106. a bollywood ultimatum: horizontal with expat parents (3 of 4)

Eri & Jay, L-R, in that order

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Jay: Yeah, the whole process of arranged marriage is terrible. My mom was literally like, she’s like, “Okay, you pick five things — height, weight, education, looks, and something else — and you only get four.” So literally they would show me, they would show me bio-data and be like, “Okay, but uh, we have a new bio-data, uhm, but she’s a schoolteacher, is that okay?” And I’m like, “I don’t know,” (Eri & Lila laugh) “I don’t care. I don’t care what she does for a profession — who is she?” I literally had to look at this one paper, and like, made decisions! And I’m like, I’m missing something here. I wanna get to know this person like I don’t understand, how her being a schoolteacher or a doctor is supposed to make sense to me (overlapping) or her height, or her weight.

Lila: As to whether you want to marry her!

Jay: Yeah, it’s like, literally: height, weight, looks, education, and there’s one other, and she’s like—

Eri: To be clear, I did send you my bio-data.

Jay: She did! She totally— she made a bio-data and then sent it to me.

Lila: No. Way.

Jay: Which was really cute.

Eri: (matter-of-fact) Yeah! I used to live in India; I used to date other Indians, I knew how to do this! […]

Jay: Yeah, so then they would create mine, and, when I was like 23, had just finished college, I was ready! I was like, “Mom and Dad, like, I’m ready! Find me my woman! Like, I gotta be married by the time I’m 25, so I can, you know— ”

Eri: Have sex!

Lila: So I can have sex!

Jay: Have my debut! […] And I met this woman, and she was great, and then ultimately I realized, it was like, everything about this was great on paper and she was like this trophy wife — she was beautiful and all this stuff but like, she was just completely in awe of me and everything that I had accomplished, and wasn’t like, excited to do it herself. And so, what I found was generationally, there was a big gap in men and women, so like, as a male, I had traveled the world, I was given freedom to do really what I wanted, I was, you know, I was acting, I was dancing, I was, in business, I was going adventuring— I was doing all these things, but the women, of my age, didn’t have the same freedoms to go explore the way I did. So, I would meet all of these women that my family would pick out as perfect, and they would just be like, completely like, “Oh my God, you’re amazing,” and I’m like: I don’t want a fan. I want a partner. I want— that’s why, when I met Eri, and she had been to more countries than I’d been to, […] it was so meaningful for me because I’m like, You’re a woman who’s done your own— ‘cause I’m like a Renaissance man. I do everything, you know like I wanna— I’ve written books, I’ve started a dance company, I’ve you know, played guitar, I’ve done all these things, I just wanna do everything! I want to experience life! And to have a partner who’s just like, (breathy, admiring voice) “I would one day like to do that with you,” is like, not exciting to me. And so, I mean, that was kind of my main thing was like: if I feel love, I would get married, but like, literally the women you’re showing me, have not had the freedoms that I’ve had, and it’s not a match! So it was just hard, like they were wonderful women, but I was just like, “Look, my life is amazing right now,” I told my parents— this is how, how I got away with it. I was like, “My life is amazing right now. If I meet a partner who’s gonna make that better, I will marry them, but if they’re not, and they’re gonna take away some of my freedom, then I’m probably not gonna get married.”

Hello my dear patrons!

What a delight it is to bring you an exclusive episode.

I am ever more grateful for you, and the intimate affair we have, through this work.

This is part three of my four-episode arc with Eri Kardos Patel and Jaymin Patel, recorded in February 2020. Eri & Jay are world travelers, long-time digital nomads, co-parents of two young children, and American expats in Bali. Eri is the author of the book Relationship Agreements, Jaymin the creator of The Integrated Father.

In part one, episode 104. good kids gone wild, Jay and I told our origin stories, and Eri began hers.

Jaymin’s involved a strict Indian family, sisters and aunties aplenty, bi-cultural identity, being a model Hindu and a very very very good boy, doing right by his parents, people-pleaser recovery, musical theatre & embracing his weird, Adlerian psych, and positive discipline.

Eri’s involved 3 siblings, 5 or 6 baptisms, being a very very very good girl, backpacking across the world, youth hostel years, sex addiction worries & Christian counseling, one excellent Sugar Daddy, sex-positivity, and her longtime open relating partner Adam.

