498 - Is it possible to limit the expansion of our feelings for others? Listener Q&A
Today’s questions
For today’s Q&A episode, the questions posed by our listeners that we’re discussing are:
“Hi! I have recently gotten into my first relationship ever and my partner is poly. All my friends are telling me that it's a bad idea and I should try being in a "normal" (monogamous) relationship 1st. Although I'm nervous I really connect with having the freedom of connection, I haven't tried it yet and think that this is a great idea/learning experience and am willing to put in the work to deconstruct mono conditioning.
p.s Love your podcast thank you so much for doing what you do!!!!
–worry wombat”
“I'm not really new to polyamory, but I've never experienced a partner falling for someone new while we're together. I'm nervous about the honeymoon phase or "NRE" destabilizing me. I think that seeing my partner so amorous and horny for someone else and not getting that same degree of attention will be one of my biggest polyam challenges.
– Hesitant Honey”
“My partner and I opened up last year our previously monogamous relationship of 7 years. We decided to go very slow and explore how far we want to take it. So we basically agreed on romantic exclusivity allowing for a couple of dates a month with people outside of our area, and to compromise on stepping back if our feelings kept on growing. So far it’s been great! But it’s also been easy because the people we’ve met live very far and other circumstances. I’ve been questioning if it is realistic to think that it is possible to set boundaries on one’s feelings or even fair for the third person. I’d love to hear your thoughts on that, specially from Emily as she has practiced various types of non monogamous relationships from what I gathered. Thank you so much!
–Baby poly in Barcelona”
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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 back answering questions from you, our lovely listeners. Today, we're going to be discussing some first polyamorous relationships, handling your partner's new relationship energy, and if it's possible to limit how much you feel emotionally for another person. All great questions. Thank you to everybody who sent those in.
If you're interested in learning more about our fundamental communication tools that we reference on this show all the time, you can check out our book Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships which covers our most used communication tools for all types of relationships. You can find links to buy that at multiamory.com/book or wherever you like to get books, it'll be there, and if not, tell that store owner that they should carry it and then you can buy it.
Dedeker: A quick disclaimer before we dive in today, we've spent a lot of time studying, reading, writing, thinking, talking about healthy relationship communication, but we're not perfect, we're not experts, and we're not mind readers. Our advice is based solely on the limited information that we have. Please take it with a grain of salt. Everybody's situation is unique and of course, we encourage you to use your own judgment, seek professional help, if needed, and you should know that these questions have been edited for time and clarity.
Emily: Let's jump into the very first question of the day. This question says, should/can your first relationship be poly? The context is, "Hi, I have recently gotten into my first relationship ever and my partner is poly. All my friends are telling me that it's a bad idea and I should try being in a "normal" monogamous relationship first. Although I'm nervous, I really connect with having the freedom of connection. I haven't tried it yet and I think that this is a great idea/learning experience, and I'm willing to put in the work to deconstruct mono conditioning. P.S., love your podcast. Thank you so much for doing what you do." Signed Worry Wombat.
Dedeker: Oh, Worry Wombat.
Jase: Oh, I just want to touch you.
Dedeker: I know. I want to touch your little cheeks, clean away your square-shaped poop. That's Wombats, right?
Jase: Do they have square poop?
Dedeker: They have square poop, yes.
Jase: Weird. Is it because they have a trash compactor inside them and they're actually robots?
Dedeker: You're partially right.
Emily: That's what we're actually learning today, everyone. Amazing.
Dedeker: They poop little cube-shaped poops and I think the theory is that they're a very territorial species. They use their feces to mark their territory and they live in very rocky areas. The idea that if you have a square-shaped poop, it's not going to roll down the hill.
Jase: It's not going to roll .
Emily: That's an evolutionary advantage to have square poop.
Dedeker: Apparently.
Jase: Gosh.
Emily: Wow, you learn something new every day.
Dedeker: Anyway, Worry Wombat--
Jase: I should have covered this in our Animal Queendom episode.
Emily: Yes, for sure.
Jase: What's the deal with the Wombats?
Dedeker: Also, worry Wombat, clearly, we have some questions for you about your pooping habits and your territory protection habits.
Emily: There you go. specific ways.
Jase: Maybe the territory protection is relevant to the question, I suppose. Boy, what a question? Your first relationship ever, I'm assuming just meaning like first romantic and probably sexual relationship ever, and it's with a person who's polyamorous already. Interesting about getting this advice from friends and family saying, actually, or I guess friends, not family-- All my friends are telling me it's a bad idea and I should try being in a normal relationship first.
Emily: I'm just trying to think back to my first relationship when I was in high school. I was 14 and I was dating somebody who was a little bit older than I was and thinking about what if I had the opportunity to date other people? Because I remember in the middle of that relationship, when we had been together for like a year or so, and I still really liked him, but I also had a crush on the person I was doing a play with and we ended up kissing in the play. We weren't supposed to but we did on closing night.
