November 19, 2025 • 34 mins
Being in a committed relationship doesn’t mean you have to stop being curious. That’s what Michelle MiJung Kim realized once she married her husband. As a queer woman, Michelle felt it was important to continue exploring her sexuality even while in a stable relationship. So when she asked to open the marriage, Michelle started her journey to find out what she needed to be happy.
To hear more about the story that inspired this episode, check out Michelle's podcast I Feel That Way Too.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I think it's very natural for humans to be attracted
to multiple people at the same time. And while I
don't think everybody must be Polly, I think everybody should
ask themselves what it is that they actually desire and
what stops them from being able to voice that.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Today we're taking on polyamory, specifically our guests experience with
it and what experimenting in her stable relationship taught her
about herself. I'm hopewitdered and welcome to boys over a
space where we're learning and unlearning all the myths we're
taught about love and relationships. Recently, I listened to a
(00:54):
podcast that made me question everything I thought I knew
about what makes a stable relationship. The podcast is called
I Feel That Way Too, and it's hosted by speaker, storyteller,
and activist Michelle Mietjung Kim. In an episode titled am
I Supposed to sleep with one person for the rest
of My Life? Michelle tells the story of how she
(01:14):
asked her husband if he'd be open to divorce, which
led to a discussion about opening their marriage. This might
seem unconventional, but it was a turning point for Michelle,
who felt that as a queer Asian American woman, it
was important to communicate what she wanted and explore her
sexual fluidity even while in a committed relationship. After hearing
(01:36):
all of this, I knew I wanted to talk to
Michelle to get even further into her story. How did
she build a relationship stable enough to introduce polyamory, did
she find the sexual freedom she was seeking? Why is
polyamory still so misunderstood, and where are she and her
husband at now? Michelle, Welcome to Boy Sober. Thank you
(01:59):
so much for being here.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Thanks for having me. I'm so excited.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Of course today I want to talk to you a
little bit about like love and romance and your experience
with that. Yes, I think I heard on a date
with your now husband you said you don't want to
be married, you don't want kids, and you're queer yeh,
and you ended up getting married. Like, will you just
walk me through that?
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah? I mean so that was my first date with
my now husband, which I'm still getting used to saying
that word because it's just it was never a word
that I thought I would associate myself with. So I
still have a lot of identity crisis around my sexuality.
And my relationship status and all of that. But that
kind of influenced the questions and the things that I
(02:45):
said on our first date. And I had no intention
of being in a relationship with him. Then I said
to him on her first date, Hey, there are three
things that you need to know about me. I don't
want to get married, I don't want to.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Have kids, and I'm queer.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
So if you have any shoes with any of those things,
then we could just grab a drink and then leave.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Like every first date, you like sat down and you
were like, listen, this is it for me? Or was
that just like a just a hymn thing.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Just a hym thing.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Because I felt like he was from a different world
than me. So okay, he was from an ethnobourb in
London where people get married very early, and he's Indian,
He's South Asian descent, and I think he had certain
expectations in general. He had expectations around like you know,
(03:35):
this is when I want to get married and I
want to have a big family. So I felt like
it needed to be said, so almost like a disclaimer
before we jump into anything.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Okay, well walk me through, like what happened after your
first date, Like, how.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I guess I just got attached hope.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, yeah, I'm like what, I'm like, did you fall
in love immediately? Did it take time?
Speaker 3 (04:00):
It took time. It took time because I think.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
For many, many months, maybe even over a year, I
thought he was just a fun summer fling.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
You know, he was cute.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
He was building a company at the same time that
I was building my company, and it was really hard
for me to find people that I could date and
sleep with who fit into my lifestyle because I just
wanted to work. And I was in my girl Boss era,
right and he was in his boy boss era. So
he had an office and I used it for free,
(04:34):
and it just worked. We worked until two am, and
we you know, went home together after we'd work all day,
and then we got up early in the morning to
work again. So that was kind of our dating history.
And I think throughout that time I saw so many
of the qualities that he had that I appreciated, not
just in a partner, but as a human being, as
(04:55):
a friend. And for me, I always said to him
that I would only get married to him, knowing that if.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
We were to get a divorce, it wouldn't be an
ugly one.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
That it would be a very respectful, dignified experience, and
I would still want to have him as a friend
in my life even if we were no.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Longer in a romantic partnership.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
So that was kind of my bar, if you will,
of getting married. And also because of his immigration status,
we thought that was more needed than if I were
with somebody who has a citizenship, for example. So for me,
it was a romantic but also a very political decision
for us to get married.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah, tell me about your wedding and your wedding night.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
That's I know you listen to the podcast. So we
got married. It was a beautiful wedding. It was at
a city hall.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
I never wanted a big wedding, and it was during
the pandemic, so it was perfect because we had five
people in the audience and that we finish our ceremony,
got dinner with our family and that was that. And
then the next morning I woke up at two three
am panicked and I kept thinking, what the fuck have
(06:07):
I done? And I looked at him. He was sleeping,
he was sound asleep. I shook him awake, and I
just asked him if we could promise each other that
we would get a divorce in three years, So I, okay,
shook him awake, and he, you know, kind of looked
at me like what is going on?
Speaker 3 (06:27):
What's up?
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Is everything okay? And I was like, no, no, no,
I'm freaking out. I'm freaking out. I think I'm having
cold feet, And can we just say that we're gonna
get a divorce in three years because this is just
freaking me out?
Speaker 3 (06:38):
And he's like, yeah, yeah, whatever you want.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, So that's what happened. It's been a little over
three years now, so.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
We passed the three year mark. We haven't gotten a divorce.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
And why do you think, Like, I'm like, why three years?
