Episode 142: Catherine's Story- "My Marriage Fell Apart"

Transcript

Speaker1: This podcast contains explicit language and content and is for mature audiences only. Hey, you teenagers out there. If you're under 18, this show is more for your parents. So now that you have that mental picture stuck in your head, put some music on and get back to doing your homework. We are a longtime married couple who's decided to chronicle our personal adventures and share our sex positive discussions as we navigate our way through the swinging lifestyle. Care to join us? Hello, everyone. I'm Mr. Jones. And I'm Mrs. Jones. And we want to welcome you to episode 142 of the We Got a Thing podcast. This is a little bit of a different episode tonight. Yes. It's an origin story of sorts. Or, as Catherine called it, what's happened story. Yes, yes. A lot of you know Catherine from episode 41 on Jealousy, episode 54 on Drama and the Lifestyle, and episode 117 when we talked about the lifestyle as an adult activity. And we've had a collaboration with Catherine and Expansive Connection for quite some time now. That's right. Well, since the beginning. Since the beginning. We knew Catherine before Expansive Connection. Yeah, there's, I guess our philosophy on our podcast is we only talk about things we experience. Yes. And so these origin stories give you a chance to hear things that have happened to other couples, how they've gotten into the lifestyle, some of the ups and downs and everything else that comes along with this. And a few years ago, Catherine had a little bit of a bumpy ride. and she reached out to us not too long ago and asked us if she could tell her story on our podcast. And she did it for a couple of reasons. First of all, it's a real story. It's a realistic story. We haven't experienced this. We know a few people have had, but it's really difficult to expect somebody whose marriage has fallen apart to want to publicly come on and talk. about that. Right. Right. But I mean, the fact of the matter is that the divorce rate in the United States is, you know, almost 50%. And I don't think people that engage in the lifestyle are immune to that. No, they're not. But this was a way for Catherine to start to process it. Number one is to, you know, tell more people about it. And also, she just, you know, correctly believed that it's going to help others, because this is one of the things a lot of people, including us, talk about before you make a decision to try non-monogamy, and that is, is it going to end our relationship? Right. We're going to go, we're going to play with fire and see how it turns out. Right, right. So her story is rather emotional, but she's very brave and courageous, and we are very touched that she chose us and trusted us with her story. So before we get to that, though, there's a couple things that we want to talk about keeping up with the Joneses. Yes. We just had our 2026 travel calendar out tonight before we went to dinner. I know. Yeah. And we're not done. So it's sitting behind you. Yeah. As soon as we finish this little recording here, we're going to get back to the calendar. And one of the things that's on our calendar for early in 2021, is a virgin cruise. Yes. With the devious dragonfly. Cheryl is a member of our community. And we went on this cruise last year and had a blast. So we're going to go back. Yes, we are. That's out of Miami. And if you are interested and possibly, first of all, if you're already on this cruise. Yay. We can't wait to meet you if we haven't already met you. And if you're thinking about cruising virgin, highly recommend. We've talked about that a couple of times already. Looking forward to that. But if you are interested in possibly tagging along with us, if you'll email me, mrjones at wegotathing.com or go to our website and go through the contact us section and send me a message and I'd be glad to send you some details. Yes, because this is one of our events where you really do need to be part of our group because Cheryl is meticulous in organizing group events and we need exact because actually the crew on Virgin is very open to working with groups and she has some really fun stuff planned for us. Yes. Well, last year was fun and it was the first time. Yeah. So we're really looking forward. They're on a cruise right now, aren't they? Yes, they are. They're on a Halloween cruise. I saw some crazy costumes. Yeah. Also in a few weeks, we are going to be back to our annual November trip at Desire Pearl the 15th through the 22nd. And it's full, but there have been a few cancellations recently. Most of the cancellations occur when that final payment is due, but still may be able to get a room at the last minute if you're interested in joining us. Yeah, it usually works out. You just have to kind of, you have to call sometimes. Right. But for next year, for those of you who have been emailing me in the past week, it's now time to book for November 14th to 21st of 2021. There's plenty of room now, a year ahead of time. This is our seventh year? We started in 2017. This is our eighth. So this is our eighth year, yes. So if you want to be with us in year number nine, that's going to be the 14th of the 21st of November at Desire Pearl. And also we are going to sponsor a trip to Riviera Maya next June 20th through the 27th. these dates on our website and also you will find a link to book your stay at Desire next year in June or November. Well, you can book it anytime. Yes. But that's information on our website as well. Most importantly, we have another new offering in our community. Well, just outside of our community. We have, we are making an effort to to help single guys. Because single guys, sometimes they get a bad rap, and sometimes it's hard to find a single guy. So we have created a single guy-only space. And in defense of single guys, I think sometimes they have a hard time figuring out how to get started and where they need to go and how they need to go about reaching out to find quality couples to hook up with if that's what they're after. Right. So you're kind of taking them under your wing. I am. I am. So we've created a space and I'm going to tell you more about it. First of all, inside of this space, it's not our community. It's separated from our community. It's only the single guys coming in here. We have a couple of the mini courses that Mrs. Jones and I put together a few years ago. One is how to be a successful single guy in the lifestyle. And the other one is about Couples finding single guys in the lifestyle, but they're both going to be helpful if you're a single guy. We also have available in there the podcast that we recorded with our single guy, Tony, and we have an audio recording of a panel discussion that we did with three of the single guys who are in our community with various levels of experience. Yes. And we think hearing, you know, that hearing them talk about their their experience in the lifestyle is going to be helpful a helpful resource as well then you're also going to find other resources podcast links to other podcasters who have done shows on single guys we're putting all this together in one space along with a chat thread so when you come into this space everybody who joins it every single guy who joins it will be able to chat with all the other single guys in there so hopefully it's going to become a resource for those who are interested. And then, you know, if in the future you decide you want to delve into our community, then, you know, there's an opportunity to do that as well. And we are, I mean, this is, we're going to charge money, but it's, look, it's $5. We don't want it to be like Reddit or Twitter and have no entry fee because, you know, we do want to, we have found that when we charge, even if it's a little amount of money, when somebody has to share their their credit card and their email address, we get more people who are serious about, you know, helping out. That is available on our website. You'll find the link under the community tab for single guy space. It's only $5. And everything that we talked about, you'll have access to for unlimited period of time. All right. Well, Lynn, we're going to get out of the way and let you all listen to Catherine tell her story of how through her journey, her marriage had ended, and everything that she went through on that. And we hope, and Catherine hopes, that you all will find it helpful as you all prepare or continue on into Mount Monogamy. All right, well, welcome back to segment two and the beginning of our conversation with Catherine from Expansive Connection. Or the continuation of our conversation with Catherine from Expansive Connection. Except this time you might hear Catherine from a different point of view. And normally what we do, Catherine, here is we call these episodes origin stories because normally we're talking to people about how they got into the lifestyle and how it's been going for them and what their thing is. But you've been on before, and you've sort of done that already. So why don't you just give us a brief history on where people might find your origin story, and then we're going to get into what you're calling today, I think, What Happened story, your What Happened story. Yes, yes. So we don't have to be repetitive. I, of course, started with you all on episode way back in episode number 41 about and gave a little bit of background about me and my profession. And then I did an episode number 57 with Normalizing Non-Monogamy with Ray, my husband, and he joined me for that one. And we talked about our adventures and what it was like to be married to a therapist and the lifestyle. And that was pretty fun. And then there's another episode that I was on that I thought people might want to hear after they hear this story. And that was with and that was about coming out to your kids because we did tell our daughter about our open marriage. So those are some reference points if people are interested in hearing a little bit more. But yes, when you suggested that I come on for an origin story, I was like, oh, this is more of a what happened story. And so we just landed on that name. And I just want to start because this is something I think is always smart to do is just own that I am feeling so nervous and scared to tell this story. And I'm sure I can already feel it. There are probably going to be some emotions that come up for it. Vulnerability is beautiful though, right? It is. And it's what got us together, right? Because I thanked you for being vulnerable. Yes. Yeah, that's right. I don't know if you remember, but you said earlier when we were trying to convince you, quote unquote, to come on our podcast and start your own Expansive Connection. You were a little bit reluctant then. We maybe had to twist your arm. But this time, we weren't twisting your arm. But we're happy that you've decided to share that with us. We've had a great relationship with you