373 - Listener Q&A with Kate Loree

Full transcript available

Answering questions with Kate Loree

Our guest for this week is Kate Loree. She is a sex-positive licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT) with a specialty in non-monogamous, kink, LGBTQ, and sex worker communities and she is also the author of Open Deeply: A Guide to Building Conscious, Compassionate Open Relationships.

In addition to her master’s in marriage and family therapy, she also has an MBA and is a registered art therapist (ATR). She is an EDSE-certified sex educator and an EMDR-certified therapist with additional training in the Trauma Resiliency Model (TRM) for the treatment of trauma. She has been practicing psychotherapy since 2003.

She cohosts her own sex-positive podcast, Open Deeply, with Sunny Megatron (who has been a guest on Multiamory before), has been featured in Buzzfeed videos, and has been a guest on Playboy Radio and many podcasts, including American Sex, Sluts and Scholars, and Sex Out Loud. She has written for Good Vibrations and Hollywood Magazine and is a frequent public speaker.

Throughout this episode, Kate chimes in to give her perspective for some of our listeners’ questions:

• Do you have any advice for working through the embodied anxiety and fear response that takes over every time my partner tells me about a new potential romantic connection?

• What's the biggest pro and con for each of you when it comes to being publicly out as polyamorous?

• Any tips for navigating the " big city, small town polycule" aspect where everyone seems to be one or two degrees of separation?

• Do y’all have any stories of metas you started off on the wrong foot with but ended up being super close to?

• How can one be a good meta? Is it any of the meta’s responsibility to also navigate the relationship as best as possible?

To out more about Kate, her book, and her private practice in Encino, CA, please visit her on the web at KateLoree.com.

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 going to be answering some questions from our Patreons and we're doing that with a very special guest, Kate Loree. Kate Loree is an LMFT, a sex-positive licensed marriage and family therapist with a specialty in non-monogamy, kink, LGBTQ relationships, and sex worker communities, and is the author of Open Deeply: A Guide to Building Conscious, Compassionate Open Relationships. She also co-hosts her own sex-positive podcast Open Deeply along with another friend of ours, Sunny Megatron. Kate, thank you so much for being on the show.

Kate: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Dedeker: Kate, it's always so exciting to welcome another non-monogamy resource onto the scene. Can you tell us a little bit more specifically about your book?

Kate: One thing that I noticed was that although we have amazing books like The Ethical Slut and Opening Up that are out there, a lot of my clients would come in and they had already read those books. My clients tend to be incredibly bright, articulate, and well-spoken, and they'd be a month deep into their non-monogamous relationship and they felt lost, and so I wrote the book. This book is a reflection of everything that I have over the 20 years of being a therapist, but it's also a reflection of some of the most common struggles I see in and out of private practice.

Another thing that I notice a lot with the books that are already out there is that they don't have, in my opinion, enough vignettes. The reason I think that that's important is because a lot of clients when they come in, I'll express an idea and they have the scrunchy face, and then I'll give them a vignette and they're like, "Oh, right." I try to pepper it with vignettes all the way through. Another thing that I've noticed is that until very recently, couples therapy and trauma therapy run parallel with not a lot of Venn diagram crossover, and I'm both of those things.

In the book, I very much interweave the two where I talk about, if you're getting triggered, this is how you can ground yourself in your partner, and my communication model epic interweaves grounding skills, et cetera, that come from trauma therapy with couples therapy, which is more inspired by Imago Dialogue, like empathy validating, and on the back end, I tack on some Buddhist thought in terms of compassion. That's my epic communication model, that's what is interwoven in it. Those are the few things. My book covers a lot of territories. That just gives you a few little tasting spoons.

Dedeker: We're always a fan of sprinkling in little bits of Buddhism wherever we can, just as a delightful little chocolate sauce on top of the sundae, so that's very exciting. No, I'm really excited to hear about, first of all, just that observation about how so much trauma therapy and couples therapy do run in parallel. What I've definitely found working on both sides of those things is both schools have thought will acknowledge the other, like trauma therapists will acknowledge, oh, yes, working on your relationships could be helpful here. In couples therapy they'll acknowledge, sure, there may be some trauma that's informing some of this, you should probably work on that.

It feels like there are so few models that actually want to bring those things together. I feel like it's just so, so, so important in this kind of work.

Kate: It's very unfortunate because very soon into doing couples’ work, I noticed that the biggest thing that is a block between two people is unresolved trauma. One thing that I realized is where two people function at their worst is what I call "the double trigger moment" where both of them are triggering the other person simultaneously and then it spirals. A lot of times I do EMDR, when I find out what each person's-- when the double trigger happens, I'll bridge back to find out what it bridges back to and then I'll do EMDR in different sessions and I've been able to save marriages that way.

Emily: This is potentially a big question, but your subtitle is a guide to building conscious compassionate open relationships, so what does that look like to you? What does that mean exactly?

Kate: Let's just look at the word conscious. So many people are not having conscious, compassionate relationships regardless of their relationship model. They're having unconscious reactive relationships, where they're not aware of their triggers or not deeply enough. Especially once the relationship gets deep, all these unresolved attachment injuries start to light up in the relationship. Part of having a conscious compassionate relationship is first being aware of your triggers, learning how to ground each other and yourself and having empathy and validation and also cooling your jets.

A lot of times within non-monogamy, people get excited and they go to one party and they haven't processed it through before they're going to the next party and now they're just layering unresolved emotional material. Sometimes it's cooling your jets and making sure that you've processed through things before you do the next thing. These are a few examples, I could speak on this forever.

Dedeker: Speaking of giving's vignette, I'm wondering if you could give some examples or explanation or a vignette around what an attachment injury is, for our listeners.

Kate: An attachment injury might be-- and it can be smaller or larger. Attachment injury might-- or somebody might have a series of attachment injuries where their dad left when they were a little kid without a note, and then their partner neglected them or ignored them, and they had some brutal breakups where the person left without explaining themselves. Let's face it, people are patterned a lot of times until you really become a conscious person and you heal from a lot of stuff. It's really hard to break our patterns. We go through a phase where we're aware of our patterns, but people can be in that state for a couple of decades before they are actually able to stop the pattern.

A lot of times, it's not one attachment injury, it's a series that gets later lit up in the relationship. That's one example of an attachment injury.

Jase: Build on each other, compounding layers on layers and layers that it makes it harder to untangle it all to start healing it.

Kate: One thing that I'd like to reference last, I can't remember which of the last two episodes-- it was the last two episodes that you guys had where you talked about-- it had part one and two and it talked about relationship issues.

