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[Theme]

HARVINDER WADHWA: People are curious, and that's great.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: But there are some questions you just shouldn't ask or at least not like that.

HARVINDER WADHWA: I'm Harvinder Wadhwa.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: I'm Elena Hudgins Lyle.

HARVINDER WADHWA: And this is Inappropriate Questions.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Let's get inappropriate.

[Music]

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Harv, when it comes to relationships, would you say you're a jealous person?

HARVINDER WADHWA: Hmm, jealous. You mean if a dude with six pack talks to my wife?

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah, something like that. Like a guy with a six pack better than yours.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Not, not really. But why do you ask?

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Well, this is very related to our episode today because people often bring up the idea of jealousy with people who are polyamorous.

HARVINDER WADHWA: You said polyamorous, right?

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah.

HARVINDER WADHWA: OK. I have never heard of this term before. Polyamorous, is it a synonym of polygamy?

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: I think it's a little bit different, but you're on the right track. From what I know, polyamory is having more than one romantic relationship, but I will let our guests fact check me there, not 100 per cent sure. I know a little bit about it just because being polyamorous is pretty common in the queer community. It's never really something I've been interested in because, you know, I can't even find one partner, let's start there. And I think I probably would get jealous and have a lot to work through there. But these are just my assumptions about polyamory. So maybe, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's different than I'm imagining.

HARVINDER WADHWA: OK, I know nothing about it and after this episode, maybe I want to bring up this with my wife. I don’t know how it's going to go down there, but it should be very interesting, Elena. I'll let you know. I’ll let you know the results.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Please do, please do. I'm intrigued.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Maybe I will require a bed at your place to sleep for a few days if things don't go well.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: OK, you might have to quarantine but I'll get something set up in the living room.

[Music]

GABRIELLE SMITH: Jealousy is marketed to us as a sign of love.

KEVIN PATTERSON: The person who asks me about jealousy is usually the same person who's scanning their partner’s Instagram likes to see whether or not they're into other people.

LAURA TURNBULL: They are very sold on this idea that you can only love one person.

[Music]

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Laura Turnbull is a psychologist in Toronto. She's polyamorous herself and also does counseling for a lot of polyamorous people and couples.

HARVINDER WADHWA: So when I told my wife about this podcast, she told me first, I have to be uniamorous before I think about anything else.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Does she mean that you have to stay with her and get better at the before you—

HARVINDER WADHWA: First, I have to pay attention to her! That was a hint!

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: So it was a drag.

HARVINDER WADHWA: That was a hint!

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: It was a drag. Can you start, Laura, maybe by explaining for anyone who doesn't know what polyamory is, I don't know if uniamory as Harv's wife just put it, is a thing. But what does it mean to be poly?

LAURA TURNBULL: I've heard a lot of different definitions but the one I like, really just roots back to what that word is supposed to mean. Poly meaning multiple, amory meaning loves. I guess I define it as any relationship structure that allows romantic and/or sexual relationships to form outside of the context of that, out of a monogamous relationship. So that can look like having a monogamous partner, mostly monogamous partner, but then having casual intimacies on the side. Or it can look like a bunch of people all together in one relationship or two people having multiple relationships on the side. But I tend to try to give it a very broad definition because I notice it looks a lot of different ways to different people.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah. In your experience, like, how did you come to identify as polyamorous?

LAURA TURNBULL: Well, my story is a little unique because I have had friends who are poly for years and years and years. And I've always said I'm pretty monogamous type, I get too jealous. I wouldn't be able to handle it. But I always admired that they could do that. I always admired kind of the freedom that they could have in those relationships. And then my wife actually transitioned a year or two after we got married. And so we went from a very heteronormative relationship to no longer a heteronormative relationship. And part of her exploration of herself and my exploration of myself required us to be able to adjust kind of the terms of our relationship. So what had started as kind of just, we just sort of defaulted to monogamy. We started to have to have conversations about what would make both of us happy. I kind of realized I was bisexual and hadn't had a chance to really experience that, and she really hadn't had a chance to figure out herself. And so we started having conversations and it really began, as you could call it, hierarchical-poly, where, you know, we are the primary partners, we're married. We're not that's not going to change.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

LAURA TURNBULL: But we started exploring relationships with other people on the side, usually women, other women that we both were connected with for a few years. We were really engaging together with other partners, which we call triadic, where we really like the dynamic of three people. And that's been fun and exciting and also can be challenging to have three people engaged together.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Right.

