Ep 119: Part 3/8, Monogamous, Sleeping Apart & Growing Together: How to Design a Relationship that Works

Twenty-four years, one marriage, separate bedrooms, and zero regrets—meet Jonathan and Angela, the monogamous couple proving that "traditional" doesn't have to mean boring AF. From their "let's put all cards on the table" first date where they basically arranged their own marriage, to their eight-month pandemic deep-dive that finally let them fine-tune 19 years of functional-but-not-optimized coupledom, these two are rewriting the relationship rulebook one shower date at a time. The secret sauce? Radical independence with devotion, love languages as tacos (yes, really), and understanding that intimacy isn't just about sex—it's about being each other's biggest cheerleader while also knowing when to meow it out and go to your separate corners. Spoiler: sleeping apart might actually save your relationship, and you don't need grand gestures when post-it notes and offering a water bottle speak volumes in the right love language. You’ll hear: -How they created their own ‘arranged’ marriage on the first date

-Separate bedrooms = less resentment = relationship gold

-Why re-learning the 5 Love languages as tacos changed everything

-"What makes the whole work" beats "what makes me happy right now"

-Why little things beat the grand gestures

TRANSCRIPT:

Janelle Orion 0:00

Janelle, struggling to discuss sex and intimacy with your partner, not feeling met, seen or heard in your relationships. I'm Janelle And I'm Andrea. We're two midlife Mavericks sharing our own experiences, messy, AF and no regrets with marriage, divorce, polyamory and pleasure. We've learned that when you're brave enough to figure out what you want and ask for it, with partners, friends, family and most importantly, yourself, you'll feel more alive and free question everything, especially your mother's advice. There's no rom com formula for this. But don't panic. Being alone matters, honey, I can't miss you if you don't leave, what if your breakup could be your breakthrough? Our podcast is for brave hearts. Anyone who seeks or has found the courage to confront their fears and limiting beliefs about breaking societal norms in the spirit of finding their truth. If you're seeking permission to be brave in your relationships and want to feel less alone along the way we got you.

Janelle Orion 1:07

Okay, brave pirates, you're in for just a treat. A treat. In this first of our guests on our season six of how to design a relationship that works, we're starting out with a monogamous couple that has been together for 24 years as a first marriage, and they are thriving, and they are proud of each other, and it's a really heartwarming episode. There's a lot of permission, permission to be creative about intimacy, permission to do small things instead of big things, to keep nurturing your relationship, permission to be independent and have lots of spaciousness and still be a we still be a Team. This This couple is really, yeah, yeah, very touching, adorable, and I feel really honored that they wanted to share their story with us. So yeah, Bravehearts, this kicks off season six of the interviews. So enjoy. Hi, brave hearts, welcome to permission to be human. I'm Andrea and I'm Janelle, and we are on the next episode of our season six, which means we are interviewing couples who are designing relationships that work, that thrive in all their different formats, in all their different living situations, and they're all their different orientations and geography and structures. And I'm excited today to have the next couple on permission to be human. This is a little bit strange. Actually. It's like a new thing. We realized. Janelle And I did for permission to be human, because we have typically known in person before, everyone who we had on the podcast. But because I trust Ashley so much and she's such an amazing human, I knew that her friends, Jonathan and Angela, would be amazing, and so I'm really excited to dive into their life knowing nothing really ahead of time. All right, well, we have Jonathan Kastner, 56 and Angela Rose is 53 and they've been together for 24 years. And this is the big exciting news. It's a first marriage for both of them. They are in a monogamous relationship and live together in Longmont, Colorado. Jonathan runs a video agency and loves to motorcycle, fix things and play military video games. Angela runs and an arts nonprofit, and is also an artist herself. She's fond of fashion and all things cats. When we asked them, like, what, fundamentally, what is it that they do together, Jonathan's response was, fundamentally, we are explorers, and yesterday is a great example. We went to the Santa Fe arts district to see some galleries, went to a craft brewery to talk about what we saw and our plans for 2026 met our friends for Ethiopian dinner, then came home and sat on the couch for an hour talking about philosophy and how Angela is becoming more of a stoic Taoist like me, and moving away from her middle American Christian mindset of what fairness should be, and is now more accepting of what is. Wow. Let's just do a whole podcast on that. I'll have

Jonathan Castner 4:36

to go into overtime, yeah.

Andrea Enright 4:38

I mean, I can just picture you on Santa Fe and then you're at this Ethiopian restaurant, which, of course, I can picture in Denver, discussing your philosophy and and I love those, the contrast of those different ways, those different types of thinking. So all right, do you want to say anything else about that? That example? Did you have anything else to add?

