Questions for this week's Q&A episode include:

• Any tips for long distance polyamory?
• How do you deal with guilt over having a stronger romantic connection with one partner?
• Could space away from a partner calm down polyamory related anxiety attacks?
• How to deal with conflict of NRE when your partner takes so long to process feelings?
• Any tips for people opening up after eight years together? How to deprogram systemic monogamy?
• Why is there such a negative sentiment/stigma towards polyamory? Why all of the disapproval?

That’s what’s on this week’s episode of Non-Monogamy Help.

Or listen on Spotify. Don't forget to subscribe using this handy RSS link. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Use my affiliate link for 10% off your first month.

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Thank you to Chris Albery-Jones at albery-jones.com for the theme music.

Podcast Transcript

Any tips for long distance polyamory?

First question is, any tips for long distance polyamory, I think they're pretty much the same as long distance relationships in general, because I do think people in long distance monogamous relationships will often deal with very similar things. I would definitely have scheduled dedicated time together, even if it's a silly thing like a Zoom date or what have you. I think having that scheduled, dedicated time is really, really important to maintain connection.

I would make sure that you communicate about the frequency and expectations around the frequency of communication. And I would also think about like things that you may want to share and things that you may not want to share with each other, because if you're in a long distance relationship, whether you're monogamous or polyamorous, there's an understandable amount of frustration and jealousy that you're going to have for people who get to share time with your partner.

And I think polyamory makes that a little bit more complex, because if they have partners that live with them or live near them that they can see more frequently, you're going to have an understandable jealousy of that, because that person can see your partner physically where you can't. So it's not necessarily about having a Don't Ask, Don't Tell situation, but I do think sometimes you know you don't need to go into detail about things that you're doing with other people that might just trigger those feelings in your partner.

And instead of focusing on talking about like, “ Oh yeah, I went out on a date with this person and we had such fun”, like, you say “I went to this event, or I went to that”, or something like that. Again, it's not necessarily about hiding things, but I do think that, like, there aren't things that are necessary that just add more complexity to the situation.

And I also think that there are fun things that you can do together. I know that I have talked about Paired so that's an app where it's usually built around dyads. So it's not like for throuples or anything like that. But you can actually like, connect through fun games, quizzes and questions about your relationship, and it kind of like… you get like, daily notifications to participate in things and content with your partner on the app. So you can do things like that, where you're actually like doing stuff together digitally and in ways that kind of remind you of each other frequently.

And I do have, like, a code for 25% off in a seven day free trial if you go to nonmonogamyhelp.com/paired. But I think stuff like that, like or if you want to play games together, or if you want to… even if you're not having an official date, maybe you want to just sometimes people like just being in the vicinity of being on a Discord call or something together, so that you're physically or — not physically, but you're around each other in a way. But, yeah, you're doing your own thing, but things like that, I think that those things help a lot, and just give yourself some grace, because you're gonna have emotions.

Long distance is hard. A lot of people can't do any type of long distance. For some people, that is a definite no. So this is a hard thing to do, and give yourself a little bit of a break for that, and allow yourself to be a little emotional. Get therapy if you need therapy to deal with things. Be gentle on yourself and be nice to yourself and just, you know, give yourself a lot of grace and make sure you have scheduled activities together as much as you can. So yeah, that is, I hope that helps, and good luck.

How do you deal with guilt over having a stronger romantic connection with one partner?

If I could ask some follow-up questions about this, I would wonder, what is the length of the relationship that you have with one partner versus the other? Because a lot of people experience what's called new relationship energy, where the new person is shiny and exciting, and they kind of get a little bit head over heels for the new person.

´They don’t necessarily forget about—I mean, I think this happens in monogamy too. If somebody's dating someone new, they sometimes neglect their friendships and other relationships in their life. And it’s not uncommon that just newer people feel more exciting because they are new.

It’s not that you don’t have a good connection with your other partner, but it’s just that this is new and shiny. And I think that if you’re kind of trying to hold a yardstick up to two different relationships—you know, I don’t think that you should try and judge connection in that way.

I would look at, okay, is there anything that you’re doing in one relationship that you’re not doing in the other? Because, yeah, it could be new relationship energy. It could be that you’re more compatible with one person. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t care about the other person.

