TPL Book Club 2 ☕: The Other Significant Others by Rhaina Cohen

What happens when two married scientists question the relationship script they were handed and crack open a door they never knew existed? This is our research phase and the experiment is already changing us. Welcome to the partnership lab where we study love, partnership, and consensual non -monogamy. Think of this podcast as a relationship lab notebook.

filled with real -time observations, experiments, and what we're learning along the way. Our discussions may include explicit language and sexual content, so listener discretion is advised. Welcome back to the Partnership Lab for episode 11. I'm Roz.

I'm Max, and today we're here for our second ever Partnership Lab book club, and we're going to be talking about the book The Other Significant Others by Raina Cohen. And this might be a bit of a long one. We wrote a lot of notes from this book. So maybe we'll just...

Well, you wrote a lot of notes, but I will give my two cents as we go. Yeah, sure. I'll kind of lead with the notes because I was listening to this on flights home, so I took a lot of notes, but I'm sure Roz has a lot to say too. So...

But since it's been a long one, maybe we'll just catch up with listeners on what we've been up to on the next episode. Yeah, sounds good. Alright, so the last book club we did for you guys was Open, which was a pretty heavy book. I thought they had a lot of really great lessons, but I mean overall it did have kind of a sad tone to it.

And Roz, you picked this one for our next book club. I'm curious, like how did you find this book and kind of what drew you to it? So I think it was like immediately after we did our first book club I kind of just went on the scroll, but I went on Goodreads actually and just kind of was browsing. I saved some other books too, but this one had come up and I just read The little tagline that's on the cover of it, which is reimagining life with friendship at the center Yeah, and that was like for me and we talked about this a little bit like off -air so to speak but we were talking about how like everybody's intention or like perspective or like desire to Either be in an open relationship or explore open relationships Can be like really different.

Yeah, and I think for me my interest in open relationships comes from not really like a sexual desire that I'm like missing something in particular or like a I've like wanted to try something in particular that like we haven't done or like and it didn't really come Even though I may be interested in those things. It didn't really come from that Place like to start And it really is coming from like I just you just want to be around people who think like you Who are like maybe more open?

It doesn't really necessarily have like a sexual like undertone And I think that's also my sensualness like comes into play there. But I was just on Goodreads and I just randomly came across this one and it just sounded like it may fit where I was coming from in terms of like there are other people in your lives that aren't romantic partners. So I kind of like wanted to hear like what this person had to say about the other significant others in their lives. Yeah, so what were you Did you go in with any sort of expectation of what the book was going to be?

I kind of thought more it was gonna be more about Like people's relationships, but then like how they brought in like other People like romantically it but it's a lot more friendship based Like community based then I was thinking it was gonna be which is not a bad thing. Yeah, it just what kind of like Went in a way I wasn't expecting Yeah, I don't know there would there were really good things though like throughout the book that I thought Kind of like made me think quite a lot about like my circumstance like my situation.

Yeah Yeah, I was I think I had a little bit of a different take on it. So I was expecting the the stories to be a little bit more like like disparate in a way where in reality all of them kind of have a very beautiful through line of kind of making us reflect on what these different elements of love and relating truly are and kind of like makes you review your own assumptions and helps you imagine something that might be a little bit different and it covers all sorts of relationships.

And I thought the way that Rayna wrote it was really beautiful because it was like it started with a little bit of a more narrow lens and then it really kind of like opened and just kind of kept getting bigger and bigger. So I think the biggest thing that I kind of not necessarily learned, but it brought to the surface was in society, how many more privileges hetero couples have. Because there was a story about this family. It was like two women and like they, well, one of the women had a son and it was just like because they weren't technically married like the Other woman couldn't like do anything like medically for this hurt basically her son But I mean it's not legally her son, but you know I'm saying like yeah It was insane like all the hoops and all the legality They had to jump through just to give this child it their best life like Health not like basic rights.

It was insane. Yeah, and that so that chapter was kind of trying to ask the question of like what is the definition of a parent and So I think We've kind of done a good job of introducing sort of the structure of the book I think I want to talk a little bit about the structure of how we want to discuss it because It's like a it's a pretty thick book There's only I think eight or nine chapters each of them is about an hour and ten minutes on audible So it's like a ten hour listen, but there's like a lot of historical references and there's a lot of very specific like information for each of the couples and or Other types of dynamics if you didn't read the book each chapter is about like a family unit or a partnership Correct.

And it goes into like the background of that partnership, the current state of like what is happening in their lives and what hardships that they're having. And then it goes into some of if there's like a historical tie in to like rights that are either they have or they don't have, they talk about that. And so each chapter is like based on a different family unit, basically. Yeah, so what we thought we would do is we would go sort of story by story give you like the two or three minute recap because I don't think the real meat of this conversation is like in the specifics from each couple and then after the recap Roz and I put together a couple of points so we put together an inherited script for each section And then we also have an expanded imagination.

So it's sort of like the reimagining of that inherited script after we've kind of examined it with a little bit of a closer eye. And I think it'll make more sense to go along, but the point I'm trying to make is we're not going to like go beat for beat through the story. It's going to be more like this is the basics and then we're going to kind of discuss like if it brought up anything for us and kind of, you know. If it if it shifted our vision on any of these types of dynamics So should we start with the chapter one sure all right, so chapter one is written autobiographically by Reina who is the you know the author of the the entire book and So Reina was married to a man and she's a female in case that's not clear And she developed a just profound relationship with another woman named Em.

And I was so envious reading this part because they had these amazing gatherings of friends where they would have these dinner parties with curated music lists. And I'm not talking about Spotify. This is like people playing music on instruments or symphony -type music. they would have writing prompts for the guests and you know reading time where they all would like sit together but be doing their own things.

It was just an unbelievably thoughtful relationship that the two of them had and Reyna said that she had a husband when she was 22 and had mentioned that she never felt like she never thought she'd feel what it feels like to fall in love again. And this friend was, this friend Em was so significant that the words, you know, best friend didn't even really cover the level of their connection. And there was some really beautiful quotes from this section. So, you know, Raina described that Em had brought to her life a mutually assured non -complacency, and that Em helped Reyna ask questions of herself that she would never have without her.

And there really wasn't a problem here. The problem wasn't that Reyna loved Em because Reyna's husband was fine with this relationship they had. The problem was she didn't really know how to categorize the love that she was feeling for Em because it Went to the romantic, but I don't think it went beyond that to like a sexual relationship I think in general like we have a hard time with that. We do It's like our thinking is like so linear when we talk about relationships I think Somewhere in the book they talked about the relationship escalator and I wrote actually wrote that down Because I was like that's totally right because it's like okay You're born you grow up you fall in love you get married you have kids you Do stuff and then you die like it's just like there's the line by the house get the dog.

