And I just think that's an interesting mental ⁓ going
Danielle Young: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, would think and people, you know, I've heard this too. It's like, well, if you're in a healthy relationship, then why would you want to open it up? Why would you want to go outside of your relationship? And, ⁓ know, it's like, what you say to those people who ⁓ who to bring up the if you're in a healthy relationship line?
Jess Williams: Yep. Yeah. Yeah, I would say to those people, one, what is your definition of a healthy relationship? First of all, because that's not everyone's, not everyone's relation definition is the same. And secondly, I would also argue that folks who are in an unhealthy relationship probably should not be opening their relationship. Because not to say that people, know, sometimes we do get this in the community, some like perseverating on like being
Danielle Young: Right.
Jess Williams: like your relationship has to be like perfect before you open. And I also think that's wildly unrealistic, but idea of like, well, one would only open up if like something ⁓ bad or wrong or unhealthy. I just think that's certainly not a recipe for good things, And so, you know, what is your definition, right? Of a healthy relationship and... ⁓ most people when they're saying that, they're saying that because part of their definition, whether they cognizantly know this or just kind of like embedded in what they're saying is a healthy relationship means you're getting all your needs met by this one person. And so if getting all your needs met by this one person, why would you need other people? But what's is none of us all our needs met by any one person and we all need other people. It's just We call these people different things. They have different, you know levels of involvement in our lives, etc But no one I think would ever say well if you're if you're a marriage is healthy. Why do you need friends? Well, because we need different people in our lives, right, you know, I don't think people would say that that's kind of crazy so yeah, I think You know, I think that for most people the act of opening up requires
Danielle Young: Thank
Jess Williams: so much of them it really does help to be in a healthy place to do so. And so yeah, I think that question is really one of those like just deeply inlaid like this is what healthy normal looks like and we have to have that so that we know what unhealthy and not normal looks like, And I don't disagree that like it's good to have general criteria, right? For if something is a healthy relationship, but I don't think it ⁓ is, is nowhere near as narrow as people would paint it to be, right? Obviously there are unhealthy behaviors that happen in relationships. And I think it's for people to be aware of those things, right? ⁓ But those happen in all relationships, in coworker relationships, in friends, in monogamous marriages, in polyamorous relationships. It doesn't matter. The good, the bad, and the ugly happen in all of them. Yeah.
Danielle Young: Yeah, I would think that, like, let's talk about like, I would think there would be some sort of like levels of, jealousy. Like, how do you, how you deal with, because I'm sitting here thinking, I mean, I've been in a monogamous relationship for 22 years. So as someone sitting here, like, watching my husband be with someone else, I would think that there would be this level of jealousy. So how How do we handle that? I mean, how do you handle that in polyamorous relationships?
Jess Williams: Yeah, yeah, I think first of all, for a lot of people there is and I think that's that's another fun misconception is people are like, ⁓ poly people aren't jealous. I'm like, hello, what polyamorous people have you met? Like, they robots? Like, I don't know what you're talking about. I ever met polyamorous folks who are not jealous? Sure. But most of those people, if they like start out that way, like right off the bat, most of those people that I've met who are like that. are not jealous people in general. Like on the whole, they're not jealous of other people's success, they're not jealous of their friends, they're not jealous, like they just, it's just not a common emotional experience for them. And I think that's great and ⁓ and that's all good and fine. But most people experience some of jealousy. some people, ⁓ that jealousy holds steady. For some people, they a lot of jealousy upfront and then it kind of, you know. simmers down a little bit. ⁓ But yeah, it happens all the time, all time. So I think, ⁓ you know, I'm trying to help people work through that, my first thing off the bat is let's look ⁓ at the part you that says jealousy is bad. Like who said that? Whoever gave you the idea that emotions are good or bad, right? And I'm a therapist, so I do this all the time. Good, bad, I don't believe that there are good and bad emotions, personally or professionally.
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: I'm not saying everyone should believe that, but that's just my, you shtick. I think that there can be healthy and unhealthy display of emotions, right? In terms of like, are we hurting people because of how we feel? That's not cool, right? But I always make this like funny analogy of like, ⁓ you are so happy and excited. Like you just found out you won a million dollars and you're jumping up and down and screaming and flailing your arms and you punch somebody in the face and break their nose because you were so happy. Is that good? Like, is it good that you just broke their nose? No, it doesn't matter that the emotion was a good emotion. What matters is like, that's still not cool or okay and you need to like figure that out, right? ⁓ The same thing as the other way. And so, yeah, so the first thing we look at is like,
Danielle Young: Right.
Jess Williams: What, or I guess I shouldn't even assume, usually I'll ask people, tell me about your concept of jealousy. Where have you experienced it elsewhere in your life? What messages have you been given about jealousy? What does it mean to you? What does jealousy mean to you? When do you feel it and how do you know that you feel it? Is it just up here? Do you feel stuff in your body that you're like, I feel like I'm gonna throw up watching them go on this date or whatever, right? And so a big part of it is like,
Danielle Young: Thank you.
Jess Williams: deconstructing the narrative of like it is, where it comes from, what you're supposed to think about it. And then the piece ⁓ is and this is like such a therapist thing to say, is the last, I that to my clients all the time, like I'm about to say a really therapist thing. The other piece is like looking ⁓ at the opportunity of jealousy gives us, right? So if. ⁓ I'm jealous or whoever is jealous that about their partner going on a date to wherever they're going. I can look at that. My client can look at that and say, what precisely am I jealous about? Am I jealous that they're getting to spend this quality time together where I know they're going to be like sitting at this table. They're not going to have their phones. You know, they're going to be really like glued into each other. I jealous of that? Am I jealous of like, ⁓ we were supposed to go to that restaurant and you never took me to that restaurant. Is that what I'm jealous of? I jealous that my partner's getting all dressed up nicely to take this person out and he hasn't gotten dressed up like that to take me out in years because we've been together for long time. Like what is, what's the narrative? And then what can we do about that? Right? If I'm jealous that you're spending quality time, what does that mean? Likely that means that I don't feel like I'm getting an event.
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: So it's not that what you're doing over there is wrong or bad or hurting me exactly. It's that have a need that's not being met that I may or may not be aware of. And so do I need, do we need to have a conversation about quality time? Do we need to have a conversation about, hey, I really wish that you would have cleared that restaurant with me because I was under the impression we were gonna go together. And then I kind of feel meh that you're going with them first or whatever. Do we need to have a conversation about, know, I know we don't do this a lot, but we used to when we were younger and I do really like dressing up and going out with you, right? what is happening is what I'm jealous about instead of this just like green envy, jealous rage, like monster thing, right? ⁓ so it's a lot of like, okay, you're jealous. Great. I love that for you actually, because I love to see what that means is needed here. And let's like figure that out.
Danielle Young: Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like this could also work in monogamous relationships. You know? Yeah.
