489 - Multiamory Presents: Unmet Needs in Polyamory

Full transcript available

Today we're very excited to be showcasing an episode from our good friend Libby Sinback's podcast, Making Polyamory Work. In this episode, she's discussing unmet needs in polyamorous relationships from multiple angles.

Libby Sinback is a queer, polyamorous mom, the host of the podcast Making Polyamory Work and a coach for people who want extraordinary relationships while choosing to live and love outside the status quo. She is certified in Relational Life Therapy, and has coached hundreds of people in breaking their unhelpful relationship patterns so that they can have happier, more nourishing love in their life. Libby believes love is why we're here, and how we heal.

Transcript

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Emily: Hello, Multiamory listeners. The Multiamory crew and myself are taking a much-needed break this week. However, I'm very happy to be offering you an episode from the podcast Making polyamory work, which is hosted by my friend Libby Sinback. This particular episode is about unmet needs in polyamory. Most people practicing non-monogamy, I think, can accept that no one person can meet all of their needs, and yet sometimes it can be challenging when a new partner comes along and starts meeting needs that haven't been met before in an established relationship.

In this episode, Libby explores the tricky situations that can arise when a new relationship fulfills desires that an established one does not, and she also offers plenty of ideas and advice to help you navigate this situation well.

Let me just say that I think this episode is fantastic. Libby explores this topic with so much thoughtfulness and care, and she offers helpful advice for every position in this scenario, whether you're the person seeking to get a particular need fulfilled elsewhere, or if you're having some difficult feelings come up because your partner is seeking to get a need met that you can't fulfill.

Also, let me just say, Libby is incredibly wise. When I have issues going on in my personal life, or when I'm needing support or commiseration in my professional life, working with non-monogamous clients, Libby is on my short VIP list of people that I turn to. I'm extra excited to share her wisdom and kindness with you all. I hope that you enjoy it and find it helpful.

Libby: The scenario of unmet needs in an existing relationship getting met in a new relationship, I actually think it's one of the hardest scenarios that shows up in polyamory. What's really funny about that, I just have to say this, what's really funny about that is that it's also a lot of times the reason why people do polyamory.

Welcome to Making polyamory work. Hi, I'm Libby Sinback, and I want to thank you for being with me today. I am a polyamorous mom and an integrated relationship transformation guide, and I am committed through my work to helping people who live in love outside the status quo, have extraordinary relationships, because relationships are at the core of our wellbeing as humans. I think love is why we're here and how we heal.

One of the ways in which I both give and receive love is through influence. What does that mean? It means if someone sends me a video or an article or something a way that I would show love is to read it or listen to it and bring it up to them later. Similarly, a way that I feel loved and appreciated and cared about is sharing information with someone else that I want to share with them, whether it's an article or a YouTube video or a podcast or whatever.

Now, I've been with my spouse/co-parent for gosh, almost 15 years, and he used to not be very good at receiving these things from me. I'd send him an article podcast, video, whatever, this was before the days of TikTok, and he wouldn't listen to them or read them or if I asked him to read a book, I remember when I first read Emily Nagoski's Come As You Are, it blew my mind and I was like, "Oh my God, honey, I really want you to read this." He wouldn't do it. He just wouldn't do it.

At a certain point, I just made found my way to this acceptance place around it. It was a painful thing that this core way that I felt loved was not being met, and it actually felt pretty important to me. Also, you can't make somebody do something and maybe it doesn't feel good to him to receive something from me as though it's like an assignment or something like that. I just reached an acceptance place around like, "Okay, I'm going to share this thing with him. Maybe he'll read it, maybe he won't." I didn't stop trying, but I reached a place of acceptance around it.

Fast forward a few years later, and I start dating Tom, and I'll never forget the first time I sent him an article, he texted me back and he said, "Oh, wow, I can't wait to read this. Can you tell me some of the key points that you took away from it so that I really know what to think about when I'm reading it?" To tell you that hearing that, receiving that in response to me sending an article instead of either no response whatsoever, or "I'll get to it when I can." Usually it would be no response whatsoever. I might have cried. I might have cried.

Now, I want to pause here because putting it this way, it sounds like I'm comparing these two different partners and I guess in a way I am, but I guess I want to point out that there are my spouse/co-parent/anchor partner/all the things that Drew is, he is wonderful, and he has many, many wonderful qualities, and I love him a lot. I don't want to make it sound like he's a shitty partner, and that I finally met someone who was a better partner.