Yeah and So she was having a hard time because she's like feeling this such this intense feeling for another person who's not a romantic partner and In our society. We just don't know what to do with that. Yeah, and I think especially it is very rare for men And I think there's a story, a male story in this one. So I think they had it easier because they're women and for whatever reason it's like more acceptable for women to have like more intense like friendships and or romantic encounters.

So yeah, it's just, it's crazy when you think about it like that. So the inherited script we came up with for this first chapter was Our deepest most significant relationship should be our romantic partnership That's what everyone is taught basically. Yeah, that is the we're looking through the lens of society as a whole at this relationship that Raina and Em have and it's confusing for people because They appeared, at least outwardly, to be the deepest, most significant relationship that each other had, but they were not romantically involved with each other.

So there is some really, really interesting historical information in this first section. And you mentioned, I think it's in chapter three or four, Art and his friend, which we'll get to a little bit later. and some of this stuff will kind of apply there. But what I took away from this is that it's really a mistake to believe that we as humans, hell, even Americans, have always ranked our relationships as we currently do.

It didn't always mean if you were in love with someone that you were having sex with that person. And erotic, the word erotic didn't always mean sexual. And there were some really cool historical examples and you were hinting at some of these. So I won't get into like the details, but she rattled off a couple of very unique points about this et alphapoesis, which is making of brothers.

sworn brotherhoods, and they used the term brotherhood, but it could be men, it could be a man and a woman, two women, and Boston marriages between women, which was basically just... I don't want to say just because that's minimizing, but it was two women who were not romantically involved, or not always romantically involved, but they would have a life together to be able to financially support themselves without a man, and it'd be kind of like the Golden Girls of the 1700s, and...

You know, I don't know that any of these traditions of going in front of the church or your family and like committing to a lifelong friend needs to come back. But I think it's important to remember that we've not always organized our lives around a single romantic partner. Yeah. Which is seems like such a foreign concept because from the get -go, at least Like, I think for us, it's just been like, find your person and it's always singular.

Find your person. Find your person. Right. And I'll just mention it here and it'll come up again later, but, you know, in that same vein, there's a lot of phrases that, you know, like your other half, which sort of insinuates that you're incomplete, if you're not in a romantic relationship.

And I had never really, and I don't want to spoil that because we're going to talk about that in a little bit, but it's just stuff like that that like you don't really notice until you start seeing these other examples of relationship styles and you're like, oh, I can see how some of these like institutional phrases and things are You know kind of trying to pigeonhole people into the norm, you know And how many I just think of it now like how many decades has or how many generations?

Have the phrases just been said without people thinking of what it actually can mean. Yeah Probably a lot of generations. Yeah, like at least four Yeah, a few hundred years of this that you know, they're It yeah, it's and and I think the thing that We kind of come back to is the language just doesn't really exist currently, you know, like If you have someone in your life, that's extremely important to you That's beyond what you would call a best friend But it's not someone you're having sex with or hell Maybe it is someone you're having sex with but it's not someone you want people to know you're having sex with it's You don't really know what to call that person.

Are they like a platonic partnership or a non -romantic life partner? I feel like one of the chapters they had a very interesting term for their person. It was like her like sister neighbor or something like something random like that. Yeah because there's not language.

So I wonder There's a couple of questions that I wanted to just run by you before we go into the next chapter. So, do you feel like friendship lowers pressure on marriage? Does it stress your primary relationship more if you don't have close friends? I think that if you don't have, potentially, I think if you don't have close friends, then it puts more pressure on your primary relationship because that one person could be doing the emotional and supportive roles of several people.

One hundred percent. And it also puts a lot of... It feels like you have everything to lose if... all your eggs are in the one basket.

It's like, this is the only person in the world who loves me and cares about me. And if that person decides that I'm too much, I will be entirely alone. And that's a scary feeling. Do you think that we do this well or is this idea of having a very special possibly like romantic friend something we would find appealing?

Like if you were Reyna and you found your M would that be something that you would be open to and excited by? Yeah, I mean I think having good really good friends is always a positive. Yeah. So I wrote down Two quotes from this that I thought were really quite lovely.

So the first was, in the circle of her private friends, woman learns to comprehend the deep mystery of that electric chain of feeling, which ever vibrates through the heart of woman and which man, with all his philosophy, can never understand. I thought that was really beautiful. And the other one okay, so comment about that because like I don't know if other women feel like this and I kind of felt so having gone to like two different events like a woman only event and a like Norm I quote -unquote normal like lifestyle event couple soundtrack event.

Yeah It feels different. For whatever reason, I don't know if it's just with like all of the outside stimulus as we were like growing up as a girl and becoming a woman, like all these things, you just feel safer when you don't have a man's presence there. For whatever reason, whatever it is, I don't... I can't put a single reason on it, but it's just a feeling.

And not that I was feeling unsafe in our couple -centric event. That's not what I'm saying. It's just I can tell the difference. My body can tell the difference if I'm around women or if I'm in a couple scenario.

Which is very interesting. Yeah, I think as a generality, I would say that the feminine energy would skew to the sensual on the blueprint. And I think that a masculine energy would tend to shift to the sexual energy. And so I think there's a couple of things.

I think it's probably disarming when there's not, like, men around, which... Probably just feels safer in general and then also I think just women have a much more like sensual energy whereas guys tend to Be looking just like put their dick in something And that's like a generality yeah, so I know exactly what you're talking about yeah, but yeah for the listeners It's in general and I think society plays a huge role in this. Oh they do, 100%. And on both sides, it's like women are getting shamed if they're sexual and men are getting shamed if they're not.

So it's like you're making both sides, like there are women who probably aren't sensuals who feel pressure to not be forward, to not be themselves, to not be sexual or kinky. and then with men it's like oh you're not having sex three times a week like what's wrong with you or you can't keep an erection there must be something broken inside you here's this medication and it's like yeah so anyways that's um and then lastly i thought it was just an interesting anecdote that reyna these weren't her words but they were someone else's words i didn't write down who it was but she I had a quote that said bisexuals are lying to themselves and others.

And she had never considered herself to be bisexual. Obviously she was married to a man and she identified as straight, but she was looking back after her relationship with Em on some of her previous relationships with women and through that different lens she did see some different erotic tones to them. Like her previous relationships. Yeah, so it was interesting to kind of retrospectively review like the important people in your lives and kind of see like oh was there something I was missing because I just Wasn't looking for it And also like as you learn more about yourself.

I feel like when you look back you see it differently 100 % And then you're like, oh, I guess I just didn't notice that before. Yeah Because it's not something that's on your radar right in that moment, right? Okay, so as I mentioned before we read the inherited script Which was our deepest most significant relationship should be our romantic partnership and Then Roz and I came up with an expanded imagination view of that Which is we can have multiple deeply significant relationships that don't compete with one another.