Why did you need to say it? Like what was
going on?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
That's how long it takes to get a green card.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So yeah, and for it to like be really sticky,
you know. So he got a dream card and we're
still together. And I think for me, the idea of
being married, and specifically being married to a straight, heterosexual
cis man, really fucked with my identity of being this
(07:20):
queer person who is anti institutionalized idea of marriage. And
I think it just kind of made me question whether
I am queer enough, whether I'm by enough, whether this
was going to change my identity as it was perceived
by not only other people but myself, And so I
(07:43):
think that's probably the biggest reason why I was freaking
out that night, and also just throughout our relationship, me
constantly rejecting him whenever he asked me if we can
get married, and I was like, no, hell no.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
How many times did he ask you to get married?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
I mean it was like a weekly thing.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Like a handful everything.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Yeah, it's very often.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
And it's so funny because our actual marriage proposal, people
always ask me, how did he propose or whatever the fuck?
And there wasn't a proposal. It was a discussion, Hey,
I think we need to get married because your immigration
status is really precarious.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
And I asked.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Him if we can just send me a calendar advite
for whenever the city hall it becomes available.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
So really, and that is a bit anti institutional because
you're not really wrapping up into getting married like everything
that so many people do, like this is something we
need to do because I love you now, you know,
like I love you now and this is an important
thing and getting married can fix that. But you all
(08:47):
had a conversation about opening the marriage. Do you consider
yourself polyamorous? Where are you all with all of that now.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
So great question?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
I had always wanted to try being open and being polly.
I have a lot of friends who are polly, and
it's a lot of work, but they may hit work.
And I always like the idea of being able to
follow my desires, and for me, it's really about that right,
like being able to honor my own desires, my identity,
(09:19):
and to give myself the permission to be free and
to have a partner who allows you to be as
free as possible, and to continue to actually provide that safety,
emotional safety that I crave. So we talked about being
in an open marriage for many, many years. It took
(09:40):
a lot of convincing on my part for us to
try it out.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Can I ask you, like, what was that convincing like?
Because I'm imagining those conversations in a relationship with someone. Yeah,
I'm imagining it's uncomfortable, Like feelings could get hurt, emotions
can get high, like was one of one of the
more memorable conversations during those negotiations.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
So I think in during negotiation and during our expermitation.
One of the hardest things is knowing that my desire
can hurt.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
The person I love the most.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Right, how do you tell the person that you love
most that I want to fuck someone else?
Speaker 2 (10:26):
It's so honest, I think, to be like, I'm looking
at people and I'm thinking of them in certain ways.
Like that's honest and a really important thing too. I
think admit about like oneself, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Yeah, I think the honest part is really really difficult to.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Practice with each other and with ourselves.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
And I felt like being dishonest about my desires would
be a betrayal to myself and that to our relationship.
And I never wanted to be in a relationship where,
you know, the cost of my commitment and my love
for somebody else is my freedom and my honesty.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
And so I was.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Very frank with him from the very beginning that I
would I would want to try open relationship whenever we can.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
I wanted it to be consensual. I didn't want it
to be forced.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
And you know, I think it was really hard for
him to kind of reckon with the fact that I
have desires for other people. So I think there are
a couple of different things that people like how people
approach love and relationship. Like I think a lot of people,
like my partner and my friends, used to say to me,
isn't it romantic that you're committed to one another and
(11:42):
that you're fighting off these temptations?
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Right?
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Like you that, of course you can like go and
sleep with all these people and fall in love with
all these people, but you're choosing not to because you
want to prioritize this person that you're committed to. Isn't
that romantic? And my response always was, I think it's
just as romantic for us to explore other options and
still choose the person at the end of the day
(12:04):
you want to be with. I think that's just as
we're meant to give, not more to me, because that
means you have allowed yourself to experience the full you know,
potential of what your life can be, and you're still
choosing one or two, however, many people that you want
to actually do life with, right, So, I think it's
just different perspectives. And for me, the experience of opening
(12:30):
up our marriage, trusting one another to be honest about
what we were experiencing, and also the kind of pain
and insecurities that were coming up for both of us
because it wasn't easy, right. There was a lot of
tears involved, There were a lot of conversations involved. There
was a lot of me having to confront my abandonment issues,
my insecurities, my jealousy, and the entire of rooting of
(12:55):
my you know, sense of safety in order for us
to get back to the safety and commitment that we
promised one another.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
So it wasn't easy, but we did it.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Something that I was thinking about that you again mentioned
on that one episode was like him going on a
second date with the same person, and I was like,
oh my gosh, like second day, same girl, I'm home alone.
Like I was kind of so proud of you listening
to that episode because what it so like, well what
(13:42):
it sounded like to me is that you were sitting
with your thoughts and feelings and you mentioned, or maybe
the expert mentioned like co regulation and self regulation. Yeah,
and like understanding how to self regulate while in partnership
with someone I think is also kind of anti institutional
(14:03):
and like anti sort of like capitalist and says like
anti sort of what we're told now, because it's sort
of like it's either those pendulum swings right, like figure
it out how to coregulate on your own, like be
an independent person, like you could say, this podcast or
this concept of boysover has even like made space and
conversation for that, like doing it all on your own,
(14:25):
but listening to y'all's story, like it really sort of
validated something for me that like, oh, you can learn
how to self regulate in partnership with someone. Yeah, can
you speak to that at all?
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Oh my gosh, yes, I think that's so important because
you know, I had a pretty I had a lowercase
T traumatic childhood that kind of planted in me the
sphere of being abandoned and separation and needing to always
(14:58):
be reassured that I am loved, that I'm cared for,
They're not going anywhere. And so I think because of that,
one of my coping mechanisms throughout my teenage years and
twenties is kind of pushing people away before I am
pushed away.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Of course, I understand you deeply.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yes, I'm sure you do. And yeah, because I don't
think I ever really felt truly safe and loved unconditionally,
and I never really you know, identified with that concept
of unconditional love and my current partner was the first
person to ever make me feel like I could be
(15:42):
completely unclenched and that I could rest, that I could
actually trust, that I don't have to always have my
guard up, that I can yeah, that I can lean
on him, that even if we were not romantically involved,
that he will still love me, that I will still
love him. There's this like really deep emotional and human
(16:03):
level connection that I love. So that meant that, you know,
so much of my self nervous system regulation came from
being with him and having him help me regulate myself
by him reassuring me that he still loves me, that
him showing up for me in ways that made me
feel calm, And when he decided to go on a
(16:24):
second day with the same person and that I knew
that he was into her enough that he was while
he was getting ready we were on the phone that
I could hear his excitement.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
I was, I was, I it wasn't fair to him,
but I started crying and.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
That I love her. You're like, this happens to me too.
