What Happened When We Opened Our Relationship

They’re open! Cesar and Foster ask “what does ethical non-monogamy (ENM) actually look like in a committed relationship?” They open up about their journey into exploring an open relationship structure, challenging traditional ideas about monogamy, possession, and what it means to truly choose your partner every day. From Cesar's past of promiscuity to Foster's demisexual identity, they discuss why they don't believe in owning each other, how exploring outside their relationship actually strengthened their bond, and why keeping sexuality in the shadows can really backfire. This episode tackles body counts without shame, the freedom of non-possession in relationships, and why both partners deserve the space to be fully themselves without judgment.

In this episode they explore: 

• Foster and Cesar’s shocking body count reveal
• The philosophy shift: "I don't own you" and what it means for love
• Why keeping sexuality in shadows versus light changes everything
• The unexpected way non-monogamy strengthened their bond instead of breaking it
• Why ethical non-monogamy requires letting go of possession entirely

If this episode spoke to you, you will love So…Sexuality Isn’t Simple where we share our pansexuality and demisexual identities. You can also watch the episodes on YouTube.

If you enjoyed this episode, take a moment to follow Beauty in the Break on your favorite podcast app and leave a review—it really helps!

Reach out to the show—send an email or voice note to beautyinthebreakpod@gmail.com and be sure to follow on Instagram and TikTok. 

Cesar Cardona:

• Receive his newsletter Insights That Matter
• Get guided meditation from Cesar on his website 
• Listen to music from Cesar + The Clew on Apple Music and Spotify

Foster Wilson:

• Buy her poetry book Afternoon Abundance
• Learn about her postpartum services
• Receive her newsletter Foster’s Village

Created & Hosted by: Cesar Cardona and Foster Wilson

Executive Producer: Glenn Milley

This episode is brought to you by Jamaal Pittman. You can donate to his scholarship at WheelerScholarship.com, supporting college enrollment.

Transcript

Wait a minute, and I look at God.

You fucking with me?

(laughing)

If on this journey, something happens

that makes you fall in love with someone else,

then that's what should happen.

Count of three, both of us will say our body counts.

One, two, three.

Welcome to Beauty and the Break.

Here we explore stories of how barriers are broken,

both within ourselves and within the world.

I'm Foster Wilson.

And I'm Cesar Cardona.

This is a home for you,

questioning the rules you inherited

and choosing your own path forward.

- We are here with you on this messy and courageous journey.

Let's dive in.

- Listen here, young lady.

- Uh-oh.

- I got a serious question for you.

- Oh no.

- Why don't we talk more about sex?

She just fell. 

She just fell.

- From three stories.

- She just periled down like a villain in a movie.

- Oh God.

Are we gonna do this today?

We're gonna talk about sex today?

- I don't know.

Let's talk about sex.

- Let's talk about sex.

We've talked about sexuality.

- Talk about you and me.

- It's a little different to talk about The Sex.

- Especially when you put the in front of it.

- Yeah, it makes it very important.

- This should be a movie called The Sex.

- The Sex.

- Like The Room.

Oh, hi, Mark.

Why are your pants off?

You shook your head no when I said the second line.

Like that's not in the movie.

That's not in the movie.

- If you haven't seen The Room,

I'm not gonna plug it.

It's hilarious.

- What?

You might have just plugged it.

- It's a cult classic.

It's the worst movie ever made.

It's so bad it's funny basically.

- Just YouTube The Room highlights.

And that's all you need to know.

- So anyway, speaking of plugs,

why do we not talk about sex?

- Why don't we talk about--

- Girl.

- You know what I asked?

(laughs)

- Well.

- You're getting red by the way.

- I always am.

(laughs)

Listen, we are, we're very different

in our past histories of sexual,

not just sexuality, but sexual experiences.

- Yeah.

We spend a lot of our time talking

about the intellectual stuff, the heady stuff.

That's the opposite of sex.

- Right.

- Sex is feel, moment to moment.

