87 - 5 Mistakes Poly N00bs Make
For a long time there haven't been many public role models to demonstrate healthy, high-functioning polyamory, in contrast to the many demonstrations of monogamy we see every day on TV, movies, and other corners of the media. It's easy to make mistakes when first venturing down the path of non-monogamy. This week, we take you through five common mistakes made by people first opening up a closed relationship or dabbling in polyamory.
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JASE On this episode of the Multiamory podcast, we're talking about five mistakes made by poly n00bs. We're going to walk you through the five most common mistakes made by people who are new to polyamory and hopefully teach you how to avoid them. I'm Jase.
EMILY I'm Emily.
DEDEKER I'm Dedeker and I never make mistakes.
JASE Nice. [LAUGHS] Thanks. Thanks for-
DEDEKER I don't know about all y'alls but I'm freaking perfect.
EMILY We know this about you. I know. Out of the three of us you're the most perfect, that's for damn sure.
DEDEKER I don't know, it's always so funny because I do a number of interviews for various media outlets, you know, when people are seeking like a polyamory expert or something like that. And they do ask questions like that of like, "Do you ever get jealous?" Or like, "Do you ever experience unpleasant emotions?" Sometimes I do want to be like, "No, no I'm perfect."
JASE [LAUGHS] Yeah.
DEDEKER I've transcended jealousy.
JASE It's something I feel like I still read in a lot of articles that comes up in my Google Alerts for polyamory though. That there'll be articles and things where people just talk about how like, "Oh well such and such issue with jealousy but I've never experienced it but from what I understand it's this."
EMILY Do they really say that?
DEDEKER Really?
EMILY Are you kidding me?
JASE Absolutely. No I've absolutely read something this week-
EMILY Are they lying? They're lying.
JASE -where someone was talking about how, how just completely devoid of jealousy they are. And I'm just like maybe that's true but I don't know if that's something to brag about as much as just be like I'm very different [LAUGHS] from the rest of the world.
DEDEKER Like not even a tiny bit? Because I feel like for myself there's definitely been a development. Like my reaction, my jealousy is very different feeling now than it was five or six years ago. It's definitely much more manageable and much more tame I would say. But it's not that I never experience it or like I just never feel it. It's not like I'm cured.
JASE Right. Like I, yeah. But these are people who are like never from the beginning ever have I experienced jealousy, so.
EMILY Well they're just.
DEDEKER Wow.
JASE I don't, I don't really understand that. And there may be people listening right now who are like, no I feel that way.
EMILY We'll y'all are Cylons.
JASE [LAUGHS]
DEDEKER Well I was going to say Vulcan and my fantasy has always been to date a Vulcan because sometimes human relationships are just too emotional so, there you go.
JASE [LAUGHS] I see.
DEDEKER It's not because of the eyebrows, it's for the logic. I'm in for the logic.
JASE Well I, I've always wanted to date a Cylon though.
DEDEKER Really?
EMILY As long as they all look like Six then yes, please. For the love of God.
JASE Really? Really? Almost all the Cylons I'd go for.
EMILY Well there you go.
DEDEKER On my side it's as long as they all look like Zachary Quinto. Because I did have a dream when the first redux Star Trek movie came out I had this steamy dream that I did marry Spock and we did have a great sex life.
JASE Nice. Yeah.
EMILY Was it devoid of emotion?
DEDEKER And then I woke up and was like, dang. But Zachary Quinto is gay. But the fantasy still remains.
JASE Well that's good.
DEDEKER God this is really showing the insides on this episode, just right out the gate. [LAUGHS]
JASE Really, man. Alright.
EMILY Yeah.
DEDEKER Right out the gate.
JASE Ok so, so let's get into this. [LAUGHS] Let's start talking about these five mistakes that poly n00bs make. It kind of rhymes a little bit, I did realize that when we wrote it,
DEDEKER It does. It does.
JASE The five mistakes poly n00bs make.
DEDEKER So one of the first things that people make right out the gate is thinking, and this usually happens with couples. Couples who are just starting to open their relationship. Or couples who want to add a third person to their relationship is kind of falling prey to this thinking that if we date the same person at the same time no one's going to get jealous and it's going to be just like happy, fun threesome land all the time, right?
EMILY Yes.
JASE Right. [LAUGHS]
EMILY Lovely triad.