over the years. And yeah, I'm a little bit nervous too. Because Catherine is Catherine. I mean, you have this reputation and this persona and the certifications. Yes. And while I've always lived my life and built my business on that authenticity and vulnerability, it is a little different to do it with my therapist or coach hat on. And this episode, we decided that I was taking that off. But I think that the fear is mostly about, because I have told this story to people one one-on-one. And it's one thing to tell it to people one-on-one and see their faces and have their empathy and their love and their support. And it's so different to put it out into the airwaves and all the things that people may think and say and that's for them to do. But I know because I've shared this enough that what happened to me makes me the poster child of sorts for what most people's biggest fear about the lifestyle and and non-monogamy is about which is my marriage fell apart and I actually right before I got on this was writing the final back and forth about my divorce settlement so I'm not divorced yet but it is in the final stages so we're gonna we're gonna talk about this from my personal story and then come back and I'll put my coach hat on in November and we can talk about it from what I've learned and how I'm using it to help clients but I'm gonna do my best to just stay out And, you know, I'm sure one of the choices that you could have made, Catherine, was to just sweep it under the rug and continue your business and, you know, continue on. So maybe you can share with us why are you telling yourself? Why are you putting yourself through this? Good question. I've thought that many times in the last two months as I've been preparing for this. And I've been just kind of dancing around it in the public eye now for about three years. This has been going on. And like I say, I've never, I've always told people the truth in person, but I haven't announced it on Instagram or announced it on a podcast or anything. But it's time now. I mean, as I said, I'm committed to authenticity and transparency. I built my business on by saying I'm willing to be open about my journey and the goods and the good and the bad of it. I hope you can learn from the things that I've done well and that I've not done well. I've gathered coaches and managers and admin assistants who are all in the lifestyle, non-monogamy. So it just doesn't feel authentic to not tell you what happened story. It just feels like I need to do that. And then, of course, I hope that, well, and, you know, I waited a while because I think it's, as Brene Brown, as you know, she's my best friend. she just doesn't know me yet she always she always says that um if you're going to be teaching you need to teach from your scars not your wounds and i just i think that's such a lovely lovely way to do that and i can't say that this is an old scar yet as you heard the tears early um it's it's a little fresh sometimes it still aches like a wound more than a scar but i believe that i'm on the other side of what happened enough that i can i have some perspective I see it a little differently than I did six months ago, 18 months ago, certainly three years ago. And so I hope that in sharing this now, I can, I hope that I can inspire the listeners and your community members to look inward, to look at their relationships, to ask what they can learn from it. I will say, as I was preparing for this and chatting with some friends, some clients that are close to me that have known this and your thoughts on coming out, my coming out story or what happened story. One client said, who's in your community, she said, you know, when you told me, I just couldn't believe it. And I just thought, well, you know, if Catherine can't do it, then certainly I can't do it. And so for her, she sort of judged non-monogamy harshly. She's like, well, it must be the worst thing ever if Catherine can't do it. So I should just not do it. And then I think other people might want to lean on judging me harshly or the choices I made harshly. And that's certainly their prerogative. I think a lot of times we do that because we want to insulate ourselves, like it's contagious or something. And so we separate, we put a lot of separation between us and them and lean into that illusion of control that we, that we get with judgment. So it's like, Well, if Catherine did X, Y, and Z, that was wrong, I won't do X, Y, and Z, so therefore this can't happen to me and will be okay. Or as my client did, well, non-monogamy must be this big, bad, horrible thing, and so I shouldn't do it. And I just want to say, I'm going to ask your listeners to, instead of going to that fear and anxiety, that judgment, the blame, to just try to be curious as we talk through this. and use it. See if you can use it to address some of the things that are scary, but from a curious and calm and creative place in your brain. So as you were sharing this personally with individuals and with couples, did it get easier the more that you shared it? Or was it more difficult? the more that you shared it? Gosh, that's a good question. I think at the beginning, this is going to sound weird. At the beginning, it was almost easier because it was so shocking and traumatic and overwhelming and right at the surface that it was almost like I couldn't not. I mean, I would log on to Zoom and I would still have tears coming down my face. And I'd be like, okay, so what's up with you guys? And they're like, no. Wait a minute. And so it just would kind of pop out of me. And then as the further it went and the more layers and the more some of the healing I would do or then I would find out another thing that hurt, it got more complicated to tell the story, like what to include and what not to include. And in writing this, I mean, I wrote this almost like a book to prepare so that I could get all my thoughts out. It helped me. I feel like now it might be easier because I've got a little more organized but it's also I had to come to terms with when you tell a story like this I think it's important to put the disclaimer about it's like a gin hat maker just wrote this wonderful memoir about her marriage falling apart it's called Awake and if you like memoirs I highly recommend you listen to it because she reads it she has other people speak like her dad will read the text message that he sent her in his actual voice it's just That's wonderful. But she starts the memoir with this disclaimer that she says in any narrative, the story belongs to the storyteller. And that is really true. And I think there were times where I was like trying to tell the story from too many points of view and trying to be really diplomatic or whatever. And here's the deal. This is my version. This is my experience based on what I remember. It's what I believe is important to share. I'm sure that that Ray and his girlfriend who he is now with would see it differently and I'm sure they would tell it differently but this is my version of what I felt and what I thought so I it's it's getting easier the more I the more I work with the story and understanding it but did it feel different the first time the words came out of your mouth and and you told somebody what you've already decided did it you know because I think sometimes when we hear it out loud it's a little bit jarring to ourselves oh absolutely I mean, especially at the beginning, every time I had to say it, it was like, my brain would, it felt like my brain would just shake. Like, that can't be true. That's not us. That's not him. This can't be true. And I mean, you know, in the stages of grief, there's, there's a, one of the stages is denial. And I think sometimes people think that's like an active choice, this denial, but the way I experienced denial was more like, that can't be. This doesn't line up with the 20 years I knew with this person. This can't be. this doesn't line up with the marriage that I thought I was in. So yeah, it was very weird to say it. And it was hard because sometimes I would say it and I would get a lot of odd judgments about what happened or the pain that I experienced even. And I think maybe that came from the complexity of our marriage. So a lot of my monogamous friends and family I could see them struggling to understand how I could feel betrayed because I was in an open marriage. There was some sense of like, well, what did you expect? Or you got what you deserved. I mean, my own father said, and I quote, what did you expect would happen when you let your husband be with another woman? Like, wow, thanks, dad. Thanks for the faith that I might be able to, anyway. And so a lot of times those sentiments and those judgments made it even more painful. where I think if we just had a traditional marriage and he had cheated on me, it's like everybody kind of knows that script and goes straight into the villain and the victim and the whatever. And I think it was really odd. It was like I was hurting so badly and I had to, I felt like I had to justify why it hurt. Yeah. This story does lend itself to villains and victims. I mean, and there are honestly, there are some times where those simple categories soothe me. There are times where I just, think of him as a villain and her. And that just feels real good. Thank you very much. But, you know, I mean, any story about humans, we don't fit into meet little categories. And then you add the complexity of ethical non-monogamy. I mean, we don't fit into that simplicity. And my story certainly does not. And so as I tell this, I really have challenged myself to look and see where I might be sliding into victimhood. or soothing myself with that, and really trying to challenge myself not to do that. And I don't need that pity as a victim, right? And I don't need for people to hate Ray as a villain. But, you know, I, again, I ask that people watch for their tendency to judge and blame and just be, just, I guess, do that hard thing of staying in the limbo of there isn't a clear cut answer. And then finally, I just want to ask for kindness and people to be careful with their feedback because it it is it is a story i'm living and it is hard so okay so okay this is this is reflecting back so let's put you back um where you want to pick up this story because we uh we've known you for a long time and we've known ray for a long time and he accompanied you to a lot of our events and you know uh when you got up to present, you know, he was there. His name was on the tip of your tongue. And that's what everybody saw. So take us to the point at which you want to start, you know, telling what happened. So the lead up. I guess, you know, some people asked, challenged me with questions. And, you know, do you think that this is was the, you know, swinging was the cause of your divorce or whatever, you know, all these kinds of questions. And I do want to say that some of the ways that I think about this would