LAURA TURNBULL: Over time, it's kind of grown to allow for more of our own individual explorations outside of our relationship as well.

HARVINDER WADHWA: So you use the word heteronormative, did I get the pronunciation correct?

LAURA TURNBULL: Yeah.

HARVINDER WADHWA: OK, can you explain that term?

LAURA TURNBULL: Yeah. So heteronormativity is just this idea that the dominant culture is heterosexual. The dominant group is straight people. And the relationship structures in our culture in Canada tend to be kind of grounded in this idea of one man, one woman.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Right. So just so that I'm clear, these are not a one night stand kind of relationship?

LAURA TURNBULL: No, they've all been long term.

HARVINDER WADHWA: And these are more than, I'm assuming, more than sexual relationships?

LAURA TURNBULL: Yeah. They’re romantic relationships. Yeah.

HARVINDER WADHWA: I mean, this is just a whole new world for at least me.

LAURA TURNBULL: Yeah.

HARVINDER WADHWA: I'll be very candid. OK, I knew about certain religious communities which have this kind of relationship and I knew the people are having, the word sometimes I hear is, they're having a fling.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Outside the relationship.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah.

LAURA TURNBULL: Yeah.

HARVINDER WADHWA: But particularly talking about that, this you would like to have a permanent relationship. I had never thought that that was even possible.

LAURA TURNBULL: I will clarify that polygamy, especially in a religious context, is very different. That there's tends to be a lot of other elements to that. Most polyamorous people would say, no, no, no, we're not polygamists, that's important to note. But also that polyamory can look so many different ways. You know, my wife and I tend to like the idea of a long term partner. Other people do want just flings, other people that's all they'll ever want. And they never have a partner that they're particularly long term committed to. But for us, like the dream would be meeting another partner that we feel strongly about and fits well in our lives, and we would have a long term committed relationship with that person. You can't marry more than one person in this country, but we would consider it in that level of commitment.

HARVINDER WADHWA: But distributing chores is going to be very difficult. I'm telling you.

LAURA TURNBULL: I think it's easier, three people is a lot more people to help with dishes.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: It does sound helpful. You mentioned some of the joys and the challenges of, you know, having this exploration and being able to be in these triadic relationships. Can you talk more about, you know, what's been the best parts and what have been the challenges?

LAURA TURNBULL: The best parts? I mean, that early phase of being in love for every relationship, eventually you get out of the crazy, like, exciting lust feelings and all of that anxiety and into much more of a stable place, which is both wonderful but also can feel, for some people, suffocating. Wasn't like that for me, but there's some excitement and getting to experience that with new people. So my wife and I still get to fall in love and still get to experience that kind of exciting part of things. There's a lot of benefit in that. You know, you can't be everything to somebody. I'm not, I can't meet every need she has. She can't meet every need I have. So meeting another person who fits in well with one or both of us allows us to meet some of those other relationship needs that we might have that we can't meet for each other. So that's the main benefits I've noticed is really in getting to kind of explore different parts of ourselves.

HARVINDER WADHWA: So being a risk manager, now the other part comes is, what are the challenges? Because that, you know, adding a partner is quite complicated, I'm assuming.

LAURA TURNBULL: Yes. The challenges for us have been that we are married and that's very intimidating for another person. You know, the other person often isn't sure what kind of space they can really take up in the dynamic because we've really, we're pretty solidified, like for us to break up is expensive. So it's going to be probably defaulting to us if it all goes sideways.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

LAURA TURNBULL: So that has been a challenge in just trying to give some sense of security to our partners, that that's not how we think of them. We don't think of them as just like come in and have some fun and then leave.