DEDEKER No I mean the thing is, like the fantasy of the like beautiful little triad is a fantasy that a surprising number of people have. Um. You know, of like yeah this is, like a lot of people think that's what polyamory just is. Is this multi-person relationship.
JASE Right it's about that triad, yeah.
DEDEKER Exactly, where everyone loves each other and the sex is really hot and now one feels jealous because we're all together all the time and it's great. Of course the reality is that you know, even if you do try to date the same person at the same exact time which is sometimes successful, sometimes not, it definitely does not make you immune to jealousy or immune to insecurity whatsoever. And part of that is because the fact that, you know, all the couples listening out there you may feel this differently. But the reality is you and your partner are autonomous, separate human beings. Unless you have learned how to achieve hive mindset, which if you have we can talk.
JASE [LAUGHS] That's interesting, yeah.
DEDEKER [LAUGHS] But that's the thing. is that the inherent structure in that is you are two separate human beings and that means that these are two separate relationships you are forming with the same person. And so those relationships are of course going to be different and hopefully independent. Which means there's always a potential that you might look at your partner's relationship with this person and be like, hey. Like I feel like they're giving something that they don't give to me. Or I feel like it's special in a way that ours isn't special. Like what the hell?
EMILY Yeah.
JASE Right. And you're also opening yourself up to, I guess a lot more opportunities to put blame on specific people. I guess? Like rather than accepting that jealousy yourself. Because by doing this, believing that dating the same person is going to prevent jealousy, then it's like well I'm not feeling good so it must be because you're doing something wrong. Or it must be because of this other person. Or oh it must be that we're going too fast, let's push this other person away somewhere. And you know which is both bad because you end up hurting that other person.
EMILY Exactly.
JASE And disrespecting them.
EMILY I worry that that third person in this scenario would potentially get hurt a lot more easily than the other two. Like at some point when it becomes too tough for all the individuals involved that the couple will kind of band together and say well ok for the sake of our relationship we need to push this third person out. And then that third person gets very hurt and very disrespected and that's, you know, a really bad mistake to make. Because as we've learned in our secondary bill of rights. That, that person has a huge amount of rights or should at least. And that's not being taken care of.
JASE It should be respected.
EMILY Exactly.
JASE As you should any partner.
EMILY Yeah.
DEDEKER Yeah, the thing that people don't realize, and we covered this in our episode where we talked about adding a third to a relationship is that a lot of people sort of come to that structure and create like a T shape. Like they're trying to create a T shape like we're the couple on one side.
EMILY We're the most important.
DEDEKER And we are going to acquire a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. Usually it's a girlfriend. We are going to acquire this person and this person shall be our girlfriend. Or they'll be our partner rather than the two of us are just happening to date the same person. You know for most successful triad relationships, it needs to look more like a triangle. Where each side doesn't necessarily have to be equal, but it does have to be like equally strong and equally independent. Rather than there being a structure like a couple owning another person.
EMILY And that each different, that there's many different couples within that triangle. That there's like. Each couple and then also the relationship of the three of you.
JASE Yeah, you know how we've talked before about how a triad is actually four different relationships?
EMILY Mm hm.
JASE So I heard somebody in a discussion group the other day say their thing was that every triad is actually seven different relationships.
EMILY Seven?
JASE So it's the relationship with each of the couples and then the group relationship of the three. That's four. And then the remaining three is each of the three's relationships with themselves.
DEDEKER Oh, interesting.
EMILY That's really deep.
JASE Yeah and I thought that was [LAUGHS] I know right? It's like one of those whoa deep, but.
DEDEKER [LAUGHS]
JASE But very true. You know, like having that relationship with yourself really is an important thing. Because that is where you deal with that jealousy and you working on those things on your own instead of trying to force these other people to solve that for you.Or you know push someone away to try to solve that. Kind of like we talked about last week in our sustainability episode.
DEDEKER Mm hm.
JASE Alright, what's the next thing?
DEDEKER So what's our next thing? So the next one is, it's kind of related to what we were just talking about. So another mistake that people make often is trying to kind of forcibly combine their relationships. And, or forcing their relationships to act as a single relationship. And this happens a lot when people kind of intentionally, they have that dream of like, I want a triad. Or I want a closed triad. Or whatever. And then kind of head into dating or head into partner seeking specifically wanting that and trying to kind of force people into that. And the thing is, human beings, they don't fit into a predefined mold very well. And I can see that Jase wants to argue me on something.