Angela Rose 4:59

Do. I think that pretty much encapsulated that day, so beautiful.

Janelle Orion 5:05

So what were you taught about relationships? Angela, we'll start with you.

Angela Rose 5:11

Well, my parents, they were high school sweethearts. They got married when my mom was 18 and my dad was 19, and they had me about a year and a half later. So I was the oldest of four children, and so growing up with very young parents who were doing their best from very big families, my dad has one sister, but my mother had eight siblings in the family, and I had lots of cousins, aunts and uncles, so I had a lot of examples of relationships, but I think they were all pretty similar in that both sides of my family, they're Not very demonstrative as couples towards each other, and it's all been very traditional, typically, you know, with the husband working and the wife staying home, and the importance of having children and raising children, and so that's the only kind of relationships that I really ever saw. I had always had a pretty traditional view of relationships, and so when I met Jonathan, you know, we didn't meet through sort of traditional lines of, you know, finding a husband or wife. We met online before it was even like a real thing and kind of arranged marriage ourselves. Just building this relationship with him has been different than anything that I saw modeled growing up

Andrea Enright 6:52

nice, okay, thank you for that context. Yeah, that's beautiful. I love how you You arranged your marriage yourself, because that can be done.

Jonathan Castner 7:05

Well, the back story on that we met online before, as she said, before that was even really a thing, and we realized that we were about seven miles away from each other, and we met for the first time, and I said, Okay, we're going to put all of the cards on the table right here, right now. We're going to talk about all the things that Janelle was talking about, all the things that break up relationships. We're going to get it out of the way. So either we're going to go forward or it was nice to meet you, yay, and we're going to do it, or not going to do it. And essentially, when I walked her back to her car, we had already become essentially a couple. And then two days later, she moved in, and that was it.

Angela Rose 7:50

Whoa, yes, we've been together ever since.

Jonathan Castner 7:57

Surprise. Now the back story I was raised in a family, only child, and I knew from a fairly young age that my parents were in a dysfunctional relationship, but I could also tell that they were in the most functional relationship of all of my friends, and so I saw the good side of bad, and from probably about the age of nine or 10, started paying attention to married couples families, trying to find one that seemed to not be A mess. And that went on and on and on. And by the time I was about 14, I really hadn't found one that I thought actually worked. And so I said, Okay, well, the odds are stacked against me, so let's assume that it's not impossible, it's just highly improbable. And I went to school and I went to school, ended up coming out with a psych degree. And to begin the semester on relationships, the professor started up by saying, let's start from the assumption that any two random people can meet on the street and right then, right there, shake hands and say, we're going to do what's necessary to make the relationship work, whatever it takes. I'm willing to do it. Are you in great. Oh, my name is Bob, hi. I think we just got married. And you can do that, if you can put your ego aside and you can be willing to figure out what makes the whole work, rather than what makes me happy. Now, that was a framework of everything from me, that from that point on,

Andrea Enright 9:43

what makes the whole work rather than what makes me happy right now. And you also talked about ego death, or, I'm sorry, did I put words in your mouth? You said ego?

Jonathan Castner 9:52

No, essentially, can you put your ego aside? And it's not about you. It's about what we need to accomplish. How do. We get there, we are on a journey. We are a team. How do I make sure the team wins? It's not about whether I score points or not. It's whether or not we win the championship. That mentality,

Janelle Orion 10:13

I'm good. I have a question is, have you ever reached out to that psych professor tell him that you were a living embodiment of that experiment?

Jonathan Castner 10:20

No, you own my beer, that's for sure. Yeah.

Janelle Orion 10:24

So I'm curious, Jonathan, if you tried this in lots of ways, and I'm curious about your success with other women, or, you know, if you had other relationships where you really had this attitude, did that work? Did it get reciprocated?

Jonathan Castner 10:39

The critical part is you have to have both parts of the team working for the team. Yes, and that's where you start having things like divergent relationships, where they do this rather than doing that, that they have different paths, they have different goals, different methodologies. So I tried to find somebody who was willing to live on those terms, and largely what I found were people who were very nice and I could easily care for but they were not ready to take that journey,

Janelle Orion 11:13

the we I would call it the we journey. And I'm curious, Angela, what did you think of this very honest discussion on the first time you met,

Angela Rose 11:23

you know, it was great. I think it it just came at the right time where we were both at a place where we knew what we wanted, and we were tired of this roundabout way of trying to find it. And I remember at one point in the conversation, you know, I think I was like, I'm tired of dating, you know, let's just make this work. So. So, yeah, it was a breath of fresh air, I would say. And just to have someone be so, oh, here comes a cat. So honest about, you know, what they wanted, and that helped me be honest about what I wanted. And there was no game playing, you know, none of that. No worry about, Oh, should I call her the next day? Or, how long should we? Should I wait before I ask for another date? It was just like, we're a good match. We're tired of dating. It was helpful that we found each other attractive, but I think ultimately that wouldn't have mattered, because it was about more. It was about deeper things than you know, just I guess, what did they say? It wasn't lust. It was like deeper than that. Yeah.

