485 - My Ex Hurt Me Deeply. Can We Still be Friends? Listener Q&A
Questions this week
The questions we’re answering on this week’s episode come from our Patreon listeners. They are:
5 months ago, I became romantically involved with my long-time friend Élodie, right after she and her NP Bernard opened their 10 year + mono relationship. It took Élodie 4 months to realize that she was completely in love with me, and she's struggling to tell her partner about her feelings for me. Bernard believes that we are FWBs. She's scared that it'll trigger his insecurities too hard and wants to wait before disclosing.
Do you think I should be worried about this or anything that I should do ?
Thanks, you guys and the community are amazing.
-Sweet in Switzerland
I'd love to have some resources to help me get clarity on my reasons for looking for additional partners: the fun of it, conforming to gender stereotypes (more sex=more man), jealousy of partner's dating, etc.
Context: This is a follow up to Jase's comments at around 24:20 in episode 460.
Bold in Barcelona
How do I become friends with an ex when it did not end on a good note, but you know that you love them as a friend and are willing to keep them in your life?
(Question: What were the kind of conversations Emily had with Jace when they came back together as friends? How do you navigate hurtful topics with more compassion while also telling them what they did to you?)
Romancing my solitude
If you want your question answered on a future episode, consider becoming one of our Patreon supporters!
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 are answering questions from some of you, our listeners. Today, we're discussing what to do if your partner hasn't informed their nesting partner that the two of you are in love. We'll be gaining some clarity about why you may want additional partners and also how you can intentionally work on keeping an ex in your life when that relationship ended and you want to keep them in your life. If you're interested in learning more about our fundamental communication tools that are essential to a lot of the answers we give on here, you can reference our book, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships, which covers some of our most used communication tools for all types of relationships.
You can find links to buy it at multiamory.com/book or wherever fine books are sold. Also, check out our first few episodes of the podcast, where we cover some of our most widely used tools there as well.
Dedeker: Before we dive into the question, we have to let you know that we've spent a lot of time learning about healthy relationship communication, but we're not perfect, and we're not mind readers. Our advice is based solely on the limited information that we have, so please take it with a grain of salt.
Jase: Every situation is unique, so we encourage you to use your own judgment and seek professional help if needed. This question has been edited for time and clarity.
Emily: Here's our first question. How worried should I be that my partner hasn't informed their nesting partner that we're in love with each other and her nesting partner thinks that we are only friends with benefits? The context for this question is five months ago, I became romantically involved with my longtime friend, Elodie, right after she and her nesting partner, Bernard, opened up their 10-year-plus monogamous relationship. It took Elodie four months to realize that she was completely in love with me, and she's struggling to tell her partner about her feelings for me.
Bernard believes that we're friends with benefits. She's scared that it'll trigger his insecurities too hard and wants to wait before disclosing. Do you think I should be worried about this or anything that I should do? Thanks. You guys and the community are awesome. Sincerely, Sweet in Switzerland.
Dedeker: Aw, sweet.
Jase: Sweet.
Dedeker: Sweet. Oh, man. Well, just to--
Emily: That's a rough one.
Dedeker: It's a rough one. Just to jump in very broadly, this is a common scenario that does cause a lot of angst and anguish for people, especially people who are relatively new to non-monogamy, but also people who aren't new to it as well. I think crossing that threshold with a partner, even just by itself, dropping the "I love you's" can be a big thing. It's a big milestone, and so that in itself can be very fraught and very exciting. Then, when you add in also, "Ooh, I have got to deliver the news to other people," to people who need to know, or maybe should know that that's difficult. We don't get any scripts about that.
Emily: I was going to say, this maybe was a bit of NRE going on, but if this person is a longtime friend, I do wonder how much NRE comes into play there versus, "I've known this person for a long time, and so I have an established feeling about them."
Dedeker: That's true.
Emily: I don't know what the answer is there. I'm sure that the body still goes on a roller coaster internally, even if you've been friends with that person for a long time. If you're starting to "fall in love with them", then that's a different set of emotions and feelings that are happening internally.
Jase: Yes, I could see that depending on the situation, there could also be a lot of that, finally getting to have this type of relationship that we've never quite been able to have before. Because if--
Dedeker: You mean maybe there's already been some pent-up longing for each other or some feelings?
Jase: If you look at the question, five months ago, became romantically involved with longtime friend right after she and her nesting partner opened up their 10-plus-year mono relationship. I would bet there's been some kind of attraction or longing or interest there beforehand. If it happened right away, it's been there. Yes, there's an extra dynamic there of, one, longtime friend, and so there's a certain amount of trust and familiarity there already, which can help feel like things could escalate more quickly, I guess.
Then, at the same time, there's also this NRE type, "Oh, we're finally getting to explore this thing that maybe we've wanted but haven't been able to do before," so yes. A lot of things, I think, stacking up to make it feel like this is moving very fast, and could get very intense very quickly.
