Shuffling Relationship Dynamics with a Deck of Cards, Ep. 83

Imagine a game that sparks deep conversations, fosters understanding, and strengthens your relationships. That's exactly what the brilliant minds behind The Non Monogamy Card Game have created. This innovative tool is designed to help you explore the complexities of ethical non-monogamy, polyamory, and open relationships in a fun and approachable way.

In this episode, I sit down with Ayala & Kristen, the creators of this game-changing resource. As professional psychotherapists from Northern California, they've poured their expertise into crafting 150 thought-provoking questions that encourage players to explore their values, desires, and needs within non-monogamous relationships.

Discover how the Non Monogamy Card Game can help you:

• Initiate difficult conversations with ease and curiosity
• Explore your personal values and how they align with non-monogamous relationships
• Create living agreements that evolve with your relationships
• Foster deeper understanding between partners and within polycules
• Navigate the complexities of non-monogamy with more confidence and clarity

Join us for this eye-opening chat and learn how a simple deck of cards can open up a world of possibilities for your relationships. Whether you're looking to enhance your current non-monogamous partnerships or curious about exploring new relationship structures, this episode offers practical guidance and actionable steps.

Get the game www.thenonmonogamycardgame.com

https://elleciapaine.com/call

Chapters

• 0:00 Exploring Non-Monogamy Through Card Game
• 4:19 Navigating Non-Monogamy Through Conversation
• 10:11 Embracing Nuanced Non-Monogamy Approach
• 17:41 Creating Conversations on Non-Monogamy
• 28:34 Navigating Non-Monogamy Conversation Deck
• 32:43 Navigating Non-Monogamous Agreements and Conversations
• 39:55 Valuable Professional Tool for Non-Monogamy

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This cute thing happened where we were having a photo shoot for the game and we had all these different kind of polycules couples posing, taking pictures together and in the other room a group of men got together and they started this like spontaneous men's group just talking about the questions and learning from one another, and we're like wait, there's something really juicy going on in there. That's a cool use we hadn't thought of.

Ellecia: 0:24

Hey, I'm Ellecia, your non-monogamous relationship coach. Welcome to the podcast where my friends and I chat about our relationships enthusiastic non-monogamy polyamory, swinging kink and our lives. You'll get a candid peek into what makes it worth it to live life outside the box. And in case you're still wondering nope, we're not monogamous Okay, imagine a game that could spark deeper conversations, foster understanding, strengthen your relationships. Well, that's exactly what the brilliant minds behind the non-monogamy card game have created. Excuse my voice, I'm a little bit sick. I was not this sick when we recorded the episode, but I am now and I'm really excited. I just got this game and I'm really really excited to take a look at it and share it with you. Our conversation about the game was freaking, phenomenal.

Ellecia: 1:34

You know, if you're tired of awkward silences and conversations that just keep going round and round about the same topics in non-monogamy, these two professional psychotherapists from Northern California, isla and Kristen, have spent so many hours creating this deck of like 150 thought-provoking questions designed to help you dive deep into your values, your desires, your needs. Oh, brand new, small, woman-owned bay area business spent the last year designing, developing and testing the game. Um, there's a little letter in here. Oh, my god, they sent these little. I'll show you these little stickers. The artwork on this game is so beautiful. I love it. Get rid of that. Here you go. Here's the game. This box is stunning. If you're listening to the episode and you aren't seeing it, just know that like it is gorgeous, it's um, like cream and has these beautiful humans on it and a little magnetic closure for the box, which I'm a big fan of. Oh my god, I love this, guys. It comes with two decks the foundations deck and the deep dive deck. I can't see it there, anyways, and I am so excited to play this with my partners, I'll probably bring it on the show and share it a little bit with you.