Jase: Oh, my.
Emily: He got really mad about it. I just wanted to kiss him and so I did. I wonder if I had been in a polyamorous relationship and that was totally cool, what would my life have been like? Because clearly you still have a lot of ingrained societal norms about monogamy and about the way that relationships "should be," but if you start out with this being what you know in terms of your experience, you'd be just an expert by the time you reach our age.
Dedeker: Maybe. I don't know. Starting early with monogamy, doesn't make you an expert at monogamy.
Jase: That's true.
Emily: That's true. That's very true.
Dedeker: I do think there is something to be said. I think the point you're trying to make being that yes, maybe you develop certain skills sooner, maybe you unlearn things a little faster, learn new things a little bit faster. I have a very similar what-if when I think about my younger years because my very first relationship, probably two or three months in, I also developed a crush on somebody else and he also had a crush on me.
Then he kissed me in a movie theater and then I was like, "Oh, no, I have feelings for both these people. I have literally no models for what to do in this situation. I must be horrible and wrong," because I thought that I was into my boyfriend that I thought that I was with but now there's this other person. It was very, very confusing. I think that if it had been presented to me as an option, I probably would have tried to pursue it. Would I have pursued it? Well, I don't know, but I would have taken that bait of the trap.
Emily: You would have had the opportunity too. It's a trap but I love that. I love that for both of us just this ideal like, what if we had that opportunity?
Jase: I want to come back to this advice from the friends that you should try being in a "normal" monogamous relationship first. I think that I'm just going to come down on a side here. I'm not even going to play our little middle ground and I'm just going to say, I disagree. I don't think that there is any inherent value in doing monogamy first. In fact, I might even say the opposite, that I think that if you're going to do monogamy, you should try not doing it first, in my ideal world.
I feel like monogamy is, in a way, stricter, more intense choice. That's the one you should really go into with your eyes open versus non-monogamy. Now, all that said, I do think that the heart of what they might be getting at is-- I'm assuming they're coming from a place of not really understanding anything about polyamory, and to them, that seems difficult, it seems hard, it seems scary.
What I feel like they might be getting at is this sense of, if it's your first relationship, you don't have a lot of other examples of what feels good, what's bad, what's being treated well, what's not being treated well. That's not to say that being in relationships always gives you the best examples of that, but at least it gives you a variety of things in your life to compare it to. I think that's one of the reasons why very often people's first relationships can be very intense and emotional because everything is the most whatever that you've ever experienced, where it's like, "Oh, this is the most in love I've ever been." This is the most--
Dedeker: These two overlapping relationships also took place when the first Lord of the Rings movie was dropping in theaters, and it was such an intense time because that was the show we were watching, was when I went to see it for the third time, was when this other guy kissed me in the movie theater right -
Emily: You sought fellowships?
Dedeker: -Sam were heading off into Mordor.
Emily: That's erotic too.
Jase: I know. Seriously, real love is in the air moments for sure. To be serious, though, it's like everything is the most intense relationship you've ever experienced because it literally is because there's no other frame of reference. This is the first one. Now, that, I think, is not entirely true because as we've talked about on this show, relationships are relationships, and that we don't need to put relationships that are romantic and sexual in this totally isolated bubble where they are somehow different inherently from everything else, but that said, they still are very intense relationships often.
I think that a concern about, like if I were your friend, and I didn't know much about non-monogamy, and I said this, it'd probably be coming from a place of, I don't want you to be treated badly or to be taken advantage of because you don't know how this is supposed to go, so you're just going to take whatever they say for granted. I'm also coming from the place of assuming that your friends also are not familiar with polyamory or non-monogamy. In their mind, it's like, oh, is it because this person wants to cheat? Is it just that they don't want to commit to you? Coming in with some of those fears makes sense.
Maybe I'm projecting stuff onto your friends that isn't true, but at least that's what's coming up for me, is it's coming from a place of, I just don't want you to be treated badly and not know it because you don't have a frame of reference. I don't think a monogamous relationship is going to fix that necessarily.
Dedeker: I was going to say, the same thing could happen in a monogamous relationship because they're still learning. I think that this person is saying, I think this is a great learning experience. I'm like, "Yes, either way, whether it's wonderful or full of heartbreak, it will be a learning experience."
Jase: For sure.
Emily: I will say, I'm making an assumption here, but I'm assuming y'all are young people, and young people aren't always the--
Dedeker: Maybe not.
Emily: Maybe not, but f you are, I know for myself, I wasn't very good at relationships as a young person. I'd argue I'm still learning to be good at relationships now. As a young person, I mean, yes, all you really know is the models that you've grown up with. You know your parents, perhaps. You know your friends' parents, and you know your models in terms of the movies that you've watched and the media that you've consumed, and that's about it.
