208 Relationship Anarchy: Tailor-Making ALL Your Relationships with Annie Undone

Welcome to Playing With Fire, the podcast for people who are ready to custom build their love. We're talking about non-monogamy, however you design it, as an individuation opportunity. Want to leave the default and make your life spectacularly you? You're in the right place. Can we get to do my favorite thing? Today we get to talk to other people, not just us. Yay. So today we have Annie Undone, which like definitely fangirl moment for me, just from the perspective of.

There are people who talk beautifully about non-monogamy and their journey. And then there are people who talk beautifully, but also just somehow click. It clicks for me personally. So I was excited to have Annie on because... What they put out into the world is so in alignment with my experience. It's in alignment. Right up to getting divorced and then going back to school. All the things. All the things. And the overlap, the practical overlap between you. I mean, you're both.

coming at this from a very practical point of view. I love that. I love that too. So let me introduce Annie and then we're going to just jump into conversation. Annie Undone is a non-binary queer writer who began her unconventional relationship journey in 2020. She's moved through every relationship style from monogamy to polyamory and is now a relationship anarchist. They have a fantastic online social media presence. You're going to find all that in the show notes.

But let's just dive in. Annie, welcome to Playing With Fire. Welcome. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. That was like so flattering from somebody I like so much. I'm really, really excited to talk to you. I love that you weave your personal story. into your work. But you also do approach this from a, hey, everyone has to find their own path. I feel you really balancing those two things, and that's important to me.

Annie, could you just start off by telling us a little bit about the shift that you experienced from monogamy to making intentional relationship structures back in 2020? Yeah. So in 2020, well, really in 2019, a friend of mine like. basically said to me and my husband like oh my god we're fucking other people and it's the best time of our whole lives and we kind of looked at each other and we were like wait a second you you can you could do that and

that was when we kind of started to explore, like, what does that look like? And I think right from the jump, I had... listened to way too many podcasts and I kind of knew that there was every possibility that the relationship could end, right? And so I kind of said like right from the jump, like, hey.

I think if even the end result was that we weren't together anymore, I think I could deal with that. I think that went squarely over his head completely. And so we kind of started swinging, basically. And some of that I really enjoyed. And then the more casual experiences, I was like, something is really off here. Like, I'm not having the same experience that other people are having.

And it was around that time I was also in a BDSM relationship with an asexual bisexual gentleman who was kind of like helping me. understand like my relationship to sexuality in general. And I was like, wait a second, maybe I'm like demisexual. Like I had no idea. Right. And so it was then that I realized that I really needed.

emotional connection with people. And I kind of made that shift into polyamory, which incidentally led to... A lot, right? I wound up dating my best friends of 22 years. That went horribly, as you might imagine. Oh, I did that too. You did that too? Absolutely, yeah. I'm married to one of them now. Is this like a polyamorous rite of passage? Yeah, I kept one of them though. I'm married to him.

Well, then it worked out for you. God, mine was terrible. Sort of. Because at first it had to explode and then come back together. So I feel you. I feel you. It really can blow everything up. And it does. It's like a rite of passage. It's like, oh, yeah. Go find your friends. Screw that all up and then move on to the next step. And then I kind of entered this like, I don't know, very chaotic, very polysaturated, very like, let me just throw anything at the wall that kind of...

Right. And I was kind of engaging in that way. And then I had this one off. I would say one-off. I had this experience with a person who the relationship never really came to fruition, but he was like a window. He showed me what an intentional communicative relationship looked like. And that was when I around that time met my partner, CJ, who I had been absolutely resisting this man.

for two years i was like literally just like stay away from me like i just there was something about him that i just didn't want him anywhere near me and and really what wound up happening was that we just fell in love in this crazy way and basically that relationship was so life-changing um that we kind of joked the day that we like left but like it was like everything behind us just absolutely exploded and we were just left there at the end.

But that's kind of like the end point, right? Like we were in this polycule with like my ex-husband, a woman that he was dating, Heidi, who I also dated. We were kind of in this like play quad. And something that had reared its head in the beginning of my marriage just came absolutely roaring back. And my husband became very, very abusive. some people have experienced in polyamory i had the very unfortunate experience that

He threatened my partner's life. He threatened to tell everyone I had been having an affair. He threatened to burn down the house. And we literally left in the middle of the night. Yeah. I wish I could say I hadn't heard this story. I wish I could say I hadn't lived parts of this story. But you're right. It's not that uncommon, especially when you don't know what you're getting into. And so you're stepping. Step by step, it feels like...

This is okay. We're managing this. And then sometimes something does break. It exploded. It absolutely exploded. And it's so interesting to have these long, these, you know, these intentional, you know, intimate. Committed relationships. And then you start finding out all these new things about this person. It's like, oh, this isn't going to work because, oh, they're really not. This is breaking them. Well, and also.

