Understanding Non-Monogamy Through Storytelling

Jul 20, 2024
A person with short curly brown and blond hair wearing a gray t shirt and glasses read a book while sitting in a chair facing the window in a room filled with books. The window looks out on a bright background with trees. The room has a large shelf messily stacked with books, a desk with more books on it, and a guitar and an electric keyboard leaning against the desk.

4 minute read

The Power of Storytelling in Non-Monogamy

I've read countless books on the subject. Seriously–my library is BURSTING. But few have resonated with me as deeply as Alex Alberto's memoir, Entwined: Essays on Polyamory and Creating Home. This genre-blending work offers a refreshing perspective on non-monogamous relationships, focusing on the often-overlooked aspects of metamour connections and personal growth.

 

The Polyamorous Lens: Seeing Relationships Differently

Alex introduces the concept of viewing the world through a polyamorous lens. This perspective extends beyond romantic relationships, influencing how we approach friendships, working relationships, and even artistic projects. It's about questioning societal norms and intentionally designing our connections with others.

 

Metamours: The Hidden Gem of Polyamory

One of the most striking aspects of Entwined is its focus on metamour relationships - the partners of your partners. Alex describes these connections as "the best part of polyamory," highlighting the unique intimacy and care that can develop between metamours. This perspective challenges the common narrative that non-monogamy is primarily about sexual exploration.

 

Individuation and Non-Monogamy

Throughout the book, Alex exemplifies what I consider a psychologically engaged life. Their journey of self-discovery through polyamory demonstrates how non-monogamous relationships can be a powerful tool for personal growth and individuation. This process involves not just differentiating oneself but continually becoming more authentically yourself over time.

 

Embracing Change and Transitions

One of the most valuable lessons from Entwined is the importance of embracing change in relationships. Alex's story shows that relationships transitioning or ending doesn't equate to failure. Instead, these changes can be opportunities for growth and new beginnings. This perspective challenges the monogamous ideal of happily ever after and encourages a more fluid, adaptable approach to love and connection.

 

The Importance of Intentionality

Alex's journey underscores the significance of intentionality in non-monogamous relationships. From co-designing relationship structures to thoughtfully considering co-parenting arrangements, the polyamorous lens encourages us to be more deliberate in our connections with others. This intentional approach can lead to more fulfilling and authentic relationships, regardless of their form.

 

Challenging Relationship Norms

Entwined invites readers to question traditional relationship paradigms. By sharing their experiences with various relationship structures, including triads and living with metamours, Alex demonstrates that there's no one-size-fits-all approach to love and family. This narrative encourages readers to explore what works best for them, free from societal expectations.

 

Self-Compassion in the Journey

One of the most striking aspects of Alex's storytelling is the self-compassion they demonstrate throughout their journey. This modeling of gentleness and understanding towards oneself is crucial for anyone exploring non-monogamy or questioning relationship norms.

 

The Value of Diverse Narratives

Entwined fills a crucial gap in non-monogamy literature by offering a real-life story of polyamory that doesn't focus solely on sexual exploration or dramatic upheavals. Instead, it provides a nuanced, compassionate look at the day-to-day realities of non-monogamous relationships, making it an invaluable resource for both those new to polyamory and those with more experience.

 

Next Steps in Your Non-Monogamy Journey

If you're curious about non-monogamy or looking to deepen your understanding of polyamorous relationships, I highly recommend reading Entwined. It offers a unique perspective that can help expand your imagination about what's possible in relationships. Additionally, keep an eye out for Alex's upcoming magazine project, which aims to share even more diverse stories of non-monogamy.

 

Remember, every journey into non-monogamy is unique. While how-to books have their place, immersing yourself in real-life stories like Alex's can provide invaluable insights and inspiration as you navigate your own path.

 


 

Episode 161 Transcript

This transcript was auto-generated, and may contain some errors.

Joli Hamilton
Welcome to Playing With Fire, the podcast for people who are ready to custom build their love.

Ken Hamilton
We're talking about non-monogamy however you design it, as an individuation opportunity.

Joli Hamilton
Want to leave the default and make your life spectacularly you? You're in the right place.

We have a guest today that I am personally beyond excited about, like unreasonably excited. So before we jump in, I'm going to introduce our guest formally and then and then maybe I'll stop fan girling it's very exciting. I'm very excited. Um, Alex Alberto pronouns are they them is a queer, and polyamorous storyteller, and educator. They grew up in Montreal, and currently live in upstate New York, where it is just gorgeous. Alex is the author of the genre blending memoir and twined essays on polyamory and creating home, which blew my mind, it was just absolutely outstanding. So I know you're tempted right now to click the button and go get it. Just Just hang on, we'll have the link for you, you're absolutely going to want to read this.

Alex co-founded quilted press, a collective of independent authors who reshaped traditional narratives of love, family and identity. That's good work. That is good work. You can connect with Alex on Instagram and Tiktok. At that Alex Alberto. And you can learn more about their work at Alex alberto.com. And right now we're gonna just dive in, and have a little conversation about entwined. So thank you, Alex, thanks for being here. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for such a warm introduction. Well, I really am super excited to be talking to you. Because I mean, I've read a lot of non monogamy, I've read a lot of the nonfiction, I've read a lot of the scholarly work. And I've read a lot of memoirs, and I have rarely felt myself reflected anywhere.