Emily: Unhealthy relationship patterns?

Kate: Yes. I think there was a part where you went into five different relationship types, like the alpha, I think was one blah, blah, blah, and I was listening to that and I was thinking there's a lot of relationships that have all five all at once. That's one thing I was thinking. The other thing that I was thinking is, a lot of people talk about attachment styles or they will talk about codependency, et cetera, but a lot of therapists again, have a tendency to like stay in their lane almost to a fault. I think it's to the point of being almost unethical, not to weave in the cultural level. A lot of times maybe there is some misogyny that's either internalized or playing out in the relationship.

A lot of women that are over-givers, it's because they've been conditioned to play that role and a lot of men, if they're highly in their man box are playing out a certain role and they date each other. That whole dynamic needs to be out-- Without being too long-winded, I'll just say with some of those women that fall into that category, instead of looking at it through the co-dependency lens, I'll talk to them about it through that lens. I've had women in a few weeks break up with a toxic relationship and choose a kind relationship and change that very quickly.

I think it's worth saying, because a lot of times people say that the over-giver, the codependent in the relationship is just as, quote-unquote, "sick" as the-- I don't think that's true. It's like sometimes you just need awareness of cultural programming.

Jase: That's fantastic, and something that I think comes up a lot. On our show too, is just that we can't just say, "Oh, I acknowledge there's a cultural thing and then it doesn't apply to me anymore," but it's because it's the water we swim in. It's whether we feel like we're part of that culture or not. It still affects us and so that is so important to acknowledge and be aware of.

Kate: Yes.

Dedeker: I was wondering about because you talked about, I've definitely noticed the same thing that I do think there's a lot of resources out there specifically for non-monogamy and polyamory and even swinging, that offer a lot of good theory. People get really excited about the theory. People get really excited about the ideas. People get really excited about the philosophy. Then it's so common to see people really stumble out the gate, or get really caught, unawares, by something they weren't expecting, or having a big trigger or a big trauma response or things like that.

Over time, especially as I've worked with clients, there are so many things where I realized, okay, there's a certain amount of the theory and the philosophy that's great and that's solid and it's good practice, but also, so much of this comes down to our own personal baggage, injuries, patterns, things like that. I was wondering, when you were writing your book, how you dealt with that. Was that a challenge because I do feel like there's so much of this can be so personal to each person of what it is that they have to deal with. I was just wondering how you tackle that in your writing process.

Kate: I think I tackle that in a lot of different places. Again, I'll just giving you some taster spoons. This is just my belief that when you listen to a lot of thought leaders within non-monogamy, I feel like they tend to lean on logic, and a layman's version of cognitive-behavioral therapy. That has a place, but I don't feel like it's the end all be all. Again, there might be a little bit of cultural misogyny happening, because let's face it. A little piece of misogyny is woman, emotional, bad; man, logical, good. That just feeds in, like with even if we're a woman we go, "Oh, I'm being logical so therefore I'm being superior. I'm being more evolved."

One thing that I try and do is express to people that, at least this is my belief, that your true compass is your thoughts, your emotions, and your body sensations working in tandem from a grounded centered place. As soon as you start to disregard any of those three, your little ship is heading towards the rocks in some way, in my opinion. That's one thing that I talk about because if you're able to do that, you'll be able to, again, be more conscious, rather than reactive, and you'll be able to make more choices for yourself and have more agency for yourself. Another thing is, the epic communication model. Again, it's like, I think a key thing is staying grounded.

Bruce Lee talks about this. When you learn about karate, they'll talk about the way that you win if you're in a fight is to knock your partner off-center. The more you can stay centered, which I just explained one method to stay centered, the more you can have agency in any relationship. Not to say that everybody is adversarial. Since we're talking about that, another thing I've noticed in my private practice is that people come in, and almost any couple because that's how they come in. They don't come in as triads, or quads, regardless of what's going on at home. They come in and they are immediately what I call lawyering up and trying to--

They come in with like, their invisible paralegal is there with this big stack of evidence, and they're trying to win. If you read a book like Wired for Love, Stan Tatkin says, this is how we've been wired and the anxious person is the one who didn't get eaten by the bear. A lot of us are anxious and if you're anxious in a relationship, you're scanning for what's wrong and that's not wired for love. Part of this is breaking that down and starting to build a practice of tracking your body, having a gratitude practice with your partners, and having a gratitude practice from a grounded centered place is connected to the body. Again, this will help you have agency and help you be more compassionate.

Dedeker: I'm wondering, over the course of your time working with this particular population, are there any cultural shifts that you've noticed as far as the ways people are practicing non-monogamy, what people are struggling with, what people are focusing on? Have you seen that shift over time?

Kate: Well, I'll first say regardless of relationship model, I've noticed that Millennials on down are doing better. Especially in male-female relationships, you'll see men stepping away from the man box, women having more agency, some of the gender norms breaking down, and that gives space for love. It's like all the gender norms get in the way of love in a lot of ways. I can hear some people screaming out there about that. That's my belief. I see the younger generations they're breaking down rigidity where they find it, whether it's gender norms, relationship norms.

From that place of, there's more flexibility. The flexible animal is the animal that survives. The flexible human is the one that's happier and more well-adjusted. That's one thing that I'm noticing. Let's see. What else am I noticing? I'll have to say the clients that come to me tend to be out-of-the-box thinkers. I don't know if I can go by my practice because older people, they're not the normal, older person that comes to me. When I step away from my practice, and I think about my non-monogamous journey that started out back in 2003, in the swing community, there was a lot of benefits to the swing community.

I was working in a clinic with high stress and being in that environment with the social norm of no drama, was exactly what I needed at that point, but it is a more rigid community. That community-- I don't know what the demographic is now, but it seems like the swingers that I know maybe it's because of my age they're older now. It does seem to be more rigid. At the end of the day, I just feel-- I know one thing that I'd say that as relationship anarchy gains a foothold, I think for a lot of us may be at first, that seemed it was hard for us to wrap our head around.

Now that we're slowly starting to see, oh, we can just let go of social norms, and really look at any given relationship and just decide piecemeal what we want it to be and it can change over time. If we become friends for a while, that doesn't mean we might become lovers later on. Everything could be fluid and shift over time and that leads to more happiness. Again, you see that with younger generations.

Emily: The kids are going to save us.