I think today how that informs moving forward is a lot of people will say, just like my ex-husband had said, it's the polyamory that's pushing me to do this. thought back in my head and I said, no, it's not because this was also a problem 10 years ago. When you did this and you did that. Right. And I always ask people to take a look back when they go, oh, it's the polyamory. And that's why my partner is acting that way. Take a trip back. Is it really? Right. And so that was one of those like.

It was one of those moments where, you know, I left this relationship, I was still into relationships. And so we kind of traversed this divorce, which was very messy. Just felt like it took forever and wound up in like a nested polycule for a moment there where my queer platonic partner and my boyfriend lived together. And I kind of came in. and out. And that sort of came to a head. And my relationship with my queer platonic partner ended. And now...

I am nested in two places. I live in one city with my mom and my child and in another city. with my partner. And I traveled between the two cities and kind of like a wanderer, right? And I thought, you know, I've had a lot of... really sexy experiences. I've had a lot of dating experiences in the last five years. And I thought, what if I just made a shift to

really getting intentional about intergenerational living and exploring what one healthy partnership looks like. And so that's kind of the... the synthesis i so annie what i'm hearing is that yeah as you got intentional you also had to unpack and let go of the idea that polyamory like can inspire people to believe that they need to be in multiple romantic or sexual relationships at the same time. That's the defining quality of it.

If they don't do that, somebody is going to take their poly card away. Or they're going to feel like they get into this questioning phase. So it sounds like relationship anarchy entered your psyche as like… Well, this is a different way to frame it because it contains, as I understand it, a lot of the same frameworks and understandings of potential, but also with the inclusion of you can be monogamous and practicing monogamy.

But also your philosophical stance can be relationship anarchy. Would you describe what relationship anarchy is for you? Do you have a concise definition that you use? Very simple. Very simple. Taylor made relationships for exactly who's in them. That's it. That's very simple, right? But deceptively so, right? The two things I think that are really important.

no matter how you're practicing um if you're interested in exploring relationship anarchy is really you're you're dismantling heteronormativity and mononormativity and it doesn't matter if you're polyamorous or you're monogamous or you're somewhere in between that, that's the call, right? The call is to deconstruct those themes so that you're not, and for me, it comes back to this concept of the centralization of power, right? In terms of romance, especially.

And this is why I think I crashed and burned so hard in polyamory was the centralization of romance instead of centralizing one person. I centralized many people and that came at the expense of myself. Now, those were super important lessons for me. Right. But I think that.

taking the power away from romance it doesn't mean it's not important it doesn't mean it doesn't make the cut right it just means it's on the same level for me as my friendships and my familial relationships and most importantly my relationship to myself.

Right. That does often go, I mean, especially if you are used to over-functioning in romantic relationships, if you're used to being the person who meets the need before the need is even named, if you're used to... like leaning in and, and caretaking if that, if that is, and especially I find if people not only they do it because they're filling, checking all the boxes, but. They genuinely feel some satisfaction from it. Yeah. But you lean into that so long that you forget that.

oh, showing up for yourself in that same way requires energy. It's not just the default. Wouldn't you say that's kind of like the other side of codependency is like I have to be relevant, right? Like I always tell people like, yeah, there's two sides. codependency right there's a beneficiary right and then there's the person who's seeking relevance through the participation and generally speaking it's that person who's seeking relevance that goes

I'm so done with this. Yes. Yeah. I once heard a client say it's so – like they really had a handle. They'd gotten a handle on it. They were in the end period of their – their self-proclaimed codependent period. And they said, well, I have spent my whole life being useful because useful things don't get thrown away. Right. And that just landed right in my soul. It was so viscerally like, right. And then we lose track of.

What does that even mean? What does that mean of your essential nature that useful to who? Yeah. Because you're not even talking about your existence as being worthy. Right. And definitely not taking into account useful to yourself. Are you participating with yourself? And I know as a mom of seven, I have definitely lived that life myself. There's no way not to be in periods of just total output and so little input.

And at the same time, I think that for me, having children has made me need to be very intentional, right? There's an intentionality about that. I cannot. I can't just subsume myself into my motherhood because with seven. Right. I would drown. I'd be done. They would absolutely. They would consume me. So I have to be super intentional about making sure that I know and they know. And they're all adults now. The youngest is about to turn 18.

