I Fell in Love With My Best Friend’s Husband… Then Married Him | The Truth About Polyamory

Andrea Knoche (: 00:03

Welcome in, you guys. You are listening to Andrea Kanoki with From Mrs. To Ms. I am really stoked for today's episode, you guys. I have a great guest with me today. I have the fabulous Jolie Hamilton. Now, for those of you that may or may not know Jolie, she has been on this show before. And if you've listened to the episode, we talk all about ethical non-monogamy, polyamory, all that good stuff. And on the last episode that she was on, I asked a lot of questions, didn't I? Hi, Jolie.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 00:34

You're good question asker. You are. And I mean, it's a fun topic. It's fun. We can get into the mess.

Andrea Knoche (: 00:34

⁓ good question. It is so

fun. Yes. And I feel like I went totally off book on the last one because everything you were saying just created a new question for me. I'm like, whoa, but what about this? But what did you do here? And that, you know, it's an exciting topic. I mean, it's not what I do in my relationship, but I love hearing about what other people do. And it expands our thought process on what is out there, right?

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 00:54

Yeah.

Andrea Knoche (: 01:03

is exciting.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 01:03

It is

such an exciting topic. And that's the thing, like, when we think about other people's relationships, we can, we always learn something about our own, our own assumptions, our expectations, all the stuff that's unconscious. That's what's so great about being in groups, talking about relationships is like, ⁓ that exposed all the stuff I was taking for granted, all the stuff I didn't even know I wasn't looking at. Yeah, it's good stuff.

Andrea Knoche (: 01:10

Mm-hmm.

We... Yes!

Yes.

Beat off each other.

Mm-hmm

and all the things that we conjure up in our heads like, know for those people who don't know much about ethical non-monogamy It's like okay. Well, you know, I think a lot of people are like, hmm, I don't want to hear about this. That's just wrong I don't do this, you know So when it opens it up for them to have like a different understanding or see a different perspective of it I think it's amazing. So amazing

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 01:43

Yeah.

Andrea Knoche (: 01:52

Well, let me let everybody know who you are. Okay, so Jolie Hamilton, she's a research psychologist. She's a TEDx speaker, sex educator, relationship coach who specializes in ethical non-monogamy and what she likes to call designer relationships. I love that. She helps people to rethink traditional relationship rules and create partnerships that are more intentional, honest, and aligned with what actually works for them, which is what we need.

She's also the host of the podcast Playing with Fire, where she explores modern relationships, intimacy, and communication. And as I mentioned, she's been on this show before. So we're doing this as total curiosity. There is no judgment, no shame here for those of you listening. If you're going to be judgy, you can sign off now. We're curious. We're curious. So today we're going to dive into a topic that sparks a lot of curiosity and sometimes some controversy.

right, which is the ethical non-monogamy, what it actually looks like, why more people are exploring it, and what we can all learn about relationships from it. So let's go back to the last time that we had a conversation. Can you just do like a recap of how you got, I think I told this story also, I'm like, won't even believe this, bubba, not she, was with another man before.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 03:08

Hahaha

Andrea Knoche (: 03:12

And so I remember your whole story about like when you dropped it on your ex-husband about the current husband. Can you just give us a re-birth of that? Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 03:23

Yeah, the quick, quick version. The quick, quick version

is I didn't know about non-monogamy. Like nobody had presented it to me until all of a sudden I had like a friend who mentioned that they had boy trouble and I was like, well, what do you mean? do you like? What do you, I don't understand. So I got like an earful and it opened my eyes to the fact that people weren't necessarily all just doing monogamy, but I still didn't know very much. But.

Andrea Knoche (: 03:50

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 03:51

very quickly, things got really messy because I was living a life that put me in contact with some really amazing people. And sometimes we fall for those people. I fell in love with someone else. I did. And it happens. And the thing is, if I were to go back and do this again, I would do it completely differently. This is not how I would recommend anybody open their relationship because opening up

Andrea Knoche (: 04:05

Mmm, it happens.

Mmm.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 04:20

for a particular person rarely goes well, right? Like it's so messy because now it's not just the question of can we do open relationship? It's the question of why is this person here? And now they become the focal point. And oftentimes they actually wind up kind of needing to be off limits even because like it triggers too much memory of like, my God, remember that day. Cause for me it was, yeah, this was somebody I've known my whole life. I...

Andrea Knoche (: 04:22

Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 04:48

had no reason to think I was gonna fall for them, but we were all, we hung out together all the time, couples, a bunch of couples, we always hung out together. And I, we went out dancing one night. We're dancing and the dancing turned into, oh my God, like full blown sacred experience of like nothing was happening. Like we weren't having sex on the dance floor. We were just dancing and all of a sudden,

Andrea Knoche (: 05:14

Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 05:17

You know that moment when you know someone, when you're like, ⁓ damn, yeah, I've literally known this person my entire life. I had no reason to think. I had no reason to think that anything like this was ever gonna happen. And then it did. And I, in my naivete, came home and because I am, I just can't, I can't lie and I cannot even obfuscate. It's not my thing. I just can't do it.

Andrea Knoche (: 05:22

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 05:43

So we were taking a shower together. It's like two o'clock in the morning, you know, it's post-dancing. And I just told my husband, I just told him, I was like, feelings have entered the picture. Guess what? And it kind of blew my whole life up. And I know, I know for everybody listening, duh, it blew my life up. Of course it did. I was 32 years old. I had four kids under the age of 10. I didn't like...

