Monogamy? In this Economy? With Author Laura Boyle

Let’s explore the complexities of living in polyamorous relationships with relationship coach Laura Boyle, author of Monogamy? In this Economy?Finances, Childrearing, and Other Practical Concerns of Polyamory. We discuss the challenges and triumphs of shared living, finances, and parenting in multi-partner households.

From cohabitation logistics and financial planning to co-parenting strategies and managing breakups, Laura offers practical advice and candid insights. We also dig into the social stigmas and legal challenges faced by polyamorous families.

Discover how real people are navigating the intricacies of polyamory and creating fulfilling lives with multiple partners.

Laura Boyle is a relationship coach, educator, and the voice behind the blog at readyforpolyamory.com and the accompanying podcast. She has been an expert voice on the topics of polyamory and parenting for the Boston Globe, the Economist, Parents Magazine, and Cosmopolitan, as well as being polyamorous herself for nearly 20 years. Her coaching practice is largely focused on helping non-monogamous folks through major life transitions, and she's based in New Haven, CT.

https://elleciapaine.com/call

Chapters

• 0:00 Polyamory
• 8:57 Navigating Social Stigma in Housing
• 17:13 Navigating Non-Traditional Family Dynamics
• 26:05 Navigating Household Compatibility and Dynamics
• 33:43 Navigating Shared Finances and Living Arrangements
• 40:55 Navigating Family Dynamics and Future Plans
• 50:20 Monogamy in the Economy Book Launch

Transcript

Laura: 0:00

The core messages that came through that let me put the book together basically boiled down to polyamory. Is not that different than monogamy? You have to treat the people you live with like real people. Who would have thought?

Ellecia: 0:16

Hey, I'm E, your non-monogamous relationship coach. Welcome to the podcast where my friends and I chat about our relationships. Hey, so maybe you're polyamorous or moving in that direction, right? So let's talk about some of the nitty gritty. I sat down with relationship coach Laura Boyle to unpack some of the biggest challenges that we faced in polyamorous relationships From co-living to co-parenting, finances, family, recovering it all. Laura pulled hundreds of people just like us to write her new book Monogamy in this Economy, finances, child Rearing and Other Practical Concerns of Polyamory. So get ready for some real talk about making polyamory work in the real world today, right now, whether you're in a triad, a quad or something else entirely, this episode is full of practical advice. So listen in for all the juicy details. Let me know what resonates the most with you, and don't forget to leave a five-star rating, and I'll probably just read it on the show. Enjoy Cool.

Ellecia: 1:37

The last time I hit that button, it didn't do the countdown and I was like what is happening? Where's my countdown? Okay, laura, laura Boyle, right? Yes, I got it Right. Awesome, awesome. I'm so happy you're here. Um, I read most of your book. I skimmed through the rest of it because it was very, very quick. That's fair. I was like I got a week, we got this and it's fantastic and super, super needed, super needed. Thank you, I appreciate that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's. I know in my, in my coaching, like a lot of questions I get are like and how do you handle the parenting? Oh my God, I get so many parenting questions, so many parenting questions, but also a lot of questions about cohabitating and money and what do you do in all of these situations? And I'm like you treat people like you would any good roommate, I mean that is unfortunately sort of the base of it.

Laura: 2:43

that is unfortunately sort of the base of it.

Ellecia: 2:46

Yeah, yeah, I mean that's kind of how all cohabitating should be. I think I mean should be yes, yes, should be. It's kind of like saying how relationships should be yeah.

Laura: 3:02

So I was putting together this book book and I was lucky enough to get almost 500 people to answer my initial survey and then more than 100 people to do follow up interviews with me, of like either doing calls or answering with really long, detailed emails, or a few people put me on Zoom and walked me around their house through their phones and it was really fun. So I feel like totally indebted to these people who answered my original survey and like made it possible for me to have the data to write the book in the first place. But the core messages that came through that let me put the book together basically boiled down to polyamory is not that different than monogamy. You have to treat the people you live with like real people who would have thought, and in fact, some things are just more complicated because there are more people like money.

Ellecia: 4:07

Yep, yep, yep, yep. It's kind of like okay, it's kind of like group sex, like with only two people. You kind of know who to focus on, you know where to put things. You start adding more people and you really have to be conscientious about where you're putting things and who you're spending your time with and how you're arranging things.