And I think I'd gotten through the first like essay, and

I was just, I'm like, can we we have to talk to this person, we have to talk to this person.

Ken Hamilton
Right?

Joli Hamilton
Yeah. So thank you so much for writing it. I'm just deeply grateful.

Alex Alberto
It really is my pleasure. I love hearing reactions like that from readers. I don't know if it'll ever get old. I don't think so. Because, yeah, I wrote this book, I wanted to feel this way, right, 10 years ago. And I couldn't. And that's why I started writing. So for me, just seeing it hit home in any kind of way doesn't have to be life changing. But even if it's little bits, it truly warms my heart and keeps me going. So thank you for sharing.

Ken Hamilton
Well, it hit home. Absolutely.

Joli Hamilton
Yeah. And, you know, before we dive into we've got a bunch of questions about the book. But I would love for you to just set up the audience a little bit and just just give a teaser of your backstory, how do you come to find yourself and identify yourself in this wild world of non monogamy?

Alex Alberto
Sure, um, so yeah, when I was early 20s, I was in a monogamous relationship. And with a man and having feelings for a co worker who was a woman and asked for an open relationship, and the response I got was, well, you can sleep with women. And that's lovely. Yeah, you know, like a very traditional one penis policy start. And through that, I just realized, actually, for me, it's not it, this won't work. I really need to be free. And I felt a great deal of pain. I was feeling broken. I was feeling like, why can't I want what everybody around me seems to want. But I just had I never saw myself in a traditional trajectory relationship escalator type of relationship. And I knew I wanted to connect with multiple people. I just didn't know what that looked like. And I'm from Montreal, as you said, in the introduction, and then when I moved to New York City, I used that as an opportunity to just explore relationships, my queerness my gender, just I was kind of, you know, anonymous for the first time outside of a small place where I was from. And then through that found non monogamy went through many different iterations. And the book kind of goes through a little over 10 years of that journey of me even though I was single or on partnered. When I started diving into non monogamy I did eventually get a part are in because of hierarchy and mono normativity. I did go through a period where we were in a hierarchical partnership and then did a bit more deconstruction of that. And it's still evolving today. But the book really kind of covers the this 10 years. And what I really wanted to be able to show was what it looks like once you've passed the initial stages, once because we grow up with these monogamous love stories, and we know what to dream of. So when you enter a relationship, if you have challenges, or if you don't know what you're doing, you kind of have this vision of what you're hoping for. But I didn't have that, for polyamory. I didn't even know the kinds of non monogamy that could be accessible to me. And now I do. So I really, I like to say that I wanted to push towards a more seasoned approach to polyamory in my book, so that you could kind of see just the sort of joys you know, their challenges, but they're also a lot of Joy's accessible that we're not, we have no idea in the way that we're socialized. I love what you said about knowing what to dream of.

Ken Hamilton
It is hard stepping outside of the mono normative culture. Like I want to do something different, what's even possible, and I do I love the love your your narrative, and the story is there. If nothing else, their imagination expanders for us, and that is such a lovely thing. It's a great gift.

Joli Hamilton
And it's and there's something really different about hearing, you know, we get the dignified version of what Happily Ever After is what I like is when any love story, even from a monogamous perspective, introduces us to the idea that there is no one way there is no one path. And I appreciate that. Ken and I were talking about how this book felt so different because the focus here was on metamorphosis. Like that's that is really, it's so different. I think, in all the other books that I've read, delightful as they may be, they're more of a romp in the hay. There's that which is lovely, but not necessarily the same vibe that you're going for. I feel like you kind of just answered this, but it's also a little scary, I think. Okay, yeah, I want to reframe this a little, when I see somebody writing their sexual like deconstruction, and they're writing their memoir, their non monogamy adventure from that, like, I'm gonna find my sexual self, we kind of know that story to a degree. And there are a lot of ways that can go, but to write it and to include the the interactions and the the tenderness of what it is to have a Metamour a partner of your partners, who you are not directly connected to especially, that is almost unheard of in I can't even think of any other good examples. What got you there? How did you even take the step to include to center that?