It's so intentional to actually take that into all the areas. Like you said, it's not just about being intentional and tailor-made in your romantic life, but in all areas. And when I say that, I have a lot of people freak out. They're like, wait. But your job as a mother is to give, is to sacrifice. I'm like, well, if I sacrifice myself, we all know the phrase, the oxygen mask, you got to put it on yourself. But it's not just that. It's also like.

my soul like my soul needs food too i mean people People also love to do this, right, with their kids, right? Like we love to pretend. I mean, I'm a mom, right? I don't talk about it a lot on my page because I have a deeply private child. in in terms of like motherhood especially um we're all too happy to lose ourselves in that right and it's

not altruistic, right? It's often quite selfish. And so if someone's triggered by that, they should examine that, right? Like what about that, right? Because we have, and you often see this manifest as parents being. so expectant of who their children are and what they're going to be. Right. Like I always tell my child, I don't know, I'm still getting to know you. Like you tell me as long as you've known you. Exactly. So I think, you know, and this is like.

i think this is how like polyamory and relationship anarchy wind up benefiting everybody right it's like you know it's it's taking away that expectation, that heteronormative and mononormative, you know, expectation that society puts on you as a mom, as a partner, as a child, right?

You know, when you said deconstructing, that's exactly what comes to mind. Like what are the steps? Like what's something that you've done to deconstruct heteronormativity? Yeah. And cisgender normativity and mononormativity, like all of these, what do you do? Yeah. I mean, there's no like, there's no guide map, right? Like you have to kind of do it as it comes up on you. But I do have a guiding question that I use, which I think is pretty.

helpful and that is do I want this or do I think I should want this right this comes into play a lot with mononormativity Because I use this like story. This is kind of like one of the stories I use to demonstrate just at the simplest level, right? Is that my partner once had these three events, three weeks in a row with his family.

And he didn't invite me to any of them. Right. And I was like, oh, my God, mom, CJ didn't invite me to like any of his events. And she was like, well, if he loved you, he would have invited you to those. Right. She's like, he doesn't want to be. public with you. That's what it is. And I was so nervous, right? So after a few weeks, it gets to me and I say to him, hey, I don't know if you just overlooked this, but you didn't invite me to any of these events. And he's like, yeah.

That's right. I didn't. And I was like, oh, you did that on purpose? And he's like, yeah, it's my family. I don't want to have to manage my own emotions and then think about how you feel. That seems like a lot. And he was like, did you want to go to these events? And I was like. well, no. And then I was like, what I don't want is for this to mean something that I don't understand that it means. And he was like, well, it doesn't mean anything. And I was like, all right, great.

have a bad time. What I don't want is for this to mean something that I didn't know was actually going on underneath. I didn't want the thing, the story. So you don't want to let the story that... well, in your case, your mother put in your head, but it might've been a story that you had to come up with as well. You didn't want that story to be true. And the truth was the story was not true. Right.

It just wasn't true. I like what you said about you didn't want it to mean something you didn't know it meant. Not just... You didn't want it to line up with the story you had, but you didn't want there to be some subterranean something trickling along underneath that was going to come up in some other way later. And so the normalizing the conversation about, does this mean anything? It's just awesome. And then trusting that it doesn't, right? Another great example.

is that I recently let my child dye her hair purple, right? Okay. And my mom was like, I don't know. They just seem really young for that. And I said, well. I don't know. I mean, it's their body, right? Like, what do I know about what they want to do with their body, right? It's these normative expectations. They're like, well, that's a child you're supposed to decide, right? And I don't want to frame my mom here.

She's like super open, open minded. Right. And, you know, we've carved our own sort of anarchist relationship together. And we even did an entire workshop together on coming out polyamorous and coming out queer. My mom's a therapist, right? But even she's still deconstructing these themes at 69 years old, right? I had.

One of my biggest moments of envy of the past two years, at least, when I saw that you were able to do that with your mother. Annie, I just like give your mother a huge hug from me. My mother died right at the beginning of my journey. And we had our troubles. We did. But she died before I was able – I had come out as polyamorous, but she didn't actually understand. We hadn't been able to really fully express to her what was happening, even though I was living in a triad.

new. And so when I saw that and I saw the video that you made, I was just like, it was both cathartic and like soul nourishing. And I felt myself drop into my envy. And I just wanted to say like that. What I saw was a… a community care that like a way of building familial relationship that I feel like I was just on the cusp of and then I missed and I'm just so I'm so glad that you have that and also that

she's willing to participate at least to some degree publicly so that we get to imagine into it like what's possible. Yeah. And I think this is something we talk about, especially now with the political climate. She's like, oh, I learned so much because like you tell me this thing. But, you know, I gain a lot from her perspective as well. Right. And these generational.

exchanges are really important. And I think that coming... coming into relationship anarchy and intentionally like i didn't move in with my mom because i had to move in with my mom i'm you know i moved in with my mom as like a okay let's like see what this is and then

we were like, okay, this is going to be permanent and we're going to do some construction on the house that feels good for us. And we're going to develop some systems and we're going to, you know, like live in this way. I mean, CJ lived with us for an entire summer, right? So like, we're all just like living together. Right. Like we want to intentionally be in community with one another. And it's part of my relationship structure.