There was just this one key difference in this one key love language that I had. Where I'm getting to with this, the reason I'm sharing this is because a thing that happened at a certain point after I started getting this need that I had met this care need around, I'm sharing information that is important to me, and I want you to receive it and meet me there and talk about it with me and connect around it with me because I want to feel like we influence each other by sharing information.

For what it's worth, me and my spouse, Drew and I, we do that, it's just different. It wouldn't always work if I sent him something. I started getting this need met and also falling in love for multiple reasons. Drew, my husband started freaking out. I think this is relatively well documented at this point that my husband freaked out when I started dating Tom. It was really, really, really hard. It was really hard.

I remember feeling incredibly frustrated that he was having such a hard time with this new relationship when what was happening for me was I didn't feel like I had changed how I felt about him. I felt like I was in the same place of loving acceptance. It's just that now I was really excited because some needs that I had that had previously been unmet were finally getting met.

The thing is, I didn't even know how much I needed them. In this case, it wasn't like I was unhappy in my relationship with Drew, such that I was going to try to find somebody to meet these unmet needs. Although I do think people who pursue non-monogamy do that. In this case, I was just dating a new person that I thought was interesting, and then it was all of a sudden they were there and ready to meet some needs that I had that were previously being unmet.

For me, I was like, "What do you mean? Why is this scary for you? Why is this hard?" For Drew, it was like, "Wait, wait, no, I was actually going to try to meet those needs at some point. I just thought I had more time. I was still gathering my strength." Really, he said this to me at one point, and I really think what was going on-- there was a lot going on. The layers of why this was hard are many, and I'm not going to go into all of them on this episode, but one reason why it was really hard, I think, is because I was being made really, really happy by someone else in a way that my partner had been unable or unwilling to make me happy, and that was scary.

Again, for me, on my end, I was like, "I'm being made happy right now. I don't really have a lot of time and energy for your jealousy around this." That was my initial reaction. I was really annoyed. I think this can come up a lot. I think this precise scenario, I've seen it not just in my own life, but with other people that have shown up both people in my community and also people that have shown up to work with me as a coach.

I want to talk about it because I actually think this particular scenario, and another one that's its sister, the scenario of unmet needs in an existing relationship, getting met in a new relationship, I actually think it's one of the hardest scenarios that shows up in polyamory and what's really funny about that, I just have to say this, what's really funny about that is that it's also a lot of times the reason why people do polyamory.

A lot of people choose polyamory over what is currently, unfortunately, the default monogamy because monogamy doesn't work for them because one person can't meet all their needs. When they come to a place of accepting, of course, one person can't meet all your needs. Really, when you think about it, it's absolutely ridiculous that one person can meet all your needs.

Even if you're not polyamorous, you still need friends and family and coworkers and Starbucks baristas. No one person can meet all your needs and it shouldn't be that way. Even no one person can meet all your romantic relational needs. When you accept that, then you're willing to go find other partners to meet certain types of needs. It's interesting because there's also an ickiness about that, that I have to name here, which is treating people like need-fulfilling objects.

I want to hold that these two things are true. That we do get needs met in relationship and also our partners are ends and of themselves, they're human beings of value irrespective of how many needs they meet of ours. This third thing which is that we might choose to be in a relationship with somebody because they meet certain needs of ours and we might choose not to be in relationship with somebody if they aren't meeting enough of our needs.

Oh, okay. Can we just hold that all of that is true? Can we hold that all of that is true? Because I think it's important. If we aren't with reality because we only have so much time, we only have so much energy, we only have so much space in our lives, you people in our lives do have to bring value to our lives. Also, our value is not defined by how much value we provide to other people. Complicated but just stay with it y'all because it's going to be really important as we go through today's episode.

Going back to where I was, a lot of people pursue some form of non-monogamy and a lot of people pursue polyamory with the understanding that one person cannot meet all of your needs. Now, that doesn't mean a relationship cannot be satisfying if it does not meet all of your needs. I think one thing that's true even for monogamous people is we accept one person can't meet all of our needs and so we do this thing that is derisively called settling but what it really is we go with hey, no human being is going to be perfect for us.