Emily: Definitely.
Dedeker: If I imagine myself in the question asker's shoes, I would be worried, I would be scared.
Emily: Yes, I would, too.
Dedeker: Now, that does not mean it's going g to go horribly wrong. Although I love to catastrophize, and I love to believe that things are going to go horribly wrong. The different elements that I see in this situation doesn't lead me to automatically believe, whoa, red flags run in the opposite direction, but there are a lot of unknowns here. This is a newly opened relationship. There's no information here about what the people in this newly opened relationship have talked about, like what their agreements are.
It's unclear, did they open up with the agreement that we're going to be mostly emotionally monogamous and everyone else is going to be friends with benefits, or do they open up with agreements around-- I don't know. That's what's hard to know. I guess my first advice to the question asker would be to maybe see if there's any way to get some of that information. Not that that's necessarily going to change anything, but it is going to help you to know a little bit of what you're dealing with.
Maybe asking some questions about how these two people came about deciding to open their relationship and what they're looking for. Are there any agreements that they've made around the shape that other relationships can take? Because that might at least give you a sense of this is going to sound so dramatic, my instinct to say how in danger you are. I don't want it to be that dramatic, but there is a risk here.
Jase: Yes. The thing I wanted to add with that, too, is that we don't really know the relationship to your metamour, to Bernard, I guess is the name we have for this person here, but for Elodie's nesting partner, I imagine you've known this person. If you've been a longtime friend of Elodie and she's been with this person for 10 years, you probably know each other, but you know what else is going on there. You don't want to jump in and suddenly change the way you are with this person, but it is making me wonder if as Elodie does start to talk to this partner about your relationship being more than just friends with benefits.
I guess finding some ways to open up some communication there with your metamour, too, and to let them know that you support their relationship, which hopefully you do, and to offer a little bit of clarity. Whether that's explicitly stated in words or it's just in the way you present yourself and the way that you're supportive of their relationship, but try to minimize the amount of threat that you are presenting at least. Because who knows what's going on in their head, but at least if you can keep your side of the street clean, I think that could be something that would be helpful as something you could start thinking about now.
I know it's not quite answering the question of what should you do about this particular situation, but with someone who's new, I could see that being a challenging thing for both of them to navigate. Anything you can do to try to make that transition feel less threatening would be good.
Emily: Your answer makes me think of the three of them in a room together, just, I don't know, sitting around a couch looking at each other, trying to
Dedeker: Almost sitting around a couch.
Emily: Sitting around a couch, yes.
Dedeker: The couch is in the center.
Emily: He's sitting in a couch.
Dedeker: Inside a couch.
Emily: On the couch, around maybe a coffee table or something. No, it made me think of like, oh, is this an intervention or something? It's not that, clearly.
Jase: That's not what I mean.
Emily: Of course not. I do think that, yes, this is a tough one, especially because of the newness of non-monogamy for these two. I think that that adds an extra layer of challenge to the whole situation because even if you, in theory, think that you're going to be totally great and fine with non-monogamy, if you are, first of all, confronted with your partner being in love with someone else, and then also confronted with the fact that your partner is in love with someone that she has known for a long time.
Then coupled with the fact that there was maybe some feelings that weren't talked about for a number of months, all of those things together sound scary. I would say maybe to minimize continuing to potentially make this worse than it could be, I would say, try to tell them pretty dang soon. The longer that you wait, I think the worse it may get. As for what you can do, to me, I would try to get really clear on what it is that I am comfortable with in terms of this relationship and have that conversation with Elodie.
If it were me, I don't know that I would be comfortable being in a relationship with someone where they're effectively, at least omitting how they feel about me. Just because of the potential there for how ugly it could get down the road the longer that this keeps up. I know that that's difficult, but non-monogamy is difficult, and you're going to come up against things like this the longer that you do it. You might as well get good at it now or at least start that process of figuring out how to have an honest conversation with someone now.
Dedeker: I have some questions around this line where she's saying that her partner is scared that it'll trigger his insecurities too hard and wants to wait before disclosing. Of course, my first question is, wait for what exactly? Is it wait until my partner and I have our next check-in or radar? Is it I want to wait until my partner is going on their own date and they feel like they have their own other partner, so then maybe I won't feel as bad breaking the news to them? I want to wait until I feel like my partner's worked through their insecurity.
I would want to get a little bit more granular about what waiting means and what is the cue that your partner is waiting for before she feels safe enough to open up about this. Here's the thing, is I think situations like this is why there are some people out there who will firmly plant their flag in the sand of, I never date non-monogamous newbies or poly newbies. Now, I think that's totally fair as a boundary or a practice for some people to have. I really think it comes down to evaluating your own capacity for that.
For instance, in this situation where you know that your partner is in this newly opened, previously monogamous relationship, you know that they're still working some things out.