And I think I've had friends at one time or another who were like, we don't socialize with our parents. We don't do this. There's a line between this, right? And for a little while, you know, which was a very hurtful situation to my mom. I drew that line, right? Like I bought into that. And I remember saying towards the end of my polyamory.

journey with my ex-husband, I said, you know, why are we participating with this group of people who's telling us that we shouldn't invite our parents? We've always hung out with our parents. Why are we participating in this bullshit? Like these people are lying about who they are anyway. Like half of them are fucking us and not telling the other half. And they have the audacity to direct me as to who I should include in my village.

as like a point of ageism, you know? And, and so I think like this is something that. again, can be missed when we are forming polycules and having a lot of romantic relationships. We forget that. Deep and meaningful and loving relationships aren't just the romantic kind. That is really just one kind of love. Yeah. You have – okay, you've led the conversation to place, I think.

I didn't expect and I'm really excited about because I hear so many people in my work, um, not come, not even come out to their parents, um, or, or their children, right? There's, they be with the. The premise, the underlying premise is often we just want to keep things simple. We're just not ready for the complications of that. And I understand. And I am very much a…

you are empowered to make the decisions that work for you. You absolutely are. And I think this isn't a conversation that they hear. They don't hear the other side of, well, what could be possible? What might happen if we came out? Because when I came out to my parents, They actually, my parents are, like, I was raised, you know, deeply conservative and, you know, very working class. And my parents were like, huh, okay.

That was it. That was the big story. I thought it was going to be tragedy. And they were like, okay, sure. And then my mom was very much like, this sounds actually very interesting. We really didn't get to get all the way into it. But it was fascinating. And when I hear people just assume that their parents or their children will take it badly and write that out or that it will inherently be more complicated.

I'm just wondering if you can speak to that. From your experience, what is complicated? What's complicated is that people don't want to be uncomfortable. right? That's what's complicated for them. And that's not complicated. You're just justifying that you don't want to be out because that's uncomfortable for you, right? That you have to be seen, right? And where there are like... safety concerns. We get that. We're not saying, hey, go be out, put your safety on the line. None of those things.

But and I've had reactions all over the map. Interestingly, I love to punch holes in liberals by telling them I'm polyamorous. Right. And just watch them absolutely melt down and then tell me they're an ally. But right. of my favorite pastimes. But on the flip side of that, some people will really come to embrace you in completely unexpected ways, right? Like my mom. She's dated, you know, swingers and polyamorous men now. And she's fairly monogamous, right? But just very open-minded.

And not and no longer scared. You've also like you had all of this conversation. So I also imagine like there's a there's a fear level that goes down. Yeah. There's another thing that I often hear, which is.

people wanting to control the narrative. Like, like I, I don't, I don't know how to come out. How do I come out in a way that I can control it? And I always say like,

Well, the thing is you can't. You can put a narrative out. You can make sure that you're conveying yourself as clearly as possible, but we actually aren't in charge of what other people think of us. You don't know what happens to the story after you... give it away yeah and also i think there's okay so like i thought when i came out right which was at the age of 35 36 i came out as bisexual which

really confused people because they were like bet you're married and then i like came out as poly and i guess that made more sense to them right but what i thought was like oh i'm just gonna come out And people are going to accept me because I'm amazing. And then, like, it'll be over, right? That is not how coming out goes.

at all. Yeah. And definitely not for bisexuality or polyamory. No, like those are the two worst, right? Oh, you can't make up your mind or commit? Great job, asshole. Right? Plus, they just, every time I stand next to Ken, people like, buy a racer for...

both of us. I have come out and buy so many times to the same people over and over, brand new information. And I think too, I think too, especially like people expect a response, right? So if I'm coaching, someone and saying like if you're gonna come out like come out and then be like

OK, so like if you have any questions, let me know. But if you don't have anything to say right now, like fair. Right. Like not everyone's going to be happy for you. Some people are going to think it's happening to them. Right. Which, you know, I think it's. Interesting. This was one thing that I really learned from coming out polyamorous and divorcing while polyamorous.

is I felt like these things were happening to me. And the people around me felt like they were happening to them. And at first, this made me so angry. I was like, how dare you? How dare you make this about you? my life is falling apart and somehow this is about you. But I think when I was able to like kind of take a step back, it was happening to them also.