This happened to me the other day. I was like,
in my head, I was like, don't do this, don't
do this, Like this isn't fair to him, like reaction,
but then like my entire body, yeah, is like my
heart is pounding, my throat is tight, you know what
(17:02):
I mean. Like I'm I'm like so uptight, and it's
like I think that's just like so real. It's like,
you know it's unfair, but you can't help sort of
your physical response.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Yeah, And I was crying so much so that he
was like, I don't I don't have to go if
you don't want me to go, and I can stay
with you.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
I just don't know how I'm going to leave you
in the state.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
And I said, no, no, no, like this is this
is what I need to experience, like I want to
try this out. Like even if we were to decide
we can't do this anymore, I need us to sort
of complete this experiment that we started, right, And so
we hung up and he left, and I was a mess.
(17:47):
I had not expected this kind of just complete nervous
system failure. Like it was like, right does not compute.
I am crying. I am I am like dry heaving,
and I was calling my friends and I was in
you know, I was in Indonesia at that time, so
(18:08):
time zone differences when I was waking everybody else trying. Yeah,
he was in New York and I was not okay,
And at some point I had to just sit with
myself and tune into all.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
The things that I was feeling.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
That wasn't jealousy, right, like, this is not just a
simple not that jealousy simple. But this wasn't like like
who is this girl? It wasn't like that. It was
what experts would call primal panic. It's when your safe,
where your attachment figure is gone, or you fear abandonment,
(18:51):
and your entire sense of being is being threatened, Like
you're under threat of being abandoned, right, so your entire
body reacts in a way that perceives the situation as.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Almost like death.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
So the only thing that helped me to stop crying
was a cold plunchow.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
The hotel whole plunge.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
I was like, I don't know what is wrong with
my body, but I can't stop crying, and I've been
crying for three hours.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
I need to go. Yeah, so I just shocked my system.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yeah, I'm like so curious, Like even though you sort
of sent him on the way, like I know it,
I think I know what I would do which is
blame everything on my partner and be like I can't
believe you did this, and you would be like you
told me to do this, and I'd be like, you're
not supposed to listen to me like that, right, Yeah,
that is a very classic script for me. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
I mean also we're taught that, right, Like, we're taught that,
especially when it comes to heterosexual relationships. The way that
we define romance in the movies and stuff is you
send them away on these tests and they're supposed to
come back wanting you, and they have no desire for
(20:04):
other people. They are, you know, committed to you and
you only, and they don't see any other desirable human beings,
right Like, That's what is considered to be romantic.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
And I think that really puts us in this.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Bind where even when we feel desire for other people,
we can't voice it because that means that we're allowing
other people or we're allowing our partners to do the
same thing, and that threatens our security and safety.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
And I felt anger. I felt anger that he was
enjoying it so much.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
When he solaw for so many years told me that
that's not what he wanted, but really God. Mostly, I
think I was really angry at myself. I was angry
at myself in the beginning for, you know, even trying
this experiment, right, because my brain straight went to he's
(20:59):
going to leave me, like he's falling in love with
somebody else right now, and he is leading me like
this is what I've done, Like look what I've done,
Like I fucked it up. So I was really angry
at myself. And then I was really angry at myself
for not being more okay. I was judging myself as
I was breaking down, like this is.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
What you wanted?
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Like I thought you were more evolved than this, right,
Like why are you feeling these things? Like you are
such a hypocrite and how are you gonna ever be
a poly person if this is how you feel?
Speaker 3 (21:31):
And all these things.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
So I was really angry at myself and I was
very self critical. And I think since then I've learned
to be more gentle and forgiving and compassionate with myself
and the kind of you know, pain that I have
from my childhood, that these moments of primal panic exist
because of past experiences of being abandoned, being let down,
(21:56):
being betrayed, being disappointed, and that's very human for me
to feel, and it just shows that I am deeply
in love and that's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
After that second day with somebody else the next morning,
did you wake up like, Okay, we can never do
this again, or did you try a couple more times?
What was that like?
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Oh? Yeah, we had so many conversations about what to
do next, but it was so evident that we needed
to or I needed to work through just what got
exposed through the experimentation.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
I mean, we hadn't even.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Have that conversation until I got back to Oakland and
he came back from New York to Oakland and we
kind of got together in person, and.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
We didn't say, let's do this again or not.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
I think we were just so focused on, you know,
repairing what God exposed CS and what like, just kind
of reassuring ourselves and each other that this is what
we want. We haven't tried again in that in the
way that we had experimented, but it's a constant conversation
(23:16):
and just checking in with one another. What feels really
good is knowing that the door is not closed, and
knowing that either one of us will voice to the
other person if there is a situation where we want
to open up our marriage, that we have the safety net,
we have the trust in one another to be able
(23:39):
to be honest with our desires.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
And so that's.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Been a really big win from that experience, and also
just knowing that we went through hell and pack and
we are still here and we're still so deeply in love.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Are you all still open or have you like? Where
are you all with it?
Speaker 1 (24:02):
We're on pause, the door is still open, And you know,
I think this is also an important sort of thing
that I came to because I felt like I had
to be Polly to be queer enough, and that I
really forced myself to be okay with it, and then
I discovered these wounds that I didn't even realize had
to be healed so much still because I you know,
(24:25):
I've been in therapy for a long time, and I
thought we were already we felt really good about it,
and going in I thought I was going to be
super fine, but I wasn't super frying.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
I was super not fine.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
And so discovering that I had so much more healing
that I wanted to do before we try it out
again so that I am not putting my body and
my soul through that kind of pain again was what
we decided to do. So we ended up going to
therapy together, like a couple of therapies to work out
(24:57):
all the things that came up.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah. Wow, I again, like, I feel so proud of
you for trying. Thank you because putting yourself in that
situation and really making yourself go through that, I think
once is enough. Maybe if you could, like, first of all,
I think once is enough or whatever, how many times
you had to go through it. I was talking to
(25:19):
a friend who is like Polly and never in the
primary partnership. My friend is always like dating somebody who's
in a partnership or that's just the way they are
right now. But they said a few things to me
over the weekend that were really helpful. One was like
loving someone is not about owning them, It's about experiencing them.