HARVINDER WADHWA: They're not disposable.

LAURA TURNBULL: We don't think of them that way at all. But they often carry that worry. And then, of course, there's you know, it does show you parts of your relationship that need some work when you are really putting some pressure on it, like having another person there who has different needs, who you get used to a certain routine with your partner and now you have to adjust. I would call that a good thing in the end because I'm a therapist and I like learning and growing. But it does mean doing a lot of hard conversations. It's meant learning how to step aside from the urge to control. There's been some emotional conversations trying to put our needs on the table and be really honest with each other. And sometimes that is uncomfortable or sometimes it's painful.

[Music]

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: We wanted to talk this episode about poly people being asked “Do you get jealous?” Do you have personal experience being asked this question?

LAURA TURNBULL: Oh yes, all the time. I don't think I've met somebody who isn't themselves poly, who hasn't asked me that question.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Wow.

LAURA TURNBULL: It’s an everybody question.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Damn. This might be a dumb question, but, you know, maybe you could speak to this from your therapisty lens, how would you define jealousy? What is jealousy?

LAURA TURNBULL: Well, first of all, it's an emotion and I would say just an emotion. Jealousy is really about insecurity though, so it's not like envy where, you know, you just want something somebody else has. It's about being afraid that you are going to lose something that matters to you. So when I'm jealous, I'm really feeling a fear that my wife is going to be stolen away by somebody else who's better than me. And it's really more than anything about my own insecurities and my own anxiety about what's important to me. And also where you yourself feel maybe not good enough.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right. Yes.

LAURA TURNBULL: Tt tends to really pull up the I'm not good enough thoughts.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Oh, I'm still trying to wrap my head around because human beings, regardless of who they are, they're very competitive by nature and they want everything for themselves.

LAURA TURNBULL: That's true.

HARVINDER WADHWA: I mean, a new person comes in and the new person is trying to impress one of the partners more. That's going to create some tension. That's going to create some jealousy, may not be the appropriate word, but it's going to create some ripples.

LAURA TURNBULL: It does. It does. And perhaps what is frustrating about this question is that that can happen in any relationship. So even when I've been monogamous, I felt jealous. In fact, probably more so because I'm creating stories in my head worrying about this person at work that seems to call you a little more often than they need to versus somebody that I'm actually able to converse with and talk about these feelings with and I myself have a relationship with. So I find that jealousy exists in every relationship. The difference here is that I'm putting it out in front and talking openly about it versus dealing with it internally and trying to hide it or pretend it's not there.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Right.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: So when you feel it, or conversely, even when your wife feels it, do you immediately or maybe not immediately, but do you talk to each other, just be like, hey, I'm feeling this way about our new partner or someone I saw you flirting with? Let's talk about it.

LAURA TURNBULL: Yes, I'm the one that feels jealous more often. So it's more often me having that conversation.

HARVINDER WADHWA: So then you are a typical husband then?

LAURA TURNBULL: Yes. Exactly.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Well, this is where we get back to the definition of heteronormativity.

LAURA TURNBULL: I don't talk about it as often as I used to, but that's because I've gotten better at handling it. In the beginning, I talked about it a lot and I would still feel open and welcome any time to say to my wife, you know, I'm feeling a lot of jealousy right now. And then usually she knows kind of what I need in order to quell that insecurity. She'll either give me a little bit of extra focused attention in that time or we'll just talk about what is it that's causing that? Is it you know, are you missing out on something that you need or is this just an emotion that got triggered? What do we do from here to help kind of ease that feeling. Like from a therapist perspective, when I have couples coming in who are dealing with changing the terms of their relationship, maybe they're moving from monogamous to poly, almost always the real sticking point for whichever one whose hackles are up about it, the real sticking point is that they are very sold on this idea that you can only love one person. So if you believe that, then you really are threatened because you think that that means your partner is going to choose somebody else over you. The whole point of this relationship structure is that they don't have to choose.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

LAURA TURNBULL: They can have you and they can explore other relationships at the same time. That's really hard to get our head wrapped around when we are used to being told that you have a soulmate, you have a one person, that one person is your person.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

LAURA TURNBULL: And if there's any other attraction or interest in somebody else, that means that there's a problem. So whenever people ask me those questions, I know that they're still thinking in terms of our dominant cultural narrative.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Right.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: That makes a lot of sense. Like, you know, growing up, because I definitely grew up with all these myths to like, you know, you watch the Disney movies, you're like, OK, marriage is how you solidify your romance and commitment to this one magical, beautiful person you fall in love with.