You might have the capacity to be like, that's fine. I can wait it out. I can step back. I can be patient. I realize that they don't have this down to an exact science yet. I have the energy and capacity to be able to let them have their mess and figure things out and still be here. I think that works really well if maybe you have other things going on in your life that really engage you and support you.
Whether that's other friendships or other partnerships or other hobbies or other things that give you meaning. If you're putting a lot of your emotional stock into this one relationship, then it can be really heart-wrenching. I deal with a lot of clients who are going through this. The pain of my partner's other relationship is maybe a little bit of a shit show and has a lot of ups and downs, and I'm a little bit jerked around because of that. Jerked around and like, "Oh, is a sleepover okay? Wait, no, a sleepover is not okay." Oh, wait, all of a sudden, sleepover is okay because your partner feels like it's okay.
That can be a fraught process that some people have the capacity for, and some people might say, "No, this is not for me. Maybe talk to me once you've smoothed all this out."
Jase: I feel like I have some advice here that I would bet good money Sweet in Switzerland will not take this advice.
Dedeker: How much money would you bet?
Jase: Bet $20.
Emily: Wow.
Dedeker: $20? Okay.
Jase: 20 Swiss francs, euros? What do we use in Switzerland?
Dedeker: I think it's a euro. We're really showing we're Americans right now. I'm pretty sure it's the euro.
Emily: I think it's a euro. Wait, Wait, wait.
Jase: It's got to be the euro, right?
Dedeker: Oh, it's Swiss franc.
Jase: It is the franc. Okay.
Dedeker: Oh, it is. Yes.
Emily: Wait, are they not part of the European Union? I guess not.
Dedeker: Okay, no, I'm remembering. I'm remembering when I transited through Switzerland. I had to get francs, but euros were also okay in some places.
Jase: Okay, got it.
Dedeker: We sound really uninformed. I promise you, everyone listening, we're very well-traveled people, maybe less to Europe than other parts of the world.
Emily: Yes, I think we're very well-traveled people to Asia, less to Europe. We've been there, but not in a living capacity.
Dedeker: Okay, 20 Swiss francs.
Jase: 20 Swiss francs or euros. Sure. That'll be my bet, I guess. Here's the situation. You've started this relationship with this person who's been a longtime friend, they're just opening up. They've, for whatever reason, told their partner that you're friends with benefits. Maybe that is how it started, or maybe that's just a way she's been trying to soften it to this person, even though she knew there were more feelings than that beforehand. I'm not sure. Either way, you're in this state of a new relationship energy of some form. You're excited about this.
You're feeling, "Oh, my gosh, I'm so in love with this person. They're so in love with me. This is amazing." There's going to be this temptation to escalate that relationship. Having more intense times together, spending more time together as much as you can, doing more intense things like traveling just more sleepovers than normal or something. There's going to be this temptation and because she's not yet ready to be totally open with her partner about this, my advice that I don't think you'll take is to back it off, is to, for yourself, to pump the brakes a little bit of like, "Yes, I still want to see you, but let's behave more like friends with benefits until we're allowed to not be that."
Emily: That's really interesting advice.
Jase: That's what I mean. No one will take it.
Dedeker: Okay, but let me clarify.
Jase: Emily didn't take my advice when I tried to give the same thing to her. People don't when they're in new relationships. I get it.
Dedeker: Emily's giving a face.
Emily: Listen, it wasn't going to happen, even though you gave the same advice. Sorry. Neither is Sweet in Switzerland. It's good advice.
Dedeker: Emily has to pay Jase 20 Swiss francs.
Emily: Listen, it's good advice, but it's tough.
Dedeker: Just to clarify, this was something that I edited out of the question just for clarity. The question asker did say that they don't have a rule in the relationship against falling in love so there's that.
Jase: It sounds like it's just about that it's new, it's scary. They're five months in. To echo Dedeker's question of she wants to wait until what to disclose this to her partner, is it to wait until we're more comfortable with non-monogamy? You're going to wait several years. It takes a while. Just what I don't want to happen is for, even at this point, for her to tell her partner and for it to feel like he's been lied to or that this has been hidden from him because that's going to set them back a lot.
In setting them back and her trying to fix that is going to hurt you because it's probably going to mean less availability to you or her needing to pull back from that relationship to try to maintain her existing one. There's a lot of ways this could go that are going to be hard. I think if you can pump the brakes and step it back is a little bit self-protective, but also gives her maybe a little more impetus to start having these conversations with her partner, but also to not have it seem like, oh yes, and we're super entangled and we're in this really intense relationship that you weren't ready for and that blindsided you here.
Dedeker: Okay. Yes, I want to talk that piece of it. Maybe this is starting to zoom out a little bit and turn into more general advice. I do think when you hit that milestone of dropping the L-bomb on somebody, it's good-- Whether the person reciprocates or not. That's not really the point. I do think it's good to accompany that with what that means to you to say that to them. Does it mean you expect a change in the relationship or that you want a change in the relationship? Especially if the two of you are saying it to each other, really good conversation to have about what does this mean now.