You and I will dive in intellectually.

But when it's time for us to have sex,

we don't really get intellectual about it.

So by chance, it doesn't come up

while we're sitting here.

- What is intellectual sex by the way?

I'd like to know my mind just went to two people,

like note pads, trying to like take notes

on the other genitalia.

- That is art class where you draw each other's genitalia.

I am saying that there's like the heady way of having,

how is this feeling for you?

Are you okay?

- I can't tell how I'm feeling right now.

Is it warm in here for you?

Is it, that's not what sex is.

- Right.

- That's not what it is.

- I mean, it could be for some people.

- It could, you know what?

Good point.

It could be.

You're right.

But for us, it's not.

Humans as a whole sometimes feel a little uncomfortable

when the conversation comes up.

I don't really know why that is.

And I feel it too, by the way.

I don't know why I feel it either.

Not saying I'm holier than thou.

I'm literally like, if someone brings up sex in public,

I'm like, why don't we talk about this thing?

But we got no problem talking about war.

We got no problem talking about death and murder and crime.

But a natural thing.

We don't like talking about it.

- Well, let's talk about how you and I

are very different sexually.

In terms of our past,

I think I'm coming out of my shell sexually

in the last maybe three or four years.

- Okay, let's do this.

On the count of three,

both of us will say our body counts.

- What?

- Ready?

One, two, three.

- Five. - At least 400.

(laughing)

- Dude.

- See, that might be why.

- That might be the difference.

- Somebody's in their car right now

and they had to put their hand back on the wheel

from covering their gaping mouth.

Because you have only been with five people.

- Yeah.

- That's the reason.

- That's the reason.

- When I was 19, I went and got tested.

I was fully depressed and I was drinking a lot.

And I got into this mind stage of,

there was only one woman that I wanted my whole life.

And she left.

She moved over Europe.

She never came back, all this stuff.

And I thought to myself,

if I can't have her, then I'm just gonna do what I want.

I, by this time, became an atheist.

I didn't wanna do anything productive anymore.

I was just here until I wasn't here anymore.

So I'm gonna do what I felt like.

And I went in a very animalistic way.

Which means a lot of promiscuity.

A lot of partners.

I'd meet them online.

I'd meet them in person.

I'd say yes to people that I wasn't attracted to.

I would get drunk and meet people online

and then go back home and drink more

and then go back out.

Just multiple people in a night.

Groups. A ton.

I went and got tested one night at this free clinic.

It was a bus you walk into and whatnot.

They asked how many partners you had been

in the last six months and the last year.

I had to sit and go through my email and text history

in that little room.

And I tallied up in that time a little over a hundred.

- God.

- I know.

Here's the crazy part.

No STD whatsoever.

- Wow.

At that moment.

- At that moment, yes.

(laughing)

- For that one moment in time.

- Yeah.

You know, I didn't get one until I was 25 or so.

So, but I had spent a lot of time being wild

at that juncture.

But this was a very interesting part.

The person who came to read my results,

he stormed into that room where I was.

And he closed the door and he turns to me, goes,

and he points at the number, goes, what is this?

What is this?

This is no good.

This is unsafe.

How old are you?

What's the matter with you?

- He was going to town.

And I was at the time, I didn't care.

If you'd have told me I can die tomorrow, I would have took it.

And I was like, I know it's bad, it's bad, blah, blah,

blah, blah, blah.

I was just saying, I know.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know like that.

You know?

And he was like, this is uncalled for, unnecessary.

You need to stop doing these things.

He gave me like deep, deep warnings for it.

That was the beginning of, I don't know,

foreshadowing in my life of the direness

of who I was becoming.

But at the same time that I needed to lurk in the shadows

to be these sort of things,

because someone in the outside world was like, no good.

Hand slap.

- It took promiscuity and put it into your shadow.

- Yeah, it just grew it more.

But I, this is one of the craziest things.

So I started doing a lot of wild stuff at that time.

And now that I speak about it publicly, it's in my talks.