HARVINDER WADHWA: So do you expect a Hallmark or a Disney making a movie about polyamorous relationship in the next five years or so?

LAURA TURNBULL: That is a great question. I hope so. A Hallmark movie would be amazing. Within five years, I kind of doubt it. We have some bigger fish to fry, like we're just starting to get same sex relationships in Hallmark movies. So I think we're a ways away from poly but I would love to see more media representation where it's not a big explosion or some horrible like everybody's just depressed in the end. It'd be nice to see ahealthy poly dynamic in some kind of media. I would love that.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: It would be cool.

LAURA TURNBULL: I think we're a ways away, though, right?

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah. What kinds of assumptions do people make when they hear you’re poly?

LAURA TURNBULL: That it's about sex more than anything. There's often an assumption that that means there's a problem in our relationship that we're trying to fix with somebody else. That's a really common one. There's often an assumption that we must have lost our spark. And we're just it's like we're two roommates and this is our way of dealing with that. But the assumption is almost always that we’re unhappy.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Right.

LAURA TURNBULL: Usually I will say that this is actually a way that we have found to bring more joy into our relationship and it's brought us closer together. Because, again, we can be honest and open. Sure, there's been conflicts. There's been hard feelings. Absolutely. And we have learned so much that we're closer now than we were when we were monogamous.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: If someone, you know, meets you, finds out you're poly and wants to ask, you know, do you experience jealousy, what would you say to someone who is curious about this?

LAURA TURNBULL: I usually validate the question because I would ask it too and did.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

LAURA TURNBULL: So I understand it and I will say, yes, of course, just like I got jealous in monogamous relationships and that it's not a barrier to engaging in living whatever relationship style makes sense for you, that jealousy is just an emotion and it shouldn't make the decision for you. I’ll also usually talk about compersion, which is a word that was coined by the poly community that is essentially the opposite of jealousy. It's feeling joy and excitement at somebody else's joy.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Nice.

LAURA TURNBULL: So if I'm watching my wife cuddle with our girlfriend, that brings me warmth and joy and I'm happy to see it and it's just so nice, that is compersion. And so I'll talk about how not only do you get to process your jealousy in a different way, you also invite the opportunity to feel new feelings that you may never felt before. Compersion being one of them.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: That's really interesting.

LAURA TURNBULL: Yeah.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: And I love that that's a thing.

LAURA TURNBULL: Yeah.

HARVINDER WADHWA: So, Laura, is this an inappropriate question?

LAURA TURNBULL: What bothers me about it is that it's the only question.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

LAURA TURNBULL: There isn't a like, “well, what is it that you find beneficial about this?” The assumption is always, “oh, you must be suffering right now.” That's the part that bothers me. It's actually a relatively small part of the experience. And I'd rather speak more about the wonderful relationships that I got to have and the connections that we've had and what we've learned about each other. But people don't ask that part. So I don't know if it's an inappropriate question if it came with additional follow up questions. I don't like being rounded down to just jealousy.

[Music]

HARVINDER WADHWA: It was lovely talking to Laura and it opened me to things which I had never even imagined.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah.

HARVINDER WADHWA: And I learned a new word!

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah?

HARVINDER WADHWA: Compersion.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah.

HARVINDER WADHWA: This show is also increasing our vocabulary it seems.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah. We're going to get dictionaries at the end of this. That was a new word for me, too. I thought it was really interesting.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Yeah, absolutely. No, this was mind opening.

[Music]

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: This episode we're talking about the question, do you get jealous being asked to polyamorous people. This is a question Kevin Patterson knows well. Here's what he had to say.

