Working Through Fear of Abandonment & Major Insecurities | Episode 2

Episode Transcript

Megan: [00:00:00] Hi, welcome to Amory. A podcast where we discuss our personal polyamorous journeys. We discuss our world travels, our minimalist life, our insecurities, our embarrassing moments and raising kids on the go. And more, I’m sure more in our first episode, we don’t know what we’re doing. I don’t know. I speak for myself. I don’t know what I’m doing in this podcast. So really, we recorded a podcast, Marty, Kyle and myself. This is Megan Bhatia. And if you didn’t listen to that first one I recommend that you listen to that one first and then listen to this. But if you want to jump ahead, just know that we introduced ourself. Marty and I have been married. It’ll be 15 years in one week on Wednesday. Yeah. And Kyle and I have been dating about a year and a half. Marty has a friend here that we will introduce. And Marty and I have twin 4 year olds. They just turned 4. That is our life. We are now sitting in our friend David Fink’s theater, really like theater, condo and theater, amazing theater here in Michigan called Acorn theater.  His place is in part of the theater. So we literally walk out his front door and he can turn on the theater lights. And our daughter Kira yesterday was playing onstage and just didn’t want to get off stage. So it’s been quite, quite the experience here in Michigan. It’s the first time our unit of four with our kids is really spent some quality time together. So it’s been an amazing time. That’s my long intro. I’ll have Kyle and Marty kind of fill you in a bit and then we’ll have a very lively discussion, I’m sure. Lots to catch up on just in the last 10 days.

Marty: [00:01:44] What’s the theme of this podcast, Megan?

Megan: [00:01:46] The theme is, I don’t know, no theme. Let’s talk about what has happened in the last 10 days.  

Marty: [00:01:50] What is the whole point of this podcast?

Megan: [00:01:50] Oh, yeah. I’m like, that’s not really a theme. It’s not like we’re talking about sex. We’re talking about, okay, this is what Marty and I fight over. Is this stuff. Yeah. So the theme of this one is really the idea of coming out and sharing that that I am polyamorous, that we are. And it really feels like coming out and I’ve been sharing individually for a while and now I just feel called to share on a bigger level. I haven’t shared on social media yet and maybe I’ll do that right after we record this one. I just feel like there’s so many reasons to do it. The basic one is that I want to stop hiding. And I feel like a lot of the things that we’ve learned over the last year or two have been so incredibly powerful to shift our lives for the better that I can’t help but to think by sharing our stories. Someone else out there somewhere, their life will be improved. That’s my goal. One person’s life is improved.

Marty: [00:02:52] So sharing is caring.

Megan: [00:02:54] Sharing is caring. That’s what Marty called our first podcast. We have renamed it since then, Amory.

Marty: [00:03:00] I think I’ll jump in and just say that I think your sharing has been healing other people.  I think that it does it through giving permission to be who they are and for the radical honesty that you display allows them to have room to feel safe and to share and find their own way.  So whether they’re monogamous or polyamorous or anything in between, there’s healing to be done and there’s a lot to learn. And we’ve discussed this before.  I overshare, this is a function of me allowing you to share more and just shut up more.

Megan: [00:03:36] You can’t shut up too much.

Marty: [00:03:37] I know because this is a podcast.  That would be really weird podcast. A silent podcast, it’s the first of its type. I feel like my journey has been a little bit more selfish. It’s been about personal mastery and about if I can be so evolved of a person to overcome things like jealousy and overcome things like attachment so that I could have more pure relationships with myself and others, and I think I’ve been doing all right. Yeah.

Megan: [00:04:16] Yeah, I’d say so, doing more than the right. You’re quite attractive and quite aligned. I would say your aligned. I think that’s there’s something about living a life that feels true to myself. And I see that in you as well.  And I think the more we’ve gone down this journey, it’s literally the more we go away from the societal norms, the more I’m like, oh, god, this feels so good. This is like, right. Oh, this is who I’ve been the whole time.  Excuse you. Drink something.