We have to accept is this good enough? Is this getting enough of my needs met? Am I happy? Am I willing to be satisfied? Am I enjoying this? Do I love this person? Do I enjoy this person enough that I'm willing to accept the things that I might not get out of this relationship that I might wish I could get out of this relationship? We all have to do that in every scenario situation that we are in because very rarely, if ever, is anything just going to be perfect, and it's certainly not going to be perfect all of the time, but that does not mean that we're unhappy.

This is important to say when I talk about my relationship with my husband, even though there was this place that I was not satisfied. It wasn't so unsatisfying the whole relationship was unsatisfying. I was and continue to be happy to be in that relationship. Some things have shifted in it. My husband does read the articles now, spoiler alert, and he sends me articles too. That was such a spoiler. I'm such a jerk. Okay, anyway, moving on.

Even without this thing that I really wanted, I was happy in that relationship. I wasn't seeking polyamory to fix the relationship that I was in. I think this is, again, another place where things can get tricky. I do think that there are some people who are unhappy in an established relationship they're in and they decide to pursue polyamory to fix it, to make it tolerable.

I did an Instagram reel where I talked about this concept of stable misery and where we sometimes will pursue non-monogamy or polyamory as a misery stabilizer. We are unhappy but we don't want to have to change the situation with our existing relational landscape, and so we pursue other relationships to make it not so miserable that we have to leave. Now, I do not recommend this and as I get more into this episode, you'll understand why this is such a bad idea.

You can be in a relationship that you're satisfied with but not perfectly met with and still have this scenario that I'm talking about where you're in an established relationship with some unmet needs and then someone new comes in and starts meeting them and you are happy. Then your existing partner gets triggered and freaked out and is suddenly needing a lot of care and that is actually really annoying and even irritating and even upsetting to you.

What I would say is that if you stay in those stances of your partner's really struggling and freaking out because this new relationship is scaring them because you're getting some needs met that you weren't getting met, if they hold that stance of I'm freaked out and you need to fix it for me, you need to make me feel better, and then the other partner stays in the stance of, this sounds like a you problem, I'm not very sympathetic, you wouldn't want to meet these needs anyway, just chill the heck out, everything's fine. If things stay in that place, things are probably going to spiral and get really, really painful and these people are going to hurt each other and they might even break up.

Now, let me just pause here and talk a little bit about what is going on in both of the people in this scenario. Let's first talk about the partner who had the unmet need in the existing relationship. That partner, again, hopefully, they've come to a place of acceptance around this unmet need and that they're not going to get it from their partner, but some other things might be going on.

They might have tried really hard to get that need met because it was important to them. They might have even had their partner do some things to try to meet that need and they either didn't work or the partner got frustrated or maybe the partner even communicated that they either can't or don't want to meet that need that that person has. They might have some pain around it.

Now, depending on where they are in their journey, they either might have active pain around it, like it might be actively painful, or in my case with my story, I had pain around it but I'd made peace with it. I was okay with it. Either way, there's usually some pain there around that unmet need, especially if it was something that they wanted that partner of theirs to meet.

Now, sometimes you can have an unmet need that you notice that it's not available in that particular relationship and you're just like, okay, that particular need isn't met by this relationship but that's not an expectation that I have. I think in that scenario, having a new partner meet an unmet need like that might be a little bit less threatening actually. Might not trigger as big a response. I would say the more that you wanted that need met by the existing relationship and didn't get it, probably the more big feelings you're going to have around both having it met by someone else and by your partner having a problem with that.

Again, that's understandable. Then when you finally do, if you are that partner, get that need met in the new relationship, for me, the way that I describe it, it was like drinking water when I didn't even know I was thirsty and that I was really thirsty. Honestly, for me, there was such relief because you can tell yourself a lot of stories about why a particular need that you had wasn't getting met. Was I trying to get it met in the wrong way? Was I wrong for wanting it? Was I not worth it? Even when you can reach a place of peace around it and even if you can responsibly externalize why a particular need might not be getting met, you can still tell yourself a lot of stories. You have to be in that place of not knowing until something changes.

When that need got met for me, it wasn't just good for me to get the need met, it was also good to recognize that it was an okay need to have and that it was meetable by someone. It was just a really nourishing and beautiful feeling. Then, like I said, to actually get the need met too felt really, really, really good. Then when the established partner freaks out, I know for me what I felt was, like, really? Really? Really? Really? That was my first reaction. I had other reactions and got to a much better place around it but that was my initial reaction was, I was pissed. I was really pissed.