I would say, okay, are you overall satisfied with both relationships? Is there a situation where this other person that you don’t have a stronger romantic connection to—are you still connected? Do you still get something out of that relationship? Because I do think that sometimes people use polyamory as an excuse to not break up with someone.

And I've said it multiple times, and I'll say it again till I'm blue in the face: polyamory is not a reason to have multiple semi-sustaining relationships until you reach a level of, I can’t. That’s my own saying, and I can’t even say it. Polyamory is not a reason to have multiple semi-sustaining relationships until you reach a level of permissible stasis.

The idea isn’t that you stay in relationships that you’re unsatisfied with and then go date people who you have more satisfaction with so that you can tolerate a relationship that you don’t have satisfaction in. So if you didn’t have this other romantic connection, would you stay with this one person? Are you both not putting effort into the relationship? Do you live together? Sometimes living together means that you think that time spent in the same vicinity as one another is quality time, and it’s not. You can easily start to take each other for granted.

So there’s a lot of follow-up questions I would have for this. Like, I wouldn’t feel guilty about having a strong romantic connection to somebody else, because it could be the newness that feels like a stronger romantic connection, and it’ll kind of level out over time.

Or it could be that there’s something lacking in the other relationship, and that can be fixed. You can have a reigniting of your connection. You can both work towards building a stronger connection. If you need to, like, if it’s a relationship that functions and you both want to contribute towards it, then that can be fixed. And it’s not about portioning blame on anybody.

So I think I’d ask a little bit more follow-up questions with yourself about this and try to investigate a little bit, like, why is one romantic connection stronger? I’d say in general, like, if this is just a newer connection, I really wouldn’t dwell on it too much. I’d just wait and see if time and the newness kind of wear off. That sounds really negative, and I don’t mean it to sound negative. It’s not that, like, God, you get used to them, and they’re boring and old news. It’s not that. It’s just that when something is new and shiny, for a lot of people, it seems a lot more novel.

I think we get that with everything in our lives, like not just romantic connections. You know, when you have the new shiny phone, you’re like, “Oh, it’s a shiny phone,” and over time, you’re like, “Okay, it’s my phone.” So it’s not that people are objects, but that’s what I’m saying. I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself about it if it’s a new connection.

If it’s not a new connection, then I would focus less on having guilt and more on, okay, what do I do in this relationship that I don’t do in this relationship? Is there any way to build that connection and make an attempt? And you know what? If you feel like you’re making an attempt and your partner isn’t trying to make an attempt, and you just don’t feel like it’s a satisfying relationship, then that may be a sign of when to call it quits.

I don’t think in general we try to compare our relationships, but I think even friendships—like, I’ve had experiences in my life where I had such a good friendship with somebody, and I experienced such care. It wasn’t even a romantic relationship. I had such a good friendship with somebody that when I compared it to the effort that a partner was making in another relationship, I was like, actually, my friend seems to be making more effort to connect with me than my partner is. And that’s not great.

Sometimes, you know, that’s one of the reasons why if you read Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft, which I recommend everybody in the world read, you can see that people who are abusive—I’m not saying that you’re in an abusive relationship—but when you get people who abuse, one thing that they try to do is separate their partner from their friends and their family and their social systems of support.

Because sometimes, when you see how much your friends and family care for you, you can compare that. And if you have a good model of how a relationship is supposed to feel or how people are supposed to treat you, then other people treating you poorly is less tolerable.

Again, I’m not saying that your relationships are abusive, but I’m saying that could be a factor. It could be that this other partner that you have a stronger romantic connection with is actually putting effort into the relationship and the other person isn’t. So, I’m not saying that’s definitively the case, but I think I’d just ask these questions of yourself and do a little investigating. And you know what? Less guilt. It’s not necessarily your fault.

Maybe even if it’s just about attraction—like, maybe you’re more attracted to them. Obviously, you can’t control that completely, because if you could, you wouldn’t feel guilty about it. You wouldn’t be like, “Okay, I’ll just change my romantic nodules to point equally towards two partners.” Like, you can’t obviously do that. So don’t beat yourself up for this, because it’s not something that is easily controllable. Just be a little bit curious about it rather than beating yourself up for it. I hope that helps, and good luck.

Could space away from a partner calm down polyamory related anxiety attacks?

