321 - Navigating Big Life Changes
Change is stressful
Even when the change that is happening is good, our brains don’t like it most of the time. Some big life changes can be exciting and positive, but navigating them with a partner or partners can sometimes be challenging. Change can have physical and mental effects on you, and this episode discusses them as well as some ways to minimize the negative ones.
All brains are different, so the way we react to change is different as well. Some big life changes that our brains may perceive as stressful could be:
Moving to a new place.
Moving into a place with someone else.
Moving out of a place you once shared with others.
Getting a new job or a promotion.
Complete change of career.
Buying a home or any other big purchases.
Having a child.
Having a child move away to college or move out of the home.
Dating again after a pandemic.
Being social after a pandemic.
Coming out and embracing a self or identity that is different from how you’ve been perceived by others.
End of a relationship.
When a big life change occurs, our mind and body can react in a number of ways:
Anxiety, which can also manifest physically as well as mentally.
Depression and sadness.
Fear.
Anger, resentment, or lashing out.
Inability to make decisions.
Overall sense of dread.
How to alleviate the stress
A lot of the same advice that we talk about on the show in other episodes applies here. But some other ways to deal with the anxiety and stress around big life changes as well as some things to consider are:
Help your partner out with the thing that is causing anxiety or stress.
Compromise is sometimes key.
Pick your battles and the mountains you want to die on.
Try to plan for what you can.
Take breaks!
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory podcast, we're talking about navigating big life changes with your partner or partners. Some big life changes, while exciting and motivated, can still be incredibly stressful and can threaten to break apart your relationship, or at least make it more difficult for a while.
We're going to discuss some things that can happen to you both physically and mentally when big change happens, challenges that might arise for you and your partners, and then, finally, some tips and tricks to help you move through these changes effectively and easily, or at least as effectively and easily as possible.
Emily: Yes, that's always the goal. Let's just try to make things easier at the very least, let's help out with that. This is a little more personal, but I recently moved out of the apartment that I've lived in for almost six years with my partner, and he and I moved into a new apartment together. That's fairly common everyday thing, a lot of people do that, but it still was fairly stressful, and it got me thinking like, "Hey, people have these kind of big life changes that happen."
Even something like a move, because it happens over a process of a month or maybe a couple of weeks or something, it puts like a lot of stress on a relationship and a lot of stress on you personally, physically, mentally, all of those things. I just wanted to dive into what people go through when big life changes occur, or even maybe smaller life changes, but something happens, that is a change in what occurs within you and within the other person while that's happening.
Dedeker: Yes. Just a caveat to get out of the way right at the topic of this episode so that you the listener are aware. The kinds of changes that we're going to be focusing on and discussing in this episode are life changes that probably most people will perceive as positive, that's the main focus that we have right now. Although, we have done and we want to do other episodes on helping your partner and yourself through a big change, like something like the death of a loved one.
There are certain topics where we really want to just give the episode that entire focus. For this episode, we're going to focus more on what to do when some exciting and potentially positive changes can still feel really big, and scary, and become a huge source of stress.
Emily: Yes. This is interesting. We talked about this a little bit on our flight, fight, and freeze episode, but change operates in your brain the same whether it's a positive change or a negative change. Your brain just simply doesn't love change, and that's not every single person, but for the most part, the amygdala, the primitive part of our brain reacts to changes that would react to more of a dangerous situation.
It can lead to a lot of stress, and anxiety, and fear surrounding that big change, even if it's something that you're super excited about or maybe you're excited about it a month earlier, and then it actually happens where you have a lot of anxiety leading up to it, and then it happens, and you're in the midst of that anxiety, and fear, and stuff like that.
Dedeker: It's also regardless of whether it's change that we're expecting or not, right?
Emily: Yes, absolutely, because sometimes if the anxiety gets worse when it's something that you are expecting. You're expecting an answer, you have to dwell on it, you have to sit there and think about it a lot, and all of the what-ifs about that change. Yes, it can definitely cause some stress for sure. Then, if it's a change that you didn't see coming, absolutely, that can put a lot of stress on your life, regardless of whether it's a good or a bad change.
Dedeker: Yes. That can also lead to cognitive dissonance, which is something that we discussed on our episode that was all about specifically cognitive biases, which is Episode 160, which is whoa, a long time ago.
Emily: Amazing.
Dedeker: I have a quote here from Dr. Shinri Pele who is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. They say, "When you change, it actually activates the conflict sensors in the brain, and this causes brain chaos that we call cognitive dissonance. The activation of the conflict sensor becomes stressful to people." Again, even if it's a positive change, it's still this sensor that's like, "Ooh, there's something conflicting going on in my world."
