Martha Beck & Rowan Mangan: Polyamory & Throuple Life

August 11, 2022

Glennon Doyle:

Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. We’re already laughing around here because today we have a double date with some of our favorite people. Are you excited?

Abby Wambach:

I’m so excited. Martha and Rowan.

Glennon Doyle:

Dr. Martha Beck is a New York Times best selling author, life coach and speaker. She holds three Harvard degrees-

Abby Wambach:

Three.

Glennon Doyle:

… in social science, but who doesn’t? And Oprah Winfrey has called her one of the smartest women I know. Her newest book, The Way of Integrity, I love this book. I love this book. I love this book. Finding the Path to Your True Self was an instant New York Times bestseller, obviously.

Glennon Doyle:

Rowan Mangan is a writer, podcaster, and mom to a vivacious toddler, Salty Clexy and Ozzy. Row co-hosts to Bewildered podcast, which all of you must listen to. It is so good. And also, I just feel like we’re talking about some of the same things and it makes me really excited. Podcast with her wife Martha Beck, she also runs the Wild Adventures newsletter and community on Substack. Row is currently pursuing publication for her first novel, a magical realist thriller set on the west coast of Ireland, which I didn’t know and I’m very excited for you Rowan.

Rowan Mangan:

Thank you. Cross fingers.

Martha Beck:

It’s amazing.

Rowan Mangan:

It’s amazing. Truly.

Glennon Doyle:

Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.

Rowan Mangan:

Thank you.

Martha Beck:

Thank you.

Glennon Doyle:

It’s so good to see your faces. We miss you. This double date is a first for us because We Can Do Hard Things listeners, Martha and Rowan are missing one person, who is Karen, because Martha and Rowan and Karen are in a polyamorous relationship. Is that how you describe?

Rowan Mangan:

Correct. Okay.

Abby Wambach:

A throuple.

Martha Beck:

A throuple.

Glennon Doyle:

A throuple, right? Okay. So-

Martha Beck:

Deeply satisfying domestic arrangement.

Abby Wambach:

I would say that for me too.

Glennon Doyle:

Said 1% of the population that they’re in a deeply satisfying domestic arrangement. Okay. So can you talk to us first about how this all came together? Because parts of it make me laugh so hard, but Martha, you were married to a dude long time ago.

Martha Beck:

Yeah.

Glennon Doyle:

Married to a guy.

Martha Beck:

Not at the time we got together, but a long time ago I had three kids. He was gay, I was gay. Out of that, got together with Karen, my first ever female/female relationship, and everything was good to go until we died, until something happened.

Glennon Doyle:

And what happened?

Rowan Mangan:

So the funny thing is that I start out, it’s a bit embarrassing the way I start out in this story, because I came in as a kind of Martha Beck groupie.

Martha Beck:

I don’t see what’s wrong with that.

Glennon Doyle:

No?

Rowan Mangan:

So I was all like misty-eyed and excited. And I put a lot of money that I did not have. I was a single woman living in Melbourne with a mortgage and a freelance career. And I thought, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to spend a ton of money to go on Martha Beck’s-

Martha Beck:

African safari change your life adventure.

Glennon Doyle:

Yes. Okay.

Rowan Mangan:

And then I’m just going to become friends with her and be part of her life. Now, a lot of people think-

Glennon Doyle:

Yes they do.

Rowan Mangan:

But I got it.

Martha Beck:

Well, here’s the thing. On the way… So we do all this pre-work for these folks who come on this safari thing, I just got back from there. It’s way out in the bush in South Africa and they’re lions and everything. And everybody has to do tons of psychological pre-work so that I know whom to sick the lions on.

Glennon Doyle:

Of course. Yes. Get them out of the way early.

Martha Beck:

But on her way, we kept getting these updates from Rowan Mangan. Rowan Mangan is in Paris, but her hotel got bedbugs and she hasn’t slept for six days. We were like, oh my God. Then Rowan Mangan is in Cape Town. She was mugged while trying to recover from the bedbug bites. And she’s on all kinds of hormonal treatments for the bedbug bites themselves, plus she got a really bad hair dye job where they ruined her eyebrows and made her cry.

Glennon Doyle:

Well, that is way worse.

Abby Wambach:

That was the worst of it.

Glennon Doyle:

Way worse than the worse mugged or bed bugs. Yes. Oh no.

Martha Beck:

I was talking to my other coaches going, oh my God, this poor woman. The moment she gets here, I’m going to start working with her, we’re going to try to pull her out of whatever rage she is in because this horrible experience. So everybody gets together. I spot her and I’m like, okay, immediately start to work with her. Okay, and I’m doing my coachy stuff. And I’m thinking, she’s not reacting like a typical person, like she’s taking this incredibly well. And she’s drawing meaning out of it and she talks poet. And after about five minutes, I was just like, keep talking, Mrs. Whatever your name is.

Rowan Mangan:

But what Martha didn’t know is that I was also working with her because I have a superpower about being the ultimate teacher’s pet. There is no teacher’s pet who can out teacher the pet me. And I knew exactly what I was doing. I had a plan.

Martha Beck:

She was machiavellian, it was shocking. She was… And I found myself doing things I could not control like grabbing her at one point and saying to her, you’re my favorite.

Glennon Doyle:

Which you’re not allowed to do. Right?

Rowan Mangan:

No.

Martha Beck:

No. Bad policy but for a client thing.

Glennon Doyle:

So you two are already connecting.

Martha Beck:

So we knew each other.

Rowan Mangan:

And then what happened was that Marty and Karen were living on a ranch in California and there were sort of two different residences on the ranch and there was a bit of a commune kind of vibe going on. And so one of the other people who lived there asked me to come and do some writing work with her over a few months. And I was like, sure.

Martha Beck:

And that cut right to the day that Karen came to me because she got to know Rowan better than I really did and they were hanging out together a lot. And one day she came to me and said, “Marty, I need to talk to you about something.” I was like, all right. She said, “I’m having very unusual feelings about Row.” I was like, really? How so? She’s like, “I just feel like this fire hose of love, like maybe it’s sisterly.” And I was looking at her and I was like, “It is not sisterly, you’re in love.”