We talk about it on the podcast.

I share my past life so much.

I'm not hiding anything.

And I have the cleanest life it can be.

The cleanest life ever,

because I'm not hiding the sort of stuff

that I was feeling or urging or angry about or whatever.

Which is so ironic.

My mom and I were talking about Prince yesterday.

And I go, Prince, Prince, Prince.

Scandal-less Prince.

Not scandalous, without scandal.

The man was out in the, about his whole sexuality,

who he was, he didn't hide anything.

It didn't turn devious.

And he has no scandals that we know of at least.

Like he was free to be himself.

And it didn't turn inward on him.

And I find that fascinating.

And a little bit of me feels like that now.

- Yeah.

So now what are you working on sexually to grow?

Because when you were 19,

you were sleeping with 100 people in six months.

What's your growth edge now?

- The time after being highly promiscuous

and then going into relationships,

there was a weird gap of being intimate with somebody

and thinking that as soon as we were done,

one of us needs to leave.

And the very first relationship that I was with,

that I was practicing monogamy,

as soon as I started feeling deep emotions for her,

I could not get aroused.

- Oh.

- And it just, I was like, what is this?

Because I didn't associate intimacy with sex.

I had always associated with this sort of like

transactional thing.

And it's taken me years to get through that now.

At the point with you,

fast forward to all of these years later,

the more vulnerable I am with you,

the more aroused I am.

The more I want to be with you, intimately.

I love it.

I love it.

Excuse the dad joke, I call it boner-ability.

- You said that from the jump.

- I love it.

I just, first off, it shows that I've evolved.

Two, it shows that I'm healing.

Three, it shows that I don't have to be who I was before.

That's my favorite part.

My worst days in my life, I remind myself

that I'm not who I was before and I feel great.

- Does that mean that at some point,

you felt that monogamy was really important

to you for your growth?

- Yes.

And I was super proud of my relationship just before you.

I was so proud that I had just been with her only

and I didn't, I didn't stray once.

I didn't, like, none of it.

It didn't even occur to me.

My brain always would go there, of course,

but I don't know, it's like, it went from,

I need to go to this corner store to,

I have no interest in going flying to Lithuania.

Why would I want to go there?

It was like that, you know?

And I spent all my time doing the work and so on and so forth

and asking people what they thought about.

People I knew that were super monogamous.

I'd ask them a lot of questions.

"You're a man, what happens when you think of these things?"

One of them answered,

"I just remember that I'm driving my car

"and I have to drive home."

(laughing)

I'm like, "Oh, so you just remember

"that it's not important?"

He's like, "Yeah, shit, that's that easy?"

- Yeah. - "Okay, okay, sure."

So monogamy was super important for me.

Super important for me.

And then I get this strange, cosmicly

ironic whip of a partner,

you, who comes to me and eventually says,

"I think I would be very interested

"in seeing you kiss another man."

- Yes, I did. - Yes, you did.

- Yep.

- And the person in me that put away all of that stuff

is like, "Wait a minute."

And I look at God, "You fucking with me?

(laughing)

"Is you playing games, homeboy?

"What you doing up there?"

I don't think God is up there,

but just for the sake of the joke.

- Yeah.

- God's everywhere, God's all things.

God is beyond the word God.

And that shocked me.

I'm still shocked by it now.

I know you, we just confirmed our body counts

of who we've been with.

And you've said you've had a very vanilla sex life.

And then out of nowhere, you can turn to me

and say something along the lines of that,

or maybe you just need yourself a boyfriend.

- Well, yeah, so it started as a joke

that we were joking about different places

we were gonna live, deck it down the road,

and trying out different cities in LA.

And you said you wanted to at some point

live in Santa Clarita, to which I said,

you can have it, I won't be living there with you.

Maybe you should get a boyfriend

while you're there for the six months.

And I don't know, maybe I'll get a girlfriend or whatever.

That was a joke.

And then we started just talking in more depth about it

and getting a little more specific

if you did get a boyfriend.