Previously, I was in this joyful place but I was in a resentful place. Again, the resentment all came rushing back when my partner had a problem with my getting that new need met.

Now, another thing that can happen if you aren't in a place of peace and acceptance around your established partner not meeting that need, is that when you get that need met by someone else, it can actually deepen the feelings of resentment that you have towards the established partner who isn't meeting them. Now, that is a warning signal, I would say, that maybe that's something that either y'all need to do some more work around together, or it might just be such an important need that you need to get met in any romantic relationship.

There are needs like that. There are some needs that for me, I need them for every relationship that I'm in. There are some that I don't need for every relationship that I'm in, but there are some that I do. That might be a signal to you that, oh, actually this is really, really important to me, and now that I'm getting it, I don't want anything else. In that scenario, actually your partner freaking out is a valid response because what's happening is you're finally realizing something doesn't work for you about the relationship that you're in with them. That makes sense that they would be insecure from there.

Anyway, it's just something to look at, if you're not in a place of peace and acceptance that this particular need can't get met by that established relationship. gain, I was in a different place. I think some people are, but either way, when you're in the position that I was in, it can be hard to find a lot of compassion for your established partner freaking out.

Jase: Before we go on, I want to give a quick shout-out to our amazing community members in our Discord and our Facebook group. These are all people who are part of our private discussion group tier on Patreon. These communities are such cool places where people are actually there to support each other and listen and have constructive conversations, which feels like it's a rarer and rarer thing to find on the internet these days. It's just been an incredibly inspiring community to be able to be part of.

Our Discord server is really cool because there are channels for all sorts of different topics. Everything from work talk to crafts, to parenting, to being polyamorous when you're over 40, all sorts of different topics as well as some channels where you can talk about games and just have fun with fellow Multiamory listeners. Most importantly, it helps us support this show and keep this going and make it available for free for everybody out there every week in the world.

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Libby: That's what's going on over there. Now, what's going on with the established partner? So many different things can be going on here too. For one thing, it so much depends on how far away from the monogamy mindset you are, but even if you're relatively out of the monogamy mindset. Again, going back to my previous thing of there's the reality of our value is intrinsic as human beings, and whether someone wants to keep us around or not can be tied to how much value we're bringing to them.

Even if you're fairly outside of the monogamy framework, you might still feel threatened and scared if someone else is bringing in some value into your partner's life that you have not been able to bring them. Especially if it's something that is important to them. Especially if it's something that they were trying to get from you. Some things that can make it harder are what if that's something you really wanted to be able to give to them, but you just can't because of constraints like time or energy or ability or other commitments that you have that you haven't wanted to let go of.

If you are feeling guilty and you have energy around this need that you haven't been meeting, it can be extra hard to see someone else meeting it. Just as an example, what if your partner has always been asking for more and more time from you and you only have a certain amount of time that you can spend with them every week or two and then they meet a new partner who has a lot of time for them. Suddenly what you're really worried about is being marginalized and considered unimportant because of that thing that they've been wanting from you that you haven't been able to give them that they're finally getting.

The thing is, you might be willing to give them more time if you actually had it, but maybe you've got a big job or maybe you've got another partner. Maybe you've got children, maybe you've got elderly family members that you're caring for, these other constraints. Of course, of course, of course, of course you'd be freaking out that your partner is now with someone that's getting more time.

This can also show up with sex. That's another big one. If you've been wishing that you wanted to have sex more, but your body just isn't into it or there's a lot of things in your way of having sex because you have really sensitive breaks and then your partner meets someone that they're having lots and lots and lots of sex with. We have a culture that says that sexual partners are the most important partners that we have, and so it can understandably be really scary when you see your partner getting that need met really joyfully and frequently with someone else.

Again, the more in the monogamy paradigm you are or the less far out of it you are, the harder this can be. Because if you really believe all happiness needs to come from you in order for you to feel secure in your relationship, well yes, then it's going to be really, really scary to see your partner getting happiness from someone else that they haven't been able to get from you in a new relationship.

Here's the really tricky part. If you hold your stance, "I'm freaking out. I don't feel okay because you're so happy, so you need to fix that and make my feelings better because your happiness is scaring me." Of course, your partner is not going to feel a lot of sympathy and compassion towards you and they may even feel really, really protective of that new relationship because they want to be happy.