Marty: [00:04:45] I did, I’ve been holding that back for a minute.

Kyle: [00:04:49] In the theme of sharing, I guess I kind of had this epiphany. I don’t know. When was this? Six months ago. I was in the middle of a yoga class and I kind of realized that I’d been hiding this whole thing from so many people in my life, so many people that I love. And there was this breaking between who I was and who I was becoming and who they thought I was. And the rest of the world, who the rest of my world thought I was. And I realized that they were missing a lot of who I am and who I’m becoming. Which I think is important. This has been an important journey and a loving journey and a journey of growth.  And I think when I was able to, in that yoga class, come to the realization that I wanted to start telling people, starting with my mom, which was kind of the first big like domino in my life to fall.  It’s been a tidal wave after that of just sharing with people. And then most people being very supportive and reflecting back to me the happiness that they see in me. The growth that they see in me and probably wanting to get to know Megan is mostly what people want to know if they see me happy. And I think that’s been part of the sharing journey for me and why I’m interested to see where this goes. When I open it up to the rest of my world and I think people are interested.  Everyone I talk to asks questions. So this can be a great avenue to connect to people and also provide something more than that initial conversation which people usually leave quite intrigued. This will get them more.

Megan: [00:06:37] It’s like they want to ask questions, but they don’t even know what to ask yet. It’s like, wait my brain is broken.

Marty: [00:06:44] I told her, because she speaks Spanish. Primarily. And my Spanish sucked when we first met.

Megan: [00:06:51] Who is her? Just a general introduction. And I want to say, yes.

Marty: [00:06:56] My best friend who I love, who happened very quickly, it has not been an easy journey. There’s distance, there’s countries and oceans, and there is complexity in society and norms, and the future is unknown. But the present is pretty beautiful.

Megan: [00:07:18] And I want to do a little caveat. She’s not sharing in this podcast, and we totally respect and understand that this is a whole journey. And, you know, I’m on the far end. I’m like, I want to come out. I want to share this publicly. And she is going through her very, very personal inward journey, like, what the fuck is happening right now? And, you know, I honor that, I see that in you. And I see you as someone that’s so brave and so courageous to even just be sitting here with us. And part of this journey. And yeah.  So thank you.

Megan: [00:07:50] It’s different for everybody.  Megan is coming out at Starbucks drive thru. She’s like, hey, did you know I’m polyamorous?  And I’ll take an iced grande Americano.

Marty: [00:07:59] I think that the journey is really, really important for people when people end up confessing a lot when I open up, because I think the radical honesty is refreshing and safe. Yeah. So David says it’s really, really cool questions earlier that were provocative. Do you remember one?

David: [00:08:16] I’ve got another one.

Megan: [00:08:17] We’re going to let’s introduce this format. We would love for you to ask us questions. I wonder if you would allow us to ask you a question in return. But for right now, you ask us the questions.

David: [00:08:31] Ok. So my question now and this is something everybody faces, but I think it’s probably amped up for you guys, especially with kids. How do you balance I want with. I should.

Marty: [00:08:44] We don’t should on anyone.  It’s like shoulding, that’s a red flag. I’ve been practicing a lot of what we’ve talked about before. To want without persuasion, like I have for a long time didn’t want to declare any wants because I was always feeling like my expectations wouldn’t be met. And I’d be faced with like persecution but I often found my wants were weakened because I would just try to like give evidence as to why I should be allowed to want these things. But instead I went through this practice of just being able to declare my wants with the possibility of being told no. But without persuading that you should say yes. In fact, in some cases even present the counter argument to why I can understand why you would say no to my request. So I think there there is a healthier way to want and then you have to be really careful with shoulds because that’s often the way that we persecute ourselves internally. I get into this, I should have done this. There’s no way to go back and change that. And I should do this in the future kind of pigeonholes you. And I think it’s more often a function of compartmentalising those things and saying, OK, well, these are what I want. And then if the should comes up, it’s usually something I should reflect on. That I would reflect on and try to know why I think that this belief is there. Should is a belief that something should go down.