Martha Beck:

And I expected to feel jealous, upset. I had this bizarre reaction where I felt like I had been hit by a train full of joy, just wham, so much happiness. And I thought they were going to get together. I’d move out of the bedroom, Rowan moved in with Karen and I’d get the guest room, no problem. No problem. And I kept going, why am I so happy? This should make me upset but it doesn’t. Row started coming to our residents. And the three of us, we went into a very strange interlude, like strange.

Rowan Mangan:

It involved like sitting close together on the couch, the three of us.

Martha Beck:

All of us.

Rowan Mangan:

And like we planned the day around these times where we would get to sit close together on the couch. And we would just sit there going this isn’t weird, this isn’t strange. And we talked about everything and the whole time we were sitting like mashed together on the couch going, this isn’t weird.

Martha Beck:

Completely normal.

Rowan Mangan:

Absolutely not weird.

Glennon Doyle:

So were you telling yourself it wasn’t weird, but it did feel weird or did it actually.

Rowan Mangan:

Oh yeah.

Glennon Doyle:

Okay, so you were feeling it was weird, but you were telling yourself it wasn’t weird. Okay.

Martha Beck:

It wasn’t optional. At least not for me. Like there was no option to not sit on the couch together. It was like falling off a cliff and saying, well, I’m going to decide whether to hit the ground. I had no control. It freaked me out.

Rowan Mangan:

And so then over time we sort of edged towards what was actually happening, because the one thing about Martha and Karen is anyone who knows them, knew them, that that is not ever going to break up. Like that was not even in the realm of possibility with any of this stuff. Not like the guest room, whatever, but they weren’t going to break up.

Glennon Doyle:

No.

Abby Wambach:

It was not.

Martha Beck:

So it was all like we had to sort of go, what is this, what this… And there came a point where I was like, I will keep this from getting weird because I am not famous, but I am quite well known among people who’ve heard of me. And I write and talk about integrity. I can’t tell lies or keep secrets and nothing weird can happen because I would have to tell the entire world about it.

Glennon Doyle:

Exactly.

Martha Beck:

So it’s not going to happen. The next few days or weeks, it was like literally trying to fight gravity. It was like trying to hold ourselves on a little bar above the earth indefinitely and everything was pulling us together. It was such a strange and wonderful thing for me. How was it for you?

Rowan Mangan:

Strange and wonderful.

Glennon Doyle:

There you go.

Rowan Mangan:

But then we came to a point where I’d been spending so much time out there and it was like, okay, we’re got to talk to the other people that we go and have dinner with and stuff on the ranch. And so we made little plan because we didn’t want to lie. But we also, somethings up in this business.

Martha Beck:

We’re embarrassed as crap.

Rowan Mangan:

We were embarrassed.

Abby Wambach:

Why?

Rowan Mangan:

And so we were like-

Abby Wambach:

Can you tell me what made you feel embarrassed?

Rowan Mangan:

So Abby, there’s certain people who identify as polyamorous and that’s part of their sexuality. Like that’s part of their sense of themselves in the world. And that is so different from what happened for us. So for us, we didn’t even really know anything about it. It, it was something that happened. We’d heard that term, but we didn’t really hadn’t thought about it. We didn’t really have a lot of language about it or knowledge of how that other people did this and how they might do it. So it was just the weirdness, like just what you would imagine. Just the, now we have to go and say, we’re really weird.

Martha Beck:

And the culture doesn’t really go for that. I mean, now parts of it are, but it’s still considered super weird. The way being gay was considered super weird when I was growing up in Provo, Utah, but we had this speech we made up. We’re going to go down and Row and I just crafted it, right. Because we’re-

Glennon Doyle:

Of course you did.

Martha Beck:

We’re like, we’re going to say we have developed a very strong family feeling. Like we feel very connected in a family way.

Rowan Mangan:

It’s like a family. It’s like, it’s a family, it’s a family. It’s an important word.

Martha Beck:

We rehearsed it. Then we went down to dinner in the other place and when we walked in, someone had his phone open and he was reading about polyamory.

Rowan Mangan:

There was like someone we kind of knew had done a post on Facebook that day about I’m interested in this thing called polyamory. And he was reading it out loud as we walked in with our family speech memorized.

Martha Beck:

And Karen has compared to us much lower impulse control about telling the truth.

Rowan Mangan:

Here we go. She also likes to get the job done. She doesn’t want a dilly dally.

Martha Beck:

She also, when things are awkward, just runs away. So she raised up on her hind legs as we walk into the room and hear this conversation and she goes, “Well, I love Rowan and I love Marty. I’m going to go get Thai food.” And left. 

Rowan Mangan:

There were about eight people in the room at that point.

Abby Wambach:

Amazing.

Rowan Mangan:

The door slams after Karen and there was a long silence.

Glennon Doyle:

Long silence.

Rowan Mangan:

And we were like it’s sort of like a family.

Glennon Doyle:

Oh, that’s so good.

Abby Wambach:

That’s so interesting because you are like pioneering in many ways because so many of us, especially that we feel like we don’t fit into the societal norms, we then have to like look around and see what’s available. And you’re like, I guess it’s polyamory, but it doesn’t totally fit. So we got to try to make it our own thing. I think you feel this way about sexuality, Glennon.

Glennon Doyle:

Yeah, totally.

Abby Wambach:

I just think that’s so freaking cool that you had the courage to do that.

Glennon Doyle:

I need to know what happened after, like who broke the awkward silence after you said, “Like a family.” Like what happened next?

Martha Beck:

I think I’ve repressed it.

Rowan Mangan:

I have no memory, is just like-

Martha Beck:

We sat down. And I remember sort of looking at… And I think I blurted out something and this was true at the time, nothing’s happened. Nothing has happened.

Martha Beck:

And Row looked at me like-

Glennon Doyle:

Because if it did, the way of integrity would have demanded that I tell it.

Martha Beck:

Exactly. And Row looked at me like, “Why did you have to bring that up? You know that’s what they’re all thinking.” And I was like, but nothing happened. And now I’m thinking about things happening.

Rowan Mangan:

Right, and I don’t want to talk about happenings.

Abby Wambach:

Yes.

Glennon Doyle:

Happenings? No happenings, it’s like a family. It’s a fire hose of sisterly familial love. 