Also, you freaking out might amplify that feeling of resentment, like, "Wow, okay, so you can't give me what I need and you also don't want me to get it from someone else as well. Like, that's messed up." It can also really make little room available for compassion. The thing is, you deserve compassion. Again, of course, it's scary. Of course, it's hard. Of course, it's painful.

Also, it could be a wake up call to you. Like for my husband, that's what it was. For my husband, it was a wake-up call. It was a wake-up call that this thing that I had not been getting from him that I had been asking for that I hadn't been able to get was actually really important to me because he saw how much it meant to me when I did get it. He felt how much it freaked him out that he hadn't been giving it to me and that I was getting it from someone else, and it was. It was a wake-up call to him. It resulted in him really shifting his attention and turning toward things that were important to me more, and also opening himself up to things that were important to him and sharing those with me.

That was actually a huge deal for us and that is where this whole scenario can be an unlocking of something really beautiful in an established relationship that maybe wasn't there before. It might open up an opportunity to really work on something that might not have been there before. This is a thing where a new relationship that is scary can be a catalyst.

Now, I'm going to pause here and just say, again, relationships are ins and of themselves. New relationships are not meant to be catalysts to help establish relationships work. I want to be clear that that's an important stance that I have, but it can still work out that way, and there's nothing wrong if it does. It also can work in reverse, such that established relationships can be a really nice sturdy structure for new relationships to flourish, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, it can all really work in a nice non-zero-sum some way, but now I'm digressing.

I hope you can see that the stances that you can fall into in a scenario like this, "Hey, I'm not feeling okay about you being so happy with someone else, fix my feelings and make me feel better." That stance is probably not going to go well for the partner with the new partner. The partner with the new partner, if they are just remaining unsympathetic and uncaring to their partner having a lot of feelings, that's probably going to come across as really unkind and harsh. I've just seen it happen where those two stances just spiral. They just spiral.

Often how it goes wrong is that the person with the new partner feels like they want to help their partner out and so they actually do try to fix their feelings, but with a lot of resentment, the partner who needs their feelings fixed does it with a lot of demand. Then that new relationship that is providing a lot of joy for the partner who's in it is getting throttled as a way of trying to help the freaking out partner feel more secure and more okay.

Then of course, that new partner in this scenario is also probably not enjoying this very much and is probably going to feel resentment towards that established partner who's freaking out if that freak out is throttling this new relationship that they're probably also really enjoying.

What can you do instead of going down into this spiral? First of all, I would, again, going back to something I said earlier, I would check that polyamory is not something that you are doing as a misery stabilizer. If what's actually happening is that the partner who is dating someone new is really just really, really unhappy in the established relationship, then all of this freakout is understandable, and it might be a sign that the relationship really radically needs to change to honor the reality of it being unhappy.

If you are that person in the established relationship who's dating someone new and what you're really seeing is, "I am awake now to the reality that I'm just really unhappy in this established relationship," then the more you try to actually fix your established partner's feelings, probably the more they're going to feel freaked out and scared and insecure because probably you're both going to, on a subconscious level, know that you are plugging holes in a sinking ship. It's painful to be with reality when reality is that, but it is the most kind thing to do, I think, to be clear and then to figure out where to go from there.

Now in that scenario also, I would probably slow down with the new partner because I do think endings of relationships are really important. If that established relationship needs to go through a substantial transition and this new relationship is just waking you up to that, then I might slow down with that new relationship and just say, "Hey, I'm realizing that my established relationship needs to go through a transition and I didn't know that and now I'm seeing it and I really want to transition this established relationship well."

Then if you are on the receiving end of that, if you are the established partner whose partner is now realizing that they need to transition with you, gosh, I just want to say that's hard. I also would invite you to do your best to accept reality and not go into blaming this new partner for that. This is a thing that can happen sometimes. Sometimes a new relationship can wake you up to a reality that you either didn't want to see or weren't able to see, but now that you're able to see it, that's it. It is a catalyst for a transition.

That doesn't mean that that new partner is a cowgirl or a cowboy or someone who's a homewrecker or whatever. It might just be that they were part of shining a light on something that needed to be seen. If you really actually love your partner, then you want them to be happy, even if it's not with you. Then the thing to do is to lovingly figure out how to disentangle, how to separate. That can be done without it being a spiraling explosion. That would be the first thing to look at, is this actually a sign that we need to transition, that we are stably miserable and I don't want to be miserable anymore and we need to change?