In part two, episode 105. mom-ogamish, we picked up with Eri’s sexy Seattle life, BDSM as a highway to vulnerability, the art of submission, the aftermath of a fight or regrettable incident tool, being seen, heard, & loved, reprogramming people’s erotic lives, open relating vs. open relationships, and how the longtime nomad couple finally settled here in Bali.

In part three, we reconvene to discuss:

Jaymin’s years of proud abstinence, or, brahmacharya, as it is known in Hindu culture
Eri’s parents, marriage counseling, & Christian role-models
arranged marriages & bio-data, their first date
the Nurture Dance
proposals number one, two, & three
meeting the siblings
parenting as a calling
Imago dialogue
wedding ceremonies one, two, three, & four, and
Jaymin’s mom & the Bollywood ultimatum.

Come lie down with us again in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia!

Show Notes:

(if you share excerpts, please link to this page or the horizontal Patreon!)

[3:40] Jaymin on brahmacharya.

Jaymin: Did I learn anything about sex growing up? Yeah. I learned that you don’t do it. (Eri & Lila laugh) I learned that it’s— yeah, shameful. There’s this concept in Hinduism called brahmacharya, and there’s like this fourfold path of life, where the first 25 years of your life is dedicated to nonsexual activity, and just learning. And then at 25 — and this is the part that was always a mystery but — somehow, you just get married and have all this sex. […] “You having more kids yet?” Like it’s literally, you gotta go 0 to 60. And like, for me I thought, Okay, that’s just what happens. And even when I grew up watching Bollywood films, like, married couples, in film, would like, be on their own sides of the table, or or or, of the bed, not cuddling, and I remembered that I— my parents would tell me that I would move around so much as a kid, like, kicking, you know, in different directions, like I’d move all across the bed, and I remember thinking, Wow. I’d better learn to sleep still, so that when I get married, I don’t bother my wife when she’s on the other side of the bed (Eri & Lila laugh) so we can have our own space.

Eri: I’m glad you learned that skill though!

[5:45] Jaymin on his teenage dating.

Jay: Like, I wasn’t allowed to date people, like, there was, like some levels of, like, interrogation, like my Mom would pick me up from school, in high school and I’d hug my friends goodbye, and one of ‘em was a girl. She’d be like, “Who is that girl? Why are you hugging her? Why do you need to hug her goodbye? You know, like, all this stuff, so— there’s just a lot of this, yeah, like, repression around it.

Lila: Brahmacharya I’ve heard defined as abstinence, but then also as restraint.

Jay: Yeah, yeah. It can be both. I think it’s probably abstinence until you want it, then it’s restraint. (Jay & Lila laugh) And what it also created in me was a kind of this like laissez faire attitude of like, Oh well — for my friends, who were having sex, like — Oh, like you need it; I don’t need it. Like, I’m doing brahmacharya. You know, so there’s almost like this, like, kinda cutting the desire that I was / may have been feeling, into like, No, I’m not even feeling the desire. Because you—

Lila: Because I’m holier than you!

Jay: I’m holier, right!

Eri: It’s like straight-edge. I remember I was straight-edge for a while, like, I don’t need that. I don’t even want it!

Jay: I don’t know what straight-edge is, but.

Eri: It’s like no drugs, no alcohol.

Lila: No drinking, no smoking, no drugs.

Eri: And we would wear these big X’s on our hands to show—

Lila: It’s a punk thing.

Eri: That we were part of the—

Jay: OhoHH.

Eri: Part of the straight-edge crew.

Jay: Wow, yeah. So that was kind of like, who I was expected to be. And then all that was combined with the being on a pedestal thing. Right, so it’s just like, now, not only could I not do it, but if I did it, there would be like, ripple effects, right, of all of the—

Eri: The whole Patel lineage would fall apart! (all laugh)

Lila: Crumble!

Jay: Pretty much!

Lila: Hotels in disarray! (all laugh)

Jay: […] Yeah, that’s kind of what it felt like though, no joke!

[7:48] What did Eri learn about relationshipping from witnessing her parents?

Eri: My parents are (big breath in) so fascinating. They love being a couple. And they teach marriage classes at their church.