Emily: It's fascinating because sometimes I think when that conflict occurs, and you're having an upset reaction to positive change, that may make you feel more upset, because you're like, "I should be feeling good about this. I should be really excited and happy. Why is that not what's happening right now?"
Jase: Yes. Absolutely. To continue quotes from Dr. Pele, when it comes to positive life changes, the brain is still challenged to do something different. Even if that change is positive, it can induce anxiety, or uncertainty, or a feeling of unfamiliarity. This generally precipitates habit pathways in the brain, meaning as soon as you feel stress, you want to go back to old habits. It's like, "I'm in a new unfamiliar territory, I don't know where the predators are. Let me get back to where I was comfortable," even if this new place is better.
Emily: I'm curious. Do you feel like the two of you are more change adverse or like you really, really like spontaneity, and newness, and stuff like that?
Dedeker: I think I'm pretty change-averse actually-
Emily: Really.
Dedeker: - for someone who-
Emily: I'm surprised.
Dedeker: -yes, historically, has traveled around so much and been so loosey-goosey and location dependent? Yes, I really thrive on routine and stability, knowing what's coming down the pipe, knowing what's going to happen next. Before the pandemic, I feel like I was pretty good at actually getting that even with traveling so much and moving around. The pandemic definitely threw a lot of that out of whack for me.
Emily: I think for a lot of people, absolutely. What about you, Jase?
Jase: Well, I'm just thinking about times when Dedeker and I have traveled together, specifically that we definitely, even if we're staying in different places, like when we were petsitting, we're always staying in different people's places with different animals, and different setups in different countries, things like that, but that we would tend to have certain things like certain areas or certain things we would establish in any of those homes-
Dedeker: Right, like going through a little ritual to set up, here's my working space and your working space.
Jase: Here's a place we put stuff when we're coming in and out of the house
Dedeker: Right. Where the keys go. It's something about of even in unfamiliar space still setting up something familiar that's relatively unchanging.
Emily: Yes. I've heard it said that humans are really, really good at adapting to new situations. However, that's an interesting point that you two were talking about that I set up like a space that is familiar to me. I wonder if that adaption moves in that area, you create something that's familiar, and therefore you're able to adapt to it because it becomes a safe space for you in a way. I don't know.
Jase: I think something that's worth thinking about, maybe with this whole episode is, I think when we talk about stress, in popular psychology, we tend to only think of it in a negative context, and while stress is difficult and can cause problems and for lack of a better word is stressful, that that stressfulness isn't inherently a bad thing. If you think about exercise, exercise is putting stress on your muscles or on your body for the purpose of it growing and improving.
Maybe you could argue that solving a difficult puzzle or learning something is stressing your brain causing it to work. Sometimes that can feel good. I think it's that interesting thing of finding balance. I think it is that we can adapt to new things, and maybe for some people, we really crave novel experiences, but we also need to have a certain amount of comfort and it's striking that balance between having just enough stress, not avoiding it altogether.
Dedeker: Ultimately, all of our brains are different and therefore they will react differently to change. There are some people out there who thrive on excitement, who consider themselves to be daredevils, want their whole lives to feel spontaneous, and others rely on day-to-day structure. They're happy when they can control their surroundings and other elements of the environment. Also, for some people change can truly be debilitating. There is something called adjustment
disorder, and I have here a quote from Dr. Nikki Nance, who is an assistant professor of Human Services and psychology at Beacon College in Florida and they say, "Adjustment disorder occurs when an individual's stressors exceed their resources for coping." It's like when we were talking in the trauma response episode, or the survival response episode about, can you feel and can you deal essentially that sometimes a change can create such big waves that like, we can't deal, the fields are too much and so we can't deal.
This can be typified by having a reaction that's disproportionate to the event that you're reacting to. Things like situational depression also fall under this umbrella where you can feel sadness, anger, crying spells, but rather than it being more standard depressive disorder, situational depression is mostly specifically triggered by some kind of outside stressor, such as a life change, and often tends to resolve once a person has adjusted to the situation.
Jase: Someone with adjustment disorder might expect excitement or elation to occur if they're told they just got a promotion. For example, that should be exciting, but in fact, it might hit them with a huge wave of anxiety and start sobbing instead. I would even argue that, even outside of the realm of specifically a disorder, that can happen, where it's just everything hits all at once.
Even if it's something you've been working hard for, maybe for several months or years, when you finally get it, sometimes that's overwhelming, especially if it is a really big change. There are six different types of adjustment disorders and symptoms that might manifest as depression, fighting and recklessness, brain fog, and more.
Many of them as Dedeker said before, they're temporary tend to resolve themselves on their own once you become adjusted to the situation. However, as always, if you find yourself truly debilitated by it, and it's negatively affecting your life, it might be a good idea to speak to a mental health professional and see if they can help you with that.