Jess Williams: Absolutely. so many things that I do with clients and stuff in polyamory that I'm like, if ⁓ if had had this as a monogamous person, this would have been so helpful. Yeah, ⁓ that's one them.
Danielle Young: Yeah, because all the time, you know, the wife or girlfriend is like, ⁓ he spends too much time with the guys. And it's like, OK, well, why does that bother you?
Jess Williams: Yes. Right, spending too much time with the guys, he dates his work but not me. Whatever, whatever. there's lots of things that, or he to travel, or he gets to do this and I don't get to, and I'm jealous that, Yeah, definitely.
Danielle Young: Yeah So makes a polyamorous situation, a compatible? are there, or successful should say, not compatible, but successful. Like, are there certain components that need to fall into it? Is there, there certain agreements that need to be made? Like, what does a polyamorous relationship entail?
Jess Williams: Yeah, that was a great question. I think my first, again, very therapisty thing to say, caveat would be successful means whatever it means to the people who are in it, right? And I only caveat that to say we have this like success measure monogamy that a relationship is only successful if it's lifelong and ends in death. And that's like, not realistic for a lot of the population, not that it doesn't happen. grandparents were, ⁓ my God, I loved them, that was so beautiful. But not everyone wants, can do, feels like that makes sense to them. ⁓ of course, success terms of what people are looking for and all that. But I think to the of your question, I think that communication is important. But you know, I think we we do that really fun thing where if you ask anyone what a secret to a healthy relationship, nine out of 10 people will say you have to communicate. And I'm like, yes. What the fuck does that mean? Like, what does that mean? ⁓ And we just tell people, well, just communicate. And then they're like, I think I am communicating. ⁓ And Yeah, yeah, like.
Danielle Young: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, people have the wrong idea about what communication is. Not just talking.
Jess Williams: Right, it's not just talking, it's certainly not talking at each other, that is not helpful. It's also not talking about hard things when you're already in a good nervous system state and you're already like, wired ⁓ it's at night, because every couple literally ever has had that. We should stop talking about this. So I think what does that look like is like, I could talk about for four hours. But I really part ⁓ it some level, and would suggest that people can get this off the rip, and this is sometimes what I'm helping people with, is what level of radical ⁓ can handle and when? how do you know that? how do you communicate that? Because there are gonna be things, ⁓
Danielle Young: I know.
Jess Williams: that going to be said or have to be said to someone at some point that are going to hurt. And that happens in monogamy too, like it's not just this. ⁓ know, it is not for most people, even they are, even if this was their idea, they're completely consenting, they're very on board, ⁓ it not for most people an easy thing to be told, I want have sex with someone else.
Danielle Young: Yeah. Great. Yeah.
Jess Williams: Want to go on a date with someone else for the first time I want to whatever like it's just not a comfortable feeling ⁓ and so I think a lot of what the success is how tune into your own stuff your own triggers your own like what is gonna me in not a good place to receive things and how can I like
Danielle Young: Right?
Jess Williams: share that generally, but also in the moment if necessary, so that my partner doesn't feel shut down, also they don't end up frustrated because I can't handle the thing that they're trying to tell me. ⁓ the thing that they're trying to tell me is probably very hard for them to say. ⁓ then I'm over here like, well shit, I don't know. It's just a recipe for ⁓
Danielle Young: Yeah. Yeah.
Jess Williams: So yeah, I think it's a lot of growing this like internal dial of like, where am I at? What do I need? What can I handle? I consent to this conversation right now? Or should I be like, actually, ⁓ this is important to you, this is a terrible time. If you wanna talk about what's for dinner tomorrow, I'm all on board with that. But you wanna talk about, know, taking a vacation with your other partner, today is not the day. So I think a lot of it is that.
Danielle Young: you
Jess Williams: the internal compass and then that with ⁓ whatever people, you know, and obviously that's hard because this requires everyone involved to do the best work on themselves that they can do, you know.
Danielle Young: Yeah. So how do you know if, if polyamory is aligned with you or not, or, know, your partnership, if you're already in like a marriage or a partnership, how do you know that polyamory is like the next step or, you know, something that would be aligned with
Jess Williams: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, could be. Yeah. Yeah, I think. I think, well, the first thing is I think it's hard. that people want, and I like so get this, people want, I've had people ask me this question so many times, like people want an answer. Like, ⁓ me the checklist, Jess, and if I could say all these things are true, then we'll be fine, we'll be good, nothing bad will happen, we're not gonna get divorced, you know. And I just, that's not real. And they know that's not real. Like, it's not like anyone actually thinks that's true. But I think, ⁓ you when,
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: the curiosity comes up, it comes from somewhere, right? Especially for folks, of course, you know, I work with folks and there are many folks who like just start dating this way, either when they're younger or they just, they have a point their life where they do that. ⁓ But there's also a lot of folks who are in monogamous relationship, either a marriage or not, ⁓ and then open, wanting to open up, right? So there's a big population of those people. And I think part of what they really want to know when they're asking like, how do we know if this is right for us is how do know if we're to blow up our marriage? ⁓ And fair, fair question. ⁓ also like, how do you know you're not going to blow up your marriage by having a child? How do you know you're not going to blow up your marriage by moving to another country? How do you know you're not going to, know, ⁓ and there's no way to know, right? But we don't like that as humans. want we want the known quantity always.
Danielle Young: Yeah. Yeah.
Jess Williams: And so, but I think, you know, are there general things that like should be present? Probably. Yeah. Right. There should be some level like true, ⁓ intent, whatever intent is. I want to have new sexual experiences. I want to explore my and date someone of another gender. want to, you know, I feel like I have a lot of love. to give and I can really see, I've done some reading or research or listened to some podcasts or whatever, and I really, I can't explain it, but it just sort of speaks to me. I just feel like, yeah, I can really see a lot of benefits to this. It sounds hard, but it sounds like there could be a lot of benefit. So I think some piece of true intent, meaning we didn't just decide this on a dime all of sudden, right? Secondarily, a willingness to do hard work, because it's gonna take hard work, internal hard work and relational hard work. And to really be willing to show up for other people's emotions. I would argue probably all of these things also should be present for monogamous relationships also. You know, like we shouldn't just drop out of the hat and decide to get in a relationship. We should go into it being willing to hold other people's stuff, right, like reasonably.
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: And then, you know, I think I don't think there needs to be like a, I'm sure I won't get jealous or anything like that. I don't think that people have to be like in a perfect place either in their like, I call it an OG original, like OG relationship. So like, they don't have to be in a perfect place in their OG relationship. They don't have to be in a perfect place in their own life if they're just coming into this like solo. I just think more of like a ⁓ I feel like I, you I know myself well enough, well enough to try to, you know, advocate for my needs, hold other people's stuff, you know. Nothing like insane. Yeah, I just don't, I don't think that we just have to be these like magical, perfect, like polyam robots and then we like go into phase two or something, you know.