Dedeker: Well, that's nice to hear from your perspective. I feel like Millennials, I feel like we've created rigidity in other areas. Personally, I feel like-- Again, this is like self-selection because of the communities I tend to hang out in. I tend to see people. I think the thing we harp on a lot on this show is people's obsession with boundaries and we're obsessed with boundaries, too, because it's fantastic. Once you actually have a sense of how that actually fits into your life, but I see rigidity around sometimes what I think is what we've been calling being hyper boundaried, being a little bit, well, it has to be this way, or sometimes it's like, it has to be relationship anarchist.

I do think it's like 100% valid, what you're saying, especially I think compared to older generations. I do think it's like my perspective is I feel like we've shifted the rigidity to other places.

Kate: Well, so now that you're saying that, one thing that I will say is that it's interesting because back in 2003, I didn't even know about the ethical slut even though it was out. I had to learn everything the hard way. When I first got into it, everybody who is non-monogamous, they were like, "We are the golden chalice. We are the secret to everything, blah, blah, blah."

Dedeker: Of course.

Kate: As things have evolved, I see this camp of non-monogamous folks that are just as rigid as monogamous people. They complain about monogamous people being rigid, but there's camps of non-monogamous people that are so rigid. They're just like, "It's my way and if you're not doing it this way, you're doing it the wrong way."

Dedeker: We've had some folks talk to us about feeling hesitant to use the terms non-monogamy or use the term polyamory because I think in certain circles, it's coming to be associated with a certain type of dogma, which is understandable. I totally get it. I could wax poetic about bigger cultural trauma or microculture trauma around these kinds of things. I do think that we need to move on to start talking about some of our listener questions. Does everybody feel ready for that?

Emily: Yes, let's do it.

Jase: Yes, let's do it. It's like a fun little panel discussion here. It's great.

Emily: Exactly. Here we go. I'm going to read this first question that we have. This is from one of our Patreons. Do you have any advice for working through the embodied anxiety and fear response that takes over every time my partner tells me about a new potential romantic connection? We're doing great and have been together dating others for three years. I want to work on softening this response while still honoring my feelings. Any experience with this?

Kate: The first thing I'd say is, developing a relationship with your body, but let's know whatever you track in your body tends to get bigger, so you have to be careful about this. If you're suffering from panic attacks, and you start to focus on your heart, guess what, now you're having a bigger panic attack. You have to be a little bit careful with this, but if you start to track your body, I think this is an important first step of really getting to know what's going on with you. One thing that you can do is first exercise to find out like to really understand is to get in touch with what is happening in that moment that you're anxious.

Say, you're at the play party, and your partner is paying attention to someone else all night and you're just getting lit up with all these feelings. Later on when you're at home, and you're in a safer, grounded place, getting in touch with that feeling, noticing what is happening in your body, noticing when it felt the worst at the party, noticing how you felt about yourself, like I'm feeling ignored, I'm feeling helpless. Now, once you're connected to all that, bridge back to the first or worst memory that pops up.

Maybe it's a memory of your parents driving off at the gas station leaving you behind because they're howling, laughing at something that your sibling said and they always liked her better in your opinion and you may have a whole bunch of traumas related to that. That may be your part in it, you might need to get some therapy on that, what have you. Once you realize that target, you can actually notice it and then do more grounding exercises around it. If you're at the party, you might have to go to the bathroom, do some deep breathing, go for a walk or call your partner out. If he's a benevolent kind partner, talk about it, that sort of thing, whatever you need to do to get grounded.

Also, sometimes especially if a lot of times when people have anxiety like that, they oftentimes think they're completely to blame. They think that they're bad at polyamory or whatever. I'd encourage you not to just jump to this idea that one person is completely at fault and go and ask yourself, "Is there any responsibility that my partner has?" Maybe they were just completely ignoring you all that night? Maybe they were being a little inconsiderate? Then if that's true, like having a conversation with them about that, and just noticing who-- By doing that, now you're managing your anxiety in two different directions, their responsibility and your own responsibility, and having that positive work in both of those camps.

Jase: I think that what you touched on there about in that in that second part of why might I actually be upset about this? That doesn't just have to be with their behavior right then but say, it's just my partner expressed, "Oh, there's a co-worker or a friend that I might go on a date with, or I'm interested in." Is there either some history there of well, in the past, they've gotten really into someone new and I have felt a little bit left out? Maybe there's something there that we could take some proactive steps together to try to say, "Okay, how can we make sure that that feels better this time?" You either do some little experiments, try some things like that.

As well as it could be baggage from a past relationship. It could be, I've seen this happen to a friend of mine or this happened in a past relationship, and I'm worried you're going to do this to me, even if I don't have experience of you doing that, both are absolutely possible. Asking that question is there something for both of you from both sides that you're able to do to make this a little bit easier? Is there something they could be doing to help assuage some of those fears or establish a little more confidence in them so that you have less of that fear while also doing that self-examination and really approaching it from both sides?

One thing I wanted to add to that is something that Dedeker tells me to do a lot when I'm feeling physically bad in some way, is to also look at is there some part of your body that feels good? Or at least okay? Maybe it's like your calf on your left leg feels fine. Maybe the rest of you feels like it's on fire and freaking out. Just try to find something that's grounding, that is okay in your body. I have found that to be helpful as that how can I focus on my body without just focusing on all the problems and maybe exacerbating those and making them worse?

Kate: Can I pipe in? With that, that is excellent advice. If you get trained under the trauma resiliency model, that's what they train you to do. The only thing that I'd add is if somebody has a really horrible trauma history, like with war veterans, what trauma research found out is if you go into the body, sometimes that's dysregulated for someone with a massive trauma history. What you can do to ground your body if that's you is instead think about positive resources like your kitty that makes you smile or whatever. By thinking of a positive resource, it has the same outcome of grounding the body if focusing directly on your body actually hijacks you. Otherwise, yes absolutely.

Emily: I just think and this isn't always the case, especially in specific very heightened trauma responses. If you find that there you're having a shitty day, for example, often, we tend to perpetuate that feeling internally just by continuing to ruminate over it and continuing it over and over again. I think that, yes, all of the stuff that the two of you have been talking about trying to find ways to ground yourself, trying to find your ways of breaking that cycle of continuing to perpetuate that feeling that you're having.

For instance, today my hot water has been off for five days and I haven't had a hot shower in five days. I woke up this morning really fucking angry about it. I got into this session of recording, and I started talking to Jase and Dedeker. Just switching that mode in my head, I was able to ground and able to calm myself down and it was simply just by like turning my direction elsewhere, turning my internal compass in a different direction. It really did help. That mood, that embodied mood and feeling left me. That's sometimes easier said than done, but it is something to think about that at times, we are in control of our abilities to change the outcome of how we're feeling.