Megan: [00:10:08] Yeah, should feels like an imposition to me and or an obligation. And I feel like more and more, not just not just being polyamorous, but really when we sold our home and decided that we were going to travel full time with kids, we really started to let go of the obligatory life, the default life. And more and more, when I hear other people or especially hear myself say should it’s like, ding, ding, ding, ding.  Oh, wait, what rule have I imposed on myself? That I’m trying to follow or how am I beating myself up for not doing something else. And then that’s that’s more like I need to internally restructure some things.  That’s my two cents.

David: [00:10:45] Another question I had is I think all of us have somewhere in our soul a fear of abandonment to some degree and in a polyamorous relationship, it seems like those buttons could be pushed fairly easily. How do you address that particular fear?

Megan: [00:11:04] So from the beginning, we didn’t know really what we were getting into in the beginning, Marty and I. It was really just an exploration. But I found it the more open he was mentally. Really, Marty would open up the space and we would have this conversation and it felt very freeing. So in those conversations, the more open he was, the more attractive he was. And that started to escalate. So it’s that famous line, help me if I say this wrong, if you love something, you’d let it go. I was going to say should. If you love something, let it go. And if it comes back to you, that’s when you know it’s real. It’s this idea actually taking a bigger step back. I feel like my whole concept of marriage has shifted. I went from we got married when we are twenty four. Twenty five years ago, 15 years ago. It’s like, yeah, long time. Long time ago. The idea of marriage was something that was a binding contract. It was kind of contractual. It was a society obligation. And now I’ve you I don’t even like seeing the word marriage per say. When I look at Marty, the way that I see him and feel him as my life partner, my lover, my co-parent, my best friend is just all of these things that feel really different. And that feels like a choice. And that choice comes from this openness that he has expressed in this relationship structure. And it’s even sitting here seeing him touch the back of his other significant other right here. And she’s smiling at me. And it’s beautiful. It’s really, really beautiful to see. And there’s something so attractive about that. That openness. And, you know, I’m sitting next to Kyle. Kyle has recently gone through, which I’m sure we’ll talk about here in a little bit.

Marty: [00:12:50] We talked about it earlier today. We took a walk to check in and the abandonment conversation comes up.  What if Megan changes her mind? Either one of us and I’ve gone through this, one of the reasons we’ve talked about it early, I’ve probably said a lot more long winded before, but it really comes down to like I risked everything. She could leave me, take everything. I was not in a good position and I would be left with nothing, including my kids. So why would I do this? Well, it is counterintuitive, but it kind of wasn’t. You know, if Megan’s heart is turned off and we’re not where we were even excited wise or she’s not feeling or she’s feeling boxed in or any of these things. The future seemed almost inevitable that she was going to divorce me at some point. So the known outcome was abandonment. The unknown outcome was maybe I could evolve over all of this. We parent well together, we do all these other things together and if I were able to give her love and openness and freedom and non-attachment, then why would she go anywhere? Because what else could you want? I think this is where I really started going after the trophy husband concept, which is I don’t really want to any money anymore.  I want you to do all that so, if I just gave that up, what else would I have to be in order to do that? Be a good cook and be good in bed. I have to be open and to be non-attached, I have to give her the opportunity to be in love and then intimate with others. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time, and I jumped all in and kind of free fell, and the more I did it, the more positive feedback I got. Which was that I wasn’t going to be abandoned that I did start becoming more attractive to her because I think I was more attractive to me. We’ll talk about this night we just had, not the crazy night but all of us there. And I stopped using the word proud and happy with myself for my behavior. I’m calm. There’s no noise. I don’t fear anymore. And I am able to guide. That feels good.