Ellecia: 3:16

So, whether you are just dipping your toes into ethical non-monogamy if you've been doing this for years non-monogamy, if you've been doing this for years, this game is a really fun and approachable way to explore some of the complexities of non-monogamy, polyamory. Open relationships, bring up some topics around boundaries and discussing your expectations, and I am so, so, so excited to share it with you. Just listen to the episode. You're going to hear about the creators of this game, about their experiences, their journey, their insights, how they have used this with their clients who are navigating non-monogamy and how you can use this game to level up your relationships.

Ellecia: 3:58

Don't forget to subscribe. You don't want to miss any episodes. I keep coming up with new ideas and fun things that we're going to start doing, so subscribe, leave me a review if you really love me. I adore you. Bye, there we go. Did it Cool, so this is what we'll do. First of all, welcome to Nope. We're Not Monogamous. I'm really happy you guys are coming on and I'm really, really excited about your game and Isla and Kristen. First thing I want to ask you is just can you tell me, and tell the listeners, just a little bit about your game?

Speaker 1: 4:38

Definitely. I'm really excited to be here sharing about it. So a lot of people are getting familiar with these kind of conversation-based card games. There's a few of them out there now that just help you kind of deepen into intimacy. There's some for relationships, there's some for friendships, some for family. So this is similar to that concept and specifically for anyone anywhere in the non-monogamy umbrella Want to dive in.

Speaker 3: 5:10

Yeah, this is actually something that had its origins in asks from our clients and in conversations with our friends in our own community.

Ellecia: 5:19

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 5:20

There are a few books out there that we could always recommend. People say like I want a resource. You know like what's the book, or something like that. However, not everybody's a reader, and even if you are a reader, so you read the book, now what you know? Unless you took notes or you know we're going back and underlining things, or whatever you might not really find that book to be much of a tool. So we were looking for a way. We kept having these conversations like have you got any new resources? I don't have any resource. Do you have a resource? So then we created a Google document and then we started formulating questions that we thought were good questions and then all of a sudden, it was sort of like well, why don't we just create the product that we want to use? Why don't we do it?

Speaker 1: 6:13

We wanted to make it more fun than sitting down to a list of questions as you're trying to navigate these conversations. We're like how do we make this fun and engaging and accessible and not this, like one time you sit down and get through the conversations about making your relationship work, because it doesn't actually work that way. Yeah, and more, what's a way that we can keep coming back and engaging these questions that help create kind of structure around really our relationships? So the game itself is two decks and the first deck is like foundational questions. Well, first we created one deck and we found people, because this game is for people that are just exploring non-monogamy. It's also for people who have been in practicing kitchen table polyamory for the last 10 years and there are very different questions that might be relevant based on where you are in that. So we first created one deck and people were like, okay, that's really too intimidating to jump right into. Like, so what happens if kids are part of the conversation? Questions when you're like, do we want to open our relationship?

Speaker 1: 7:20

So we now divide it into two decks. Deck one is really values, kind of conversations. Why are we excited about this relationship? What are we excited about in this relationship. And then deck two is more like the nitty gritty questions of like, okay, do you have any kind of strong boundaries around changing sheets between sexual partners? And things that are more like. Let's talk details. Of course, when you're creating such an umbrella game, there's going to be questions in there that are not relevant to each person who's playing and each relationship, and we really made it to kind of be flexible, to come dip in, pull a few cards. These are relevant, these are, and that's going to change over time.

Ellecia: 8:06

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 8:06

Yeah, we spent about nine months workshopping the questions with with people who are actually practicing non-monogamy. So we'd send out all these test questions, people would play them, then give us feedback, we'd refine them and we just refine them and refine them and find them, until we came down with two decks, 75 cards each. So there's a total of 150 relationship prompts that we we feel really proud of and excited to share. Yeah, that's amazing.

Ellecia: 8:35

Wow, I wonder was there any? When you were going through that process of like refining the questions and refining the deck? Were there any surprises or challenges that came up?