Dedeker: I like that.

Jase: I just wanted to throw in one other thing that occurred to me is, when talking about also your partner, what might they be doing to contribute to this doesn't even have to be that they're doing something wrong, or that they are being negligent or hurtful or something. It could also be that if they have an association with you reacting poorly to this, they might then be presenting that information to you with that expectation that creates this feedback loop. It's that difference between, "Hey, so there's this person I've been talking to. I'm interested in maybe dating," versus, "Hey, so, okay, so there's this person that I think I might be interested in."

The delivery of it is I feel more nervous even just pretending to give this news. That can also create a little bit of this feedback loop that again, both of you working together might be able to try some things to rewrite that script and change some of that because that might just be perpetuating the problem that neither of you wants to be having.

Kate: Right. With that, when I see that stuff play out in my private practice, usually, the person that's being so hesitant, like their partner is about to just jump on their juggler or something, usually, that has a long history that goes way back even before the relationship began. Again, it's like they're telling themselves a story that they can't be honest without something bad happening. That's a lot of times they have some work to do around that.

Jase: Okay, let's move on to our next question here. This next one is also from a Patreon. What's the biggest pro and con for each of you when it comes to being publicly out as polyamorous, or non-monogamous, we could say?

Dedeker: Boy, oh, boy. You start that one, Jase.

Jase: I guess each of us what's your biggest pro and con?

Dedeker: Yes, you start.

Jase: Gosh, I would say biggest pro is just that I don't have to take on the mental load of trying to remember who knows this or not. Instead, it's just kind of I'm not constantly broadcasting it at work or whatever. If it comes up, I mean if you Google me, you'll find that out about me. It's not like something I have to try to keep tabs on. I'd say it's more that freeing me up from that mental extra work of having to keep track of that. I would say the con is, especially in I guess all of our cases of being very publicly searchablely out, is just that someone could find that out about me and make all their own assumptions and things without ever having had talked to me about it.

I'd say that that's maybe the biggest con would be-- I'm thinking of I just started dating someone and their mom Google's me, and now is very upset about who they think that I am or something like that.

Dedeker: Which literally happened.

Jase: That did happen. Who's next?

Dedeker: I'll go next. I would say yes, I will definitely second that there's a certain amount of simplicity in like Jase said, not having to do the mental gymnastics of figuring out who knows, who doesn't, who knows about this partner, who knows about that partner? I talked about this a few episodes ago in going through a really big breakup. It was really nice to already be out with most of my family, my friends, the people that I loved so that I didn't have to necessarily keep that pain to myself, which a lot of people have to do, unfortunately, that I've just had a huge breakup and I still need to go to work and pretend like everything's fine or I need to go be around my mom and pretend that everything's fine.

I was so grateful that I could go visit my mom on a visit that Jase is even with me on that same trip, and I can still be crying to my mom about this particular breakup that it's okay and getting that support. I think that's been great. I don't know if this is the biggest con, but maybe one of the big ones is just constantly having to deal with other people's confusion all the time. The flip side of that coin with my family is they know and they're like, "Oh, okay," but always just so confused about, "How do I talk to you about this? How do I ask you about this? I don't know."

I think I've reached a place in my life where I've gotten pretty good at filtering out the people close or distant or otherwise who are actively-- what do I want to say? Acrimonious or antagonistic toward me about non-monogamy. I usually just don't give those people the time of day, but I would say kind of the weird in-between space is hard, and especially since now doing this podcast and then working with clients and basically spending all day, every working day, talking about non-monogamy all the time means that then in my normal day-to-day life, I don't want to answer people's questions about this anymore.

Emily:

Dedeker: I don't want to talk about this anymore, even if they're nice questions, even if they're coming from a good place, I'm just like, "Oh, my God, I can't, I've reached my capacity for this." That's for me. What about for you, Kate?

Kate: Let's see. I would say some of the negatives are, so I'm going do a side tangent for a second. Have you ever gone to Universal Studios and gotten the fast pass so you can go to the front of the line and you don't want to stand in line?

Dedeker: Yes

Jase: Oh, sure.

Kate: Oh, okay. Some people, when I'm starting to talk to them on a dating app, it's like they think that I'm the fast pass that's going to get them to the group sex, that's going to get them to the cool party, that they're going to be able to buy-- Instead of joining me like I want to get to know you for you, they're coming from a place of, "What can this woman do for me?" sometimes. I have to like sort those. The same thing it's in the same vein, sometimes people will, or very often, tell a story about myself or tell a story about who I am and what the relationship's going to be like.

They already have it in their head what it's going to be like to date me, and 99.9% of the time they're wrong and I have to take that down and build something up. I think some of the positive things are, and this is just my experience. I know for some people as they have come out, they've had a lot of pain, but for me, I started coming out slowly way back in 2003, 2004, and it's been this slow process. Last person I came out to was just last December, and it's all been a good process. The more I've been able to come out, the more I just feel happy in my own skin and more empowered and just able to find my truth more and more, the more I'm able to blossom.

I think that's one of the beautiful things about non-monogamy in general. A lot of times the people become non-monogamous and there's just this openness to it inherently and all of a sudden they're taking the art class that they've been putting off and they have more friends. They start to blossom in all these ways that are completely unrelated to non-monogamy. I think that's part of the joy of it.

Dedeker: I love that. That's beautiful. You're kind of a special situation?

Emily: Yes. I would say that while I'm not in a non-monogamous relationship anymore, that when I was, there was a sense of authenticity of self and also autonomy that I hadn't felt in relationship prior to that, prior to really exploring non-monogamy and it felt really, really good. Also, I love even now there, especially in a place like Los Angeles and I'm assuming also a place like Seattle, I will be at a restaurant and hear somebody talking about non-monogamy next to me, or I work at a restaurant and so I hear little conversations or I have people come up to me and they're like, "Are you that podcast person?" because I have a very distinct voice.

Emily: I'm like, "Yes," and then they'll say, "Thank you for the work you're doing." That's really cool. I have found, especially recently it's super prevalent and it is becoming more prevalent. I think these spaces being non-monogamous, figuring out that you can be descriptive about your relationships as opposed to prescriptive and stuff like that. All of those things are really exciting and I think if you have delved in this world at all, and it has been a good place for you and it has been for me, then I think, yes, it's just great to see where we're headed and where the whole movement, I guess, is going.