Danielle Young: Yeah. know, like, there's so much, I mean, there's so much misinformation this too, you know, I mean, because I don't know if you know that there was a show on called Polyamory. And, and I watched And I, the dynamics between the couples were, I mean, how do you handle power dynamics in those types of Like, I mean, you traditional relationships, ⁓ have your own agreements there, but when you start adding more people into the mix, like how do you handle those power dynamics?
Jess Williams: Yeah, I think that depends so much on, I think I know the show that you're talking about. It's about a quad for people to original couples. But yeah, so I mean, I think like, the reality is that people have very different thoughts, opinions, etc. about what they want and don't want. Also, people have ideas about what they want, and then they do it and then they're like, oh.
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: maybe not, is very human ⁓ Fine. yeah, I mean, like, so you know, if you're in a situation where like you've got multiple people, say, you know, three, four, five, however many people in what we'd call polycule, right, these people are all connected in some way. They may not all partners to each other, but there are, you know, partners of partners, etc. Of course, the more that you add, the more you have to think about, like you just said, like
Danielle Young: That was a mistake.
Jess Williams: How do these decisions get made? if, you know, for example, Valentine's day is around the corner. How do we decide, you know, who gets to celebrate on the actual day? Are we gonna fight over it? Like, and for some people it is, for some people, multiple people have a very strong stake in having the day of, whether it's birthday, Christmas, Valentine's day, whatever. And sometimes people are like,
Danielle Young: Great.
Jess Williams: I could care less. First of all, I hate Valentine's Day. That's not me. I love Valentine's Day, more love is what I think. someone might not care, right? And so I think what sounds exhausting to most people and isn't, it's not that it's not a lot of work, ⁓ I think it's just kind of, there have to be decisions made about what kind of interaction all these people want with each other, right? So like in that,
Danielle Young: you
Jess Williams: show there's two original couples and then these couple and these couple are in relationships they live together and they have children together right ⁓ so I'm not presuming to know all their dynamics because I don't know them you know in real life but you know there's there's some decision there sometimes at some point those people made a decision that they're cool ⁓ being that closely connected to ⁓ partner's partners not everyone wants that in polyamory and that's totally fine some people will like If I had two partners, those two people may not want to ever meet. They might not want to hear about each other. They might be cool with like both throwing me a birthday party, but they're not going to hang out by themselves on the side and like go or something. You know, like there's, there's varying degrees to which people want that kind of intimacy for lack of a better term. And so it's like, what does this look like first of all? And then once we know what this looks like, how the, ⁓ you said, power dynamics or decision-making dynamics work based on that, right? Because if I have two partners and they don't really want contact with each other, not out of animosity, just like, I prefer to keep things parallel, separate, okay, then that's a lot of work on my end as what call the hinge to communicate consistently with these two people who aren't talking to each other, right?
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: very different from if I have two partners and they they could be besties, they could be acquaintances, they could be, you know, whatever, but maybe they're cool with being in a group chat with me. And so if we have to decide things, maybe that's cool. Or maybe, you know, ⁓ three of us live together. And so it's a matter of going down to the kitchen and being like, yay, did anyone realize Valentine's Day is coming up? Like, what are we doing about that? ⁓ So I think there's just so, it's just so hard.
Danielle Young: you
Jess Williams: to answer because it looks so many different ways, but I really, really believe that as long as everyone is like really consenting and on board with is happening, it can work in any different kind of way. It's just when people find themselves in a situation, just like in monogamy, where their needs are not being met and they don't feel comfortable for whatever reason speaking up.
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: and saying what they need, that's when things start to clash just like in monogamy, in friendships, et cetera. there's a million and a half reasons why people don't feel like they can speak up, right? ⁓ of which are external and some of which are internal.
Danielle Young: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that was actually my next question. Like, what advice do you give people who curious and they want to explore this, but they just they're so afraid to speak up because, you know, societal norms and all the shame and all of that good stuff. Like, you know, what advice would you would you give them?
Jess Williams: Yeah, yeah, I think, if if I if I have like an individual come to me and say, you know, I'm really interested in but I'm in a relationship and I don't know what to do. My first thought would be do some research, some, don't do the ever, ⁓ because if you do all the ever, and then you bring it to your partner, and they've done none of the research ever, ⁓ then we're going to create a like, you know, stark dynamic and you're gonna if they say yes, you're gonna be chopping out the bit and they're gonna be like, whoa, like, hold the heck on here, right? So do some research to try to feel that within yourself of like, okay, what about this sounds interesting, cool, sexy, fun, whatever to me, like, what is it about this that draws me? And then, I mean, again, like people want, they want a formula for how to bring this to their partner. ⁓ And I just don't think that most of those conversations go go like super super well at first because Because you know, ⁓ I it's it's really You have be Sure enough ⁓ enough what what trying to say to communicate this to someone but also ⁓
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: be aware that you don't know everything also you want to hear what they have to say. And yeah, mean, even for people who are like, say they're single right now, but they're starting to date again or they've been dating and they're like, I don't know if I want to date monogamously, but how the heck do I tell someone that's on a date? ⁓ things apply. Figuring out what it that does draw you. ⁓
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: do little bit of research enough that you can feel like you can express yourself, but also with some level of like, you know, this is new to me, I don't know everything about this. And so we can figure this out together. What I do know is there's a bunch of books and podcasts and ⁓ other out there. We can that together. But yeah, mean, do I think a conversation between a long standing or so long standing monogamous couple ever goes, I'm thinking we should be polyamorous. ⁓ my god, I think that too. Like, I'm sure it's happened. I'm sure it's happened Danielle, but like time out of 100, I don't know, like that's just, I don't think most are not walking around thinking about this until something triggers them to think about this.
Danielle Young: In a perfect world. Yeah. Yeah.
Jess Williams: whether they read something or someone comes to them and says that they're opening their relationship or a friend confides in them or they see an article and whatever, know, like until something, you know, kind of jogs it. I don't think most people are walking around thinking about this, just like most people are not walking around thinking about why they chose monogamy either. So it's not like a running commentary in your head, you know? So it's just, it's not gonna go perfectly.
Danielle Young: Yeah. final thought before we wrap up here. what would you say to the people who think that polyamory non-monogamous relationships are just wackadoodle and, know, just, they're type are like, my God, I can't believe people do this. What would you say to those people?
Jess Williams: really, you know, I think there was a time in my life and career that my words would have been different. But I think would say honestly, first of all, I get it. I really do. Like ⁓ I this for myself and I work with people every day who choose this for themselves and it's still fucking hard. So ⁓ it's hard to work against that monogamous part of my brain that will like bring up a thing and I'm like, I don't believe that. What the hell? Get away, right? ⁓ So first of all, I get it. Like I really do. This is a big departure from what we are taught is normal, healthy, good, et cetera. And we frankly, societally, for good, bad, or otherwise, we have a lot of stock put in the known. In our brains, we'll always choose a known entity, whether or not it's healthy. Because our nervous systems want to know things, they don't want to not know things.