Laura: 4:30

Yeah, you have to have had some more conversations ahead of time about what you're going to do, and then you have to be willing to have something go a tiny bit wrong and you adjust as you go.

Ellecia: 4:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly Amazing what, um what, what inspired you to write, uh, to write, monogamy in this economy?

Laura: 4:56

Uh, so, as a polyamorous parent who previously lived in a V?

Laura: 5:02

Um, I get a lot of people in my coaching practice who ask all of these questions constantly, and so I wanted to have a like resource that I could hand people and something that would be available for more folks than just the handfuls of people who I get to work with in any given year. And so that was sort of the inspiration behind starting the whole thing, and so I said, well, if I'm going to do this, I should be a little bit scientific about it. And so I made this survey to try to get community input, and I was so lucky that a bunch of other people shared it, and so we got this great response and I was able to have enough information that it was really a rich kind of response to work from. And then the publisher was like oh, you have this big survey that you're working from. We're really interested in putting this out in the world, and so it didn't have to just be a self-published whatever like my previous book uh huh, so yeah, so that was the basis of why.

Ellecia: 6:09

Uh-huh, uh-huh. What um? Was there anything that surprised you?

Laura: 6:14

I was the most surprised, honestly, by how many triads there were, which, like I, probably shouldn't have been. Like, three is the least complicated number after two. But also I, like every other polyamorous influencer in the world, have made the video of, like we don't all live in triads, you guys, but we sort of do all live in triads If we're living in groups of three or more adults. I'm sorry to break it to you, mm, hmm.

Ellecia: 6:41

I'm sorry to break it to you. It's true, it's true, it's funny. Yeah, same I. I have done the same. Like look, it's not, that's not the end, I'll be all. And also I have a triad that I live with.

Laura: 6:58

You know as well as children. Yeah, uh, huh Uh huh, uh, huh. Look at the three of us right, like my kids have three parents, so I can't really say that I'm outside of that door, but but also not everyone.

Ellecia: 7:23

Amazing, amazing. So um so you, you do, you identify as polyamorous.

Laura: 7:28

I do, because your relationship structure so I most strongly identify as a relationship anarchist, but my relationships fall under like a polyamorous structure. Um, I live solo Um, but I have a partner of eight and a half years. I co-parent with my ex and my ex meta, and then I have another partner of a couple of years.

Ellecia: 7:52

Yeah, nice, nice, that's wonderful. I um, the longer I have been non-monogamous, the more I'm like, yeah, relationship anarchy kind of feels like that's really what fits, because I have, I have really close friends and I have friends that are lovers and I have lovers and I have long term partners. I have a 10 year marriage and I have a eight year partner and a five year partner and like and they're all. Each one is so individual and I don't live with all of them, but I live with some of them.

Laura: 8:27

Right, it's this thing where, like do I really need to put labels on everything I'm doing all of the time? Probably not. If I did, would that be extremely complicated? Probably yes, but as it is. I can name two partnerships that have labels, and so I can go. Well, I am polyamorous, but also relationship anarchy is probably more accurate.

Ellecia: 8:53

Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love that. Um, I'm curious when you were doing your research in um for the book and interviewing all of these people, um, did you find? Did you find much? Um, I imagine you ask people about their challenges and I'm wondering how much of that was like social, social stigma.

Laura: 9:19

Um, so, yes, but, um, the level of social stigma and like the things I found social stigma around were more about finding housing or staying in housing as opposed to other issues.

Laura: 9:37

Um, because that was what I was focused on in the study itself, because I was mostly looking at housing and then I was looking a little bit at parenting.

Laura: 9:47

That's how the study started, yeah, and so the rate that my study respondents said that they had experienced some level of housing discrimination was about two-thirds the level that was found in the open community survey. So I think the reason for this is that, based on my follow-up interviews and the ways people spoke about stigma and discrimination, I think the way I phrased the question discrimination I think the way I phrased the question people felt like I was asking about something that was a higher bar than what the folks at open were asking about. Right, so I think they felt uncomfortable saying that they had experienced it because it was just and just has big scare quotes around it somebody asking some extra questions while they were going to rent a place, or sure, just a landlord only wanting two of them on the lease or whatever, as opposed to like outright discrimination. Yeah, and people get uncomfortable with taking that on as a label.

