How Does A Non-Monogamous Marriage Work? | Caleb Jones

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   ... then the second…

   1. CJCaleb Jones0:00

      ... then the second level is you sit down and you discuss the ground rules, again, before you get too serious. Once you're already moved in and married and now you're gonna discuss ground rules, that's too late. So my wife and I had a very long, detailed discussion, this was several years ago, and I laid out all the negatives of being married to me.

   2. CWChris Williamson0:17

      (laughs)

   3. CJCaleb Jones0:18

      And non-monogamy's one of them.

   4. CWChris Williamson0:19

      (laughs)

   5. CJCaleb Jones0:20

      And, and that actually wasn't the one she was pissed off.

   6. CWChris Williamson0:22

      (laughs)

   7. CJCaleb Jones0:22

      Uh, there was, like, four or five of them, and that was just one. Matter of fact, the one she was scared about was that I work a lot, I work every day.

   8. CWChris Williamson0:27

      Yeah.

   9. CJCaleb Jones0:27

      She's like, well... She didn't care about the non-monogamy 'cause I'd already been doing it the whole time she met me, so she was used to it at that point. It was more like, "Well, you're gonna work a lot and you're never gonna spend time with me." It was more that kind of stuff. But you lay all that stuff out, and then you lay out the ground rules, and you're very specific about the ro- ground rules based on what you're capable of and what you think you're not capable of emotionally. You just don't go hog wild before she's my wife. Hey girlfriend, we're thinking about getting serious. We're gonna be non-monogamous. Here are the parameters. But here's what you can't do. You can't bring guys over and fuck 'em on my couch. That, I'll throw up. Y- y- you gotta be honest about that stuff.

   10. CWChris Williamson1:00

       (wind blowing) I am joined by Caleb Jones from all the way from the other side of the Atlantic. How are you today?

   11. CJCaleb Jones1:08

       I'm good. How are you?

   12. CWChris Williamson1:09

       Very good, man. Very good. Very glad to have you on. Lots of interesting stuff there to speak about. You have got the largest tankard that you're drinking out of that I have ever seen. What is that?

   13. CJCaleb Jones1:20

       You know, I drink a lot of water, and so I would have these little cups by my desk and it was never big enough. So I was like, I gotta get a fucking, you know, I gotta get a tankard or I gotta get something real.

   14. CWChris Williamson1:28

       What does that- that's like what, a liter and a half? Or you guys would call it like a gallon, I guess?

   15. CJCaleb Jones1:31

       Uh, uh, yeah probably a liter and a half. Yeah, yeah, yeah, something like that. It's just water. Be cool if it was vodka, but it's not.

   16. CWChris Williamson1:36

       Yeah, or like some mead. It's a bit Game of Thrones of you.

   17. CJCaleb Jones1:39

       Mead, yeah. I don't drink. I've never been drunk in my entire life, so I just, it just makes me look cool when I drink my water, I guess.

   18. CWChris Williamson1:45

       That's a interesting lifestyle choice. Why did you choose to do that?

   19. CJCaleb Jones1:49

       You know, I don't have an answer for that question. I wish I had an answer. I wish I had some kind of cool story like, "Well, my parents were alcoholics and..." No, my parents were normal and, um... Here's my guess. So when I was in seventh grade, seventh grade? So I was about, uh, yeah, about 12. I took one of the cans of beer out of my dad's refrigerator, and I took it on the side of the house, I took a little coffee cup and I filled it up, and I, I promised myself I'd drink the whole beer 'cause I wanted to get drunk, 'cause that's looks like a lot of fun.

   20. CWChris Williamson2:16

       Yeah.

   21. CJCaleb Jones2:16

       And I went... (retching) And I made myself drink the whole beer and went, "Oh, this is terrible." And I waited, "I can't wait till I get drunk." I kept drinking and drinking and then nothing happened, I just felt dizzy for a few minutes, and I think maybe that was it. I don't... Maybe, I'm guessing.

   22. CWChris Williamson2:30

       Yeah.

   23. CJCaleb Jones2:30

       I'm also an INTJ for a Myers-Briggs, those Myers-Briggs personality types.

   24. CWChris Williamson2:35

       Okay, yep.

   25. CJCaleb Jones2:37

       So I'm an INTJ and I'm an extreme INTJ, so my little dot is in the far upper corner, and the INTJ is in the far upper corner of the 16 personality types.

   26. CWChris Williamson2:45

       Mm-hmm.

   27. CJCaleb Jones2:46

       So not only am I i- am I an INTJ, I'm an extreme version of an INTJ.