Jonathan Castner 12:39

Well, when I first digitally met her, I did not know what she looked like. All I knew was that I liked the way that she wrote and I liked the way that she expressed herself. I liked the way that she saw the world, and I was already really into her before I had any idea that she was cute, yeah, the fact that she was not too hard in the eyes was just fine.

Andrea Enright 13:06

What if dating apps worked that way? Well, first of all, they'd have a hard

Jonathan Castner 13:09

time monetizing that, but because I knew that I had a certain kind of mindset and personality necessary, and part of that was that at the time, I was a freelance voter journalist, so I was on call 24/7 366, and I'm not wired to have kids, so I needed somebody who didn't want to have children and was very independent and did not see that me constantly running Out the door on my quests. Was anything negative about her or us. She had to be really independent, because I need to add to her experience, not be the foundation of everything.

Janelle Orion 13:53

Well, my next question was, you know, what's an essential agreement you have that might seem strange to others, and I think, Jonathan, you started to say it and that it's full acceptance and independence. So it sounds like you agreed from the get go, that you could each have your own lives and know that that didn't take away from the relationship. Angela, what do you think about that?

Angela Rose 14:16

Yeah, I would say that was accepted from the beginning and pretty clear from the beginning and it, you know, we were just a really good match, because I like to have time to myself. I don't want to be smothered and feel like I'm constantly trying to make someone else happy all the time. So, yeah, it just worked really well, and also having that separation, I think, because when we met, like prior to that, I had actually been having some mental health issues like the year before, and just, you know, stress and anxiety and depression and such, and so when we got together. It would have been very easy for me to just rely on him to build me up and have all of my confidence come from that relationship, but because of the way we structured it, you know, I he was there, he was supportive. But ultimately, you know, I built my own confidence back up through and our relationship was, you know, a tool to that along with other things. But it wasn't like he said earlier that to be the end all be all for someone.

Janelle Orion 15:30

So I'm just curious. You're both in your 20s, right? This is when this conversation happened.

Angela Rose 15:36

No, I was 29 you were 29 and then you

Janelle Orion 15:39

were 32 okay, yeah, still young in this, like, what I'm hearing you say, there's an awareness that not everyone has even at that age, but so at that point though, Angela, you knew you didn't want kids. Jonathan, you were clear on that. And so, like, like, that's what. So you, you had at least that the decade of your 20s to figure some of that stuff out.

Janelle Orion 15:58

Okay, well, I knew that by the time I was 16,

Andrea Enright 16:01

yeah, so you seemed both clear, which is, which is super helpful, obviously, for going into a relationship. I'm curious how you've potentially renegotiated this separate and independent structure over time, and what that actually looks like on a day to day basis.

Angela Rose 16:18

I would say, you know, in the past, when Jonathan was doing photojournalism and he was on call for newspapers, and he'd have to drop everything and go at a moment's notice, I didn't always know where he was or what his schedule was, or what he was doing, And so I guess, like a renegotiation would be, you know, when he realized that, as someone who has ADHD that he could better structure things for himself with a Google Calendar, we now both add what we're doing if we're going to be out of the house, to this Google calendar so that we have a clear picture without constantly asking each other, where are you going, what are you doing, who are you going to be with? You know, when are you going to be home? Of our joint but separate social calendars and work calendars and things like that,

Jonathan Castner 17:18

because we shouldn't have to ask permission. We should always be giving the blessing. It's the overlap of something that I do or something that she does. It affects me, or the we where I would just like to know what's going on, what's the plan? Oh, that sounds good. How can I help?

Andrea Enright 17:40

And so as you've grown potentially in different ways, in the same way, has each other's personal evolution ever felt threatening to you? And if so they did, how did you navigate that? I would

Angela Rose 17:51

say, like, at least on my part, Jonathan's personal evolution has never felt threatening to me. I'm his his biggest cheerleader, and I think I take joy in every every accomplishment and every success that he has, I would say he definitely does the same for me, because we are a team, and so becoming better, more well rounded, more well adjusted humans individually, makes us stronger together.