They simply fulfill different roles. Marriage isn't the enemy. We may simply be asking it to perform every role that an entire community once shared. And then as we finish chapter one, we wanted to leave you, the listeners, with a question.

If you'd like to write these down... Talk about them with your partner and if you want to send us your response, that would be awesome. But our question for chapter one is, if marriage didn't have to be responsible for every kind of intimacy in your life, what would you give yourself permission to build? All right.

Do you want to talk about kind of the background story from chapter two? Sure, so Chapter two was about a pair named Cammie and Tilly so These two women are lifelong best friends. They met through a mutual male friend They're the type of best friends who talk almost every day. They're extremely close and generally like have love for each other and At some point, Tilly asks Cammie to spend the rest of her life with her.

So the thing is she wasn't asking in regard to like a romantic relationship. So when you're so close with someone like that, you kind of like have to ask yourself this like very simple question. Like if two people Choose to be together for life Why do we assume like romance or sex has to be any part of that choice? Yeah, so and this comes Like this is the society part like we're basically being like force -fed this from the beginning From decades and generations of just the same thing being repeated over and over So love romance sex marriage and lifelong partnerships are all part of the same package We put that all together you find your person then they that's who you have like your intimacy with and Then there's no other person to fill that role yeah And so it was this Chapter talked a lot about marriage.

I thought this was like super interesting and You kind of forget that like You know 100 to 200 years ago love Some people would argue even shorter than that love went from being like a bonus of marriage to the basis of marriage and Because arranged marriages like arranged marriages happened all the time Yeah, and even if they weren't even if it wasn't sort of the traditional Arranged so to speak it was more like a Like a union or like an alliance kind of you know Game of Thrones type stuff.

It was like more okay We're gonna introduce these two couples because our families would be Financially beneficial to each other right? It wasn't for emotional reasons. And so this evolution from a union to what is a private relationship has led couples to have to get love, companionship, and also fulfillment of their really deep needs from marriage. And they made a lot of interesting points about how everyone assumes that Like being married is work and people say that shit all the time, you know, and it's like assumed that if you're gonna have a healthy marriage you're gonna have to work for it and certainly that's benefited a lot of people in comparison to what we had previously and I think sort of an uplifting note is that today's Marriages are the best marriages of all time because of the amount of effort people are putting in But it also leads to a lot of additional pressure being put on marriage because there's never been a time in our history where so much has been expected from marriage.

What do you think about that? Yeah, I think it was like you just shattered every girl's dream. When they're like, cause that's the thing you guys, like when you're growing up, that's what you're supposed to be dreaming about is like becoming a wife. And that's like really, really innocent, you know, and you can still have that dream.

But I just feel like you're not really given a choice of anything else at any. point in time to make that decision and so it's just one lane for forever and then all of a sudden you are learning things about yourself or You read something that is not very conventional and then you're like, oh, I didn't even know this existed It's just just like how we were, you know It's pretty hard to go back after you know something exists, which I think is why people gatekeep the norms so strongly, you know?

Yeah. So yeah, as you kind of mentioned from the summary, we're bundling so much together and I'm curious, you know, which one of these, and we have a list, we took a list from the book. These are Reina's, but she listed attraction, attachment, romance, caregiving, affection, and sexuality. And I'm wondering if there's any of these that you feel like could exist outside of the primary romantic relationship?

Which one of these feel like they would naturally stay connected for you? Naturally stay connected like to the primary Yeah, or even just to each other Like as an example, it would be a little bit difficult to have like sexuality without attraction But you know could you have those two things without romance or could you have those two things outside of the primary so You just maybe look at those six words and what comes your mind? I Think attraction And I think attraction is the one that's like Easy to have with Like Outside yeah the primary I could say I feel like that's very easy.

I mean we've even I Mean we didn't always do this, but even now like really oh that person's really attractive or we'll just like point people point people out or on a tv show in the real world like we're just like oh they're they're really pretty or they're really attractive or he's really handsome or just any comment anything like that i feel is that's very ubiquitous i don't think that really stays solely with a primary relationship like the romantic relationship Now you pick that one because it's I think it's almost like there's an assumption that once you get married that you don't find anyone else Attractive, I think kind of weird.

Yeah, and I But again, I think society is like, okay, you only can find you know, you're significant other romantic partner like to be the attractive one and they're like we can't look at anyone else like My eyes aren't doing anything to anyone. Okay, I Think also caregiving is kind of one of those that can be shared And that I think that one is very easy because you shared the caregiving with like grandparents or aunts and uncles cousins like brothers like brothers who are sisters who were like uncles and aunts and yeah stuff like that, so I think that one is more revolves around like the general family and used like rear children and like bring them up in the world and stuff like that so the other ones like like attachment and romance like I don't when you get into like affection, maybe affection and romance and attachment.

I definitely think you're leaning towards like the poly spectrum of like open relating. And I think that is a little bit more scary to me than just kind of being open in general because that you start to get like feelings involved there. I don't know that seems like very far away for me Yeah, it's interesting you say that because like in the last episode we were talking about compersion and we were talking about sort of like the Really close friends with benefits type thing and I feel like in that situation you would have a lot of these That you you know said was very poly and very like far off so Is there one sort of in particular that you feel like would be like that friends with benefits would kind of fall short of?

I don't know. It really depends on how you define all of these things. Okay. So the expanded imagination we came up with for that section was...

I mean, okay, you're asking me all these questions, so I feel like I'm kind of being grilled over here. What about you? Well, ask a question. What's your question?

No, just like, you respond to the same questions I'm doing. So, which one of those? Like one, like for you. Okay.

Well, I would agree that attraction can definitely exist outside of the... primary. I think attachment and romance can also, and affection probably, can all sort of fall into that really close friend kind of like was described for Cami and Tilly. So they would have attachment, romance, Like they would love each other and affection they would hug each other and those types of things I think all of those things can exist outside of like a primary romantic relationship assuming That well see it gets tricky because of what I was going to say is assuming that sexuality is not involved But then I also think you can have like attraction and sexuality affection without romance outside of the primary romantic partnership so that's where I'm saying it's like it feels like those are all the things we kind of expect you to get out of marriage like all six of them have to be there for it to be like the infinity stones where now you're married but or in a primary relationship but I feel like all these other things if you kind of break them down They don't feel as scary if one or other elements isn't present, so.

So how would you define romance? Um... I think very simply it would be like saying that you love someone. I'm not sure how I would...