be like the way I would have answered it before all of this happened. And then there would be the answer I would have now that I have the perspective that I have. So I guess, you know, just kind of the life that we when we got together and the way we built our life would be I'll just do just really quickly, because I don't even know how much we talked about that in our more origin story, is that we met really young. We met when we were 19. We were friends for three years. And then it turned, and we got married. And we both had a lot of hesitancy about getting together so early. We both had visions of getting married in our 30s and, you know, going and traveling Europe and doing different jobs and being free agents. And we really were hesitant about settling down so young. We were 22 when we started to be romantic and 25 when we got married. But we both felt strongly that we could build a good life together. I used to say like I'm glad that the wise 22 year old in me didn't let him pass me by and I still feel that way because we did build a beautiful life we had a lot of kind of like why did I have to meet you now kind of energy which is an important piece for I think why swinging was was attractive to us but we did we built a beautiful life together we had businesses together we had great community we had we have a daughter and we our family unit was So fun, that's probably the thing I miss the most is three of us. We just have a beautiful family. And so we did it well. And I'm glad we did, even if it was we were a little young. So then we got into into swinging. We were we've been married about 10 years. And so when people ask, like, well, why did you do that? The answer I probably would have given then would be that we fell into it, as you've heard on as I've told you before. And then we just followed the adventure. And it was kind of fun to live out some wild 20s vibes that we lost because we got together so young. But to be able to do it with our best friend and always know we could come back to each other. And I do think, and I think back then I would have said, and I agree now, that it improved our relationship, the exploration, the sexuality, the communication. And the way I guess I would say now, I would say all of that is true. But I can see now that I think swinging gave us an opportunity to do something we were needing to do, which was to challenge ourselves to be more autonomous and know ourselves more as individuals. We grew up in each other's shadow. We grew up intertwined around each other because we were so young. And I think there was part of us that wanted and needed to know that we were our own people. And then I think it's very heady and exciting when you're trying to, when you become a little more which I think swinging can do and then other people are attracted to that version you know it's like oh wow somebody thinks I'm great this is this is nice I think that Ray and I had I know and we still do we had great partner energy like we could nail any project that came our way we were great friends we really truly wanted each other to be happy so we were great wingmen for each other but I would say that our sexual and romantic connection probably wasn't as passionate as it had been with past partners. It probably wasn't, that wasn't as strong a part of our relationship as business partners and friends. It was still there for sure, but it wasn't the top, right? But I also, I knew that going in that he wasn't the person I'd had the strongest passion with. But in my youth, I associated that high passion with the volatility with the partners I'd had where it was really big highs and really big lows. And I was like, I don't think I think I want that as a life partner or to build a family with. And so then we were kind of like, well, wow, we can have that crazy passion by going out and doing these sexy adventures and with other people, but we still get to have the stability of our partnership and the life that we have. So we were like, damn, like we found the holy grail. This is like all of it, right? Everything was great. Now, was this something that the cracks when the When the cracks started to form, was it all at once or did it happen gradually? No. We moved from swinging into more of a poly situation. Esther Perel talks about that we often have mini marriages in a marriage. I really have challenged myself to think about that. I don't believe that our marriage failed overall. I think that the last iteration we were and failed. I think our early marriage, building a life and practicing being grownups together was freaking successful as can be. Like we built a great life. Our marriage to bring in a sweet, our sweet daughter and raise her, we nailed it. She's amazing with such a great family. I think that our marriage of learning to be more autonomous and getting into swinging was very successful. The marriage that was not is when we moved into Polly, which I'll explain a little bit more about. So then people are like, well, why did you go to Polly? I think that I was craving more intimacy that into me see with with more people, like not just, let's go have sex. And let's be good friends. Like I was wanting a more depth. Can I ask you and we it's fresh in my mind, because we just recorded with the multi Amory podcast folks and They were saying that the optimal situation is that you're able to share with your partner that you may be polyamorous before there is somebody else in your life. So is this what's happening here? You both individually are discovering this? Or was it a friendship that turned into more that led to the idea of polyamory? Good question. I don't know that I would have said I am polyamorous and I am looking for a polyamorous partner. But before I met anyone, I did start to crave that intimacy. So I have really deep relationships with my female platonic friends. And we really get into it. We really see into each other. And I love that. And I remember saying, like, I also really love masculine energy. And I would love to explore some intimacy, intimacy, some depth with masculine energy. I was very open with Ray about that. got no point where we had so many fun sexy adventures in the lifestyle and we had it was really fun but i think we were both getting a little bit i don't know if bored is quite the right word or it just wasn't lighting us up quite the way it had so i think we were craving it i definitely led that i don't know if it was if i feel things sooner if i spoke up sooner if maybe i thought that and he just went along with it i'm not really sure to be honest with you um and But Ray said, I fully support you doing that. I think this is great. There was a friend of ours that we thought that's kind of where it would go. He and I had been friends. And when I told him that we had an open marriage and he and I had attraction. And so Ray and I were both like, oh, I bet that might happen with this person. And it didn't. And I looked a little around at the single guys and the lifestyle and stuff. And it was just like cringe. And so I got brave for about 20 minutes and put myself on a traditional dating app called Bumble. Literally for 20 minutes because they have a full face requirement. So I just ignored that. And I put a picture of my back, like taking off a shirt, all sexy. That lasted for about 10 minutes. And then they locked my account. And then I put a picture of me from afar with sunglasses and fuzzied the face. And that gave me another 10 minutes. Then they locked me down. I was like, okay, I'm not doing this. I live in a small community and I'm seeing like divorced men that like that are my daughter's friends and dad and I'm like I got to get off of this but in that 20 minutes I met my now boyfriend Ryan and he was like what's E&M what are you talking about he had never heard of this before so I explained it and he was like so it was on your profile yes oh okay yeah yeah and I said we connected he's the only person I connected with and we're we're texting and I was like So I'm pretty nervous about this. This is the first time I've ever been on this kind of dating site. And he's like, well, if you're nervous, why don't you get off of this and come back when you're ready? And I was like, damn, I like that. He definitely told me what he thought. And when I've talked to him about it since, he was like, it's so surprising that I went out with you because I always have been an inherently jealous person. And so I'm so surprised that I gave this a try. And he's like, but I happen to be at a point in my life where what I've been doing in the dating scene was clearly not working. And I decided I was going to try something different. And I said, I'm going to try something different. And I changed my, he was like, I went online and I kind of changed my profile. And then you were one of the first people that popped up and it was sure different. So he's like, I guess I had to, he's like, I felt like I needed to do what I said I was going to do. And I talked some about that, I think in our adulting episode, a little bit about when I met Ryan and like that we fell really hard, really fast. And I really had to reckon with myself like whoa what am what am i willing to do here am i willing to get into this knowing that it that i'll have heartbreak i assumed the heartbreak would come from losing ryan because you know i was in it to win it forever and ever with ray not thinking it would be the other way but i you know we talked about that reckoning in that in that adult adulting episode if you remember how was ray you know okay you you met ryan um and shared all of this back with Ray at that point in time, he was still encouraging and everything was good. Oh, I mean, so encouraging and such a good sounding board. And our relationship got deeper at that point. I mean, I remember one time Ryan and I had a fight and I came home and I was not in my adult chair. I was snarky teenage Catherine, like pissed off. And Ray kind of started giggling. And I was like, why are you laughing? And he's like, I am so sorry. He's like, it's just that I've never seen adolescent Catherine that isn't mad at me. He's like, I am learning so much. He's like, watching how you are dealing with Ryan is helping me understand what happens in our fights because I'm not emotionally involved in it. Right. Which is really insightful. And yeah, I mean, and it was really challenging our codependencies and different ways that we had just always done things. He was, you know, such a great sounding board. He would comfort me when we were, when I was frustrated. He would encourage me when I was, you know, really happy. And yeah, I feel like it actually made us a lot stronger. So was he, Catherine, was Ray at this point in time also seeking out a similar sort of relationship? No, he really was excited about kind of being, going to parties and being a single guy. We called it his rhino phase because it's like a unicorn, but