Emily: All right. What are some examples of big life changes that can cause our brains to go into panic mode? These are again, may be perceived as positive changes or exciting changes. Some of them are going to be changes that might be spontaneous, might happen when you least expect it and some are changes that happen when you've been planning for them for a while.
For example, moving, moving to a new city or a state or to a new apartment, or even to a new country, as the two of you have done often, moving into a new place with a roommate or a partner or many partners, or even a parent or having any of those things happen to you. Parent moving in with you a partner moving in with you, a roommate moving in with your stuff like that, maybe even moving out of a place that you shared with someone, romantic partner, parents, roommates, et cetera.
The articles that I looked up, a lot of them talked about the empty nesters. When kids go away to college, that kind of thing, it can both be super challenging and really exciting because finally, I get some of my space back for the first time, getting a new job or promotion.
Jase: Also something like changing a career. Even bigger than that, maybe you've wanted to get into a new line of work and you finally get it, that can still be very stressful. Buying a home, or a big purchase, maybe buying a car just depends where you're at. Having a child, whoa, big life change there.
Dedeker: Or having or having a fur child as I've experienced from watching my partner, Alex, adopting a puppy.
Emily: We've all gotten a little bit of adorable experience of that.
Dedeker: Definitely. From my perception, positive change, but has also produced a fair amount of quite understandable anxiety.
Jase: Totally. As Emily said, having a child move away from home to go out to college or just to move into their own place, various stages of the more traditional relationship, escalator, the change from dating around to being exclusive or moving in with each other or getting engaged or getting married or-
Dedeker: Opening up your relationship.
Jase: Absolutely. I would say opening up a relationship is a big one.
Dedeker: Yes, some things that may be on the horizon for some of y'all listening to this episode, something like getting back out there in the dating scene after let's say, a pandemic, or maybe kind of just long stretch of time and while we're at it, just seeing any people whatsoever, socializing with friends and family after a pandemic, maybe going back into the office again after you've been working at home for a long time. There's a lot that we're on
Emily: That's a lot of anxiety-inducing, potential there.
Dedeker: Yes. Another one is, coming out. I realized coming out depending on what you're coming out about isn't necessarily a one and done, but it's a big life stage and a big life step, if you're coming out in a way where it's I'm very much embracing a self, or an identity that is different from how I've been perceived by others, that's huge.
Also things like the end of a relationship, of course, that can be tied to if you're cohabiting with someone. Also, the moving out, also a little bit of a loss of identity, so many things can be tied to that. Other examples, I don't know, just off the top of my head, applying for six months to get a travel exemption to go to Australia and then finally getting it after like a mountain of paperwork and BS, and it's super stressful and anxiety-producing. Something like that, perhaps, just as to pull a random example out of thin air.
Emily: I recall you talking to me about it afterwards and just being like, "Oh, my gosh, now it's actually happening. Now I actually got it. Whoa, this is really intense and there's so many other logistical factors that I now have to think about because this occurred."
Dedeker: That's been a whole thing but that's a story for another time.
Jase: Yes. It's interesting, I've been thinking about this, where I know that so many people really struggled at the beginning of the pandemic, adjusting to whatever it is, whatever changes happened in their part of the world at that time, and how stressful that was. I've been thinking about this now because the place where I work and I work remotely, and I worked remotely before the pandemic, even but everyone's switched to working from home, but they're planning within a couple of months to have everyone come back into the office.
Dedeker: Wow. Really?
Jase: Yes, starting in June and I was thinking about it, especially in the context of this episode and just going, I think everyone's so excited to get back into the office or to have your employees come back into the office or to get back out there and socialize in ways that you were before, but I will bet that what they won't be ready for is the amount of stress it's going to cause for themselves and for everyone, and I actually think a lot of companies are going to experience-
Dedeker: Some waves.
Jase: Some waves, some difficulty.
Emily: Well, maybe a low on productivity as well.
Jase: Yes. I think it's not going to be this exciting, great change that everyone thinks it is because we're going to go back through that transition thing, and I think people aren't thinking about that. They're just ignoring the fact that this is going to be a really, really big transition, that's going to be hard. Even if all of us felt positively about it and maybe all of us don't, but even if we all did, still, it's going to be stressful, it's going to be hard and I think companies need to be aware of that.
Emily: I've seen so many posts on Twitter, jokingly talking about having to go back out and socialize with people, and how we're all going to be at a big party, just standing around, not knowing what the hell to say to each other because we have forgotten how to socialize in that way with multiple people in front of our face. That is really scary and anxiety-inducing. Even though I think that so many of us for so long were like, "I want this pandemic to be over. I'm so over it. I'm so tired of this." But, we really have gotten used to it.