Jonathan Castner 18:25

I love talking to her about her growth and how far she's come and what she's working on. We're all works in progress, and we forget that every day, we can learn something, we can get little stronger. But that's a choice, and we made that choice years ago. And so when she levels up, of course, I'm going to celebrate.

Janelle Orion 18:49

Has there been moments where, in the we right, like, if you both have independent lives, that the we ended up, say, taking a back seat for a little while. Because, I mean, I don't know how the careers were working, but one of you was like, Okay, this is the thing that I'm working on, and maybe the we got sacrificed along the way.

Jonathan Castner 19:10

Well, that was, in all honesty, about the first 19 years of our relationship, because I met her at exactly the right time where I had about a strange lull in work for about two and a half weeks where I was working, but I wasn't working last minute stuff. I wasn't working late night stuff. I wasn't working weekend stuff. So after our second date, when she moved in, no joke, no joke, we had every evening, every and two weekends together to start getting things rolling, and then the floodgates opened up again for the next 19 years, and I was making a career transition into what I'm currently doing, just prior to the covid lockdowns. And it was the covid lockdowns of being home every day, all day for the first time. Time ever, for the two or three days at a time that enabled us to say, Okay, well, let's sit in the porch and have some snacks and let's rehash let's catch up. Let's start redefining all of these things and start tweaking it out. Because what ends up happening is, in any relationship you are trying to figure out how to be functional here and now, not necessarily how we're going to be functional forever. You're building, often, short term solutions to long term problems, and we both built a lot of those in the prior years, where it worked, but it wasn't that. It wasn't what it could be. And so we had, what, eight months, almost every day, having two or three hour conversations on the patio, talking about things and finding out. Oh, oh no, no, no, no. I was joking. You didn't get that. Oh, God, that explains why I've been going hurt for, for how long, okay, and all of these little things, yeah.

Janelle Orion 21:07

I mean, I just, what I'm hearing is like, so much tending to the relationship, so much conversation, so much energy coming back to it, again, again. Oh, just, I think there was a great example you just had, Jonathan of like, a small misunderstanding that that then leads to resentment, that where resentment builds, and then it's never talked about. And so I see you addressing those problems in the now and really devoting a lot of time to this. And I just, I really respect that. I I think what I want to do is because I really was inspired by you talking about sleeping apart and sleeping apart in couples is it's definitely a thing now, and yet it is still quite taboo, and at least in some circles. And so I'm curious how this came about and how you've navigated it.

Angela Rose 21:59

I have always been a really light sleeper, and I've struggled a bit with insomnia and just having trouble sleeping. And we noticed that when Jonathan would travel on trips, we would both sleep better, but I think, you know, we our townhouse only has two bedrooms, so I used to have my office in the one bedroom, and we shared the master bedroom, and so it just didn't seem like we really had any other options. But during the pandemic, I was also diagnosed with stage zero breast cancer, and so that made me extra stressed out and gave me more trouble sleeping. And so at one point, Jonathan was all, you know, I think I'm going to set up a hammock in the basement and just see, you know, just see how I can sleep down there. And he was sleeping fabulously, and I was sleeping better upstairs. And so we eventually decided that I would move my office into the bedroom to facilitate him having the other room as a bedroom. So now we kind of, like, our doors are never closed. We sleep in separate beds and slept separate rooms, but we're, like, you know, not very far away from each other. So it's kind of like one big bedroom on the upper floor of our townhouse, and it's been better for both of us, because I know that I had a lot of resentment over his ability to sleep through anything, and also he kind of crickets his legs in the night like not so much that you can see it, because I would sit up and look, but I could feel it, and it would drive me crazy. And the next morning, I'd say, you know, how did you sleep? And he'd be out, Oh, great. I slept great. So when we separated beds rooms, all of that resentment went away, because now if I have a bad night's sleep, it's just because of insomnia or something like that, and it has zero to do with him, so there's nothing to resent.

Janelle Orion 24:09

I'm hearing that like there was like this 19 year period, and then covid hit. So would you say that you were thriving during those 19 years, even though you were sleeping in the same bed, and Jonathan, what you're speaking about, you had, like, 19 years of resentment to catch up on in those eight months of covid to and to, like, navigate.

Jonathan Castner 24:30

It wasn't so much that. I mean, the thing that I find is, at our worst, we had it better than everybody else we knew, which in some cases is a low bar. But I never gave up on her. I never gave up on us because I knew. One, I already got it better than everybody else. Two, we haven't maximized this thing yet. So why should I give up? I should fight for this thing and fight for more and then. Fighting. Why? Because she's worth it, that it's really interesting. Having led the life that I did where I got paid to meet some of the most amazing people in the world, and had come home excited to be with her, and so almost every time I went to go and do a job, it reiterated to me that she was worth fighting for. It was just we didn't have the opportunity to start fine tuning until, until covid.