Martha Beck:

That’s what it is. Can’t you see that?

Glennon Doyle:

And you said Martha, because didn’t you say this about Karen too. In the beginning, you were like, “I wanted anything else other than this thing to be true.”

Martha Beck:

I know, yes.

Glennon Doyle:

Except that it was undeniable, right?

Martha Beck:

I have all… I am doomed to be a cultural outcast. I went to Harvard and chose to have a baby with down syndrome, moved to Provo, Utah, capital of Mormonism to become a lesbian. Then I left Mormonism and started practicing polygamy.

Glennon Doyle:

Which is why you are our favorite person under the sun.

Abby Wambach:

Yes.

Rowan Mangan:

She’s returned to the ways of her ancestors.

Martha Beck:

My great grandfather had three wives. I have one more to go.

Glennon Doyle:

So we were talking about this morning. You haven’t talked about this a ton publicly. And Abby was wondering if, tell them what you were saying this morning.

Abby Wambach:

So early days in my lesbian acknowledgement and understanding, I found myself having to teach the rest of my people about homosexuality because I was the only gay person they had ever known. I was like a zoo animal.

Martha Beck:

Yes.

Abby Wambach:

And like they ask really inappropriate questions and things that heterosexual couples never have to deal with.

Glennon Doyle:

Exactly.

Abby Wambach:

Like, “How do you have sex with a woman?” These kinds of questions. I wonder how similar your experiences with that in terms of having to teach the people like us right now, like here we are asking you hopefully not too personal questions.

Glennon Doyle:

Do you feel like that? Like you’re on display to answer people’s curiosity questions?

Rowan Mangan:

Isn’t it interesting that it is… I’ve thought about this before that there’s such a strong similarity between like the whole gay thing and then this is that it’s all people want to talk about is the sex.

Glennon Doyle:

Yes. Sexualized.

Rowan Mangan:

And there’s been articles in the New York Times about throuples and they’ve even said… I remember one of them even said, obviously, everyone just wants to know how the sex works. You know that thing about like you’re coming out as gay to your parents and then they have to think about you having sex. Even though if you bring a heterosexual partner home, they don’t have to think about you having sex.

Glennon Doyle:

Yes.

Rowan Mangan:

It’s so funny that our brains automatically need to know that part. And it’s like, don’t you want to know about how awesome it is to have a fight when there’s a referee?

Glennon Doyle:

Yes.

Abby Wambach:

Oh, this is exactly what we wanted to talk about.

Glennon Doyle:

That’s what we want to talk about. But can we just pause and repeat what Rowan said? Because I don’t think that people think about this enough, that the coming out process is not just stressful because you are telling your parents you like another gender or the same gender. It’s stressful because you’re sexualizing yourself in front of your parents-

Martha Beck:

Exactly.

Glennon Doyle:

Because you’re sitting down and saying, I am a sexual being who wants to have sex and straight kids don’t have to have that conversation. It’s sexualizing yourself in front of people over and over and over again, that is traumatic.

Martha Beck:

Absolutely. That is so well put.

Martha Beck:

And we actually talked about this before we went on and we were like, oh, what do we do? What do we do? And we decided that if we were asked a direct question about how the sex goes, we would say, it’s great.

Glennon Doyle:

It’s great. And we would never do that. We’ve been in that situation enough that we would never do that.

Abby Wambach:

When I came out to my mom, my mom’s first question to me was, “Well, do you have one of those strappy things?”

Martha Beck:

Oh my God.

Abby Wambach:

And I said, I don’t know how I got the… Like I had the most wise download of the history of my life in this moment. And I said, “have you asked any of my other siblings about the actual acts of sex?” And she said, “No.” And I said, “Do you want to start now?” So it was my beautiful way of not having to answer that question specifically.

Martha Beck:

Wow. Good move.

Rowan Mangan

Can I tell you about Karen telling her mother who’s in her eighties about the three of us?

Abby Wambach:

Yes.

Glennon Doyle:

There will never be a story that starts with, can I tell you about Karen? That I won’t say yes to.

Martha Beck:

Oh my God. She is hilarious.

Rowan Mangan:

So Karen goes down to Florida to visit her mother, who’s 80 what? She’s getting on. And she says, “Okay, so this is…” Because Karen doesn’t care. Karen is the most counter cultural person. She just doesn’t care. She’s like, “So mom, now there’s three of us and da, da, da.” She’s just telling her. And then this is what her mother says. They walk in silence along the beach for a few more moments. Then her mother says, “Oh your father and I never felt the need for that.”

Abby Wambach:

That’s so awesome.

Glennon Doyle:

Oh, but isn’t that a beautiful way. It’s kind of beautiful.

Abby Wambach:

It’s non judgment. She thought about it for herself and then didn’t judge it. She just thought, oh.

Martha Beck:

Well, and I think that’s why Karen is so relaxed about being counter cultural because she knew for a fact that her parents would love her no matter what. And then that all her siblings would love her no matter what. And so the whole getting interrogated and having to defend yourself and everything, she knew that wouldn’t happen to her with her most intimate people.

Rowan Mangan:

I knew that too.

Martha Beck:

When I am open with the people I grew up with, they don’t like it.

Glennon Doyle:

I think most people will relate to that.

Martha Beck:

Some of them were like, “Ugh!”

Glennon Doyle:

Can you talk to us about fight? We are obsessed with fighting because we just, I don’t know. It’s just tells us more about our relationship than anything else, I feel like our conflicts.

Abby Wambach:

Yes.

Glennon Doyle:

So I do want to know how that goes. Just take us back to your last fight. Is it two of you that start fighting and then someone else referees? So can you talk to us about how this works?

Rowan Mangan:

It’s fun to talk about this.

Martha Beck:

It’s fantastic. It’s the best. You tell.

Rowan Mangan:

We’ve never had a fight where all three of us have been fighting. And it just naturally every time happens, it’s the best. Like to me, conflict feels very chaotic and scary. And I never know, like it could go anywhere. It could go really bad, right? And so it’s just, honestly, it’s the best case scenario. It’s someone sitting there going, “Oh no, you do that actually, Row.” Or, “No, that is exactly what you said 10 minutes ago, Martha, you did say that.”