Dedeker: No, I can already anticipate the wave of so many Medium articles that come out or New York Times articles that people talking about like, "Hey, actually, there's a lot of things that suck still," about going back to this. Maybe socializing wasn't as great as we thought it was, or maybe being in the office wasn't as great as we thought it was. That's definitely going to happen.
Jase: But, I think to bring it back to this episode, I think what the big takeaway here is with that is that maybe it is great, maybe you do love socializing, and you love being back in the office and not working from home or whatever it is but just to realize that, as Emily said before, even with this change, it's really positive, moving to a cool new apartment that you're excited about, or getting a promotion, it's still stressful, and so we'll talk about some things you can do later in the episode too, but just keep that in mind it is going to be stressful, even if it is all good.
What happens to our bodies when this big life change happens? Things like anxiety, this can also be like the physical symptoms of anxiety like sweaty palms or heart palpitations or shortness of breath, things like that. This could result in depression and sadness and again, as Emily pointed out, that weird feeling of guilt of like, "Why do I feel depressed and sad about this one when this should be a good thing. What's wrong with me?" Could be fear. Could be the four F's, the freeze, flight, freeze, fun fight, put those in a weird order.
Emily: You got-
Dedeker: He did have some repeats in there, but I think we know what you mean.
Jase: Maybe anger, resentment, lashing out, inability to make decisions, just overall feeling of dread or discomfort and the confusion that comes with that. Why am I feeling this? Just be aware.
Emily: Yes, I have a story, a colleague of mine at work recently qualified for low-income housing and got her first apartment and she has a young son and is moving out with her young son to this apartment for the first time out of her parents' house. She was so excited and showed me a video of the place and was really, really happy about it and then a week later when she actually had moved, I asked her about the move and she said, "It's been really, really difficult to adjust to being on my own for the first time.
Even though I have my son, I don't have my parents. I don't know how to do everything that I need to do," stuff like that and it's really interesting. It really made me stop and think I'm like, "Wow, yes, that makes a lot of sense." Regardless of how excited you are initially or how excited you think you should be, sometimes the adjustment period is pretty big.
Dedeker: It's given me a lot of thoughts recently going through current big life changes or being on the cusp of some life changes that it's really made me reevaluate how I respond to people who are going through a change that I perceive to be unequivocally positive because what I've found is when I share with clients or people that I'm working with and I share from a more practical perspective of like, "Oh yes, I have this thing coming up where I'm going to be going back to Australia, to reunite with my partner."
A lot of people are like, "Oh my God, that's so great. Congratulations, you got the thing." Well, I appreciate that, there's a part of me that's just like, "That's not the full picture though. I'm full of all the feelings it's positive and negative, and scary and stressful and everything," and I don't feel that same energy of just being able to be like, "Yay birthday."
What's that thing? A party or something you blow in a birthday party, in a wooga, I'm kind of a little bit of wooga, but mostly I'm like womp, womp, womp a little bit, and then there's also guilt and shame about that. It really has got me thinking about, I don't know, I think it's really wonderful to celebrate things with people, but maybe when I'm listening to someone sharing a positive change, maybe before jumping straight to, "Oh my God, that's so great," giving a little space for them to--
Emily: How are you feeling about it?
Dedeker: Yes, maybe leave it a little more open-ended instead of just assuming it's all wonderful because I do think that can probably exacerbate the feelings of guilt. If it's like, "Oh, I don't feel 100% happier or elated about this. It's actually much more complicated than that."
Emily: Yes, I wish I could have revised what I said to the woman who moved out to be like, "Hey, I'm here for you."
Jase: That's normal.
Emily: That's totally normal. Yes, all right. We're going to talk about how to navigate all of this fear and anxiety and intense newness that's happening and these big emotional changes, but first, we're going to talk about some ways that you can help us continue to bring the show out there to the masses for free.
Dedeker: We're back. How is it that we deal with these life changes so that all that fear and anxiety don't get the best of us? Even if it's normal for it to be there. How do we get better at coping, be more balanced with this? Much of the same advice that we've given on the show in the past applies here when you're personally going through a big life change, but of course, there are going to be some special considerations when you have another person or multiple other people like a partner or partners going through the change at the same time with you.
Emily: I'm going to talk about some of the things that I discovered when I was moving that my partner and I were doing at the same time or at different times and I'm interested to hear if the two of you have gone through similar things, but I was surprised that first of all, the two of us went back and forth trading anxieties.