Angela Rose 25:26

We weren't thriving at the level we are now, but we did have a very functional relationship that made both of us happy. We just said, sort of, you know, stop talking about those we things, I think, to some degree, and then the pandemic gave us the chance to do that. And so

Janelle Orion 25:47

it sounds like, I mean emotional distance and physical distance has actually, in some way, strengthened your bond, which is, yeah, which is beautiful. I'm curious if you have a repair process for when you have a conflict, and what that looks like?

Jonathan Castner 26:03

Well, we had one just the other day where I got to say, hey, look, look at our repair process right here, because she was a little anxious about doing the interview here, and it got a little emotional, and then we put it back on track, and now we're okay. And we did that all at about what 17 minutes,

Angela Rose 26:26

I would say. So I mean, initially in our relationship, like I came from a family where conflict was to be avoided at all costs, because it meant something bad, and Jonathan came from a family where conflict was practically encouraged, and so earlier in our relationship, if we had a disagreement about something, I had a tendency to just like, let it go, because it wasn't that important. It's not worth fighting about. And I had to learn to be comfortable with conflict and to stay in the moment and not dissociate, or, you know what, not when you know, because it can be triggering. Since covid, I would say we've gotten much better at at conflict, because one of the things we did, you know, we both went back to therapy individually for a while, and now we understand our triggers from our childhood, you know, which had also been triggers in past relationships, and we're triggers in our relationship. And so now conflict doesn't seem like the world is ending, and oh, my god, we're gonna, we're gonna get divorced or whatever, because we're having this friction, which is, you know, definitely a better way to deal with it.

Janelle Orion 27:54

So much growth, wow. Like, is there any advice you give our bravehearts about how you kind of shifted that reaction from like, Okay, I'm shutting down, shutting down, to okay, I'm here. I'm staying present. Like, was that a practice, or was there any anything specifically you did to help you move toward the conflict instead of away from it?

Angela Rose 28:16

I think reminding myself that we're a team that he, you know, he has my back 100% for a lack of a better way to say it, and that I don't have to be worried that he's going to abandon me. And you know, that's something you can definitely address in therapy with the right therapist. If you have an anxious attachment style and your partner has an avoidant attachment style, which is a very common combination, you know you just have to trust your partner that they're not looking for any excuse to get out of the relationship and get to the point where you're comfortable, I would say comfortable enough with yourself and just you have enough confidence to be assured and self assured that this conflict is going to make you stronger and not tear you apart.

Janelle Orion 29:20

Yeah, just hear a deep security and sense of belonging there that once was formed, was something you could always go back to.

Jonathan Castner 29:29

Well, one thing that she and I are really good at is introspection and analyzation. We're both really good at pattern recognitions, and so when we started to realize where patterns were and how we could readjust our understanding based upon re analysis, a re analysis of those patterns, we ended up getting a lot better. And one of the things that was really interesting and powerful and funny was. Is the whole thing of the love languages, which I thought was like, the stupidest thing in the world. And, oh, it's like, oh, what kind of stupid Oprah kind of stuff are we talking about now? And then she read something about it, and she said, you know. And then I saw a little cartoon of the love languages as tacos. And I've shown this to people, and they go, Oh, it's like, Hmm, you know where I'm going to space here. But, you know, acts of service here, I made you tacos quality time. Let's go get some tacos. You know, physical touch. I want to hold you like a taco. I was like, oh, and then once I put it into tacos, it's like, Yes, I'm always making her tacos. I always want to hold her like a taco. I always want to go and get tacos with her. But she was a words of affirmation person, and she was a gift giving person. So we were showing each other for years our appreciation in languages that we didn't fully grasp.

Angela Rose 31:14

I would buy Jonathan gifts when I was out or if I had to do an errand run, you know, I saw something that I thought he would like, I would bring it home, and he'd be like, oh, yeah, thanks. And then he would be feeling like, I didn't appreciate him for these things he was doing for me, which to some degree, had just become part of our relationship. And I wasn't seeing it as, oh, this is his love language, and he doesn't understand, you know, the the men's facial lotion I just bought him for no reason as a as a glove language from me.

Jonathan Castner 31:54

So I put in new brake pads. She doesn't understand what that means to me.