EMILY [LAUGHS]
JASE Well, no. Just that I think, I think this, this particular topic is about more than just that though. Like that does kind of fall into that idea of dating the same person and trying to create some structure you had in mind beforehand. But I guess what I'm talking about more, when I brought this up the list is not only that but even if it's not about creating this triad, but more about this idea of, ah well, know that I'm dating these two people like I always want to be able to go out together with both of them. Or that like our social life and daily relaxation life is like very much intertwined. Even if it's not about them having a relationship, but it's not about that. Or perhaps, you know this could happen with a quad or you know with however many that kind of.
EMILY It just becomes a group dynamic.
JASE Forcing it into this group dynamic. When you know, we're going to talk later about not compartmentalizing either. But I think we don't wanna try to force all these relationships into one sort of group dynamic pod necessarily, you know. Like that might happen with some but.
DEDEKER I guess, I guess the most important takeaway would be that, whether you are in kind of like a group relationship or not, that still one on one time is valuable for everyone involved.
EMILY Yeah, allow each relationship their own autonomy.
JASE Right.
DEDEKER Yeah.
EMILY And say like, hey we're each going to be different things.
DEDEKER Yeah, yeah. That quality time is not always going to mean like group time. For everyone involved.
EMILY For sure.
JASE Right. And it's important to have individual time and not, you know that if your partners feel like the only time they get with you is shared with other people, like I could understand how that could make someone feel less special.
EMILY Feel, yeah exactly.
JASE Well it's like you don't have, you know you don't want to spend time just with me, I'm not enough. I think.
DEDEKER Mm hm.
JASE And that's a pretty common concern when people are early to poly too. So I think this is a doubly dangerous mistake where it's like you're excited about poly so you're trying to force it into this group hangout thing, but you're also playing into things that would really, um. You know foster that fear of oh I'm not enough anymore. Like I'm only interesting when I'm with other people, too.
EMILY Yeah.
DEDEKER Mm hm.
JASE You know if we're all hanging out together. Yeah, yeah. And this does happen also in unicorn hunter relationships frequently. Where it's kind of like, well we can bring this third person around, but only if we're all hanging out. You know. Like my partner can't hang out with this partner individually, or I can't hang out with this person individually.
EMILY Yeah.
DEDEKER Oh my partner can't have sex with this partner individually. It's kind of like this third person can be part of your life but only if it's part of just this three person dynamic.
EMILY Mm hm.
JASE And that couples that do that will often change the rules over time too. As their feelings change or their insecurities come up, they'll take out those things on that other person rather than doing that personal work.
EMILY Yeah.
DEDEKER Mm hm.
JASE For themselves. Yeah. Alright. So before we move on to compartmentalizing relationships, let's talk about our patreon. Our patreon is a really awesome place where you can go to help support our show and also to join a really amazing community of people who are excellent listeners, who are supportive, incredibly positive, even if they're sharing things that are difficult in their lives. Like seriously, if any of you have been in a lot of groups online, they're not always the most positive.
DEDEKER Mm hm.
EMILY This one is.
JASE Our patreon group is amazing. This is the group.
DEDEKER Yeah. Great people.
JASE I've always wish existed and now it does. And you can be part of it my going to patreon.com/multiamory and you can become one of our patreons there. You know, which allows you different tiers such as being part of our private, patreon only Facebook group. And also being part of monthly online video discussions with us. Which, we actually have one coming up this weekend.
EMILY Yeah.
DEDEKER Yes. Yeah so we have a discussion group coming up. And our discussion groups so far have been freaking fantastic. You know people have been able to come and talk about the issues they've been having in their relationships. Or things that are on their mind. If you are interested in getting a little bit of help and you don't want just the three of us yahoos to talk about it in front of a bunch of people, we do offer one on one coaching for any kind of relationship issue you might be having. If you're new to polyamory or non-monogamy or wanting to know how to get into it, if you have some existing non-monogamous relationships that you've hit a couple snags. Or if you just want someone to listen to you, I know that it's really hard to find people, especially people who don't understand polyamory.
EMILY Mm hm.
DEDEKER To listen to your relationship woes, then you can definitely get one on one coaching from us. If you want to get more information on that, you can check out our coaching tab on the multiamory website.
JASE Yes. And as we announced last week, the pre-orders of Dedeker's book are now available. An we have.