Martha Beck:

Or, “No, no, Marty, you actually do sound passive aggressive.” And I didn’t believe it either. So it’s somebody telling the truth as they see it.

Rowan Mangan:

Who loves you both.

Martha Beck:

Who loves you both.

Rowan Mangan:

Who’s invested in the thing resolving. 

Martha Beck:

So when you get into those arguments that couples have over and over, it breaks the pattern. Because there’s somebody else like jumping in to say, “No, this is what you do, Marty. You get all frantic and then you…” And I’m like, I do. And both of them are like hard to fight with that. 

Rowan Mangan:

There’s a majority.

Martha Beck:

So actually I’ve changed more in positive ways. Oh my God. More than ever before in my life, in the six years, the three of us have been together because I’m outnumbered. We’re all outnumbered. And so when you’ve got two people telling their absolute best truth to you, it shows you your blind spots. It shows you where oh, okay. It makes you think more and it makes you change more. And we’re like, “How do people do this with two?” Oh my God. Why would it be so hard?

Glennon Doyle:

That’s so interesting.

Martha Beck:

It would be like a two legged stool, that just does not work.

Rowan Mangan:

The stability of the three.

Martha Beck:

No offense.

Martha Beck:

No.

Rowan Mangan:

Sorry no offense.

Glennon Doyle:

We don’t have your exact situation, but we do have three parents. And we also are a ecosystem that is very close and so we do talk about how the hell do people do it with two people. 

Martha Beck:

Like, that’s a really great point that it’s an ecosystem of love.

Rowan Mangan:

That’s better than family.

Martha Beck:

It’s like an ecosystem of love.

Glennon Doyle:

Of love. It’s a fire hose of an ecosystem, a familial system.

Martha Beck:

It’s an ecosystem run by fire hoses.

Glennon Doyle:

Yes. So what is most of your conflict about? Ours is I’m controlling things too much. Would you say that’s it?

Abby Wambach:

Yeah.

Glennon Doyle:

Or you’re being too loud. What are yours?

Rowan Mangan:

I think at the moment, it’s probably parenting stuff. Like we’re having to dig into all those unspoken expectations about how we’re going to raise this child.

Martha Beck:

They’re not unspoken. You speak them all the day long.

Rowan Mangan:

They were unspoken before she came along and now it’s like, we’re having to confront all the things that we didn’t. 

Martha Beck:

So I had three kids in my early twenties and I was chronically ill the whole time I had massive chronic pain. So they were kind of raised on a king size bed where I’d throw food occasionally. I told them as they grew that I was going to write a self or a parenting book called Crawl Over There and Get Your Own Damn Bottle.

Glennon Doyle:

It would be a massive bestseller.

Martha Beck:

But here’s Row and she’s like, “What do you think about parenting?” And I’m like, I don’t know, feed them?

Rowan Mangan:

Whereas I’m like, I’ve read 16 books. And they must have no screen time and they must do this and we’re going to do this and we’re going to use this sort of philosophy. What do you think I’ve read on like nine different philosophies, and I think if we just bring this from that style and this from this style.

Martha Beck:

And I’m thinking you have never raised a baby.

Rowan Mangan:

And that is factually correct.

Martha Beck:

And so I just got back from South Africa and all of them had been sick while I was gone and the baby was sick, but then the baby got well and all the adults got sick. And I came home and I was like, no screens, right. I’ve learned my lesson. And Row’s like, I don’t even care anymore.

Rowan Mangan:

Literally fuck it, whatever.

Glennon Doyle:

Fuck it parenting.

Rowan Mangan:

So we’re coming together.

Glennon Doyle:

Tell me how that happened. How did the baby… Like what were the conversations around the baby who is the most precious thing on earth?

Abby Wambach:

And also Martha, can you tell me how old your children are from your previous marriage and how old your current younger child is?

Rowan Mangan::

So to say this, I just, we need to set up a few things around age. It’s just because she had her kids really young so it’s going to surprise you when you hear how old.

Martha Beck:

I was 22, 24 and 26. And now they are 35, 34, 36.

Rowan Mangan:

It’s impossible. 

Abby Wambach:

So they’re no longer in the picture in terms of being in the house.

Martha Beck:

Well, my son is because he has down syndrome.

Abby Wambach:

Got it, got it.

Martha Beck:

He lives with us and he’s very cool.

Rowan Mangan:

He is.

Martha Beck:

And we love him. And I have to tell you, he was living with Karen and me when Row entered the picture and I thought, how’s this going to fly with him? And let me tell you, Adam doesn’t pretend anything. And so I thought, oh, is he going to think this is so weird? Is he going to be upset? During that whole time that we were sitting on the couch together, he got so happy. Do you remember?

Rowan Mangan:

He would just walk around grinning.

Martha Beck:

Just with this huge smile. 

Martha Beck:

All my children were like, “Cool.”

Abby Wambach:

Oh really?

Rowan Mangan:

They are the coolest people. Like if one of them, I can’t remember which one. Probably not Adam, even said, “We wondered if you had something like that going.”

Martha Beck:

They were like, “Weren’t you doing that all along. We figured.” seriously, they were-

Glennon Doyle:

They were like, “This feels like something you would end up with.”

Martha Beck:

Exactly. They were so cool. And people told us, your child… They told me your children will hate you forever for this. I mean, Row’s not that much older than they are. And I’m like, you don’t know my kids. They’re pretty cool. So then we’re in Africa that time and Row… We go out to see the animals and we’re silent. We have this silence thing. And we come back from this silent thing where we’ve been seeing like right up close to lions and elephants and rhinoceros and things, and Row is crying. And I’m like, “What happened out there?” And she told me… Do you mind that I’m telling this?

Rowan Mangan:

No, I love it. No, no. Of course.

Martha Beck:

She said, “I think something connected with me out there.” She said it was like a little grub of consciousness. And it said, “I’d like to come down, could you please be my mother?” And she was just sobbing. She’s like, “I don’t know if it’s right to bring a child into this world.” And I’m like, “Well, you know what? If anybody solves all the problems humans created, it will be humans. So if the right humans need to come…” And this little grub was quite insistent. So then we came and we did IVF.