sounds more like a guy. And so we had play partners that he would play with by himself. He went online as a single guy and he met some couples and met a couple of women. And it was fun. I mean, he said it really challenged him to navigate it without me because, of course, I'm out in front, talkative and whatever. and also how many times he was in that scene because of my work, right? And so he's going out by himself with no connection. And he said that really challenged him. He said he really enjoyed the growth of it. And then he met his now girlfriend, we'll call her Laura, during that time, but it was a really slow build of a relationship with her. He met her with her husband at the time and they played some. And it was just, it was about a year before they got serious. And also during that time, Ryan lives in our same town. And so he really, he kind of slowly became part of our family. And we, when we'd been together about six months, we, Ray and I decided that we should tell our daughter because Ryan was around enough. We were, you know, she was 11. Like, I was just so scared that she was going to catch us or figure out that we were lying to her. And we'd always been so open and transparent with her. that it felt really weird. And again, there's a podcast about that, but that went really well. I remember after we told her, she came out and she watched Ray and Ryan and I talking one day outside for about 10 minutes, definitely like stink eyeing us, like what's happening here. And then she goes, y'all are boring. And she went back inside and I was like, that's the best answer we could get. If we are boring, she does not feel like there's anything that's scary or at risk here. So, yeah, so it was the beginning of it really. So you were dating, he was dating separately, and you were developing some serious feelings with Ryan. Yes. And, and Ryan pretty quickly was like, I don't mind at all sharing, obviously sharing you with your husband, like that was the known entity. But the first time that Ray and I went and met some swinging friends, with me. He's like, I have, I'm getting really strong feelings for you. And I just don't think I'm made for this. I just, and I would never ask you to change your life or whatever. And so we broke up and then I was like, well, I've done a lot of exploring sexually. And again, I was like, I was really wanting that intimacy. So I talked to Ray about it and I was like, how would you feel if I was just with you and Ryan? And he's like, well, would you only want me to be with you? And I'm like, no, like, of course, keep doing whatever you want to do. I just wouldn't necessarily be like going and being your swinging partner. And he's like, that's fine. He's like, I've really been enjoying kind of doing my thing anyway. So I'm fine with that. So I went back to Ryan and said, what if I just want to explore this with you? And he's like, okay. So we got together and then we were monogamous until, gosh, just, I don't know, about a year ago. So for quite a while, it was just, I was only with Ryan and with Ray. So, okay. So far, so good. Yeah, still good. So when Ray and Laura got more serious, I very quickly invited her into our lives and folded her into coming to our house. And she lived about two hours away. So can I ask how they met? So how did they meet? Was it one of his swinging adventures as a single guy? Yes, he was, he had a single profile and he, they had a, she and her then husband had a couple's profile and they, they played with single men. And so she, they re, I think actually he connected with, with her husband. Cause I think he led all the communication and stuff. And so, and she actually said that she was like, she had said, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm so sick of seeing you guys. I'm not doing this anymore. And then her then husband came to her and said, okay, but I think there's this one. I think you'll really like him and so it was her last last ditch effort to try to meet a single guy and that that was Ray and so she met they met that way and I think the first time maybe they were all together and then after that it was just they Ray and Laura would meet on their own and so it slowly progressed and then it got you know as it as it was progressing and it seemed like somebody that was a standout for him I was like please like be part of our life and it I don't know if you've heard the term kitchen table polyamory. Are you familiar with that term? Which is the idea of like, instead of it being a lot of separateness, it's let's all get around the kitchen table and like, you know, your partners, your metamores, which would be like, Laura was my metamore because she was Ray's partner. And so I loved that because I'm very community minded. I'm used to opening my heart and my home to other people. I mean, in the time that Ray and I were married and together, we We had three high school exchange students. We had three college students live with us. Two family members lived with us. And then Ray's former business partner, when they started their company, lived with us for a year. So I was used to sharing space like that. And I loved it. And, you know, I'm an only child. I have an only child. But I always wanted a big family. And so it felt like just adding to the family. And we were very intentional about creating a culture as we made room for these other partners. We were very clear and made agreements that we were hierarchical, meaning that our marriage and our family had to take priority. And Laura knew that. Ryan knew that. They were very clear. We always agreed to give each other and our metamors very generous interpretation and benefit of the doubt, believing everyone's good. We wanted everyone to have as much love and fun as possible, so we committed to looking for ways to help each other make that happen. We would trade off. One of us would get to have a lover's weekend, and then the other of us would make sure that our daughter was taken care of. Neither one of them had children, so our daughter was getting the benefit of four loving adults that wanted the best for her. But I do remember in that setting of intention being really clear, and now I look back at it like this kind of warning and foreshadowing. I said, I know myself well, and I know that the only way I can do poly is if it's is based on generosity. And like if I have to question, like I want to give freely. And if I ever have to question if I should give freely, like if I don't feel like it would come back, then I'm going to become the worst version of myself. I'll be suspicious, territorial. I'll be scorekeeping, jealous, anxious. I have all of those things in me. And I knew that if I didn't feel fully trusting and generous, that that's what would come out. We, again, we were very open and frank with our our partners about this. We called it the system. And we talked about like the health of the system depends on all of its parts. And what about Laura's husband and all of this? Was he integrated into that group at all? Or was he, you know, tangentially just out there? So I met him once. But no, I mean, she, her relationship with Ray was, was hers. He had, he was dating other people. She also had another long-term boyfriend. that first year that she and ray were together she and her husband broke up and so and i honestly didn't think much of it he he kind of came to her and said i don't feel like you're emotionally what did he say emotionally available or um yeah i think it was very emotional available emotionally available so if that doesn't change then i'm leaving and she was like well why don't you just leave and kind of called his bluff so he didn't blame ray for this Not that I know of. Oh, okay. Not that I know of. I mean, it was his idea, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that, and again, I think it wasn't, and actually what's interesting is I think he said that he, I do remember hearing that he was watching Laura learn how to be more emotional with Ray. And I remember her saying to me, like, this is the first time I've started a relationship since I've been in therapy and I've been learning how to feel. She was a more, you know, intellectual and kind of more physical, a little more emotionally shut down person. And so maybe her husband was like, wait a minute, I'm seeing you be this way with him. I want some of that. And she was just like, nah. So I never heard, I never heard that there was any animosity with, with her husband. Okay. Yeah. So, and Laura, Laura and I worked out together. We had, you know, hours of lots and tons of conversation and laughter. The four of us went on an amazing trip to Costa Rica. The five of of us went to the lake so many times. We went on so many meals here at our house. We went on fun trips. We even went to Ryan's family's house at the beach one year for Thanksgiving. As Ryan's often said when he's telling the story, he's like, it's like all of us had all that and a bag of chips. I just don't understand why that wasn't. And then things started to get a little weird. All right. So up until this point in time, systems are go and the bag of chips. So what, who was it? Was it you that picked up on things getting a little bit off? Yes, of course. I often say that I'm like, well, I have, I'm very sensitive to relational shifts, which makes me good at my job, but it can also make me feel a little crazy if other people don't recognize it. I often say I'm like the princess and the pea from that old fairy tale where you can feel the pea under 16 mattresses. And. Yeah, it's a blessing and a curse. And I've learned to trust it a lot more now. But back then, I didn't. And so I thought if no one else noticed it, that I must be imagining things, right? So things got weird in June of 2022. And it just felt like something was off. I felt an anxiety about me and Ray. I couldn't quite put my finger on why. But the examples that I would try to use to illustrate it sometimes would seem so because they were just these little things. And in isolation, they wouldn't mean anything. I think it was accumulative. So sometimes I either didn't bring it up or if I did, it wasn't taken seriously. Or sometimes I would bring it up and any of the other three adults would say that I was, you know, like kind of pat me on the head and be like, no, it's fine. I mean, so often, you know, Ryan would be like, please remember how amazing Ray was when you and I were falling in love. Like, let's be supportive. and helpful. Anything that we can do to help him and Laura, I want to give them back that same support. And I'm like, okay, you're right. You're right. And then Ray always would be like, everything's fine. You are my ride or die. Believe my words. Everything is fine. I'm just bad at scheduling. And now I'm having to do it for myself. And I'm trying to do it with two people. And I'm just bad at this. Keep helping me. Keep understanding. And he would often just