Speaker 3: 8:54

We ran into a lot of. We ran into people's hard edges. We ran into some black and whiteness Like so, for example, a couple people that we tested tested questions. We put questions in there about kids, what you know, what would we tell the kids? What if metamors decide they want to have a kid and we had all decided we weren't having any kids and, um, we had some strong reactions to to people's edges. So if we didn't, we weren oh, we're not going to put these in here because this person had a strong reaction but you could tell that maybe they held a particular belief around children being welcome in non-monogamy or whatever. I don't know. So that was kind of surprising how impactful some of the questions felt to people and, like so many diverse relationships, what people's edges were were totally different.

Speaker 1: 9:52

We had someone else test so it was a parent raising children with their polygamy. It was like I'm so glad, Thank you for putting that. And someone else that was like oh, there's questions about like sexual health or edgy, and to someone else that's just like a given. So it's really fun to kind of feel where different people's different edges are.

Ellecia: 10:11

Yeah, One of the things that I was that I was intrigued by is that it's the non-monogamy game and not the polyamory game. Right, because and that's why I called the show Nope we're Not Monogamous, and while I'm polyamorous, but also there's so many different forms of non-monogamy, and for some people it's not about sex and for other people it's absolutely about sex, and why would we talk about anything else?

Speaker 1: 10:40

Yeah, we did that Sounds like your show really intentionally. Yeah, because we wanted to be inclusive and to leave room for people In the non-monogamy conversation. Right now, there's so much different language that's being developed and changing all the time and different labels, like everything was E&M and now we're like dropping the ethical, because doesn't everyone want an ethical relationship, and so we really wanted to intentionally, like leave room to matter less kind of what label you were putting on it and a lot more for people grounded to their own values, like what's uniquely me, what's important to me here and what's important to the people I'm in partnership with here, and how do we have those conversations rather than this is what we are and this is how it is and therefore we should act this way.

Speaker 3: 11:32

We want people like to feel that there's an easy on ramp to the conversation, Knowing that, yes, here in the Bay Area there's this probably very astute section of people practicing non-monogamy or polyamory that are very, very aware and involved and it's very political for them or stuff. But if you think about 330 million people in the United States of America, there's probably more likely hundreds of thousands or millions of people that are curious but maybe intimidated around the conversation, and we really want those people to feel welcome, that our product is something that is really not terrifying, that there isn't one way to play or one way to be, and the pathway of getting there to us is more start with your values, Let that inform what is a priority in your life and from there, begin to make choices and agreements that are living and evolutionary and feel very permissed to explore in that way, Not like you need to hit the ground running at this level with this kind of practice and run with this particular crowd and if and then you're not, you know in order to be practicing properly.

Ellecia: 13:01

So oh, you had mentioned that, um, people were wanting to, or finding themselves, yeah that's a great question.

Speaker 3: 13:20

I think it's in the way we phrase the questions, is that we make them, they're, they're really expansive, and it's more like if we don't, we're not like, uh, do you identify with this or that, rather than, um, what is your desire, what is your need? Uh, what is your fear? What is your longing?

Speaker 1: 13:42

yeah, and we never explicitly tell people say anything against labels either. We're not here to tell people that if labels are helpful, that not to use them. It's just not what we're where, what we're in, especially because those can mean so many different things to different people and they're changing all the time, yeah, and they're constantly evolving. So we base it more around these things that Kristen's talking about, like the values and longings and the fears, so that people can put that on or not, as suits them. But that's not the focus.

Speaker 3: 14:16

Yeah, yeah, I love that, I love that, and also when we were sort of doing the foundational visioning of the game, we identified our professional values for the product as being one that was inclusive, accessible and celebrated nuance. Yeah, so as we were developing and testing the questions, we would kind of run it through those filters.

Ellecia: 14:45

Amazing.

Speaker 1: 14:46

Yeah, and we really like this idea of nuance because in so much of when we were talking, the way we view non-monogamy is kind of stepping outside of.