Define it because I feel like I feel like it's more than that. I feel like it's It's more than affection, but it's less than sexuality It's like somewhere in between I Feel like the romance is more on the edge of like the sexuality Spectrum well now I'm gonna have to look up the definition of romance By the way, Erica lost open still We are looking up the technical definition yeah, a feeling of love or a close relationship between two people So like being in love is strong feelings of attraction and emotion It's interesting because like by that definition like a romantic relationship would involve even like family.

Mm -hmm. Which I don't, when I hear the word romance, I don't think of that. Yeah, and I think that, I think our definitions have been kind of skewed by the societal view. So there's like the physical appearance of someone that excites you as attraction.

Like... Feeling that connection with someone where you always want to be around them or you're afraid you're gonna lose them is attachment Romance is loving someone caregiving is like taking care of them in their Older age or when they need some assistance affection. I think is like the physical manifestation of Romance and then sexuality is You know the the the sex part. They're right.

Yeah so That's why I think a lot of these things I could see if it was like you have Attraction attachment romance and sexuality outside of the primary That can be a little scary because that's like a pretty strong combination of things But you break him down. It's like that person's hot or like I had sex with that person but like, you know, it makes it a little less of Scary when they're not together My opinion. I was like all these things like you hear all the time and you like know what they are but if you really had to like define them like you're like hmm yeah like what's the difference you know.

So we mentioned in the beginning the inherited script for this one was Love, romance, sex, marriage, and lifelong partnership are all part of the same package. And the expanded imagination version that me and Ross came up with is friendship, romance, caregiving, partnership, commitment, and sexuality can overlap, but they don't have to. Maybe we've mistaken one common configuration as the only legitimate one. So the question for our listeners is, which parts of love have you always assumed belong together?

And what happens if you just pull one of them apart? Yeah. And that's what we were actually just doing. Yeah.

So this is what I kind of meant about the way that Reyna set up the book. I thought it was really interesting. So in the first chapter, it was like, who can be your most important person and the second chapter is like what actually makes a relationship and this third chapter is about Stacy and grace and This one was interesting for me so Stacy and Grace had an extraordinarily close friendship. They described each other as having the same soul.

And as their relationship deepened, they talked about possibilities that most people reserve for their romantic partner. Living near one another, even getting married. but not because they were trying to become a conventional couple, but because they were trying to find language for the commitment they had to each other. And the challenge wasn't if they loved one another, but it was whether our culture offered a blueprint for the life they wanted to build.

And I think it's important to mention in this case that in the beginning, so Stacy is a man and Grace is a woman and Grace was interested in Stacey romantically but he eventually came out to Grace as being gay and that kind of broke Grace's heart so but then you know she saw how impactful it was for him to share that with her and so the sort of the hook of this is you have a gay man and a woman who have this incredibly close bond talking about marriage and these types of things just because they didn't really have a way to define the relationship that looked like something that they had seen before.

So there were some moments in this that I thought were really great. There was, you know, Stacey's mom, which... Stacey's mom's got it going on. She does have it going on.

So she had a really great quote where I think Stacey was coming out to his mom for a second time. I think he actually ends up being asexual and so he came out to her once because he was gay and then a second time because he was asexual. his mother said it's so great your generation has the vocabulary to articulate what you want and That before you can choose something you have to know it exists and that kind of got me thinking like What do you think sex ed is gonna be like for like our generation's children, you know, are they gonna are they gonna talk about like all the gender fluidness and like giving them the language they need to because You know when I when we did it it was just like penis and vagina This is what you know uterus looks like wrap it up like that was about as much as we got yeah Like less than the bare minimum in my opinion.

Yeah But what and did you really even learn anything and sex ed? Well, I mean you can answer that question I didn't you were the first person that tested my skills I know but I just mean like there's so many there's so much More than just like what's the name of all the parts? Yeah And what do they do? You know what I mean?

There's so much more to that than just anatomic parts. And I don't know. Things they should be talking about are what consent is. I want them to talk about all the different types of sexual orientations and things like that.

But also, I can see that being so overwhelming. Yeah And hopefully like sex ed in school if it's even taught in school Will not be the first conversation that they've had and hopefully they've had a conversation with their parents. Yeah or and or you know somebody some sort of mentor figure to kind of like be like, hey, this is what you might hear about in school, again, if it's even taught in school at this point, and cross your fingers. Yeah, I think it's...

I think there's a lot of mental health aspects that get tied up with the types of topics that are covered in sex ed. So I would hope that they would be looking at that in a little bit of a... Like more gracious manner of trying to be as inclusive as possible I mean, I know there's like a million caveats to all this stuff, but it just made me kind of think about the language piece and like How far set back we were just because like no one had that conversation with us until I mean shit we were like Probably in our 20s before I realized that some of this stuff even existed, you know Or or even in my 30s for a lot of it.

So Anyway, yeah, I I just think Having learned about like open relationships and things like that. It is consent is not talked about enough just on And a general level yes, yes and My hope is our generation, they can break the cycle and really like hone in on that as like society does not give you permission to do whatever you want. And I think that's a really important piece. And I think that's why like women are still really fearful of relationships and things like that.

And this is also kind of a generality, a majority conversation. Because I know there are stories and things that have happened that it's flip -flopped. So I'm not saying that it's all one way or the other, but... like personal experience, it's Nothing like super bad has ever happened to me but like you you just have like glimpses like as you grew up like as a woman as a young woman and You just get like little glimpse and you're like always told like to be careful and like things like that But it's like it's not only my responsibility Like other parties need to be held accountable as well So there was another sentence in this chapter that I thought was really interesting for my own You know development I guess and it suggested that emotional intimacy Also exists on a spectrum just like sexual desire does so You know you have couples where it's like, oh this person has a higher sex drive than You know like the husband has a higher one than a wife or vice versa and that's like something that's very Common and understood but the idea That everyone has their own level of desire for emotional intimacy was something that I don't think I'd really Like understood Always just thought it was like I Want to talk about this stuff all the time like I want to read these books I want to have these conversations and Maybe that that's You know exhausting sometimes so I Think you have a very high emotional intimacy meter Yeah, the desire is quite high for that.

I think even probably higher than my sexual desire is my emotional intimacy, but they kind of fill the same bucket. It's just, you know, sex is kind of like the adrenaline shot to kind of like fill some gaps, but the emotional intimacy is the part that kind of like sustains me. So for this one we had our expanded imagination. Do you want to read this one for us?

Sure, so we have We don't have to inherit our own life's blueprint We can intentionally design one that reflects the kinds of relationships that we actually want to nurture Which I think is sometimes like really difficult because you're really Like I said, I've been saying this a lot, but you've been like Pounded with like a blueprint for your entire life. Yeah, and then when you finally Are like hmm there's other things out there that are different from what I was told and It's really hard to Start carving a new one, you know, it's one and there's so many people who are more than willing to share their opinion on the choices that you make when they have zero effect on them.