Again, that's not everybody's scenario. Sometimes the scenario is, "I am really happy in this relationship with you. I treasure it. I value it. It's not meeting every need that I have, and I want to be in this other relationship too that is meeting those needs, but I want you to still feel important to me." Then if you are that partner who is in that new relationship, it is essential, I think, that you hold your partner, that you have an established relationship with, in deep compassion, and also that you work really hard with your boundaries.

I've done a bunch of episodes on boundaries. I'm going to be teaching a boundaries deep dive later in February. If you need to gain some tools around boundaries, there are also some really great boundary books out there. I really recommend Setting Boundaries That Stick by Juliane Taylor Shore because you're going to need to be able to hold that all of the joy that you are getting out of this new relationship is allowed to be there and that you don't have to feel guilty about it just because your partner is having a hard time.

You can also hold with loving acceptance that they are having a hard time. That's about them and it's not about you and so you can provide care and support and reassurance and put in the work to making sure that you're not throttling or downplaying the new relationship that you're in. I don't recommend that because your partner will be able to tell that you're doing it and they will not feel more secure on the other side of it.

It is important to be honest about what's happening in the new relationship, but then also be honest about how much you treasure and appreciate your person and also hold space for their fears without trying to fix. Then when you can't hold space without trying to fix. There would be times when my husband would voice his feelings to me and I would say, "Look, I understand that you feel this way and it totally makes sense that you feel this way. I can't be the one to receive these feelings right now because it's just more than I can hold alongside what I'm going through." I'll get to that when I get to what you can do if you're in that place where you're freaking out.

For the person who is in that new relationship, it is okay to say, "Hey, I can't be the only recipient of your feelings. I can't be the only person that you're talking about this to. I can't be your sole source of support. Sometimes I can't just receive the raw pain that you're in lovingly. I may not always have the spoons for that." Then really just trust and time are your friends because at the end of the day when somebody is freaking out--

I've said this in the episode that I did about there's nothing to fear. If your partner is freaking out, they're usually freaking out about something that hasn't actually happened yet, but that they're worried will happen. It's like being afraid of monsters in the closet. The only way that you're going to totally prove that there are no monsters in the closet is looking in the closet every time. There's never any monsters there. After 20 times of looking in the closet and not seeing any monsters there, you might accept that there are in fact no monsters there.

Same thing with this. The fear is they're going to be left, that they're going to be unimportant. Again, if what's true is you've discovered a real deal breaker in all of your relationships and you're realizing you're actually fundamentally unhappy in this established relationship, that fear is actually valid. If it's not, if you know that you are in it to win it with this person and you love them and you want to be with them, then the only thing that's going to really prove that is time and hanging with them when they're struggling. When you are in that freakout place, you can just feel so unattractive there. It can feel so vulnerable. You can feel so needy and pathetic and it's so hard. Sometimes that can bring out a lot of other feelings like meta feelings about the feelings.

If you're able to hang with all of that and be like, "Look, babe, I understand. You're allowed to freak out and I still love you and I understand that you're scared and I'm here. I'm not always going to be here for every single feeling you have and I'm not going to not be with this person to placate you, but I am here for you and I'm here for you through this and I'm hanging on." That, more than anything, is going to prove that their fears are not going to be realized. That's really the best that you can do. The rest of the work is up to them.

That's where now I'm going to turn to lovely person who is freaking out that their partner is in a new relationship and getting needs met by that person that you have not been able to meet. First of all, sweet one, I want you to hear it from me even if you're not hearing it from your partner right now. Of course, you're freaking out. It makes sense. We have been told in this world that if we are a romantic partner to our partner, that all of their happiness needs to come from us. If there is something that they need that we are not providing them, that we have failed them somehow.

Even if you've made your way out of that, even if you've made your way into the place where you accept all happiness does not have to come from me to my partner, and my partner is allowed to find happiness with other people, we still get the message that we are only valuable in so far as we are of value to others, and in particular, our partner. That if someone else more valuable comes along, again, it's that hierarchical power overthinking. It is this idea that if someone more valuable comes along, that immediately makes us less valuable. We all have to be ranked and therefore we are under threat.

Of course, what you may be wanting is for that person to just not exist. That new person that maybe even you're building up in your mind right now is way more perfect than you and has all these things that you don't have, yes, maybe you would just wish they didn't exist and you wish your partner didn't want to see them, and et cetera. Instead, what I want to invite you to do is to first of all turn towards yourself and what do you find valuable about you?