There's a trajectory, right? Like if we're in community, right? Codependency is you can't be that because that hurts me, right? Interdependence is you can be that, but. what's going to happen here? Like we're kind of affected by this, right? And so I think one thing to understand is like, while it's not exactly happening to them, if they're going to walk beside you.

it's going to affect them. And so that was like a really, I sometimes still feel like I'm still absorbing that, right? Like, and one of the ways that manifests is like, My child asked me a couple of weeks ago if I was secretly married to my partner, which I just thought was a wild question all on its own. And my next question was, well, when I said no, no, of course not. Nobody would make a decision like that without including you. And then I was like.

how would you feel about that? That would change so much for you. What do you think about something like that? Like, give me all your thoughts out of your brain. Because a lot of times we do not see ourselves as part of the community and our decisions affecting other people and it's it's hard it's hard it's human nature right we're thinking about ourselves um but I think for some people that is very real and

You know, some people are a little more selfless and some people are a little more self-centered. And so the degree to which somebody may feel affected by your coming out polyamorous is going to depend on their personality. Yeah, yeah. Totally. I definitely experience the, on a regular basis, the... the impact to my less secure feeling friends. And I say that with love. Not everybody feels the same sense and level of security specifically in their relationships. And so when...

It's usually when they remember that I'm polyamorous. It's like there's this wave of threat. Like they feel a threat and it's not, there's threat from multiple directions as far as I can tell. Yeah, there's the stuff that always bothers me, the idea that somehow I'm a threat to their monogamy.

I'm not, but also just the threat of if that exists, if you get to happily exist in that relationship, does that mean I have to think about that? Do I have to consider that? Do I have to grow my imagination? Do I need to hold? what else is possible. Where I see this come up the most is when they're unhappy. They're voicing deep unhappiness in how their relationship is working. Then they have this wave of remembering that I have this really intentional

relationship. And that can feel like a threat in itself. Like I really don't want to unpack all of it. I don't want, I can almost see them like, please don't mention it. I know, but I just, it's not about monogamy or non-monogamy. It's about. I don't actually want to have to think about my relationship. I just want it to feel good for me right now. Or they also don't want to think about the fact that there is something.

Right? For them, it might be that trip to Paris or that education they never got or the play they were never in or the thing that they never did. Right? The expression of themselves that they never expressed. And how fucking dare you? Express yourself and be joyful and be unapologetic because I can't do that. And your existence makes me have to unpack that. Yeah. Right?

So is that one of the things you would recommend? So if you have an intact couple, somebody who is currently, they believe that they're happy, they're like, we have good communication and we want to be open, but we know that there's stuff to unpack. How would they use relationship anarchy?

to deconstruct? Is it looking at questions like that? So I actually recommend that couples who want to open take a look at relationship anarchy first because – and this is, I guess, somewhat of a controversial opinion. Who cares?

like at the end of the day i think that deconstructing mononormativity and heteronormativity is a really good place to start because do you manage your own calendar right or do you are you asking permission and when you're a fully enfranchised adult for like autonomous things, right? Do you have a budget? What does your money look like? Are you like... heteronormatively like tied up with this person financially, right? Are you the default parent? Like, do you?

have the ability to schedule a date without being like, hey, co-parent, I actually need you to be present instead of doing XYZ, right?

How are you about taking a trip with your friends or, you know, going out to dinner by yourself? Like, what are these, you know, how do you unpack some of these themes, right? And I think also... you know it's a good place to start because as you hit those roadblocks or those challenges you can see how your partner confronts these really uncomfortable themes right and how you fall back into them right like in my

relationship, one of our things that we established in the beginning was no compulsory gifts. Like we're not going to participate in this shit. Right. And then this Christmas. I turned to my partner and I said, Jesus Christ, we literally – like we did the full – what the hell is this? You did the thing. And like neither of us had talked about it.

And we had both like, and not only have we both bought each other gifts, but we're like, how many gifts did you get me? And I got you this many gifts. I mean, like it was bizarre, right? Like it was like bizarre. We were like, when did these people. show up here. What is this? Right. And so I think Evita Sawyers like said this to me in, in just like the best language I could think possible, which like, I am like, I'm brilliant. I'm in love with her. Brilliance embodied.

She said, whether or not you know it, that mononormative music is always playing in the background. And before you're aware, you're already dancing to it, right? Yeah. And it's just like, it's the best metaphor because that is what happens to us as people, right? Like we are doing the thing. And so I think if you start with the deconstruction of those themes, right? Because.

Mononormativity is more dangerous than monogamy will ever be because it's telling you to conform, right? You can go be polyamorous. Go ahead. Have a great time, right? But is your polyamory free of mononormativity? Or are you just squaring relationships, right? And that's what we do because that's the script that we have. So if you can't. essentially make your monogamous relationship different, what makes you think adding another relationship is not going to break what's happening, right? Yeah.