Ellecia: 11:05

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah, I mean because that's not something I've had to deal with, and so I've actually always been curious about you know, because I would imagine you know if you were going to rent a place and you just put these are the adults that are on the lease. It's like having roommates, I would think.

Laura: 11:30

Right, and I know that there are folks who have had trouble with that because they're living in places that are single families owned, and so you have to explain who the unrelated adults are and how and why you want them to move in, and then if you have a conservative landlord, it's a problem, right? Or like you move people in between leases and then, when you're ready to renew, your landlord has an issue with it, things like that, right, oh yeah, and so there are lots of loopholes. There are lots of ways to get around things. There are ways to choose where you're living so that it's not zoned like that. But in the us, most of the us is single-family zoned, as much as we wish it weren't as much as this is a like racist and classist institution that probably shouldn't exist.

Laura: 12:20

Um, we can tell my politics just by the way I phrase these things, but as much as all of this is the case, it is a fact. Right numbers are either buying homes, because then nobody's really going to bother you, unless you have the kind of nimby neighbors who, like you've got too many cars out front and you're ruining the property values sometimes people win those lawsuits.

Laura: 13:00

They don't and whatever like if you're taking good care of your house and it's not that many cars out front, probably you don't have a problem. And again we're then relying on the social contract, which only goes so far. So I don't want to encourage people to just assume that everything will be okay all of the time. You have to know your neighborhood, your state, your town, but by and large things are more progressive than they used to be, as much as we're living in a horrible black backslide like legislatively right like let's all fear project 2025 and simultaneously acknowledge that we live at the best time to be alive, right Like.

Ellecia: 13:59

Yes, truly Truly, um mortgage people who specialize in helping um uh, polyamorous families, multi-adult families, um purchase homes and and go through the bank part of that, and I thought that was really fascinating.

Laura: 14:16

Yes, and definitely a lot of the folks who owned their homes as groups had, like, found mortgage brokers who specialize in order to do that and so they hadn't felt any particular stigma or whatever. But they had gone seeking a particular professional who specializes or they'd found members of community who were totally open to working with them and navigating that process right, either through other connections, through the queer community, through the kink community, through whatever, to find the person who was open to helping them navigate and like. So does that count as not experiencing stigma or does that count as assuming you're going to experience stigma and sidestepping it? I don't know and I don't want to presume either of those things. In my reporting so I noted that I felt like my results were in line with opens because of these little differentiators in how we ask the question.

Ellecia: 15:17

Sure, sure, yeah, that makes sense, that makes a ton of sense, yeah.

Laura: 15:23

And I really enjoyed getting to talk about such a wide variety of topics in the book because we talked about like housing and how people arrange their bedrooms and like all of these sort of things that I think are just kind of expanding people's views of the possibilities. Some people who I talk to in coaching are like well, I could maybe live with a meta someday if we had an enormous house, If everybody had their own rooms, tons of spaces, a bathroom per adult. I don't know about the rest of you, but I live in a part of the country where it's entirely too, expensive to imagine this future.

Laura: 16:06

Maybe the rest of you live in places where land and housing are cheap enough for this but I do not.

Laura: 16:13

Does that exist? I enjoy, look, given the housing crisis we currently face. Maybe nowhere is there, but for me it is certainly a dream, and so I really enjoyed talking to people about the right that had no closets in them, yeah, and so like turning a bedroom into a closet and then everybody shared a room, kind of deals, and I thought that was really cool Everybody shared a room kind of deals and I thought that was really cool, it's like little weird things I would never have thought of doing that were really interesting and I had fun sharing these kinds of things.

Laura: 17:13

or people who created new doorways into bathrooms so that something was no longer a master bath.

Ellecia: 17:25

It was now a shared bathroom for all of the adults, so that there was no longer a master.

Laura: 17:27

I don't have to walk through the bedroom, right? Nobody loses their privacy in such a huge way, but everybody gets access to the good bathroom. Yeah, yeah and like yeah are some of these.

Ellecia: 17:38

I love that we turned our garage into an extra space yeah.

Laura: 17:42

So like all these sorts of ideas that yes, it's a privilege to be able to do them, but also sometimes it costs a lot less to do that kind of renovation than to find a house that's that much bigger yeah, and fits all, all the, all the desires, yeah, so anyway, I enjoyed getting to do that.