Rowan Mangan:

So I was in my late thirties at that point, mid late thirties. So it was like a now are never kind of situation. And Marty and Karen were great about it. They’re both older than me. And they were both pretty amazing about the prospect of having another tiny person to look after.

Martha Beck:

Oh my Gosh. It was so exciting. You are downplaying this so hard. There’s so many needles involved in IVF and she was so tough. And Karen and I had to learn to give shots. It’s a long fun story for us. And we had this little girl during COVID times and God, how do people raise a child with less than three women? It’s amaze balls. Plus Karen’s a morning lark and we’re both night owls, so we got the whole shift covered. And this kid is just the absolute, I mean, all kids are right, but we didn’t have anything to do except sit in the house and avoid COVID. And it was awesome.

Glennon Doyle:

Oh God, it’s so beautiful. I want to ask you about something, which I’ve been thinking, which is jealousy. And I’ve been thinking about this differently because like six months ago we were doing a podcast and polyamory came up and I found myself saying, “Well, I mean, it’s great for everyone else, but I mean, it’s just like, not for me.” And I was like, “What an asshole?” It sounded to me like what people used to say about being gay. Like, oh, I guess it’s fine. But like, not for me. Like there was a little bit of judgment in it and whenever I’m being judgemental, I always think there’s something I don’t understand. So I started reading all these books on polyamory, which by the way, I still have cultural conditioning because if I’m out to dinner reading, I like hide the book.

Rowan Mangan:

I would too.

Glennon Doyle:

You would.

Rowan Mangan:

You probably know more about it than we do Glennon because we haven’t read any books.

Martha Beck:

I was just thinking I should read those damn books.

Glennon Doyle:

Okay. Yeah. So I’m reading this book called The Ethical Slut and there’s one called More Than Two, which is really good. But when we talk about jealousy, most people, their reason I could never be in a polyamorous relationship because of jealousy. And the way this one book framed, it was like, it’s interesting because we, as human beings decide that jealousy is something that we cannot experience, but that’s not how we feel about anger or sadness or heartbreak. We do not do things.

Abby Wambach:

That we don’t want to experience.

Glennon Doyle:

Because they might cause heartbreak. We just go in, we know that heartbreak expands us and we can work with it. And then we continue. And that is the way that jealousy was framed in this book about polyamory. Like jealousy does come up, but it’s not like just because jealousy might be there that it’s a deal breaker for a relationship. So do you all experience jealousy and how do you navigate it? Not necessarily like sexually, but just like time and like all of the things, attention.

Abby Wambach:

Attention. Yeah.

Martha Beck:

Right, right.

Glennon Doyle:

How do you navigate all of that?

Rowan Mangan:

I was really jealous at the beginning because Karen and Marty had been together for so long and they had so many patterns about how they would just check in with each other on the phone and everything. And I was like, “No, we have to have a group thread and you’ve got to call me sometimes and you’ve got to tell me that your day is going fine because I was really scared that they were the unit and I was the third wheel coming in.” And that was really scary to me because it didn’t feel solid. And so I had a lot of jealousy and a lot of demands in the first, I guess couple of years, would you say?

Martha Beck:

And we were like, yeah, we get that. But I’ve been doing self-help thing, my whole career. Karen had done it all too. And one of the things that we’d done is that when we had negative emotions, we have like ways of dealing with it, psychological ways of finding out what’s really going wrong. And it’s always a fear of scarcity. It’s fear there won’t be enough for me. Well, I’m not big enough or good enough or whatever it is. And we’ve been working on those things for years and years and years. So we knew each other and because we knew each other so well, we both knew that we both loved Rowan and there’s something called compersion, I’ve heard about this.

Abby Wambach:

Have you read about this, Glennon?

Glennon Doyle:

No, compersion?

Abby Wambach:

It’s a polyword.

Martha Beck:

Yes, it’s the one polyword I know. And it means compassion, I guess, but it’s the joy in watching two people you love love each other. So for Karen and me, because we’d done all this and because, like we really were the ones who had all the advantages, like the solid couple and it was a weird situation for all of us. But Row was the one who was breaking the pattern, right. So we would just talk about how to help Row feel like it was solid because we both knew it was. We knew that we were solid. We knew we were solid with Row, we had no questions. And that, I think it eventually just rubbed off on you.

Rowan Mangan:

Yeah. I mean time was a huge thing. A huge part of it.

Rowan Mangan:

But I think the other thing that we do well is that we have a lot of rituals in our lives that involve the three of us and so in through the day. And so, I think like, because Marty and I work together all the time. And so if someone was going to get jealous at this point, it would be Karen because she’s doing different sorts of things with her day. And sometimes she does feel like I need some more time.

Martha Beck:

Can I talk about the rituals?

Glennon Doyle:

Talk about the rituals. I want to know them please.

Martha Beck:

So the first thing that happens in the morning, well Karen gets up with the baby because she gets up at like, I don’t know, two or something.

Abby Wambach:

Oh my gosh.

Martha Beck:

Ungodly hour. She gets around five or six. That’s the middle of the night.

Martha Beck:

So she’s up with the baby and at 9:00 am, we try to be up and have enough caffeine in us to be functioning. And we have what we call morning communion, which is at least an hour long of just being together and the baby’s zipping around and we’re just connecting. What we realize. What I realized, I guess I won’t speak for Row, is that the only thing worth living for is hanging out with the people you love.

Glennon Doyle:

Amen.

Martha Beck:

Period. That is the joy of life. So it’s just time to be together. And then we work and do things. And then starting at five, Adam decreed we shall have like together time. People judge us for this too, because he’s 30 something.

Rowan Mangan:

He’s 34.

Martha Beck:

He likes a glass of wine. It’s what he likes. So he calls it wine time. So we all gather for wine time and that’s an hour. Then we have dinner together.

Rowan Mangan:

It’s actually been so helpful because Adam, he’s quite regimented in how he wants to spend his day. It’s rubbed off on us. And I think we didn’t necessarily mean to do this for the sake of our relationship, but that’s like the downstream kind of effect.

Martha Beck:

So then after dinner, Row goes off to put the baby down and Adam and I watch TV together, we’ve been doing it forever. And then when the two kids are down, we have Trinity time, which is the best part of the day.