Alex Alberto
Yeah, I think so. I often say that. For me, metaphors are the best part of polyamory and what you're raising, I think it the fact that a lot of stories center sexual exploration, I think it's great. I think we live in a culture where that has been repressed that is not encouraged. And depending on the gender you've been assigned at birth, the culture that you grew up with, it's actually very important sexual exploration. But that was just like a tiny sliver of my own experience with polyamory. And I think the issue is that we're so starved for non monogamous, and polyamorous narratives that we just need so many more. And right now, the one that is kind of the most represented and the loudest is, is this very specific approach, which is often centered around a primary couple, who does everything the same, you know, socially and logistically, and then they have other secondary partners and it's, they often draw this kind of, even though there are feelings and commitments, it's kind of more sex based. And for me when everything clicked in my polyamory is when I started building a relationship with my very first metamour Bridget, and it was at a time when I had moved to New York City. I think I'd been there for two years. And it was surprisingly hard for me to make friends as an adult who was out of school I am in a, there's something about New York City, I think people are just really busy, they live far away from each other. And people wanted to make time for me if it was to date or to fuck, or if it was a networking thing for work. But then if it was just like, hey, no, I'm looking not just an acquaintance, I'm looking for an intimate friend, you know, someone who's going to be there someone that I'm going to share fears and emotions with, and I don't know have over for dinner and movie nights. And I had such a hard time finding that until I met Bridget. And because we were both dating the same person. And we wanted to approach non monogamy in a way where it was more of a kitchen table style where kind of everybody hangs out with one another and gets to know one another. And we really clicked I really, really liked her. And then all of a sudden, I realized, oh, like, she's a new part of my family now in a way that I hadn't even thought could exists. Like this is, this is something that's even very hard to describe, because it's not represented enough, but just the type of unique intimacy and care that you can have for a metamour. When you're both romantically involved with the same person, you care for that human in a romantic way. There's just something really powerful. And then from then on, that's when, for me everything shifted. This scarcity, mindset, jealousy, I basically started to focus on, okay, what can it bring to my life when my partner dates someone else, not just, I'm happy to see my partner happy, you know, this sort of, it's a different level of compersion, if you will.

Joli Hamilton
Well, I think your recentering the, it's, it's your joy, for their joy, it's yours, but it's your independent of whether, like, you don't even have to, to really know about their joy, like their individual little joys, it's, it does transcend. But you know what, you're also reminding me of a time in my life, when I did find it relatively easy to make those kind of chosen family friendships was when I had little kids.

I was homeschooling my little kids. And I had seven of them. So it was just wild. And they were like, and it was easy to pull people in and then to fully commit this like, attitude of caring toward them toward their children and toward them as individuals. And now that my children are older, the baby's 17 No baby anymore. They're, that I've felt it ebb away over the last decade, I've felt that shift of Oh, yeah, we like we don't culturally have a script for how do we really be close? So when we were all in crisis mode, because we all had little, little kids. It like we broke some of the the mono land rules. But once we could put it back in the box, I, I, it's uncomfortable, but we did. And so that's, it's letting me know that there is a way that I practiced the same moves of polyamory. before I was ever thinking about the word polyamory or thinking about sex, and any of this having anything to do with each other.

Ken Hamilton
I see a lot of, Go ahead.

Alex Alberto
I was gonna say, Yes, and I really love that. Because basically, what you had was kind of a shared purpose, where your kids needed to grow to be taken care of to learn. And around that shared purpose. It created intimacy and bonding. And it's kind of the same it with metaphors and polyamory you do have a shared purpose of caring for that human. And depending on how you do it, building family together. And but it's not specific to polyamory. And I do get that feedback from my book a lot. People who feel happy in monogamy, don't want to question that. But they do start questioning the way they build family and relationships and community and the way they have been centering, romance exclusively. And also questioning platonic romance or, you know, very intimate friendships. Getting back to what we were saying about there's actually very little sex in my book. So it just puts everything back into perspective.

Joli Hamilton
We use that word romance, right to protect us from a lot of thing I hear people do it all the time. They're like, well, this is my friend, but we're not romantic, as if that word somehow answers a whole bunch of questions, but I really challenge that I'm like, I am very romantic with my close friends. It's it's not sexual. Most of the time because they're straight women. That's that's a frequent reason or, or because they're monogamous, but

super romantic and all the ways that I experience like, I don't know how I would sort out the activities outside

had of kissing and having sex like all the rest of them bringing flowers, scheduling meaningful dates, all like, you know, sharing sharing memes, right? Like, all of that stuff is the same. And so is that what you're talking about? I think that that idea of the poly lens like viewing the world, you talked about viewing the world through a poly lens or the poly lens

Alex Alberto
that's kind of exactly it, where it's like, for me, it started where I was so focused on. Okay, I'm going to be building romantic and or sexual relationships with multiple people. And that's what polyamory is about. But then, very, I mean, just a couple of years into my journey, I kind of realized, oh, no, actually, for me, polyamory is a way to build family. So already kind of goes beyond romance and sex. And then the more I got comfortable and deep into polyamory, especially as I did more work, deprogramming hierarchy, than I realized, oh, now I'm looking at everything very differently. I'm looking at friendships, I'm looking at working relationships, co living relationships, kind of just all these systems that we have in place, from kind of a relationship anarchist perspective. Basically, were trying to start from a blank slate, and see what are the needs, that all the individuals included have and like, what does want to happen naturally? And I don't know that I would have done even done some of my artistic projects in the same way had it not been for polyamory. Does that make sense?

Ken Hamilton
It does to me. Yeah.

Joli Hamilton
Yeah. Ken was doing polyamory way before he knew the word.

And so that describes to me Ken, how you up like you would explain things about relationship to me in a way that I was more deeply entrenched in monogamy, when we first began became romantic. And so like, we had a paradigm we had, we had like grit and the gears of our paradigms, because he had a lot of that already built in.