Janelle Orion 31:59

So basically, swapped, right? You're like, oh, okay, you actually need what I'm giving you or what I need. I'm giving you what I need instead of what you need.

Jonathan Castner 32:07

Much of my work is all about communication and understanding the person you're trying to communicate with, and so I'm always saying you don't necessarily have to be fluent, but you at least have to be able to order lunch in that language. You have to able to be able to recognize it and say key things. And if you happen to be a giving, a gifts person, understand that the acts of service is a kind of gift. Oh, okay. And then you can start translating some of those things, which is what, what we end up doing. And that really, really changed, because that opened up a new way of of understanding the other person's needs, the way that they are reaching out to me. And so, yeah,

Janelle Orion 32:51

yeah, amazing on this love language note, is there anything unconventional or perhaps surprising that creates intimacy for you both?

Angela Rose 33:00

Well, you know, I think one thing that we do, I mean, because we look at intimacy on a lot of different levels, and not just necessarily physical, I would say one of our biggest, most important forms of intimacy for the two of us, is just sharing everything with the other person like we can say anything to the other person about our thoughts about anything, our hopes for anything, our dreams for anything we've we've spoken deeply about our childhoods and past relationships and fears that we've carried forward from past experiences and things that we're afraid about now, and there's just no barrier to that. And I think being that way can make an extremely deep feeling of intimacy. You know, even though you know in some times of your life, like when I was going through my breast cancer treatment and all of that, and menopause, there may be times where you're not feeling like being as sexual as you once were when you were younger, and I think that's something that happens as you get older. And so it doesn't mean that you take that off the table entirely. It doesn't have to mean that you lose each other and you lose intimacy with each other, because there's, you know, things come and go and rise and fall and at different seasons of your life, different things are important. So I think that's something that's really important for people to understand, so that they don't feel like as they get older, if they're not having sex as often, or, you know, something like that, it doesn't mean their relationship is failing.

Janelle Orion 34:54

I love that you just gave people permission to be okay with that because intimacy, i. I think you're totally right. It can be created in other ways, right, even if not feeling so sexual today or this week or this month or this year and so, yeah, really being creative. It sounds like it sounds like to you, you, something we talk about a lot in the podcast, is sort of letting go of form, like thinking, okay, like love can look so many different ways. Lust can look so many different ways. Connection can look so many different ways. And I just sounds like, Angela, you've really been open to those. Jonathan, what do you what do you got on the on the intimacy track

Jonathan Castner 35:32

that was established day one, that we have to be communicative and open about everything. We have to be an open book that when you are hiding things, it's usually because of something that you feel, not the way that someone else is going to feel about it. And so that openness was something that we agreed to at that first date, and it was kind of hard for her in one way, because of the non demonstrative we don't talk about deep subjects, kind of family that she had, but that's who she is. She's so smart, she's so educated, she's so experienced, she's so all of the things that our brains connecting constantly on, all the things that we do is truly the greatest intimacy that we can have. Because I knew that I was not looking for that hot young thing. I was looking for that little cotton top who's still cracking me up after all these years, just a little bit younger. Because if you can laugh together, if you can share dreams together, then you really are connected.

Janelle Orion 36:43

It's an interesting, in a way, paradox, because what I'm hearing is that your relationship was so independent, right? Like, you have a Google calendar that you're sharing, but you're not necessarily talking about what's on the Google Calendar. You're just like, This is what I'm doing. And then eventually, once in a while, I was like, Oh, here's a we thing, and we're going to talk about that you have at this moment now, these shared bedrooms, sorry, these separate bedrooms, right? But for a long time, you were traveling so much that you were spending a lot of time apart, so there was actually a lot of spaciousness, which is what I'm hearing, is probably what fostered like being an open book, because it wasn't like you're on top of each other, where every moment was being shared, whether you were speaking to it or not. There was actually the speaking was your way of like leaning in, because there was so much physical distance or emotional distance, just from the way that your lives were set up.

Angela Rose 37:42

I think that's a great way of describing it.

Jonathan Castner 37:44

Yeah, we talk all the time and constantly, and it's a brain to brain connection, and the heart goes along. It's interesting to say that I was I I knew that I cared about her before I knew how tall she was,

Angela Rose 37:59

and I know neither of us would thrive just because of how we are in a totally enmeshed relationship, where, where you didn't have some space.

Jonathan Castner 38:10

My parents are like that. My parents have one brain that they share, and there's no there's no daylight between the two of them. It never has been.