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Libby: What do you love about you? If you're struggling with that, that is probably the first place to start, is to really do some inner work on what you love about yourself, what you find valuable about yourself, what you bring to the world. Not just what you bring to this particular person, but what do you bring to the table in general, in the world for yourself, for anybody who has the joy of interacting with you on a daily basis?

Again, if you're coming up short, maybe there are some things you want to do to improve who you are so that you are more satisfied with you. I think that's something that we often forget about, is that at the end of the day for me, when I want to do any kind of self-improvement, it's not to make other people happy with me. It's to make me happy with me. If you're not happy with you, then there may be some adjustments that you might want to make to be happier with you.

Now, I'm not going to gaslight you and tell you that we live in this vacuum where as long as you're happy with you, then everyone else will be because that's not true. At the same time, this partner that you're with seems to still want to be with you even though they're with someone else who's meeting a need that you can't meet. Maybe what you need to do is sit down and plot out for yourself, "Well, what do I bring to the table with this particular person?"

If you need some guidance around that, I did an episode called Where Is This Going? which you might want to check out, which has different ways that you are able to define what is the relationship that I really have with this person and why is it special. Why is it magic? Why is it worth whatever I have to offer them, even if I'm not able to offer them everything that they want?

Then I would ask myself, "Am I happy with that?" The things that they're happy about, the reasons they're willing to stay with me that they have told me, and if you're not sure, you can ask them, am I happy with that? Do I feel happy with what I'm giving them and do I feel happy about what we're creating together, or is there more I want to create with them? Again, I want to say a new relationship can be a catalyst for you to want to show up more with your partner. That is okay. That being said, your partner, you have to check with them and make sure that they want to create that with you too.

Let's say for instance sex has slacked off in your relationship but not with any kind of intention on your part. Then your partner starts seeing someone new and they're having lots of sex and it wakes you up to the fact that like, "Oh, I actually really like having sex with this person. I would like to be having sex with them more too." Then I would check with your partner, "Hey, I've noticed you've been having a lot of sex with this new person. What I've realized is that I really like that too and I'd like to see if we could do that more."

Now, you do have to pause with yourself and ask, "Am I just wanting that because I'm afraid that my partner is too happy with this new person and I'm in more of a competitive mindset." I would watch out for that one. I generally don't think people want to want people to have sex with them in a place of competition. Maybe in a kinky fun way that could be cool, but in general, I think people want to be desired because they're not desired as a way of placating insecurity.

Really ask yourself, "Is this something that I want to do because I want to do it?" That would be for anything that you're noticing, "Oh, this person is getting this need met over here. I actually want to see if I can meet it too." They might be thrilled to take you up on that. What they might not be thrilled at doing is helping you get there. Again, that's understandable if they've tried in the past and you haven't been either receptive or willing or able.

I'll pop in here again and say to the partner who's seeing someone new, if your partner comes in and says something like this, like, "Hey, I know I haven't come through for you in these ways before and now that I'm seeing how happy it makes you, I really want to try too, but I might need your help." If you really want it from them, you might actually have to help them some, but I can understand if you've already done a lot of the helping already, you've already tried. It might be frustrating and irritating to have to try again. Yet, as I say in the episode I did called This May Be A Bitter Pill, if it is something that you want with your established partner, it's actually in your interest to help them.

What does this look like? Another thing for me that I really like that's one of my love languages is planning time with me. I've often been the planner and the initiator in probably 95% of the relationships that I've been in. It got to the point with one of my partners where I was just busy a lot and they were complaining that they weren't getting enough time with me. I was just like, "Well, okay. I've been historically the one chasing you down for time. Why don't you try chasing me down for time?" That doesn't magically make the other person have the skill of planning that I have so it's really not fair. It's important to be willing to help them out a little bit.

Do I think you need to bend over backwards? No. I think that you need to make it clear that if they really want to show up for you, part of that is them showing up for you through effort, but then you've got to actually give them time to build the skill because these are skills. They're not built overnight.

The last thing I'll say for this person who is, again, on the freakout side of things is that if you need actual help, actual care, actual accommodations, actual agreements with your partner to help you out, I think it's okay to ask for things as long as they're not things that are throttling the new relationship. Again, it's not about, "I need you to fix my feelings by not going and being happy." That is controlling and harmful. If it's, "I need some care from my tender nervous system that is freaking out while you're going off on a date with someone. Here are the things that I could use that would just help me," that's different.