(25:40):
And that really did something for me. And then the
only thing that is certain in a relationship is change.
And I think something that like opening a relationship does
is sort of just identifies that change can totally happen. Yeah,
you can change how you feel, you can change how
do you see someone, Like even if we never change
(26:03):
how we feel our physical bodies in our age and
our health will change. And so there's something about being
open and being Polly that I think like really addresses
all of that that sort of, like you said, brings
about more freedom. Yeah, are you admitting to yourself now
that your marriage is not just a green card marriage? Like,
are you able to sort of have you been able
(26:25):
to release that or you.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Know, I think I am still holding on to it
a little bit.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
I must say, But I will say that.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
I just feel really fortunate to have found a person
that I can trust and love this much, that I
can feel this safe around, and something that my you know.
The one of the experts that was on the podcast,
Jessica Fern, who wrote this very famous book in the
poly community called Polly Secure. She said that a lot
(26:57):
of people derive a sense of safety from the structure
of being in a relationship, not necessarily the quality and
the experience of the relationship. So just by having a
label around having a boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, or being in
a marriage where it's a legal, legally binding contract, that's
(27:17):
where people derive the safety from. But rather what we
are trying to create as a sense of safety within
ourselves and with each other, with or without the label
or the structure as defined by other people in society.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
And I think that's a much more difficult thing for
us to do.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
And I think it also mirrors the work that I
do in social justice, where we are having to define
for ourselves who we are, what dignity feels like, what
safety feels like outside of these systems that tells us otherwise,
and creating that world that we deserve with one another
with honesty and integrity.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
I'm guess I'm wondering when people ask you for advice, like, oh,
should I try it? Should I open my marriage? Should
I be polyamorous? What is the advice you sort of
give now? Or how do you navigate that conversation?
Speaker 1 (28:10):
I you know, I have no expert my own in
my own experience, of course, but the advice that I
always give to people because I have a lot of
friends who want to try it. Like, what I didn't
realize is how so many people want to try it,
but they've never talked.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
About it with their partner.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Yes, because they're scared of being judged, they're scared of
breaking something that they have. And I would say just
take the first step of being honest with yourself and
then being honest with your partner and see where that leads.
It doesn't have to be a huge first step, but
I think for a lot of people that takes immense
courage to admit to themselves the things that they want,
(28:51):
and especially for women and fems and women of color.
I think people in my Asian community, we are so
taught early on to not want or to not voice
the things that we want because it's seen as promiscuous,
it's seen as sinful, it's seen as shameful. So I
think dispelling some of those things and unlearning those conditioning
(29:15):
is really helpful for us to feel like we have
control over our own agency and desires.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Right.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Right, It really is kind of like either navigating the
stress of hiding something or holding on to something, or
navigating the difficulty of an honest conversation. Like either way
you're sort of like you have discomfort.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Either way, you're gonna be uncomfortable, so you might as
well get what you want.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
And try for it, right.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
I think being courageous in being honest with yourself and
the person that you love is I think a necessary
first step towards living the kind of life that you want,
or at least trying it out and seeing for yourself
if this is what you want.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
On the show, we talk a lot about un learning
what do you feel like is one of the biggest
things you've had to learn about love?
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Mm okay. So one of the things that is coming
to me that.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
I didn't believe until I met my current partner is
this whole idea of you need to love yourself before
you can be loved by someone. I think there's a
huge asterisk in that statement for me because I think
that there are moments where I don't love myself, and
(30:37):
there have been years where I didn't see my own
self worth and it was my partner, it was my
friends who reminded me that I am worthy of love
and being cared for. And I think our society wants
us to constantly hunger for self love and depend only
(30:58):
on ourselves to you have that sense of fulfillment and
to have the conviction that we are worthy of love
and respect and dignity. And I think that's a really,
really difficult challenge. I think we need each other to
feel loved, to feel like we are worthy of dignity
(31:19):
and freedom. So I would say that you can love
even when you are not capable of loving yourself at
the time. And I think you're also capable of receiving
love even when you don't think you deserve it.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yes, I am really on this kick of like kind
of rejecting the idea that like we can or should
or even are able to do like really anything without
the support of like a group of people. So often,
especially now that focus has gone internal. Yeah, you know,
like fix yourself, love yourself, focus on yourself, when really
(31:58):
it takes so many hay and like no one person
can like do it on their own. You've mentioned a
few times that getting married to a man has impacted
your identity with your queerness, and maybe opening the marriage
was something to try and make peace with that. Where
(32:19):
are you at with that now?
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I think that experience showed me that one I have
unhealed parts of myself that I didn't even know it existed.
And it also brought into focus sort of my constant
struggle to feel whole by the perspective of other people,
(32:44):
that somehow my identity was more about proving to other
people and myself that I am something more than just
my knowing, and so I think that experience gave me
permission to actually just know that I am.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
I am queer, and I am.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Disoriented, and I am very insecurely attached. So I need
to do some healing, and that has something to do
with me being queer or not.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
It's just like I need to go to therapy.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
A little bit longer, don't we all, my God?
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
I find a little comfort in knowing that exploration and
self discovery is still possible in a stable relationship. I've
loved everything Michelle had to say about her own growth
and hope you got a lot out of it too.
Thanks for listening, and I'll talk to y'all next week.
(33:53):
Boysover is a production of iHeart Podcasts. I'm your host, Hopewordard.
Our executive producer are Christina Everett and Julie Pinero. Our
supervising producer is Emily Meronoff. Our assistant producer is Logan Palau.