Jase: That's a good point.
Dedeker: Does it feel like we've unlocked a different skill tree of the relationship? Does it mean that we want to spend more time together? Just talking about what does this mean. It doesn't have to be something very big and profound. I do think that we tend to look at telling someone that we love them as this very black-and-white binary of either you're just my friend with benefits or you're my freaking soulmate now and everything that comes along with that. It doesn't have to be that way.
It could just be as simple as to me saying this to you means that I'm starting to think about you being in my future, or maybe you're now on the list of people that I inform when I'm going on a new date with somebody brand new. I don't know what it is that it's good to have that granular conversation. Then if you're also then disclosing that to another partner, that that milestone, that threshold has been crossed, you have that information to say because your partner is also going to have their assumptions about what saying I love you means. I just think the more that you can be clear about that, the better for everybody.
Jase: Yes. Before we go on to our next question about why one might want more partners, we're going to take a quick ad break to talk about some sponsors of this show and also to let you know if you want to be part of our amazing community and to be able to support and be supported by fellow listeners, you can go to our Patreon. If you go to multiamory.com/join, you can get links for that and we would love to see you in those communities. For now, take a moment, check out our sponsors and we'll see you in a second.
Here is our next question. I'd love to have some resources to help me get clarity on my reasons for looking for additional partners, the fun of it, conforming to gender stereotypes and it says in parentheses, more sex equals more man. I can relate to the pressure for that. Yes. Jealousy of a partner's dating, et cetera. Then for context, they just said, this is a follow-up to Jase's comments at around 24 minutes, 20 seconds in episode 460, which made all of us go, "Oh God, what did I say? What happened?"
Emily: Also, we recorded that over a year ago.
Dedeker: Who's this from?
Jase: This is from Bold in Barcelona.
Dedeker: Bold in Barcelona, we did this homework for you of going back and having to listen to what we actually said, but just because you're special. That's the exception.
Emily: Definitely.
Dedeker: Let this be a warning to the rest of you. Please don't send us in extra homework. It really would make our lives so much better if we said something in particular. If you could quote it because good lord,-
Jase: Oh, yes. That's a good idea.
Dedeker: -we do not remember.
Emily: That is true. We have no idea.
Jase: I've already forgotten the episode we just recorded before this.
Dedeker: Exactly.
Emily: Yes. Here we are.
Dedeker: I just want to dive in real deep right away that if we want to get super philosophical on this, we can go straight to why date anybody at all?
Emily: Huh? That's a good question.
Dedeker: Why do relationships at all? Is there any good reason why we date people or is it all selfish self-serving reasons? Is it all hidden agenda? We can go pretty deep on this one if we wanted to.
Jase: Boy, it's like the field of possible answers is so large and just really varies not only by person but also just by circumstance. I guess the suggestions that they gave here are the ones we often talk about, which I think are the kind of, for lack of a better word, more obvious or more surface-level things of, yes, dating, having sex with new people can be fun. It could be exciting, sex can feel good. Then we also get into some of the maybe deeper parts underneath of, how much is this because sex feels good because it makes me feel like I'm worthwhile.
How much is it feels good because it just feels good and it's enjoyable or how much of this is to make myself feel better about how I compare myself to other people versus how much does this make me feel better because it's something that I like doing and does make me feel good? That's the meat of the question here, I think.
Emily: I'm extrapolating from Bold that they already have partners, at least one because they're saying--
Jase: He says additional partners.
Emily: Additional partners. Yes, they probably already have a partner, at least. Because of that and because you're asking this question, I would encourage you to look inward at what is it about my existing partnership that I'm really getting fulfilled by and that is really exciting me and that I'm really loving? Then I would encourage you to look outward and question what are the things that I feel like I could be getting more of maybe in a different type of partnership? What am I looking for in terms of things that I want maybe in somebody else?
I think all of those other things, like the fun of it and the conforming to gender stereotypes, those are all totally valid but if you want to get into the nitty gritty of a reason why you want to incorporate another person into your life, I think that you should be asking yourself, what is it that I want from a relationship that is an addition to my life?
Dedeker: Firstly, I want to commend this listener for asking this question at all because so many people don't. I think I spent the most of my dating life not asking that question. I dated people or acquired partners because I felt like that was the thing to do or because I was feeling bad about myself and wanted someone to validate me. Or I felt alone, or I felt rejected in some way and that was going to be the thing that was going to help me feel better. Or I felt frustrated with my life and I was hoping that by partnering with somebody else, they could fix that or offer a distraction.