Lila: WhhOA!

Eri: Yeah. And so it is not totally weird to me that I help people in relationships.

Lila: […] You might even say it’s in your—

Eri: It’s in my blood!

Lila: — tradition, your lineage.

Eri: However I did see— and I saw a lotta love; my parents were very affectionate with each other, and, I walked in on them having sex like two or three times as a child, and like, they would quickly scramble to like, pretend like they were sleeping or shut the door, you know whatever, but it wasn’t— it’s very interesting, I felt like in the Christian faith, once you’re married, sex is okay to talk about a little bit more, like, yes it happens, and it wasn’t as shameful, but anything before marriage just is, it’s like black and white. […]

Jay: Same thing in Hinduism; it’s so weird.

Lila: I always just didn’t understand, I was like, it’s the same thing! (gulpy laughs) But how can it be totally not okay sinful bad, without the piece of paper, and then, totally fine and needed and important after.

Eri: But I can see, I can see both sides because, having grown up in that, it’s not the paper, it’s the act of calling God into the— into this relationship and making this commitment. There was just so much put on that, and that honor, and that decision. And I think that, you know, they went through marriage counseling beforehand, so they had a lot of this already proactive stance on relationshipping, which was really cool.

Lila: Wow.

Eri: And I learned a lot about how to not handle conflict resolution. (laughs lightly)

Lila: How to not handle?

Eri: I think that most people can learn better tools at conflict resolution than my parents had their own ongoing conflicts, and they would try to take it away from us, and out of sight, but we could still hear it, and I don’t think they really understood the importance of having a support network that they could be vulnerable with. Like they were— they, they still are, such beautiful people, who are seen as leaders in the community; they are leaders. But I wasn’t modeled — I was modeled how to have a close relationship, in many ways, for these two lovers, but not for how to be able to take care of yourself individually, and then bring a whole self into relationship. I didn’t, I didn’t see what it meant to have close friends, and confidants as an adult. Or to take care of yourself wholly as an adult, and then bring that balance into the dynamic. So when one was off, they both were off, and usually when one was off, one of the children would know that they were off, because they would talk to us instead, especially to me as the eldest. And so then there were these weird triangulations that would happen in the family and all sorts of, you know, just weird dynamics that, you don’t have to have happen. You can have really healthy dynamics, especially if you’re taking care of yourself, especially if you have friends you can go vent to and, and just be real and be like, This is hard! Like we’re adults, we’re quote unquote “supposed to do all this right” and know how to do all these things but, I think that the added pressure of being leaders, and being very religious, it was like, We have to hide anything that doesn’t look perfect. We have to hide anything that feels like it’s potentially shameful. And so then they’re alone! And now I— I see that now with such compassion. […] And I see how there’s this ongoing story of: We could potentially be cast out, of our entire community and our lives if we don’t continue to— follow the rules.

Lila: And to be exemplary. It sounds like they suffered from this “two halves make the whole” philosophy of relationshipping. […] Rather than: two wholes come together and have an interdependent union.

[12:01] The Gottman’s 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Lila: I can’t remember them all. I always remember stonewalling— probably because it’s the one I do the most. […] It’s a really useful way for us to think about the um— the things that derail our communication. The things that make it less possible for us to connect, and to come out of conflict. And to heal. (laughing) Oh it’s so telling that the only one I can remember is stonewalling! ‘Cause I— I’ll just like ice. Ice people out.

[Note: The 4 Horsemen are Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, & Stonewalling.]

[15:55] Jaymin on his parents’ arranged marriage

Jay: My parents were very different people; they had an arranged marriage. And, they were trying to find love. Do I think that they know what love really is? I don’t know. You know, I don’t know if they ever really found it, like they, they’re life partners, and they’re together but, they’re just very different people, in terms of the way they approach things, and, it always lead to squabbles, and then when I was old enough, you know, I was kind of brought into it in terms of like, you know, “Now we’re not gonna hide this from you. You get to know it’s happening. Every family has their own issues; these are ours.” Right? So there very much like this straighforwardness around everything, which I really appreciated, like, there wasn’t— within the family, there wasn’t a lot of hiding. […] In a way, yeah, we became like the confidants. And then when I got older, I was like parenting my parents. Right? And so they’d have a squabble, I’d call them, and then I was doing like, the counseling for them and I’m like— at some point I was like, I can’t keep doing this.