Engineering by Bahid Fraser and mixing and mastering by Abu Zafar.
(34:15):
If you liked this episode, please tell a friend and
don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to Boy Sober
on the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, and wherever you get
your favorite shows.
I think it's very natural for humans to be attracted
to multiple people at the same time. And while I
don't think everybody must be Polly, I think everybody should
ask themselves what it is that they actually desire and
what stops them from being able to voice that.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Today we're taking on polyamory, specifically our guests experience with
it and what experimenting in her stable relationship taught her
about herself. I'm hopewitdered and welcome to boys over a
space where we're learning and unlearning all the myths we're
taught about love and relationships. Recently, I listened to a
(00:54):
podcast that made me question everything I thought I knew
about what makes a stable relationship. The podcast is called
I Feel That Way Too, and it's hosted by speaker, storyteller,
and activist Michelle Mietjung Kim. In an episode titled am
I Supposed to sleep with one person for the rest
of My Life? Michelle tells the story of how she
(01:14):
asked her husband if he'd be open to divorce, which
led to a discussion about opening their marriage. This might
seem unconventional, but it was a turning point for Michelle,
who felt that as a queer Asian American woman, it
was important to communicate what she wanted and explore her
sexual fluidity even while in a committed relationship. After hearing
(01:36):
all of this, I knew I wanted to talk to
Michelle to get even further into her story. How did
she build a relationship stable enough to introduce polyamory, did
she find the sexual freedom she was seeking? Why is
polyamory still so misunderstood, and where are she and her
husband at now? Michelle, Welcome to Boy Sober. Thank you
(01:59):
so much for being here.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Thanks for having me. I'm so excited.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Of course today I want to talk to you a
little bit about like love and romance and your experience
with that. Yes, I think I heard on a date
with your now husband you said you don't want to
be married, you don't want kids, and you're queer yeh,
and you ended up getting married. Like, will you just
walk me through that?
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah? I mean so that was my first date with
my now husband, which I'm still getting used to saying
that word because it's just it was never a word
that I thought I would associate myself with. So I
still have a lot of identity crisis around my sexuality.
And my relationship status and all of that. But that
kind of influenced the questions and the things that I
(02:45):
said on our first date. And I had no intention
of being in a relationship with him. Then I said
to him on her first date, Hey, there are three
things that you need to know about me. I don't
want to get married, I don't want to.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Have kids, and I'm queer.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
So if you have any shoes with any of those things,
then we could just grab a drink and then leave.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Like every first date, you like sat down and you
were like, listen, this is it for me? Or was
that just like a just a hymn thing.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Just a hym thing.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Because I felt like he was from a different world
than me. So okay, he was from an ethnobourb in
London where people get married very early, and he's Indian,
He's South Asian descent, and I think he had certain
expectations in general. He had expectations around like you know,
(03:35):
this is when I want to get married and I
want to have a big family. So I felt like
it needed to be said, so almost like a disclaimer
before we jump into anything.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Okay, well walk me through, like what happened after your
first date, Like, how.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I guess I just got attached hope.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, yeah, I'm like what, I'm like, did you fall
in love immediately? Did it take time?
Speaker 3 (04:00):
It took time. It took time because I think.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
For many, many months, maybe even over a year, I
thought he was just a fun summer fling.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
You know, he was cute.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
He was building a company at the same time that
I was building my company, and it was really hard
for me to find people that I could date and
sleep with who fit into my lifestyle because I just
wanted to work. And I was in my girl Boss era,
right and he was in his boy boss era. So
he had an office and I used it for free,
(04:34):
and it just worked. We worked until two am, and
we you know, went home together after we'd work all day,
and then we got up early in the morning to
work again. So that was kind of our dating history.
And I think throughout that time I saw so many
of the qualities that he had that I appreciated, not
just in a partner, but as a human being, as
(04:55):
a friend. And for me, I always said to him
that I would only get married to him, knowing that if.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
We were to get a divorce, it wouldn't be an
ugly one.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
That it would be a very respectful, dignified experience, and
I would still want to have him as a friend
in my life even if we were no.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Longer in a romantic partnership.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
So that was kind of my bar, if you will,
of getting married. And also because of his immigration status,
we thought that was more needed than if I were
with somebody who has a citizenship, for example. So for me,
it was a romantic but also a very political decision
for us to get married.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah, tell me about your wedding and your wedding night.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
That's I know you listen to the podcast. So we
got married. It was a beautiful wedding. It was at
a city hall.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
I never wanted a big wedding, and it was during
the pandemic, so it was perfect because we had five
people in the audience and that we finish our ceremony,
got dinner with our family and that was that. And
then the next morning I woke up at two three
am panicked and I kept thinking, what the fuck have
(06:07):
I done? And I looked at him. He was sleeping,
he was sound asleep. I shook him awake, and I
just asked him if we could promise each other that
we would get a divorce in three years, So I, okay,
shook him awake, and he, you know, kind of looked
at me like what is going on?
Speaker 3 (06:27):
What's up?
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Is everything okay? And I was like, no, no, no,
I'm freaking out. I'm freaking out. I think I'm having
cold feet, And can we just say that we're gonna
get a divorce in three years because this is just
freaking me out?
Speaker 3 (06:38):
And he's like, yeah, yeah, whatever you want.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, So that's what happened. It's been a little over
three years now, so.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
We passed the three year mark. We haven't gotten a divorce.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
And why do you think, Like, I'm like, why three years?
Why did you need to say it? Like what was
going on?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
That's how long it takes to get a green card.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So yeah, and for it to like be really sticky,
you know. So he got a dream card and we're
still together. And I think for me, the idea of
being married, and specifically being married to a straight, heterosexual
cis man, really fucked with my identity of being this
(07:20):
queer person who is anti institutionalized idea of marriage. And
I think it just kind of made me question whether
I am queer enough, whether I'm by enough, whether this
was going to change my identity as it was perceived
by not only other people but myself, And so I
(07:43):
think that's probably the biggest reason why I was freaking
out that night, and also just throughout our relationship, me
constantly rejecting him whenever he asked me if we can
get married, and I was like, no, hell no.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
How many times did he ask you to get married?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
I mean it was like a weekly thing.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Like a handful everything.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Yeah, it's very often.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
And it's so funny because our actual marriage proposal, people
always ask me, how did he propose or whatever the fuck?