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: And so I really get when people have an adverse reaction to this because to most people it's like, what the fuck, like what, why, why, who even this occurs to, right? first I get it. And then my second piece would be like, you know, I think what is the most important thing to me is someone comes to you that you care about and shares this information, just take a second, like literally just take a breath.
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: and try to hear what they're saying instead of what you're hearing in your head. Like, what are they saying to you? Are they saying, and they don't owe you this information, but if they're sharing with you they do this, try to hear them. ⁓ actually hear them. Not think about how you would feel in that situation, or if it were my daughter or whatever, like, wait. ⁓ if it is your daughter, well, then they're done that too. Like, hear they're saying, right? And then, know, at the end of the day, ⁓
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: This is so cliche, but like My big thing with this is always has more love been the problem? That ain't never the problem. you know, I feel like ⁓ people want to have more people in their lives to love ⁓ that looks different from what you think is normal, good or right for you, ⁓ please don't do it. Don't engage in that because it's not for you. It's not for everyone. Just like marriage is not for everyone except we shove people into it, ⁓ ⁓ it's not for everyone. And what kind of world would we live in if that was different? You know, if we didn't shove people toward marriage as like
Danielle Young: Yep. Yeah.
Jess Williams: you're not going to be healthy, happy, safe, secure if you don't do this. You're going to die alone, right? If we didn't shove people into that in fear, would our divorce rate be different? Probably. ⁓ know, what could things look like if we just didn't shove people in any particular direction ⁓ because we thought that's what was normal?
Danielle Young: agreed. And there are some, I mean, there are some similarities and parallels between non-monogamous and monogamous relationships. I mean, I don't care what kind of a relationship that you're in, you're always going to have issues come up that you're going to have to deal with. There's always going to be communication. There's always going to be, you know, outside influence. There's always going to be life. mean, life is really random. I mean, you know, whether you're monogamous or not,
Jess Williams: Yeah.
Danielle Young: you're still dealing with the same dynamics between partners. It's just now you just you're being loved by more people. And like you said, what the hell's wrong with that? I think if more people experience that we would not be going through it. We're going through right now.
Jess Williams: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing. Yeah, yeah, we just, and again, I understand where this comes from, because this is how we view everything, but we just tend to think of love, love, fidelity, trust, loyalty, all that stuff as a pie. And if I give you a piece, then I have less. And that's not true. I have a pie, and I give this partner a piece, and it magically regenerates, and I have a whole pie again. And then I give it someone else, and then it regenerates, and I give some to my friends and my family and my whoever. ⁓
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: And it doesn't diminish, it doesn't get less. And there are so many parallels that can be made there to help people understand. But I also get that some people are just not in a place that they are ready to engage with that or understand that because accepting something that is so different from what you are doing does require you to examine your own life. And that's generally uncomfortable for most people. So yeah, but I think you're right. Regardless of relationship,
Danielle Young: Yes.
Jess Williams: You know, there's always going to be, it's like monogamous relationships don't have jealousy. They have a lot of things. ⁓ You know, or yeah, or any of those things, right? So yeah, it's ⁓ similar I don't think the challenges are necessarily unique. It's just uniquely human that challenges exist, you know, everybody's got to make a decision about what feels right for them, life short.
Danielle Young: or infidelity or Yeah, we're all humans having a human experience, so might as make the best of it while you're here. All right, well, thank you so much, Jess, for being here. And if someone wants to work with you, where can they find you?
Jess Williams: Yep. Yep, exactly. Yeah, sure thing. I'm licensed in Delaware, Pennsylvania and Maryland. And I'm gonna start doing some relationship intensives for non-monogamy too soon. So people from close states might wanna come down for that. But my website is oakevergreentherapy.com. Like trees, oak evergreen.
Danielle Young: awesome. I will put everything in the show notes so can find you very easily. Yeah, this is a great talk and I could keep talking to you about this because I mean it's such a huge subject and there's many components to it and I'm so curious about it and I think other people are too and they just got a little taste of it. So we'll have to have you back.
Jess Williams: Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. Sounds good.
Danielle Young: Alright, well, thanks for hanging out with us on Find I'll Talk About It. If today's episode got you thinking, hit follow or subscribe so you don't miss what's next. if you want more real talk, more perspective shifts, and more finally someone said it moments, leave a quick review. It helps other people find the show and lets me know what you want more of. You can connect with me on Instagram at inspired action wellness or my website inspiredactionwellness.com for more inspiration like this. and we will see you in the next episode.
Jess Williams: Thank so much, Danielle.
Danielle Young: Yeah, thank you so much for being here. I know when we talked before, I was super excited to have you on because this is definitely a subject that I would love to dive into and talk about because I feel like this is one of those taboo subjects where people are secretly curious but don't want to actually say out loud that they're curious about it. So we're doing it for them.
Jess Williams: Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, sure. They can just listen to the podcast and then they don't have to actually, you know, say it out loud. Yeah.
Danielle Young: Yeah, yep, that's why we're here. So why we start off by just telling us a little bit about you and how you got into this line of work.
Jess Williams: Yeah, I am a therapist. I my own private practice. I have been a social worker for, ⁓ my I'm old, almost 10 years now. I just looked at year ⁓ and it's all relative. I've owned my own practice for little over three years, but I did some therapy in groups and stuff before that.
Danielle Young: You're not as old as me.
Jess Williams: And I, you know, in terms of how did I get into this work? ⁓ boy. I mean, I, is, it ⁓ started as a personal venture. My husband of 10-ish years now, and I opened a relationship several years ago to polyamory. And so so doing, and you know, trying to get support for that, I realized like, there's not a lot of- education around about this. And I've had some great therapists, he's had some great therapists, you know, everyone in my my family, as I call them, has but you know, it's just like you said, it's such a taboo subject. And yeah, I was just kind of realizing like, oh, this is like really a hard thing that people like really need support for. And really like non truly non judgmental support, not so much the kind of like
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: do you but I'm just gonna secretly judge you over here kind of support, you know ⁓ and so yeah, that was like Part of it and then I just found this was kind of amazing. I just started getting clients who were not monogamous I was not like stating this out loud at the time I was not sharing this like it wasn't advertising in this way ⁓ but would just get folks come in and very generically talk about like There's this thing like I want to talk about but I'm really embarrassed and I don't know who to talk about it with and then
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: that would be what it is. And I'm like, but you could not possibly know this, but you're in the right place, you know? And so it's just sort of this like cosmic thing where I'm just with was kind of like collecting these people unintentionally. And ⁓ yeah, just realizing there was really a need for this. And so I rebranded practice last year to kind of like really intentionally directly point in this direction. so that I was being more obvious and you know, advertising as such, so can find me, you know. ⁓
Danielle Young: Yeah. how you polyamory? Like in real life, not in theory, but you know.