Yeah, one of my favorite questions for people who are opening, and especially if I get the, and this doesn't happen often, because often they go do stuff first and we get them on the oh shit. They fuck around and then find out. Yeah. And I, but what I love is when somebody comes in a specific window of time and I ask them to really dig into their sex life together, because usually it's, well, you know, things are, you know, they're fine.

They're fine. They're fine. I get a lot of, they're fine. And if I poke at that a little bit. What we find out is, yeah, it's fine. But that's actually the driver. The driver is we don't like what's happening here and we can't talk about it. It's the thing we don't talk about. Because if we do, then we'll reveal what fine actually means. not great. So instead we add new partners and massively complexify things when we could.

take some steps through some intentional sex education in the context of this relationship first. Yeah. And learn that. But I think that's actually more courageous in many ways because you don't… there's nowhere to hide this is a person who you are already relating to you've already made commitments to so you can't hide you can't just get put up a dating persona um you can't hide behind even the labels of polyamory or any other label you just

have to dig in and be vulnerable and actually meet this person that you might have been partnered with for 30 years. You have to meet them again and also show them all the way you've changed. that work all hands down is way harder for my clients than. And as a lifelong avoidance strategist. And you're going to have to do it anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's still going to happen. But you're going to do it in the context of.

increased complexity right and and or you use the increased complexity to distract yeah and you just you just kind of turn your back on it and you just focus and that's um I mean, I've done that in several different domains. I would be curious to know if you've found this in your work because it comes up all the time in peer supports, right? I see some of the most successful couples.

in polyamory are ones who no longer have sex with each other. That's the primary couple. I mean, if we're going to define sex or if we're going to define successful as like they tend to look. relatively stable. Their communication patterns are fairly straightforward. And they also, they don't have as many explosions. Right.

Yeah, I do see it. It's not the only, there's another. It's not the only. Yeah. It's not the only one, but I do see that. And I do see that there's, there's some beauty in it. And also there's often a lot of layers of coming out because I often see it happening because there's a mixed orientation relationship that was…

unknown for a long period of time. So there's often a lot of, if both of them have leaned in and they're exploring polyamory because of a mixed orientation that they became aware of, then there's also this beautiful intensifying of their actual intimacy. Just not around sex. And the reason I bring this up is because I would love for that couple to do the work before they open up.

Right. Yeah. And that's exactly what I wind up doing with people. Like I love when they get in the container and they're like, they do like long work because I only work with people for at least a year. Right. So they're doing a lot of work beforehand.

they do have way better outcomes. And also I think, you know, sex is my favorite subject, my favorite subject. But I feel like if we really want to understand what people are doing in their bedrooms, we have to talk to the people who aren't having sex. I feel really firmly about this for a few reasons. One is because my most formative experience in polyamory was dating an asexual man.

It was just such a different way of being seen that was just so attractive to me, which is an interesting way, I guess, to frame it because we weren't having sex in the traditional sense of the word. but also because... We don't just have to emphasize relationships in terms of sexuality, right? Sex positivity is about the full umbrella, right? It's about your right to say, I'm going to have all the sex in any types with any people I want.

or, and, or I would like to have zero sex at all. Right. And, and so I feel like, you know, we define. sex and marriage as synonymous to one another. I think that a lot of couples decide for whatever reason that they're no longer invested in the sexual part of their marriage or their relationship and they move into these.

other polyamorous waters, right? When we talk about building a village and doing these things. And I really want people to know, because I think they get very scared when they hear about this, that those relationships are extremely successful for a number of years. reasons. Yeah. I love working with people who are intentionally reinventing their sex life as part of their unpacking. And there's another...

avenue that I see people come in with that I, I find it tends to be a little rocky. Um, but it can, it can stabilize really well. And those are the folks who they did, they were not having sex for a long period of time. They open. And things are going well. And now it reignites. They have the Renaissance period. And the rockiness that I see is that there is, and we just recorded a whole episode on this, there's this desire to cling to the Renaissance.

And to hope that now that will last. And that will be the standard. that that's the new standard not realizing that in fact that was an artifact right and it might it could be that now we've we've awakened something new there's a there's an entirely new sex life but a lot of times i see that Well, no, there is. There is this renaissance and we don't know what's on the other side of that. And there needs to be this acceptance of what's going to unfold from here, but the desire to cling to it.

really creates another level of problem that doesn't need to exist. But it's tempting, right? There's temptation there. Like, oh, it feels good right now. But of course, like all things, our sex lives change. They just do. And our interests. And that's where I see people then blaming.

polyamory blaming non-monogamy on the problem. Cause like, well, no, when we first opened, it was fine. And we were, we were actually in love. We actually found out that our sex life worked great. And so now I just. It was better than ever. So I just know for sure that I want to be with this person, but the polyamory is now messing everything up. And that right there, like obviously there was unpacking that didn't happen before.