Megan: [00:15:08] Yeah. There’s something like in that loss of fear of abandonment. That’s just we get to be happy and proud of how we feel. Can I talk about the experience on my side that we just went through the last week or two? So last October, I met someone else outside of my relationship with Marty or with Kyle. And I’ve been getting to know him slowly since then. And being back in Chicago here has given me an opportunity to see him again and see if there’s still something there. And part of me so wants to judge myself for even sharing this. But I have two incredible men in my life and I have another person that I’m interested in. So giving myself permission, not judging, there is a level of attraction. You know, there’s something that I’m attracted in. I want to learn more about him. And I want to see what’s there and not block myself. And Kyle and I have been working through that over the last week or two really intensely. And it’s because it’s the first time this is when Marty and I opened up our relationship. I met Kyle right away and I didn’t date anybody else. I didn’t kiss anyone else. I didn’t. There was no one else. And I’ve loved that exclusivity in our relationship, if we can call it that. But now we’ve got another reason to go through this conversation. And Kyle, I’d love for you to share what that’s been like from your side.

Kyle: [00:16:35] Yeah, I can go in so many directions. I think from my side, when I met you, I really didn’t see anyone else either for a year. And I started to think well, what am I then? Am I polyamorous? Am I just attached to you? I didn’t really know. And I think what I started to realize was I was really healing myself and preparing myself for a future that would be possible where I could be unlocked and unblocked to love with you first and then love with other people. And I don’t think it could have happened any other way for me. But I think to get back to your question, the fear of abandonment. I mean, it means something different for all of us, but we’re all afraid. And for me, it’s a fear of being left out. It’s a fear of being blindsided. It’s a fear of being alone. And I think all of that traces back to a number of traumas and insecurities that I have. And I had to face them literally in front of my face last Saturday night when your new interest came over to my place and I invited him over.

Megan: [00:17:51] Thank you, that’s big right there.

Marty: [00:17:53] And I was there. So there’s three men with a shit eating grin on her face, which is like 50 percent of the reason I wanted to go was to see that look on her face.

Kyle: [00:18:04] It is really worth it, it is really worth it at the end of the day. But for me, all of those fears were coming up intensely. And the crazy thing is that I walk around with that every day. We all walk around with those fears every day. And we want to ignore them. We want to do anything to get that away. And I felt like I had to sit there and I had to face it. And I wanted to run. I wanted to. There was like a fight or flight response going on in my body. And I wanted to leave and I wanted to say, guys, just go on without me.  You know, Megan should even choose this guy over me. I can’t do this, you know? I mean, all of that stuff came up and I just tried really, really hard. Every time this happened, I would just close my eyes and I would think about Megan and how much she means to me and think about this new person who to me felt like a threat, even though I knew he was a nice guy and I got to know him. And all of that was was battling in my mind of the reality and then the story and the fear. And for me, I was able to work through that night. And there was constant battles and there was many fights that I had that were going on inside of me. But I think at a certain point I was able to just create the space that is now there. And it’s just sitting there. And I feel it. And I’m happy with it. I think that it’s a bigger paradigm shift for me of how I can look at relationships and love. And I can release see that possession in the paradigm of there’s only one. And this fear also that, you know, that I have to have all of your love to have any love at all. I think all of that is still being sorted out in my head, but I don’t really walk around in the last few days at all these these body responses when I think about him and you. Which is new for me. And I’m not turning away from that. I’m trying to go towards it and I’m trying to create conversations with you about what could this future be like with him. And I’m really looking at you. And every time I experience this, I’m like, God, how did Marty do this? How did he do this for me? Because he was there and he had been with Megan for 15 years. And I just appreciate you so much more through this. And I think that’s been an incredible experience for me and that bringing me and you closer together.

Marty: [00:20:49] It was an incredible thing to witness.