EMILY Super exciting.
JASE Yeah super exciting,
DEDEKER Mm hm.
JASE That'll be coming out in February. But if you want to be a extra A+ student, you can go pre-order your copy right now like I've already done.
EMILY Wait, I thought it was April.
JASE No, February.
DEDEKER No, February.
JASE Valentine's Day.
EMILY Holy shit.
JASE I know. It's coming up soon.
DEDEKER Yeah, right before Valentine's Day.
JASE Yeah.
EMILY Oh my god.
JASE Uh anyway, there's a link in the show description where you can check that out and pre-order your copy, woo.
EMILY Yeah.
JASE Alright. So with that.
DEDEKER Ok let's get back to talking about mistakes.
JASE [LAUGHS] Back into these n00b mistakes.
EMILY Ok the next potential n00b disaster area that we wanted to talk about.
JASE [LAUGHS]
DEDEKER [LAUGHS]
EMILY It was compartmentalization or isolation of a relationship. And this has to do with say, ok. You're in a relationship and you kind of get into this sort of don't ask, don't tell scenario with your partner. A lot of people kind of do this to try to keep themselves safe I guess. Like, ok I, I'm going to let you be polyamorous or let you date other people but I don't really want to hear about it. I just like, don't, I kind of want to have my head in the sand about it.
JASE Mm hm.
EMILY And also to say like, you know, that your relationships are never going to influence one another. You'll never have to like think about the other relationships that your partners are in.
JASE And I think that's also something people put on themselves.
EMILY Sure.
JASE It's like if I'm doing this right, then none of my relationships should affect each other.
EMILY Are gonna, exactly. And honestly, that's simply not true. I mean, you know, say if someone freaking, I don't know, scheduling or anything. Like hey.
DEDEKER Yeah.
EMILY I need to.
JASE Scheduling, yeah. That's the clearest.
DEDEKER Yeah.
EMILY Well yeah that's a huge one. Like fuck, I can't see someone on any other day but Thursday. But my, you know, partner that I live with wants to do something with me Thursday. Like those things are going to coincide and you have to figure it out. Or if somebody breaks up with another person like, you may feel really shitty for a while. And your partners will have to kind of deal with that even if it's just sort of on the periphery but they're going to have to do it.
JASE Right, that it's.
DEDEKER Yeah, there's always, there's always a ripple effect.
EMILY Absolutely.
JASE Yeah, and so what we would suggest as a way to avoid this n00b mistake is to understand that that's going to happen
EMILY Mm hm.
JASE Understand your relationships. Even the ones that are not all dating each other. [LAUGHS] Or whatever.
DEDEKER [LAUGHS]
EMILY Sure.
JASE Like we talked about before, that they're still going to affect each other. And that's, you know, what stresses the importance of having good metamor relationships. Or even if you're not going to have much of a metamor relationship, still just kind of meeting with people and understanding that they exist.
DEDEKER Mm hm.
EMILY Yeah.
JASE And knowing that all our relationships are going to affect each other. Just cause we're all humans and we're affected by everything in our lives.
EMILY Yeah.
JASE But understanding that makes it not this like painful, potentially derailing thing.
DEDEKER Mm hm.
JASE It's just sort of a fact of life. Like ok, that's happening.
EMILY Yeah.
DEDEKER I want to bring up another kind of way that I've seen compartmentalization manifest, especially in newer poly relationships. I think some people come to a new relationship, compartmentalizing in a way as in like, well I'm going to acquire this new partner and I know that it's , I'm just going to keep it casual. It's going to stay a casual relationship because maybe that's all I have time for. Or maybe like I don't want my primary partner to be threatened.
JASE Mm hm.
DEDEKER So I'm just going to keep this relationship in this little box that fits my life.
JASE Ok, yeah.
DEDEKER I think that's what I see people, is kind of thinking like, well I'm just going to put this relationship in this compartment and it's never going to grow outside of that. Or I'm going to make sure that it can't grow outside of that. Um. I think that's another mistake of thinking that you know from the outside of a, outset of a relationship, I can kind of set the terms.
JASE Right.
DEDEKER And just assume that it's never going to grow bigger than the container that I put it in.
EMILY Yeah.
JASE Yeah, definitely. Which actually kind of leads into our next one here.
DEDEKER Mm hm.