KEVIN PATTERSON: My name is Kevin Patterson, I'm the author of Love's Not Colorblind Race and Representation in Polyamorous and Other Alternative Communities, and also the queer polyamorous superhero series for hire. I've been with my wife for 19 years. We've been married for 14 years. And we've been nonmonogamous almost the entire time. We have a pair of beautiful daughters ages ten and eight.

I've gotten the question, don't you get jealous more times than I can count. The funny thing is the person who asked me about jealousy is usually the same person who's scanning their partner’s Instagram likes to see whether or not they're into other people. You know, the kind of people who are asking, like, who's that on the phone? Who you with? Can I look through your phone? That sort of thing.

The first time my wife went out on a date with some other guy, I knew how society told me I was supposed to feel, like I was supposed to be jealous. I was supposed to get angry. I’m supposed to punch some drywall or flip a table. And after the date, she told me all of the details. I asked her for every detail. And the only real thing I could come up with, the only real emotion I had was I'm glad that she's home and I'm glad that she had a good time and that's it. And so after that, I had to really question why I feel jealous in other situations. What kind of things make me feel jealous? What other expected feelings do I have that are just matters of societal, you know, programming? You know, how much do I need to unlearn or learn about myself going forward?

A lot of times people say, like, how do you hide this from your kids? And the fact of the matter is you can't because kids are way smarter than anyone really gives them credit for. We don't hide anything from them in terms of our relationship style. We do keep everything very age appropriate with them. When I had to explain it to my kids, I just said, “hey, you know, I love you. You know how I love your sister. Well, I love my wife and I love my girlfriend.” They got it, they got it immediately. They didn't have a problem with it. They knew who my girlfriend was. She had a place in their life at the time. So they weren't confused by it. It was just, OK, this is a different thing about our family, but our family is awesome. And that's what they took away from it.

I feel like if you go to the gym and you do cardio and weight lifting, you already understand polyamory. If you've ever gone on a vacation from the home where you live to somewhere different, you already understand polyamory. If you've got a group of friends and you love them all for different reasons, like you've got that friend that you hang out and watch football with and you've got a different friend that you go out and party with, you know, the friend that you work on cars with. You've got friends that you love for different reasons than you already understand how polyamory works.

[Music]

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: When Laura talked about how jealousy stems from insecurity, I was like, oh, that makes sense.

HARVINDER WADHWA: OK, so are you saying that there's a lot of work, you have to do it on yourself here? Yeah, that was a joke. That was a joke.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: OK, I think we're learning, jokes aside, from this episode that maybe we could learn a lot from polyamorous people about dealing with jealousy and communication in general.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Right.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: So I'm talking to an expert about it.

GABRIELLE SMITH: I am Gabrielle Smith. I am a Brooklyn based journalist and polyamory educator. I write about sex and relationships with attention to polyamory. And I'm a bit of an expert now.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: For you personally, what's your relationship with jealousy?

GABRIELLE SMITH: I don't think I've actually ever been jealous. I've been insecure or I've felt possessive or like ownership over my partner.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right

GABRIELLE SMITH: Jealousy itself isn't a real emotion to me. And this is something I've taken from my partner. Like we go back and forth saying jealousy is not real because usually jealousy is a knee jerk reaction and we're never taught to actually investigate that feeling until it becomes like violent or like a very big problem. But when we actually investigate that feeling, it's usually because this emotion is arising through due to like not feeling significant.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: I'm curious if jealousy, like you say, isn't really a real emotion, why is this such a big thing in our culture? Why do we write thousands of songs about it?

GABRIELLE SMITH: I think jealousy is such a scary thing for people and it's marketed to us as a sign of love and like intensity in a relationship. So for a lot of people, jealousy is a valid expression of their love. They can't really comprehend the idea of not feeling jealous or not feeling awful. And I think it's because so many rom coms are just about, oh, no, someone cheated on me or like two guys, love triangles and all this stuff where everything is either a competition or it's like win or lose. I think that's why people always go there first. Usually they're like, I could never do that. And I'm like, well, I wasn't asking you, but good to know.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: You've mentioned a bit of a media representation so far. And I'm curious about what kind of ideas about polyamory and just relationships in general, you know, what is normalized and what isn't when it comes to this kind of relationship?