Jess Williams: ⁓ yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the fun thing about the real life definition is that there like is, it could look 1.2 billion different ways, right? And so would say the real life definition as generically as possible ⁓ be a relationship structure in which people are open to, consenting to, agreeing to all that good stuff, having more than one romantic partner simultaneously. that may be also meaning ⁓ than one sexual partner, but not always. Not everyone who's polyamorous, mean not everyone in the world, but not everyone who's polyamorous, you know, experiences sex drive at all, wants to have sex in general. And not everyone in polyamory has sex as part of all of their relationships either, but it can be.
Danielle Young: Gotcha. And what do people misunderstand the most polyamory?
Jess Williams: man. The most? I mean, I think there's a couple things. I think one is the sex thing. Interestingly, people lot of times assume like, everyone just like you're polyamorous because you just want to like fuck around. ⁓ I mean, like one, is that a Like that is what people want and everyone's consenting to having multiple sexual partners or whatever the case like, I'm like, okay, so like.
Danielle Young: Right.
Jess Williams: It's their life, it's not your life, who cares? But, you know, secondarily, no, that's like really not just what that's not like, I think paint it as this like, very tunnel vision, like, this is this is what everyone's doing, right? So the sex thing, I find funny in that way. ⁓ then I think other thing is this idea of like, there's their polyamory must mean like, there's no commitment. Or like, something must be wrong in someone's relationship in order for them to want to do this. maybe they weren't getting the kind of commitment they needed or maybe some other thing. And so yeah, there's a lot of like rhetoric around like, what does it mean to be committed? And like, why do people assume that polyamory can't have that?
Danielle Young: Yeah, socially conditioned ⁓ think that, you two people only and that's it. You know, ⁓ yeah, And, ⁓ know, it's like you said, a lot of people consider, well, how do you not consider that cheating?
Jess Williams: Yeah, we're very dialogic as a culture. Yeah. it's that is I would say probably one of the most single most fascinating things to me is the cheating thing because in my experience I have had people react to cheating actual not polyamory though you can cheat in polyamory but actual cheating know where everything's a secret people are lying etc as if that's more normal than polyamory, than what I and my clients are doing with our lives, right? in some ways, is it more normal in that it's more common? Sure, maybe. But I just think it's interesting that like, if you are gonna choose to consent to a structure in which you are not lying, there is no cheating. That's part of cheating is the deceit, right? That that is, for a lot people, viewed as poorly, if not,
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: worse. And I just think that's an interesting mental ⁓ going
Danielle Young: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, would think and people, you know, I've heard this too. It's like, well, if you're in a healthy relationship, then why would you want to open it up? Why would you want to go outside of your relationship? And, ⁓ know, it's like, what you say to those people who ⁓ who to bring up the if you're in a healthy relationship line?
Jess Williams: Yep. Yeah. Yeah, I would say to those people, one, what is your definition of a healthy relationship? First of all, because that's not everyone's, not everyone's relation definition is the same. And secondly, I would also argue that folks who are in an unhealthy relationship probably should not be opening their relationship. Because not to say that people, know, sometimes we do get this in the community, some like perseverating on like being
Danielle Young: Right.
Jess Williams: like your relationship has to be like perfect before you open. And I also think that's wildly unrealistic, but idea of like, well, one would only open up if like something ⁓ bad or wrong or unhealthy. I just think that's certainly not a recipe for good things, And so, you know, what is your definition, right? Of a healthy relationship and... ⁓ most people when they're saying that, they're saying that because part of their definition, whether they cognizantly know this or just kind of like embedded in what they're saying is a healthy relationship means you're getting all your needs met by this one person. And so if getting all your needs met by this one person, why would you need other people? But what's is none of us all our needs met by any one person and we all need other people. It's just We call these people different things. They have different, you know levels of involvement in our lives, etc But no one I think would ever say well if you're if you're a marriage is healthy. Why do you need friends? Well, because we need different people in our lives, right, you know, I don't think people would say that that's kind of crazy so yeah, I think You know, I think that for most people the act of opening up requires
Danielle Young: Thank
Jess Williams: so much of them it really does help to be in a healthy place to do so. And so yeah, I think that question is really one of those like just deeply inlaid like this is what healthy normal looks like and we have to have that so that we know what unhealthy and not normal looks like, And I don't disagree that like it's good to have general criteria, right? For if something is a healthy relationship, but I don't think it ⁓ is, is nowhere near as narrow as people would paint it to be, right? Obviously there are unhealthy behaviors that happen in relationships. And I think it's for people to be aware of those things, right? ⁓ But those happen in all relationships, in coworker relationships, in friends, in monogamous marriages, in polyamorous relationships. It doesn't matter. The good, the bad, and the ugly happen in all of them. Yeah.
Danielle Young: Yeah, I would think that, like, let's talk about like, I would think there would be some sort of like levels of, jealousy. Like, how do you, how you deal with, because I'm sitting here thinking, I mean, I've been in a monogamous relationship for 22 years. So as someone sitting here, like, watching my husband be with someone else, I would think that there would be this level of jealousy. So how How do we handle that? I mean, how do you handle that in polyamorous relationships?
Jess Williams: Yeah, yeah, I think first of all, for a lot of people there is and I think that's that's another fun misconception is people are like, ⁓ poly people aren't jealous. I'm like, hello, what polyamorous people have you met? Like, they robots? Like, I don't know what you're talking about. I ever met polyamorous folks who are not jealous? Sure. But most of those people, if they like start out that way, like right off the bat, most of those people that I've met who are like that. are not jealous people in general. Like on the whole, they're not jealous of other people's success, they're not jealous of their friends, they're not jealous, like they just, it's just not a common emotional experience for them. And I think that's great and ⁓ and that's all good and fine. But most people experience some of jealousy. some people, ⁓ that jealousy holds steady. For some people, they a lot of jealousy upfront and then it kind of, you know. simmers down a little bit. ⁓ But yeah, it happens all the time, all time. So I think, ⁓ you know, I'm trying to help people work through that, my first thing off the bat is let's look ⁓ at the part you that says jealousy is bad. Like who said that? Whoever gave you the idea that emotions are good or bad, right? And I'm a therapist, so I do this all the time. Good, bad, I don't believe that there are good and bad emotions, personally or professionally.
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: I'm not saying everyone should believe that, but that's just my, you shtick. I think that there can be healthy and unhealthy display of emotions, right? In terms of like, are we hurting people because of how we feel? That's not cool, right? But I always make this like funny analogy of like, ⁓ you are so happy and excited. Like you just found out you won a million dollars and you're jumping up and down and screaming and flailing your arms and you punch somebody in the face and break their nose because you were so happy. Is that good? Like, is it good that you just broke their nose? No, it doesn't matter that the emotion was a good emotion. What matters is like, that's still not cool or okay and you need to like figure that out, right? ⁓ The same thing as the other way. And so, yeah, so the first thing we look at is like,
Danielle Young: Right.