Andrea Knoche (: 05:47

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Hahaha!

Gosh.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 06:13

It's not like I thought, I'm going to leave you. thought, hey, I'm going to tell my partner that I have feelings because if I don't, then I'm keeping the secret. And that would be weird. He's my best friend. Like he's my guy. He's my person. ⁓ So I told him. But what transpired from there got so messy so fast because we didn't have any of the skills. We didn't have any tools. We were not what we would call good communicators. We were not

Andrea Knoche (: 06:19

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 06:39

currently

in therapy, so we had to go start from scratch. And it was messy. ⁓ yeah, and the fast forward version is that I wind up married to that guy that I fell in love with. So yeah.

Andrea Knoche (: 06:44

Okay.

Yes, and I want to hear the whole

thing. I just want to clarify a couple of things, a couple of questions. So that new listeners are understanding what's going on. But you, so you were originally married to your husband and you were friends with, was it another couple or just this guy that you're married to now?

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 07:05

I was friends with ⁓

the couple. Yeah, they were best, best friends. We ate dinner together three or four nights a week. We were with each other all the time. there were actually, we had lots of couples friends. There was a whole circle of friends and we were all up in each other's business all the time. And these people lived a mile from us. So we were literally, it's in the phase when the kids are little and you're just like, now the kids are in the backyard.

Andrea Knoche (: 07:09

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

It easy.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 07:33

were just there. mom, we, the moms were just there in the backyard. And then the dads are there and everybody's just hanging out all the time. All the time. I was, I was there when they had their kids. They were there when I had my kids. Like, you know, like we were like, as thieves, we were right there in it, very close friends. So it really is the nightmare that many people imagine. Like it's scary. It's scary to imagine that this could just happen. Yeah, I'm with you. It is scary.

Andrea Knoche (: 07:34

parents are all hanging out. Yeah.

all the time.

Yeah, really close friends. Yeah.

Yeah. So.

It really is. Happen. Yeah.

So when you were dancing on the dance floor, was how many, it was just you and the friend or was your husband out there? It was just dancing.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 08:06

It was actually the whole group. Everybody was on the dance

floor ⁓ after, mean, it was just dancing. My best girlfriend and I had been hosting dance parties for years. Like we'd been just, you know, like house parties. Like everybody come together, kids get babysitters to the kids or send them to the grandparents and like everybody's dancing. So it was nothing even terribly unusual. We were out, we were dancing and I have no explanation.

Andrea Knoche (: 08:20

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 08:36

I have no explanation for what changed. It was...

Andrea Knoche (: 08:37

Hmm, just some magnet thing, just, I don't know.

Sometimes you see someone just differently, right? Hmm.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 08:45

Yeah. And people have

said to me, I mean, because my family, of course, they've known both of us the whole time because I have known this person since I was born. ⁓ So people ask me now, like, well, why didn't you guys figure this out earlier? I'm like, what do you mean? There's a 10 year age difference. also we like we've known each other, but there's a 10 year age difference. So I got married when I was 20. He was already married and like we didn't have any. No, exactly. And then

Andrea Knoche (: 08:52

Yes.

Mmm.

So yeah, when it happened. Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 09:16

Yeah, and this is not something that I don't think this just happens to everyone. But for those of us who have had an experience of just like, ⁓ damn, I see this person differently. It also doesn't mean you have to act on it. I did not think I needed to act on it. I was just overwhelmed by like, wow, these feelings are so intense.

Andrea Knoche (: 09:21

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Great.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 09:42

And it was the first time I'd ever fallen for a guy. Because I had had so many experiences of falling for women. I'm bi, I'm super, super bi. ⁓ I had so, I'm so bi. I'm so bi, I can't even believe I'm with a man. ⁓ So like it shocks me to this day. But so when I fall for women, it was never a threat. So my ex-husband, my then husband.

Andrea Knoche (: 09:46

Mmm.

Mm-hmm. Super, super.

Yeah, really. That's so funny.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 10:08

He knew that I fell for people. He knew I had crushes. I would talk about them. Like that was not an abnormal thing for us to talk about. But it was women. I didn't realize that he didn't feel the same way when it was a guy. maybe that sounds silly, but I was not heteronormative in that way. I thought, like, I'll leave you for a woman just as much as I'd leave you for a man, which is to say, I won't. I'm not going to leave. Like, we're here. We're in this. But I am. I'm not dead. I'm married.

Andrea Knoche (: 10:13

Yeah, because it was women.

you

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 10:37

So when I would fall for women, would just turn into like, oh, Jolie's got a crush. so we just sort of talk about it. Maybe it becomes a little spice in the bedroom. These things happen. And they burn out after a few months or maybe a year. It passes. And that had happened four or five times over the course of our marriage. We'd been married for 13 years together for 17. Sure.

Andrea Knoche (: 10:48

Hmm?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

It's normal.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 11:05

It didn't feel dangerous just because this was a guy, but of course, cishet mononormativity seeps into things and he did experience it differently. He felt it as a threat. It was scary to him. It was overwhelming and frightening in ways that I could not have predicted because he was not bisexual and he didn't have the same sort of understanding of like, of how this all worked and how it didn't actually feel any different for me than when I fell for girls. Like,

Andrea Knoche (: 11:13

You

Yeah.