In general, I think that the more space you give anxiety, the more you lean into what anxiety is demanding from you, the more it takes over your life. I had a lot of anxiety in my life, but I had a really bad period of anxiety where I kind of got obsessed with the idea that I was going to have an allergic reaction to something.

Never had an allergic reaction in my life. I think I ate a tubed yogurt once and got some hives on my hip, and that’s the extent of any allergy I’ve ever had. I’d never had an allergic reaction, but I was convinced for a long time that if I ate certain foods, my throat would swell up, and I would die. The more I caved into that, the worse it got. It started with just one food, and then it became anything with an allergen warning. Eventually, I stopped eating peanuts because I thought, “I’m going to have an allergic reaction.”

Then I started avoiding everything with any kind of allergen warning, even though I’d never had an allergic reaction in my life. Slowly, it took over almost every single food that was available to me, and I just started having panic attacks. It got to the point where I was having panic attacks every night. I would cling to a water bottle and slowly drink water all night until I fell asleep from exhaustion. Sometimes I’d get too scared and ask one of the people who lived in my dorm if I could sit in their room because I thought for sure I was going to have an allergic reaction and die. I was afraid to do that in my room alone because I didn’t want to die there. It just took over my whole life.

If the space away from your partner is what your anxiety is telling you to do to solve the anxiety, I don’t necessarily think that is always a good idea. Obviously, there’s a lot more about this that needs to be unpacked, and you should definitely seek a therapist to talk about this. It really depends.

For example, if your partner is a horrible person and you’re having anxiety attacks because they’re a horrible person, that’s not actually polyamory-related. But in general, if anxiety is telling you to run away, and you lean into what the anxiety is demanding, it only makes the anxiety worse. In my experience, sometimes you have to sit in the anxiety.

It took me a long time, but I started eating foods again. I made it a little easier for myself by eating things around people so that if I did have this massive allergic reaction I thought I was going to have, I’d at least be around people who could call an ambulance. I kind of called my anxiety’s bluff. There were other things I did too—self-compassion and other techniques to manage my anxiety—but leaning into my anxiety and doing what it told me to do never really helped. It only made it worse.

So, I would definitely speak more with a therapist about the anxiety attacks. Definitely find someone who can help you out with that. If it’s polyamory-related anxiety, it may be worth sitting with the feelings rather than avoiding them.

I hope that helps, and good luck.

How [I] deal with conflict of NRE when your partner takes so long to process feelings?

The next question is about how to deal with the conflict of new relationship energy (NRE) when your partner takes so long to process feelings. This is a little bit of a confusing question because if you're talking about having NRE, and that's causing conflict, to me, that's not necessarily about how your partner processes feelings.

Generally speaking, when people talk about NRE with regard to conflict in their relationships, it's because, as I mentioned in the other question, people under the influence of NRE are often focused on the new, shiny thing. They may neglect their other relationships as a result.

On a fundamental level, my advice to everyone in non-monogamous relationships is to figure out how much physical time you want to spend together and lock that in as much as possible in your life. Once you do that, you don't have to worry about other relationships—whether they're new or old, how they escalate, or how they deescalate. For example, let's say you have a partner you don’t live with but spend every Tuesday evening together. That's your night. It’s Tuesday evening, and that’s the time you’ve agreed upon. Maybe you also have a call date on Friday lunchtime, during your work break. That’s your time together as well.

You may have more time together, but these are your fixed times. Unless there’s a deep emergency or a change in schedule, like your partner needing to reschedule Tuesday for Wednesday, that time is yours. You can always discuss it changing in the future, but the important thing is that you always have that time. So if your partner decides they want to go on a date on Monday instead of attending a board game night, it won’t affect your scheduled time together.

Processing feelings and conflicts around NRE—decide what time you’ll spend together. Even if you're just opening your relationship after being monogamous, or maybe your partner recently broke up with someone else and now wants to spend more time with you, I encourage people to set aside fixed time for each other and to spend the rest of their time apart. This is true even if you live together.

When you agree to polyamory, you agree to a situation where your partner won’t spend as much time with you as they would in monogamy. This holds whether or not they have another partner. You need to be okay with having less time, and the sooner you can get used to that, the better.

I’m not sure what your partner’s ability to process feelings has to do with it, because their feelings are their responsibility. It’s not yours to manage. If there’s conflict surrounding NRE, you need to figure out the time you have together. Once you’ve agreed on fixed times, own them. Be responsible for your scheduled days together.