And there wasn't a proposal. It was a discussion, Hey,
I think we need to get married because your immigration
status is really precarious.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
And I asked.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Him if we can just send me a calendar advite
for whenever the city hall it becomes available.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
So really, and that is a bit anti institutional because
you're not really wrapping up into getting married like everything
that so many people do, like this is something we
need to do because I love you now, you know,
like I love you now and this is an important
thing and getting married can fix that. But you all
(08:47):
had a conversation about opening the marriage. Do you consider
yourself polyamorous? Where are you all with all of that now.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
So great question?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
I had always wanted to try being open and being polly.
I have a lot of friends who are polly, and
it's a lot of work, but they may hit work.
And I always like the idea of being able to
follow my desires, and for me, it's really about that right,
like being able to honor my own desires, my identity,
(09:19):
and to give myself the permission to be free and
to have a partner who allows you to be as
free as possible, and to continue to actually provide that safety,
emotional safety that I crave. So we talked about being
in an open marriage for many, many years. It took
(09:40):
a lot of convincing on my part for us to
try it out.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Can I ask you, like, what was that convincing like?
Because I'm imagining those conversations in a relationship with someone. Yeah,
I'm imagining it's uncomfortable, Like feelings could get hurt, emotions
can get high, like was one of one of the
more memorable conversations during those negotiations.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
So I think in during negotiation and during our expermitation.
One of the hardest things is knowing that my desire
can hurt.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
The person I love the most.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Right, how do you tell the person that you love
most that I want to fuck someone else?
Speaker 2 (10:26):
It's so honest, I think, to be like, I'm looking
at people and I'm thinking of them in certain ways.
Like that's honest and a really important thing too. I
think admit about like oneself, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Yeah, I think the honest part is really really difficult to.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Practice with each other and with ourselves.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
And I felt like being dishonest about my desires would
be a betrayal to myself and that to our relationship.
And I never wanted to be in a relationship where,
you know, the cost of my commitment and my love
for somebody else is my freedom and my honesty.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
And so I was.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Very frank with him from the very beginning that I
would I would want to try open relationship whenever we can.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
I wanted it to be consensual. I didn't want it
to be forced.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
And you know, I think it was really hard for
him to kind of reckon with the fact that I
have desires for other people. So I think there are
a couple of different things that people like how people
approach love and relationship. Like I think a lot of people,
like my partner and my friends, used to say to me,
isn't it romantic that you're committed to one another and
(11:42):
that you're fighting off these temptations?
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Right?
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Like you that, of course you can like go and
sleep with all these people and fall in love with
all these people, but you're choosing not to because you
want to prioritize this person that you're committed to. Isn't
that romantic? And my response always was, I think it's
just as romantic for us to explore other options and
still choose the person at the end of the day
(12:04):
you want to be with. I think that's just as
we're meant to give, not more to me, because that
means you have allowed yourself to experience the full you know,
potential of what your life can be, and you're still
choosing one or two, however, many people that you want
to actually do life with, right, So, I think it's
just different perspectives. And for me, the experience of opening
(12:30):
up our marriage, trusting one another to be honest about
what we were experiencing, and also the kind of pain
and insecurities that were coming up for both of us
because it wasn't easy, right. There was a lot of
tears involved, There were a lot of conversations involved. There
was a lot of me having to confront my abandonment issues,
my insecurities, my jealousy, and the entire of rooting of
(12:55):
my you know, sense of safety in order for us
to get back to the safety and commitment that we
promised one another.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
So it wasn't easy, but we did it.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Something that I was thinking about that you again mentioned
on that one episode was like him going on a
second date with the same person, and I was like,
oh my gosh, like second day, same girl, I'm home alone.
Like I was kind of so proud of you listening
to that episode because what it so like, well what
(13:42):
it sounded like to me is that you were sitting
with your thoughts and feelings and you mentioned, or maybe
the expert mentioned like co regulation and self regulation. Yeah,
and like understanding how to self regulate while in partnership
with someone I think is also kind of anti institutional
(14:03):
and like anti sort of like capitalist and says like
anti sort of what we're told now, because it's sort
of like it's either those pendulum swings right, like figure
it out how to coregulate on your own, like be
an independent person, like you could say, this podcast or
this concept of boysover has even like made space and
conversation for that, like doing it all on your own,
(14:25):
but listening to y'all's story, like it really sort of
validated something for me that like, oh, you can learn
how to self regulate in partnership with someone. Yeah, can
you speak to that at all?
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Oh my gosh, yes, I think that's so important because
you know, I had a pretty I had a lowercase
T traumatic childhood that kind of planted in me the
sphere of being abandoned and separation and needing to always
(14:58):
be reassured that I am loved, that I'm cared for,
They're not going anywhere. And so I think because of that,
one of my coping mechanisms throughout my teenage years and
twenties is kind of pushing people away before I am
pushed away.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Of course, I understand you deeply.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yes, I'm sure you do. And yeah, because I don't
think I ever really felt truly safe and loved unconditionally,
and I never really you know, identified with that concept
of unconditional love and my current partner was the first
person to ever make me feel like I could be
(15:42):
completely unclenched and that I could rest, that I could
actually trust, that I don't have to always have my
guard up, that I can yeah, that I can lean
on him, that even if we were not romantically involved,
that he will still love me, that I will still
love him. There's this like really deep emotional and human
(16:03):
level connection that I love. So that meant that, you know,
so much of my self nervous system regulation came from
being with him and having him help me regulate myself
by him reassuring me that he still loves me, that
him showing up for me in ways that made me
feel calm, And when he decided to go on a
(16:24):
second day with the same person and that I knew
that he was into her enough that he was while
he was getting ready we were on the phone that
I could hear his excitement.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
I was, I was, I it wasn't fair to him,
but I started crying and.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
That I love her. You're like, this happens to me too.