Ken Hamilton
And it makes, I think, so what I what I hear in that in the question that you asked Joli is that it gave you a different lens to look at your past through? Is that how you experience it? Like, you look back and see.

Joli Hamilton
Yeah, for me, it's not just the design of the future, but also looking back and going, oh, oh, this was me all along. I didn't have the words. And so I also did it badly. Before I did it. Well, I've been out as polyamorous for 15 years. And I like the first seven. I'm like, Well, that is just a train wreck, just a train wreck. But when I look back, actually, before the official polyamory, I see a lot of really wholesome polyamory happening. That just wasn't sexual, like a lot of it. And it's, I don't know, it lightens my view of of everything that came before. Sometimes I hear people talk about like, Oh, I like, I feel like I wasn't alive before. I like I wasn't living my truth before. Like, oh, actually, I can see how if I just turn a polyamorous lens on it. And I was I just didn't know how to be out and how to be conscious about it. But I was doing it.

Alex Alberto
Yeah, that is so interesting, because I don't think I've spent as much time looking at my past before I even thought about, you know, open relationships and non monogamy. And I love that approach of also looking at the past I do that sometimes with older movies, or just any movie that I'm like, this isn't about polyamory, but like it kind of is. Yeah. You could change like three lines of dialogue and then it's a poly movie.

Joli Hamilton
we were just watching an episode of Frankie and grace on on Netflix, Grace and Frankie on Netflix. And you're like, This is just polyamory. They just need to decide not to care about the Like, that's it. You'll bet you change that one thing. Fixed completely fixed.

Alex Alberto
Yeah.

Joli Hamilton
No divorces required just isn't that the truth of almost every romantic comedy anything? Like can we just can we just like take like, that out damn it?

Alex Alberto
Yeah, and that's why I have this essay in my book where I just wanted to look at sort of classic blockbuster movies and be like, Okay, what could have happened if these were non monogamous movies because the same tropes come back over and over again, you know, the love triangle, the fear of commitments, the I think added the jaded lovers revenge for those like thriller, like 60 thriller movies. And it's just sometimes it's frustrating, like my whole Polycule

We kind of want to just like throw a shoe at the TV or something

Ken Hamilton
yeah, right

Alex Alberto
like over in five minutes.

Ken Hamilton
TV, it's like,

Joli Hamilton
as a jealousy researcher, I mean, one of the primary things that turned up when I was when I was doing my, it was a depth psychological search on jealousy. So I'm going all the way back to mythological sources. And I'm like, oh, we'd have no plots. We need I think, basically, we evolved jealousy as far as I can tell, I know there's lots of like, good ideas around, you know, attachment needs, but basically, we needed a plot device.

Ken Hamilton
Stories, so we invented jealousy.

Joli Hamilton
As good a reason as any.

You know, we talk I'm playing with fire is titled playing with fire. Because a lot of a lot of what we do can be

tricky verging on potentially feeling a little scary slash even damaging. But the subtitle of our podcast is individuation and non monogamy. And so we talk a lot about consciously designing individuation oriented relationships. And when I was reading and twined, I, I think I actually dropped the book when I was like, Oh, finally, I'm finally reading an actual person, not a made up story, but an actual person talk about not just learning to differentiate themselves. Because yeah, we gotta we gotta go find our path. But individuation is really consciously becoming more and more yourself over time, and it never ends, never finishes. And it requires differentiation. But that's not sufficient, we have to also be willing to, like continually do the deeper layers of work. And so I saw that reflected, and I'm,

I'm just so curious. What I saw was someone who appeared to be intentionally crafting a what I think of as a psychologically engaged life. I don't know whether you think of your life that way. So I don't want to place that label on you. But I think you're exemplifying in entwined the how that can look the the reflection necessary. And I'm just curious, did you set out to have polyamory be a path of self discovery? Or were you already on a path of self discovery? And the polyamory just kind of entered the picture?

Alex Alberto
That's a really good question. And that that's a high compliment. Thank you. I've never I've never heard this term before psychological Wait, repeat it. So I think of a psychologically engaged like, psychologically engaged life. Yeah, it's really it's really well said. And now that you're saying it, yeah, I do feel like that's the case.

I think polyamory was maybe the first big

experiment or self discovery path that I went on. And I think it helped me kind of chip away at these boxes that I had put myself in. So I do think it was a little bit.

Maybe it was both like a vehicle and perhaps the fuel to continue to self discovery. And because polyamory allowed me to openly and without guilt, and intentionally build multiple relationships at the same time. I think it also helped me discover other aspects of myself that perhaps were

pulled that more with one partner instead of another, you know, how we all have different kinds of intimacy and different parts of ourselves that get not that I was necessarily hiding parts of myself to some partners that they get.