Marty: [00:00:00] For myself, I know it’s for the audience member to understand the quality person you are and the level of courage you demonstrated to invite your dragon over and sit it down and then in front of us all own all of the fear and all of it and open up to him directly and communicate exactly the threat.  It was the most bold experience of someone’s courage I’ve seen in a long time. And it was commendable and incredible and I think a testament to your character and what you’re working on. And so as I witnessed that I was like, you’re gonna be just fine because that’s what it takes. You’re doing the work and now you’re feeling the relief. I can’t always answer the questions like how did I get to this point? Because I don’t know, sometimes my answer is I’m just fucking crazy. I’m out there. I do a lot of thought experiments and I let myself feel things. I think that’s the big distinction that I might want to impart to the audience member, is that you have to feel everything.  You have to. You can’t just be like, oh, that’s a negative feeling that I have about him and I’m going to just not feel it because then it’s going to bite you in the ass. And instead, what you did was I’m feeling all these things. And you neutralised them, you can’t take anything from a naked man is an old phrase of my dad’s that I live by. I am who I am to everybody. That’s freeing. And then you just demonstrate an outer layer of it by vulnerability times 10.

Megan: [00:01:47] It was beautiful. It was a beautiful moment. I sat down everyone because I knew how important that evening was for us. And I was like, alright, guys, we are gonna do something very cheesy and we’re going to state our intentions for the evening. And everybody sharing their intentions it was amazing and beautiful. And no people our night did not end up in an orgy. Sorry to disappoint. It was a beautiful night of conversation and walking and talking and relating and connecting to each other. And for me, that’s what this journey is all about, literally being there for each other and growing and allowing tears when there were tears and just to be there. Yeah, it was really, really powerful. I actually was remembering my moment of my biggest fear of abandonment or the time where I had to work through it the most. Marty has had three relationships, we’ll count this current relationship the third. The first one was I’ll say fairly easy, only because at that point I was already in love with Kyle. So I felt like when you, Marty, we’re going through that first relationship. I was really using Kyle like a crutch. I didn’t realize I was. But because I had him in my life, I was like, oh, great. Now, Marty, you know, is getting to know someone. And the relationship.

Marty: [00:03:01] It was a slow burn.

Megan: [00:03:01] It wasn’t as as serious.

Marty: [00:03:05] Allowance came over time.

Megan: [00:03:06] Yeah. Yeah. There were moments in there that were harder, you know, the first time that you were physical with her. And just there were times where I had to open up these spaces in my heart. I was like, oh, god, this is painful, but I think it’s gonna pay off. But the biggest one, actually was your second relationship because Kyle had been out of the country in Europe for eight or nine weeks. And it was during that time, towards the end of it that you started dating someone else. And I didn’t have Kyle to fall back on. I didn’t have that assuredness that, oh, I have someone else that loves me. So it’s OK that Marty is connecting with someone. And I had to do that work by myself. And it was at that point I was really my internal conversation was fuck. This is the work. I remember just being really sad and my heart. It was the first time I actually let my heart. I felt my heart because for so long my whole life, I use positivity as my shield and it served me well. It was like, oh, great, I’m always a really positive person and I don’t have to feel my anger, my sadness. I’m not angry. I’m never sad. I’m all good. But for that, there was a very intense week. And I just remember letting myself be sad. And the amazing part was, Marty, is that you didn’t jump in to fix me. You didn’t say, OK, well, fine, I won’t see her anymore. It’s OK. It’s OK to feel like that. And it gave me the space to just feel sad and to just feel the those fears of abandonment. You know, to feel the fear, to feel that sadness and to be there for myself, to kind of work with myself through it. Instead of using another person as a crutch or an outside vice as a crutch, I just let myself feel sad. And then a week later, it was like I had an alien on my face for a week. Oh, that’s off. Thank God that’s sucked for a little while, but I feel much better. Thank you. I felt so much more sure of myself and confident and even seeing his love for that woman grow. I felt centered and it’s not anything. It’s not anything that I know people that are listening. Our audience member that’s listening right now, it’s almost impossible, really impossible to understand what it is that we’re talking about without the first hand experience, because I know that there’s no way I would have understood this without going through it. But that being said, there were podcasts. There were books that we were reading. And it was nice to kind of have at least some type of outline like, oh, yeah, that is a thing. You know, you might go through that. Yeah, feeling I think feeling the insecurity and feeling the pain and feeling sadness is actually not a bad thing as long as you can have the centeredness to be able to work through it.