There were times when I was super anxious about something or there were times when he was super anxious about something, and that's tough when you don't have the same time that anxiety is occurring, when you may just be like, "Wow, I'm totally fine about this and excited and why aren't you?" Then at another point in time, he is like, "I feel good, why aren't you happy right now?" That's really tough.
For instance, I was super on the ball about trying to find a place. I set up a bunch of employments and stuff because he was scared about that or just he had a rougher time getting us together and getting us excited about moving and stuff like that. When the move occurred, I was really anxious about where the hell do I put everything? I don't know how to put up curtains. I don't know how to do decorating. He's really good at all that stuff and so I was just in an anxious mood after the move, whereas he was more of an anxious mood when the move happened beforehand.
Jase: I can definitely relate to this going back and forth, even with Dedeker's example about her travel exemption, to be able to go to Australia of that, of her right at first freaking out about it and I was the one being like, "No, you're all right, it's going to be great. It's going to be great," and then trading off sometimes where it's like, "Oh, now I feel sad even though, but I am excited about it too, but I'm also sad," and just that really be in all over the place personally, as well as your partner. I imagine for Dedeker, there's also that with Alex on the other side and so there's extra dynamics for her of complication with all that.
Dedeker: Oh yes.
Emily: Navigating both of y'all.
Dedeker: Yes, I think that's the thing I've also learned is when you have multiple partners and essentially there's a life change that's affecting everybody in some way, it really keeps you on your toes if you're a hinge partner, for sure. Especially with what you're describing, Emily, that's trading off anxieties or being at a different place in the peak or the trough of the wave of anxiety or what triggers your anxiety as being really different for each person.
This is also something by where I feel more recently and maybe in a smaller level that, Jase whenever you and I are traveling somewhere, especially pre-pandemic, whenever we were traveling somewhere to be there for a few months at a time, I feel like we would trade off on travel anxieties specifically. I think I would tend to be a little bit more chill beforehand and then less chill after arriving. I don't know.
Jase: I tend to have more anxiety for the couple of weeks leading up to traveling and then maybe less once we're actually doing it. Yes, I would agree. We have a similar trade-off each time we do that.
Emily: Something I've found also is that there were definitely things that we didn't agree on in terms of this process. For instance, when we were looking for a place, I was like, "Well, I don't care where we live, we can live wherever in Los Angeles," and he very much wants to stay in this area and we didn't have that entirely aligned.
He also really wanted to weigh his options and take time with things. Whereas I find something let's do it, let's go for it. It doesn't quite line up in that way if you're doing something with another person, you have to manage the fact that both of you are not going to agree on everything and that may be in an idyllic world, yes, that will happen, but in reality, that's probably going to be something that you're going to have to contend with.
Dedeker: That is a good thing though, with my experience with Jase, of us moving around so often in the past and having to resettle in new places, I do think we started to anticipate where our areas of disagreement were going to be.
Emily: Interesting.
Dedeker: We could walk into a house and be like, "Oh, we're going to fight about that space, or oh I know that I better do this so that you don't get upset about that in a good way." I do feel like that was a little bit of a skill by going through that particular transition many times, but of course, the first few times it was all a surprise to find out what were the things that we agreed on versus didn't agree on.
Emily: Yes, and that's interesting too when it's like something that you don't expect, you're like, "Whoa, really? That's something that you're not wanting or that you're upset about or that you don't agree on with me? That's too bad."
Jase: Yes, for sure when it catches you by surprise and it is, I think for most people, you generally don't get as much practice moving spaces as Dedeker and I, that's for a number of years when we were able to travel around a lot, but I will say there is a difference there too between that kind of, we're going into a place for a few months, so it's not just like a vacation, we're going there, we're working, we're living in the place. That's still very different from we're buying a place, or we're signing a lease on something, then there's a different level of stay.
Dedeker: We're permanently moving across the country or to a different country.
Jase: "Permanently." I could see that too with jobs or something. I have a friend who his girlfriend got a job that took her across the country and that's been a big adjustment for them too and can cause some of these similar things of like, what do we agree on and what do we disagree on? Some of that was surprising, I think for them and I think that's not uncommon in that kind of situation.
Emily: Yes, absolutely. There's even more special considerations to think about when it affects one person in maybe a positive way, but then to the other partner, it feels negative because maybe that thing is taking them away from you in a way.
Jase: Right, and it's that conflict of like, I'm happy for you, but I also want you to not take it because it means you're going to be away from me.
Emily: Exactly, because I don't want to lose you.
Jase: Yes, exactly.
Emily: That's hard to navigate too.
Sometimes the stresses that we were feeling were directed at each other. This didn't happen that much, but definitely, I think that when you are tired, and when you're stressed, it's really easy to get upset at the other person and be snippy, or snappy, or not as patient as you could be, stuff like that simply because your faculties are just compromised at that point and so you can't really deal with all of the stress as well as perhaps you should be able to.