In terms of cons, I mean, initially yes, it was not great family-wise, I think. I think, yes, my mom just didn't really get it and questioned, I think, legitimacy of relationships and things like that and constantly had a narrative of the thing that I think a real relationship is, is between two people and that's it, as opposed to the idea that other models could also be valid and acceptable. I haven't found that to be the case much anymore as in that family or friends or whatever are not understanding, I think people have really come around and part of that just comes with the privilege of being on a podcast about this for the last million years.

Kate: Yes. With that first part of what you were saying about it, kind of getting bigger. I was having a conversation with my friend Lenora Claire, and she's many things, but one thing she is, is a casting agent and she's like, "Kate, just so you know, everything's about to just explode."

Emily: Oh, give it to my baby. Yes.

Kate: She's like everybody who's reaching out to me about a show, it's all about polyamory.

Emily: Wow.

Kate: It's just polyamory, and she's like, "This is the time-

Emily: Well, call the four of us

Kate: -to consult or be in it or whatever."

Dedeker: We've done some consulting gigs for-

Kate: I know, yes.

Dedeker: -writers on shows and have had more interest in people reaching out for consulting, which I hope is a good sign that there's maybe more people who are wanting to write creative content where it's not just, I'm just going to do it based on what I think polyamory is like, but I'm going to try to talk to folks who actually experience this, so more of that would be good.

Emily: Absolutely. Before we move on to our next questions, we are going to take a quick break to talk about some of the ways that you can support our show. These sponsors really help us out. If you are interested in any of them, go check them out because it directly supports our show and we can keep bringing it to you for free.

Dedeker: We are back and we are going to move on to the next listener question. Do you have any tips for navigating the quote, "big city, small town polycular aspect," where everyone seems to be one or two degrees of separation? The, "Oh, that's my partner's girlfriend's wife's comet’s ex phenomenon." For example, my anchor partner went on a couple of dates with someone recently. They didn't click, but now she's dating his metamour and so on.

I will just say right out the gate, this is definitely very much a thing that I have experienced that as the results of the non-monogamous dating community, while it is generally getting larger, as non-monogamy goes more mainstream, still a pretty small dating pool, and that can result in a lot of, to put it politely, cross-pollination.

Emily: Did you mean to make a pun there?

Dedeker: Was it a pun?

Emily: Well, cross-pollination.

Dedeker: Oh, I totally meant that. Thank you for putting it out to me.

Jase: Can I just share a story first? This isn't helpful at all, but I had this experience where I went on-- Well, okay, let me give the context first. We were in the middle of a very stressful time, the three of us, Dedeker, Emily, and I, having to do with a now ex of Dedeker's who was--

Emily: And mine.

Jase: And of Emily's, yes. It was just a real stressful high conflict situation, just real bad feelings all around. That had just been wrapping up, and we were moving on with our lives, and I went on a date with someone new that I met online and right away the sort of the whole, "Oh, who do you know, who do you know, how are we connected in this small polyamory world?" It was that she for a little while had dated that guy.

Emily: Yes, I forgot about that.

Jase: For me, at the time--

Emily: You're like, no.

Jase: Yes. Just those emotions were still so raw and I still had so much hurt about it and so much stress about it that I just felt sick just physically, instantly. We were polite and talked about it and I, in a very polite way, expressed some of my concerns about him and just tried to explain some of my experience with that relationship. They were not still dating, so I was like, "Okay, cool." I just was like, "I can't date this person." That crossover is just too upsetting too much for me. We ended up staying in touch later, and then, maybe a year or two after that, ended up becoming quite good friends and had a good friends-with-benefits relationship for a while, but at first I just couldn't because it was just too much of that overlap with some painful experiences. I just wanted say I relate to this story and that it absolutely happens.

Kate: Yes, absolutely. I wonder the person asking this, I wonder if they are asking what do you do with potential drama that crops up? or what do you do in terms of wanting more partners, but only having a small pool? I wonder what was the question within the question a little bit?

I will have to say I would encourage people to create a network where everybody is dating kind people. I think within non-monogamy a lot of times people, our love language tends to be carefree, fun, freedom, and adventure. This is a sweeping generalization. If there's anything that pisses off is something that feels like the opposite of freedom, like if anybody's being controlling or if it feels like somebody is asserting veto power. That triggers the bejesus out of a lot of us because it's the opposite of our love language.

With that said though, it's like if your partner chooses a partner, then that's your metamour, and this is a really toxic person, they're getting the benefit of maybe great sex, but you're getting maybe no benefit. You are getting the second-hand fumes of this toxic person and none of the benefit. I really think that within non-monogamy we do have an ethical-- How should I say? Ethically, we really should try and choose kind partners because they will impact our other partners. If you need to go outside of poly and date a newbie or whatever you need to do in order to find somebody that's kind, I think that should lead.

Dedeker: Yes, very well said. I think that it's interesting you talk about the stuff that really tends to trigger the non-monogamous folk because I think one of those-- We see this kind of question come up all the time in our patron groups, when it's like, "Oh my God, my partner is suddenly pursuing my best friend," or, "They're pursuing an ex of mine," or, "They're pursuing someone who's a little too close to home for me. I'm having all these big feelings coming up about it, but I feel like I can do nothing about it."

I do think that as soon as you start to suggest, "Well, maybe you need to have a conversation about that or talk to your partner about that," people are like, "Oh, are you saying that they should control who I get to date or not date or they get to choose for me?" Nobody's saying that. I think there's just something about just acknowledging the impacts that may happen if you choose to date a particular person who's maybe very closely connected to your partner as their best friend or their ex or whatever. It doesn't mean that by default they're off-limits unless that's something maybe your partner's been very clear with you of like, "Hey, I can't really handle this."

I do think that what I've seen is people just really appreciate knowing like, "You're at least thinking about the fact that if you chose to sleep with my best friend, there could be an impact there, even if I'm okay with it, even if I'm not completely triggered by it, but at least you're aware that 'Oh, there could be an impact. Maybe let me talk to everyone involved before making any action to talk about what feelings does this bring up? How can we set ourselves up for success here? Is this the right choice? What is everyone afraid of?' Things like that." I do tend to encourage folks to think about those things.

For myself and my own choices within relatively small dating pools, I think now that I've had a lot of experience with this that I would like to believe I have accepted that a little bit of this comes with the territory. What that means is I need to be on better behavior more often than maybe I would be in a more traditional dating community. What I mean by that is I maybe need to be more in integrity in what I tell people, how I treat people, whether or not I choose to just ghost someone.

It doesn't mean that I can completely insulate someone from hurt feelings or if we're mismatched or things like that. It doesn't mean that, but I do know that it's just like, my actions are going to have more of a ripple effect on more people. For me it means just trying to be more conscious of that to the best of my ability.