And the types of choices I'm talking about in this Blueprint is like your choice to like have your, you know, child live with you until they're much older or to take care of aging parents or to... AKA parenting is a... Perfect example. Yeah parenting or even like you guys go on solo vacations You can get you know, that's interesting or like that's concerning you sleep in separate beds Maybe one of you snores really loudly.

It's stuff. It's like that doesn't look like what I know and there must be something wrong and our imagination our expanded imagination is just You can decide these things for yourself. It's gonna be difficult because people are going to want to tell you how they feel about it and it really doesn't matter at the end of the day. And honestly I feel like it takes a lot of strength and courage to do those things.

It does. You're not taking the path of least resistance for sure. Well and also even just exploring open relationships and like the lifestyle and Swinging or like whatever you want to try out even just doing that and Doing your day -to -day life. I feel like We always feel like oh, I feel like I'm failing because I'm not like where these other people are that are in the community like well Give myself a little bit of grace and be like I don't have to be I just have to Do it according to what my schedule?

according to like my wants and desires which may not be the same and probably won't be like I Know I not struggled but like that's been something that I'm trying to remind myself Quite a lot as we're starting to go to a lot more events together in Just been trying to okay like settle down like I'm safe like I just really need to think about it and Come try and push myself like a little bit Just to see like where it goes and then okay, like I need to take a step back So it's gonna be like those like ebbs and flows like little little movements like at a time I think Because it takes a lot of it takes a lot of you or at least it does for me No, it does.

I think it's There's a lot to it so The question for the listeners from this one is if you could design your life from scratch without worrying whether it looks normal What or who would you build it around? So I feel like this chapter built on the previous two and It was basically saying like once you realize there are more blueprints than the ones you inherited Then the next question is what's stopping us from? using those blueprints and that brings us to chapter four and Chapter four is about Nick and art I'll give you a little background on their relationship and then we'll go into discussions.

So Nick and Art, they met in college and developed a friendship and they had really close friendship, which if you can't tell by the names, these are both men. And as I said earlier, it's really rare to see like men with this close a relationship because in society it's kind of frowned upon I guess or looked down at because of they're like oh are they romantic like are they together and I don't know why that is but anyway um they were physically affectionate and like very emotionally vulnerable together and deeply involved in each other's lives.

And so Nick is straight and Art is gay. And so rather than pulling away because of the assumptions of other people and they intentionally built their friendship and prioritize their honesty, affection and emotional closeness. So not everyone is going to understand this and even their friends questioned them in their relationship And like Christian communities questioned it because those are both pastors by the way, right? it says they're both in religious roles and their Christian communities and Even like Nick himself like had to wrestle with like what the friendship really meant for his own person his own identity his own masculinity and The challenge wasn't whether like two men could love one another It was whether like your culture would allow men to express their love without interpreting it as sexual or romantic Which I think is like the biggest thing Even currently even it was probably even worse like in the, what was it, the 60s?

Or even earlier. You talking about the story? I'm just talking about like, gay culture in general. Like they had it very tough.

Yeah, we're definitely getting into some of the historical part of that for sure. So our inherited script for this chapter is deep emotional intimacy between men is suspicious Unmanly or must secretly be romantic. That's what everyone thinks Yeah, and so Raina did an amazing job as always of going through kind of historical and There were some parts of this that like as a man really hit me pretty hard The first part that she talked about that I thought was really interesting was something called homo hysteria, which is different than homophobia and homo hysteria is the fear that displays of affection between men will cause others to assume that they're gay and This really started around 1948 which is Like I would have thought it was a lot longer ago But in 1948 Kinsey, the famous sexologist, published a study that suggested about 10 % of men were actually gay.

And I think that was probably significantly overstated. But that kind of got everyone looking at each other sideways, like which one of the ten of us is gay. And once I heard that term, it really got me thinking about... sort of the current modern masculinity and you know the the Joe Rogan's and then the Manosphere and some of our you know politicians and things I wonder if Kind of our modern definition masculinity was really just built around avoiding being mistaken for being gay and So they sort of over -represented it.

They went way farther on the other side. This has practical impacts because, you know, there's a lot of men, there's a lot of studies that say that, you know, men are lonely. There's this loneliness epidemic, but I actually think it's probably more of an intimacy epidemic. And again, another great stat from Reyna, or I guess not great, but said that in a study 15 % of men had no close friends.

And you know, if men are taught to reserve their emotional intimacy for their romantic partner, what happens if they don't have one? Or if their romantic partner leaves them or passes away, they're all alone. they have no one to be, you know, emotionally intimate with. So that was just like a really sad chapter for me.

Did any of that like stand out for you, Roz? Yeah, it was interesting to hear like the history of that because I feel like at a certain point in time, like and also like in other cultures, intimacy between men was quote -unquote normal and so like how do we go from like being accepting and then to like an extreme where You know you have like Your bros like touch you and they're like, oh, are you gay? You know, like how do we how do we get there like And the difference between Like men and women is a complete double standard.

It is. And yeah. Say more about that. Like I was mentioning it a little bit earlier where I was like, in society, if women have really close relationships with other women, it's pretty much like 100 % accepted.

Yep. Like there's no like stigma or hesitancy when a woman brings another woman, super close friend to an event or a family gathering or anything. That is completely accepted. But if a man were to do that, it's like a little, they're like, oh, what's going on there?

They have questions all of a sudden. Which is like, why? Yeah, it got me thinking about kind of where we learn our masculinity from and I was thinking back to like my own sort of childhood and I don't think that we were necessarily like explicitly taught to avoid intimacy with men but there was just a bunch of like tiny little lessons and you know it was like Your dad saying, you know, oh, you know, you're fine. You're fine like rub some dirt on it or Like what are you a girl or are you bleeding?

Boys don't cry or your peers, you know, if you're in like the locker room and Like calling each other fag or like touching each other and then be like, oh no homo, you know, it's like there's It's like being Vulnerable Was the worst thing you could be or I guess the second worst thing because the worst thing could be was gay and So you just put all your friends at an arm's length and it's like they're fun to light stuff on fire with in the garage or like if you're a little older to You know hang out with them play guitar hero, but they're not gonna be checking in on you They're not going to text you and make sure you're good emotionally.

So yeah, it's lonely. Well, I think that also it's probably a lot tougher for those men who have a higher emotional intimacy meter like we were talking about before. Yeah. So if that's where you get some of your connection, and your closeness and you can't express it or you're not getting it from like a friend or a family member or something like that would have to be really hard.