Jess Williams: What, or I guess I shouldn't even assume, usually I'll ask people, tell me about your concept of jealousy. Where have you experienced it elsewhere in your life? What messages have you been given about jealousy? What does it mean to you? What does jealousy mean to you? When do you feel it and how do you know that you feel it? Is it just up here? Do you feel stuff in your body that you're like, I feel like I'm gonna throw up watching them go on this date or whatever, right? And so a big part of it is like,
Danielle Young: Thank you.
Jess Williams: deconstructing the narrative of like it is, where it comes from, what you're supposed to think about it. And then the piece ⁓ is and this is like such a therapist thing to say, is the last, I that to my clients all the time, like I'm about to say a really therapist thing. The other piece is like looking ⁓ at the opportunity of jealousy gives us, right? So if. ⁓ I'm jealous or whoever is jealous that about their partner going on a date to wherever they're going. I can look at that. My client can look at that and say, what precisely am I jealous about? Am I jealous that they're getting to spend this quality time together where I know they're going to be like sitting at this table. They're not going to have their phones. You know, they're going to be really like glued into each other. I jealous of that? Am I jealous of like, ⁓ we were supposed to go to that restaurant and you never took me to that restaurant. Is that what I'm jealous of? I jealous that my partner's getting all dressed up nicely to take this person out and he hasn't gotten dressed up like that to take me out in years because we've been together for long time. Like what is, what's the narrative? And then what can we do about that? Right? If I'm jealous that you're spending quality time, what does that mean? Likely that means that I don't feel like I'm getting an event.
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: So it's not that what you're doing over there is wrong or bad or hurting me exactly. It's that have a need that's not being met that I may or may not be aware of. And so do I need, do we need to have a conversation about quality time? Do we need to have a conversation about, hey, I really wish that you would have cleared that restaurant with me because I was under the impression we were gonna go together. And then I kind of feel meh that you're going with them first or whatever. Do we need to have a conversation about, know, I know we don't do this a lot, but we used to when we were younger and I do really like dressing up and going out with you, right? what is happening is what I'm jealous about instead of this just like green envy, jealous rage, like monster thing, right? ⁓ so it's a lot of like, okay, you're jealous. Great. I love that for you actually, because I love to see what that means is needed here. And let's like figure that out.
Danielle Young: Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like this could also work in monogamous relationships. You know? Yeah.
Jess Williams: Absolutely. so many things that I do with clients and stuff in polyamory that I'm like, if ⁓ if had had this as a monogamous person, this would have been so helpful. Yeah, ⁓ that's one them.
Danielle Young: Yeah, because all the time, you know, the wife or girlfriend is like, ⁓ he spends too much time with the guys. And it's like, OK, well, why does that bother you?
Jess Williams: Yes. Right, spending too much time with the guys, he dates his work but not me. Whatever, whatever. there's lots of things that, or he to travel, or he gets to do this and I don't get to, and I'm jealous that, Yeah, definitely.
Danielle Young: Yeah So makes a polyamorous situation, a compatible? are there, or successful should say, not compatible, but successful. Like, are there certain components that need to fall into it? Is there, there certain agreements that need to be made? Like, what does a polyamorous relationship entail?
Jess Williams: Yeah, that was a great question. I think my first, again, very therapisty thing to say, caveat would be successful means whatever it means to the people who are in it, right? And I only caveat that to say we have this like success measure monogamy that a relationship is only successful if it's lifelong and ends in death. And that's like, not realistic for a lot of the population, not that it doesn't happen. grandparents were, ⁓ my God, I loved them, that was so beautiful. But not everyone wants, can do, feels like that makes sense to them. ⁓ of course, success terms of what people are looking for and all that. But I think to the of your question, I think that communication is important. But you know, I think we we do that really fun thing where if you ask anyone what a secret to a healthy relationship, nine out of 10 people will say you have to communicate. And I'm like, yes. What the fuck does that mean? Like, what does that mean? ⁓ And we just tell people, well, just communicate. And then they're like, I think I am communicating. ⁓ And Yeah, yeah, like.
Danielle Young: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, people have the wrong idea about what communication is. Not just talking.
Jess Williams: Right, it's not just talking, it's certainly not talking at each other, that is not helpful. It's also not talking about hard things when you're already in a good nervous system state and you're already like, wired ⁓ it's at night, because every couple literally ever has had that. We should stop talking about this. So I think what does that look like is like, I could talk about for four hours. But I really part ⁓ it some level, and would suggest that people can get this off the rip, and this is sometimes what I'm helping people with, is what level of radical ⁓ can handle and when? how do you know that? how do you communicate that? Because there are gonna be things, ⁓
Danielle Young: I know.
Jess Williams: that going to be said or have to be said to someone at some point that are going to hurt. And that happens in monogamy too, like it's not just this. ⁓ know, it is not for most people, even they are, even if this was their idea, they're completely consenting, they're very on board, ⁓ it not for most people an easy thing to be told, I want have sex with someone else.
Danielle Young: Yeah. Great. Yeah.
Jess Williams: Want to go on a date with someone else for the first time I want to whatever like it's just not a comfortable feeling ⁓ and so I think a lot of what the success is how tune into your own stuff your own triggers your own like what is gonna me in not a good place to receive things and how can I like
Danielle Young: Right?
Jess Williams: share that generally, but also in the moment if necessary, so that my partner doesn't feel shut down, also they don't end up frustrated because I can't handle the thing that they're trying to tell me. ⁓ the thing that they're trying to tell me is probably very hard for them to say. ⁓ then I'm over here like, well shit, I don't know. It's just a recipe for ⁓
Danielle Young: Yeah. Yeah.
Jess Williams: So yeah, I think it's a lot of growing this like internal dial of like, where am I at? What do I need? What can I handle? I consent to this conversation right now? Or should I be like, actually, ⁓ this is important to you, this is a terrible time. If you wanna talk about what's for dinner tomorrow, I'm all on board with that. But you wanna talk about, know, taking a vacation with your other partner, today is not the day. So I think a lot of it is that.
Danielle Young: you
Jess Williams: the internal compass and then that with ⁓ whatever people, you know, and obviously that's hard because this requires everyone involved to do the best work on themselves that they can do, you know.
Danielle Young: Yeah. So how do you know if, if polyamory is aligned with you or not, or, know, your partnership, if you're already in like a marriage or a partnership, how do you know that polyamory is like the next step or, you know, something that would be aligned with
Jess Williams: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, could be. Yeah. Yeah, I think. I think, well, the first thing is I think it's hard. that people want, and I like so get this, people want, I've had people ask me this question so many times, like people want an answer. Like, ⁓ me the checklist, Jess, and if I could say all these things are true, then we'll be fine, we'll be good, nothing bad will happen, we're not gonna get divorced, you know. And I just, that's not real. And they know that's not real. Like, it's not like anyone actually thinks that's true. But I think, ⁓ you when,
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: the curiosity comes up, it comes from somewhere, right? Especially for folks, of course, you know, I work with folks and there are many folks who like just start dating this way, either when they're younger or they just, they have a point their life where they do that. ⁓ But there's also a lot of folks who are in monogamous relationship, either a marriage or not, ⁓ and then open, wanting to open up, right? So there's a big population of those people. And I think part of what they really want to know when they're asking like, how do we know if this is right for us is how do know if we're to blow up our marriage? ⁓ And fair, fair question. ⁓ also like, how do you know you're not going to blow up your marriage by having a child? How do you know you're not going to blow up your marriage by moving to another country? How do you know you're not going to, know, ⁓ and there's no way to know, right? But we don't like that as humans. want we want the known quantity always.