GABRIELLE SMITH: What happens in the media a lot is that they romanticize attraction to the point where if I'm in love with someone, I'm not attracted to anyone else, which is ridiculous. Like most people watch porn, most people like if you see somebody attractive, you're like, OK, that's a good looking person. It doesn't necessarily mean you want to act on it, but like it tells people that monogamy is the only option, which is harmful.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah.

GABRIELLE SMITH: Because a lot of people will then have those feelings of attraction to others and they think that something's wrong with them and they're like, maybe I should feel ashamed for this. And then people just kind of tunnel into these holes within themselves, which is sad because I think we should all just want to love and be loved.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah. Our idea that monogamy is the expected thing and is normal, the most normal relationship type, where does that idea come from?

GABRIELLE SMITH: I mean, historically, marriage was created to kind of ensure paternity. So marriage became more commonplace when patrilineal succession became normalized. So it's like when agriculture started, you know, you'd get the farm and people get married. And monogamy was expected of women, but not men.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

GABRIELLE SMITH: Men wanted to ensure, like, OK, my oh, my stuff is going to my kid. I don't want my stuff to go to someone else's kid. And then more strict monogamy, we find it in Europe with the rise of the church. And I always think it's important to say the church, not Christianity, because you find polygamy all over the Bible in Christianity. Certain people having like seven wives.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah.

GABRIELLE SMITH: Some seven hundred. Some people have three, not too bad. But seven hundred may be a bit too much

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Communication would get very hard for sure.

GABRIELLE SMITH: Yeah. I mean you can't even visit like one a day. You really got to stack everybody on top of each other. Catholicism really solidified that when divorce was not allowed and then colonization made that a worldwide thing. Because if you look back to pre-colonial Indigenous peoples and pre-colonial Africans, plural marriage was pretty common. So realistically, like monogamy is a byproduct of capitalism.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Ah yes. Isn't everything these days?

GABRIELLE SMITH: When people are saying, don't you get jealous? They're saying, aren't you afraid this person will be taken away from you and you can only get one person? Aren't you afraid of losing this one thing, the only thing you can have? Where in reality my concept is there are always more people to love.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

GABRIELLE SMITH: And I think that is why polyamory is a philosophy for me as opposed to simply a relational practice, because it's about abundance. And I think capitalism has made us really, really treasure scarcity. We feel like there's not enough, but there actually is more than enough.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: If someone is feeling this insecurity that you describe, that is often at the heart of jealousy. You had some really great tips on your page for how to work through this. Could you tell us what those were?

GABRIELLE SMITH: I mean mine was always to hype myself up.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Nice.

GABRIELLE SMITH: In my last relationship, I was like, where is he going to go? Where is he going to go? You know, like having that thought that like, nobody's going to have better sex with my partner or like nobody's more attractive than me. Even if you don't believe that's true, it's like it's a fixture of like the more you say it, the more you believe it. Something I used to do was before my partner and I were open, I would picture him sleeping with other people to kind of pass through these feelings before we were in that situation. I think it's really important to just reassure yourself that your partner cares about you and loves you, and that's something your partner should be giving you. Because when we go back to insecurity, whether it's in the relationship or it's within yourself, that's usually a sign that you're not happy or you're not getting something you need, whether it's from the source or it's from someone else.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

And then I just think one of my biggest tips is if you're new to it and you're in a relationship and your partner is on a date, don't be home alone. Don't be home alone and let yourself be sad and anxious and all these things.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah.

hang out with your friends, go on a date yourself or plan like a self care night. My partner, he calls it candle night when his wife is out and I'm busy, he just sits on the couch and watches anime

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Nice! What kind of stuff do you do?

GABRIELLE SMITH: I do puzzles. I kind of just like enjoy my time. My brain is off. This is great

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Nice, nice. I feel like a lot of people, especially people who aren't poly, don't unpack their own feelings of jealousy that much or talk to their partners in depth about what they need. This advice, I think, could be really helpful to everyone.