And I think it's stressful for our partners too because you know you have to like support all of our emotional needs if there's not you know, a friend that we can share that with and I guess I would just like kind of close this chapter. I thought there was another sort of interesting point. So at one point Nick actually starts wondering if he's gay because he liked hugging Art and he loved Art and Art asked him some questions and Nick answered those and Art's like, you're not gay.

Like you can like be in love with me and we don't have to be like sexually together mm -hmm, but it kind of makes me wonder like Has emotional intimacy become so rare between guys that it's actually difficult to know like in Nick's situation Where the friendship ends and you actually are starting to become attracted to them? It's just like you're so unfamiliar with the feeling of being emotionally intimate with a man that it feels like attraction. It feels like you're gay or bisexual or something.

So yeah, that was an interesting kind of takeaway from that. I knew this chapter would hit you pretty hard. Yeah. So do you want to read our expanded imagination?

Sure. So what we have for this one is the healthy masculinity isn't defined by emotional distance. Men can build deep, affectionate, emotional, intimate friendships without those relationships needing to become romantic or sexual. And honestly, I think that's healthy.

Yeah. Tough to find. So our question for our listeners if you removed the fear of being judged How would your closest friendships change? And like up to this point like every chapter kind of like challenges a different like assumption about relationships in society But our next one with Natasha and Linda Goes to like a much bigger question and actually like what actually makes a family Like how do you define a family?

Yeah, and So this is a Natasha Linda, and I think we referenced them just briefly like in the intro But Natasha wanted to become a parent, but she didn't want to have to wait for you know the the guy to build the family that she wanted and so instead she and her close friend Linda began exploring a possibility of co -parenting a child that Natasha would have through sort of reproductive services and over time they really built this functional family that wasn't romantic but it was built in commitment and caregiving and shared responsibility and Natasha did eventually become pregnant and have a child and that child was had significant special needs and the family navigating the legal challenges and the social expectations and just you know the practical realities of being co -parents that aren't actually in a romantic relationship was incredibly challenging and it was really an interesting like dynamic to think that you had like the bio mom and this co -parent who also wanted to be recognized and deserve to be recognized as a parent who are not married or romantically connected in any way it's a very unique situation And the question wasn't like whether Natasha and Linda loved each other or whether they both loved the child.

It was does romance, is it romance that really creates a family? Or can you have some other sort of form of a family where everyone is showing up for each other and kind of pulling their weight? And so the inherited script is from this one. Families are built through romantic relationships and that parenthood begins with a couple.

So you brought this one up earlier. I'm wondering, do you have some thoughts you'd like to share about this one? Being parents ourselves, I just can't even imagine having to go through all this bullshit to give your child what they need. at a basic human level.

Like it was just, it was just blowing my mind. I was like, I can't even imagine the amount of stress that these ladies went through. And man, just like how society defines things and even like society and is defining like the legal systems to which people are granted rights. It's like, how does a judge or a legal system know any better than me who is the parent of this child?

Like, how can you tell me how to do things? Like, I mean, there are ... Certain protections in place for children and I 100 % agree with them, but it's just in this situation I just feel like man they Just really fucked this up Yeah, it was uncharted territory. I think in the end.

I don't have it written down, but I believe They actually became the first legally recognized Non -romantic co -parents in Canadian history. Yeah, so It was Linda was recognized as a parent of this family group and like received all the rights as such correct She was she she became like a recognized mother even though she wasn't married Natasha or the biological mother yeah, and I thought this section had a lot of really interesting Like historical precedents, you know like it In a way it was interesting to realize that the legal definition of family has actually changed a number of times so like before the law would prioritize marriage over biology, so a woman gives birth and say she's married to a man who's not the biological father, like, back in the day, he's the father.

He's on the birth certificate, the kid has, like, inheritance rights and all that type of stuff, and vice versa. If they're born when the parents are not married, the kid has no inheritance, no future, doesn't get, like, the last name, it's out of wedlock, bastard, the whole thing. So that was, like, marriage over biology. But now when you have all these new Reproductive technologies and I just think of Game of Thrones when we talk about this the whole marriage thing Yeah, because they didn't want anyone knowing that you know the woman like had an affair with some other guys and but that she needed to produce an heir so it was like she needed to get knocked up and like have a baby real fast and then that you know that baby like inherited all the royalty like name and inheritance and like all that stuff.

So it's just, that's what I think of. You don't want Joffrey? As the kid? You could talk about any kids in that show.

Yeah, that's true. At first I thought it was only Jon Snow and then, yeah, I don't know. Show of Soul. But yeah, so and then now it's like we're focusing more on, you know, different biological Well, actually kind of moving away from the biological because let's say a woman has a child with a sperm donor, but like the sperm donor is not even the biological, like law -having father.

So anyway, all less to say. The point is that the law typically lags behind kind of where society is, and society right now lacks imagination. And in that way, it's really limiting people's opportunity to get these legal protections and frankly like the the you know rights and recognitions they deserve did any of this it's being parents it's hard to imagine having like someone who's not your child's biological parent having that big of a role but are there parts of this that you could see being Beneficial even if they're not like quite as extreme as what they went through Yeah, I mean I'm pretty sure I remember like a friends of ours like randomly asked us one day like if we would be godparents to like their daughter and Honestly, it like really took me back.

I was not prepared for that question at all because it's A lot to think about especially when you're in the early throes of parenting and like you're learning all this shit and you're like, oh my god I can't even imagine like having another one right now and Around the same age and everything it's it's pretty overwhelming, but I totally can see like having Like really close friends or Even like a family member like as like another parental unit. I totally can see that. Honestly, parents would be less burnt out, to be honest, if it was more common.

I mean, obviously there's the trust building that needs to happen, but I mean, if that happens and you feel like everyone is responsible for... And you're all on the same page. I don't see a reason why like this is a weird Yeah, it's interesting it kind of as you said that it just made me think that you know, we talked about how Marriage is being asked to do more than it's ever been asked to do before and parents Are being asked to do more and do it with less support than ever before So you have these people who are trying to invest in their marriage, who are trying to have the best marriage possible, who are trying to show up, who are also trying to be the best parents they can be, with the least support there's probably ever been.

And you wonder why everyone who's in their 30s is like, this fucking sucks. Yeah. I'm burnt out on life. It's crazy.

So do you want to do the expanded imagination for that one? Yeah, so for chapter five from Natasha and Linda's section, our expanded imagination is family isn't defined by romance or biology. It's defined by the people who intentionally choose to care for one another over time. I love that one.

So your chosen family. Yeah. Heard that quite a bit in your chosen family. Yeah And then our question for the listeners is when you picture family Which parts of that picture come from love and which parts come from?