I got into some partnerships that I probably shouldn't have under those conditions. Again, not that, I don't want to set up this expectation that, oh yes, we can work on ourselves and just become so enlightened that we are these transcendent beings coming to the dating process with no agenda and with needing absolutely nothing. That's not the case. We're always going to show up to the dating process wanting something. There's a reason why you're doing it. I do think just having that impulse to pause and reflect before acting, even that is going to help you to bring in more intentionality and to be able to communicate more clearly with the people that you are dating about what's in this for you.
What is it that you're actually seeking?
Emily: Absolutely. I think a lot of us tend to get into relationships when we're first starting polyamory because we can and because it is exciting and because it feels good to have this sense of, I don't know, freedom, I guess I'm going to call it, from the shackles of monogamous dating where you tend to only maybe date one person at a time. Or if you are dating multiple people, they don't necessarily all know each other and they don't know the existence of one another and it feels a little bit more secret.
The excitement that comes along with being able to date non-monogamously can probably fuel a person to want to do it more often or want to do it more abundantly. I don't necessarily think that filling one's time with other people to date is always what it is that they ultimately will feel most fulfilled by. I guess that's the question, like how do you want to spend your free time? Because your free time is really important and if you are going on dates all the time at the expense of other things in your life that are important to you, then maybe that's also telling.
Jase: I think it's also okay to not always know for sure what the answer is, but to keep asking the question periodically. I don't want to make it sound like you should always second-guess everything that you want to do and you always be looking over your shoulder at yourself to be like, "Oh, how am I being bad somehow by wanting this thing?" I think that when we look at stuff that we do because it just feels good like eating sugar or having a drink or playing a video game or watching junk TV or whatever, I think that most people would agree it's a fairly extreme school of thought to say you should never do those things because they just make you feel better but don't have any more significant reason.
I'd say it's a fairly limited set of people who would go that far. I think that as long as you are going about it in an honest way and that you're not manipulating or lying to people or intentionally or callously hurting people in your pursuit of this, I think it's okay for there to be a little bit of a sense of, "I do this because maybe it is fun. Maybe it makes me feel important, it makes me feel attractive." I think those are valid, but they are good to keep in mind because if you rely on that too much for those feelings, that's where you can get into this cycle of, "I just constantly need more. I can't ever not be dating. If my partner's ever dating. I have to do this in return."
I think that's how I was earlier on in non-monogamy. There was a little more of a feeling of my way of satisfying my own sense of, I guess, importance or value that some of it came from seeking these relationships. That's not to say that there also wasn't an aspect of it was fun and sex feels good and sex with new people is exciting and novel and novel things are cool and exciting and you learn a lot from them. There was also a lot of great, so I don't want to make it sound like I was having this miserable life, seeking happiness in the wrong places, or whatever someone would say in their born-again Christian speech or something like that.
I just feel like that's how it's often presented is this like, everything was terrible and I was seeking love in all the wrong places.
Dedeker: This may be overt moral judgment on that sort of behavior?
Jase: Right. I want to move away from that even though maybe sometimes it could sound like I'm making that moral judgment against myself in the past, but I just mean more that I think I was just a little bit out of balance on that side of seeking those external ways for myself to feel good. This is something that is pretty significant, and I found there was a study, and I know Dedeker was like, "We don't do research for these questions," but I did do a little bit of research for this one because I was curious about it.
I found a study that is about what they call romantic obsession, is the term that they use for it. Where you overly fixate on your romantic partner actually, overly focusing on that. That's not what we're talking about here, but the piece that was interesting was in their research they found that when people have had something happen in their life that makes them feel less important or less significant, this desire to feel significant can get very, very strong. In their case, they're looking at how this leads to obsessive behavior in their relationship.
I feel like this can also show up in terms of some other form of external validation because I think also about times when I was dating more, it's also a time when I'm feeling usually less good about maybe my career or artistic pursuits or something else. I don't want to say that not dating would've made me suddenly focus on those because I'm not sure that it would, it wasn't always in my control, but I was, I think seeking a little bit of that sense of, "I am valuable enough that people would want me."
I guess I'm just talking around all the different thoughts and feelings that can come up here, and I just want to validate that I think those feelings are very real and that those can come up. Again, just to come back to the important part being continuing to ask that question and continuing to recalibrate rather than just buying into, "This is the way I should be because that's what people tell me I should do," or, "I'm a bad person for wanting this because that's what Jase tells me on Multiamory." I hope I'm not telling you that.
I just want to be sure that I'm not saying that, and I think, honestly, question asker, the fact that you're asking this question at all, as Emily said, means you're already doing a good job of thinking about these things and asking these questions and wondering, trying to calibrate that.
Dedeker: I think something that's really hot when you're trying to date people or you're on the apps is everyone's asking, "What are you looking for? What are you looking for? What are you looking for?" It can be good to have that answer ready from a logistical standpoint, but also it can be good for you to do your own journaling or reflecting on the goal. What I mean by the goal is not about I want to get a second girlfriend or I want to get a kinky hookup, but the emotional goal.