ask me to be cool because he double booked. and ask if he could, if I could just make something happen so that he could go do the other thing he double booked with Laura. And that wasn't, that didn't seem crazy at the time because he was terrible at scheduling because I'm so freaking good at it. He never had to be. And so that really didn't sound, you know, now I look back and I'm like, oh, what an idiot. But that we could laugh about it. Like, well, of course you double booked yourself because you don't have Google Calendar imprinted in your brain like I do. And as this was happening, happening more and more with the double booking, you know, Ryan and I were taking more and more of the load of doing things for our daughter, and they were off doing things. And I don't think I really mind doing that. And of course, Ryan loved it. He was like, let's help. Let's be the responsible ones. And I'm like, okay. But I was getting scared. Like, Ray and I were fighting more and more, which is not how we typically related. We were a pretty peaceful couple. And then things really hit head in that September when he scheduled a planned a birthday trip for her out of the country. Ray did for Laura and planned the whole thing. The guy that's terrible at schedule, keep in mind, and even bought the plane tickets and didn't run any of it by me. And I found out about it because it was on my Google calendar. And it was like, wait, What? And then when I found out the tickets had already been bought, this wasn't like a discussion. It was just happening. And it went, they were going to be gone over Halloween, which was a holiday at that point that was still very family focused with our daughter. And I was like, really, I was weirded out about that. And, and he's like, Well, but but it's, it's Laura's birthday. So we have to be gone then because it's, you know, I hate that it's close to Halloween, but I want to be gone while on her birthday. And I was really shocked and hurt. I was protesting louder and louder as these things were happening. And then very shortly after he told me, that he wanted to um go to florida with her to support her for her first marathon but it was on my birthday weekend and he said but we can celebrate your birthday anytime and that didn't settle so well since you know they had to be gone on halloween for that so i noticed so these are obviously red flags you're picking up from ray what about laura and your relationship with laura at that during that time during that time you know we she and i would both laugh and talk about how bad he was at scheduling and there were times where you know even the three of us i remember sitting down ray and laura and i sitting down and talking about you know if there's a better way that we could communicate things you know would it be better if laura and i were running things by each other so we were again we were trying to like we're still working in a system and like i very much felt comfortable reaching out to her to ask for support or help about something and um and she always seemed supportive and willing to help um So up until this point in time, you're, it's not entering in your mind to pull the plug on any of this? No, I mean, there were definitely, I would say things like, we, you know, I just don't, you know, of course, this has to, we have to make sure that our marriage is okay. And like, do you, do you think we need to take any time away? And, and he would always say, no, that's not the problem. And, you know, one of my friends was like, Catherine, the math isn't adding up, right? The math isn't right, adding up, right? And this was in the lifestyle that was a really good confidant. He just kept being like, I don't know. I don't know. And so I would protest louder and be like, this isn't okay. This isn't okay. Look at these things. Look at these things. And all those things that I didn't talk about earlier because they were petty. I was bringing up every single thing all the time. And we got into a really big fight and he said, don't make me choose. You may not like the answer. And I remember just my jaw dropping. I remember exactly where we were. And I was like, what? Because for me, like, there wasn't a choice. I made a choice on June 5, 2004. That's when I made the choice. This wasn't a choice. Like, we'd always agreed that our marriage and family would come first. Like, what? So I went into full counselor as a wife, full court pressman. I did not take my counselor hat off for this part of the story. So we started therapy that week, couples therapy, which ironically enough, we'd never done before. We'd never needed to. I was seeing mine weekly. Ray would not get a therapist for himself, which also should have been a red flag. I researched intensive couples retreats. I booked one for us for that November. I remember when we were booking it, we were trying to decide like kind of which curriculum we were going to go with. And he was like, well, I don't think we need to do all this one about communication and all, you know, all this stuff about couples work. Like we're really solid. Like we're, we're a great couple. Like we don't need all those things. I think we should do the ones that are more about like our own personal development. And I'm kind of like, okay. And again, red flags, so easy hindsight. and then I remember one in our weekly therapy I said to him I am okay if I you don't need to show me that I'm your number one in every single action every day I'm willing to make space for us for you to shower her with that priority in those little ways you know those are our new relationships were needier you know they're more emotionally intense like I get that I just need to know that I have your commitment that I am your number one for the long haul. And I said, I need for that. I need to know that if we try everything, like no stone unturned for our marriage, we will do it. And if we have done everything and this is still not working, that we will let Ray and Laura, that we will let Ryan and Laura go. And he said, yes, of course, you're my person. I'll do that. And then he kind of stopped. And then he burst into tears and he's like, but how would I get over the heartbreak if I had to do that? And I said, it would be hard for me too, but we'll do it together, just like we've done everything. So we went to that couples intensive. It was great. I thought we were doing really well. I do remember there was one, there were two times during that that I felt like he was a little distant. And I just kind of put it out of my head. I was like, don't, don't pick at the little things. This is a win. you've just spent a week at a couples intensive like this is okay we were doing therapy we were talking a lot there were ups and downs during this time certainly it was hard but i just you know i really had faith that we made it that we would make it i was really proud of the work we were putting in i felt like we were doing what i've always preached you know and then um that that thanksgiving we were at um ryan's family's house at the beach and ray and i'd had a really bad fight Right. And Ryan sat me down. And remember, Ryan's the one that was always like, let's do as much as we can for their relationship. We want to give back all this. And Ryan finally sits me down and he said, you work so hard all the time trying to be okay with this. It is killing me watching you try to be okay with this. And it's really not okay. What's happening isn't okay. And you are trying so hard to make it okay and so hard to believe that it's okay. And it is killing you and it is killing me. to watch you. We were both sitting here during this four-day trip there. It was also our daughter's 13th birthday, and we were watching Ray and Laura choose to be away instead. On her birthday night, they wanted to have a date night and not go to dinner with all of us. Just over and over, we were just watching Ray choose Laura over our daughter, and that was really hard. But I still, at this point, was like, well this is the sickness and poorer part you know I took that vow really seriously like all right you know this is hard we're just gonna keep doing it and then I call it the Christmas bomb I asked us to take a week the week between Christmas or like there's a week like kind of before Christmas to the middle of Christmas and New Year's and I asked us to take time kind of away from our other partners not completely but just the focus would be on our family and And then the day after Christmas, Ray and I got in a really big fight because he wanted to have a two-hour FaceTime date with her, with Laura, during the part of the day that we'd set aside for our family time. And I was just like, why are you even asking me this? Like, why would you put me in that position? This isn't what we agreed to. Like, I've got to be the naggy, naggy, bitchy wife that says no. Like, why would you even put me in that position? And it escalated from there. And he said, at the end of that fight, What ended that fight was, I don't want to work on this marriage anymore, and I'm not sure I've ever been happy with you. Oh. So, and I guess you're going to get to this, but it seems like to me at this point in time, you would be able to flip the lens that you're looking through and start to recognize some of the things that Ryan had been pointing out, the red flags, everything kind of culminated in this. So did, when he said that, I know it must have hurt, but did it surprise you? A thousand percent, it surprised me. I felt like my heart had dropped to the floor, but the floor wasn't under me anymore. Like that was gone too. I never, ever thought I would hear those words come out of his mouth, either set of them. He pretty quickly recanted the, I've never been happy with you, but the not thinking, not wanting to work on the marriage, he stood by. And I remember Ryan came over to grab something and I was like you have to tell Ryan because I thought there's no way he could say it again there's no way he could tell someone else thinking like this will make it real like he'll realize you know and he just did that just said it right to him I called our therapist the next day and and same thing I'm like you have to tell Tom and he got on there just righteous as could be and said I told Catherine And it was just, I don't even know how to describe the, like, tumble into the abyss that I felt. I mean, I just, I'd never, through all that, I just never doubted. Like, I just thought it was hard. We were just in the hard, we were just in this shadow side of the marriage, you know? Did you, at the, did you then begin to look at Ray and think, look, let me tell you what's really going on here? Let me tell you about new relationship energy. Or did you just kind of acquiesce at that point in time and start to pull away? Have you met me? Acquiesce? No. Fuck no. Like full court press just in a different version now. But yes, absolutely. I was like new