Somewhere else like you Kind of feel like you have to consider that person part of your family So I'm being cognizant of the fact that we are almost 90 minutes in, so. But there's only two more chapters. There's, yeah, there's three. I think we can maybe skip section six, or maybe we can just kind of give the inherited script and the, so.

Just give a little rundown. Yeah, so chapter. We don't have to go deep. Chapter six was about a Naz and Barb, and they had a really lovely story.

They met later in life. I think they were in their 30s. And, you know, one of them had a family where the husband was kind of a piece of shit. She had two great kids, though, and the other one didn't have any family at all.

And the two of them became great, great friends. They were almost like kind of co -mothers to the children. I think this is the sister neighbor one. Right.

And Inez finally broke up with her, you know, husband. And they lived together for... or they had a lifelong friendship of over 50 years and actually moved in together. And the inherited script that we had for this one is, as we age, our primary sources of companionship and care should be our spouse, children, or biological family.

And they were like, they're real life golden girls, you know? Mm, yep. And there was one part of this I just wanted to mention, and I wanted to see if you had any thoughts on it. So the thought that stood out to me was, why do we wait until we're widowed, isolated, or unhealthy to start building a community?

And why do we feel like we can only have deep friendships? Or we only return to our deep friendships after the spouse dies, you know It's like you have friends when you're in your teens and 20s and then you get married and it's like all in on your marriage and your kids and you maybe have like a Few close friends. Yeah, but you never see them because kids and then you retire and maybe you're like kind of lonely and then you know, you start engaging those friends again and It's like there's a whole part of our life of vitality where it's like we're not putting any effort in or very little effort into like cultivating or building or getting closer to these friends that we have.

So, yeah, that kind of just stood out to me and I wonder if any of that kind of resonates for you. Yeah, I mean, it kind of goes back to maybe why we feel like friends with benefits or like a community like having a smaller trusted community like appeals to us. Yeah. Totally.

Yeah. Do you want to do the expanded? Yeah. So our expanded imagination quote is community doesn't have to be something that we hope happens.

It can be something that we intentionally build. Early and long before we need it So the question for our listeners for this one is when you picture your life at age 75 Who's there with you? Who's there besides your spouse or your children? Do you have intent have you intentionally built those relationships or are you assuming they'll they'll just like pop up and just happen Yeah, honestly, I was like it kind of just feels like that's just the next thing on the escalator You know that's just the next thing that should be there for me I was like well if you stopped talking to all your friends for 30 years like They're not gonna be there It's a scary thought a lot of this a lot of this had moments for me that were Scary because I feel like right now.

I'm Pretty devoid of friends. I have you know, maybe two or three one that I feel is like a really close friend and you read these things of like these people who lose their spouse and have like no one is there for them or they You know, they just they don't have the type of sustaining relationships that they need and Where they get to under life and there's not someone over there they can come over and like Help them out when they fall and break their hip or something like it's just scary and like that's part of why I think I'm so kind of interested in trying to make these new types of friends because Yeah, there's a lot of reality in this book, you know, yeah, absolutely Okay, so there's two chapters left One of them gives us some closure on Reyna and Em's relationship.

That's chapter seven, but I want to finish with that. So let's skip ahead to chapter eight, which we're going to keep it pretty brief in this one, and it's intentional. So chapter eight was really kind of zooming out a little bit and looking at, you know, what What happens throughout history as our understanding of relationships has evolved faster than these institutions, these legal institutions that have been built to recognize them? And also on that note, the legal institutions, the rules changing with whoever is in office.

That is a huge point. You know, she specifically talks a lot about the legal battle over same -sex marriage. I don't necessarily want to focus there as much as to say I think this problem is a lot bigger than that. I think that they kind of did a lot of the hard work for us.

But there are instances where basically anyone who's living in like a non -traditional way ends up fear for their job from sort of these clauses in their employment contracts or not having the existing legal protections because their family doesn't look a certain way and it's like as if all the societal pressure wasn't enough to have to fight against to live in a way that feels authentically Now you also have to realize that there could be legal complications to these things.

Or you're not protected as much as an individual who is living a traditional quote -unquote traditional trajectory. And quote -unquote is perfect because like let's say this is some guy who's married to a woman and he's going around and having a bunch of affairs like they're still legally married, you know, maybe those affairs affect him in court, but he looks to the outside like a very traditional and probably has a lot of those benefits from tax benefits to, you know, the legal benefits of if they have children, you know, having parental rights and things.

So there's just lots of stuff in there and this kind of led to our inherited script of relationships that matter are the ones that society recognizes and protects. The that's the inherited script is the only relationships that matter are the ones that our society protects Yeah, that's crazy And And there's so many this book Highlights all the relationships that maybe you actually do have in your life, but you kind of don't Recognize or see them for what they are. Yeah, and So, okay in the eyes of like the law or society like Do those relationships even exist?

And they what if they're like really important to you. Yeah, you know, I Think that's a good point that Like something that is legally recognized doesn't necessarily mean it's legitimate and vice versa You know just because you have a close relationship with someone that's not legally recognized doesn't make it less legitimate So our expanded imagination for this one is Institutions don't define the value of our relationships But as our ways of loving and caregiving and building families evolve our institutions may eventually need to involve evolve alongside them which I think as of late has just been so fucking hard so hard like The even the fact that people are even talking it I'm gonna go back to like the same -sex marriage right now because it's kind of relevant for our current time like even talking about reversing this is Just mind -boggling to me.

Yeah Like even I can't even fathom them having the conversations To start that process. I'm just like how is this even a thing how can like certain parties or like People in office just like strip people of rights It's I just It's very frustrating Totally, and I thought what an interesting aside from that particular chapter was when they were talking about the gay marriage or same -sex marriage there were a lot of instances where the people who were being quoted for the book were very clear that they didn't think that at the time they didn't feel like marriage was going to solve all their problems.

But they thought that if they could get marriage agreed upon, that it would lead to all of the other types of rights that they were kind of looking to equalize. As you mentioned, we're kind of going backwards on that one, so... Alright, so then we'll close with chapter 7, which is them kind of revisiting the Reina and Em relationship. And I thought this was really like a beautiful capstone.

If it was me, I probably would have put this as chapter 8, in my opinion. But do you want to do the background for this one? Sure, so chapter seven, we kind of like come back to Raina and Em's story. And like so many of these important relationships, there's evolves over time.

Closeness changes and some of the future they once imagined together and like no longer is a thing. Raina finds herself grieving. not just because the relationship that she had with Em, but the future that she thought that she might have. She comes to the realization that completely reframed the way she thinks about relationships.

She compares the memories to remembering an incredible vacation. So you don't go back to the place you honeymooned. Ten years later expecting everything to be exactly the same. It's more just like like reminisce and You don't like resent the vacation because it's over or that you had experienced that great time that one time You treasure it because you've experienced What you experience while you were there and maybe the relationships deserve that same sentiment?