Janelle Orion 38:19

Yeah, this is, I love the celebration of this spaciousness. It's really beautiful, and it's also not what I was taught either. And so I was like, No, it was like, my mom and dad were like, it's us against the world. I thought, Oh, I'm supposed to glom on right to that other partner. I also want to touch on something that, Jonathan, that you said where I can't remember exactly how you phrased it, but you were speaking to the idea of being honest with yourself, right? Because I think your communication is not only between each other, but it's with but it's with yourselves.

Jonathan Castner 38:54

The biggest problems that I see, that our society has, that our culture has, is certainly for men to not be introspective and to not learn their own internal language for external language that we're taught to be action figures, not three dimensional human beings, and that understanding yourself and being able to accept the things you don't like. And know that does not mean you're a bad person. It just means you're growing if you choose to, and that you can be a caricature if you choose to, or not. You can be your own person, whatever that is, know thyself, to thyself, be true.

Andrea Enright 39:38

Yeah. Love. It. Was there ever a time where being true to yourself, and then since you share everything with each other, that you were like, uh, what if she doesn't like this? Or what if he doesn't accept this part of me?

Jonathan Castner 39:54

Oh, yeah. Well, I told her again from the get go, anything you want to know I will. Tell you in as much detail as you want, but there will come a time where I'll say, are you really sure? Do you really want to know that? Because once you cross that line, it's not going to go back. And she crossed a couple of lines, and it was a matter of, oh,

Jonathan Castner 40:16

okay, wait. What did that mean? I didn't understand. Who said, Oh, okay, on that.

Jonathan Castner 40:21

Well, she she ended up having to take to process having crossed the information that came from crossing that line again. There are there are no secrets. There are no I am not ashamed of who I am, I'm not ashamed of what I've experienced. I'm not ashamed of what I've thought. I'm ashamed of what I have done that have hurt other people. That is never really malice, but you know, you screw up, or you tried something out and really didn't work out, okay, fine. Or you tried something you really liked, okay, fine. What do you do with that? What does that mean? How can you make that experience make you stronger?

Janelle Orion 41:00

Just am really impressed with both of you as humans. And I want Jonathan, I want you to say we've

Jonathan Castner 41:07

been practicing this routine just for you.

Janelle Orion 41:11

Love it. I love it. You're doing a great job. You said something right

Janelle Orion 41:14

before we started recording that I wanted you to say again about being proud. Oh, yeah, just a general statement about that.

Jonathan Castner 41:22

I'm proud of her, I'm proud of us. I talk about her all the time. I gush about her all the time. It's easy to gush about her. And she was a little nervous before she got on camera, and I gave her a smooch, and I said, just remember, I'm proud of you, and I'm proud of us, and if I wasn't, we wouldn't be doing this thing.

Janelle Orion 41:40

Are there any techniques or tools or, you know, strange ideas that you maybe have in your house on a regular basis, or that you do every morning that you feel like really keeps you connected or ensures that conflict is addressed? I mean, our brave hearts are looking always looking for like, okay, what can I try that last thing didn't work. What you know? What's the next tool?

Angela Rose 42:10

I know one thing that we do that we found helpful. You know, with super busy schedules, where I may be jumping on a zoom at 9am and he's out the door at 830 and won't be back until the evening, whenever we can. We actually, and it's gonna sound silly, but we actually take a shower together, because that, you know, that could be 10 minutes of what? What are you doing today? You know? What do you want to have for dinner, just reconnecting before you go out for the day. It's just like a nice couple of moments, yeah, that you can have together, beautiful

Janelle Orion 42:53

and so simple, like, everyone's got that, right? Yeah, opportunity for that rather, yeah. And then

Jonathan Castner 42:59

there's a little mash notes I send her,

Angela Rose 43:00

Oh, he writes lovely little notes, and we'll stick them different places that are as a words of affirmation person that just means so much to me, and I save all of them. So my desk area is pretty plastered with these notes that he's written at different times, because, yeah, they're just uplifting. And obviously I know that he loves me deeply and cares about me and believes in me. But it's just nice to see these little post its with with something like that written on it.

Janelle Orion 43:35

Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious, Angela, what did you modify for your love language communication for Jonathan, so that he feels your love

Angela Rose 43:47

Well, a big love language for Jonathan is physical touch, and because of the like, I love hugs and I love kisses and all of that, but I don't know If it's because of the environment I grew up in, or just because of like, how I am, that that's not always the first thing that I think about, and especially when I get busy or I'm stressed. It It hasn't in the past been super natural for me to just like, bear hug him and want to be held for five minutes or something. It's been more like, Oh no, I'm stressed. Don't touch me. So that's something that I've modified. I always was a big hand holder because that was a really comfortable way for me to feel physically connected. But since we, you know, learned each other's love languages more I give longer hugs, we'll hold each other more frequently, spend more time on the kisses, not just like a quick pick. And now I gotta go on to whatever it is that I'm doing. So that, and also acts of service, is a big one for Jonathan and so just, you know, asking, Hey, can I bring you a bottle of water? Do you need anything? If I go into the basement where his office is, and asking him, he still hasn't let me do it, but since I'm home more than he is, I'm like, I will do your laundry. Just give me your laundry and I'll do it for you. And you know that offer still stands, willing to do your laundry.