relationship energy. I'm like midlife crisis. I'm like, you know, like all this. And we took a little time. We had already planned to spend New Year's with our other partners. And so we took that time just to kind of let the dust settle. And I came back home and I remember I took a retreat day for myself at a friend's beautiful land. She has a sauna. And I spent the whole day just journaling, meditating, doing my spiritual practices, all that, all my hippie stuff, I like to say. And I decided that the best course of action was to support him. To say, okay, you are struggling. This is what you think you want. I want you to go find yourself. I will hold our life and our family together. I had this overwhelming sense that if any point in our marriage I had said to him, I am crawling out of my skin. I need to go live in an ashram in India for a month or a year. He would have booked the plane ticket for me and said, go do it. I got you. I got us. And I was like, that's what you do. I still was like, in sickness. Like, I can do this. And I reached out to my support systems, told them what happened, asked for support. Many of them asked if they could reach out to Ray. And I said, please, yes. Like, remind him what a beautiful life that we've created and a family we have. It's worth fighting for. I reached out to Laura and asked for her help our system intact and healthy. And this was a really scary part of the story. I remember feeling, I literally had chill bumps on my skin when I read her response. And because I realized she wasn't the friend and champion of my marriage that I thought. And she said, I'm sorry about all these hard things. No one ever wants to deal with such things. I have not asked anything of him other than the common respect as a friend and someone he loves. There has been no other request or expectation from me. This is him and is not being influenced by me in any way. That's the last time. That sounded like her attorney wrote that for her. So I want to go back a minute, Catherine. You mentioned that Ray told you and then he told your therapist. What about your daughter? Not yet. And I, again, because I was looking at this like, okay, if we were in the shadow side of our marriage, now we're in the like gnarly, awful shadow forest of our marriage. I still thought that there was a chance that we could pull this out. And I didn't want to scare her or worry her or shake her stability if we didn't have to. I mean, she knew we were fighting and I was honest about, you know, this is all really new. you know we don't have a rule book on how to do this with other partners but we all love you we are all gonna make sure you're safe like so she knew that we were fighting but i i did not i didn't tell her i didn't ask or encourage him to tell her he didn't tell her um and you know i again i said to him look take your fmla go hike the appalachian trail go you know road trip across the country i even said go live with laura for the whole three months because I thought, well, maybe if he has to clean the toilets in Disneyland, it won't be so magical, right? I was like, please, anything to get perspective. He didn't do any of those things. And I, as he didn't do those things, and this is a theme of under-functioning and over-functioning, the less he did, the more I did. So I got all kinds of creative about how we could still share a life together, how I could help support him. And I even was like, okay, well, you know, if you aren't interested in having us, the other thing that had been happening, I'll say, like, before the Christmas bomb, he stopped, he wanted to stop having sex. And that really scared me. But I was like, again, give him a little space, he'll come back kind of thing. And so I was like, okay, well, maybe he just doesn't want the romantic or sexual part of our, of our relationship or our marriage. And so there's a wonderful podcast also by Libby Seinbeck, making polyamory work called the nine relationships in the modern marriage, where she breaks down the insane job description that we have for marriage like be my financial partner my you know my confidant my sexual partner my co-parent all of these different things and i was like okay well you know maybe if the romantic and sexual part isn't working we can i just poured all my energy into shoring up all the other seven say i was in therapy every week what what was happening to your relationship with ryan during this whole period that you were Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, his first response was, I'll walk away. Like, I, your family, your marriage is number one, I'll walk away. And he was furious that Laura didn't offer to do that. He was furious that she wouldn't acknowledge her influence. I mean, we all of course, we have influence on the people we love, whether we want to or not, of course, we have influence. And he was I remember he was like we have a responsibility to this family that we both agree to and she is not holding up her part of the responsibility and he was willing to do that and I remember and I went to Ray and I said Ryan will walk away right now I will tell him to go away and Ray said to both of us I do not want you to do that that is not going to make this better and you know I think Ryan and I both knew at that point that he probably was happy to offload some of the pressure that he felt to meet my needs onto Ryan. And it probably made it easier for him to do that, knowing that I was okay. I mean, not okay, but being supported in that way. So yes, so he, Ryan was very supportive. He was, gosh, he held me through so many crying fits. I mean, he just was there. He did anything and everything that he could to support me. He was willing to walk away. He was kind to Ray because, again, he didn't want to make anything more contentious than possible. I mean, than it already was. So at this point, Catherine, you're still clinging on to this hope. Based on what I'm hearing that you and Ryan are going going through. Was there a time that his caring for you changed your feelings for whether Ray was going to be your primary or Ryan was going to be your primary? Or were you still waiting for that final shoe to drop before you allowed yourself to get any closer with Ryan? I would say it's more that. I definitely wasn't I wasn't in a deepening mode consciously with Ryan. I mean, there was deepening happening because of his support for me, but it was not something that I was like, okay, well, I'll just, you'll be my partner now. And I, I had absolutely not given up hope. I had not let go of, of this at all. I mean, during this, so this was like, say from January through, through the summer, we still, he still lived here. And we, you know, I was in therapy. he stopped coming to couples therapy said he needed to focus on himself I got him a therapist like codependent much here you know he could he could find a way to go on a week-long trip with his girlfriend but couldn't figure out how to get his own therapist but I encouraged him to still live with us because kind of to your point about telling our daughter I didn't want to tell her until we were until I was sure that it couldn't happen and I just still thought like let's not disturb her stability but unfortunately the plan I had really didn't wasn't working. The more space I gave him, the more he wanted. When I shifted my focus from that sexual and romantic relationship and really poured into our friendship and co-parenting and business partners, he systematically backed away from those two. And each time he backed away from those, it was in a shocking way that I was, again, like, who is this person? I mean, I had friends and family being like, does he have a brain tumor? Is he on some weird medication? I mean, it was like, I didn't know this person. And so each time that he would fall, he would step away, it felt like the floor under me fell again. And again, I did not do this quietly or gracefully. I protested loudly and often, which probably exacerbated it. He, you know, I tried pleading from like my deepest sadness. I tried yelling and shaming at him from like my deepest outrage. And, you know, I would hold up our wedding vows. I would, you know, read him that he had read me. I would try joining him from empathy and love and like, I just know you want to find yourself. I'm here for you. I sent him podcasts, which I know is surprising to everyone. I sent him memes. I sent him books of chapters. Most of them weren't acknowledged. Our friends and family tried to talk to him lovingly, although they admitted that they weren't very gritty in the way that they confronted him, which brought up this whole other frustration for me about like, If I had been the one to do this as a woman, I would have been burned at the stake in the county square. But boys will be boys kind of like men having a midlife crisis. I was really frustrated about some of that inequity. Catherine, I am wanting to come to the computer right now and shake your shoulders. I know. And if I'm feeling this way now, I'm thinking of Ryan again. Because this is six months later. and he's still watching you go through this. Okay. You got to get to the point. Yeah. But part of the reason I'm pulling this out is because it was a really pulled out story. I had so many people like, why are you still doing this? And I think Ryan was very wise in, I mean, he knew me well. He knew that I was going to do this my way. I had to put everything out, everything I had into it. One of my friends said, you know, that I had like the bag of tricks, but the bag was a Mary Poppins bag. Like I just kept pulling light posts out of it. And, you know, like I just was not going to give up until every, until I had exhausted every bit of my creativity to make this work. And we did work with a different therapist who was pretty unhelpful. He didn't, he kind of tiptoed around Ray. He later, the counselor later told me that he didn't push him very hard because he felt like that Ray was such a flight risk. But he just, you know, he just, again, and the other thing that happened through all this is he refused to ever take even a day break from his girlfriend because to preserve, to try to put energy toward us. We did go on a family vacation with some other families in March. We had a great time. Again, our family unit was so wonderful. And I really thought that was going to be, like, the turning point. Like, this will give us perspective, give him perspective. But it just, two weeks later, the friendship, like, he really let me down on a friendship level. So at that point, I asked him to, to move out of our bedroom and move upstairs because my nervous system was so confused. It was like, all right, this person keeps hurting me, but then I'm telling my body that it's safe to be unconscious beside him. And it was just, I was a mess. So he moved upstairs. A lot of people asked me why I didn't just ask him to move out at that point. But then