Laura: 18:05

I enjoyed getting to talk about the ways kids change those equations, because those are questions that people ask us a lot right like yeah, what does it mean when you include kids? What does it mean to breakups? When you include kids, how do you include, like managing your breakup when somebody moves out of a house and they were really close with your kids for six, seven, eight years that they lived with you and so sharing the stories of how people manage those relationships and what it looks like and what it looks like when you're still really hurt about that breakup, so you don't want to manage that relationship for your child but, like your partner will do that for you and for your child still.

Laura: 18:56

I thought some of those were really touching stories and so I enjoyed getting to share some of that Right and like again, I feel like such a sense of debt for all of the folks who shared their stories with me, where I got to share and reshare those.

Ellecia: 19:13

Yeah, I love that. That is so different than you typically see. You know, in a monogamous culture a breakup means like everybody's broken up, all ties are cut and they're blacklisted and and that's so hard for people who are like I. You know children and other people who are like, but I didn't break up with them.

Laura: 19:38

And like we're already rewriting all of these rules whenever we have step parents in our culture and so doing a little extra rewriting and either doing that for people to begin holding a parenting role for our kids or to say they held a parenting role for this many years. If the kid wants to continue having a relationship with them, I'll facilitate. That is, I think, really cool. Yeah, I'm like nothing is better or worse, but opening people up to these possibilities is, I think, helpful and handy and something that people can consider moving forward no-transcript.

Laura: 20:50

I mean as a polyamorous parent with kids who are 10 and about to turn eight. Our navigation of it has been that other kids are totally chill, other kids' parents are sometimes not Right right, and so, for the most part, it's a matter of managing adult expectations and figuring out where the adult expectations are going to be misaligned and not giving them space to create a bad experience for our kids mhm, mhm and like to create a bad experience for our kids, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Laura: 21:36

Yeah, and like some of this has been shaped by living in a relatively liberal environment, yeah, but also we've been lucky enough to mostly not have our kids have a bad experience right. A couple of times there have been friends who, like their parents, don't want them coming over our house. So we do play dates outside the house or whatever. Excuse me, but yeah, so little things like that, but for the most part it's been pretty smooth sailing, like my, my kid, when he was three, his pre-K, did you know the all about families kind of day, and he came home and this is one of my favorite stories in life. He came home and was like did you guys know, not everybody has two moms, full sincerity, and, like some other kids in his class also had two moms because they were like the children of divorce and had like remarried parents.

Ellecia: 22:41

Yeah.

Laura: 22:41

And so it wasn't. I'm the only one who has two moms. Did you know? Some people don't have two moms.

Ellecia: 22:48

It's so sad for them yeah.

Laura: 22:50

He was so concerned. He was like how did their moms get anything done?

Ellecia: 22:58

God, that's cute.

Laura: 23:01

And so like there is something to be said for being open in your environment, with schools, with doctors, with all of these different people, because more of the time than not, they're pretty chill, like not everyone has been perfectly chill with us, but the vast majority have been right. Like our kids are in boy Scouts and they're relaxed about it and they're owned by Mormons.

Ellecia: 23:38

They're like yeah, we get it, it's fine. Yeah, I have found a lot of people are just like I'm not even going to ask, right, right, I mean, that has to do with what I'm doing here.

Laura: 23:49

I think now that I know like I'm separated from their dad, people just assume we're divorced. But when we all lived together, we were just sort of the weird family.

Laura: 24:02

Oh yeah, that's the weird family, okay yeah and like my partner of eight and a half years, lives in a triad and so his kids have two dads and like, oh yeah, those are just the weird kids. Or like, oh, they're very nice kids. Their parents are strange, yeah, and he has been prepared to be the strange parent since he was a kid. Yeah, so he went from being a weird kid to being a weird parent and he's fully on board with that. So he does everything he can to like be chill enough that the other parents are not so weirded out that, like, his kids don't get invited to things and that's it yeah, yeah, yeah, I have teenagers and they're all like, yeah, yeah, this is just fine, it's whatever, like it's not a thing.

Ellecia: 24:54

And I've found that I am much more concerned about it than my kids have ever been. So like I won't, you know, like Facebook friend their friends parents. I'm like, no, we're not going to do that, because I'm very, you know, clearly, I have a podcast and I'm very vocal and so I'm like, well, you know, if they have, if they have questions, I'll answer them, but I'm not going to have them just like stumble upon me, right? I'm not.