Rowan Mangan:

Trinity time involves television.

Martha Beck:

Yes.

Rowan Mangan:

A little television-

Martha Beck:

A little.

Rowan Mangan:

And some cuddles while we watch television.

Martha Beck:

Yes. It’s just being together and cuddling while we watch television and it is… Like you get up in the morning, you’re having a bad day, you’re feeling unwell or whatever you think. But Trinity time is coming.

Rowan Mangan:

Trinity time will come.

Glennon Doyle:

Trinity time. Your day sounds like freaking heaven.

Martha Beck:

It’s pretty good.

Abby Wambach:

That’s so good. It’s really good.

Rowan Mangan:

Do you guys have any rituals like that in your day?

Glennon Doyle:

Well, I’m thinking of Sunday snuggles. Sunday morning is don’t get out of bed. Don’t go do all the things. Just stay in bed, read, Sunday snuggles, coffee in bed.

Abby Wambach:

I would also say our mornings are pretty ritualistic where whoever wakes up first usually takes the dogs out, makes the coffee. The other person comes up within a few minutes.

Glennon Doyle:

I have a little window seat that is cozy. The dogs know about that like 20 minute time. So they come up and snuggle with me. And we have our evening too if there’s no soccer that everybody sits down together and it’s family time.

Abby Wambach:

We have dinner together as a family almost every night.

Glennon Doyle:

And there’s nothing more important and wonderful to us than the TV couch time at night. That’s what I live for. My whole life is just about trying to get back to the couch. That’s all I’m ever trying to.

Martha Beck:

Exactly, me too. I was just… When I was in Africa, we’d get around the fire pit and we’d tell stories. And I really think that we are so fixated on TV because we evolved to do that and TV is a flickering light that tells stories. And so we gathered together and it’s like gathering around the campfire. And what you feel is the love of the village and that… I mean, it’s just having a larger group taps into this primordial thing.

Martha Beck:

The culture says it’s got to be the myth of courtly love ever since, not Courtney love, courtly love. It’s from like the 14th century when people decided that being obsessed with your romantic partner and trying to fulfill every single one of each other’s needs would be the gig. But a lot of cultures have not done it that way. And to me, rediscovering the feeling of a village around the fire, we have a little village in our house and we could not do with one person less, it would just be so much sadder.

Glennon Doyle:

That’s so beautiful.

Rowan Mangan

It’s sort of like a family.

Glennon Doyle:

It’s sort of like a family.

Martha Beck:

Nothing’s happened.

Glennon Doyle:

Of course, nothing’s happened. No one’s thinking about happenings.

Abby Wambach:

No.

Glennon Doyle:

No, but I just, I mean, if Martha Beck, you just reframed my hours and hours of TV time as camping. I’m camping, that’s all I’m doing.

Abby Wambach:

That’s good.

Glennon Doyle:

I’m experiencing the outdoors. It’s returning to the village.

Martha Beck:

It’s deeper than that Glennon. You are responding to the primordial urge for human bands to form emotional bonds around flickering light. It is deeper than nature. It is evolutionarily essential.

Glennon Doyle:

Can you email me that so I can tell the kids that’s what I’m doing when I’m watching The Real Housewives of wherever.

Martha Beck:

Absolutely.

Abby Wambach:

Well, we’ve got it now recorded so I think we got this.

Glennon Doyle:

That’s great.

Martha Beck:

I’ll come to the house and lecture them.

Glennon Doyle:

Amazing.

Martha Beck:

Row will kind of go, “Okay professor, can you stop talking for 10 seconds.”

Rowan Mangan:

No, I got a lot out of that. Now I’m outdoorsy.

Martha Beck:

Yes, exactly. 

Abby Wambach:

So for those people out there listening who maybe have never heard of this way, what are some things that will inform them on how to have conversations with people? Like what are some things that have been hurtful to you?

Glennon Doyle:

What’s stupid ass things do people say that hurt your feelings?

Rowan Mangan:

How does the sex work is always that’s the bad one. Like the same way you felt Abby with your mom. It’s like that thing of like, why do I have to talk to you about that?

Abby Wambach:

It’s none of your business.

Martha Beck:

We’ve had people say to us, oh yeah, I know a throuple and boy do they have rules. There’s two men and a woman and she gets to make all the rules and tells people what… And that’s what, I get it. And I’m like, no, you really don’t. So people make assumptions about what that is. And they’re always focused on the sex and they always think that it’s like kinky sex.

Rowan Mangan:

I think it’s just like that thing where I don’t… I think it’s just the way that humans sort of come apart and come together clump and everything is always unique. And so I don’t know that there’s anything we are doing that would even apply-

Martha Beck:

To other throuples or other polyamory couples really.

Rowan Mangan:

Necessarily. I mean, we don’t know it.

Martha Beck:

We don’t know.

Rowan Mangan:

We have not studied the matter.

Martha Beck:

No.

Glennon Doyle:

It’s just your way of love. It’s a way of love. Like gravity. It’s so beautiful. I feel like this whole hour has been this, but what have you learned through this way of love that you think would be helpful for people in different ways of love? Like couples?

Glennon Doyle:

What has this taught you that everybody can learn from to deepen their own relationships?

Martha Beck:

For me, it’s that keep your heart 100% open and be willing to be told where your blind spots are and to listen when somebody else, even if they’re upset, listen to them. And again, we, I wouldn’t have learned that if we hadn’t had the referee system, but it’s made me open my heart much more non judgmentally to everyone, all my friends and everything and we don’t follow cultural rules.

Martha Beck:

So breaking a cultural rule is not bad. Someone’s broken a cultural rule. I want to know what they were feeling and thinking at that moment because the culture is not interesting to me. What they’re going through is very interesting to me and that openness, it’s made me much softer and more gentle and it’s really helped me be a better person, for sure.

Rowan Mangan:

I think when you are a weirdo against your will it does help you develop compassion and imagination and everything. It’s the same with being gay. I often think it must be really hard for people whose nature lines up exactly. Like just happens to line up exactly with the rules of the culture. So that everything that feels natural to them is normal, and in every way, and they want to do accounting or… I don’t know good examples but like… And then it must be so hard to understand people.