Yeah, and

it probably never even crossed his mind that you would enter that into the conversation, right? It's interesting.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 11:39

I don't think it ever did, because I never had, because

I'm not that attracted to men. I'm not like, don't, over the course of my life, I've maybe had a crush on a half a dozen men. I've dated more men than that, but like really fallen into that place of like, like being like, yeah, like I go on a lot of first dates with men. I don't go on a lot of third dates with men because I'm like, it's just not always there for me. So yeah.

Andrea Knoche (: 11:50

Wow. Really? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

You're saying, yeah, did you think that your,

when your ex-husband reacted the way he did, do you think it was more about the fact that it was a man or that it was a friend? What do you think? All of it.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 12:11

It was all of it. It was all

of it. Honestly, I have nothing but sympathy for the position that I put both of us into. It was not fair. We didn't have the language for it. And on top of all of that, we weren't well matched. I was the high desire partner. He was the low desire partner in our relationship. There's often a dynamic there, right? And we had married very young. We'd been together since I was 16 and we married very young. I was 20 when we got married.

Andrea Knoche (: 12:26

Mmm.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Wow,

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 12:41

We'd been having a

Andrea Knoche (: 12:42

young.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 12:42

baby every two and a half years. ⁓ We were like, we were each other's person, but we were lacking some of the really foundational skills of great relating, right? Like we didn't know how to make conscious agreements. We didn't know how to regulate our nervous systems. We didn't know how to repair when wounds got opened up. We didn't know how to deal with the fact that we had that.

Andrea Knoche (: 12:50

Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 13:07

classic pairing of an anxious style and an avoidant style in the mix all the time. We just didn't know. So to then introduce this, which by the way is not uncommon when like, so you have all that stuff going on and then someone else tickled my brain. That's not unusual. But then what happens next, if I could go back, what I would do is I would have had us in therapy way before. Like we needed to have stronger foundations no matter what was going to happen.

Andrea Knoche (: 13:11

⁓ yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Wow. Yeah.

Yep. Yep.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 13:37

You know, was open

relating on the table for me? Turns out, yeah, because here I am 17 years later and I'm like, yeah, that's me. That's how I want to relate. mm, mm.

Andrea Knoche (: 13:41

Yeah.

Yeah.

Did you

ever, ⁓ because you said you talked about it, like you talked about that you had a crush on a girl or whatever and your ex was fine with that. Did you ever engage in like threesomes or polyamory with anyone at that time? None of that, because he wasn't into that. Yeah. Okay.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 13:57

Yeah.

No, we'd never, no, never. It

never even occurred to me that that was an option. Like it was so, like I had heard, I'd watched movies, I'd seen that like key parties were a thing in the 60s. I had heard of threesomes, I'd watched a lot of porn, but I was, even though I was doing sex education at the time, it was still from this incredibly monogamous basis. And not because I wasn't even raised in,

Andrea Knoche (: 14:17

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mmm.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 14:32

like a heavy, a high demand religion or anything. wasn't, I just, I just had no other imagination. I'd only ever seen monogamous pairings and the other stuff all just felt like, mean, sure, but that's like for like fancy people. That's for like, it just didn't occur to me. Plus, plus at 32 years old, I, I mean, I had been giving birth and breastfeeding for a decade, a decade. Like, I mean,

Andrea Knoche (: 14:36

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 15:02

Like literally I had

Andrea Knoche (: 15:03

ugh.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 15:03

been, I'd had a baby at the breast for a decade. So no, I hadn't spent a lot of time thinking about maybe we could spice things up with a threesome. Would I go back and redo that? I had it. Oh my God. All the freaking time. Yeah. So I just like didn't, I, there are so many things that I didn't even think to address because as it turns out, I was in a subsistence marriage. I had married to get out of a very difficult childhood and I did.

Andrea Knoche (: 15:07

Mm-hmm.

You already had your threesome going.

A, B, three, so.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 15:32

and he was safe enough, but we weren't a great pair for each other. We are now both remarried very happily and very happy for each other. no, that's so, so it's not even like, think the, the outcome net positive, but how, ugh, I like, I hate it. I tell everybody, I teach this stuff because when this all happened, we turned to therapists. They had no idea what to do with us. They didn't know what to tell us. They just kept.

Andrea Knoche (: 15:32

Mm-hmm.

Wow.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 16:02

like enforcing mono norms back on me or some people. And then we had some friends who were polyamorous, it turned out, and they were like, well, you just got to upgrade your operating system and just get cool with everything. And like, that wasn't fair for him either. Like he's not like, no, he didn't volunteer for this. We needed to go back to the basics. So that's why I do what I do now. Like, cause I wish I had had someone to say, hold your horses. We got to slow this roll.

Andrea Knoche (: 16:05

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Noooo

amazing.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 16:32

down and deal with, are the two of you even, do you even want to be in this relationship and do you want to have a conscious relationship? Do you want to wake up? Like, I don't know. And that might've been enough to break us up right there, just even that question. Do you actually want to do this work?

Andrea Knoche (: 16:33

Yeah.

Mmm.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah. I was actually gonna say, have you thought about, had you done that, what your life would look like now? Do you even think that, do you think he would have been open to that at the time? Sounds almost like not.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 17:01

I think because,

yeah, I think he actually, he might have over time. he might have, but not from the same place. We wouldn't have wound up wanting the same kind of opening. This is another really common thing, right? Like when you open, people say like, we want to open our relationship. Cool, what does that mean? Because there are a million ways to do that. There are ways that still have at the center of a pretty exclusive monogamous coupling. There are ways.