again, I was like, we've done marriage so creatively, like maybe we can do this really creatively. Maybe we can co-parent in the same house, at least through high school. Like I wanted that stability for her. so badly. I fueled myself on optimism, on hope. I worked so hard. It continued. He became less and less involved. And then finally, he just kept making these unilateral decisions without any collaborating or including me that impacted all of us. It was so clear that he was going to make his decisions based on what made him happy, what he wanted, even if it hurt me and it hurt our daughter. And at that point, I finally was like, I remember I was on a walk in the fall and I had this vision. of, it was a physics vision. I hadn't thought of high school physics since then, but I thought of a canoe. And I was like, it's like we got together and we bought the longest, heaviest canoe that we possibly could move with our strength, our skill set. So we created this really complex life built on the two of us. And for years, we had been hauling that canoe down to the river, no problem. And then he put his end of the canoe down. And then I had been hustling for 10 months to try to get that damn thing to the water by myself. And all of a sudden, it was just a physics equation. I realized that there was no humanly way that my arms could hold that boat up and get it to the river, which of course was the metaphor for you cannot save a marriage if only one person wants to save it. And that is when I finally knew. And that's when I finally had my shoulders shaken, but it had to be me that shook them, Mr. Jones. No one else could do it. Why do you think he stayed? That's what I was going to ask. Like, was he communicating to you? I mean, and you said you did find him a therapist and he participated. Like, was he expressing how his view of your relationship was, like, changing and morphing into, you know, making Laura the priority? He would never admit that it was about her. He always said it was about him, that it wasn't that he wasn't making her the priority. He was making himself the priority, which I could have gotten behind if ever in that time, the time he was away from us was, like, by himself or on a guy's time or retreat or something, but it was always with her. And, you know, he would say things about, like, well, you know, we've just been so codependent that there's no way that we could have could have a relationship that would support the kind of autonomy that I want. And I'm like, dude, you learned those words from me. Like, I taught you those. Are you kidding me? Like, yes, it will be hard, but we can do it. Like, we've done plenty of hard things together. I would say that was the most, that was what he mostly was saying, was that he just, he wanted a level of autonomy that he didn't think I could give him. And I was kind of like, but you're not even giving me a chance. You're not giving us, you aren't giving this a try. I have to ask now okay you're you're carrying a canoe and if I'm I'm finishing the illustration out for you you stop walking you turn around and you let you let it drop because you can't get it there when that happened though and I'm sorry to keep bringing this back up but you know your your daughter is she is she during this six or eight or nine months is she noticing And are you talking to her along the way? Or did you get to this point where you dropped the canoe and then you have to bring her in and, you know, have the conversation with her? She's, I mean, she is my daughter. She's pretty intuitive. So, you know, I knew I couldn't keep too much from her. I would say probably, I think in June is when I knew that the romantic part of our relationship would never come back. And I told her that then. I was like, it's not we're not going to pull this out. And I was like, but our hope is to be able to find a way to still live here together with you and continue to at least have a family life. And so she knew that we were trying to be creative in the way we were doing this. And then when I put the canoe down is when I knew that I had to ask him to leave and we had to unwind. Like we needed to now become separate entities. And so I did tell her that that was happening. I told her that I was you know that he he had decided that his his path was where he wanted to wanted to go and I you know the so we started that unwinding and of course she was in therapy this whole time to our daughter and it was it was hard for her but I think that because we were honest we didn't if she asked us questions we were honest she didn't have that weird feeling of like something feels weird in the house but the adults are saying a different I think she she handled it pretty amazingly well she you know I was of course very careful to not be disparaging about her dad in front of her I mean she certainly heard things I know but I mean and she saw me on the kitchen floor crying in a mess I mean it wasn't I didn't it was authentic as ugly as it might have been at points but I think she she was able to find a way to of it like this is mama and daddy's problem and I still love both of them. So it has kept a good relationship with both of us and I'm happy about that and proud of that. I would say that one of the things that we did really well in the untangling, again, kind of comes from the creativity that we brought to our marriage. I had a healer person that I was working with at the time that I decided to put the canoe down and she said, imagine that you're the first woman ever to get a divorce. Do it the way that fits you and your family best. And don't base anything on what others have done or think you should do. And that became my guiding light. And every time somebody's like, well, you need to, I'd be like, what feels right for us? We did the whole thing with very little contact with lawyers. We had weekly logistics meetings to address the next hard thing. We started seeing a different therapist to have the harder conversations. I mean, we saved ourselves thousands of dollars. Now, the emotional cost to all of that was hard. I did so much therapy and coaching and journaling to help me manage my big emotions to try to advocate for me and for my daughter to get the best situation and deal for us. I had so much anger. Some days I still do. I'm not going to lie. That was, it's, it's big. But I, it was, and it was really hard sometimes to like simmer down and try to approach him. and this process, like a business deal. I learned how to roll my eyes off screen or after the meeting was over. It was really good. Sometimes I could even, I even learned how to like flip him off under the screen. He couldn't tell at all. Like that was, those were big moments for me. So when you put the canoe down, um, did Ray begin to acknowledge things that he had insisted were not true before? Uh, did, did he feel a sense of relief at at that point in time, because I imagine, and your daughter would have been picking up on this too, that when adults say one thing and they're doing something different, did that start to reconcile itself? The thing that finally, the straw that broke the camel's back for me was he was like, out of the blue, he was like, you know, I think I'm probably going to move out next summer. And I was like, we've been talking about trying to make this work together and stay, and he had made this decision and he told me about it not here's what i'm considering you know we weren't collaborating and so at that point i was like if you're going to move out next summer out now like go on just go you know and he was very surprised by that i think he assumed that i would just would continue to just keep trying to make it and like and and i was just like no i'm done and that surprised him but he didn't I don't I don't know that I've I mean there were times and in the hard conversation therapy where he would get a little emotional a little bit about like hurting me but most of the time if I express my pain it seemed to be really annoying to him which you know I think was probably just because it was uncomfortable because he knew he was causing it again he just was so such a different version of himself I mean it to me just I just felt really checked out. And I kept, I felt like I was always like waving my hand in front of his eyes, like, wake up, wake up. Who are you? And I just, I could never get through to him anymore. Yeah. Yeah. And wow. Wow. Okay. So are we at the happy ending yet? Well, I think we're maybe at the, we're probably wrapping up here on the, on the personal side. There are, there are certainly other things I think we can get in. to next month. But I guess the happy ending for me, the things that I would like to say is to kind of go to like what I'm proud of or like and thankful for in the process. And, you know, I am really proud of how we handled the divorce, how we unwound. I'm very proud of the hard work I've done on myself. I'd never been diagnosed with depression and never take antidepressants before. And I did I did have to do that because something had to give. And I also went into a really steep kind of like trauma-induced early version of perimenopause. So that was fun to add all that at the same time. So it was a lot. I mean, there were times where I just wanted to crawl into a cave. But I, you know, I had to keep my life going. And it was like to go from the life that two really highly capable people created, and I was now trying to make it happen and I felt like I was half a version of myself like it felt really impossible sometimes but I did you know all the things I knew that acupuncture and talk therapy and EMDR and journaling and plant medicine and energy workers and rest and exercise and time alone and time with people time in nature I did all those things and I'm really and leaned on my support systems and I'm I'm really proud of the work I've done and the strength that I've gained from that I am really thankful Well, I have to give a shout out to one very special, we got a thing, community member who's a lawyer who gave me countless hours of brainstorming and advice out of kindness. He, I really can't thank him enough for how much he helped me and my family get through this. And he's become a friend that I really value. We still send each other podcasts and we have debates over text. And he actually is the one that gave me the idea to do this podcast. He gave me a lot of tough questions to consider. And so I want to make sure I'm to him. I'm really thankful that my relationship with my daughter has gotten stronger. I'm thankful that I've been able to have stability for her, give her that. And I'm really thankful to Ryan. Every time Ray stepped down, Ryan stepped up happily. He chose me and my daughter over and over as we were, as Ray was not choosing. And I feel like there was something really special in that like kind of immediate being overtly chosen after being overtly rejected. Well, you know