Janelle Orion 45:36

Wow, I love it. Just like these small acts of kindness just really add up.

Jonathan Castner 45:42

It's always little things. Little things add up to big things. And the problem I think a lot of people have is they think they have to make because we see this in movies and books, these grand gestures. No, it's a little thing. If you take a post it note and simply write on it something that means something to that person that day, and stick it in their lunch box. Yeah, huge. Or, if you're out early, take the post it note and simply write, you know, something you know, and put it on their phone, on the charges. That's the first thing they see in the morning. Yep, yeah. I love it. Little things, little, tiny things.

Janelle Orion 46:20

Yeah, yeah. This is, this has been amazing. The word that comes to me as I've been listening to you, is just devotion. Devotion, just like this big banner of devotion that and really nurturing and tending to the relationship in small ways and attuning to each other as best you can. So Janelle, do you have anything else? Yeah, just appreciation, you know, for, for both of you, for for the work you've done for yourselves and and I'm really grateful that brave hearts and myself and Andrea, but we get to hear and listen like I said, like in the beginning, that having a monogamous couple who's been together for four to 24 years, who feels like they are thriving right now and is proud of what they've accomplished to do that in this world. It's just, it's so heartwarming. And I think you're really going to be in an encouragement to lots of people who would like to have a relationship like this.

Jonathan Castner 47:17

Can I add one tip for the dude types? You don't have to fix it, whatever she's going through, whatever she's talking about, whatever she's expressing and emoting. You don't have to fix it. You have to validate that what she's feeling is real. Sometimes you just got to talk it out. And that took me a while, because I felt like I was abandoning her by not coming up with a course of action to fix whatever it is that she's going on about. And so it was a huge thing for me to allow her to express and acknowledge and then when she's done, say anything I can do. Okay, well, I'll be in my office. Love you. I love or sometimes it's matter of, oh, well, I get right

Angela Rose 48:08

on it. We call that meowing it out around here, because of all of our cats, it's like, sometimes you just have to meow it out.

Andrea Enright 48:20

I love that. I love meowing it out. It's helpful.

Jonathan Castner 48:25

And the inverse is, dudes, sometimes you got to tell her what's on your mind, because if you don't tell her what you're thinking about, what you're working on, she will think whatever she wants to think, because she has nothing to work with. So I'm not that kind who nows it out, but I had to train myself from time to time let her know what's going on with me, just so she additionally felt connected to what's happening on my internal experience. It's got to go both ways. One of the things we didn't touch on is that we learned very quickly that we have to celebrate little things whenever we can. We're not Hallmark holiday kind of people, but we try to like enjoy when we can as we can. And so the whole thing for a while was Tuesday is date night because we don't need reservations. It's going to be quiet, not just in a pint at a favorite joint. Great. Let's go hang out and just be present. And I weirded out the sales clerk a number of years ago because I walked up and I put a bouquet of flowers on the on the counter, and she looked at me, she said, what'd you do? I said, I bought her flowers, but what did you do? I said, it's Thursday, I'm buying her flowers. Oh, you shouldn't have an excuse. You shouldn't have a reason. You shouldn't have a multi million dollar campaign to remind your speedy that she's your sweetie. Mm.

Janelle Orion 50:02

Hmm, thank you so much for being willing to share your story, for being just so enthusiastic about your relationship. Yeah, I really appreciate you. And thank you for willing Angela to like, you know, be in an anxious moment and have to have a 17 minute repair conversation about a podcast and in order to be willing to be on it. And it really means a lot. Yeah, you did. It was amazing with such such a beautiful conversation. Thank you guys, and thank you brave hearts for listening. Stay tuned for the next episode of season six, and we'll see you next time. We love you. Love you.

Janelle Orion 50:47

Hey, Bravehearts, looking for permission. Work with us. Andrea offers permission coaching, and Janelle offers erotic wellness sessions. Follow us on Instagram, meet us in real life at permission to be human workshops in Denver, subscribe to our newsletter. Do all this and more at our website. Permission to be human. Dot live. You.