Glennon Doyle:

Does queerness make the transition to this kind of way of love easier? It feels to me like you already had to navigate so many things outside of cultural acceptance that, does it help this transition to this way of love?

Rowan Mangan:

That’s interesting. Because we’ll have really different experiences of that because you had already sort of, and you’re older than me and so you were coming out in a different time and everything. For me, I was mostly dating guys when we got together. But bisexuality had just… It was so sort of obvious to me that it had barely been worth stating. Like I was very lucky and that I grew up in a very progressive sort of family and city.

Martha Beck:

Cheers to your parents, really.

Rowan Mangan:

Oh my God. Absolutely.

Martha Beck:

So when we were first together, we were on this ranch and one thing’s about being out in nature is it’s very silent and there’s not a lot of hubbub and it’s hard to hide what’s going on in a house.

Glennon Doyle:

Ah, yes.

Martha Beck:

So we would do this thing. Row’s bomb came to visit, she was in the guest room.

Rowan Mangan:

Oh gosh.

Martha Beck:

We would make Row go to sleep in the family room. And then she would tiptoe out and come into the bedroom after her mother was asleep. So then she finally came out to her mother and she said, “We’re all in a relationship.” Her mother’s like, “So you don’t have to tiptoe around the house.”

Rowan Mangan:

Yes.

Glennon Doyle:

How did your mom, what was her ultimate reaction? Like she already knew, obviously, but how did she handle it?

Rowan Mangan:

She was incredible. She’s awesome. She’s just wonderful. The thing was she’d already spent enough time with the three of us to feel the energy. And I think that’s like 95%. It’s like everything else is just structures in your brain. Being around people and laughing with them and I’m very lucky.

Glennon Doyle:

Well, and they feel the undeniability of it, that’s what happened with us. When I was on the phone with my mom describing it, she was losing it and was afraid. But then when she came and saw our family, there was no discussion after that. It was just undeniable.

Martha Beck:

And that is the truth. And if queerness gets people there, then thank God. Get there some way, because life is hell. If you don’t have that ability to recognize, love and participate in it, whatever form it takes. And life is heaven when you’re so open and there are no categories, that you love everything that wants love and you love people loving each other. Like I know from watching my kids, I have two, a non-binary child and a daughter and they’ve both found amazing partners. And one thing I know is there’s nothing so beautiful as watching your child be with someone really great.

Martha Beck:

So I hope, that’s always my aspiration for how I show up with Row’s parents, but they’re so great, they’re just so great. And me, I was already out on my ear. I had no family of origin. I’d broken all the rules. I mean, Mormonism had defined the enemies of the church in the latter days as gay people, intellectuals and feminists.

Rowan Mangan:

Screw it, Martha.

Abby Wambach:

Damn.

Glennon Doyle:

I mean the antichrist, the devil incarnate really.

Martha Beck:

I have literally been called the antichrist in public and I always… I responded, I thought that he would be taller.

Abby Wambach:

Ah, yes.

Martha Beck:

So I already was on the outside of culture. And so in a weird way, we were in a non-culturated bubble and it really helped us come together and bond for those first couple of years.

Rowan Mangan:

I think if we’d been living in a city or been… Like we were 40 minutes from the nearest pint of milk at that point. There really was a lot of time to not be among other people and not have the culture reinforced and the weirdness of it reinforced. It was just us. And I don’t know if we would’ve-

Martha Beck:

I don’t know.

Rowan Mangan:

… made it without that time.

Martha Beck:

That’s why I think about Africa.

Glennon Doyle:

Martha, didn’t you write about that like decades ago? I feel like that one of your books mentioned that the importance of separating yourself completely for a while from culture to find out who you are.

Martha Beck:

That’s a really ancient spiritual practice from all over the globe. And I think everybody should get a chance to do it. I was lucky to be able to physically move out there. And when you are by yourself and I think you can do it, but you have to create really strong boundaries. The pandemic actually helped some people, I think, because when you are on your own for long enough, you start to feel what is natural for you. And if you’re in nature, nature pulls you toward your nature and you start to come out of culture and then only love makes sense, period. That’s it.

Glennon Doyle:

Rowan, you said, “We do not live normal lives. We have a very abnormal family and we are very, very happy.” I just love it. So many people are striving towards normal because that’s what we’re promised will make us happy. And it’s just so beautiful to hear you say we are abnormal and very, very happy. It’s palpable, we can feel it. And we just always talk about imagining the truest most beautiful relationship or family and you clearly have done it. And I think it’s gorgeous.

Martha Beck:

Thank you. The gates are open, whatever happens and that’s the fun of it is you never know what adventure life is going to bring you when you say, “I will live on this thread of truth that I feel is myself.” It’s like you’re pulling this thread towards you. And for me, it’s spirit, right? It’s very spiritual. And it will pull you into such adventures. And you will say, this is too weird. I can’t do it. But look what you guys did under so much cultural spotlight and look at the two of you, you’re just absolutely radiant.

Abby Wambach:

Well, I have to actually acknowledge Martha. You were one of the first people that we called in search of health and advice because we didn’t know how to kind of approach our love in the public eye and like you Glennon and at the time, and I was learning about deep integrity and speaking the truth and never lying early in my sobriety days, you just gave us the best piece of advice, which is just all you need to do is love each other.

Glennon Doyle:

Out loud.

Abby Wambach:

Out loud.

Glennon Doyle:

Love each other out loud, she said.

Abby Wambach:

It’s the truth. I think in what we’re talking about in our marriage and with your life and the way that you’re loving, it’s just… I really think that that might be the only way.

Martha Beck:

I think it is. I think so many ways have been tried and look around us, they are disastrous. Why do you follow the culture when you see what the culture has done, right?

Rowan Mangan:

And ultimately, like the gender of the person we love or the number of people in the relationship, any of these things are so fickle, it’s so much less important than the quality of how our lives feel. 

Glennon Doyle:

We do have many listeners who are in polyamorous or who identify as polyamorous, which is another beautiful thing that I think you mentioned earlier, there are people who are circumstantially polyamorous like you.

Rowan Mangan:

Like us.

Martha Beck:

A memoir. Circumstantially polyamorous, a memoir.

Glennon Doyle:

I don’t know. I like what Rowan said earlier. I like a weirdo against my will. I think that’s another good one.