Andrea Knoche (: 17:11

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 17:30

that are completely at the other end of a spectrum way over into like, no, there is no coupling. I'm going to build every single relationship to have equal parameters. I'm going to be solo polyamory and I'm going to relate to myself as my primary partner and I'll date other people. I'll have a community of people. There's a million ways to do this. And we would not have wanted the same way. At the end of the day, we...

Andrea Knoche (: 17:44

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, you wouldn't have.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 17:57

I don't think we would have wanted the same way. Also in the interim, mean, this also kicked off a life that I wouldn't have lived. I I couldn't find any help. So I went back to school. So I got a bachelor's degree in psychology. Then I got a master's degree in Jungian psychology. Then I got my doctorate in Jungian psychology. Then I went back and got another degree in counseling psychology along the way certified in six other modalities. And none of that.

Andrea Knoche (: 18:00

Yeah.

my gosh.

Wow.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 18:28

was something that was going to fit into that world that I had with him because we were living a completely different life. So like it's impossible. They're like, talk about the chain. Like the, took the path less trodden situation. Like I did. And I'm happy with where it wound up, but also, I could not have predicted any of it, none of it. And most of us can't actually predict what's going to happen. Are you willing to be in the unknown?

Andrea Knoche (: 18:28

What happened?

Mm-mm.

So life changing. Yes. Yes. Yeah. He did.

Oof.

Crazy. Yeah.

Right. That's... Have you found a lot R for me? ⁓ Whew. Gosh, if I had answered this when I was married, I would be like, no. You're in this marriage and just like you said, you're not really looking outside of it to see what other opportunities are out there, things that you can try and do. And I was...

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 18:57

That's one of the biggest questions. Like how does the unknown feel for you? Like.

Andrea Knoche (: 19:20

I was married at 23, so still pretty young and I was married for 17 years, but we were just very, very plain Jane, very vanilla. And I just wasn't, I wasn't really in love with him after a long period of time. So I was just there. But now, I don't know. And I'm in a relationship right now, but I'm not married or anything and I've been dating and stuff for the last eight years. And there's been times where I'm like, would I enjoy being with a woman?

And I start to think that other way. I don't think of it like that. Like it's not where I'm like, yeah, I think I could be bi. I don't, I'm heterosexual, I know that, but would I enjoy maybe? Yes, I think I'd be more of like an experienced kind of thing. Because I find women very attractive and I find myself looking at them, but I haven't really discerned whether I'm looking at them out of like, ooh, like that, or I'm looking at them like.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 20:01

You might have an experience. An experience.

Andrea Knoche (: 20:18

wish I looked like that, like, or my ass looked like that or my stuff, you know what I mean? I'm not really sure which one it is. ⁓ Yes.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 20:22

⁓ these are the good questions, Andrea. Is this golden shadow projection or is this

actual attraction? Those are two different things. yeah, being with that question, mean, because as a bi girl myself, I love to play with women, but a lot of the women I have played with over the course of my life have really felt more like you. They're like,

Andrea Knoche (: 20:30

Mmm.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 20:49

Yeah,

I think I want to try this, they're not like, they're not women who love women, right? And like, that's a totally different experience. we have to like, I love that you can name it and not just say like, sure. Like a lot of people just like assume that they, that if they have any interest, like sure, then I'd love it. But maybe, maybe there's another possibility too. Some of us are perfectly happy to perform bisexuality as long as it's happening in front of the male gaze.

Andrea Knoche (: 20:55

Yeah, yeah, it's more like an experiment.

Mm.

Interesting. What is the name of that? Is there a name for that? Is it that cuck holding or something? Is it something like that or?

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 21:20

So I mean, the number of threesomes I've had that where the woman is not. Well, mean,

so cuckolding, it could be cuckolding, that's generally, hang on, let's put a pin in that. This really like the experience of if I meet with a couple and they're like, yes, we want to play together. We want a threesome. And we're all in the hot tub. Like the number one way for that to get started is for the two girls to kiss.

Andrea Knoche (: 21:31

Yeah. Yeah.

Yep, yep, yep. Quite often a dare, I'm sure. Yeah, let's play truth or dare and then, sorry.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 21:48

Right? The first action to be the two girls to kiss, even if she's not bisexual. And like, and it's so interesting

to me because I'm like, no, I want to kiss you because you are the prettiest human in this hot tub. I like I'm into you. He's here also, but I'm into you. And often the women I it's really interesting because I'll notice over the over the course of an exchange, like some of them are also.

Andrea Knoche (: 22:00

In that time.

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 22:18

really here for that. But a lot of them are like, no, this is sort of the, this is the way that I'm, I'm performing. And it's actually for him. I'm performing because he has a fantasy of watching this or having the two of us play with him or right. Like, and it's not that this is bad, but I think when you know this about yourself, it's really good to name it. Like call it what is your hetero flexible, your hetero, but you're, you're willing to be flexible.

Andrea Knoche (: 22:20

Yes.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yep. Yep.

Heteroflexible.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 22:46

And you're not available.

Generally speaking, you're not gonna be available for the romantic part, for the falling in love part, for the like, because it's hard for me when a woman tells me she's bi, tells me she loves women and then is completely unavailable to have an emotional relationship, is completely unavailable to really like enjoy going down on a woman. Like, it's okay, you don't have to, but like some of the discovery is in finding out.

Andrea Knoche (: 22:52

Mmm.