Like what type?

What's your type?

What do I think is your type?

What's your type that's also be fun for me to think about?

And it was fun to think about.

And then, I don't know, I just thought

that maybe there was nothing all that out of the ordinary

with the idea of going through with that.

- Yeah, yes to that.

And you're giving us moment to moment,

but what is it that attracted you of the thought?

- I don't know, I've been asked that question a bit lately

as this sort of comes out into the world.

I don't know what attracts me to that idea.

The idea is that you being with another man,

which you've had lots of relationships with men,

see our pansexuality episode.

I don't know, I find two men together

to be attractive, period.

I've always thought movies and TV,

two gay characters, two gay male characters,

kissing, having sex.

I've always thought that was really hot.

And it's in the romance part about it,

is really beautiful and sexy to me.

And I can't explain it, just--

- Well, I'm imagining somebody listening here right now,

thinking, yes, to watching it on television.

But this is your partner.

- Yeah, well, I think the reason

that I could even go there with this conversation

was that I know how you feel about me.

I know what I mean to you.

I know what you mean to me.

I know where we are or who we are to each other.

And that bond feels very strong.

And in that safety and security,

the idea of physically exploring with someone else

just seemed like exactly what it is,

physical exploration with someone else.

I also don't feel you're going to be taken from me.

I've never been someone who's felt a lot of jealousy

or anything like that.

I just don't think that you're mine.

Like, I don't possess you.

I feel like every day you make the choice to be with me

and I make the choice to be with you.

And we all have these opportunities

in front of us all the time.

And we still continue to choose our partner

or we don't and that's something else.

But I don't own you.

That's what became very clear.

I was like, I don't own you.

And if this is an experience that would be interesting

to you and it would be interesting to me,

what the hell am I worried about?

And on a bigger level, I have had this thought,

which I don't think I've told you.

If on this journey, something happens that makes you,

I don't know, fall in love with someone else

and not want to be with me anymore,

then that's what should happen.

I don't want that.

But I do think that that freedom is allowed to you and to me.

That freedom is there.

Part of the reason why I don't want marriage for us

as a legal entity is because I don't believe

that we own each other.

And I don't personally want to be involved in something

in a stamp of approval from the government

that says that we owe each other things.

I want every day a free will, you to wake up and be like,

you, you again, I choose you.

- It sounds like it stems from that lack of possession.

The feeling of like, I'm with a person, they are mine.

This is my partner, right?

The mine part is the big one.

I've talked to some people about this

and a few of them say, good for y'all,

I couldn't imagine, I couldn't imagine somebody

with my partner, with my baby, with my whatever.

And you seem freed up from that idea of possession.

- Yeah, look, I have my moments.

I have moments when I do think about you being

with someone else and I'm not there.

I'm not present for that and I'm not having that experience.

But then I think about you're going out to lunch

with a friend.

My envy only comes from like, I want to be there too.

I want to see that person too, but I've got this other task

I have to do.

That's where my envy comes from.

It's not that, oh, he shouldn't be hanging out

with that friend for lunch.

It's equivalent to that to me.

- One of my friends said, this is a testament to her

knowing how much you love her,

by how much you actually do love on her.

And I do.

- Yeah, that's true.

- In the very beginning, the first person that I was with,

you were present for and you watched.

And that's where it really started

'cause you said you wanted to experience that.

I had to constantly check my own self,

my past self from rearing its head saying like,

oh, we back baby, I'm back.

And it didn't happen.

Somehow that version of myself matured as well.

And I dove in a little further and spent more time

in hookups and things like that.

But I would turn and look at you and start loving you more.

I fell in love with you even more.

I wanted to be with you even more.

I wanted you sexually even more.

It changed.

And the most ironic thing happened

when all of society and all of the movies

and the television and the tabloids

where somebody cheats and then they're like,

they stopped sleeping with me and I could tell.

And that happens too.

And I was very vigilant of it.

The exact opposite happened.

- Yeah.