what I was thinking? I was thinking, as I'm trying to put myself in Ryan's shoes during your story, and I'm watching you fight like hell, in the back of my mind, I got to be thinking, dang, in the future, if I'm with her, she's going to fight for me. You know what? I mean, I think it would give him, if I'm putting myself in his situation, wow, If you're choosing to be with me now, and I've seen you fight for this relationship, how much are you going to fight for me and for us? And I guess that leads me to my question is, have you thought about how it might have been different for you had you not had Ryan during this whole time? Like if Ray would have gone off and done everything that he did, but you didn't have Ryan, you still had friends, you still had friends, Community to have his belief in me, his support. At my lowest, he would remind me of me at my highest. He had this faith and this vision that I could get back to myself when I did not have any ounce of that. And it was interesting because, you know, Mr. Jones, as you're saying that, it's like, I think there were times where he had to be like, why is she still fighting so hard for somebody who doesn't love her? Like, what? But then I would say to him, like, I am very loyal. And if I commit, I commit hard. Like, this is what that looks like. And I do think he started to see that fight in me and that loyalty in me. And it made him, you know, start to really, he was saying, like, I want to be your forever person. And I remember when he said that word, I felt like my brain had turned to scrambled eggs. And I was like, I can't even fathom what that word means anymore. like I can commit to you that like I will do the work really hard on me and our relationship for as long as I can for as long as this serves us but like I can't even imagine getting up in front of somebody in front of God and everyone and saying the word forever again but I do work really freaking hard at the things that I commit to and I can promise you that so yeah so I think it was but again I do think that there was some there was that healing like I said of being chosen even at my worst while being rejected at my best. I feel like when Ray rejected me, I was at the top of my game in every way. And so to be rejected then and then still have Ryan choose me when I was a soppy cracker eating mess on the floor was really powerful. And I think that if I had not had him there, my heart could have gotten really brittle and hard. And I feel like he was constantly like in my heart, like pushing it and massaging it and keeping it like I just think that there was there would have been a part of me that probably would have like shut down the ability to trust I mean I still struggle I still have trauma responses that are really tough and I know that that I will never be the same person that I was but I think he's helped keep me soft and malleable and not hardened so so all of this time you you said from the start that there was a hierarchy Now, you put the canoe down. Ray has been, he's gone. Did you or are you in the process of changing that relationship with Ryan? Because you're fighting for all of this and then it's gone. Do you have to then make a decision after all of that? I mean, to say, I want to, this is how I want this relationship to change, or is that still something that you're going through? Well, I mean, we definitely are strongly committed to each other. He came to me, I don't know, maybe probably right around the canoe time, and he looked at me and he was like, I realize that if I am going to ask you to be with me long term, I've got to wrap my head around non-monogamy. And I kind of looked at him and he's like, what a jerk I would be. Non-monogamy brought you to me. I wouldn't have you if it weren't for ethical non-monogamy. So like talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth. Like I got to deal with my shit and get over this jealousy. Does this guy ever say the wrong thing? I know. Yes. But yeah, he said a lot of the right things too at the right times. Sometimes he he'll throw out some therapy stuff that I'm like, damn, I'm going to use that. But no, he just, and he, He's worked on that. And he's like, it's your business. It's who you are. It's what brought you to me. And he's done a lot of therapy. We've done a lot of therapy together in that shifting of being lovers to becoming domestic partners and all of that. It's a lot of change to happen while actively grieving and healing. But yes, so we've been experimenting with opening our relationship since January. And it's been fascinating to explore this with a different partner, a different type of relationship with a different, you know, heart than I had before. So that's been pretty, pretty fun and wild. Has your experience changed the way you look at non-monogamy or what you want out of non-monogamy now? Yes. Which again, I have to say, I feel like it's really ever shifting and changing. I imagine that I'll have a different answer in a year right now I I do believe that I'm capable I know that I'm capable of deeply loving two people so I do think that if we're if I'm probably polyamorous by nature like like I'm I'm capable of it I don't think that anyone knows if they are until it is until another love starts to present itself I don't think that I think honestly that I think Ray and I both assumed that he was just because I was. And then when he started to fall in love with Laura and he realized his heart was a one-seater instead of a two-seater, he just couldn't back off from it, right? But I do think that I'm capable of that, but I don't know that I want that right now. I know that I don't want that right now, and I don't know if I'll ever want it again. I mean, I'm also 10 years older, 11 years older than I was when I started all this, and it's like, oh, that sounds like a lot of work. And Ryan and I are enjoying it a lot more in the like sharing of the energy of being in those spaces and letting it excite us. I have more possessiveness with him than I ever did with Ray, which is interesting. I'm not really sure why. I mean, even before I had a, you know, a relational trauma like this. I'm not quite as open to sharing as I was before. Yeah, it's just, it's definitely different. I don't, I know, and I will say that Ryan has a very strong boundary about, he's like, I'm not going to share you as a partner. He's like, if you wanted another partner, I would have to leave. Like, I'm open to exploring, you know, the lifestyle and things and seeing how it, how it can work for us. But I know now that I'm not built that way and I don't want that. And that's okay. with me. I don't feel like that's holding me back. I just also wanted to say how thankful I am for my support system, the other coaches in my practice, the countless free hours of coaching I've gotten from these amazing people that I hired. I'm so lucky. Kelsey has been my, gosh, that woman. Anne Mishay. I mean, Kim has helped. All of them have just been wonderful. My friends hearing me cry and rage and scream and question and try all the things and it was i'm really lucky to have such a support system and then i also have to say this is one of the last things that i wrote i actually have been recently feeling thankful for ray in an odd way i'm thankful that he that he when he realized he wasn't willing to do the really deep work of being in the conscious relationship with me um that he stepped down when he did because as i proved i will over function and overfunction some more. And I think I would have just worn myself out completely trying to do the work for both of us. And I don't think that you can actually have a really deep, conscious connection if that inequity is so large. And so I have a partner now that is in for all the hard, messy work and likes to go, you know, he'll go deep and wants a fully conscious relationship. And I see the difference now. And I'm really glad that I get to experience it. And I realized that Ray could have continued. He could have just breadcrumbed me. And said, yeah, I'll work on it. I'll work on it. And worked on it for a little bit and let me do all the heavy lifting. And I'm really glad that I didn't have that path. So your last question here was, do you regret it? Never, not one time. Getting into swinging gave me incredible adventures with Ray, who was my partner in crime, my best friend. It gave me so many chances to travel. many chances to grow. Talk about AFOLs. It brought me my amazing boyfriend. It brought me a lot of friends who are really deep and fun. And thanks to you guys, it gave me a pretty incredible job. Wow. You know, but I have to ask myself, I don't know if I would have tried to talk you into it if I would have known how. I mean, because, I mean, we think about that all the time. You know, we're guiding people and people are influenced by what we We do. And it's like we're encouraging people to play with fire. Yeah. Yeah. So, so a lot of it is, gosh, you know, we don't tend to think about that side of it much because we hear all the good stories. So, well, I think that's, again, I think that's part of what we'll dive into next month because I've got a list of the questions that people ask me, have asked me so much since. And I'm imagining the questions that your listeners still have. And, and it is a, it's a, it's a hard thing to knowing that we do have that information. is a, it's a heady, it's lovely, it's powerful, and it's a big responsibility. So I do have, I have reflected on that a lot. And I think we can have another wonderful conversation about that. Maybe with fewer tears, we'll see. Well, this is a good teaser for the next episode then. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for walking me through this and being your sweet, supportive, wonderful, loving selves that you've always been for me. Well, thank you for sharing your story. And I know this was hard. Yeah. I know. And just thank you for all that beautiful vulnerability. Yeah. And I can say that nothing that you said today, Catherine, surprises me about how you were. I am at least true to character, true to form. Yeah. Always a warrior. Yeah. Well, you indeed practice what you preach. I think that is a takeaway that everybody has from this who knows you at all. But yeah, thank you very much for allowing us to be the way that you shared this with the world. And we're looking forward to continuing our collaboration and continuing our friendship and getting to know Ryan a little bit. We've met him before. He's a great guy. So looking forward to that as well. So best to you guys. Thank you. I'll see you in a couple of weeks. All right. All right. Hey, this is Jessica. If this episode stirred something in you, curiosity, comfort, or that quiet, I've been looking for this feeling, don't stop here. Go listen to episode 131, Finding Your Tribe and the We Got a Thing community. 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