JASE Which is treating people and relationships as others or functions, rather than as other human beings. And this is really related to a lot of the ones we talked about already.
EMILY Yeah.
JASE But kind of specifically with that idea of treating a relationship in terms of how it fulfills a certain role.
DEDEKER Mm.
JASE And I think this is something that thinking to much about labels and hierarchy can really exacerbate this problem. But it's that. It's kind of being like well this person is like, you know I have, you know, one wife and two girlfriends and a friends with benefits and a whatever. You know like.
DEDEKER [LAUGHS]
JASE Putting them in these clear boxes. And so kind of being like, well because you're this box, that's all this relationship can ever be.
DEDEKER Mm hm.
JASE Or because you're in this box you will never become less than that this.
EMILY Something more, yeah.
JASE Or our relationship could never change.
DEDEKER Yeah.
JASE Kind of this idea of when a person that you're in a relationship with fits this certain function, or acts as a certain.
DEDEKER Mm hm.
EMILY Yeah.
JASE You know, archetype in your mind, kind of not letting that change ever can be.
DEDEKER Yeah.
JASE And be a real problem. And it's one of those things that seems to work find until it doesn't and then it spectacularly fails. [LAUGHS]
DEDEKER Yeah.
EMILY Or what. Also say like hey, this is the person who I get great, ridiculously crazy sex with. But then they act as only as that function. Not as like, ok this is the person I get my emotional, I don't know, whatever from. And that I'm able to speak about my horrible day with.
JASE Sure and they could be that thing.
EMILY And never the two shall meet.
JASE Right. They could be that thing most of the time.
EMILY Yeah.
JASE But it's kind of closing those doors to other things.
EMILY Sure.
JASE Is I think where the problem is. Like that's where the danger is.
EMILY Definitely.
DEDEKER Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like, I see this also manifest in a lot of people who have a relationship that they only nurture if all their other partners are occupied.
EMILY Mm.
DEDEKER [LAUGHS]
JASE Sure, right. Kind of the fall back? Relationship. [LAUGHS]
DEDEKER That can, and it can be very easy. It can be very easy to fall into that unintentionally I find.
JASE Mm.
DEDEKER Because, you know, nobody in their, very few people in their right mind approach a relationship like, ok I'm just going to use this person.
EMILY Sure.
JASE Right.
DEDEKER For how I see fit. You know, very few people have that conscious thought. But it can be very easy to unintentionally fall into that of you know.
JASE Mm hm.
DEDEKER Of like ok well all my other partners are busy, ok well I'll call up so and so who I never see and never make an effort to actually talk to.
EMILY Yeah.
JASE Right.
DEDEKER But if I have this you know.
EMILY Time.
DEDEKER Unclaimed time, then I'll give them the time of day. And of course this doesn't mean to say that like you can't have casual relationships. Or you can't have relationships that are more independent. Or you can't have relationships that don't necessarily inherently need a lot of care. However, there is something that is dangerous in, in kind of I guess a relationship that only exists when it's convenient.
EMILY Mm hm.
DEDEKER To a certain extent. Which I feel like I've seen that a lot.
EMILY Yeah.
JASE I, yeah. I think it's especially a danger if you're not aware of it.
EMILY Yeah.
DEDEKER Yes. Yeah.
JASE Yeah. If it is something you are aware of and hopefully can be upfront about. And maybe the other person is like, you know what? That's cool. Like I've barely got anytime anyway. Or I've got other stuff going on.
DEDEKER Yeah it's different if it's negotiated ahead of time.
JASE Yeah.
EMILY Of course.
JASE It's more that this will just kind of happen.
DEDEKER But very few people actually negotiate that ahead of time.
JASE Exactly. [LAUGHS] Exactly, yeah.
EMILY Yeah, if you give somebody the impression that you're going to have a lot of time to give them and then all of a sudden like, hey. Sike, never mind.
DEDEKER Mm hm.
JASE Sure.
EMILY Then, yeah.
JASE Yeah, that too without actually having a conversation.
DEDEKER And, and just to give it a nod. This is also a mistake that a lot of couples make when they do want to add a third to their relationship.
JASE That's true.
DEDEKER Is cause they look at we're going to add a third and this third person is going to serve a function.
EMILY Yeah. And that's it.
DEDEKER You know, the function is to like make our sex life better. Or the function is to revive our relationship.
EMILY Yeah.