For example, let’s say you’ve set Tuesday and Friday as your days. Be responsible for those days. It doesn’t matter how other relationships progress if you’ve agreed that these are your times together. Of course, this could change in the future, but as long as you have that time, it doesn’t matter what else happens.

If you cancel your Tuesday date to spend time with a new partner, that’s not a conflict caused by NRE. It’s a result of NRE. It’s a conflict about your choice to prioritize more time with a new partner and less time with your established one. Own your choice, and your partner can decide if they want to stay in that relationship. Do they want to be with someone who cancels scheduled time for new partners? That’s not a problem with NRE—it’s an issue with how you handle your priorities.

If your partner is the one in NRE, and they suddenly cancel scheduled time with you for a new partner, that’s also not an NRE issue. It’s about the way people prioritize relationships. If you or your partner are the type of people who will check out on responsibilities with other partners for a new one, that’s a different problem that can’t be solved by processing feelings. It’s more of a moral issue that needs to be addressed.

I hope that helps, and good luck!

Any tips for people opening up after eight y ears together? How to deprogram systemic monogamy?

Yes, we grew up in a mononormative society that gives us messages about what types of relationships are stable, what types of relationships are loving, and how love is formed. But I really, really, really don't like suggestions that monogamy is something one needs to rid themselves of or that they need to "deprogram" themselves.

You know, we have the same issue with heterosexuality. Heterosexuality used to be assumed as the norm, considered better and more stable, and there's obviously a lot of heteronormativity. But we don't say, "How do I deprogram myself from heterosexuality?" It's not something we typically ask because we don't consider it a thing to deprogram from.

Monogamy isn’t an illness you can purge from your system. It's not a bug or a negative thing. I think what you're asking is understandable, and that's fine—I'm just being particular about words because I think it matters. I think people can decide that polyamory isn't for them, and it's not because they haven't "deprogrammed" themselves effectively. Polyamory is a relationship style, just like monogamy is. It's like living in the city versus the country. It's not that one is wrong, it’s just that different strokes work for different folks. Some people prefer monogamy, and that's a perfectly valid choice.

If you want to be less mono-centric —that's okay, but it's important to recognize that you've been raised in a society where monogamy is pretty much your only option, and it’s been sold to you as the only valid option. We don’t often see demonstrations of polyamory within modern culture. So, it’s understandable that monogamy may feel like your default setting, and that's okay. It's not necessarily something to "deprogram" from; it's just something to be aware of.

It depends on what you both want. If you've been together for eight years, what kind of polyamory do you both want? Just because you both want polyamory doesn't mean you're automatically compatible. Maybe you want a more "kitchen table" style polyamory, or maybe you want two partners who all live together under the same roof. But maybe your partner doesn't want that at all. Just because you both want polyamory doesn't mean your desires align in terms of what polyamory looks like for each of you.

Instead of trying to "deprogram" yourself, I’d focus on figuring out what your ideal situation looks like for both of you. What do you actually want in terms of the time spent together versus time spent with other partners? Do you have other obligations—children, shared property, things like that—and how does that affect your approach to polyamory? How will other partners exist for you? Will there be a hierarchy?

If you've been together for eight years, and especially if you share property or responsibilities like children, there may already be a hierarchy in your life. The child, for example, should be the most important thing because they rely on you for their life. They didn’t ask to be brought into the world, and so forth. But aside from that, how will other relationships coexist with your current one? Will you prioritize your couple relationship over others?

This doesn’t make you a terrible person—it’s okay to have that prioritization. But I think it’s important to be honest about it. Where confusion tends to arise, especially when one partner has been in a couple for eight years and has recently opened up, is that people often don’t understand the difference between an emotional hierarchy and a time hierarchy.

Emotionally, you may feel that you and your partner won’t love each other any more than you love someone else. And that's normal! Even in a mononormative society, no one walks around saying, “I love my partner more than I love my friends or my family." Most people naturally assume a non-hierarchical emotional love life. So, it’s natural to assume that a new partner won't be loved any less than the person you've been with for eight years.