Laura: 25:20

I'm not like oh yeah, everybody's mom is my buddy on Facebook. No, if they're like my actual friend in real life, that can happen, but that's like 5% of them maybe.

Ellecia: 25:40

Uh huh, yep% of them maybe. Uh-huh, yep, yep, yep, yep, Amazing, amazing, um, speaking of people moving in together and people living together and um, all the things that come with it, can you talk about the importance of like, like, compatibility, like communication, but also just compatibility?

Laura: 26:05

So there are so many kinds of compatibility that go into living together and we as a culture do not think about them. We we talk to people about finding your happily ever after and like being swept off your feet and people being supposed to be your best friend but also your like sexual zenith. But we do not talk to people about liking things at a similar level of messiness as one another and we do not talk to people about liking things at a similar level of messiness as one another. And we do not talk to people about having similar values around finances as one another. And we do not talk to people about wanting similar levels of having guests over as one another. And those three things are like the biggest indicators of whether or not you'll hate living together.

Laura: 26:57

Because if one of you is a social butterfly who wants friends over twice a week and doesn't care if the house is a mess or not when that happens, and the other one wants the house neat as a pin when people come over because you can't see their dirty clutter, shame. And also really isn't that social in the first place. Like they'll go out and socialize with people if they need to, but like for people over the house. They don't want that more than once a month. You're going to have a bad time. It's not going to go well. That's going to be very uncomfortable and it's going to become very uncomfortable within those first three months. It's not going to be good. There's going to be fights, it's going to be bad, and sometimes those two people can have a partner in between them who could go either way. On both of those things they're may be really social, just like the person who wants people over twice a month, but they're twice a week rather. But they're really happy going out twice a week. They don't need anyone in your space. They'd rather their space be kind of empty, like it just be theirs. Yeah, but they want to be social that often and they like their space to be really neat, like the person who needs it to be perfectly neat when anyone comes in. And so you got that person in the middle going.

Laura: 28:22

I'm upset with both of you why? And the three of them are trying to live together and our culture also puts a lot of the onus of housekeeping on people socialized as women, and when you combine all of that you can get into some perfect storm territory, especially if it's a man as the hinge and women on both ends of that arguing about frequency and cleaning. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. If you reverse the genders, it's still equally bad, because then you've got a woman in the middle going and you guys are expecting me to make you lists of how often to do something and why, and neither of you is following them and I can't figure out the expectations for how to do this and what is wrong with you. I love you both, but I will get both of you.

Laura: 29:23

No, uh-huh, and just gendered expectations around household tasks and people not having unpacked them, and gendered expectations around calendars and people not having unpacked them were in the top two. Complaints around people moving in together, especially if it was a third, which is in giant scare quotes moving in with a couple especially, but really any three people moving in together, because if you're in a position where there was someone keeping a calendar for two people and then a third person moves in and they're used to maintaining all their own stuff, but combining these things is hard because one of these people isn't really pulling their weight on that end. Yeah, figuring out the new configuration gets tricky. Is the person who's been doing the maintaining your partner or your meta. How are you going to blend this?

Laura: 30:18

There's a lot of interpersonal dynamics that come into it, and there's a lot of social expectation dynamics that come into it and a lot of these social expectation dynamics are about people who are socialized as women running families, doing kin keeping, doing calendar keeping, calendar keeping for themselves, their spouses, their children. But if you both want to maintain polyamorous relationships that are outside of that dyadic unit, you should have split that up at some point. You should each be maintaining your own thing. You should both be aware up at some point. You should each be maintaining your own thing. You should both be aware of what the kid's needs and calendar are independently.

Laura: 30:59

If someone is in charge of the kid's calendar, the other person should be doing some additional household tasks to sort of balance that out. And yes, I'm saying should I don't love the word should, but I'm absolutely using it here be good to one another, please, for the love of all that's holding anyway. So yeah, there are things that like really had better happen if you want to maintain these things in some equilibrium, and a third person entering can really shine a light on them. If the third person isn't part of that dynamic, or if the third person is of one gender or the other, it suddenly makes it really apparent because they'll walk in and they'll go. Oh, i'm't, but I'm used to doing all this work because I lived alone. All of us should do all this work.