Marty: [00:05:51] One side note and a nugget of wisdom that I’ve learned that I had to deploy today was don’t fix things. Other people like there’s more and trusting other person to be able to do the fix themselves and just being support like today. I kept anticipating our breakdown today and I go to the beach. I’m anticipating breakdown. So of course I create break down. I’m like, wow.

Megan: [00:06:12] Wait, say that again.

Marty: [00:06:12] I am anticipating breakdown, so of course I create the breakdown and now I’m trying to use words to fix something that’s not something I can fix with words and not something to fix. And I realized I had to leave. Went to the car, everybody was hanging out at the beach. I was just thinking to myself, like, what do I do? Oh, it’s not doing. Everything I’m doing is not working. It’s being. How do I need to be? It’s loving. And then there was nothing to do but hug you.

Megan: [00:06:40] Yeah. Yeah. When I came back from that. And thank you for sharing that. And I got to come back and give you a big, big hug and kiss.

Marty: [00:06:49] So don’t fix it, just be there.

Kyle: [00:06:49] More like you jumped into his arms.  

[00:06:51] I did.  I totally jumped in. I ran up to him and I was like, oh, he wants a hug. And it didn’t just give me a regular hug.I literally jumped up on you and I threw my arms around your neck and I curled my legs around your waist and give you a big hug.

Marty: [00:07:05] Because there wasn’t anything to fix. It was just be together.  Be love.  

Megan: [00:07:06] Exactly. It was beautiful. So I will call that the loving witness. That’s who we get to be for each other. I will sit here and love you through this because I know you will get through it and that’s it. There’s nothing to fix. And sometimes it’s hard to get through. Yeah.

Megan: [00:07:26] You want to share a little bit Marty about your journey over the last week or two?

Marty: [00:07:31] Oh, I think. Sure. Yes. My friend here arrived a week ago. Terrified. As I kind of anticipated and thought because the communication pulled back. And so I was terrified. And you guys saw me go through that. And I don’t always know why, but it stems from having deep connection with you and with her. And as she arrived and confessed this terror, I went through a lot of my own  lost in this, but was reminded of our early relationship, so mine, mine and yours (with Megan). Where we broke up on an off here and there. When you were about to break up with me, in that case, that I knew was coming and wrote on my laptop, a letter in response before you could even it. You sat down and flipped the laptop around and you were like how the fuck did you know this? I know you really well.  We’re just done.

Megan: [00:08:35] Damn this guy. He’s responding to something I haven’t even said yet.

Marty: [00:08:39] Right. And so the next day after this messy breakup, I was hanging out with my old hippie boss after work. She knew I was down. Let’s go get some martinis at the Intercontinental Hotel across the street. Which is what we did. And she asked me some really tough questions like, would you love her if she was broken or fat? These things, all these things that she’s not yet and or will ever be.  Careful. And she she really hit me. I’ll take her. However, I can get her. And I recalled that when you arrived from out of town, my best friend here, and it was a rough first night of sleeping on it. And the next day she did work, I went for a walk on the lake and I sat down and I meditated.  What do I need to do?  Who do I need to be? And it dawned on me like my friend here is losing faith in love and is terrified and is low on energy. And I need to be a really good best friend and I need to help her restore her faith in love and all these things without any attachment and with being best friends with no expectations. It was the smartest thing I could do because some healing happened then really just this is built on friendship and more. And so now it’s been amazing that all these really amazing experiences. We don’t know what the future is, but I certainly do understand what it’s like to have to let go of attachment.

Megan: [00:10:07] This kind of paradigm shifting the world that she’s entering right now. And it’s a big one because this hasn’t been part of her lifestyle. So now. Thank you for being here. We nicknamed Marty. What is it, Shiva?

Marty: [00:10:28] I am the destroyer of worlds.  You come to me to shatter your world. And if you have a belief system and you should care to share with me and I share mine. You might not believe the same thing anymore.