However, love may be something you can equalize between relationships, but you only have 24 hours in a day and not everybody has the same 24 hours. You can’t divide yourself into five different people and spend all your time with five different partners. You need to make decisions about how to allocate your time. What a lot of couples do when they open up is that they don’t change how much time they spend together. They still act like they are married, spend most of their time together, and may go on the occasional date. But they don’t spend significant time apart, and that can lead to emotions that they didn’t expect.

For example, it’s often easier for women to find new partners than it is for men. This creates an imbalance in expectations. When someone starts going on dates and spends less time together with their long-term partner, it can lead to a lot of emotions. People may freak out and either close the relationship or try to keep things the same, but the time allocation hasn’t been negotiated.

The issue lies in people telling their new partner that there’s no hierarchy, but they haven't really explored how they spend their time. They still prioritize their long-term partner without thinking about it, simply because they haven't had role models for polyamory.

I suggest thinking about how much time you want to spend together, how much time you want apart, and any responsibilities—work, children, hobbies, etc. You don’t need to plan everything out or block your calendar for the next five years, but it’s important to understand how much time you want to spend with each other and apart. Once you know that, start spending that time apart, even if you don’t have dates or other partners yet. Whether it’s a solo date, visiting friends, or taking up a new hobby, spend that time apart as soon as possible.

By agreeing to polyamory, you’re agreeing to a situation where your partner may not spend as much time with you as they would in a monogamous relationship. It’s normal to mourn the loss of that time, but the sooner you get used to having less time, the easier it will be. If you wait until someone starts dating a new partner, you’ll not only mourn the time apart but also deal with the emotional rush of them seeing someone new.

The number one thing I would suggest is talking to each other—not about deprogramming monogamy, but about what time you want to spend together and what time you want apart. And even if you don’t have dates or other partners yet, start spending time apart.

I also have articles on my site—NonMonogamyHelp.com/101 and NonMonogamyHelp.com/102—that go through some of the basics. In addition, you can check out The Anxious Person’s Guide to Non-Monogamy. And The Non-Monogamy Journal, which can help you work through different scenarios in polyamory and help you set boundaries for those situations.

I hope this helps, and good luck!

Why is there such a negative sentiment/stigma towards polyamory? Why all of the disapproval?

I think your mileage is going to vary with this. My experience, and I also experience the world as a queer person, as someone who’s read as a woman, as non-binary, and on the ace spectrum, all sorts of other things. There is somewhat of a negative sentiment. I’m also disabled, but people don’t look at me and go, ‘There’s a disabled person.’ So there’s complexity with that.

In general, I would say, in my experience, I grew up in the US. I moved to the UK in 2010 and spent 12 years there. Now I live in Sweden. I don’t necessarily find there is as much of a negative sentiment about polyamory or non-monogamy as there has been around other aspects of my life. I get more negative sentiment, in my personal experience, around being non-binary than I have about being polyamorous. I had to be really public about being non-binary because I wanted a breast reduction, and I had to fundraise for it. I couldn’t get it on the NHS. It’s complicated, but I did get approval for the surgery. Basically, I had to fundraise for it, and I had to be really public about it. Some people were really supportive, but most people just thought it was bullshit and said a lot of really horrible things to me.

Whereas I’ve done several interviews and public appearances, and I haven’t really necessarily been out, but I’ve talked about polyamory in public places as well. People tend to be titillated and interested in a kind of ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’ It’s not a thing I like, though. I started talking to one journalist once about my fundraiser, and they found out that I was polyamorous. They completely pivoted away from me needing help to ask me all of these titillating questions about polyamory. I don’t think that’s a positive sentiment, and it’s not something I was happy about. I don’t like talking to people like that.

I personally think, though, that I understand the sort of typical responses people have. Like, ‘Oh, I could never do that. Don’t you get jealous?’ I don’t consider those microaggressions, and I don’t get frustrated by those questions because I understand. I live in a mono-centric society. It’s fine. I don’t consider that disapproval. I just consider it a typical reaction people have in a mono-centric society. People tend to be somewhat, if not creepy, like, ‘Ooh, it’s a circus.’ Then, they tend to be somewhat interested, impressed more so than negative about it.