Laura: 32:02

Let's have a conversation about how we split the chores yeah yeah, and that's not even to mention finances and that everyone keeps them differently and that some people come from a place where, either because of having been well off or because of poverty, they have a very different relationship to money or whether or not you pay people back one by one for things, or like what's a shared expense and what's not a shared expense, which varies so enormously, because for some people it's like well, it's paying for the dog food right?

Laura: 32:47

is the dog everyone's dog. Is the child of the couple everyone's child, because this person's moving in and has now been given permission to like send the child to their room right? Is the permission to send the child to their room the moment where this person becomes a parent, right or?

Ellecia: 33:04

is the moment the financial right or is the?

Laura: 33:07

moment where they become a parent and share the financial burden.

Laura: 33:10

The moment where they also get a vote on like medical problems or is that only the moment after you go and do legal paperwork that, like, they have medical powers paperwork so that they can also take the kid to the hospital, and only after that do they also pay for things, right, like, and there's all these million different thresholds that you could consider it, and people have made all of these different choices and you have to decide what works for your family. Yeah, but so many people don't want to talk about so many dimensions of this or only want to talk about it after there's a fight about some aspect of it. Yeah, it's scary, right, you only want to chat about it after somebody pays for a big vacation on a credit card that someone else can see and they go you bought what.

Ellecia: 34:04

Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Laura: 34:06

And they're like well, but we said that dating was on that card. That's not a date, that's a four-day trip.

Ellecia: 34:14

yeah, wait a minute to some people.

Laura: 34:18

That's an obvious distinction. And to some people, no, that's a date, we talked about it. You took a two-day overnight with that person and you put that on the card. That was gas and a 75 campground fee, right, and like, yeah, these are realistic conversations that people who are sharing money have.

Laura: 34:41

Yeah, and so the vast majority of people who shared finances in my study did not completely share finances. They partially shared finances. It was either that couples who previously shared finances kept sharing them and someone else had a separate bank account and they decided what else was a shared expense and split them, or that they had a household bank account into which everybody put some money whether that was a set dollar amount or a set percentage of their income and then they paid household bills out of that. Right, it was almost never that everyone had pooled all of their money into one account. That would be so scary. Some people were doing it. It was just a very small percentage and it was almost always like polyfidelitous, long-term units sure, sure, yeah, that makes sense, yeah and like a few people had gone.

Laura: 35:40

Everyone has completely separate finances, which I also understand yeah, yeah, that's, that's what we do.

Ellecia: 35:48

But we, um, we were my husband and I were both married previously to and had like there was financial abuse for both of us, and so for when we got together, we were like, nope, we will not be sharing our finances, you pay for that, I'll pay for this. And then, as other people show up, we're like you pay for that, you pay for that, I'll pay for this.

Laura: 36:09

People with more roommates with multiple marriages and with lower income tend to keep money separate, and the higher your income goes, the fewer people are involved, and the fewer times folks have been married, the more likely they are to pool them. Those were the factors that correlated.

Ellecia: 36:30

That makes sense, that makes so much sense.

Laura: 36:33

But I thought it was interesting that all of those factors correlated um uh-huh, yeah, it's fascinating, uh, seeing how, how other people do things.

Ellecia: 36:45

I mean that's why I started this podcast. I was like there's lots of resources now, um, but I every time I'm reading a book or listening to a podcast, I'm like cool, great advice. But how'd you figure it out Right? What did you do? What really happened?

Laura: 36:58

I want to know what other people are doing Right, cause, like the community part, the part where we aren't alone, is one of the most important pieces to maintain our sanity and like when I was writing the finances chapter when lived in a triad, we did the like we take a percentage of our income and put it into a shared account to cover the things we had agreed were household expenses, and so for us that included kid expenses, because we were all raising the kids together. But a lot of people who I talked to were like, oh, kid expenses are not shared expenses because fewer than everyone in the household is a parent. And I was like I don't think I could handle living in a household where not everyone is paying for kids who are living here, because, like what do you think the children pay for themselves?

Laura: 37:52

Right, it's community, we're all taking care of them, sure, but I understand when I listened to people's explanations and I noted down the way that people explained it, but for me personally that would not have worked. But so the section on taking a percentage of your income and putting it in, other people had done very similar to what we did. So that section is like combined of what we did and what other people did.