It could be something like, I want to live a life where I have a lot of joyful connection or where I have a lot of playful connections where I can share the things that I'm passionate about with somebody, or I want to find a sense of closeness and intimacy with somebody. Something that gets you out of just that logistical brain into the emotional brain can also be helpful. I think if you start to write this out, you're going to have a sense of whether that's true or not, or whether really what's underlying it is maybe more of this emotional sense of needing to patch up some self-esteem or to distract yourself from jealousy.
Either way, even if you're someone who you're not suspecting you have some sort of hidden agenda, that's driving your desire to seek more partners, it can be good to do this work. Just to know really ultimately what's the goal of all of this for you, and hopefully, it's for something positive.
Jase: I love that. It'll probably also help you to seek out the right connections to fit that goal because that's the other mistake people can make and I've definitely made is what I really want is maybe excitement, but then I end up seeking relationships that are more of these committed longer-term relationships that I wasn't really ready for, but that's the only thing I know how to do, and that's what I would seek out. I think all that introspection is really great and can help you get a clearer sense. I love being able to answer that question with a more emotional response and not just logistical. That's very cool.
Emily: It's always a good time for Dedeker Winston, what are you longing for?
Jase:
Emily: You know what I'm longing for?
Emily: Dedeker Winston, what are you longing for?
Dedeker: Oh my goodness.
Emily: Beautiful. Bold in Barcelona, we wish you luck on your journey to finding more partners, to discovering why it is that you want more partners, or to deciding, "Hey, I'm pretty good right at this particular moment in time." Whatever it is that you find, good luck.
Jase: We have one more question today about remaining friends with an ex and keeping them in your life, but again, we're going to take a quick break to talk about a couple more sponsors of this show. They really go so far in helping us continue to produce this and put this out in the world. Thank you to them, please check them out if they're interesting to you. Use our promo codes, that does help support our show. Of course, you can join our Patreon for various delightful things, and one of those tiers is ad-free episodes as well as other ones for video discussion groups, and of course our amazing Discord community.
Dedeker: Let's move on to the last question for this episode. This question is actually three questions, but I'm going to allow it because I think they're all relevant to each other. How do I become friends with an ex when it did not end on a good note, but you know that you love them as a friend and are willing to keep them in your life? They included a couple of follow-up questions. What were the kind of conversations Emily had with Jase when they came back together as friends? How do you navigate hurtful topics with more compassion while also telling them what they did to you?
That is sent in from Romancing My Solitude. What a movie title of a sign-off name. I love it. Oh, and also just to clarify, this person did send in a lot of background about their situation that they explicitly said they don't want shared on the show. Really, the most important thing I can say is just that it sounds like there was a lot of pain in this particular relationship and in this breakup.
Jase: Boy. All right, there's several questions all tied up in this one, but I guess the thing that I just think is worth starting out with is I just want to ask the question, why? Why do you want to become friends with this ex?
Dedeker: You want to ask the question or do you want to ask the question asker?
Jase: I want to ask the question asker, why? It's, how do I become friends with an ex when it did not end on a good note, but you know you love them as a friend and are willing to keep them in your life? What I will say is having, again, read the background, this does sound very messy and a lot of hurt going on here. I just worry that the question asker might be pressuring themself into having a friendship here when maybe they're either shouldn't be one or shouldn't be one yet.
Emily: As somebody who's just gone through a breakup, I want to validate the fact that it is difficult to decouple yourself from another person in so many ways. The idea of them not being in your life anymore after maybe they were in your life for years is really intense and maybe even traumatic. I want to acknowledge that that is understandable, that this might be a difficult time for them, and that they want to cling to some part of this relationship and maybe a friendship maybe, that seems like a way in which they can continue this relationship in some form.
I also know from experience, you got to give it a while and maybe that will ultimately become a friendship, but the pain that's there right now for probably both of you need some real honest time to put away, to work through, to grieve before anything can come out of this relationship. Again, that's not just going to add more fuel to the fire and more hurt to what you're currently going through.
Dedeker: Without being able to ask this person what their why is or get that information about why do they still want to keep this person in their life, because they may have a very good reason for that. I wanted to zoom out and look at what is in the air around us as far as messages about whether we should or should not be friends with an ex. I do think that there is a particular camp, maybe the more traditional camp that does dictate cut them out and never talk to them again. That's the only way you're going to be able to get through that. Some people are able to do that. Some people are not able to do that. In some situations you can, in some situations you can't. For instance, if you still need to co-parent with an ex, that's not necessarily a pathway that's open to you. On the flip side, I think, especially in the non-monogamous community, there can be that opposite pressure that all your breakups should be these nice, tidy little de-escalations where you do stay friends.