Megan: [00:10:38] I think it’s all for best thing.  I think you shatter worlds that need to be broken so that people can take down those pieces to rebuild more healthy worlds.

Marty: [00:10:48] I go by my dad’s phrases. You can’t take anything from a naked man. I’ve always been me. It’s not always been easy. Yeah. I’m learning how to share more appropriately. I over share. Share more concisely, more, more compassionately and purposefully.

Megan: [00:11:08] So we had a big week as well. I got to meet Kyle’s family and parents. Actually, I already had met his brother and sister and I got to meet your your mom and dad this last week or two. I’ve now seen your mom, I think three times.

Kyle: [00:11:24] She noted that.

Megan: [00:11:25] She’s so sweet. She really is. So this a year ago, I couldn’t have even imagined.

Marty: [00:11:30] That’s more than I’ve seen my mother in law.

Megan: [00:11:34] Yes, it is. Actually, I couldn’t have imagined this a year ago because I think we were having we were in a different place around family. And we didn’t really know where it was going. It’s been so nice to to feel accepted by Kyle’s family. And oh, and then we had the twins fourth birthday and we had my family there and Kyle and Marty’s significant other here. And half of the people in the party knew. And the other half maybe didn’t. But for us it was a really, really big deal. And that’s why I think over the last month, coming back to Chicago, it has felt like a coming out and has felt really, really important to share this, because even the small things like I want to post a picture of Kyle and I on Facebook just because it’s a beautiful photo and he’s a big part of my life. And then I realized, oh, wait, I can’t do that because I haven’t set the context. Nobody knows who this is. And that to me is really sad because it means that I have to keep stopping myself. I have to keep blocking myself. Oh, wait. No, I can’t be this person yet. And people don’t understand this. I just don’t want to do that anymore. I want to have a nice picture if we’re all together to be like. I love these people and then just share it like that. And so maybe that’s one of my very small. But, you know, but so important factors of not wanting to block or inhibit myself and how I live my life. Plus, I’ve also thought because we walked on the streets of Chicago and I’m kissing Kyle and I always wonder if I have a friend that has seen us. I don’t know. She or he is like Megan’s cheating on Marty. And that is like holding onto this secret. And I just don’t want to do that to other people either.

Marty: [00:13:07] I almost want someone to come out to me and be like, do you know what Megan is doing? Be like, hell, yeah, I do.  High five.

Megan: [00:13:17] Or vice versa or somebody sees you and then they think that they have to hold onto that secret.

Marty: [00:13:21] Oh, they wouldn’t they wouldn’t hold onto the secret.  They would absolutely go to destroy me. I guarantee it.

Megan: [00:13:27] I just don’t want. No lies. That’s basically it for me. No lies, no hiding.

Marty: [00:13:31] I hope it goes well. We don’t know how it’s going to go, but it’s social media and people suck. So I really hope that the sharing results in the type of outcomes for helping other people that you want and that you are able to stomach the toxicity that might come your way. And when you do this, because you don’t have to, you know. You are going to have to face some shit if you go down this path. But I also think that whether even if we never even consider polyamory, the conversations that we have on the books that you read in the constructs of relationships that are built into it are useful for monogamous relationships of all types.

Megan: [00:14:13] Just open communication. I think an understanding of resent how destructive resenting is.

Marty: [00:14:18] Layers and layers and layers and layers.

Megan: [00:14:21] Resent, jealousy, ownership, outside validation, needing somebody to be everything, insecurities, fuck. It’s just abandonment. Everything. It’s sexuality. Trauma. Yeah. Yeah, all of it. And then healing. And then on the other side, how much we can be for each other and how we can hold the safe space for each other.

Marty: [00:14:39] Well, I think your title of your podcast, Amory, is appropriate. I think this is a mastery of your own Amory of your own love and things like self-love, really a personal mastery. It’s a process, it’s personal. There are many ways to it. But this is one of the channels of personal mastery is love. And I think if you want to master something you’ve got to do a lot of it. So polyamory makes sense.