Ellecia: 38:20

Yeah, solid advice.

Laura: 38:23

Because it does work even from when you have like no money to when people are making a lot of money. It is very transferable.

Ellecia: 38:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Laura: 38:36

If, um, if people are considering um transitioning to like having a having a poly household, um, what, what advice or what conversations would you say they should definitely do first, I think having honest conversations about how you're actually living now and whether it's reflective of how you want to live in terms of like messiness and how often you cook at home, like messiness and how often you cook at home, and because sometimes people aren't cooking at home because they're living in like an apartment with a shitty kitchen and they've got four roommates and so they can never get into the kitchen to cook, but in an ideal world they'd be cooking at home five nights a week, and so being honest about stuff like that matters right.

Ellecia: 39:31

Yeah.

Laura: 39:32

But so things like that about how messy you actually are, about whether or not you are the person who, in an ideal world, would never clean a bathroom again, because if every single one of you is that person, then you all need to be in a certain amount of acceptance that whoever is cleaning the bathroom is going to be resentful every time it's cleaned, and so you may have a less clean bathroom than any other room in your house. I'm not saying that it won't get cleaned, but I'm saying, if the rest of your house is getting cleaned twice a week, the bathroom might be on a once a week or once every 10 days schedule and, like, as the child of a neat freak, that might be a little hard for me personally, it might be the right schedule for you and yours. So consider it Right. Yeah, and so like there are some of these points that like you need to actually talk about.

Laura: 40:28

Talk about actual work and sleep schedules, because if some of you work overnights, but not all of you, that's surmountable. It's less surmountable if some of you are children. It's doable, but it's real hard, right? The person who works overnights is used to sleeping with earplugs and eye masks and whatever. Maybe it's manageable, maybe it's not. Have realistic conversations about work schedules, about where it is you intend to live, how it would work, the like practical nitty-gritty are the things that need to get discussed before, not only after, you're signing a lease. Do not sign a lease before you have some idea of how it would actually work. And then, on top of that, have some comfort with everybody who is going to be living in the building. If there's anyone in the group who you could not spend a whole evening with by yourself, consider not doing it. Uh-huh, because, like if you need to feel sometimes that you need to fully escape, you're going to get uncomfortable in your own home and it's not worth it.

Ellecia: 41:53

Yeah.

Laura: 41:54

And, like everybody, gets that a couple times a year because that's just family, that's just life right and these people will be your family by the time you're done living with them. But you want to choose family appropriately. You don't feel that way all the time. Relationships should be additive to our lives, not stressful. It's attractive.

Ellecia: 42:20

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yes, yes, take off the love blinders and get down to the practical.

Laura: 42:27

Right, remove the rose-colored glasses about your partner and look at everyone involved, because sometimes you love your partner but they're super messy and you know that's going to make you insane in three weeks. Also, if possible, do little trial runs, right? Oh yeah, stay at each other's places for two weeks straight. Yeah, see how much you make each other crazy at the end of two weeks. Yeah, make each other crazy at the end of two weeks, yeah, especially if it's smaller space than you're actually going to occupy, because it will point out all of those little difficult whatevers and it's better to know what they are. Yeah, and like, get ahead of it.

Laura: 43:16

Yes, the trial run will never be ideal, because you will not have all of both of your stuff in the same place. But talk to each other. If you're planning to move into someone's space, talk to them about how you're going to make it a space that is for all of you, right, because you don't want to be a guest moving into someone else's space. You want it to be your space too.

Ellecia: 43:42

Like, how will it? And the flip side of that is having someone moving into your space and now, all of a sudden, it's not my, just mine, and I have to move things and I have to change things.

Laura: 43:54

You're going to cope with that? If you're someone who gets anxiety, how will you cope with the anxiety that is triggered by that, because it is a loss of control? Yeah, yeah big time, but like it's one, that's often worth it, mm-hmm yeah, so good yeah.

Laura: 44:18

So I guess those are my like big conversations that people should have and if there are children involved, make sure you have explicit conversations about what makes a person a parent, about what steps you're taking if you're not considering someone a parent right. What is their role, what things are they and aren't they allowed to do? Because if someone isn't a parent but is an adult that lives in your house, they're going to be having interactions with your children and figuring out what those interactions are and aren't allowed to look like. Being more explicit is better than not.