I think sometimes us polyamorous people try to take on this badge of honor that we can navigate relationships so well that even when a relationship changes, we can rise above the resentment, the hurt, the processing, and jump straight into being friends. Now, I feel this in that I realized I have a number of my exes who are my friends, but I also have a number of exes that I do not talk to at all who are not friends and never will be friends if I can help it, if I have anything to say about it. I've spent enough time in the non-monogamous community that I actually feel a little bad about that.
I look back on-- I know Emily is rolling her eyes and brushing me off. I do, though sometimes I look back on--
Emily: I do get it, but also some people do not need to be your friends.
Dedeker: Totally. I've come to terms with it, but sometimes I look at, "Oh my goodness," I have these three exes or maybe even four exes at this point that I don't talk to that, that either I've cut them off or they've cut me off. There's something to me that feels a little shameful about that. Like I wasn't good enough at decoupling or disentangling, which is silly because it has to do with feelings and with boundaries and personal preferences, and a lot of things out of my control necessarily but I still take that on.
I still think feel a little bit of that pressure of, if I was really good at relationships, if I was truly a well-adjusted person, I would be able to seamlessly be friends.
Jase: I just want to say to the question asker, if what you might be needing right now is for someone to give you permission to actually not try to be friends with this person and just acknowledge that you're very hurt and that you can be upset and mourn this loss and not need to also try to be friends with this person, or to try to somehow still fix this even after this relationship is over. If you need someone to give you that permission, I'm giving it to you right now. I think all three of us are.
Dedeker: We'll put the multiamory stamp on it for sure.
Emily: For sure, yes.
Dedeker: Print it out. Put it on your wall.
Jase: Yes. Your certificate of approval here. If that's what you needed and maybe it is, then you got it, you're done.
Emily: I'm sure that Jase and I did not decouple perfectly. However, I think we had a lot of reason to stay in each other's lives, and we may not have been co-parenting, but we were co-creating something that became really huge in our lives, and that was this podcast. It mattered enough to us that we keep that going as well as the really huge meaningful connection that the two of us had. I think that with all of that in mind, I think that became the catalyst and the reason why we stayed so connected. A lot of people don't have things like that.
That strong of a reason to stay in each other's lives. Instead, it just becomes this spark and hope of, I want to keep this person in my life because having them not in my life feels mysterious and scary and horrible. Again, having time away from people is really beneficial to really, truly go through a process of, wait a minute, they're not in my life anymore. How does that feel? Do I feel myself loosening? Do I feel myself breathing in a different way for the first time? Do I feel like I can take back ownership of who I am?
Jase: Emily, when you say some amount of time, what kind of length of time are you imagining in your head? I'm actually curious for all three of us to answer this.
Emily: That's a great question. I think it's really specific to the couple, but I think at least six months, if not a year. Really truly. You and I Jase we've talked about that time at which the relationship tipped over into, okay, now we can really talk about being friends. That took six months. Because before then we both were pretty in a mournful place or in a challenged place. Then you do all the logistics of decoupling and especially if you live with a person. That's really difficult. Then also we were both in other relationships and we were dealing with those at the same time, and that was a lot. I think six months at least.
Dedeker: I don't know if I can put an amount of time on it, because for me it's feelings-based. That's hard to pin down to a timeline, I think. This last question, how do you navigate hurtful topics with more compassion while also telling them what they did to you? I think there's a lot here. There's a whole lot here. It sounds like, it is important for this person to be heard, to have their pain be seen and heard by the other person.
Jase: The reason why I am asking this question about how much time is just that I see in talking to people about these sorts of relationship transitions, that there can be this response of, "Oh, yes, I have given it time. It's been a week," or it's been two, three weeks or something like that. We laugh because we've seen how much that's not enough time. How hard that is. Just the fact that Emily, what you were imagining in your head was six months to a year. I think what I was imagining in my head was around six-ish months. I think it depends a little bit on the length of the relationship.
Emily: Sure.
Jase: If it was a shorter-term relationship, maybe a month or three months could be okay, but not if there's a lot of hurt that happened in it. Like Dedeker was saying, it varies a little bit.
Dedeker: A lot of baggage.
Jase: Yes. Depending on the feelings. That is something that I wanted to clarify with the question about Emily and myself is that we did not have any kind of period of no contact because we were still recording a podcast with each other every week. Still lived together for a little while after our breakup. I want to clarify that I don't think that was the ideal way to do it. It would've been nice to have some space. Those interactions were rough for about six months until it finally clicked. In all of that, there weren't any huge breaches of trust.
There weren't any massive upheavals. There was generally a relationship that I would say was defined by pretty good communication. I definitely don't think I was perfect at all. We've had talks about this several times over the many years since then where we've unpacked some of that ourselves. What I'll say is there weren't these really bad wounds that needed to be healed from acute bad things that had happened. It was more like the wounds of some slow things that had been happening or ongoing. Then, of course, the wound of the relationship ending or changing, that was hard.