Martha Beck:

I love that phrase.

Glennon Doyle:

Yes.

Martha Beck:

Unlike getting a shirt, that one’s staying.

Glennon Doyle:

Excellent. So either one, maybe one could be the subtitle, but.

Rowan Mangan:

That works.

Glennon Doyle:

But that’s a whole another thing. I mean, we have friends who have come to us and said, listen, just like along the way, I realized that my identity is queer. I have realized that my identity is polyamorous. I was made to love. And at first people think, oh wait, what? But really the only reason we say, wait, what is because we’ve been culturally conditioned to believe in monogamy. So it’s two different things, correct? It’s an identity and a circumstance that can happen when Karen comes home and says, “I’m in love with Rowan.”

Rowan Mangan:

And we shouldn’t presume to speak for anyone other than ourselves because it is circumstance for us. And I think that it’s quite a different thing for many people in the way that they want to love. And I don’t know how other people experience it.

Martha Beck:

But I do love that queerness has sort of broken the cages. Being gay when we were growing or when I was growing up, it was so weird that they wouldn’t even put it on. There was a show that had one gay character and they wouldn’t show it in Utah. That’s how bad they were about it. So then there was like, “Okay, you’re exactly like straight people. Only both the same gender, so okay we’re content, we can handle that.”

Rowan Mangan:

And that becomes, do you have one of those strappy things, right.

Martha Beck:

Exactly. Who wears the strappy thing? It’s like, who wears the pants? You both wear pants.

Abby Wambach:

Yes.

Martha Beck:

And then there’s something going on. I honestly, I said, this whole thing is spirit. My whole life is about spirituality. And for me, the soul is genderless. And so I think that’s what’s happening is that the soul is being let out of its cultural cage and kids, really brave kids are saying, “I am none of the things culture says I am.” Let me tell you about myself because that’s the person you’re dealing with. And if you love a cultural image of paper doll that I put out to fit the culture, you don’t love me because you don’t know me. And I think we’ve all been living like that for centuries. And I think it’s shifting now in a way that is deeply spiritual as a homecoming to the soul.

Glennon Doyle:

Don’t you think because you have a non-binary kiddo, you said, right?

Rowan Mangan:

Yeah.

Glennon Doyle:

We feel like the queer elder aunties now. Like, so whenever anybody has a non-binary kid, we get the call first and they’re like, can you queer auntie them? So whenever somebody tells me now that their kids told them they’re non-binary, I just think of that kid as like, oh yeah, that kid’s really smart. Doesn’t it just feel like-

Abby Wambach:

They’re a prophet.

Glennon Doyle:

Because it’s like emperor has no clothes. It’s like gender isn’t freaking real.

Martha Beck:

No it isn’t.

Glennon Doyle:

So it would make sense that some kids are going to see the matrix early and be like, “Oh, I see that I’ve been assigned a role to play, but I actually don’t feel like playing that role for you.”

Martha Beck:

That’s super smart. 

Rowan Mangan:

So this is someone who actually knows what’s going on.

Glennon Doyle:

Exactly.

Martha Beck:

I also I have to put in a shout for my kid in-law. My daughter married a non-binary person too. And the non-binary people that I know are amazing. And I don’t know if all non-binary people are amazing, but damn, these one does.

Glennon Doyle:

The ones you have are. 

Abby Wambach:

Well talk about anybody who has really tried to excavate themselves. And if they’re young to me, I’m like, that is, that is a person that is really trying to not just figure out themselves, but the world and seeing all of these bullshit barriers that we’re all told and made to live within.

Glennon Doyle:

Well, you two are amazing. Tell me both of you, we do this thing called the next right thing where we just tell people one little thing they can do, which let’s just tell people one little thing they can do to do a homecoming. As you said earlier, to return home today to who they are. Cause really this is just all about authenticity.

Abby Wambach:

It is.

Glennon Doyle:

Everything you’re talking about is just about being true to self. What can people do today to return to themselves?

Rowan Mangan:

So with our podcast bewildered and it’s… We’re always about like, where’s the culture here? What is the culture telling us to do? Because it’s so invisible. And so the thing that always occurs to me with this is I ask myself if I want to find a way to come home is it’s really simple. But it’s like, is this optional? Because I think we forget how many things are optional but that feel compulsory. And so sometimes I’m just like, “Wait a second. I think that’s one of the optional things.” Like going out to that thing or being among humans or something gross like that. Like, it’s optional.

Martha Beck:

You took mine. 

Glennon Doyle:

Now go on, say something profound.

Martha Beck:

But I have a methodology. I have a method.

Rowan Mangan:

Here’s a graph.

Martha Beck:

I’m a self-help mother. So write a list of things you have to do and then read through it and see if there’s anything you don’t want to do. And you can go like write as many things as you can, until you get to something you don’t want to do and then ask yourself, do you really have to do it? Exactly what she said, optional. And when you find something that you don’t want to do and you don’t have to do, don’t do it.

Abby Wambach:

That’s good.

Glennon Doyle:

Oh, God, I love it.

Martha Beck:

That’s it.

Abby Wambach:

That’s good.

Glennon Doyle:

I love it. I’m doing that today.

Abby Wambach:

Oh gosh. Here we go.

Glennon Doyle:

Here we go.

Abby Wambach:

She’s a list maker for sure.

Glennon Doyle:

I’m going to get my easel

Abby Wambach:

And guess who gets to do the things that she doesn’t want to do and doesn’t have to do, this guy.

Rowan Mangan:

You need another person.

Glennon Doyle:

I think so. I decided what every woman needs is a wife, but now I’m thinking what every woman needs is two wives.

Abby Wambach:

That’s good.

Glennon Doyle:

Yes.

Martha Beck:

Two wives.

Glennon Doyle:

You are a dream. We love you so much. Thank you for trusting us and sharing this hour with us, for the rest of you this week when things get hard, don’t forget we can do hard things and make your list and cross off whatever you don’t want to do or have to do and return home to yourself. See you next time. We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 studios. Be sure to rate, review and follow the show on Apple Podcasts Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts, especially be sure to rate and review the podcast. If you really liked it, if you didn’t, don’t worry about it. It’s fine.