Ellecia: 44:57

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, that one's rough because a lot of it feels like I don't know the answer until I've crossed that bridge. Sure, right, like, oh wait, I didn't know that this was even possible.

Laura: 45:12

sure, I thought you guys would always get along, right, but saying, like hey, yeah, let's figure out a ceiling and a floor, yes, and then if, once you're here and we're at the floor, we want to move the ceiling higher, we can talk about that together. But let's set a starting ceiling and a floor At least gives you space to move in. Yeah, because humans are terrible predictors of how they're going to feel Really are. Yeah, because humans are terrible predictors of how they're gonna feel like really just scientifically, like every study shows that we're bad predictors of how we're gonna feel. But starting somewhere, so that then we have somewhere to move from. Because if we go in with no expectation, it's significantly worse, because otherwise you walk in and just everyone is stepping on triggers and landmines for other people and like your partner, who's moving in, who's not intending to parent, feels like they're being asked to babysit constantly, or you feel like they're taking your role as a parent or what have you right?

Laura: 46:24

Or you feel like they're not doing enough and they're taking the kid's side against you and undermining you while you're parenting right. So having some of these awkward, explicit conversations ahead of time to minimize some of that impact. Or, if you don't have kids but you think you might want to in the next couple of years, being open about it Yep, yep, because going hey, I'm happy to have you live here, but we're thinking of having kids in the next two, three years. There is space in the house for both those things to happen, but I need you to know, because if you don't intend to parent with us in two or three years, there will be a kid here and that's going to affect our relationship.

Ellecia: 47:11

Yeah.

Laura: 47:12

We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, but I want you to be aware so that you're not settling into a blissful, child free future while we are mentally preparing for a future where we have kids and maybe you have them with us.

Ellecia: 47:28

Right.

Laura: 47:29

And again, people can change their minds a hundred times while you're in it. I thought I was never going to have kids, and then I had a kid, yep. And then we collectively decided to have a second one, right?

Ellecia: 47:44

Uh-huh.

Laura: 47:44

And so I would not change that. But if you'd asked me 15 years ago if I was going to be a like happy mom of two kids, I would have said probably not.

Ellecia: 47:58

Right.

Laura: 48:01

And so Right and so Yep, being straightforward about your intended plans so that they're not totally blindsiding, and having every few month check-ins about whether or not those plans have changed, can be really valuable. And like they don't need to be as formal as like we sit down and have a radar every month but, you know, every three to six months going hey, I still have these big life plans, my job is still this. It looks like I might get a promotion in the next six months. That would be cool. If I do, this is what I want to do with that extra money is helpful to the household. It keeps people in the loop.

Ellecia: 48:48

Yeah, yeah, it's really important.

Laura: 48:52

Just just keep talking, just keep talking, just keep telling them all the cool things people told you that you wrote down where they can read monogamy in this economy, finances, child rearing and other practical concerns of polyamory.

Ellecia: 49:08

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Is there anything I haven't asked you that you want to share?

Laura: 49:14

I mean I feel like we've hit on most of it. I think it's important to note that there are so many slowly advancing ways to create formal supports for your parenting structure, sort of state and jurisdiction. So folks should talk to local family attorneys if they're already doing this and want some way to note down what they're doing. But if you're in a long-term poly family and you have children and you want a legal notation of your family structure, see a local family attorney. In many states there are ways to give all of the parents who are parenting some degree of recognition that gives a certain amount of protection in breakups, a certain amount of protection in the case of the unfortunate death of the parents, right, and so making sure that these things are in place can be really protective for your children and for your family.

Ellecia: 50:20

Yeah, yeah, beautiful, beautiful. I love that. It's really important, yeah, amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you for writing the book and thank you for coming and sharing it with us.

Laura: 50:36

Thank you for having me, if folks are interested. So the book is available for pre-order until august 21st and then it'll be out in the world and you can just have it in your sweaty little fingertips, just like mine. Um, yes, so it can be had wherever books are sold. You can ask your local bookstore to get it for you anywhere in the us, the uk, or can. Yeah, and it's called Monogamy in this Economy, finances, child Rearing and Other Practical Concerns of Polyamory.

Ellecia: 51:09

I love it Amazing, fantastic. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm very excited, of course.