DEDEKER Or the function is to be something for us to play with. And of course this is very different if you're in a situation where it's like a swingers party. And everyone's there just to play.
JASE Right.
DEDEKER And you know just to be kind of fun sex toys to each other.
EMILY Mm hm.
DEDEKER But if you are out there as a couple, looking to add someone to your relationship, on a more serious basis, it needs to be with someone who's a human being rather than like an abstract function.
JASE Right.
DEDEKER For you guys.
EMILY Concept.
JASE Right. I feel like a lot of this comes back to treating all the people, whether they're your partners, or your partner's partners, as human beings.
EMILY Yeah.
DEDEKER Mm hm.
JASE It's a key, key ingredient here.
DEDEKER Yes. Definitely.
JASE And I think, I think the reason why these traps are so common for people that are new, is because there's so much change going on and so much deprogramming that you;re doing of stuff you've been taught by the media and religion or your peers, or whatever. That you kind of get caught up in all that.
EMILY Yeah.
JASE And can sometimes lose sight of the fact that it's all just about humans. You know, we're all just people.
DEDEKER Mm hm. Yeah.
JASE Alright. And then moving on to our last rookie mistake here.
EMILY Number five.
JASE [LAUGHS] Is prioritizing preserving a relationship over developing it. So another term for this is relationship containment. Apparently. I haven't heard that one before but Dedeker brought that up.
EMILY Yeah.
JASE But basically what this is, is you know generally that something that happens if a couple is opening up, is that their concern going in is sort of seeing polyamory as a threat to their relationship. Right? That's it's going to take away time from each other, and it's going to bring up jealousy. And it's you know hopefully going to reinvigorate them but it's like mostly a threat. So we're going to take these steps to preserve our relationship and if our relationship starts to change, do things to like rein in back in and try to keep it the way it is the whole time. And I think that, part of the whole part of, of opening a relationship up is to let it change. Is to see how your relationship can grow and develop, rather than just keep it the same. Because if you wanted to keep it the same, why are you changing it? Right?
EMILY Yeah.
DEDEKER Mm hm.
JASE And by trying so hard to preserve that relationship, you're going to be cutting off your outside relationships, and also not letting that relationship grow because you're just focused on trying to keep it to what you thought it was.
EMILY Yeah.
JASE Which is not only limiting those exterior good parts by cutting off those relationships, but it's also limiting those interior good parts.
EMILY Yeah.
JASE Of growing and deepening and becoming more connected.
DEDEKER Mm hm. I think that, yeah. I mean a lot of couples do come to it, like you said, with this sense of threat. I think it's so much more useful and so much more positive to kind of come to it of a sense of like we're going to grow to a point. Where like we feel so good in this relationship and we do feel so safe in this relationship that, that very little actually threatens it.
EMILY Mm.
JASE Mm hm.
DEDEKER And, it's a subtle shift in psychology. It's this more expansive look at it as in like rather than trying to contain it and trying to ward off threats, we're going to be able to grow so close to each other and be able to become so vulnerable with each other and communicate with each other in such a way that there isn't anything that can threaten our own safety and well being.
EMILY Equally.
DEDEKER Am I, are tracking on this?
JASE Yeah.
EMILY Yeah.
DEDEKER Am I making it clear. Yeah?
EMILY No I mean that's really good and really interesting concept.
JASE Right. Yeah that making a relationship more secure.
EMILY By like.
JASE By juts deepening it.
EMILY Destabilizing in a potentially through like.
DEDEKER Yeah.
EMILY Through other people becoming a part of it. But I love that idea of vulnerability you just brought up. Because really I mean, it's one of the most vulnerable things, especially like coming from monogamous viewpoint that you can do is like bring other people into a pre-existing relationship.
DEDEKER Mm.
EMILY But if you have the idea of like, hey. I'm going to, instead of like say I'm so worried and insecure and I think that this is going to go horribly but say like I am so secure with you that I know that like I am allowing myself to feel all these amazing things and I get to do it with you. Like how really profound and beautiful that is, that idea is.
DEDEKER Mm hm.
JASE Mm hm.
EMILY And I'd liked that idea. So many people don't want to be vulnerable.
DEDEKER Yeah.
EMILY And yet like, to say hey I want to be as vulnerable as I can with you, through other people and through the broadening of one's horizons, that's really cool.
DEDEKER Yeah.
EMILY I like that Dedeker.