They get lit up, I guess, a little easier with certain partners, or maybe some, some partner might wake ups something. And then so for me, there was definitely my pansexuality that was a part of that. That has always been, it had been something that I had questioned from a very, very early age. But I think that polyamory definitely gave me a framework where I could perhaps experience it more on a day to day life without feeling like

I don't know, am I straight? Am I gay? I don't know, do I? You know, and I just kind of set it aside and just see what happens with the people that I connect with. And then my gender queerness was a really big one. And I think that it's, it isn't a way of muscle, self discovery and searching and because it also requires, I mean, a lot of deep excavation but also

letting go of a lot of things that society has instilled in you. And that's really hard. So once, once I had done it for one or two frameworks, then it was easier to, it became easier to question other things, and then try to let these sides of myself breathe. And same with relationships, like a lot of that is CO designing, you know, co designing with a person in a dyad. And then at the same time at the system level, which, you know, in my book, I did, I did in various forms, I had tried experiences I had,

I was a hinge partner, where I was part of a public school, there was discussions of moving in at some point three of us together, and we did live together for a time. And now beyond the book. I'm also in the process of moving in with my Metamora and her kids, and talking about co parenting and really working hard at reading parenting books and crafting our parenting philosophy and our co parenting plan. So you're right, it kind of never stops.

Joli Hamilton
Yeah, I Ken It's reminding me of the conversations you and I would have about how simple I often I have a bad habit of apologizing to Ken for messing up his life.

I mean, it's a bad habit, I will own that. It's a bad habit. I do it because his life made sense.

From the outsider perspective, like it was neat, it was organized. And even though he was open, that all none of that seemed to play out. Like there was no drama, anywhere that anybody could see. And it was all very, I don't know, like, he made gardens that were weeded.

In my backyard, it was literally just chaos over here. It made sense the way the toddler toy that has little holes, and your right shaped block into the right shaped hole. It was organized, it would made sense. Like that made sense. Yeah. But what Alex is sharing is reminding me how like can often will help heal kindly pause me and say, Please don't apologize for making my life complicated. Because it was boring. And I wasn't growing. Like and I still struggle with that. But I hear what you're describing. I'm like, oh, yeah, the juicy stuff of like, figuring out how to co parent together or figuring out whether you want to live together or whether you intentionally want to not live with a partner that you've been living with with them for a long time. Like, these are questions that

Ken Hamilton
there's the word that that was on my mind When you were describing that is the intention.

Joli Hamilton
Yeah

Ken Hamilton
intentionally, like we're going to, we're going to read books, and we're going to plan how we're going to do this. And we're going to,

I mean, because you're people, you'll disagree, and you'll agree, and you'll figure stuff out and like that's, that's the joy of life, from my point of view is the how we all interrelate like that and you're doing it

on purpose, rather than just stumbling along the way I had and the way that sensemaking life was, it was just No, I'll just go along until something happens to me. I love that picture that you've, you've painted, of intentionally doing things, just great.

Joli Hamilton
polyamory seems to invite an intentionality so what I'm hearing you Alex use the the phrase polyamorous Lens, I'm thinking, we could also say it's an intentional lens, because polyamory isn't about how many people you're sleeping with, or how many people you're partnered with. But it's about an intentionality of your relationships. And that's threaded through the whole thing, especially the way the book ends. I can just see the like, Oh, we're all just left. I mean, I closed it. And I was like, now I don't know what happened.

What happens because there is no you like, I don't actually want to like it was both painful and perfect to get not get to know because you're still here. Thankfully, being a person individuating growing and I love that.

memoirs often give us like, there's like this neat finish. And I don't think it's a spoiler to say Alex is alive.

gets to have a continuation. Beautiful. Yeah.

Ken Hamilton
Well, I wanted to, so in that, from that there you are, working, growing, making plans, things are happening. Do you ever struggle with

you or your partner's changing over time?

Alex Alberto
Sometimes momentarily, I think, I think where I struggle

The most was the fear of me changing and how that might affect other people. So like, for me a big thing with my my partner that I've been with the longest Don in the book,

we've now been together nine years. And for me, I called it opening the gender box, in this sort of box that I had left tightly, tightly shocked inside of me that I didn't really want to look at. And he was one of the first ones to kind of very gently be like, you know, I, you might I forget, I forget how he did it. But he because he knows me, he was able to kind of know that this there was something regarding gender in me, and he wanted to signal that whenever I was ready, he would be really happy to see me, you know, start looking at that. But something that I was very scared was, well, what does it mean for our relationship? Because you've known me for a long time. Before, you know, when I identified as a woman, when, if anything, I was really shoving myself into that woman box, because I had always felt like, I wasn't a real woman or I needed to, you know, so it overperforming maybe, yeah, exactly. But my partner is changing. For some reason, it's almost perhaps as you were describing Ken, kind of the joy of life, it's something that typically makes me very happy in the same way that Don really encouraged me before I perhaps even realized myself, that I really could and should look at the way gender was just so constraining, for me, I like to do that for my other partners. And there's kind of this,

this attitude of really wanting to cheer each other on and to be flexible. And that's, I think that's partly why I never felt like, before finding happiness and balance and polyamory, I just in my head, I was like, oh, I'll just have a series of relationships that lasts a few years, like every few years, I'm gonna need something different. And the idea, even just like having been with one person for nine years, that was just completely foreign to me before. And, and now it's almost exciting to look at the different seasons that each of us individually have had, and then different seasons that we have had together.