And you're like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 23:14

⁓ some of this sometimes is just because my boyfriend said it would be super hot and I wanted to do it for him. Just tell me that. Girl, we can play. We can play. Like, it's fine. Like, sure. You're probably going to have to tell me why he earned that. Like, what did he do to get, like, because I have questions. Like, I some questions. Like, because, and it can all be on the table. This is where I think also, like, all of our relationships need to be more conscious. Like,

Andrea Knoche (: 23:20

Mmm. Yes. Yeah, it's a different vibe though.

This is good stuff. I love that.

Yes.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 23:42

When somebody approaches me, if they want to have a

one night stand, tell me that. Tell me that's what you're looking for so that we can come together and create something that's good for both of us. Don't tell me you're polyamorous when you're just out there having casual sex. That's fine. Casual sex is fine. That's not polyamory. It's okay. ⁓

Andrea Knoche (: 23:48

Yeah.

Mmm.

when you're not. Yeah. Yeah. Does it change the way you

go into it then? Are you like walls up then? I'm not, know we're not looking for something emotional. This is just for fun. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 24:06

Totally. Mm-hmm. yeah,

and this is, so these are lessons I learned. mean, when you accidentally fall in love with somebody and ruin like everything that you've known in your life, you learn that you need to go into a situation with your eyes wide open. And it still took me a long time because, so I didn't go, it wasn't a clean like move. I wound up living in a triad with like my two best friends for like years then. It was messy as all get out and.

Andrea Knoche (: 24:14

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

you

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. yeah, I want

to continue with the story. People are like, come on, I want to know what happened.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 24:36

All kinds of stuff.

But at the end of the day now, as I moved forward and I was dating people, I wanted to build multiple caring partnerships. I wanted to be emotionally available. I wanted to intertwine our lives. And most of the people I have dated have not really been available for that.

Andrea Knoche (: 24:52

Yeah.

Mmm.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 25:02

Like

really most, I would love to say it's different from that, but realistically, most of the people I've dated been like, we're exploring, we're still maintaining our monogamous presentation, but we're exploring or we're exploring our sexuality. And a lot of them are exploring to find out what could work for them. And that is all fair. Like I have no problem with that, but you gotta talk to people about it. You gotta be honest because

Andrea Knoche (: 25:11

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 25:31

like deciding to like really embrace a polyamorous lifestyle, like, right? Like, and I don't even think of it as a lifestyle. This is my orientation. It's not just something I do. It's not a lifestyle. It's me. That's me having to be willing to be vulnerable with multiple people. And that's going to expose you to a whole different range of things than just, we having threesomes? It was like two entirely different branches to go into.

Andrea Knoche (: 25:41

Yeah. Yeah. It's who you are. Yeah.

Mm.

Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 26:01

So we gotta get really honest with ourselves. It's totally okay

Andrea Knoche (: 26:01

Yeah. Interesting. Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 26:05

to just be, want casual sex with multiple people. Just own it. Just say that that's what you want. A lot of us wanna fuck around.

Andrea Knoche (: 26:08

Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's it. Own it.

Yep. Yeah. But we don't know how to say it, how to do it or anything, right? You just say it. Just say it. So, okay. So you got to the point where, so you and your ex-husband, well, you divorced and then you said you were just kind of on your own for a little bit. Yeah, you went straight to.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 26:14

Yeah, and the answer is just say it. Let's say it.

I wasn't, no, no, oh God. Oh, if only it was that healthy.

Oh, if only Andrea, when I say I did it badly, I don't, I am not mincing words here. It's so bad. No, I didn't know what was happening. I wanted to open up it within 45 days. It was really, really obvious that we could not open up. It was not healthy. Like we were immediately explosive. It was very bad, very explosive, really dangerous. So we got, we were done.

Andrea Knoche (: 26:36

It's so bad.

Yeah, that's quick. Yeah.

Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 26:58

and I didn't

have any place else to go. I moved in with my brother for like a hot minute, ⁓ but he, then he had to move. So I moved in with him for like literally just a hot minute and immediately. ⁓ this guy who I had fallen for, his wife was my literal best friend and she, so this sounds bad, right? That is bad. The tangled webs.

Andrea Knoche (: 27:02

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

⁓ the tangled webs we weave.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 27:24

But here's the thing, she was the one who said, well, just come live with us. Like, we want you, just come live with us. And it turned out they had been open for their whole relationship. So they already had a background in this and I didn't know. So they had background. So she was like, okay, so this is fine. Like, I love you, he loves you. Okay, let's do this. So we all moved in together. And like that...

Andrea Knoche (: 27:34

But you didn't know this? Interesting. What are the odds of that?

Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 27:52

That meant creating a blended family of seven children and five cats. That's too many cats, by the way. ⁓ Don't forget the 24 chickens. It's just...

Andrea Knoche (: 28:03

⁓

my god.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 28:07

It's so silly. It's honestly, it's such a silly story. It's 2009. Give me a break. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. when, like, I wish I had taken some time to be with myself and to understand what I wanted. Yeah, that would be great, but I didn't. This is the path I chose. I...

Andrea Knoche (: 28:12

yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 28:27

didn't even really discover the words and the frameworks of polyamory until I was well into my first year. Like I was like month 10, month 11 before I really started to know like, oh, oh, polyamory. And like what happens if you have multiple people and how do you, we talked about like being three adults trying to create a family together. It all sounds great, but then how do you share power? How do you tangle with the couple's privilege of like,

Andrea Knoche (: 28:48

Yeah. Wow.