But again, this is while I’ve been living in the UK. I haven’t talked that much about it in Sweden. Whereas, when I lived in the South, in the Bible Belt in North Carolina, I certainly wasn’t telling people that I was non-monogamous or interested in non-monogamy at that point. I didn’t even tell people that I wasn’t Christian. The small talk people would ask was, ‘First, are you married?’ even though I was in my very early 20s, and I’d say, ‘No, I’m not married.’ Then the next question was, ‘What church do you go to?’ I’m pretty sure if I’d talked to them about polyamory, there would have been a very negative sentiment about it, especially because I’m read as a woman.

I don’t think it’s the same for everyone. If I were a man talking to other men and told them I was in an open relationship, even though that would mean my partner could have multiple male partners and I could have multiple girlfriends, I think I’d probably be lauded. I probably wouldn’t be shamed. So I think it depends on the context.

Why do I think some people have a negative sentiment towards polyamory? I think, in general, when you have a social system of power—and I think this is connected, as Staceyann Chin has said, ‘All oppressions are connected’—I do think that a lot of things are connected. We have a system of power where certain people are privileged over others in a systemic way. Some of it is conscious, some unconscious.

Think about the hierarchy. You have men at the top of the hierarchy, specifically white men, because that’s part of the whole cis-hetero patriarchy, as Andrea Smith calls it. Men at the top. Anything that threatens this hierarchy is going to be seen negatively. The reason why gay people are a threat is because gay people show that women don’t need men and that men don’t need women. This hierarchical idea that men and women are the yin and yang, and this is the natural way, the natural order of society. It’s so natural that we need to beat it out of you. Of course, I’m being sarcastic.

But gay people challenge that. Gay people challenge the idea that men and women need to be in this kind of structured relationship. Trans people challenge the idea that gender is inherent and experienced the same by everyone. Women who don’t conform to the ideal idea of how women should behave—like women who are too aggressive or don’t fall into gender stereotypes—challenge that as well.

Monogamy is part of that. It’s ironic because the ideal family structure of the white picket fence with 1.5 children wasn’t always the norm. That family structure was once seen as a threat to the original family structure. The idea of multi-generations living under one roof was once normal. But this hierarchical concept is dynamic and can adapt. You find within gay communities people who chastise others for being too flamboyant or feminine because they want to fit into the hierarchy. The same goes for trans people who criticize non-conforming trans individuals.

The stigma around polyamory comes from a lot of sex negativity, but it also comes from this hierarchical structure. Monogamy reinforces the idea of the ‘natural order’—one man, one woman, symbiotic roles, strict social controls to keep it in place. It’s ridiculous, but that’s what we’re told. Monogamy fits into that, and though social monogamy is quite new, it used to be polygamy. Wealthy men, historically, had multiple wives because it fit within the power structure. When polygamy was no longer useful to that power structure, it was cast away.

But if you look at history, wealthy men with power have always had the ability to sleep with whomever they wanted, even if they only had one ‘wife.’ So, if I’m being a social anthropologist here, I think the stigma towards polyamory comes from challenging that hierarchical power structure. Polyamory isn’t seen as serious, stable, or ‘natural.’ It’s seen as a fad. It’s not part of the script that people are used to. When people come across something new and different, it scares them a little because they fear being outcast. People want to fit in because, for centuries, we’ve needed that to survive. If you were outcast from your social circle in ancient times, you’d die. We need social relationships for survival, so there’s a tendency to fear what’s unfamiliar.

I think it’s not all about the white man staying in charge, but about fear of difference. People react like, ‘Oh my God, this is different. I’m scared of being outcast.’ Then there’s sex negativity. Anything related to sex, especially in certain parts of the world, tends to be viewed negatively. Also, we don’t have models of healthy polyamory in media. A lot of depictions of polyamory in media are not great.

In media, there’s a lot of focus on negative portrayals of non-monogamy, and that shapes opinions. There’s also the lack of healthy depictions. The only time I’ve seen polyamory normalized in a way I liked was in The Haunting, where Catherine Zeta-Jones’ character is polyamorous. She’s depicted as confident and awesome. That’s about it. Most depictions of polyamory, though, don’t show it in a normalized or positive light. People can’t know what they haven’t been taught. If all they’ve seen is negative portrayals, they’ll have a negative opinion.

So, yeah, that’s my long-winded answer. The stigma toward polyamory is complicated. It’s about media depictions, social hierarchies, and people’s natural fear of the new.

I hope that helps, and good luck.