Speaker 1: 14:59

like this is the one way we do things and making room for how unique we each are and how unique our different relationships are going to look from each other. And so, as humans, we like containment, we like labels, we like things to reduce them to make sense. Of course our brains do that, and we really wanted to center this idea of we're stepping outside of the kind of traditional one way in order to explore the nuance of each of us and each of our relationships. So why would we try to contain it and condense it down to anything? So that's kind of the place we're operating from, yeah.

Ellecia: 15:41

Yeah, beautiful, I love that. That's so good. I'm curious, without delving too much into personal details, how have your own experiences with non-monogamy informed the creation and the content of the game?

Speaker 1: 15:56

Yeah, I think that's definitely different for both of us and there's some overlap. Definitely different for both of us and there's some overlap. We've known each other for been good friends as well as colleagues for like 15 years now Amazing.

Speaker 1: 16:10

And the community we first met each other through was very non monogamous and when I first came into that community I was about 19. And so very early in my dating experience and I'd say I learned a lot of ways not to do it. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's what dating at 19 is often about. Totally, how are your relationships going? But really most of my kind of early informative relationships in that community were non-monogamous and at one point, after I'd been seeing someone in this non-monogamous on-again, off-again relationship for about eight years, I ended it to be like I think I want to experiment with monogamy for the first time in my life, which I think is a little reverse.

Speaker 3: 17:11

It definitely is the reverse of my situation, because I got married at 23. I was married in a monogamous relationship for 14 years and had three kids, and then got divorced in my mid 30s and I would say that I crash landed into non monogamy, didn't know anything about it. I just fell in love with someone who basically was like Okay, I'm non monogamous and this is how this is going to work.

Ellecia: 17:33

Uh huh.

Speaker 3: 17:34

And he was polyamorous that was his identity and basically told me how things were going to be. And because I didn't know anything, because I just very much wanted to be with him, I struggled a lot. It was forced kitchen table polyamory and it didn't feel comfortable and I had a lot of shame and wanted very much to meet him where he wanted to be met and it was really hard and it took me till I got out of that relationship, learned more and then claimed non-monogamy as this personal revolution in my own life as a late 30s, early 40s person, and that had been practicing it for about six years when I fell in love with someone and then, similarly, he was non-monogamous. He was like, let's try monogamy, and it was so novel. We were like that sounded so edgy, let's try it.

Speaker 3: 18:29

So we've both been sort of in and out of both things. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think, just as couples therapists, we share values that we want transparency and radical honesty and sovereignty. But how do we make commitments that are healthy and feel good for everyone? How do we even have those conversations?

Speaker 1: 18:57

I think very much in the way I do relationships now, whether they're look more monogamous on the outside or more monogamish on the outside, they're very seeped in the values I learned from non-monogamy. Yes, I didn't realize till I tried dating people who are very new to non-monogamy or had never done non-monogamy or very monogamous, that I was like, oh, we have these, we might be calling it the same label, but we're viewing it very differently. Because of how informed I was by these early experiences in non-monogamy, where nothing's assumed, where everything is like what do you need to feel safe in this situation? And that was just how I learned to do it, and my assumption was, until we had those conversations, I wasn't going to assume that we were one thing or another. And then, coming in from to a relationship with people that were mostly monogamous, I was like, oh, there's a lot of assumptions right there, and so that's the part I feel really dear, even as I myself swim between different relationships that look different ways.

Ellecia: 20:06

Yeah, yeah, I love that. I always tell people like the most important piece is that people are in and creating relationships that work for the people that are in those relationships, rather than everyone that's not in them. Those relationships rather than everyone that's not in them. Yeah, yeah. Very much so.

Speaker 3: 20:28

Uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah, and we do within the game we do.

Speaker 3: 20:37

We do try to take people from a very deeply personal and internal space and give them a lot of permission and room to be curious about their desires, longings, needs, values, stories, fears, all of that.