Jase: Something that came up when you were mentioning that, I just want to say real quick, is that I think oftentimes, especially when people are new to non-monogamy or maybe just newly getting comfortable with it, there's this thing of, "Oh, I've risen above all of the normal relationship concerns, and so whatever, I can date anyone. There's no concerns about it."

I think your point about just, at least acknowledging this could have some impact and perhaps some negative consequences around, being aware of that and not just saying, "Oh, well, now I logically get the concepts of polyamory, so none of this affects me." It's like what we were talking about in the first half about the social impact does impact us. Even if we're like, "I now disagree with it," we still have that impact of it.

It's just, I guess, to caution people to not think that, "Oh, well, now I understand the idea so I've just risen above it all. You can't tell me who I can and can't date," or, "Oh, if it affects you, that's your problem." That's not really how the world works and how humans work.

Emily: Jase, Dedeker, and I were a part of a community in Santa Monica that dated each other a lot, and early, I guess, Dedeker in my mid-20s.

Dedeker: A lot crossover. Oh, my God.

Emily: In that community. Actually, I live with a person who I met from that community. When I was starting to date him and starting to decouple with Jase, Jase was also dating someone from that community. I think it did affect the way that she viewed me just because, yes, there was entwinement and things were breaking up. I think her view of me really shifted in a negative way, even though that necessarily wasn't what needed to happen, but just because there were ideas and expectations and things like that, it landed in this sort of idea that I was not a good person or breaking up a relationship, or something like that.

That's unfortunate, but I think that those things can happen just by nature of being so entwined with a community at large. It's hard to create a game plan for every single thing that may or may not happen. If you do come in with expectations between yourself and your partners about, like Dedeker said, "What is going to happen if I start dating your sister or your friend or your metamour or something like that? Is that totally off-limits or not?" it's nice to just at least have an idea of that beforehand so that it doesn't just completely blindside you if you do get in a situation like that.

Kate: When I listen to you guys talk, people hate the idea of veto power, and I almost feel like, do we need a new word that means something slightly different? What if you have a partner and they start dating someone that you found out has been "me-tooed" by 15 people in the community? Something like that. Maybe you heavily say, "I am not comfortable. I love you. I don't want to walk away from you. We share a house and children and a mortgage and all these things. I don't want to just walk out, but I am not comfortable with this person."

I hear people say, "Veto power is always bad and wrong," but sometimes things like this happen. Is that really horrible to set a boundary when that person is going to end up impacting you and your loved ones?

Dedeker: Well, even entertaining that makes people so uncomfortable as I'm sure you've experienced. There's no

Kate: Yes, I know. Maybe there needs to be different language. I don't know. I know that even me bringing that up, people would get super-upset, but let's face it, there are situations where you might have a partner that is dating somebody. There's times that we're really connect connected to our partner. You are married for 20 years and it's not one of those things where you can just be like, "Well, you're doing something I don't like, so I'm just going to walk away." It becomes more difficult than that.

Dedeker: Right. That's true.

Jase: Absolutely. It is such a-

Dedeker: It is like a, I don't know, gut check.

Kate: What if we just take veto and then put a different letter on the beginning of it?

Emily: Weto.

Kate: I think this word "veto", if you think about it, it almost sounds like this evil judge down and being like, "No." I think there needs to be a revisiting that and a different term that is more gentle.

Jase: Right. I think that often we're trying to find the easy answer and it's, "Oh, well, someone controlling what I can do is bad, so therefore the total opposite of that is good." It's, no, actually the truth is probably somewhere in the middle where we do want to accept influence from the people we care about in our lives, not just letting them dictate everything for us, but it also doesn't mean do whatever you want, they just have to deal with it.

They often want the easy answer, which is to go to an extreme Actually, it's somewhere in the middle.

Kate: Yes, which revisits what we were talking about earlier, which is, sometimes certain factions of the non-monogamous community sometimes have gotten just as rigid as conservative monogamous people. It is the aim to actually be more flexible and what is actually healthy?

Dedeker: Definitely.

Jase: I love that.

Emily: All right. Let's move on to another question. I actually have an answer for this one immediately. Do you all have stories of metas you started off on the wrong foot with but ended up being super close to? Now, Dedeker I wouldn't say it started off on the wrong foot with you at all. It's just that I did have a preconceived notion about you when we went out with that other person that we described earlier, and Jase and I went out. Y'all were talking about wine and cheese and being all esoteric and stuff. I was like, "Damn, this chick is-

Dedeker: I was just too classy for you, is that what you're saying?

Emily: I think that was it or at least it was exacerbated by the other person as well, I think. I was like, "I don't know if I'll necessarily vibe with this person." I guess, did we go out on a date when you kissed me? I don't know.

Dedeker: That was much later. That wasn't the next step in the process.

Emily: Was that much later? I know it wasn't. I know.

Dedeker: It wasn't the next day.

Emily: That's true.

Dedeker: I would say we probably started off on a weird foot, a combination of lack of experience and also having the relationship brokered by the fact that we had two people who were dating in common, but hadn't really met each other yet, or gotten to know each other. It took a little while for sure. Here we are eight years later as business partners.

Emily: As business partners and best friends. I don't know. It just goes to show potentially, your initial idea of a person will change.

Dedeker: 100%.

Emily: It's easy to, I think, have a lot of feelings attached to somebody that you're dating especially if that's a challenge for you in any way. It's good to maybe come in with an open mind if you can, and try to meet with that person on some level because seeing a person in person or writing them or something, like making them a person, as opposed to just an idea, is really helpful.

Dedeker: I would say even with metas, where we've definitely started out on the wrong foot usually, it's never been necessarily something that the meta did or said directly to me. It's always been filtered through the partner. That's often where things have gone haywire is when the partner in between becomes like the telephone wire, things get weird and garbled.

That's not to say that, that means that's always the case but I know in my personal experience, that's often been the case that even with someone that I didn't really like, I didn't get along very well with, I felt like they were a little bit antagonistic toward me, anytime I actually made the space to sit down with him one-on-one, or just open up even the short window of time where, for a couple of hours, we're going to sit and have tea. I'm just going to talk to you like you're a normal human being, and just get to know you, or just hear your thoughts on the situation or things like that. I've always walked away feeling better about that.