David: [00:15:06] Thanks for sharing yourselves so honestly.

Megan: [00:15:06] Yeah. I was going to ask you, David, if you don’t mind, I put you on the spot a bit, too. This is the first time you’ve really been around all of us. At the same time, it’s the first time you and I have spent any significant time together.  We met once. How has it felt just being around us? I’m so curious.

David: [00:15:24] Well, I’m kind of used to tribes. I like communal experiences. And so, you know, the idea of sharing space and time with a group of people is how I like to live my life. And what I like is that everything seems to be done with love, with caring, as opposed to punishment or selfishness. And the way to make a better world is to do things communally for the good of the group as opposed to just for ego and for the self. And this group is all about support and caring and sharing and holding people up. And that’s how I like to live my life. And that’s what I like to be around. So for me, this was a great vacation and a nice experience and I’m not in a position to judge. So it’s not about judging or putting my, you know, any other outside ethics, morality into it. It’s just experiencing the people being together and enjoying being together. So thank you for letting me be part of it.

Marty: [00:16:31] David I love having you a part of it. Me and David have been friends for I don’t know how long. It doesn’t matter. It’s like monthly or every six weeks chats over coffee or whatever. And always deep, always honest, always vulnerable, always real. And I love you. I think this is a great friendship. And it’s kind of another example of polyamory. I love my brother is part of this tribe, our friends in Brazil are a part of this tribe. It’s not all about sex, about love, and it’s about like honesty and support, campaigning for each other’s happiness. That’s why you take the husband-wife out of it. It’s very binary, very adversarial. It’s best friends. What do you do for your best friend? Anything, everything. You campaign for their happiness. You find joy in what they find joy in, you campaign for their dreams. You identify with their values and support those things and sometimes make sacrifices, but it always pays in dividends.

David: [00:17:26] We’re all in this together, and like I’ve said before in life, you have to go through everything alone, but you really don’t have to go through anything alone. It’s just a weird, contradiction, a weird paradox. But it’s it’s true.

Megan: [00:17:40] Beautiful. Yeah. Well, you’ve created this wonderful setting for us and created beautiful weather and nice beaches. I love it. Today we had a moment where walking by one of the stores, we pop in there and they have a mug that says, Love your tribe. And I’m like, guys, guys, look. So we all got a love your tribe mug.

Marty: [00:18:03] She almost attacked the clerk, to go in the back and find as many mugs as you can possibly find. And we bought them all. No one else can have a tribe. Just us.

Megan: [00:18:14] But the idea of tribe, I think is really it’s really, really powerful. I think it’s. Yeah. I’ll be 40 this year. And it’s funny to me that it took me 40 years to really, really figure out what friendship is and what, you know, what it means to be a best friend and a partner and a partner and all the senses journey. Yeah, it totally is.

Marty: [00:18:34] This podcast, episode number two, apparently number three will come whenever your inspired.

Megan: [00:18:40] And subscribe. We’ll keep recording. We’re gonna be all around the world. Marty and I ask questions. Yes.

Marty: [00:18:46] What do you want to hear about what you want to know, we are open books. I got nothing to lose at this point. Can’t take anything from a naked man or woman or woman or person or a naked person.

Megan: [00:18:58] Yeah. So Marty and I will be leaving for London. Europe. Yeah. Mid August and Kyle’s gonna come visit. He overlapped his trip to visit some friends and then come hang out again and then hopefully we’ll see our other friend hopefully at some point,.

Megan: [00:19:16] The future is unknown.

Megan: [00:19:17] Yeah, but we’ll keep recording and we’ll keep sharing. And if there is an audience member that is interested in this.

Marty: [00:19:22] I’m hoping next week we have two. Then we can go to the plural. Double our audience in one shot.

Megan: [00:19:32] 200 percent growth. But if you like this, seriously, share it with a friend. If you found value out of it, please let us know.

Marty: [00:19:39] If you identify with it, share with your friend.

Megan: [00:19:43] I like it.