Speaker 3: 20:53

And then it progresses to how do we actually interface with the world. I mean, there are a lot of questions around extended family work life as children get older or if we have kids, like things that might come up once you've been in it for a while, and so one of the things that we were just talking about before we got on was how how much people desire to come in to talk about really hard things, and what a relief it is to be in relationship therapy, because the therapist takes that pressure off of the couple or the polycule by introducing the question or the topic. And in the same way, we got the feedback from our testers that, oh my gosh, these are things that I was too scared to bring up, but they are so important there's just something about. Oh well, that's the card I picked. Yeah, I didn't bring it up, the game brought it up.

Ellecia: 21:50

While we're here, Exactly. Uh-huh, Uh-huh. I love that it is. That is the thing of. There's so many things we could or should talk about, but like, do we want to do it right now? Is this going to cause a problem? Do I have the spoons for it? Like I can't anticipate what's going to happen. That is very different from we're playing a game.

Speaker 1: 22:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And then there's this thing that I have found in my own relationships where I'll build up the nerve to bring up a conversation. You bring it up, you start talking about it and it's easy to not stay there very long.

Ellecia: 22:32

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:33

It's easy to be like to ask a question, you get a one-line answer. I'm kind of nervous, so rather than stay in and deepen with it, I rush on to the next topic. Yeah, yeah, nervous.

Speaker 1: 22:42

So rather than stay in and deepen with it. I rush on to the next topic. Yeah, yeah, and of course, like we all get nervous around the edgier conversations and so we did a few things to kind of help create ease around that. One is we also threw in some really juicy, yummy, feel good questions. It is a game. You want the things that are going to be like ooh, I want to hear your answer to that, I want to tell you about that, so it's not just edgy. Another is we threw in a lot of similar questions for the things that seem to take a little more coming back to. So the question might come up and then it might be asked another way, and you usually most people we found only pull like three or four cards at a time, because each one spins out to another conversation and another.

Ellecia: 23:26

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:27

So you pull three cards and six months later you might be pulling some different cards and a similar one comes back, but this time asked another way that pulls out a different nuance. And we also then created, like, if people really are finding they're still skating through the questions faster than they want, we created a whole advanced play that helps give guidance on how to kind of think about each question in more and more layered way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like okay, you can't work through and that's okay, and it's also here's ways to stay in it and marinate with the questions, if you want oh, I like that.

Ellecia: 24:04

That's. That's one of and it's also here's ways to stay in it and marinate with the questions, if you want. Oh, I like that. That's. That's one of the things I was wondering was like okay, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 24:14

Answer questions. But how do you? Yeah, like, how do you keep it going? Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, we actually there's. There's we.

Speaker 3: 24:17

We based our advanced game plan, something called the ORID model Okay, o-r-i-d, and it actually comes from business, yeah, and it's basically how to take a conversation from an initial reaction into an actual agreement in a practice. So there's basically four different steps and we really, really, really wanted to make sure that everybody knew that there was no one right way to play and there really weren't rules. So we literally have the tiniest little, little, tiniest instruction sheet. It's about four inches high, no rules. But if you want, here's several ways you could play. You could pull a few cards to take on a car trip. You could go through the deck. Each partner could go through the deck and pull several cards and say you know, for our relationship check ins over the next month. These are the topics that are really important to me. And then, if you really want to take it all the way down to how do we make a living agreement around this conversation, then that particular advanced game play, the steps that we put in there, really help people do that.

Ellecia: 25:30

That's amazing. I love that. As someone who hates lots of game instructions because we play a lot of games in our house, I love that.

Speaker 3: 25:42

The hard part of learning a new game, it's always the instructions. How are we supposed to play, you know, and so we definitely have a more anarchist view around that, like you know, just take them, dump them out, do what you want with them, you know.

Ellecia: 25:56

Yes, yes, amazing, amazing, I love it, I love it.

Speaker 1: 26:01

And a lot of our ideas about how we use came back from our testers. Yeah yeah, we shared it with friends, we shared it with people in our community and they're like oh yeah, we were on a hike and we just started pulling cards together. This cute thing happened where we were having a photo shoot for the game and we had all these different kind of polycules couples posing, taking pictures together and in the other room a group of men got together and they started this like spontaneous men's group just talking about the questions and learning from one another, and we're like wait, there's something really juicy going on in there.