Danielle Young: Yeah. Yeah.
Jess Williams: And so, but I think, you know, are there general things that like should be present? Probably. Yeah. Right. There should be some level like true, ⁓ intent, whatever intent is. I want to have new sexual experiences. I want to explore my and date someone of another gender. want to, you know, I feel like I have a lot of love. to give and I can really see, I've done some reading or research or listened to some podcasts or whatever, and I really, I can't explain it, but it just sort of speaks to me. I just feel like, yeah, I can really see a lot of benefits to this. It sounds hard, but it sounds like there could be a lot of benefit. So I think some piece of true intent, meaning we didn't just decide this on a dime all of sudden, right? Secondarily, a willingness to do hard work, because it's gonna take hard work, internal hard work and relational hard work. And to really be willing to show up for other people's emotions. I would argue probably all of these things also should be present for monogamous relationships also. You know, like we shouldn't just drop out of the hat and decide to get in a relationship. We should go into it being willing to hold other people's stuff, right, like reasonably.
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: And then, you know, I think I don't think there needs to be like a, I'm sure I won't get jealous or anything like that. I don't think that people have to be like in a perfect place either in their like, I call it an OG original, like OG relationship. So like, they don't have to be in a perfect place in their OG relationship. They don't have to be in a perfect place in their own life if they're just coming into this like solo. I just think more of like a ⁓ I feel like I, you I know myself well enough, well enough to try to, you know, advocate for my needs, hold other people's stuff, you know. Nothing like insane. Yeah, I just don't, I don't think that we just have to be these like magical, perfect, like polyam robots and then we like go into phase two or something, you know.
Danielle Young: Yeah. know, like, there's so much, I mean, there's so much misinformation this too, you know, I mean, because I don't know if you know that there was a show on called Polyamory. And, and I watched And I, the dynamics between the couples were, I mean, how do you handle power dynamics in those types of Like, I mean, you traditional relationships, ⁓ have your own agreements there, but when you start adding more people into the mix, like how do you handle those power dynamics?
Jess Williams: Yeah, I think that depends so much on, I think I know the show that you're talking about. It's about a quad for people to original couples. But yeah, so I mean, I think like, the reality is that people have very different thoughts, opinions, etc. about what they want and don't want. Also, people have ideas about what they want, and then they do it and then they're like, oh.
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: maybe not, is very human ⁓ Fine. yeah, I mean, like, so you know, if you're in a situation where like you've got multiple people, say, you know, three, four, five, however many people in what we'd call polycule, right, these people are all connected in some way. They may not all partners to each other, but there are, you know, partners of partners, etc. Of course, the more that you add, the more you have to think about, like you just said, like
Danielle Young: That was a mistake.
Jess Williams: How do these decisions get made? if, you know, for example, Valentine's day is around the corner. How do we decide, you know, who gets to celebrate on the actual day? Are we gonna fight over it? Like, and for some people it is, for some people, multiple people have a very strong stake in having the day of, whether it's birthday, Christmas, Valentine's day, whatever. And sometimes people are like,
Danielle Young: Great.
Jess Williams: I could care less. First of all, I hate Valentine's Day. That's not me. I love Valentine's Day, more love is what I think. someone might not care, right? And so I think what sounds exhausting to most people and isn't, it's not that it's not a lot of work, ⁓ I think it's just kind of, there have to be decisions made about what kind of interaction all these people want with each other, right? So like in that,
Danielle Young: you
Jess Williams: show there's two original couples and then these couple and these couple are in relationships they live together and they have children together right ⁓ so I'm not presuming to know all their dynamics because I don't know them you know in real life but you know there's there's some decision there sometimes at some point those people made a decision that they're cool ⁓ being that closely connected to ⁓ partner's partners not everyone wants that in polyamory and that's totally fine some people will like If I had two partners, those two people may not want to ever meet. They might not want to hear about each other. They might be cool with like both throwing me a birthday party, but they're not going to hang out by themselves on the side and like go or something. You know, like there's, there's varying degrees to which people want that kind of intimacy for lack of a better term. And so it's like, what does this look like first of all? And then once we know what this looks like, how the, ⁓ you said, power dynamics or decision-making dynamics work based on that, right? Because if I have two partners and they don't really want contact with each other, not out of animosity, just like, I prefer to keep things parallel, separate, okay, then that's a lot of work on my end as what call the hinge to communicate consistently with these two people who aren't talking to each other, right?
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: very different from if I have two partners and they they could be besties, they could be acquaintances, they could be, you know, whatever, but maybe they're cool with being in a group chat with me. And so if we have to decide things, maybe that's cool. Or maybe, you know, ⁓ three of us live together. And so it's a matter of going down to the kitchen and being like, yay, did anyone realize Valentine's Day is coming up? Like, what are we doing about that? ⁓ So I think there's just so, it's just so hard.
Danielle Young: you
Jess Williams: to answer because it looks so many different ways, but I really, really believe that as long as everyone is like really consenting and on board with is happening, it can work in any different kind of way. It's just when people find themselves in a situation, just like in monogamy, where their needs are not being met and they don't feel comfortable for whatever reason speaking up.
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: and saying what they need, that's when things start to clash just like in monogamy, in friendships, et cetera. there's a million and a half reasons why people don't feel like they can speak up, right? ⁓ of which are external and some of which are internal.
Danielle Young: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that was actually my next question. Like, what advice do you give people who curious and they want to explore this, but they just they're so afraid to speak up because, you know, societal norms and all the shame and all of that good stuff. Like, you know, what advice would you would you give them?