   28. CWChris Williamson2:49

       Mm-hmm.

   29. CJCaleb Jones2:50

       And so one of the aspects of most INTJs, not all of them, is that I'm a control freak over myself, but I don't want to control anybody else. So I'm thinking that sub- this isn't conscious.

   30. CWChris Williamson3:00

       Yeah.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Oh, wow. …

   1. CJCaleb Jones15:00

      thought through in my own head how many people I personally know on something. I came up with six names.

   2. CWChris Williamson15:04

      Oh, wow.

   3. CJCaleb Jones15:04

      I know a lot of people though.

   4. CWChris Williamson15:05

      Yeah.

   5. CJCaleb Jones15:06

      So maybe I'm not a good example. But I, I, as I'm thinking, I'm thinking of more, or seven people, uh, the number of people I personally know on something, even if it's a prescription something, yeah.

   6. CWChris Williamson15:14

      (sighs) I, so-

   7. CJCaleb Jones15:16

      Yeah.

   8. CWChris Williamson15:17

      ... my point is that I, I think, I, I wonder w- how many people who really need medication slip through the net in the UK by not having this awareness about the fact that prescription drugs could help. And how many people in the US are being oversold on things that they don't need because of this societal conditioning and because of this stuff here.

   9. CJCaleb Jones15:38

      Sure. Well, that last aspect is most people who take these drugs. If you just did basic things like get eight hours of sleep, drink a lot more water, monitor your hormones, get your hormone tests done, meditate a little bit, focus on something you like, have more sex, you just do those basic things, all of a sudden, a lot of these symptoms, not all of them-

   10. CWChris Williamson15:59

       Yeah.

   11. CJCaleb Jones15:59

       ... depends the person, would go away with no drugs, and these would actually enhance your life instead of causing side effects.

   12. CWChris Williamson16:06

       I agree.

   13. CJCaleb Jones16:06

       But what I just said, those things, those are hard. That takes work. People go, "I don't wanna, I don't wanna work." All right, take a drug then.

   14. CWChris Williamson16:13

       Well, pills, a pill's super easy. Have you read, um, Lost Connections by Johann Hari?

   15. CJCaleb Jones16:18

       No.

   16. CWChris Williamson16:19

       Fantastic book on depression. Highly recommend it if you've got a-

   17. CJCaleb Jones16:22

       Is it on clinical depression or just depression in general?

   18. CWChris Williamson16:25

       Uh, depression in general.

   19. CJCaleb Jones16:26

       Okay.

   20. CWChris Williamson16:26

       So he looks at the standard model of depression, that it's a imbalance of chemicals in the brain, um, and-

   21. CJCaleb Jones16:33

       Send that to me when we're done talking. That's, I'm interested.

   22. CWChris Williamson16:35

       ... is, is-

   23. CJCaleb Jones16:35

       Yeah, I'll forget this isn't-

   24. CWChris Williamson16:36

       Yeah, man, fantastic guy. I cannot... Johann, if you're listening, he, he does tune in sometimes. If you're listening, I'm gonna continue hustling you to come on because I need you, I need to speak to you, man.

   25. CJCaleb Jones16:44

       (laughs)

   26. CWChris Williamson16:44

       Um, but it's fantastic book. Really, really interesting, and he identifies nine biological causes of depression. Uh, uh, sorry, seven biological, seven environmental causes of depression, two biological, and the bio, the environmental ones are like, um-

   27. CJCaleb Jones16:59

       That's about, that makes sense to me. Seven out of nine? That's about right.

   28. CWChris Williamson17:02

       Yeah.

   29. CJCaleb Jones17:02

       That's about what I would expect.

   30. CWChris Williamson17:03

       Yeah, and he talks about-
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   I mean, the fact…

   1. CJCaleb Jones30:00

      long-term happy 'cause I'm happy and we avoid all these problems or at least most of the problems that normal couples have.'" The 76% divorce rate people.

   2. CWChris Williamson30:08

      I mean, the fact that there is such a high divorce rate, uh, people just presume, I guess, if you just- if you think about it or if you were to ask a layperson on the street, "Why is the divorce rate so high?" It's-

   3. CJCaleb Jones30:20

      Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson30:20

      It would be maybe some kind of wistful heritage thing about, "Well, it wasn't that way in my parents' day. My parents are still together." Perhaps that-

   5. CJCaleb Jones30:29

      Right, they just cheated.

   6. CWChris Williamson30:31

      (laughs)

   7. CJCaleb Jones30:33

      Right. People stayed married and they, and the men, mostly men cheated.