Speaker 3: 26:34

That's a cool use we hadn't thought of, yeah, just friends having general conversations, just around relationship, desires, values, needs, goals.

Speaker 1: 26:44

Like this is how I do it. How do you?

Speaker 3: 26:45

do it? How do you do it Right? It's not even necessarily people that are interested in being in any sort of partnership or relationship or a play partner in any way, but just between a group. It did that between a group of men and then between the group of women too. Whoever wasn't shooting was just sort of off and they were all just sort of diving in and exploring and that that just felt so good oh my gosh, I love that so much.

Ellecia: 27:11

I actually I was looking at your website. I love the art on the cover of your game.

Speaker 3: 27:17

It's so good, thank you that's a shout out to j Blank B-L-N-A-C-K. She was amazing to work with. She 100% got our vision, was able to execute it super rapidly.

Speaker 1: 27:35

Yeah, she was just a joy because we were all over the place with our ideas and I feel like she just heard them all and turned them into something so beautiful. All them were so inspired by yeah, proud of.

Speaker 3: 27:48

We wanted it to definitely be something that, even if you aren't using it, that you would be, you'd be proud to have it just sitting out on your coffee table or on your bookshelf yeah that it was intriguing and, um yeah, that it wasn't going to be stuck in your closet yeah, it's gorgeous, I am, I am very, very excited to get it because, um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it means a lot, yeah, it really does. Thank you so much of.

Ellecia: 28:19

Of course, of course, I think. I think it's going to be amazing. I'm curious how do you, how do you envision your that? Okay, I have my brain just asked four questions, so let me condense it down to one. How do you envision the game being played or being used by groups that are um, groups or couples that are new to non-monogamy um, versus those who've been practicing it for a while?

Speaker 1: 28:58

Yeah, and this is really why we divide it into two decks. Yeah, Because if there's a couple that say you've been together in a monogamous, committed relationship, it's a lot to jump into thinking about. What are dynamics of how much you want to share with new partners Like that might not be something you even thought about, or at what point you want to be introducing new partners. That's like really skipping a lot of steps to jump into the conversation. So that's why we've really divided this into two decks. Like save those questions for after you're comfortable even talking about like two decks, save those questions for after you're comfortable even talking about. What are you excited about this? How do you think you're going to grow within non-monogamy? What are your natural relationship strengths that are going to come out here? What are you nervous about? Are there things you're really afraid of?

Speaker 1: 29:49

So deck one really has a lot of those kinds of questions, and so our vision was it would begin, say, this monogamous couple we're imagining just pulling some of those cards and playing this together. Pulling cards, having conversations we say playing. But we found a lot with feedback People. It's not like you go and you play through the entire deck one in one sitting, Right. Most people average about two to four cards per sitting.

Ellecia: 30:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah, nice and deep.

Speaker 1: 30:21

Maybe you're pulling those cards until you feel like I think we want to actually start doing something about this. It's only as that grows, as the safety grows, as you decide together that you're ready, that you might be taking action and doing something about it at your own timing. And then maybe, down the road, as you start to know yourself and know what your edges might be, some of the more decked to deep dive questions become a little more relevant.

Speaker 3: 30:54

Yeah, yeah, the skill and provocativeness, for sure you know. So maybe it might be. You might not be seeing anyone right now, dating anyone right now. You might be fresh out of a breakup or divorced and you're like, okay, well, I know what I don't want to do anymore. Yeah, maybe. So we do envision that it's a great solo activity as well, something that in relationship are buying for themselves, and it's I mean, I would be so impressed if I fell for someone. And you know, we went out on a date and we were like kind of a yes to explore the relationship. And that person said to me, okay, I have this great game and I I'm very curious to know how you might answer some questions Like what are some stories that you tell yourself about monogamy versus non-monogamy?