Maybe we don't go on to become super close friends or best friends but at least I've walked away feeling more positively about this human. I think that's been the experience that I've had is that metamours, especially before you've actually met someone in person, can really be like a blank slate for you to project everything you want to onto them, and for your brain, especially your trauma brain, to really cherry-pick the most upsetting things or uncomfortable things about this particular person to start creating these narratives about, "They must be this kind of person," or, "They must act in this particular way."

When you actually give yourself an opportunity to see someone as a more whole human being, I found in my experience, often it ends up being very positive. Again, that's not everybody's experience, but I know that's been the case for me.

Kate: I think for me, I've had it go both ways. One of the more extreme examples was when my now ex-husband, I was with him for 13 years when we first switched from being swingers to starting to migrate towards poly. For a while, we were in that in-between where we started to play separately. He was the one who introduced it. He could be a bull in a china shop and that's what I loved about him, and that's what was painful about him.

Just one day he said, "I'm going to start a photography business called Dirty Dolly Photography, and I'm going to travel across the United States. I'm going to be gone half of every month. My girlfriend and my makeup artist is going to be-" I'll call her Debbie,"-and we're going to be poly." I was told. I was blindsided and it wasn't anything about her. I was just blindsided. At first, she was scary but she ended up being one of my best friends for years.

A lot of that had to do with him because although he was a bit of a bull in a china shop, one thing that I can say that was good about him is he would always pick lovers that were just the whole bag of chips: beautiful, kind, respectful, sweet, charming, everything. He would also, how should I put it? always say, I don't know if this sounds bad, "It's a requirement that you're kind to my wife. If you're not kind to my wife, this is not going to work." Whenever he needed to come back to that he always would.

I just, literally for 13 years, never had a problem with any of these women. If I got mad, I was mad at him for something because he just chose kind people. I had been non-monogamous for over a decade when I had a two-year relationship with this other guy, and all of a sudden, for the first time, some of his metamours were being mean to me.

I was blindsided because here I was, I've been a therapist, with non-monogamous clients, I've been doing this forever, and for the first time, I'm experiencing people being disrespectful and mean.

I found a lot of that had to do with, as the hinge, how he was talking to both of us. He was basically just saying whatever made both of us happy and he was really-

Dedeker: A perfect textbook.

Kate: He was just creating the shit storm and not create-- The telephone game, it was all bad. I was really blindsided by that because I just wasn't used to it. I'd had such a good experience for so long.

Dedeker: I don't know if you've noticed this in your practice. I feel like this is something that I've noticed more frequently as a meta pattern, I suppose. Sometimes I think that I've seen more women be more likely to project some of those issues onto the other female metamour, as opposed to examining the actual behavior of my partner in between us if that's doing something. I know I definitely fell into that trap. Is that a pattern that you've seen that some people are more likely to fall into than others? Or does it feel like that happens across the board?

Kate: I haven't really noticed that pattern. We're all in our little feedback loop bubble where we all see certain patterns and other people don't. I haven't seen that pattern. I've seen just as many people of other genders do that or not do that.

Dedeker: That's fair.

Jase: Let's move on to our last question for the day. To give you a little bit of context, a few episodes ago, we did an episode about being in the same space-time with multiple partners where basically you're the V, and you have multiple of your partners at the same event, or at the same thing, like a birthday or a party or something like that, and how to manage that as the V, as the hinge in that V of how to deal with having multiple partners together in a way that feels good.

The question here is, in Episode 369, it was discussed on how to be a good V hinge in most of the conversation, but how are you a good meta? Is it any of the meta's responsibility to also navigate the relationship as best as possible? Again, for context, meaning at the same event, where you're in the same space with your metamour. This says also, what happens when maybe one is nesting partner and the other is a long-distance partner? We talked about that a little bit on that episode.

Affection in the same space is different as the nesting partners live together and see each other every day, but the long-distance partner may not get to see them as often. How do you navigate that dynamic between the metamours themselves, between the nesting partner and the long-distance partner, for example?

Kate: Just as I was saying, we're all in our little bubble. For me, a lot of times what I hear or a lot of times I'll have a couple that I'm working with, and regardless of what's going on at home, a lot of times one or both people are avoidant at even talking to the other metamours. I always say to them, "I know that it feels uncomfortable to you, you don't have to be best friends, but even if you just have a little Zoom call or something where you just say, 'The door is open, if anything bothers you, please talk to me,' that will head off so many difficulties."

What a lot of my clients do instead is they resist that and they wait until the two metamours have a lot of misinformation, are super pissed at each other and the first time they have a conversation is at that escalated place. That's what I usually see.

A lot of my clients are not the kitchen-table poly folks. It's more of a dynamic like that where the metamours a lot of times have never even had a conversation with each other. I'm always trying to get them to at least say, and email, anything that just says, "If anything is ever bothering you, please reach out. The door is always open. I always want you to feel safe, to talk to me. It's okay if you get upset. If I do something, and it upsets you or you don't feel like I'm being considerate, let me know. I have my big girl pants or my big boy pants on, and I'm here for you to hear any of that." A lot of people don't do that, as it can be a very simple thing that is a massive game-changer.

Dedeker: Yes, that makes a lot of sense. I think what's helpful in thinking about this, I know Jase always likes to compare metamour relationships to in-law relationships, and it's not necessarily a perfect metaphor, but it does help to frame it when thinking about different social situations where we don't have a script, if we reframe it as how much of a responsibility do you have to create some good or functioning connection with your in-laws?

Those kinds of expectations can be different for different people. I feel like, first step is having conversations about that. Again, if we're running with a in-law metaphor, you may be assuming, "Oh, whatever. My partner deals with all that. I don't have an interest in their parents. Whatever. If he wants me to be there, he'll be there," while your partner's parents may be like, "No, we were reaching out. We want them to reach out. We want to connect. We want to get to know them." I think some investigation, first and foremost, instead of just assuming that everyone wants the same type of relationship that you think that you want.

Ultimately, it comes down to, your responsibility is not zero in this situation. Sure, if we're getting into a relationship where everyone's on board with really wanting it to be parallel and we're on the same page about that that's different, but if we're functioning in some kind of version, somewhere on the spectrum of kitchen-table, or garden party polyamory, or whatever you want to call it, I think, my opinion, that you do have at least a little bit of a responsibility to, like Kate was saying, open up that channel, even if it's just a little bit and expending at least a little bit of that goodwill so that it's not 100% on just your partner in common to be brokering that relationship and making sure that everything's okay.

Emily: In terms of being in a same similar space together or a party, I just think about, when I had multiple partners at a party in that space that I talked about earlier, when we were first opening up, being polyamorous, and how I tried to be exploratory with everyone at the party in terms of meeting new people, trying to learn about them and I might make my way over to a metamour and do the same thing.