But I want to quickly go back to the ending, that you brought up the ending of the book that is not neatly tied, where we don't really know what happened. Because when I started writing the book, I was living with two of my partners, and we had this long term, you know, vision of building a family together and a home. And I thought that's how the book would end when I started writing it. And then, yeah, I don't know that it's a spoiler necessarily, because it's life. But then that relationship, I like to say that the relationship transitioned into something else, instead of ending.

We are still very, very close. Ally edited my entire book. She's also a writer, she's working on a memoir, Ally, Tadros, she has a substack check it out.

And I'm not saying that the transition wasn't, you know, challenging at times, or hurtful, but we did want to remain any in each other's lives. And now we're just not having this kind of relationship where we are romantically involved in building a co living life together.

And, and I was so worried that it would make my book incomplete. And I was trying to figure out, oh, what other ending can I find? And that's why I ended up doing I play with form in the book.

So each essay is kind of in a different form. And I was like, Oh, let me list questions that I asked myself, too, because that's also something that we all do. We ask ourselves questions, and we don't have the answers. And we can kind of just reflect on that. And, and now that the book has been out, even just one year ago, I had no idea that I would now be building this family that includes kids. And it's just then I wonder, Oh, what, what don't I know now that's going to happen in two years from now. And it's kind of exciting.

Relationships that end I don't think we should see them as failure and that's another polyamorous lens. It's not because monogamy land it's like, Oh, if it's not forever, until you die, then it's a failure. Like it didn't work out. We often say it didn't work out.

But no

like we learned from each relationship, and it sends us to the next season, and it's also an opportunity for growth for everybody.

Joli Hamilton
Right? It's also a beautiful opportunity to experience endings, like things can end. And I mean, I don't know,

a lot of the pain I see in my office is a lack of capacity to hold endings to allow things to transition, I struggle with transition myself, as well as, you know, a lack of ability to hold all the immense, like the immense amount of joy that we can experience when we are having lots of loving people in our lives. Like, it's, it can be actually challenging to my whole like life concept to just be with that level of joy. I heard Kate Laurie talking about, you know, joy, positive effect tolerance. And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, we have to have that in order to tolerate happy polyamory. Otherwise, we find ourselves creating drama, or change just for the sake of like, Oh, I'm uncomfortable. Why are you uncomfortable? I'm too happy. That's, well, that's unfortunate. It's, and that sounds like a total Joli thing like that. That definitely sounds like a me thing. So I'll claim that myself.

Alex Alberto
No, I feel like I know people who experience that a lot. Like not, not necessarily like I'm uncomfortable, because I'm too happy, but perhaps always looking out for what's the next drama, what's the next thing? And sometimes I do that, not that I'm not happy, but I'm a fixer. So I'll be like, Okay, what is the next little tiny little thing that we could optimize? Or that we could tweak? Or that we could, you know, big or small, and there is value and also just sitting in the joy and sitting in like, the stage that you're at?

Joli Hamilton
Yeah, I mean, talk about stages, being at a stage where you're now, you know, moving into a parenting dynamic like a like, that's a that's a huge game changer. When Ken and I combined household we, we went from households that look normal, normally on the outside to having seven children and five cats and 14 chickens, people, two and three adults, people did not understand

that it's beautiful to just sit and I wish I'd taken more time to just be in that. And I

think this is one of the ways I think that the world has gotten a little bit a little bit softer. With there are more stories, stories like yours, to help us realize that we're not alone, because I was panicked a lot of the time because I felt alone. I felt like nobody else has ever gotten through that. And people, people who are possibly well meaning will say alongside that never works or that or it's it's a failure. If it doesn't last forever. They'll also say things like, Well, you shouldn't have to work at it too hard. You know, it shouldn't be like, it shouldn't be this complicated. make it simpler. But I'm loving that you clearly embrace the complexity of allowing this change to happen in your life without forcing it.

Alex Alberto
Yeah, I do hear that a lot too. Like, Oh, it sounds so nice. In theory, not necessarily just the becoming a co parent, but just in general like polyamory. Like, oh, like I struggle with one relationship, like, how could I manage multiple relationships? Like it sounds good in theory, but it's seems like so much work. And my response is often, I feel like, I would say that to people who had kids, just to make it more normalized, like, oh, kids sound great in theory, but like, it looks like a lot of work. Like yeah, even if you have just two kids, I think it is a lot of work. I cannot imagine seven.

Joli Hamilton
I mean, honestly, after 3 you're like you have you have your plan. It's good. It's, all fine

Alex Alberto
um, and, and I think again, it makes me think of what you said, Ken, about the joy of the labor of it, even just the joy of the process and the joy of the day to day. And I think monogamous relationships are also hard work. I think nuclear families are really hard to work. It's just that people are used to seeing that hard work.

Ken Hamilton
Yeah

Joli Hamilton
yeah. And you can get validated for it. Versus demonized like, if it's a lot of work, something's wrong with our polyamorous relationships. But if something's not going well in your monogamous relationship, and you're dedicating yourself to addressing that you're you're seen as a hero. You're holding the status quo and you're your hero.