   8. CWChris Williamson30:37

      So, do you-

   9. CJCaleb Jones30:37

      They still weren't monogamous.

   10. CWChris Williamson30:38

       Okay, so why-

   11. CJCaleb Jones30:39

       Long-term marriage and marriage working-

   12. CWChris Williamson30:41

       Yeah.

   13. CJCaleb Jones30:41

       Well, they've been married for 47 years. He's never cheated? Maybe he hasn't, but the odds are ... I've talked to a lot of old guys, guys my grandfather's age, guys in their 90s, World War II guys. These guys were married and they stayed married. They were not monogamous. They cheated. You've seen, I don't know if you've seen the American show Mad Men, about Americans in the '60s. It, it's, it was the standard model back then. You cheated. That's just what you did when you're a guy. Women too, not as much, but they did too.

   14. CWChris Williamson31:10

       Why has the divorce rate changed?

   15. CJCaleb Jones31:13

       Because women are now allowed to do whatever they want. So, back in the olden days, in like the 1950s, which a lot of guys in my world, the red pier- the red pill menosphere world I want to go back to, um, women weren't allowed to get divorced. So, women would actually go into a court in the '40s, '30s, '50s and say, "I want to divorce my husband." And the judges would say, "What the hell? Get, get, you can't get divorced. Get back to your husband. Next case." Or, and/or they were now, they couldn't do it financially. They couldn't support themselves. They needed to be married.

   16. CWChris Williamson31:39

       Ah, so we've gone-

   17. CJCaleb Jones31:40

       And if they got divorced, their, their religious family would disown them.

   18. CWChris Williamson31:44

       Uh, so as we-

   19. CJCaleb Jones31:45

       So, all these factors-

   20. CWChris Williamson31:46

       We've become-

   21. CJCaleb Jones31:46

       All these factors are now gone. Women are now encouraged to get divorced. Now, it's the opposite.

   22. CWChris Williamson31:50

       Well, you've become more financially independent, uh, more secular, and more accepting, I guess, of divorce as a whole, um-

   23. CJCaleb Jones31:59

       Correct. Yeah.

   24. CWChris Williamson31:59

       And, uh, uh, yeah. I, I mean, that's, that-

   25. CJCaleb Jones32:02

       And it'll get worse, and it'll get worse. The divorce rate will increase. You're gonna see soon, in the next decade, you're gonna see 90+% divorce rates.

   26. CWChris Williamson32:09

       Wow.

   27. CJCaleb Jones32:10

       People are very slow to figure this out. I've written about this a lot. They don't want to admit the system doesn't work anymore, so they're just gonna keep getting married, keep getting divorced, keep screwing up their kids, keep getting financially raped, keep cheating on each other and yelling at each other. And it's gonna be a while before human beings finally go, "You know, we should probably pick a different system. This isn't working." It's gonna be a while, unfortunately.

   28. CWChris Williamson32:30

       The stats, I mean, you know, I, I, there's not much that I can say about the fact that more than three-quarters of the people, uh, who get married end up getting divorced. As far as I was aware, maybe it's a UK stat, I think it was more than 50. Um, but-

   29. CJCaleb Jones32:42

       Mm-hmm.

   30. CWChris Williamson32:42

       But no matter what the stat is, if m- there's a more likelihood, a high likelihood that you're going to get divorced than stay together, it's a worrying statistic. No matter what your views on monogamy are, it's a pretty worrying statistic.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. CJCaleb Jones45:00

      people. It... Marriage looks like this, and a relationship looks like this, and it better look like this or you're a sinner, or I'm never gonna get... Uh, usually people are on the other side of irrationality. He's on this side of the irration- There's a rational zone in the middle between those two extremes.

   2. CWChris Williamson45:14

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CJCaleb Jones45:14

      You've got to be rational about hu- how human beings are, but you also have to be rational and objective and self-aware enough to know what your limits are. And every guy's different. And every woman's different.

   4. CWChris Williamson45:24

      Yeah. It's an interesting one, man. It's an interesting one. I, uh, I'm mean, his, this, the penultimate email to the one that I unsubscribed from, the title was, "Me and Whitney Nealy Split Up Today." And that's him and his, him and his wife. And I'm like, uh, I appreciate-

   5. CJCaleb Jones45:37

      What are you... Yeah, it's a little too much information. You shouldn't be-

   6. CWChris Williamson45:40

      It's the-

   7. CJCaleb Jones45:40

      Yeah.