Like clearly. But also the, they revealed something so important. I have people do differentiation experiments and many times that is about, yeah, it's about. do you have separate calendars? Do you have separate hobbies? Do you have like, have you, have you sort of that? And digging into your sex life with yourself, who like, how is sex for you? And I see people actually.

like stay away from that. They don't want to do that because they're afraid because in that renaissance, they get super excited that this is how non-monogamy will stay okay. Especially if there was one partner who was a little reluctant. And now sex can become almost the price of admission for maintaining non-monogamy, which is – it's just not sustainable. It's just not – because now we actually take something that's yummy into –

something toxic and we don't want that. Yes, it turns toxic very, very quickly. And I think that, you know, so doing that work ahead I think is just really important. And that's why I urge people to take a look at relationship anarchy because it's – doesn't there's no template right like there's no must there's no like you don't have to like do you know whereas

I mean, even in polyamory, right? There's a prescription of sorts, right? Like this is how this looks. Relationship anarchy doesn't look any sort of way, right? And, you know, and watch how uncomfortable it makes the people around you, right? I mean, don't go with your spouse to that picnic, you know? Right. You know, choose to do something more autonomous.

with your best friend instead of your spouse. Or simply be honest with them. You know, I really don't like this activity, right? Like this year, my partner said to me, I don't want to take that kind of vacation with you. And furthermore, I don't think I should have to. And I was like, fuck. It took me like weeks. Like I was like, I cannot believe this man just said this to me. what does he mean? And then I like thought about it and I reached out to a friend of mine and I was like,

I want to take this specific vacation. Do you want to like take a writer's retreat with me to this place? And I was like, wow, that actually feels amazing because I know that this person wants to be on this vacation with me, right? Like wants to do that exact thing. And I think like we often feel confined by these concepts, whether they're monogamy or polyamory.

right? Like we feel trapped inside. And I see a lot of people who that's the story, right? What if I'm polyamorous, but I like this and I don't like this other thing. And what if I don't want to do it that way? And it's like, who told you? Who's the polyamorous fairy godmother who told you that nonsense, right? And that's where, like, I mean, polyamory doesn't, it didn't and doesn't have to have these proscriptions. Right.

It does, and it tends to have them in my experience. I work internationally. I'm working with a lot of people in sort of like the high poly enclaves, right? And you see, I see the geographical differences. I'm like, I know the differences between what's expected in LA from a polyamorous person, what's expected in Portland, what's expected in Denver. And there are three different versions. But when you're inside it, you don't know that.

And it feels like you have to adhere. Relationship anarchy does allow some space to get really conscious about it without that particular prescription. And at the same time. Maybe it's worth mentioning that relationship anarchy itself in some places also comes with some presumptions that shouldn't exist because the word anarchy is right there. It's right there in the definition and it shouldn't exist.

But they do frequently, their presumptions and assumptions. I mean, generally speaking, right, hierarchy, right? Like usually we're just talking about hierarchy, right? And I always say like – You know, there's a lot of interesting stuff that goes on around hierarchy. And I'm reading this book by Tuck Malloy right now. Oh, me too. Expensive Love. Okay. Well, you know, there's a part in there where they say.

That they think in some instances, relationship anarchy is compatible with hierarchy, which is a very controversial notion. Controversial notion. Very controversial notion. But the point of anarchy is that you can't tell someone else how to do it. So, you know. I would say, you know, for most people, they're going to say like, okay, but

At the same point, I always try to guide people toward what are your commitments, right? What are your commitments and what are your priorities? Now, the very evangelized section of this community will tell you. you can't use you can't use parody you can't use that because it's like the same thing man you're just like wordsmithing no it's just reality okay sometimes i have to take my kids to school

It doesn't matter if Sam Smith wants to see me at 3.30 on a Tuesday. I'm committed to taking my kid to school. right? There are commitments and there are priorities. And I guess I should also add that I don't include children in any sort of hierarchy, right? Because they're dependents. Right? They're dependent on us. They don't have autonomy in the way an adult does. Yeah, yeah. And even my adult children, because I committed to them.

in a very particular kind of relationship. So, I mean, my kids are between 18 and 25 and I'm like, oh, you know. they're still in the grace period of dependency. Right. And that's going to, that lasts at least till 30 for me. Like, like 30 grace period. And it may never, I don't know. Ask me on the other side of another 10 years. We'll see. Maybe it won't.

Yeah. And so this is the thing, like you can, you know, you can craft opportunistically any ideology that you'd like. But at the end of the day, relationships. are not going to all be equal, right? That's just, that's not the way the world works. That's not the way our time works, right? There's seven days in a week, right? And time is equal for everyone. So we do have to pick and choose.