DEDEKER Well I mean it requires a willingness to sit through the initial discomfort, right?
EMILY Yeah, it's always there.
DEDEKER It requires a willingness to sit through the unknown.
JASE Mm hm.
EMILY Sure.
DEDEKER You know I think about, you know, in relationships that I'm in now, in my relationship with JASE like I feel quite secure. But Jase and I have never ever had any specific rules or like enacted any kind of ripcord kind of scenario.
EMILY Mm.
JASE Yeah. Definitely not.
DEDEKER Or ever even really placed like strict restrictions on each other.
EMILY Yeah.
DEDEKER Whatsoever. You know, and that's how it's been on most of my relationships within the past like two-ish years or so. And it's produced more security rather than less.
JASE Yeah.
EMILY Yeah.
JASE It does seems counter intuitive but it's definitely true.
EMILY No I mean, yeah.
DEDEKER Yeah.
JASE And this, and this is [LAUGHS] I almost feel like this goes into the category of like a n00b mistake. Where people might still count as a n00b in this regard. Like a few years in.
EMILY [LAUGHS]
DEDEKER Yeah.
JASE This is one that can take a long time to actually learn and to get.
DEDEKER Yeah.
EMILY Well I think that's a good point. Any person regardless of if they've been within polyamory for six months or twenty years. They can still make all of these mistakes. Depending on who they're with.
JASE Of course.
EMILY Or whatever. And I mean yeah, to say that like you're just a n00b.
DEDEKER Yeah, I have a confession, I have a confession.
EMILY Oh, please.
JASE Oh yeah.
DEDEKER To make for you guys. Which is that I lied at the beginning of this episode. I do make mistakes.
EMILY [LAUGHS]
JASE Oh shit. Jesus, Dedeker.
DEDEKER All the time.
JASE And you're also a liar.
DEDEKER All the freaking time.
EMILY Yeah.
JASE [LAUGHS]
DEDEKER I'm also a liar. [LAUGHS]
EMILY You make mistakes and you lie. What the hell.
DEDEKER [LAUGHS]
JASE Yes.
EMILY No, but me too. Oh my god.
JASE That's yeah. Yeah. That's why this list [LAUGHS] was something we could come up with, for like, of course!
EMILY Because we like, oh we do all these things. We have at least.
JASE I understand these things, or I've done parts of these, yeah exactly. My friends have or my partners have.
EMILY Yeah.
DEDEKER Yeah.
JASE Yeah like we've seen all of these things. These aren't just theoretical ideas.
EMILY Well that's why it's a nice list to like kind of look at and say like, hey. I have been doing this for many years and yet like I still do make these mistakes but clearly I'm not alone in those mistakes. And so you can at least like work to let yourself off the hook a little bit. Even in spite of them. [LAUGHS]
JASE Yeah.
DEDEKER [LAUGHS]
EMILY Yeah.
JASE Yeah, definitely. Ok.
DEDEKER Ok, cool.
JASE Cool. I hope that that was helpful for, for everyone out there.
EMILY Yeah.
JASE Whether you yourself are a n00b or you've been at this for a long time. I know this was helpful for us to talk through.
EMILY Mm hm.
JASE You know, even though we've been doing this for a while as well. And hopefully we're not n00bs. All though you know what? Like Emily was saying in the last episode.
EMILY Who cares?
DEDEKER Aren't we ALL n00bs?
JASE Every year older you get, you realize how much more you don't know.
EMILY Yeah.
JASE It's kind of.
DEDEKER Yeah.
JASE Like you're becoming more and more of a n00b all the time.
DEDEKER More newbie, yeah.
EMILY Yeah.
DEDEKER Well on that encouraging note.
JASE [LAUGHS] On that encouraging note, you'll never learn anything, bye!
EMILY Consciously.
DEDEKER Ok, bye! Good luck!
JASE [LAUGHS]
EMILY Yeah.
DEDEKER [LAUGHS]
JASE Alright, please check out our website Multiamory.com. You can write to us at info@multiamory. And you can also write to us on Facebook or on Twitter @Multiamory. And if you want to join our discussion group, which is a private invite only group on Facebook, you can do that by joining our Patreon. Which is Patreon.com/multiamory. Or you can even join our monthly discussion groups. so thank you so much and we will see you next week.
DEDEKER Love ya.
EMILY Yeah.
JASE Bye.