When you meet new people at a party, it's interest, it's learning, it's putting your best foot forward, it's a lot of fun, exciting, I guess, conversations that you're having, potentially with people. If there's a way in which even though this might be an emotionally charged situation because you know that this person is also dating your partner, if you can come into that situation with a little bit of excitement, and, "Let's figure out what I can learn about this person," without placing too much intensity on your hinge or on what things you might explore with your metamour anything like that, it's just-- I guess throw it away a bit. Just have fun. I don't know. That's it.

Those were the times that I had best where I just came into a party situation or a situation with multiple people just by knowing whatever happens happens, and we can have our expectations beforehand and talk about things, but also, I just want to get to know this person and get to know the other people around me.

Jase: One other thing that I would add to this as I'm, as you're all talking, trying to think through my different experiences with this and how it's gone, I found that, for me, one of the things that factors into it is one, I'm not there to be like, "You have to be my best friend. I'm really going to keep bugging you," but, "I want to feel approachable and clearly not your opponent here," is what I'm going for.

What I found is that gender and sexuality dynamics play into that a fair amount, at least they do in the way that I think about them. For example, if it's a male metamour, and we're both dating a female partner, and assuming that he's coming from that social conditioning, I'm going to come in with this, "I want to be friendly and polite," and to try to very clearly represent that I'm not posturing, just coming with a humility, I guess, or just, "Hey, good to see you." Put on a little extra warmth to be clear that I'm not going to try to do this, "I'm going to try to outdo you. You got to try to impress her because I'm going to try to show how I'm better than you," these behaviors that straight men are socialized to do.

Versus if it's a metamour, who is a female partner of a female partner of mine, my approach is going to come in with more of this, "Hey, I want to be clear and polite, and also not pay too much attention to you because I don't want you to think that I just want to hook up with both of you. That's not my only interest here." If we're all interested in that, cool, but I don't want that to be your first assumption because that's what a lot of people are going to assume a man who's dating a woman is going to want.

For me, it's often trying to go against those, or if it's another male partner, of a male partner of mine, I'm going to have a slightly different approach thereof again, trying to be friendly and approachable, and try to illustrate how I do and don't fit into the mold they might be assuming I fit into.

Anyway, just to throw that and complicate it a little bit there, I think there's other gender dynamics and sexuality that can play into it too because acknowledging people are going to come in with certain, if not assumptions, at least fears about what you might be because of how they're socialized, and you're socialized to think about those relationships.

Dedeker: To complicate it even further, this person did ask, "If I'm in the same space as my metamour, let's say it's the same event, but if my metamour is a nesting partner who gets to see my partner all the time, and I'm long-distance, this is just a visit, and I don't get to see them all the time, how do we manage that without making anybody feel like they're left out or not getting the same amount of affection and things like that?"

I think at first blush, my impression is that a lot of the same advice applies, which is just to talk about this shit for six months ahead of time, if you can.

Jase: Don't put it off till the event.

Dedeker: I know Kathy Labriola, famously, is like, "Start making your polyamorous Christmas plans in July, please." Especially if this is your first time managing this stuff, sometimes you need a long on-ramp for being able to examine all the feelings that come up, the concerns that come up, and the fears that come up. I think that's my first take on this. What do y'all think?

Kate: You know what? Largely 90% I say yes, but obviously, there are some individual differences. There are some people that are dating, they've been doing this for a long time, and they have really high emotional intelligence, they can just read each other with hardly any words said, and they can just have a conversation not too long before an event and it can go well just because that's how evolved they are in terms of their emotional intelligence and ability to read micro-expressions and their empathy and compassion.

There's other folks that have a hard time reading facial expressions. They misread things, they forget a relationship agreement. Maybe they sometimes struggle with a little bit of narcissism or self-entitlement, blah, blah, blah. Maybe they're dating an over-giver that caters too much. Yes, they need to have a million conversations leading up to this.

I guess, the more you're lacking an attunement, the more you need to have conversations, and the more you need to have conversations early on. If you're just completely attuned, then you might not need as much front loading. It depends.

Dedeker: That makes sense.

Jase: I think to ask this question that the question asker is asking specifically about if you're the long-distance partner and the other one is the nesting partner, I know it just sounds so simple, but to just express that directly to the metamour rather than going through the hinge partner between you.

An example that I'm thinking of is a time when I was in Japan with Dedeker and coordinated with her other partner for him to come and surprise her for her birthday in Japan. I helped him figure out how to navigate the metro system and stuff like that. I was talking to him about, "I have this idea for this plan. We can all go to the studio, Ghibli Museum, and maybe do these other things." He did respond with, "Yes, that sounds cool. I also haven't gotten to see her very much in a while. I would like to be sure that I have more time just with her that we're not just doing everything all the three of us together."

For me, he was just very direct about it. Honestly, I don't know if I could have been that direct in the same situation. I actually really appreciated hearing it because it made it very easy for me then to respond of, "Okay, cool. Let's do that plan. Maybe we'll have a dinner at some point. Other than that, yes, you guys do your thing. No worries, because I still get to see her after you leave."

Just even directly communicating about it can be really helpful because, hopefully, your metamour does want things to go nicely for you. If they are the nesting partner or the one who's around more at least, and you're not, they get that too and aren't out to get you.

Kate: I just want to underline what you're saying because if your listeners are anything like a lot of my clients, where the little conversation in their head goes something like this, "I'm not ready to do that," or they're having a bad day or, "I'm having a good day and I don't want to ruin my good day having this conversation. There's some reason I can't do that right now," I would just say, "No, really."

Talk directly to the metamour. So often, there's this telephone game going on and it just gets so distorted. There's so much pain that could be avoided if you just have that conversation even though it's so hard for so many people.

Dedeker: I like the idea of ending out this episode and maybe all episodes in the future from now on with just "No, really," though.

Jase: No, really.

Emily: No, really, though.

Jase:

Dedeker: No, really.

Dedeker: Kate, I feel so lucky that we've gotten to have you join us for this Q&A episode. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your advice. Can you tell us where people can find more of you and your work?

Kate: My website is just kateloree.com. L-O-R-E-E is the last name. Mostly, you can find me on Instagram @opendeeplywithkateloree. My TikTok handle is the same with Twitter and Facebook. If you just put "Kate Loree" I'll will pop up. I do have a podcast, Open Deeply. Lately, I haven't been doing it every two weeks because I've been so busy with the book and all of that, but I do have a podcast with Sunny Megatron. That's another place that you can check me out.