But it's about, you know, crafting things in a way that feels good and autonomous for all of the people in it. Right. And so however you choose to do that. um and however you choose to deconstruct and in whatever order right like i love when people are like oh i want to be a relationship anarchist but i'm just not there yet like where are you hoping to be like right yeah it's not there's no there's no place to arrive

Yeah. Like every time I think that I've deconstructed something, it comes to bop me in the face all over again. And then I have to go back to the start. Deconstruction is a forever process. Right. And we're always. going to be working toward that. Well, it's the nature of living in a social fabric that is constructed. Therefore, we're always constructing it. Yeah, and deconstructing it. So we can't escape the deconstruction because it's ongoing. Exactly.

I'm sorry. No, no. We were talking about, well, we talk about asymmetry a bunch. You were talking about how like relationships aren't equal. And there's this, I see this desire for symmetry. out there like things have to be the same whether you call it symmetry or fair or whatever and egalitarian egalitarian and we spend um

I don't think I've used this word about it, but we spend time deconstructing that idea that symmetry is even a goal or even possible. We're so different. Every individual is different and then every relationship is different. Imagining that there's a possibility of making it all look fair and equal. Right. No. And symmetry often...

is inherently unfair because we're different people. And that's where relationship anarchy, the focus on does this provide you autonomy? Do you feel agentified? Do you have that sense? And can you maintain it? in the face of the fact that

Life is ongoing and you're going to continually find yourself like falling in the Christmas hole. Like, oh, look, we just did the thing. And now we have to. So clearly we have to revisit and be like, hey, I didn't like the way that felt. I'd like to revisit art relations. to holidays or the way that we do these things or create our own tradition, right? And I think that, you know,

We all would love to arrive somewhere, right? But that's just not the way that life works. And I think there's a very pervasive attitude, especially in the polyamorous community, that we have to be perfect. you know, all the time. And I really rail against this and I encourage people against, you know, it's like a bunch of type A neurodivergent people were like, hey, we're going to be like.

polyamorous and we're going to do it perfect. We have a real problem in this community of being so obsessed with perfection that it creates its own issue. Yeah. And we close each other out and we start policing each other and driving division in our communities. Causing ourselves and the people around us all kinds of anxiety chasing something that isn't.

truly not available and and and the irony is that we're supposed to be a community that does things differently and yet we do the thing which is like please homogenize yourselves so that we can categorize you in a way that makes sense to us right And that I think, you know, that's why I fight so vehemently to have a more inclusive definition of polyamory, right? This isn't about romance. This isn't about sex. And I'm very clear as to why.

You can't disenfranchise aromantic and asexual people. You can't downgrade types of love or dictate who gets to use that title. And I always stray on the most inclusive side of the definition. And that tends to make people mad. Why? And that's why I turn to relationship anarchy because I'm like...

Well, then you just can't tell me. Sidestep that issue. There is some safety in that. Yeah. Annie, this is such a rich conversation. I know we could keep talking for hours, so I hope you'll come back and join us again. Anytime.

In the meantime, how can people... find you and work with you? Yeah. So I have over 200 pieces of writing on my Patreon. You can subscribe for as little as $5 per month, but there's also a free version. Really encourage people to go on there. And I also do peer supports, one-to-one peer support. supports and that's through Calendly, right? You can find all of that on my Instagram at Annie underscore undone. And I've also written.

a couple of zines, as well as my newest book, which is on polyamory. It's exclusively in an ebook format. It's 11 emotionally charged essays that kind of document the end of my marriage. A juicy read. Okay, I'm going to take that for my weekend. There you go. And those are those stories. I love a good memoir of relationship deconstruction. That's a good one. Yeah.

So we'll have all those links in the show notes. I hope everybody goes and checks out Annie's work. I couldn't be happier to have had this conversation and I can't wait to connect again. Thank you so much. Annie, it's been a pleasure. you We talk to you all the time. It is absolutely imperative to me that we get to hear from you as well. Yes, please. So we'd love to invite you to join us. Join Ken and I. We're holding monthly. Ask me anythings. You can show up.

Bring your questions from podcast episodes, from your relationships, bring questions about non-monogamy, about individuation, about relationship skills. We would love to share space with you. We're hosting these AMAs. free of charge for our podcast listeners. You are the Playing With Fire community. It matters a ton to us that we connect with you directly. Oh, I would so love to hear your questions. It would be so awesome. Yeah.

Go to JolieHamilton.com forward slash AMA and you'll find a way to sign up real quickie quick and get an invitation to join us in a small group where we're going to get together and talk about all things non-monogamy, individuation, and relationships. you