Well, I wonder if that's because it's not in the shadows.

It's not hidden.

- Precisely.

- It's straight up front and I want that for you.

There's something about it.

I don't know.

My experience is that the more I let you be you,

sounds crazy, but like just do what you wanna do.

The more you want just to be with me.

- Yeah, I turn back around and come right back to you.

I think you're phenomenal.

You're my whole universe.

You're more than my whole world.

You're my whole universe.

- And I wanna say something that sounds crazy,

but if I have you because I'm not letting you

experience other people,

then you haven't really chosen me.

Experience other people.

Choose me or don't choose me, but experience the world.

- I know exactly what you're saying.

This is metaphor.

Maybe it's a parallel phrase.

Like if you love something, let it go.

- Kind of.

- And if it loves you, it'll come back.

- Yeah.

- Perhaps.

Great.

That all being said,

somehow I stumbled into being the luckiest man in the world.

I have this gorgeous, brilliant,

amazing powerhouse of a woman who's also like,

oh, you got a little taste for other kinds of spices?

Go ahead, enjoy that restaurant, boy.

Also, my friends have told me that.

Like, man, you were lucky.

I know.

I don't know what I did.

I'm very aware of how lucky I am with this structure.

- And many people are gonna be wondering the question,

does it go both ways?

- Yeah, I do, by the way.

- I do.

- You do.

- Yeah, you do.

Does that freedom, is that freedom extended both ways?

And of course, yes it does.

And that's something that we explored as well.

I found that that was fun for a moment.

And I don't have a lot of time

or bandwidth for that kind of exploration.

It involves apps again.

It involves meeting new people, which is great,

but it is a lot of work for me to get to a place

where I can be sexual with someone.

'Cause if we're gonna, I'm gonna preface,

I should have preface all of this by saying,

I am demisexual.

So I really need to be deeply involved with someone

emotionally to be able to be physically intimate with them.

And so that is a lot of work.

- Yeah, and I was pushing for it.

- I know.

- I was like, girl, show me this app.

I was like, look at her, she's gorgeous.

She would love you.

I had, and still have this fantasy of finding another woman

and her and I can be like with you hanging out

like in a restaurant or whatever.

And her and I both just don't even know how gorgeous you are.

I would love it.

Because then I could be like, see, it's not just me

who thinks you are, dreamy as fuck.

- Yeah, and that fantasy may have to wait a little while

because this girl's busy over here.

But yeah, that's sort of how it's landed for now.

We're always evolving, always subject to change,

but that's kind of where it is.

So the freedom is there, the freedom is available.

I appreciate you for allowing me to be me.

Thank you for not ever judging me, by the way.

I had and still have some hesitation in my thoughts

that whenever I tell you something I've done or whatnot,

you're gonna judge me.

And you're gonna look down on me and say, he's disgusting.

- Oh, wow.

- And stuff I'm doing is not even disgusting.

But in my head, I feel like you're gonna,

someday be like, all right, too much, you're disgusted.

You've disgusted me.

And you'll leave like everybody else has.

It doesn't really take up a lot of real estate

in my thoughts, but it still shows up.

So thank you for allowing me to be me.

And I feel really seen in that way.

That, yeah, that's that.

Well, now that you all are listening,

pick up your jaws off the floor.

You can get back on the highway now,

if you pulled over to be like, what in the world?

- Didn't know what you were stumbling into today.

But that's, you know, the story evolves

and we will tell you more when it unfolds.

- That's true.

That is very true.

- Have a beautiful day.

And as usual, please be kind to yourself.

- If this episode spoke to you,

take a moment and send it to someone else

who might need it.

That's the best way to spread these conversations

to the people who need them the most.

And if you wanna keep exploring with us,

make sure to follow Beauty and the Break

wherever you get your podcasts.

We'll see you next time.

- Beauty and the Break is created and hosted

by Foster Wilson and Cesar Cardona.

Our executive producer is Glenn Milley.

Original music by Cesar + the Clew