Alex Alberto
Yeah, and that's why stories are so important. Because there are so many I don't know tropes of daily, you know, marriage in those stories, which is usually a heterosexual you know, cis marriage and there will be

I don't know, arguments about house chores, or about one spending too much time with their friends and things like that. And people see those, and they have an idea of how to tackle them, they have an idea that it's normal. And if they tell a friend about it, that friend will have thoughts about it. Whereas when you haven't been exposed to anything else, then people just don't even know what to answer. And that's why I think How To books are incredibly important. But for me, I just wanted story, I didn't want to really be told, like how to do it. I mean, I did read some that were helpful, but I think

people lose themselves in stories way more. And I think storytelling is just so powerful to create empathy and to also help people understand themselves and each other. And

yeah, like I specifically did not want to write any kind of how to not give any kind of advice, just say, here's one person's story. And it's a perspective that sadly, I haven't seen enough. And there are many other perspectives that are not mine that also haven't been seen enough in non monogamy and polyamory we're kind of barely scratching the surface.

Ken Hamilton
Yeah. Well, I, I am very grateful for your stories, because I agree with you, the the stories, they get out there where people can see them. And now those people can relate to each other around stories like this. And it becomes easier to walk through the world and say polyamory without people being why is that? They can just be like, Okay, I know a little bit about that, which alleviates some of the fear that

that causes some of the division between like, okay, so I'm monogamous. And I know I'm monogamous. But that person is polyamorous. So I don't know enough about it. And now I'm scared. So I just won't relate. The more stories we have, the more bridges we have.

Joli Hamilton
Well, I immediately put in twined, on my on my list of books for monogamous people. Because so I because I often will work with people who really aren't sure they're, they're at a paradigm shifting moment, they're shifting to that polyamorous lens. But that doesn't mean that they necessarily know what they want. And they need imagination structures. And they also need they need yes story that that helps them show self compassion, like you show immense self compassion for your process for your unfolding. And that in itself is a big deal to model that is remarkable. And then I think about like, as, like, I imagine like a 25 year old me or a 27 year old me reading these stories going like, Oh, I was I was an asshole. In my 20s. Like I, if I had an idea about how things were supposed to be, even if I didn't know anything about it, like I would take too stalwart to position I was too entrenched. And that's how I found safety. I was like, I will just know, I will, I will know things. And so reading the stories would have just made that space to like, oh, I don't have to know, there are these people who are clearly happy doing this. And that's all I needed. Every time I heard a story from someone clearly happy, enjoying something I didn't know anything about I broke down another part of that total asshole behavior of deciding that I needed to be the arbiter of whether they were doing right or doing wrong. And yeah, I just wish that that had been out there because like you said, How To books are great. But I'm thinking if I go back to 2009, me,

I picked up the ethical slut, Second Edition. Not a horrible book, like it has its purpose. But it didn't actually describe what I was looking for. It also gave me rules that were actually not helpful and got me in some hot water real fast. And it didn't help me empathize with myself. It didn't help me empathize with the people I was trying to relate to. So I feel like for people who are in that mono to Polycom, like I don't know what I'm in the I'm in the discovery. This just is a beautiful way to introduce the ideas without being pedantic about. You got to do it this way. You have to let you have to follow these rules.

Alex Alberto
Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate you noting the self compassion. I don't know that I would have like realized that myself just how prevalent it is in the book. So that's really interesting to hear. And, yeah, there's something about I think a story versus a how to book that is also less.

Not triggering, but less. Like it pokes at people less because for a moment they're like, Oh, this is not about me. This is not about me, wondering

how I would handle that, or whether this rule or this framework would work, whether I want this, and maybe some of the overwhelm of like, how would I even start applying that? It's instead just somebody else's story, and they will still digest it. Like there is still even though it's not a how to book I think

it gives maybe just starting points or ideas, or it feeds the imagination, and perhaps the questions to ask themselves, like, like we were saying, but it's less.

I think it's less threatening for people to just say, this is not about me right now. It's just me exposing myself to story.

Joli Hamilton
Yeah, yeah. I mean, humans are storytelling creatures. That's what we do. That's

that's how we make meaning.

Ken Hamilton
I um the stories and reading your stories in particular.

The How To books are like, they feel like learning a language by reading about it.

versus going to a city where everybody speaks the language. And all that there's that, that organic, natural, I absorb it, because it's happening around me. And I don't, I don't learn rules. I don't learn, you know, dogma, I just figure out how to make it work by watching everybody else do it. I love that way of learning. And it's slower, and it's slower. Right? Because you have to link some ways, but actually faster and others because you're you're in it. You're right.

Joli Hamilton
Yeah, the immersive aspect.

Alex Alberto
Yeah, I love that comparison. Because I love languages. There's an essay in the book called queer, I'll say, because French is my native language. And it's such a gendered language. So just thinking about just my gender identity and living in English versus having to reconcile that in French was just such a mindfuck.