Yeah So the inherited script for this one is a relationship that changes or ends is a failed relationship. I thought that this one was just really relatable and as I was reading it I was thinking back over relationships that I've had friendships mostly that I kind of resent that someone who meant so much to me seemingly pretty easily just kind of forgot about me and I don't know if you have kind of a similar experience but when I heard that reframe it was really kind of like a almost a little bit freeing to just be able to say like I'm glad I knew them, and I'm glad we had the experiences that we did.

The fact that we're not still friends, like, doesn't, like, e -legitimize the relationship or what it was, but does anything, have you had relationships like that where you kind of looked back and almost like held a little bit of a grudge because it didn't last? I'm not sure if I would say I'm holding a grudge. I just feel like I've changed. So I feel like those friendships, as good as they were when I had them, they aren't really pulling me that strongly anymore.

I get that. So it just doesn't have the same effect on me emotionally. Do you think that they... Sense it, too.

I, I, yeah, I maybe a little. I mean, it's like the infrequent texts and sure, you know, you just kind of like drift. But also, I think it's like I'm not. Upset, I mean, I knew I had.

that relationship at one point in time and like just things change like as you grow as a person and yeah like like the vacation analogy like you can't expect everything to stay exactly the same do you think that they've changed i mean i would have to assume yeah yeah i would say outwardly It's hard to know yeah for sure, but I mean knowing Kind of what you've been going through I know that you've grown a lot and those those sort of like long -term friends, it's hard to Have that commonality After all that time you know and also when you have friends who you spend like every day Almost every day with like if you school friends or whatever But when you don't have like the commonality anymore like would we still be friends?

Like I don't know Is it just situational that we just happen to be friends It's interesting like you were just in the proximity and they were the most compatible person around but Would would you have chosen them if you you know had other options or whatever? I don't know. I think like in My good friends like from like early school days. I feel like We didn't have like super deep conversations so The depth of connection In my opinion, I have closer friends that are from like college to now.

Yeah. So the expanded imagination for this one that we came up with is the success of a relationship isn't measured only by how long it lasts. Some relationships fulfill their purpose simply by changing who we become. It's like from Wicked and changed for good.

I love that. And then the questions for our listener is, is there a relationship in your life that you've been thinking of as a failure simply because it changed? What if you measured it instead by what it gave you? Sit on that one for a while.

That's a deep one for sure. There's two more things I want to do and then we'll close because I know we're getting pretty long here. So the first thing I want to do is I want to go back and I want to just reread the inherited scripts right in a row, rapid fire. I want you to hear these and kind of see in your mind what that blueprint looks like, if it looks familiar to you.

And then I'm going to go back and read our expanded imagination blueprints, and I want you to kind of contrast those and see if you can see a little bit of space or if the expanded imagination looks a little bit more appealing to you. All right, so here we go. Number one, our deepest, most significant relationship should be our romantic partnership. Number two.

Love, romance, sex, marriage, and lifelong partnership are all part of the same package. 3. The only socially recognized blueprint for lifelong partnership is romance. 4.

Deep emotional intimacy between men is suspicious, unmanly, or must secretly be romantic. 5. Families are built through romantic relationships. Parenthood begins with a couple.

As we age, our primary sources of companionship and care should be our spouse, our children, or our biological family. Relationships that matter are the ones society recognizes and protects. A relationship that changes or ends. is a failed relationship.

So that's the inherited script and I want you to just think about does that sound familiar? Does that sound how you grew up? If you look around your community would you say that it sort of fits that blueprint? And if it feels a little bit restrictive or maybe not exactly what you're looking for maybe try our expanded imagination on for size.

So number one, we can have multiple deeply significant relationships that don't compete with one another. They simply fulfill different roles. Marriage isn't the enemy. We may simply be asking it to perform every role that an entire community once shared.

Number two, Friendship, romance, caregiving, partnership, commitment, and sexuality can overlap, but they don't have to. Maybe we've mistaken one common configuration for the only legitimate one. 3. We don't have to inherit our life's blueprint.

We can intentionally design one. that reflects the kinds of relationships we actually want to nurture. 4. Healthy masculinity isn't defined by emotional distance.

Men can build deep, affectionate, emotionally intimate friendships without those relationships needing to become romantic or sexual. 5. Family isn't defined by romance or biology. It's defined by people who intentionally choose to care for one another over time.

Community doesn't have to be something we hope that happens. It can be something that we intentionally build long before we need it. Institutions don't define the value of our relationships, but as our ways of loving, caregiving, and building families evolve, our institution may eventually need to evolve alongside them. 8.

The success of a relationship isn't measured only by how long it lasts. Some relationships fulfill their purpose simply by changing who we become. I want to live with that blueprint. You win.

I win. And I wanted to just close by saying that there was one last takeaway that I did not foresee from this book. And it was the realization that all of these people are willing to work very hard. for their friendships, their families, their relationships.

And there are a lot of times where they could have said, this is too hard, or this is too much, or I'm just going to live the way society wants me to. And I'm still working through where exactly this feeling I have or this blueprint I have came from, but It seems like I have this fear of loss. Like, relationships are inherently fragile. But every single one of these stories felt like it was saying, you know, maybe relationships are stronger than you think they are.

And I have a secure attachment style, but that doesn't really sound like it, so maybe something to explore in another episode. Interesting. Yeah. This was a long one.

Yeah, it was. What were you saying? I kind of wonder like how being an only child has like affected that attachment or like your fear of loss dynamic. Yeah.

I don't know. Just my brain always goes to like, it goes from Ross is annoyed to like Ross is Like not gonna want to be with you anymore which is a pretty significant jump and kind of touches on what I was mentioning before a little earlier of like With very little additional support I think it just feels like a lot higher stakes and maybe that's like I'm looking for all those signs that aren't aren't really ever there but It's an interesting sort of realization, I think. So what do you think we're gonna do for our next episode?

I was thinking maybe we could do a game. Yeah, I was thinking something like sexy and fun. We've been a little... Cerebral lately?

Yeah. Yeah, so maybe like a fantasy list or a game or something sexy. So if you guys like our show, please subscribe on whatever platform you listen on and our contact info is in the show notes as always You can find us on Instagram and you can send us an email at the partnership lab podcast at gmail .com Thanks for sticking with us.

I hope you had your coffee or tea, but we love I had my tea We love doing these with you. And I had my tequila. But that wraps up today's entry in the partnership lab. Until next time, stay curious.

These conversations reflect our own observations and experiences and are not professional or institutional advice. They do not reflect the thoughts or opinions of employers, family, or guests, nor imply their approval of the content shared.