Yeah, great question.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 28:57

They already had ways that they do things. do I have one vote and they each have one vote? And then does their marriage also get its own separate vote? Because that's often what winds up happening. The marriage has its own entity. And so the marriage is operating as this overriding vote for everything that goes on. We have to bring a lot of conscious attention to this. So.

Andrea Knoche (: 28:59

Yeah.

Yeah.

⁓

Yeah.

wow. Right.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 29:23

There are just so many things that I did not know to look at. So I was, like I said, I was month 10 when I was standing in our shared kitchen. And after months of talking about equality and egalitarianism and how we're all coming together, I was told, well, yeah, but I mean, you're the secondary partner. I was like, what?

Andrea Knoche (: 29:26

Yeah.

Mm.

Mm.

What?

Woof.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 29:50

I

did not know that. I did not know that. And for anybody listening who's thinking, well, it's obvious they were married and you weren't. Well, but how many conversations do you have to have with people who are talking about like, but we've already been open and we know how to do this. it was, I didn't understand that there were questions I needed to ask, like, how will that manifest? How are we going to do this egalitarian thing?

Andrea Knoche (: 29:53

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 30:17

Who gets a stay in who sleeps in what bed? Who gets to decide which house we decide to move into? Who decides on which bedtime routine we use with the kids? How do we decide? So many questions. And so this is why when people talk about ethical non-monogamy and they think it's just about threesomes, I'm like, no, it's about what kind of life are you going to build in the future?

Andrea Knoche (: 30:17

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Right?

Yeah, so many questions.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 30:48

were bringing with us this baggage from before, right? And I was coming here like, so out, fresh out of a divorce and with my kids and they're coming in with their kids. And it turns out in a sexless marriage that I did not know was a sexless marriage.

Andrea Knoche (: 30:50

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

my gosh, that's huge. Yes, yes.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 31:07

Right? So now the plot thickens, right? Six years plus

of sexlessness. So I walk into this over six years and this is, it's just.

Andrea Knoche (: 31:14

See you.

my gosh.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 31:24

When I think back to those people, all of us, all of us involved in that, think we didn't know what we were doing. We each were trying to educate ourselves, but there were almost no books. We had the ethical slut, which isn't really a book about polyamory. That's a book about like dating ethically multiple people and building multiple relationships. Yes, but not like we were just still in the dark ages of actual.

Andrea Knoche (: 31:27

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 31:52

conversations about this not because people hadn't been doing it people have been non-monogamous since Neanderthal 8 like we like we did not invent this way people did not invent this in the 60s we just but we hadn't been writing things down and like Mono normativity is everywhere. So We've all just been kind of operating under these mono norms that then present this idea that somehow

Andrea Knoche (: 31:56

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 32:21

even as we moved into a three person structure, we were still operating on mono norms. We hadn't actually made the paradigm shift to, we're going to have to rewrite the baseline understanding of power structures in this relationship. And if you think your relationships don't have power structures in them, let me point to you some information you may want to look at because it's just at work. It's just there.

Andrea Knoche (: 32:29

Wow.

Mmm.

Mm.

guys.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 32:50

So we had so much to unpack and I just feel so much compassion for the versions of us who were with such naivete just walked right into the fire and said, this will be fun. It'll be fine.

Andrea Knoche (: 32:55

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. ⁓ Yes.

Did you feel misled at the time at all? were you like, was there any anger? You were frustrated or was it like, well, we're all kind of well, but they really weren't right because they were already being open. So they probably had more knowledge than you did at the time.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 33:12

Yeah!

Yeah, it-

It's so confusing because like the version of me now can look back and say, ⁓ I didn't think to ask these questions and they didn't think to ask those questions. was there anger at the time? my gosh. Well, first off, the first seven months, my divorce and all the process and all the messiness of that was eating up all my emotional attention. So honestly, I was just happy that I had friends around me who were like, yeah, we're here. It's okay. Let's have dinner. And then things started to get messy and I started to realize like,

Andrea Knoche (: 33:37

Ugh. my gosh.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 33:50

⁓ I, I'm not in an equal relationship. And also I don't even have words to put into like, what is actually happening here. So I have anger, but mostly about the complete lack of knowledge. And then, I mean, we sought out therapeutic help from multiple people and none of the therapists, even the ones who said they could deal with non-monogamy, they just had no idea what they were doing. They didn't know. And to their credit.

Andrea Knoche (: 33:53

Mmm.

Mmm.

No one could.

Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 34:19

It's not like we get training in this. even now, like it's not in standard therapy training. By the way, most of standard therapy training doesn't even, it barely scratches relationships, let alone complex relationships. So they didn't know what to do with us. So they were, there was so much bias entering the therapeutic room that I'm like, well, wait, we didn't know what to ask. Our therapists didn't know what to ask. And we didn't have, again, the baseline skills.

Andrea Knoche (: 34:22

Right. No, no, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 34:48

Like, so in all of that, well, I didn't have the baseline skills in my monogamous marriage. Where did I think I was going to magically get them? So I started consuming relationship books and therapist texts and like everything I could get my hands on. I just started like, nomming my way through this stuff to try to get better at it. But that's years. It took years. So yeah, there was lots of anger along the way, but also like,

Andrea Knoche (: 34:49

Wow.