   8. CWChris Williamson45:40

      It's the wokeness, man. Like, so I appreciate the, the, um-

   9. CJCaleb Jones45:43

      Yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson45:43

       ... transparency. And I, I genuinely do think... And it plays into his shtick, right? It's part and parcel of his thing. But I'm like, man, like, if you and your wife are on the verge of splitting up, don't use that as your fucking weekly newsletter content.

   11. CJCaleb Jones45:56

       Yeah, correct.

   12. CWChris Williamson45:56

       Like, that's, that's, that's a piece of advice. And another piece of advice, like, he talks-

   13. CJCaleb Jones46:01

       (laughs)

   14. CWChris Williamson46:01

       ... in the f- the fucking first or second line of this, uh, of his Instagram post from the same day was like, um, "Whitney left to go to Texas to see her boyfriend today." And I'm like-

   15. CJCaleb Jones46:14

       So that is... This is an example of what you were talking about earlier about what polyamory is, the difference between polyamory and an open relationship.

   16. CWChris Williamson46:21

       Okay.

   17. CJCaleb Jones46:22

       So in my view, and this is, this is not a fact more than my opinion-

   18. CWChris Williamson46:27

       Yeah.

   19. CJCaleb Jones46:27

       ... but I'm pretty sure I'm right about this. If you want to be pair bonded, that person shouldn't have other boyfriends, because that's not pair bonding. So if your wife has a boyfriend, or if you're married and you have another girlfriend on the side, a girlfriend, that's not pair bonding. That's polyam-

   20. CWChris Williamson46:41

       Yeah, he has two. He has, he has two girlfriends.

   21. CJCaleb Jones46:44

       He has two girlfriends. Okay. So if he views these as real girlfriends, real emotional meaning and commitment to these women in addition to his wife, that's not pair bonding. That's something else. That's po- that's more polyamory. So that'd be a polyamorous marriage, which I don't, I'm against. I think that's a very bad idea.

   22. CWChris Williamson47:02

       Why?

   23. CJCaleb Jones47:02

       I think polyamory is great if you are not pair bonded. So for many years, uh, in a, in my parlance, it would be MLTR. So I had multiple MLTRs for years, and it was great. But I didn't have a girlfriend. They were all women I were da- I was dating and I really liked, and I liked on an emotional level, but they weren't a girlfriend. Once you have a girlfriend, that's pair bonding. So if you have multiple girlfriends... I've talked to a lot of guys about this, hundreds of guys about this. Almost never have I seen that work long term, to have multiple... In the Western world. I mean, you could move to Saudi Arabia or do something else. But in the Western world, having multiple girlfriends or multiple wives or something to that equivalent, it doesn't work long term in the West. You can't do that. If you're gonna be pair bonded, you need to be pair bonded. I am with you. I have no other girlfriends or wives except you. I'm allowed to go get laid on the side. These are not my girlfriends. These are women who are my friends, FBs, which is friend with benefits. It's a friend-

   24. CWChris Williamson48:00

       (laughs)

   25. CJCaleb Jones48:00

       ... not a girlfriend. So I have-

   26. CWChris Williamson48:01

       Right.

   27. CJCaleb Jones48:01

       ... an OLTR, I have a wife, and I have FBs. They're not my girlfriends, they're just my buddies. And we have sex, and that's it. We don't go on dates. We don't spend the week together. I already have that with my wife. That's more, that's a more long-term, sustainable model.

   28. CWChris Williamson48:16

       I understand. I think, we... Aubrey, if you're listening, we got some advice for you, man. Get in touch with Caleb. He'll, he'll, uh, he'll do a little rundown. He'll maybe, maybe give you a little bit of a-

   29. CJCaleb Jones48:23

       He needs to downgrade his girlfriends to FBs, he needs to make his wife his only wife and his only girlfriend, and she needs to make that kind of commitment too. And if she doesn't want to, they should get divorced, and they should just date.

   30. CWChris Williamson48:35

       There we go.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:07:33

   Do that, do that…

   1. CJCaleb Jones1:00:00

      then I'll break up with her, it'll be monogamous, then I'll get a new girlfriend. And I'll date her for about a year, and then I'll have a new girlfriend." And on and on and-

   2. CWChris Williamson1:00:05

      Do that, do that 20 times-

   3. CJCaleb Jones1:00:06

      If you wanna do that, you do 70-

   4. CWChris Williamson1:00:06

      ... for the rest of my life.

   5. CJCaleb Jones1:00:08

      For the rest of your life, if you say, "Look, I'm cool doing that until my 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s," and you really say that with honesty, then you could ignore everything I'm saying 'cause that'll work. Other than that, if you want something long term, you're gonna have to embrace a model that is something other than what doesn't work.

