The Reno couple Jessica and Joe Daylover are in love with each other but their definition of love is not quite conventional. They have redefined their love, rather ‘remodeled’ it.
The two first crossed paths in 2008 while being a part of the Reno theater community and got married to each other in 2013.
“We were sort of monogamous by default because we didn't really know any other way. At the same time, it wasn't an explicitly closed relationship either. And all that changed around 2012, 2013,” Joe said of their gradual move further into polyamory.
They say they were introduced to the concept by some friends three months prior to their marriage.
“As soon as I heard the word polyamory, I just knew that that's who I always was,” said Jessica. Polyamory is typically defined as engaging in multiple romantic including sexual relationships, with the consent of all the people involved.
It was almost like she had rediscovered herself on hearing the word, she said, though her husband Joe was initially skeptical about it.
“Suddenly my whole life made sense and how I had shown up in relationships previously made sense. And I was just like, ‘this is who I am. I knew instantly.’ And the more excited I got, the more fearful that Joe became. And that's a really common narrative,” she said during a recent Our Town Reno interview.
“So polyamory is a form of non-monogamy. Non-monogamy is a greater umbrella term under which things like swinging and open relationships or don't ask, don't tell, things like that fall but polyamory is the practice,” Jessica said, offering her own definition.
The couple also define it as a concept of “many loves” in which people can have the openness and willingness to seek multiple kinds of connections which can be anything from sexual, asexual to even just friendships.
The couple says that they negotiated their way through dismantling “monogamous programming” and figuring out polyamory.
Joe teaches English at UNR with a different last name and Jessica owns her own digital production company called Home Slice Productions.
When the pandemic hit the entertainment industry in 2020, the Daylovers launched the Remodeled Love website and project which has a stated goal of expanding “the cultural narrative on healthy relationships, in order to include polyamory, non-partnered, asexual, open, and more. We do this through various multimedia and educational tools, such as comedy sketches, podcasts, memes, and articles,” they write on the front page of their website.
The couple has two sons aged four and one, and they also wrote a book called Polyamory and Parenthood. Their successful social media channels run the gamut from TikTok, with over 70-thousand followers, to a podcast and Instagram with over 20-thousand followers. Some of their TikToks have gone viral earning them being called “one of 10 polyamory experts you should be following” by Cosmopolitan in January 2022.
With their platforms they say they are trying to normalize all kinds of love relationships. They strongly believe that “each relationship becomes tailored to what two people want in it.”
Some of their time is spent responding online and in person to critics of their way of loving. Some of their own family members disagree with their choices.
“It just goes unacknowledged in my family and if it comes up, it is disregarded and shamed,” says Jessica about her family who are from the Midwest.
“[My family] don't agree with it,” says Joe, who grew up as a Catholic on the East Coast. “I think some of them might try to understand a little bit more and try to be supportive, but it's still coming from this place of, it's weird and strange.”
Their friends are, however, understanding.
“Our inner circle is very emotionally intelligent and very evolved and progressive, so we were blessed that our immediate bubble landed more on the side of ‘we don't really get it and I wouldn't do it, but I can totally see that it's the right thing for you.’”
When it comes to their children the Daylovers believe that it will be an interesting situation because they will be growing up with “polyamory as a basis of their comparison not monogamy”.
“We will have to explain monogamy to them,” Jessica says.
Joe recently launched a support group called Dudes with Feelings, which is for polyamorous men who may have trouble confronting their emotions or working through them. Meanwhile on two recent social media videos, Jessica asks “Are the Monogs okay?” and “Is Polyamory a choice?”