GABRIELLE SMITH: Yeah. And a lot of the advice I kind of give on my page. I do tailor it towards non monogamous people, but at the end of the day, it's more so how I think we can have more intentional relationships and relationships where communication is a true like fixture. And the beginning of that is knowing who you are and knowing who you want to be. It's got nothing to do with the other people.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Going back to “Do you get jealous?”, overall do you think this is a question that's OK to ask or should it be asked or somewhere in between?

GABRIELLE SMITH: I think it's how you ask it. Asking “do you get jealous?” usually just to poly people is a signal that this is going to become an interrogation or trying to pick holes in, because that's what people do a lot. They're like, you don't get jealous? People are like, what if his wife doesn't want you to be with him anymore? Like people ask me questions like that. I give them the answers because I understand it's just coming from a place of ignorance. But it is offensive.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah.

GABRIELLE SMITH: Instead of saying, wow, that's crazy, say, well, how does that work for you? Our people are like, oh, there's not enough time in the day. For instance, ask how do you manage that time?

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right. Yeah.

GABRIELLE SMITH: If you say how do you manage jealousy, that's a nicer way to ask and just ask questions about the relationship. Not the concept I think is important because at the end of the day, like, I love my boyfriend, he loves his wife, like me and his wife, her friends, we have a harmony. So I think the harmony is more interesting than how we manage to not be jealous or like how we don't, like, secretly resent each other. It seeks to invalidate this choice we've made. And at the end of the day, we just really want people to respect the choices we've made.

[Music]

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Harv, what do you think, having had our interviews this episode, what have you learned?

HARVINDER WADHWA: I am still wrapping my head around the whole thing, like, just a simple thing. And I know this is an annoying thing, which our guests have mentioned, that people just talk about jealousy, but assume I'm in a polyamorous relationship.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah.

HARVINDER WADHWA: So if I bring flowers to one partner, am I required to bring flowers to the other partner? And if I don't, then it's a problem. This is a completely new territory for me and it will take me time to understand this to the fullest extent.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah. And I mean, it's not like every episode we, you know, we learn all these things and suddenly we're enlightened and everything's great. Like sometimes you could still be scratching your head or still be confused about certain things. And that's totally legit.

HARVINDER WADHWA: But I will say one thing. There is a lot to take away for monogamous relationships as well, like keeping an honest and open communication.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Totally.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Which would work wonders.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah, totally. That was one of my big takeaways, too. I think this episode kind of made me rethink my whole assumption that jealousy is so normal and inevitable and damning.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Yes.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: The fact that it can be worked through and it comes from insecurity more often than not made so much sense.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Yes. And some people were jealousy as a badge of honor. No, it does not mean there is no need for jealousy, have open and honest communication, and that should be fine. Like if my wife goes out for lunch with a six pack dude, then she goes out for lunch and, you know, if I go out for lunch...OK never mind!

[Theme]

HARVINDER WADHWA: I'm Harvinder Wadhwa and

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: I'm Elena Hudgins Lyle.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Thanks for getting inappropriate with us.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: A huge thanks to our guests, Laura Turnbull and Gabrielle Smith. You also heard a voicenote from Kevin Patterson.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Every episode has an accompanying webcomic, and this week it was illustrated by Lena Dirschel, you can find it on Instagram @IQ_Podcast. Also, make sure to visit CBC.ca/iqpodcast for a full transcript of the episode.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: The quarantined queens behind this podcast are Sabrina Bertsch, Cindy Long and myself. The show is mixed by Andrew Norton. Our chase producer is Sarah Melton and our digital producer is Judy Ziyi Gu. Our senior producer is Geoff Turner. And our executive producer is Arif Noorani.

[Theme Out]

HARVINDER WADHWA: An inappropriate question is like recommending your wife to listen to the polyamory episode and not expecting any negative consequences.

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Transcript: Inappropriate Questions Season 3 Episode 5

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