[17:08] The argument Jay’s parents had that lead 10 (maybe 11) year-old Jaymin to draw them a communications diagram

[18:28]

Lila: Suffice it to say: Arranged marriage did not look very good to you.

Jay: Not at all. Not at all. […] In Western culture, you fall in love and then you get married. In Eastern culture— in Indian culture specifically, you get married and then you fall in love. And—

Lila: Theoretically.

Jay: Theoretically. And I just never, I never really saw them be cuddly, or hold hands, like no intimacy, was ever displayed to me.

[19:27] Marriage pressure

Jay: I was like 30, and my parents were like, “Are you gonna get married yet?” And I’m like, “I don’t know if I’ll ever get married. I don’t think I need that.”

[19:39] Ravi Jain’s 2-person show (with his Mom) about how he got out of an arranged marriage… and bio-data

Lila: I was about to say: How did you— you get out of having an arranged marriage? ‘Cause I have a friend from college, Ravi Jain, and Ravi’s mom was trying to set him up, with the— you know how they have like the dating / matchmaking services—

Eri: Bio-data.

Lila: Yes! Yes! The bio-data! He did a one-man show about it— well it’s not a one-man show, it’s him and his Mom! […] And she’s just sitting there just like being herself, and he’s performing the story of his life, essentially, around her, and this process. (Eri & Jay giggle) It’s so good! It’s so good.

Jay: I wanna see this so bad.

Lila: It’s so amazing. You would love it, and you would love him. He lives in Canada. And the process of her being like, “I got this bio-data for you!” […]

[20:26] The Indian matchmaking custom of bio-data

Lila: As to whether you want to marry her!

Jay: Yeah, it’s like, literally: height, weight, looks, education, and there’s one other, and she’s like—

Eri: To be clear, I did send you my bio-data.

Jay: She did! She totally— she made a bio-data and then sent it to me.

Lila: No. Way.

Jay: Which was really cute.

Eri: (matter-of-fact) Yeah! I used to live in India; I used to date other Indians, I knew how to do this!

[21:38] How Jay lucked out of an arranged marriage

Eri: Have sex!

Lila: So I can have sex!

Jaymin in an independent location.

[23:48] How attached Jay felt to his location-independent lifestyle

[25:25] How Eri & Jay met (connected by his ex!)

[27:17] Their first hang at her intentional community

[31:02]

Jay: I led her through yoga, and then I did this activity that I learned at Burning Man, called—

Eri: Nurture Dance. […]

Jay: So we did this Nurture Dance, and it’s around, really nurturing adults the way that we were— (Lila gasps) didn’t get nurtured as kids, and so like I took her, into my lap, took all her weight onto me, held her like a baby, and just, spoke to her and caressed her and nurtured her for, however long, and give her that experience, and then she did that to me, and gave it back to me. […] It was very connected, and it was more like, This is a person who’s gonna be in my life. There wasn’t like, a romantic aspect to it. It was just like: You are a super cool human being that, like, intimacy can be shared, like this, like nurturing touch and connection, without it having any like, romantic overtone because we were both in relationships.

[32:40] Their first date: 6 months after they left Seattle, 5 straight days in San Francisco of attending each other’s talks

[35:28] How Eri asked Jay to be her partner

Jay: But you know like, after you’re done leading, like, a workshop, or talking, or facilitating, everyone has questions for you and they all kind of come up to you, and so, she’s like, literally asking me to be her partner—

Eri: In the mob of people.

Jay: While, while everybody’s like mobbing her! […]

Eri: “Cause he had to go, I was like—

Jay: Everybody wants her.

Eri: — answering questions.

Jay: To ask her questions and thank her, and just be like, “Oh my God, you’re amazing,” and she’s just like, “Hey, do you wanna be my partner?” I’m like, “Yes! Now go, go be in the spotlight!”

[36:54] Jay’s matrimonial aha moment

Jay: We were in Seattle and we were brushing our teeth one morning, and it just hit me and I turned to her and I said, “Hey, I’m gonna marry you. Like, how long do I have to wait before I ask you?”