Ellecia: 31:47

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 31:48

You know how. How do you live your values in relationship? How do you feel that non-monogamy would help you be, help you express those values in relationship? How do you feel that non monogamy would help you be, help you express those values and desires? What are you excited for us in terms of practicing it or not? Yeah, you know, before you even get any to the like logistical sheet, changing STI, questions like, just like, are we even on the same wavelength in terms of you know and that just felt you know? There were there, I would say probably, at least I don't know what percentage, would you say of the foundation stack are not even non-monogamy specific. They're much more about values, desires, needs, dreams, fears, stories, past, things like that to help you really sort through how you come to what feels like a priority in your life right now.

Speaker 1: 32:43

Yeah, and another way it can be used like okay, say, you're early in opening your relationship is to create solid agreements. We found in our conversations we really tend to pull away from this idea of solid rules and more agreements as a living practice and something you have to come back to and renegotiate, because we can have ideas of how we want to be in the world. We can have ideas of how we want to be when we meet someone new. Yeah, and the things that are going to make us feel safe. And then you get an actual situation with somebody new and you don't know how you're going to feel. Yeah, so we like the flexibility of this. These are living agreements and it's important to revisit these conversations. And that doesn't just because they're living flexible doesn't mean we shouldn't have the solid conversations around them, Because that's one thing I found in my practice as a therapist and in my community is people can be like oh, we don't like rules, so we're just not going to talk about it.

Speaker 1: 33:46

And anything goes.

Ellecia: 33:47

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 33:48

And it's like no, just because we leave room for I'm going to change, you're going to change this. This new partner that we bring in might change our group dynamic. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't be being like and right now, this is where I feel like my agreements are. So the whole deck is designed that, if you want to use it that way, you can be having a sheet of paper and listing like these are the solid agreements that are coming out of these conversations. Yeah, these are the things that are work in progress, agreements that we want to revisit, and these are the things we can't come to agreements at all around, but we want to keep tracking with each other uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh that's a way that it can be used.

Speaker 3: 34:30

That's beautiful, yeah, even if it's, even if it isn't, even if you're like we, we're in our complete anarchist so we don't want to have any rules. At least there's a card in there that says how do we determine, like, do we have a check-in? Do we have a conversation like, how do we even have that? So there's, there's scoff, I think I of term scaffolding, so we're trying to scaffold. You give you multiple on ramps and then there's sort of various and sundry levels of provocation around questions, around jealousy or time or you know, and so kind of grows in that way. And so now let's fast forward. Let's say you're like one of our test couples, a polycule that's been living with kids and in the same home for 13 years.

Ellecia: 35:23

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 35:24

So now things are changing. You know, they moved back east, they moved out of the Bay Area. Now, all of a sudden, conversations they've never had to have before about what is our public face? You know how do we help our kids navigate this in a new community. You know how do we collect it. What is our collective party line about? Are we out out? Are we not out? How is that for people? And yeah, just much more. I wouldn't say they're deeper, but much more attuned to people who've been living in family or in polyamory or in non-monogamy in the long term.

Ellecia: 36:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it so much. This is, this is amazing, it's fantastic. I feel like it's something that I know I get asked for a lot, like what do we even talk about? Like, what are we supposed to talk about?

Speaker 1: 36:28

There's a lot of getting that question. That birthed this game. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 36:31

Yeah, and then we just kept writing them down, going this is ridiculous, this is getting to be really long. How do we even organize these? How do we? We make it really fun. And then also, we wanted to make it really portable too, yeah. So this is something you put in your backpack, put it in your bag, take it with you on vacation, use it, and you know, this is a great way to oh someone new, really. Let's bring them over for dinner, you know. And then, like this is a great sort of entree into welcome to our welcome to our party. Would you like to play?

Ellecia: 37:09

amazing, amazing. Okay, I'm curious um. Do either of you, both of you? Do you have a favorite card in the deck?

Speaker 3: 37:20

Oh, it's so hard.