Jess Williams: Yeah, yeah, I think, if if I if I have like an individual come to me and say, you know, I'm really interested in but I'm in a relationship and I don't know what to do. My first thought would be do some research, some, don't do the ever, ⁓ because if you do all the ever, and then you bring it to your partner, and they've done none of the research ever, ⁓ then we're going to create a like, you know, stark dynamic and you're gonna if they say yes, you're gonna be chopping out the bit and they're gonna be like, whoa, like, hold the heck on here, right? So do some research to try to feel that within yourself of like, okay, what about this sounds interesting, cool, sexy, fun, whatever to me, like, what is it about this that draws me? And then, I mean, again, like people want, they want a formula for how to bring this to their partner. ⁓ And I just don't think that most of those conversations go go like super super well at first because Because you know, ⁓ I it's it's really You have be Sure enough ⁓ enough what what trying to say to communicate this to someone but also ⁓
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: be aware that you don't know everything also you want to hear what they have to say. And yeah, mean, even for people who are like, say they're single right now, but they're starting to date again or they've been dating and they're like, I don't know if I want to date monogamously, but how the heck do I tell someone that's on a date? ⁓ things apply. Figuring out what it that does draw you. ⁓
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: do little bit of research enough that you can feel like you can express yourself, but also with some level of like, you know, this is new to me, I don't know everything about this. And so we can figure this out together. What I do know is there's a bunch of books and podcasts and ⁓ other out there. We can that together. But yeah, mean, do I think a conversation between a long standing or so long standing monogamous couple ever goes, I'm thinking we should be polyamorous. ⁓ my god, I think that too. Like, I'm sure it's happened. I'm sure it's happened Danielle, but like time out of 100, I don't know, like that's just, I don't think most are not walking around thinking about this until something triggers them to think about this.
Danielle Young: In a perfect world. Yeah. Yeah.
Jess Williams: whether they read something or someone comes to them and says that they're opening their relationship or a friend confides in them or they see an article and whatever, know, like until something, you know, kind of jogs it. I don't think most people are walking around thinking about this, just like most people are not walking around thinking about why they chose monogamy either. So it's not like a running commentary in your head, you know? So it's just, it's not gonna go perfectly.
Danielle Young: Yeah. final thought before we wrap up here. what would you say to the people who think that polyamory non-monogamous relationships are just wackadoodle and, know, just, they're type are like, my God, I can't believe people do this. What would you say to those people?
Jess Williams: really, you know, I think there was a time in my life and career that my words would have been different. But I think would say honestly, first of all, I get it. I really do. Like ⁓ I this for myself and I work with people every day who choose this for themselves and it's still fucking hard. So ⁓ it's hard to work against that monogamous part of my brain that will like bring up a thing and I'm like, I don't believe that. What the hell? Get away, right? ⁓ So first of all, I get it. Like I really do. This is a big departure from what we are taught is normal, healthy, good, et cetera. And we frankly, societally, for good, bad, or otherwise, we have a lot of stock put in the known. In our brains, we'll always choose a known entity, whether or not it's healthy. Because our nervous systems want to know things, they don't want to not know things.
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: And so I really get when people have an adverse reaction to this because to most people it's like, what the fuck, like what, why, why, who even this occurs to, right? first I get it. And then my second piece would be like, you know, I think what is the most important thing to me is someone comes to you that you care about and shares this information, just take a second, like literally just take a breath.
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: and try to hear what they're saying instead of what you're hearing in your head. Like, what are they saying to you? Are they saying, and they don't owe you this information, but if they're sharing with you they do this, try to hear them. ⁓ actually hear them. Not think about how you would feel in that situation, or if it were my daughter or whatever, like, wait. ⁓ if it is your daughter, well, then they're done that too. Like, hear they're saying, right? And then, know, at the end of the day, ⁓
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: This is so cliche, but like My big thing with this is always has more love been the problem? That ain't never the problem. you know, I feel like ⁓ people want to have more people in their lives to love ⁓ that looks different from what you think is normal, good or right for you, ⁓ please don't do it. Don't engage in that because it's not for you. It's not for everyone. Just like marriage is not for everyone except we shove people into it, ⁓ ⁓ it's not for everyone. And what kind of world would we live in if that was different? You know, if we didn't shove people toward marriage as like
Danielle Young: Yep. Yeah.
Jess Williams: you're not going to be healthy, happy, safe, secure if you don't do this. You're going to die alone, right? If we didn't shove people into that in fear, would our divorce rate be different? Probably. ⁓ know, what could things look like if we just didn't shove people in any particular direction ⁓ because we thought that's what was normal?
Danielle Young: agreed. And there are some, I mean, there are some similarities and parallels between non-monogamous and monogamous relationships. I mean, I don't care what kind of a relationship that you're in, you're always going to have issues come up that you're going to have to deal with. There's always going to be communication. There's always going to be, you know, outside influence. There's always going to be life. mean, life is really random. I mean, you know, whether you're monogamous or not,
Jess Williams: Yeah.
Danielle Young: you're still dealing with the same dynamics between partners. It's just now you just you're being loved by more people. And like you said, what the hell's wrong with that? I think if more people experience that we would not be going through it. We're going through right now.
Jess Williams: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing. Yeah, yeah, we just, and again, I understand where this comes from, because this is how we view everything, but we just tend to think of love, love, fidelity, trust, loyalty, all that stuff as a pie. And if I give you a piece, then I have less. And that's not true. I have a pie, and I give this partner a piece, and it magically regenerates, and I have a whole pie again. And then I give it someone else, and then it regenerates, and I give some to my friends and my family and my whoever. ⁓
Danielle Young: Yeah.
Jess Williams: And it doesn't diminish, it doesn't get less. And there are so many parallels that can be made there to help people understand. But I also get that some people are just not in a place that they are ready to engage with that or understand that because accepting something that is so different from what you are doing does require you to examine your own life. And that's generally uncomfortable for most people. So yeah, but I think you're right. Regardless of relationship,
Danielle Young: Yes.
Jess Williams: You know, there's always going to be, it's like monogamous relationships don't have jealousy. They have a lot of things. ⁓ You know, or yeah, or any of those things, right? So yeah, it's ⁓ similar I don't think the challenges are necessarily unique. It's just uniquely human that challenges exist, you know, everybody's got to make a decision about what feels right for them, life short.
Danielle Young: or infidelity or Yeah, we're all humans having a human experience, so might as make the best of it while you're here. All right, well, thank you so much, Jess, for being here. And if someone wants to work with you, where can they find you?
Jess Williams: Yep. Yep, exactly. Yeah, sure thing. I'm licensed in Delaware, Pennsylvania and Maryland. And I'm gonna start doing some relationship intensives for non-monogamy too soon. So people from close states might wanna come down for that. But my website is oakevergreentherapy.com. Like trees, oak evergreen.
Danielle Young: awesome. I will put everything in the show notes so can find you very easily. Yeah, this is a great talk and I could keep talking to you about this because I mean it's such a huge subject and there's many components to it and I'm so curious about it and I think other people are too and they just got a little taste of it. So we'll have to have you back.
Jess Williams: Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. Sounds good.
Danielle Young: Alright, well, thanks for hanging out with us on Find I'll Talk About It. If today's episode got you thinking, hit follow or subscribe so you don't miss what's next. if you want more real talk, more perspective shifts, and more finally someone said it moments, leave a quick review. It helps other people find the show and lets me know what you want more of. You can connect with me on Instagram at inspired action wellness or my website inspiredactionwellness.com for more inspiration like this. and we will see you in the next episode.