This happened to me the other day. I was like,
in my head, I was like, don't do this, don't
do this, Like this isn't fair to him, like reaction,
but then like my entire body, yeah, is like my
heart is pounding, my throat is tight, you know what
(17:02):
I mean. Like I'm I'm like so uptight, and it's
like I think that's just like so real. It's like,
you know it's unfair, but you can't help sort of
your physical response.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Yeah, And I was crying so much so that he
was like, I don't I don't have to go if
you don't want me to go, and I can stay
with you.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
I just don't know how I'm going to leave you
in the state.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
And I said, no, no, no, like this is this
is what I need to experience, like I want to
try this out. Like even if we were to decide
we can't do this anymore, I need us to sort
of complete this experiment that we started, right, And so
we hung up and he left, and I was a mess.
(17:47):
I had not expected this kind of just complete nervous
system failure. Like it was like, right does not compute.
I am crying. I am I am like dry heaving,
and I was calling my friends and I was in
you know, I was in Indonesia at that time, so
(18:08):
time zone differences when I was waking everybody else trying. Yeah,
he was in New York and I was not okay,
And at some point I had to just sit with
myself and tune into all.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
The things that I was feeling.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
That wasn't jealousy, right, like, this is not just a
simple not that jealousy simple. But this wasn't like like
who is this girl? It wasn't like that. It was
what experts would call primal panic. It's when your safe,
where your attachment figure is gone, or you fear abandonment,
(18:51):
and your entire sense of being is being threatened, Like
you're under threat of being abandoned, right, so your entire
body reacts in a way that perceives the situation as.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Almost like death.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
So the only thing that helped me to stop crying
was a cold plunchow.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
The hotel whole plunge.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
I was like, I don't know what is wrong with
my body, but I can't stop crying, and I've been
crying for three hours.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
I need to go. Yeah, so I just shocked my system.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yeah, I'm like so curious, Like even though you sort
of sent him on the way, like I know it,
I think I know what I would do which is
blame everything on my partner and be like I can't
believe you did this, and you would be like you
told me to do this, and I'd be like, you're
not supposed to listen to me like that, right, Yeah,
that is a very classic script for me. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
I mean also we're taught that, right, Like, we're taught that,
especially when it comes to heterosexual relationships. The way that
we define romance in the movies and stuff is you
send them away on these tests and they're supposed to
come back wanting you, and they have no desire for
(20:04):
other people. They are, you know, committed to you and
you only, and they don't see any other desirable human beings,
right Like, That's what is considered to be romantic.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
And I think that really puts us in this.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Bind where even when we feel desire for other people,
we can't voice it because that means that we're allowing
other people or we're allowing our partners to do the
same thing, and that threatens our security and safety.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
And I felt anger. I felt anger that he was
enjoying it so much.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
When he solaw for so many years told me that
that's not what he wanted, but really God. Mostly, I
think I was really angry at myself. I was angry
at myself in the beginning for, you know, even trying
this experiment, right, because my brain straight went to he's
(20:59):
going to leave me, like he's falling in love with
somebody else right now, and he is leading me like
this is what I've done, Like look what I've done,
Like I fucked it up. So I was really angry
at myself. And then I was really angry at myself
for not being more okay. I was judging myself as
I was breaking down, like this is.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
What you wanted?
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Like I thought you were more evolved than this, right,
Like why are you feeling these things? Like you are
such a hypocrite and how are you gonna ever be
a poly person if this is how you feel?
Speaker 3 (21:31):
And all these things.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
So I was really angry at myself and I was
very self critical. And I think since then I've learned
to be more gentle and forgiving and compassionate with myself
and the kind of you know, pain that I have
from my childhood, that these moments of primal panic exist
because of past experiences of being abandoned, being let down,
(21:56):
being betrayed, being disappointed, and that's very human for me
to feel, and it just shows that I am deeply
in love and that's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
After that second day with somebody else the next morning,
did you wake up like, Okay, we can never do
this again, or did you try a couple more times?
What was that like?
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Oh? Yeah, we had so many conversations about what to
do next, but it was so evident that we needed
to or I needed to work through just what got
exposed through the experimentation.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
I mean, we hadn't even.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Have that conversation until I got back to Oakland and
he came back from New York to Oakland and we
kind of got together in person, and.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
We didn't say, let's do this again or not.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
I think we were just so focused on, you know,
repairing what God exposed CS and what like, just kind
of reassuring ourselves and each other that this is what
we want. We haven't tried again in that in the
way that we had experimented, but it's a constant conversation
(23:16):
and just checking in with one another. What feels really
good is knowing that the door is not closed, and
knowing that either one of us will voice to the
other person if there is a situation where we want
to open up our marriage, that we have the safety net,
we have the trust in one another to be able
(23:39):
to be honest with our desires.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
And so that's.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Been a really big win from that experience, and also
just knowing that we went through hell and pack and
we are still here and we're still so deeply in love.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Are you all still open or have you like? Where
are you all with it?
Speaker 1 (24:02):
We're on pause, the door is still open, And you know,
I think this is also an important sort of thing
that I came to because I felt like I had
to be Polly to be queer enough, and that I
really forced myself to be okay with it, and then
I discovered these wounds that I didn't even realize had
to be healed so much still because I you know,
(24:25):
I've been in therapy for a long time, and I
thought we were already we felt really good about it,
and going in I thought I was going to be
super fine, but I wasn't super frying.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
I was super not fine.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
And so discovering that I had so much more healing
that I wanted to do before we try it out
again so that I am not putting my body and
my soul through that kind of pain again was what
we decided to do. So we ended up going to
therapy together, like a couple of therapies to work out
(24:57):
all the things that came up.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah. Wow, I again, like, I feel so proud of
you for trying. Thank you because putting yourself in that
situation and really making yourself go through that, I think
once is enough. Maybe if you could, like, first of all,
I think once is enough or whatever, how many times
you had to go through it. I was talking to
(25:19):
a friend who is like Polly and never in the
primary partnership. My friend is always like dating somebody who's
in a partnership or that's just the way they are
right now. But they said a few things to me
over the weekend that were really helpful. One was like
loving someone is not about owning them, It's about experiencing them.