Jase: Yes. Absolutely. Dedeker and I have definitely had some times of getting snippy with each other, I know sometimes. I find even the stress of someone coming to visit for even a weekend or a week, even that can be stressful and can lead to you not enjoying your time with them visiting as much too because you're more just irritated or snippy. Even though you want them to be here, you want them to visit you, it is a complicated thing that can be very confusing.
Emily: Yes. Somebody coming in and hanging out with you, but it doesn't feel as exciting or good as you want it to in that moment. Also, there were definitely some things that we couldn't plan for, like things going wrong. Like one of my furniture pieces, only half of it arrived and some things got dinged or broken in the move, or whatever.
We didn't have quite as much storage space as we thought we were going to, so then we had to purge which is not a bad thing, but definitely throw a wrench in when we got here, stuff like that. You can't have a contingency plan for absolutely everything, but definitely, those little things sometimes pile up, and then they cause your anxieties or your emotions that maybe are negative to go into overdrive in that moment.
Dedeker: Yes. It's a difficult thing of needing to stay on your toes. I think whenever you're going through a change like this, and that's hard when you are someone who relies on routine and knowing what's going to happen next, and maybe both you and your partner are that way that sometimes it's like, "How can we help each other in the stance of needing to stay on our toes and be able to react to whatever comes up for us."
Emily: It reminds me of non-monogamy in a lot of ways because a lot of people will try to have a contingency plan for everything, and it's simply is not going to work, it's not going to happen. There will always be something that you can't plan for, and so in a way, you just have to roll with the punches, but that is tough, and it can cause-- Especially people who really like to be in control, it can be very challenging.
Dedeker: Yes. I'm actually in the process of taking a course on project management. One of the things that comes up in that is this juxtaposition of, on the one hand, you want to try to plan things, and plan for all your contingencies, and have fallbacks, and have escalation protocols, and whatever to handle everything. At the same time, you need to be flexible and realize that it's always going to change and it's never going to work out the way you want it to. It's that interesting mix of having structure while still having that structure be flexible.
I think that takes some practice to find a way to do that, especially when you're coordinating with other people, whether that's a whole team at work, or whether that's with a partner, or a roommate, or whatever.
Emily: Totally. Finally one of the things that I found was that we got super exhausted, especially me. I didn't take any time off of work. I did back-to-back shifts with moving stuff over here, and then having an eight-hour moving day, and then going to work the next day. It was not great of me, I was dead tired. Then, I went over to clean our old apartment and that took five hours, and it was just it was a lot.
If you're tired, you're not going to be at your best self for your partner. That seemed to happen over and over again, especially during this time, because there's a lot of logistical stuff involved in moving, and in a lot of these types of big changes maybe it's going to physically take you down to a point where you simply aren't able to be at your best.
Jase: Yes. That's something that's come up a lot of the times even just when Dedeker and I have been traveling around is, I especially am bad at this, but often not realizing that I need to give myself some buffer days on either side of that. I assume I can just hit the ground and go right back to work as I normally do.
Emily: We really hope that we can.
Jase: It's just yes, everything suffers when trying to overcommit that way. I think it's easy to underestimate how much of your energy goes to just managing the fact that there's change, that that takes energy too, in addition to just physically doing all the things you're going to need to do, but also that, of just the energy to cope with it, the mental energy of all that.
Emily: Absolutely, yes.
Dedeker: Can relate. Finally, how do we make our big life changes as easy as possible for ourselves and our partners? I think this is a really relevant question to ask because citing Gotland Institute research, they have found that a big predictor of divorce and relationship, happiness/unhappiness is tied to how the people in the relationship deal with external stress.
This is actually a thing. Specifically with relapse as well, if people have gone to couples therapy or marriage therapy, that depending on how they deal with life, stress is also correlated with whether or not they're going to relapse and undo all the work and all the tools that they picked up in therapy. This is a really important thing to think about. I think first thing is we can be cognizant of that.
We did an episode a while back, 267, that was about distressing together with your partner, and we talked about, particularly having a formula for a distressing conversation. I think it's really important to have with your partner or partners, figure out what are your rituals that the two of you use to recharge together and to renew yourselves and it could be different from what your preferred date night activity is, or it could be the same.
For instance, your preferred way of recharging together could be we order really unhealthy takeout and watch a trash TV show, and that's how we recharge ourselves, we indulge in that every so often. I think it's this kind of thing, where it's also important to find the little areas where you can carve out a little tiny corner of time or space to be able to melt some of that anxiety and stress together.