⁓ yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 35:17

We didn't know what the hell we were doing. It's the one thing I would ask. It's so silly. It's so silly. And I tell it and I'm like, guys, it does not have to go this way. It does not. The thing that everybody needs to know is you don't know what you don't know. The number one thing couples who are going to open tell me is, it's okay. We're really good communicators. Like, cool. You're great communicators about what you know to communicate about.

Andrea Knoche (: 35:19

Mm.

So wow, story.

Yeah.

Right, right.

Right.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 35:46

We're about to enter brand new territory. We don't, you don't know what's going to come up from here.

Andrea Knoche (: 35:48

Yeah.

And everything

is different, every relationship is different when you enter into it.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 35:56

And now you're going to have multiple

relationships acting on you at the same time. And that brings up a whole other set of troubles.

Andrea Knoche (: 36:04

my gosh. So how soon after you got with them, was it like that you guys were engaging in sexual activity together? And were they then, because you said it was like six years of non-sex, were they together or was it all on you?

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 36:16

Yes. No,

no. So it was, it was, it was all very private. I didn't, I still didn't know that they weren't having sex. I would sleep in the same bed with her, but like she didn't appear to be receptive to anything. So we just snuggled a lot. We just snuggled and it was fine. Like, and I didn't sleep in the same bed with her all the time. was just, just once in a while because, because they were maintaining a lot of their coupled life. so

Andrea Knoche (: 36:27

⁓ yeah.

Hmm. She just slept. Okay. Okay.

Yeah.

yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 36:45

and that we

all had little kids. So we weren't having like that raucous, that's not what was happening. So like he and I would have our sexual adventures, like we would like fit them into moments around the margins of life. But honestly, most of life was just trying to keep up with the rest of life. And meanwhile, you know, it was honestly, was six, it was six months to the day.

Andrea Knoche (: 36:51

Yeah.

Yeah.

Life, a lot of kids, a of cats.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 37:14

from when I, no, six, yeah, six months after I fell for him when we first had sex. It was a long time. Like I didn't take any action because I didn't, like, I didn't know what I was doing. I had feelings. didn't, I didn't say to my husband or to anyone, like, I have to have sex with this person. I said, I have feelings and those feelings did not go away. And the sexual chemistry just grew more and more. So.

Andrea Knoche (: 37:20

Mmm.

Yeah!

Right.

Hmm, indeed.

Yeah, and did he have feelings, did you know that he had feelings for you at that time or did he not until closer to the sex?

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 37:51

It was,

no, it was really, really fast. We exchanged I love yous. ⁓ my God. So, yeah, so fast. So fast, so fast. And I look back and I'm like, ⁓ and now I've watched him, I've watched him in relationship, I've watched him relate to lots of other people. And I'm like, that was weird. That was weird for his whole life. Like he doesn't do that.

Andrea Knoche (: 37:55

Yeah, you just tell.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Interesting.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 38:20

He doesn't just fall for people. doesn't.

But if you were to ask Ken now, and I can say this because he's on our podcast together. He talks about this all the time. He loved me already. He loved me the way. You know when we say love is action? He loved me. He was a caring, loving friend. He was a great person in my life. He was.

Andrea Knoche (: 38:25

Yeah.

Yes, yes.

Mm-hmm. Has he knew you? Mm-hmm.

Yeah

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 38:50

You know, yeah, it was, it's so hard to look back on and not think it was sort of like destined to happen, but also like, I don't know. It's such a weird story. It's such a weird story. I, when people tell me like, I have to tell you my story because it's super strange. like, don't worry. It's fine. It's, fine. Cause I've, I've heard a lot of very strange stories. Yeah.

Andrea Knoche (: 38:53

Cool.

Yeah. How did it happen?

You're like, mm-mm.

Yes.

So, okay, then to catch us up, for the listeners, so you are now married to this man. What happened to the woman, the wife? Where did she go?

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 39:24

I am.

Yeah.

Yeah, a little under three years, we stayed all together and they, it started crumbling. It started crumbling at probably about the 15, 16 month mark. Things just started crumbling. just, I look back and I'm like, ⁓ we still couldn't really make agreements that felt good to everybody. We didn't, we still weren't having the conversations that really needed to be had about figuring out.

Andrea Knoche (: 39:33

Okay.

Mm-hmm

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 39:56

who does what and how we live together. And eventually she moved out. She just, she moved out. We came home one night and she was like, yeah, I'm out of here. I'm done. And it was like...

Andrea Knoche (: 40:06

Mmm.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 40:11

The breakup, it's not like you couldn't see it coming. Like, yeah, it was. And then I didn't know what was going to happen. ⁓ She left in April and months started ticking by and Ken and I stayed in separate bedrooms because we already had separate bedrooms and I didn't know what was going to happen. And I started to get more and more nervous, more and more nervous because I was just all, I just wanted, I wanted a life with him.

Andrea Knoche (: 40:15

Yeah.

Yeah.

We-

Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 40:42

And I, ⁓ I just wasn't, I wasn't done. didn't know exactly what it was that I wanted or needed, but, ⁓ yeah, we were, I was dating. He, he wasn't, he's a lazy dater. I say that with love. I say it with love, but he, he is, he's a, he's a lazy. No, no. no. When he dates you, here's why. When he dates you, he's an amazing dater. So he, like, he doesn't, he doesn't like.

Andrea Knoche (: 40:49

Yeah. Were you guys dating other people at the time? Okay.

He's the one we steer clear of, folks.