(25:40):
And that really did something for me. And then the
only thing that is certain in a relationship is change.
And I think something that like opening a relationship does
is sort of just identifies that change can totally happen. Yeah,
you can change how you feel, you can change how
do you see someone, Like even if we never change
(26:03):
how we feel our physical bodies in our age and
our health will change. And so there's something about being
open and being Polly that I think like really addresses
all of that that sort of, like you said, brings
about more freedom. Yeah, are you admitting to yourself now
that your marriage is not just a green card marriage? Like,
are you able to sort of have you been able
(26:25):
to release that or you.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Know, I think I am still holding on to it
a little bit.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
I must say, But I will say that.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
I just feel really fortunate to have found a person
that I can trust and love this much, that I
can feel this safe around, and something that my you know.
The one of the experts that was on the podcast,
Jessica Fern, who wrote this very famous book in the
poly community called Polly Secure. She said that a lot
(26:57):
of people derive a sense of safety from the structure
of being in a relationship, not necessarily the quality and
the experience of the relationship. So just by having a
label around having a boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, or being in
a marriage where it's a legal, legally binding contract, that's
(27:17):
where people derive the safety from. But rather what we
are trying to create as a sense of safety within
ourselves and with each other, with or without the label
or the structure as defined by other people in society.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
And I think that's a much more difficult thing for
us to do.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
And I think it also mirrors the work that I
do in social justice, where we are having to define
for ourselves who we are, what dignity feels like, what
safety feels like outside of these systems that tells us otherwise,
and creating that world that we deserve with one another
with honesty and integrity.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
I'm guess I'm wondering when people ask you for advice, like, oh,
should I try it? Should I open my marriage? Should
I be polyamorous? What is the advice you sort of
give now? Or how do you navigate that conversation?
Speaker 1 (28:10):
I you know, I have no expert my own in
my own experience, of course, but the advice that I
always give to people because I have a lot of
friends who want to try it. Like, what I didn't
realize is how so many people want to try it,
but they've never talked.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
About it with their partner.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Yes, because they're scared of being judged, they're scared of
breaking something that they have. And I would say just
take the first step of being honest with yourself and
then being honest with your partner and see where that leads.
It doesn't have to be a huge first step, but
I think for a lot of people that takes immense
courage to admit to themselves the things that they want,
(28:51):
and especially for women and fems and women of color.
I think people in my Asian community, we are so
taught early on to not want or to not voice
the things that we want because it's seen as promiscuous,
it's seen as sinful, it's seen as shameful. So I
think dispelling some of those things and unlearning those conditioning
(29:15):
is really helpful for us to feel like we have
control over our own agency and desires.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Right.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Right, It really is kind of like either navigating the
stress of hiding something or holding on to something, or
navigating the difficulty of an honest conversation. Like either way
you're sort of like you have discomfort.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Either way, you're gonna be uncomfortable, so you might as
well get what you want.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
And try for it, right.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
I think being courageous in being honest with yourself and
the person that you love is I think a necessary
first step towards living the kind of life that you want,
or at least trying it out and seeing for yourself
if this is what you want.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
On the show, we talk a lot about un learning
what do you feel like is one of the biggest
things you've had to learn about love?
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Mm okay. So one of the things that is coming
to me that.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
I didn't believe until I met my current partner is
this whole idea of you need to love yourself before
you can be loved by someone. I think there's a
huge asterisk in that statement for me because I think
that there are moments where I don't love myself, and
(30:37):
there have been years where I didn't see my own
self worth and it was my partner, it was my
friends who reminded me that I am worthy of love
and being cared for. And I think our society wants
us to constantly hunger for self love and depend only
(30:58):
on ourselves to you have that sense of fulfillment and
to have the conviction that we are worthy of love
and respect and dignity. And I think that's a really,
really difficult challenge. I think we need each other to
feel loved, to feel like we are worthy of dignity
(31:19):
and freedom. So I would say that you can love
even when you are not capable of loving yourself at
the time. And I think you're also capable of receiving
love even when you don't think you deserve it.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yes, I am really on this kick of like kind
of rejecting the idea that like we can or should
or even are able to do like really anything without
the support of like a group of people. So often,
especially now that focus has gone internal. Yeah, you know,
like fix yourself, love yourself, focus on yourself, when really
(31:58):
it takes so many hay and like no one person
can like do it on their own. You've mentioned a
few times that getting married to a man has impacted
your identity with your queerness, and maybe opening the marriage
was something to try and make peace with that. Where
(32:19):
are you at with that now?
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I think that experience showed me that one I have
unhealed parts of myself that I didn't even know it existed.
And it also brought into focus sort of my constant
struggle to feel whole by the perspective of other people,
(32:44):
that somehow my identity was more about proving to other
people and myself that I am something more than just
my knowing, and so I think that experience gave me
permission to actually just know that I am.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
I am queer, and I am.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Disoriented, and I am very insecurely attached. So I need
to do some healing, and that has something to do
with me being queer or not.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
It's just like I need to go to therapy.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
A little bit longer, don't we all, my God?
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
I find a little comfort in knowing that exploration and
self discovery is still possible in a stable relationship. I've
loved everything Michelle had to say about her own growth
and hope you got a lot out of it too.
Thanks for listening, and I'll talk to y'all next week.
(33:53):
Boysover is a production of iHeart Podcasts. I'm your host, Hopewordard.
Our executive producer are Christina Everett and Julie Pinero. Our
supervising producer is Emily Meronoff. Our assistant producer is Logan Palau.
Engineering by Bahid Fraser and mixing and mastering by Abu Zafar.
(34:15):
If you liked this episode, please tell a friend and
don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to Boy Sober
on the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, and wherever you get
your favorite shows.
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