   6. CWChris Williamson1:00:24

      So, as a bookend question to what has been a really interesting discussion, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you think is the optimal setup for a relationship in life. So we've talked about you've, you've had multiple long-term partners moving through. Would it, would you have preferred in a different iteration of the world where you could control everything that occurred within it, do you think it's optimal to have A, uh, what, I can't remember what, the MLFB or whatever it was?

   7. CJCaleb Jones1:00:56

      OLTR?

   8. CWChris Williamson1:00:56

      The main one.

   9. CJCaleb Jones1:00:57

      So one, one wife or girlfriend you mean?

   10. CWChris Williamson1:00:58

       Yes. Is it optimal, if you can, to have one for 60 years, 30 years, however long, from mid-30s until whenever? Or from-

   11. CJCaleb Jones1:01:08

       Are you, are you talking about optimal as in how human beings are now?

   12. CWChris Williamson1:01:11

       For you, if you were to say to someone, "This is what I think is, for a broad cross-section of people, the best way to do things."

   13. CJCaleb Jones1:01:21

       Yes, for a broad cross-section of men, but not all men, 'cause there are exceptions to all these rules.

   14. CWChris Williamson1:01:26

       Yeah.

   15. CJCaleb Jones1:01:26

       There are some men who should never pair bond. There are a small percentage of men who should never have a girlfriend. They should just go bang chicks and date and, into their 60s and 70s and there's just, but that's an exception. Um, yes, for a broad cross-section of people, the least bad scenario, 'cause I don't wanna say best 'cause there's problems with what ... There are problems with the models I'm talking about.

   16. CWChris Williamson1:01:45

       Yes.

   17. CJCaleb Jones1:01:45

       Everything you've talked about are, those are accurate criticisms. The least bad system is a long-term pair bonded wife or girlfriend, however you wanna term it, s- assuming you're over the age of 35, 'cause I tell guys don't, don't settle down with a woman until you're at least 35. That's insane. At least you're 35. So, assuming you're 35 or older, you have a long-term, decades-long wife or girlfriend that you are really good with and you're very complementary with and compatible with and you are allowed to get sex on the side within ground rules. These are not your girlfriends. This is more casual, friendly sex when you need it as a man, and she is allowed to, too. And the older she gets, the less she'll do it. She may not do it at all as she gets older. That's the least bad scenario for the broadest cross-section of people, yes.

   18. CWChris Williamson1:02:34

       My, my.

   19. CJCaleb Jones1:02:35

       'Cause that is ... Uh, what I just described is doable long term. What is not doable long term is we're gonna be married, you're never gonna touch anyone else for the rest of your fucking life and I won't either, and you roll your eyes as you're saying it when you're a guy. "I promise I won't either, honey. And we're never gonna get divorced, we're never gonna split up." That's not long term sustainable because that is a fundamental violation of everything in which, all the ways in which you were designed as a man and as a woman. That's why it doesn't work.

   20. CWChris Williamson1:03:02

       Okay. So, I'm gonna finish off with a question which is, you've got the monogamy, which is the traditional relationship approach, which you've just identified there. And then you've got Aubrey's relationship, which is-

   21. CJCaleb Jones1:03:13

       Yeah.

   22. CWChris Williamson1:03:13

       ... I'm gonna have a wife and the wife's gonna have ... Which one is-

   23. CJCaleb Jones1:03:16

       A polya- that's a polyamorous marriage.

   24. CWChris Williamson1:03:18

       W- which one is the, in your eyes, the least effective? Which one's gonna f-

   25. CJCaleb Jones1:03:24

       Neither of those are long term sustainable.

   26. CWChris Williamson1:03:25

       Which one's gonna fail first?

   27. CJCaleb Jones1:03:29

       Hi- how long ... His? How long has he been married?

   28. CWChris Williamson1:03:31

       Uh, I'm not sure. I don't know.

   29. CJCaleb Jones1:03:33

       His? His will. You can, you can grit your teeth and be monogamous to a wife for a long time. I did it for nine years and I'm a really high sex drive, so you can do it. Women, men and women can grit their teeth and suffer through shitty marriages. A lot of people can do that. They did that all throughout the '50s and '60s and all that good stuff. So you can have a marriage, traditional monogamous marriage that lasts a long time. It won't last forever. That's not how you're designed. And if it does last forever, someone's cheating and someone's putting up with it.

   30. CWChris Williamson1:03:59

       But someone's going to encounter ... In the polyamorous marriage, someone's going to encounter a problem that is, they're unable to-

Episode duration: 1:07:34