Emily: I think if you can help out your partner with their anxiety or stress, for instance, like I said, at the beginning, I think the idea of finding an apartment was overwhelming for my partner. I picked up the reins there, and I was the one who made all the calls, and researched the places, and made appointments for us to go and see things.
Also, he was stressed about seeing movers in a time of COVID and being with a bunch of people in a really small space. I'm totally vaccinated, and so I was able to take the reins on that on the moving day, and direct people in that smaller space. Then, on this side, he helps me with things like putting stuff up, and helping me decide where to put things, and taking the reins on stuff that causes me anxiety.
Jase: Yes. Next, related to that, segueing from that is just compromise, that compromise is key. This again, to go back to what Dedeker and I were saying before about when we would go into a new space, we could start to anticipate some of the conflicts that we were going to have. They're usually over how certain space was used, or where things got put away, versus do things get put away, relating to, is this a space where things are so they're easy to access, or is this of space where things are set temporarily, and then are put away somewhere else, and our differing thoughts on that in different areas of the house, as an example.
That's something that one knowing that that something to anticipate can help, but also having a conversation about it and coming to a compromise of "okay, well, what why is this important to you and why is this important to me?" Kind of reminds me a little bit of some things we've talked about too with having these like fundamental disagreements with your partner, maybe about timeliness, or about how you spend money, or something like that, that a way that can help to deal with it is to understand better why they feel that way about it not just, "Oh, you're wrong. Let me tell you why I'm right."
Like, "Why? What's the meaning to you? What's the story to you? Here's my story, this is the meaning it has for me," can then help you to come up with compromises that actually do work, that actually address each other's more deeply-seated needs, and beliefs, and feelings, and values, you could say about these things rather than just trying to argue over who's right, because sometimes the perspectives are just different and it's more important to acknowledge that than to try to argue over who's right.
Emily: Yes. That's not to say letting your partner walk all over you or whatever, but I think that it is important.
Jase: No, definitely not.
Emily: No. It is important to see the things like
what is most important to me about what we're doing if we have two things that are diametrically opposed to one another, then you can decide, okay, am I going to definitely need this thing or am I able to give a little and allow them their own space or their own time or whatever it is that they're wanting about whatever situation you're in. Compromise is good, it's important.
Jase: Let's say maybe the other side to compromise, something that compromise needs in order to be good and to be helpful is also advocating for yourself. Is that right that I think sometimes-
Emily: Communication.
Jase: -we can preach compromise without enough of that emphasis on, but also part of that compromise is getting clear on what are the parts of this that are most important to me, so that we can find what are the ones that are most important to you, and find the best compromise between those as opposed to compromise meaning, I'm just not going to get any of the things that I want, because I want my partner to be happy, which ultimately, is not great for them or for you, actually.
Emily: I definitely need to work on that one, but it's important to figure out what mountains are you going to die on, which is our next one?
Dedeker: To think about picking your battles and this is relevant, I think, especially if it's a little bit more of a one-sided life change like maybe your partner is going through a big change, and you're not. Maybe they are going through a career shift, and you're not, or vice versa, which I think this can be a little bit different.
If you're going through something together, sometimes if you're going through something together, you can feel more of a palpable sense of like, "Yes, we're sharing the anxiety and the stress together," versus if it's something that just one of you is going through, that I think the person-- If you're the person who's not going through the change, and you're feeling a little bit more grounded, a little bit more resourced, and maybe less aware of good timing as far as when to poke your partner, or to bring up something that could be a point of contention.
I like poking people. It's just also important to again, I think, like we're talking about the compromise thing, just be aware of what's really the most important to you at this time, what are the things that you actually really need at this time, and just figuring out your priorities from there.
Emily: Some of you may have a little bit more patience during a time, and so you can give your partner the benefit of the doubt to a degree and other times, hopefully, they'll offer you the same grace to a degree. That's important because we, we all are going to have our moments and I think that is part of being in a relationship is allowing someone to have their freakout moments and be like, "Fuck."
For you to say, "Okay, that was a moment in time and I know that they care about me, and they love me and that's not necessarily representative of who they are or how they really think they may have just had a freakout in that moment." If you're able to give them that from time to time, I think that's important.
Jase: Our next step, going back to what we talked about in the previous section, is to try to plan for what you can. It's got a nice rhyme to it there. Plan for what you can. I would say that part of that, too, is make a plan that involves expecting change. What I mean by that is-- an example of a rigid plan is-- we keep using moving, I'm trying to think what's a different example of something to maybe make it simpler?
Emily: Going on a trip?
Jase: Sure, Let's say going on a trip. The non-flexible planning would look something like, "Okay, we're going to get up at 6:00 AM. We're going to pack up our things, we're going to be in the car by 6:45. We're going to go, when we get there these people are going to be there waiting for us, they're going to help us, we're going to go do this and then that other thing, and we'll make sure that we've gotten the keys from this person to then go to this other place."
