The other day some clients asked me how they should talk about this new endeavor of theirs – opening up their long term relationship. These folks had been in a default monogamous relationship that’s pretty typical for straight people. After years of frustration with their desire discrepancy they’re trying an open relationship experiment. They’re going to try this experiment for 90 days. After three months they’re going to talk the experiment over. “How should we do it?” they asked. In session I did a bit of psychotherapist alchemy combining Martha Kauppi‘s polyam experiments and the Gottman‘s state of the union talk. What follows is the structure that I recommend and an example of Andrea and me doing our “State of the Experiment” talk.
Here are a few ground rules.
This is a structured talk. It should take 45-90 minutes. If your talk is less than 45 minutes than I expect one or both of you is avoiding something. If y’all are talking more than 90 minutes then I suspect that y’all are too anxious about something.
There are a few roles that you’ll each take during this talk: the open sharer; the curious listener; and the collaborative problem solver. Here are the steps to follow in your “state of the experiment” talk.
- Start with sharing at three things that you respect, love, or appreciate about your partner. Take turns. For the open sharer, make sure that these compliments are current; be true to your feelings; and be specific. The intent here is to bathe your nervous systems in good feelings before we talk about anything difficult.
- Decide who’s going to listen first and who’s going to share first. The topic is “our open relationship experiment.”
- Begin. The sharer talks about what this experiment’s been like for them. What are the highlights? What’s been hurtful? What’s gone well? What’s gone badly? What’s gone sideways? What would you like to do differently? The curious listener’s job is two fold: understand and be curious. Ask for more information. Check things out with the sharer. The questions that the curious listener needs to ask at least once are “Is there anything else?” and after reflecting and mirroring, “Did I get it?”
- Switch roles.
- Problem solve the issues that arose.
- Decide together on the terms and timing of your new experiment.
After suggesting this to my clients I asked Andrea if she’d do one of these “state of the experiment” talks for our relationship. We captured our session on video and if you have a spare hour plus you’re welcome to watch us here.
Love y’all,
-C