But yeah, I just love languages in general, I think it's, my brain likes learning languages, thinking about languages, and they had never thought about a story versus a how to book in that lens. So I really appreciate that this is this is fun. It's a fun way to approach it.

Joli Hamilton
Yeah. It's making me think too, about the role of community. I like I mean, Ken and I, together run a community learning environment, like that's what we do the year of opening as a community. And so what I'm trying to do is give people that sense of yes, here are tools, here are some how to things that we can do. But also, yeah, we got to be in there with other people. And I'm loving this, this idea. So if you are a person who is not currently able to access for any reason, not able to access community, one of the ways to at least attend your experience is to add story into it. And there aren't that many books that I can say, hey, this, this is a

non self injurious memoir. That's how I experienced it. I like so many of them are. They're like big moments of self injury and self damage. And that's like, that's kind of like how they get that, that plot in there. And I know it has its place, but it worries me to hand that to somebody who's in a really vulnerable spot of paradigm shift. And they're like, wait, what's going to happen now? Yeah, and that's not that's not the only that's not the only way sometimes it goes well?

Alex Alberto
Yeah, no, that's true. And that's definitely like, yeah, there is challenges and growing pains and stuff like that in my book, but yeah, it's a happy book at the end of the day, and I do think that narratives of maybe more difficult journeys are really important, but again, if you don't have anything to balance it out with then you're left thinking that that's the only path that you're gonna have.

Yeah,

Joli Hamilton
okay, so it's officially on my official rec list for everyone is to go get the book and also to introduce it like when people when you're in that white belt phase of non monogamy a lot of people will start coming out of the woodwork and be like, Wait, you're doing what now? And some of them are curious and you're not ready to teach you're not ready to say like, this is how it works. But you could hand them a story and then they can make meaning for from them from that themselves. So I'm just seeing the benefits and I hope I hope that more stories are coming, Alex I don't know whether that's on your radar but I hope more stories are coming.

Alex Alberto
Oh yes, I have I have more brewing I have I have a lot on the way for sure. There's gonna be another book there's gonna be a magazine that I'm because I want to expand, not just my story, I want to help other people tell their stories, especially if they're not writers. So I want to interview people and then write kind of a third

third person narrative about them. That might have a little bit of speculation just to like draw vivid scenes, but that is really grounded in the people's lives. So that way, we also add to the canon of stories.

Ken Hamilton
I love that.

Joli Hamilton
I love it so much.

Ken Hamilton
Thank you.

Joli Hamilton
Yay. Okay, so we clearly could, we could talk all day, we could just hang out, but we should probably wrap up. And I want everybody to know where to find you. Alex, would you just let everybody know where to find you where to find entwined?

Alex Alberto
Yes. So my website is Alex alberto.com. And you can find just everything about me there. If you buy the book directly from my website, it's the way that supports me the most. But the book is also available on bookshop.org. You can also ask your local bookstore to carry it, which is also incredibly helpful. And it helps other people find it. And then you know, if you must, it's on the other big retail sites. It's basically anywhere you buy books. Also, if you enjoy my friend's Canadian accent, I do have an audiobook that I read myself. So if you're into audiobooks, that's an option ebook is also an option.

And like you said, at the beginning of the episode, I'm on Instagram and Tiktok at that, Alex Alberto. And I'm going to be launching and twined mag, and twine mag.com, which is the magazine with more stories that I was just talking about. I'm trying to time it for the week of non monogamy visibility, which is mid June, but you can already go there and sign up. So if you want to be sure not to miss it.

Ken Hamilton
That's great to hear.

Joli Hamilton
That's fantastic. I believe actually, this episode will will come out. I think it's going to come out on the week of non monogamy visibility. So that's where it's scheduled.

Alex Alberto
Go sign up now.

Joli Hamilton
Just go to run, don't walk will be in the show notes. Alex. Wow. Thank you so very, very, very much. I'm so grateful that you exist. It was such a great conversation. And I loved your perspective on the book and on everything else.

Ken Hamilton
Thank you.

Carrie Jeroslow
This is Carrie Jeroslow from Relationship Diversity Podcast.

Joli Hamilton
This is Dr. Joli Hamilton from Playing With Fire.

Emily Sotelo Matlack
This is Emily.

Dedeker Winston
This is Dedeker.

Jace Lindgren
And this is Jace from the Multiamory podcast.

Carrie Jeroslow
Join the global week of visibility for non monogamy

Emily Sotelo Matlack
July 15th, through the 21st.

Joli Hamilton
Visit www.WeekOfVisibility.com to learn more and get involved.

Joli Hamilton
We talk to you all the time. It is absolutely imperative to me that we get to hear from you as well.

Ken Hamilton
Yes, please!

Joli Hamilton
So we'd love to invite you to join us. Join Ken and I, were 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 relationships skills. We would love to share space with you. We're hosting these AMA's 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.

Ken Hamilton
Oh, I would so love to hear your questions! Oh, that would be so awesome!

Joli Hamilton
Yeah, go to JoliHamilton.com/AMA and you'll find a way to sign up real quicky quick, and get an invitation to join us in a small group where we're gonna get together and talk about all things non monogamy, individuation and relationships.

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