It's everything's very linear and each step relies on the previous step happening exactly as you expected it to happen. Whereas a more flexible plan could still look a little bit like that, but it could be here's the schedule or the agenda of that and then at some point later in that day, here's an extra block of time, an hour of padding, in case those things didn't go according to plan or if they did, then we can go do something else.
If it's something like a move, or a relationship transition, like opening up a relationship, it might look something like, "Okay, let's do this for a week, and then let's plan to talk again, and see how does it feel so far? What might we want to adjust? Okay, great. Let's try this next thing for a week." Rather than, "We're opening up our relationship, we're going to start doing it on this day, we'll both start dating people within a month of that, and then we'll have the move in six months after that. Some really rigid thing that's planning on a bunch of things you can't control.
Emily: I think planning things like a radar is really helpful in instances like this because you can take into account like, "Hey, a move is coming up or a big thing, a big change is coming up so let's check-in and talk about it and try to figure out how can we help each other and serve each other best during this time, because we know that there's going to be a lot of anxiety involved," and then plan for another one a month later or whatever, and also have the same sort of check-in.
I think there's a lot of planning that can be involved in any of this, even though that you're going to have moments where unplanned things are going to come up, and that's fine but plan for the little things that you can control.
Jase: Plan time for readjusting, when they don't go that way. I guess.
Emily: That's true. That's a good idea. Also, be sure to carve out time to do things like eat, and exercise and even our last one, take a break, take a break. Run away with me for the summer, let's go upstate.
Dedeker: Take a break, they're necessary. They help you to make sure that you don't get too overwhelmed and too exhausted. If you're noticing that the two of you or three of you, however many people are involved here are crabbing at each other or snapping at each other, just crab in the lab and take a break. It's okay.
Do whatever it is that you can, even if it's in the middle of a stressful moving day, if it's like, "Okay, I'm just going to go stand outside for 10 minutes and just listen to my music and not look at any of this stuff that we're trying to unpack or whatever, just any kind of little bite-sized chunks of rest that you can get for yourself because it really does help.
Emily: Even if you're going through a purely cerebral big life change, or it's some, I don't know, big promotion or whatever, give yourself a moment, give mommy a minute.
Emily: Just chill out for a bit, because it may be you do need time to adjust to this new big change, even if it's just you need some emotional and mental time.
Jase: I think what's important there is that part of that means maybe backing off on some of your other normal commitments, or things that you do and that can be hard to do because it's like, "Oh, this good thing happened." I shouldn't need to compromise on those but just check in with yourself, be aware and maybe give yourself more break time, whatever that looks like for you than you normally would, especially because you realize you're going to be busier with these changes.
Dedeker: Oh, yes. I think because of this impending going to Australia thing that I'm on the cusp of, initially, the time felt like this wasn't related but I made the choice to take a social media break. In my brain, it was totally unrelated but then I realized afterwards, I was like, "Oh, yes, this is so nice because it does help me to free up more mental and emotional bandwidth for dealing with all the crap that I have to deal with not even just practical things, but it's all my own emotions and feelings that come up as well as my partner's emotions and feelings that come up."
Emily: Which we are going to talk more in the bonus episode about special considerations to think about if you're non-monogamous when these big life changes occur. Hopefully, you got something out of this episode. I know it was a little bit more personal, deep dive but I think that a lot of these things can apply to whatever big life change you're going through, and hopefully, you can navigate it in the best way that you possibly can.
We know that it's going to be difficult because even those happy, exciting life changes are stressful and challenging and so give yourself some leeway, give yourself the gift of taking time to understand that you have to emotionally adjust and that's totally okay. Our call to action question this week, which is going to be on our Instagram is do you respond similarly or differently than your partner when a big life change occurs, and then how does that manifest?
Are you excited? Are you happy? Are you nervous? Are you scared? Stuff like that. Do you feel like you and your partner align when a big life change occurs or is it not really the same? We're interested to hear that this week. The best place to share your thoughts with other listeners is on this episode's discussion thread in our private Facebook Group or Discord chat. You can get access to these groups and join our exclusive community by going to patreon.com/multiamory.
In addition, you can share with us publicly on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Multiamory is created and produced by Jase Lindgren, Dedeker Winston, and me Emily Matlack. Our episodes are edited by Mauricio Balvanera our social media wizard is Will Macmillan. Our production assistants are Rachel Schenewerk and Carson Collins. Our theme song is Forms I Know I Did by Josh & Anand, from the Fractal Cave EP. The full transcript is available on this episode's page on multiamory.com