⁓

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 41:12

He doesn't dip his toe in the market very often, because he's all in when he's in. He's so in, and he's so freaking emotionally available. But he just didn't really care. He was just living life. And I was dating other people, because now I'm monogamy. But I just kept falling more and more in love with him. And eventually, I sort of...

Andrea Knoche (: 41:14

Yeah. Okay, gotcha.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 41:42

had a moment where I realized that I was dying because I couldn't, there was one word that we couldn't say to each other and that word was marriage. Like we could not talk about marriage. We couldn't talk about it. was like, we'd both kind of blamed all of our problems on marriage. Maybe this is familiar to some listeners, right? Like when a marriage goes bad, you can start to blame the institution of marriage versus how you did marriage. We both did that. And...

Andrea Knoche (: 41:52

⁓ yeah.

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 42:10

Yeah, we eventually, we were lying in bed one day and I knew I needed to say this and it was painful because I figured that this would be the end. I knew I needed to say like, here's the thing, I think I want to be married to you. But I, because of everything that we'd been through, I was 100 % sure that he would say, okay, I hear you, I love you.

Andrea Knoche (: 42:25

Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 42:38

and we got to figure out how to disentangle this stuff, because that just doesn't work for me. And instead, he instantly proposed.

Andrea Knoche (: 42:50

So he was feeling the same.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 42:53

turned out. Yeah, it's so goofy. It's so goofy. And yeah, and so now I mean, God, that's almost 13 years in the rear view mirror now. ⁓ That's 14 years to the proposal. ⁓ Yeah. And, you know, I

Andrea Knoche (: 42:54

⁓ I love it though.

my gosh. 14 years.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 43:13

getting married is was it was it was like scary, right? It was scary to think about. It was scary, but it was also practical, right? Marriage is rewarded in the society. It's rewarded financially. It's it was very scary to be parenting together and not have access to each other in that way. And we were we were parenting these seven children together. And ⁓ so the marriage was not just a romantic decision, but also a strategic one, which I think, you know,

Andrea Knoche (: 43:18

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, very much.

Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 43:43

We all need to enter into our marriages understanding these are legal contracts first and foremost. It was very different to enter into it. Yeah, like we wrote very specific vows that included our non-monogamy, included our polyamory and signed a very, very explicit contract with each other talking about how we would deescalate. And we continue to this day every three years, we have a full resigning. If we're not both in, then we just will get divorced because...

Andrea Knoche (: 43:46

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We tend to forget that.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 44:13

I don't believe in the like forever, just like on autopilot. It just doesn't, it doesn't feel good to me. So we do a re-upping every day for years. We did it last year. It was good. It was good.

Andrea Knoche (: 44:14

Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that though. Yeah. It

was good. You both decided you're good. You're good. Yeah. Okay.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 44:28

We did. Yeah, we were both in. We were both in. It was good.

It's not easy, right, to know like, oh, we're going to really have this conversation about ending things. OK. Yeah. But we do.

Andrea Knoche (: 44:37

Yeah, yeah. So now

you both, so you're married, but you both date outside of your marriage. so, and I know we talked about this before, I was very intrigued by like, what happens when he goes out on a date? What do you do? And you had all of these things, and I'm gonna just tell the listeners to go back and listen to that episode, because it's fascinating. ⁓ But so how is it now, has anything changed as you've grown these 13, 14 years together? Does it feel differently when he goes out on a date than it did?

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 44:44

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Andrea Knoche (: 45:08

Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 45:08

Oh, I mean, my primary academic research is in jealousy. And the reason it's in jealousy is because I'm a very jealous person. I experience a lot of jealousy. That said, like when I think back to, you know, seven or eight years ago, even, or 10 years ago, I mean, I would have panic attacks when he was out. I was still really struggling. I was dealing with it. We were like, we were working with it, but it was still a

Andrea Knoche (: 45:12

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mmm. Mmm.

Yeah.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 45:35

big emotional event and now he goes out

Andrea Knoche (: 45:36

Hard.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 45:38

and I'm like, have fun babe, like bring me back a story if she'll let me tell me a story, bring me back a story. He's also bi, so he's a man too. Although, know, all the bi guys, oh, it's so hard for them. It's so hard for them. But it's, how it's changed for me is primarily that we have so many

Andrea Knoche (: 45:40

Yeah!

Okay, yeah.

⁓

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 46:05

in-depth conversations. And if you've listened to Playing With Fire, we've been producing episodes now since 2020. So here we are in our sixth year of episodes and you can hear us growing up together, right? Like you can hear us growing our emotional capacity to sit with discomfort, growing our ability to regulate through the challenges. it's just not the same as when I still felt like a child in a grownup's body.

Andrea Knoche (: 46:07

Mmm.

Wow, congrats.

Yes, amazing.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 46:34

trying to just handle and be cool with everything. It's just totally different. He's also done some really deep work with me around jealousy and around like eroticizing my jealousy to help me work with it. We also have really, really clear parting and reentry plans. We have really clear time when we spend time apart so that we don't lose the ability to experience each other as separate and to...

Andrea Knoche (: 46:34

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Joli Hamilton (: 47:02

Because it's easy to get super enmeshed. So there are all these things that the longer you're together, the more you can over enmesh without even realizing it. And it takes work to undo that. So yeah, it's in day-to-day effort.

Andrea Knoche (: 47:02

Interesting. Yeah.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. Wow. And is it, do you have to have conversations? Like if you go out on dates with other people, if it wants to move to the next level of being intimate together, do you have to clear that with each other first or?