I'll just give you an example. Because my husband was so freaked out about my new partner, he really needed space from that new partner and from the interactions that we were having with each other, which was not what I wanted and not what he wanted. We are not like, I don't like using the word kitchen table poly because that sounds like it's a one-size-fits-all kind of thing.

Really just I like a lot of interconnectedness between all of my people, whether it's friends, whether it's family, whether it's partners, what have you. My husband is the same, but he really needed a lot of space from my new partner and definitely didn't want to be in the house if we were having sexy times with each other. It would make him incredibly anxious. He just really struggled with it.

We made an agreement that if I was having sexy time with my newer partner at our house, that he would be able to have arrangements to not be there. Eventually, we made agreements where if I was having sexy time at our house and my husband was there, that I would let him know when we were going to sleep because he was really freaked out about leaving the other bedroom and accidentally hearing things because he really didn't want to hear things. That's an example of an agreement that it's not about throttling the other relationship, it's just about showing care to the existing relationship.

For some people I know who are listening to this, they're like, "Wait, you've had sex with your new partner in the same house as your existing partner?" We'd already done that. That was stuff that had already happened with other relationships and so it was already an established thing. This was actually a change for him to not be there and it was actually a change for me needing to follow up when it was time for us to go to sleep and letting him know. It's just an example. Obviously, your examples may be different.

I just want to say, because some people get really bent out of shape about any kind of adjustment being made on the side of a new relationship to accommodate an established relationship or vice versa. I just think from an ecological standpoint, all of these relationships impact each other and we do need to be willing to show consideration and care for what people might be going through. If we're being super rigid about it, I don't think it honors the reality of the situations that people can find themselves in.

At the end of the day, if you're freaking out about your partner's new partner because they are getting needs met with that new partner that you're not meeting or haven't been meeting, that is a lot of inner work for you to do. I also think you deserve care and compassion while you are doing it, and you deserve to have things that are going to help support your nervous system and support feeling secure in your established relationship.

Now, in order to do all of this, I think you need a whole bag of tools that we often don't get. Like I said, you need boundary practice. You need practice holding space. You need practice with compassion. You need practice asking for things that you need from a vulnerable place rather than from a place of control. A lot of this is woven into different aspects of the work that I do. I've referenced a whole bunch of episodes in this episode that I will link in the show notes, but this is also what I teach in my Foundations of Open Relating course.

Not to just straight up plug it here, but I guess I'm straight up plugging it here, I just started the new cohort about a week ago and I don't have another cohort opening until June right now, but I might be opening one earlier if I have enough interest.

Either way, there's a whole set of tools that can really help this kind of scenario go smoothly. I do want to say, even though it can most commonly happen when a established monogamous relationship is opening up into a polyamory or non-monogamy for the first time, this kind of scenario can also happen with established polyamorous dynamics where a new relationship comes in and is meeting a need that an established relationship hasn't been meeting.

I don't think anybody's necessarily immune to this. My husband and I had been practicing polyamory for a while when this thing happened for us. To recap, the things that you need are, first of all, again, make sure that this isn't actually a moment where you're seeing that this relationship just doesn't work anymore and it's not satisfying, and if it is the sign that is actually ready to transition, then please don't try to make it feel better, just lovingly be with reality and transition.

If it is not a sign that the relationship needs to transition, then if you are in that position of being in the new expansive, exciting relationship, be compassionate, be caring, be willing to make accommodations that are in your integrity and are in the integrity of the new relationship. If you have resentment work to do, or you realize that you have something that's a deal breaker that you really need to push for in your established relationship, then do that work, but hold your boundaries. Don't downplay the new relationship to make the established relationship feel better.

If you are the partner who's freaking out, again, doing some self-worth work, figuring out how you bring value to you. Then, work on building more security with your established partner if you need it. Also then just time. I just want to remind you that time sometimes is something that heals things, that makes things better, that calms fears. Sometimes we're afraid something is going to happen because it's happened to us before and we just need the actual proof that it's not going to happen again. It's the only thing that is going to prove it to us is just that it doesn't actually happen.

Be willing to be patient and kind while you're making your way along the journey and be willing to hold each other close along the way.