There wasn't like this, oh, and there was this horrible betrayal or something like that. Then additionally, when we did get to that point where the friendship felt more comfortable, it wasn't because we'd finally hashed through these topics and gotten off our chest all the hurtful things the other person had done. It wasn't about that. Even though maybe we could have, maybe we could have still been upset enough to laundry list on people about that. That wasn't what got us there. I think that brings us to the third question here.
Dedeker: Yes. This third question, how do you navigate hurtful topics with more compassion? I think navigate hurtful topics with your ex, while also telling them what they did to you. There's a lot there. The telling them what they did to you, to me I hear that as like, "Oh, this person really wants their pain to be heard and to be seen and to be understood," which yes, that's so human. Unfortunately, they probably didn't feel like their pain was hurt or seen when they were in the relationship with this person.
Hence why there's an elevated need now for their ex to really understand the pain that they caused. That's a totally normal thing to want and think about what a huge ask that is, especially when we've only been broken up a week, two weeks, a month, that this person probably isn't ready to hear about the pain that they've caused. You, the question asker, you're probably not ready to hear from them the ways that they feel like you caused them pain. I can guarantee that they have a story about that.
Even though you're in a place right now where all you can focus on is the ways they hurt you, I can guarantee they have a story about how you hurt them. You're probably not in a place of being ready to hear that. I have had these conversations with exes before where it's gone positively and it's gone well. Again, it's always been on the heels of a lot of time, a lot of personal work before we can actually hash that out specifically and talk about, okay, yes, when you did this, this is what it meant to me, or this is the story that I had about the relationship.
Your ex may never be there. Your ex may never get there. I always encourage people to think about your healing, be proactive with your healing and don't make your healing contingent upon getting something specific from your ex. Don't make it like I am going to be hurt and broken until I can get them to hear my side of the story and agree with it because then, really, you're putting the healing in their hands when it's in your hands. I know it sucks that they're the one who may be caused the pain but it's really on you to be the one to rehabilitate yourself.
I think it's safer to assume this person may never apologize to me. They may never sit and listen to my side of the story. They may never try to fix what was done wrong. They may never try to get me back. If you assume that that's the case, do you still want to be connected to this person right now? The answer may be no. If that's not on the table, I don't really want to be friends with this person right now. Maybe I want to be friends with them down the line or maybe I want to be friends with them never if that's the case.
What is it that you need to do on your own to heal completely separate from this person? The more that you can prioritize your own healing as your own project between you and your therapist and the people around you that love you and support you and want to hold you through this, the faster your healing is going to be. I think that's going to set you up better for the chance of having an actually healthy friendship with this person when your healing is not dependent on getting something very specific from them.
Emily: 100% in reading this narrative from you. I will say narrative because we all have our own narratives about what it is that happened in the relationship. I know that my ex has his own narrative about what happened in our relationship. I'm sure Jase and I had different narratives about what happened in our relationship as well but when I read this, there's so much pain. To come to your ex with that amount of pain would just be really a rough, difficult, charged, emotional discussion. I don't think that at this point that's a place that you want to go to because healing really can't be done in that place.
It needs to happen from a place of calm and understanding. Hopefully, again, time just because we can't get away from those emotions unless we have time away from them. Unless we, again, learn what it's like to be without that person and to move in a space with ourselves again and learn how to heal on our own like Dedeker said. I think that's so huge. Yes, if you can get there eventually, then maybe you can have a conversation with this person. I would argue that you can talk about what happened in the relationship but ultimately, maybe at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter for moving forward if you do want to move forward with them.
I think about my ex and they're still the same person but their relationship to me is no longer what it once was. We are totally different people to each other now in terms of our relationship to each other. If I ever want to move forward with him, that's going to come from a new starting place in a lot of ways or a shifted starting place. I think a lot of that hurt would just have to take time to heal. Again, like Dedeker said, that is a very personal journey and not about them.
Dedeker: Yes. I was just going to point out that it caused pain for the three of us just to read this in the sense that it like really pulled on my heartstrings hearing the pain of everybody involved in this situation. If I was actually involved in this situation, I wouldn't be ready to hold all of this. If someone was coming to me with this story and saying you caused all this, I would not be ready.
Jase: Probably never would be.
Dedeker: Probably never would be, yes.
Emily: Yes. Absolutely. We acknowledge your pain and we've all been there and it sucks and we validate it for sure but give yourself time. Yes.
Dedeker: You know what? They signed off as Romancing My Solitude and maybe that's their answer right now is romance yourself a little bit. It's okay to retreat into your cave and curl up in the blankets and be sad and mourn and really prioritize yourself and really romance yourself right now as part of your healing process.
Jase: I love that. Part of that is not being in relationships that make you feel the way that this one did regardless of how you're going to label those relationships. Just take care of yourself. Thank you so much, Romancing My Solitude for writing in. We really appreciate you sharing with us and I hope that asking this question is also helpful for other people who may have needed to hear similar things..