Eri: And then I told him, “This is called New Relationship Energy,” (overlapping Jay) “NRE!”

Jay: (overlapping Eri) She— the Relationship Coach came out.

Eri: We’re in this magical bubble that will probably pop between six— you know, 3-9 months, the average being 6. So we have to wait at least 6 months, ‘til we get our— the oxytocin rush out of us, then we can make more logical decisions. […]

Jay: And so literally 6 months to the day, I proposed to her.

[37:54] Meet the siblings, inform the parents

[38:30] The first proposal was Jay’s: Let’s talk about finances and our shadow selves

[39:50] The second proposal was Eri’s: Meet my siblings and learn these specific parenting tools

[40:19] Parenting as their calling

Eri: Since we were young, we both were like: We’re here to be parents.

Jay: Yeah. Totally. I feel like my mission in life is to be a Dad.

[40:26] The techniques that Eri considered essential for parenting: Positive discipline, emotion coaching, Montessori, imago dialogue

[42:45] Eri and Jay on not saying “Good job” to their kids & Imago dialogue: Thank you / is there more / are you complete / if I was you, I’d feel that way too

Eri: If there are two phrases I could invite parents to eliminate from their dialogue— one is “Good job,” and the other is “Be careful.”

[48:24] The third proposal was Jay’s, in Belgium, where they were both facilitating, right in the spot where 10 years earlier he said to himself, “This is where I would propose.”

[51:52] Their first wedding in Santa Fe, 35 people, friends and siblings, no parents

[53:02] Why Jaymin’s mother didn’t attend the wedding

Jay: Our parents were not there, mostly because— well my parents— my mom was not supportive of this decision. […] To get married to somebody that she didn’t choose.

Eri: If you’re listening in, you may not know that I am not a Patel from a certain three villages in India. […]

Lila: Was it a problem that she was white?

Jay: Yeah. Growing up I had to marry an Indian, for sure; I had to marry a Gujarati, for sure, so had to be from the state that I’m in, and that spoke my language and had my culture, so I— she had to be Gujarati. And then, she had to be Patel— there were a some exceptions. Like, 90%, she had to be Patel; there were a few exceptions, if she wasn’t. As long as she was Gujarati, it would be okay but she had to be Patel, and not only Patel, but she— there was these five specific villages that our family are from—

Lila: Wow!

Jay: And I had to pick a village that was not the village that I’m from, but the, one of the other four. That would be the most ideal. And if I zoomed in one more layer, I would pick the village that my mom was from, because, you know, her village is amazing. And then, a non-related person in that village, so there would be this really beautiful bow tied on this experience of the person who I married—

Eri: And then of course!

Jay: Doesn’t matter her personality or who they are! (laughs)

Eri: And of course a devout Hindu…

Jay: Oh yeah, yeah.

Eri: Right, all those things.

Jay: Could cook Indian food, and will live with her in-laws and take care of them, and like, all this stuff and I, I came home with like the opposite.

The opposite.

[54:31] The Bollywood ultimatum

Jay: You know, and my mom was like, trying to make it into a Bollywood movie. You know, she was like, “You pick me or you choose her!” I’m like, “Mom.”

Lila: Oh no.

Jay: “This is not a Bollywood sitcom. I love her and I love you. I’d love for you to be there, if you want to be, but like— I am marrying her.” Part of what I said yesterday was like: Our whole experience was around: me stepping more into my masculine, and her relaxing more in her feminine, so, this was a very important step in me, kind of cutting the tie of like, the little boy in me […] and owning my manhood and saying, “This is my, my life, my choice, my decision. This is what’s happening in my life, and I’m inviting you to be a part of it.” You know, “And I love you, and I understand if that’s too hard for you.” And it was.

[56:30] Their second wedding, the official, legal one, was conducted on a boat in fur and onesies

[57:18] On getting married every year they’ve been married

[57:58] The fourth wedding was a getaway / elopement to renew their vows. Behold:

Jaymin & Eri – 4th marriage celebration

Celebrating the Life of AND with our 4th wedding ceremony… we eloped! We love the idea of getting married every year 🙂 Bali, Indonesia

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Jaymin & Eri – 4th marriage celebration

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