Speaker 1: 37:24

I have not even thought about it. We were doing a virtual game night, with the deck coming up soon here, and we were pulling cards re-looking through everything. So funny, funny, you know we've spent so much time combing over these cards and I'll still go through. I'll be like I forgot we'd asked that question.

Speaker 3: 37:42

That's a great question yeah, we're good yeah, I don't know, um, I think what's exciting about non-monogamy for you or for us? I think that that feels like full of heart and energy. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 38:02

It was really important to us not to have all the questions be on the hard stuff, because I think sometimes people come to these conversations and they're like so what do we do about jealousy? So what are the things that aren't going to work? How do we create agreements to protect us from all the things that might hurt, which we know is impossible? But we also wanted to make part of the conversation the edges of like where's the joy? Why are we doing this? What are we most excited about to experience together with others in different situations? So that's not a particular question, but I love that we weave in yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Ellecia: 38:38

I love that. I think that's so important. It's probably one of the most important things is like why? What about this relationship style or structure? What about this? Do I like enough to go through all the hard work?

Speaker 3: 38:53

Yeah, what's my motivation to go through all the hard work? Yeah, well, yeah and I mean I'm sure you, you see this a lot as well is that you know. So a couple's having a hard time, let's open the relationship. That is usually a recipe for disaster, because if you're not communicating well or feeling solid between the two of you, adding more people to the mix is just a different way of blowing the whole entire thing up. Like you you, I almost I end up feeling like non-monogamy requires you to be a communication ninja.

Speaker 3: 39:30

You don't get to communicate less, you have to communicate more and with more clarity and more heart, and so it's just a very complicated large thing to hold and I think, more than we've seen it done well, we've seen it done really poorly. There's a lot of shadow in there, and I think I can definitely draw on my own experience of feeling really unseen and unheard in. My first foray was non-monogamy. I didn't have the courage. You know, I have a client that she was wanting more monogamy than non-monogamy and was feeling a lot of guilt around the amount of transition time she had, of transition time she had it. So just knowing and seeing that there's a card that asked her how much time do you want between partners made her feel more missed and confident and not ashamed to be like well I'm, I don't know what I want, or I want more than what I feel like I can ask for.

Ellecia: 40:31

So yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I love that so much. Ah, it's so good. Um, what when? Okay, let me ask you this how focus, alicia? Uh, is there anything I haven't asked you that that you want to share?

Speaker 1: 40:58

I not this popping to mind, this is you. You're so good. You've covered so many aspects we're excited about well, how can people find the game?

Speaker 3: 41:10

they can go to the non-monogamy card gamecom.

Speaker 1: 41:15

Yes, there's no.

Speaker 3: 41:16

No for anything, just non monogamy card gamecom and it's the non monogamy card game on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok as well.

Ellecia: 41:27

Amazing. I love it and I'll put the. I'll put the link in the show notes, because you know it's nice to be able to just click on things. Because you know it's nice to be able to just click on things. Yes, make it easy. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, fantastic. I am so excited that you guys did this and I've loved talking to you because this is one you guys are delightful, but two you've put so much thought and heart into this and I'm really excited to play it with my partners and with my clients.

Speaker 3: 41:58

I love that because I think thank you for making that point because we have also made this as a professional tool and we're really hoping that relationship coaches and other psychotherapists also feel like this is something really valuable to have in their practice, to use with their clients as well. So thanks for that so much and thanks so much for your enthusiasm and lifting us up. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 42:23

Yeah, I mean so much is I'm sure you could tell like this feels so near and dear to our heart and we've just put so much into it. We're so excited to be sharing it at this point. And along the point of professionals, I think I just love that there's people like more and more people like you, like us, out there who are working with non-monogamous folks, because for so long, the traditional couples therapy model did not leave space for this to be part of the conversation, and we're really excited for a tool to help therapists who might not have as much expertise. Yeah, bring more nuance into their conversation with folks. So, just so grateful you're out here doing what you're doing too.

Ellecia: 43:02

Amazing, amazing, thank you.