When you're trying to do a relationship yourself, you're trying to take little bits of all of those models. That can leave you with a lot of bullshit, unfortunately. Some of it's not always going to be great. You try to wade through that. Quite frankly, even if your partner is non-monogamous or polyamorous, they may not have great models either, and they may not necessarily be doing it in the most ethical way either. Maybe they're freaking rock stars at it at like 18. I don't know. Good for them. Just know that there's always a lot to learn.
Do your own learning on the side without necessarily just going to your partner to figure out how to best be in this type of relationship. If you can, read the books, listen to the podcast, try to do what you can of your own work as opposed to making somebody else do that work for you.
Jase: Also, you can come in with some of your own opinions and your own ideas too, and see how they go. It might be like, "Actually, that's not what I wanted." Coming in where you are an equal co-creator of the way your relationship goes, I think is really important no matter what type of relationship you're in.
Dedeker: I think it's fascinating. I'm really eager to see any data, either official data that comes out of studies and surveys or just anecdotal data that comes out of younger generations maturing into adulthood in a world where maybe there's a little bit more discourse around non-monogamy or maybe more people are exposed to it earlier as a possible option. I don't know, to see how that turns out. I'm hopeful and optimistic and positive about that, but I'm sure it's going to come with its own set of challenges. Yes, I do believe that children are our future.
Emily: Yes. They will lead the way. Yes. I'm right there with you, Dedeker because I was just sitting here thinking, this generation Alpha or whatever is after them, they may truly be the first generation where they feel like they have a choice in what type of relationships they're going to be entering into. How freaking awesome is that? That's so cool. That's something that the three of us didn't get. Had we, I'd really wonder what we would have chosen, and I wonder where we would be now. It's really cool to know that the kids of today maybe are going to become the leaders of tomorrow with this knowledge in them.
Jase: Wow, so deep. I love it.
Emily: No, I love it, too. I'm excited for them.
Jase: I feel like I do want to share that we've got a little bit of an inside joke, Dedeker and I, about that song, I believe the children are our future.
Emily: I'm not surprised.
Jase: Where Dedeker is like, it's not a belief, it's the literal truth. There's no stretch to believe that. It's not like, "Oh, I happen to believe." It's like, no, that's just a fact. That is it.
Emily: Fine.
Jase: No. I always just try to really convey that it's a belief of mine. I have this deeply held belief. I know not everyone agrees, but I believe the children are our future.
Emily: Good.
Dedeker: Well, I believe that Wombats are our future and that square poop is our future.
Jase: Yes. We should get working on that.
Dedeker: We should. Worry Wombat, I hope we didn't infantilize you too much.
Jase: Right. Goodness.
Dedeker: We fully respect you, whether you're a baby Wombat, an adolescent Wombat, a young adult Wombat, an adult Wombat, or an aged Sagely Wombat. Either way.
Jase: Sagely Wombat is another good sign-off for--
Dedeker: That's a good one. That's a good Discord handle, Sagely wombat.
Jase: Yes. Hold on. Let me go change mine real quick. Seriously, thank you. This is an awesome question. It seems like all of us wish we could go back and give that a try and have our first relationship be polyamorous and see how we would be different that way. I would just say your friends are worried about you and want to be sure you don't get hurt, but I don't think their advice of being in a monogamous relationship first is going to fix that.
Emily: Sometimes you just got to take the plunge. Jace, were you totally monogamous in your first relationship?
Jase: I'm like, what even counts as the first? I just don't even know.
Dedeker: I feel like people have been falling all over you since you were very young.
Jase: Interesting. It's an interesting perception of me.
Dedeker: That's my perception of you, yes.
Emily: It's funny because he doesn't think that, I feel like, about himself.
Dedeker: Yes, because shared some stories, stories that I'm not going to repeat on this podcast of your-
Emily: Those glasses were really becoming, by the way.
Dedeker: -your desirability.
Jase: I had very big, very thick glasses. I had those. Anyway, yes, thinking back, I do feel like I became more fervently monogamous as I got older and was more indoctrinated into that's what you should want. I think there was always that assumption when I was younger, but I think it was especially during high school when I went harder back into the Christianity stuff that that's where that really, I don't know, calcified or whatever of really these ideas of what actual love looks like or how that should show up, things like that.
I don't know. I think just as a kid, I felt things very intensely. That made it, I would instead just do the serial monogamy thing of just going through different three to six-month-long relationships, but it's like, oh, so intense. Then it ends because, I don't know, start feeling intense about somebody else or because you feel less intense and whatever it is. Yes, I think a lot of that was at play in my younger years. Now it's time to go on to our next question.
Dedeker: Question number two. How do you handle your partner being in a honeymoon phase with someone else? I'm not really new to polyamory, but I've never experienced a partner falling for someone new while we're together. I'm nervous about the honeymoon phase or NRE destabilizing me. I think that seeing my partner so amorous and horny for someone else and not getting that same degree of attention will be one of my biggest polyam challenges, and that is sent in by Hesitant Honey.
Jase: Hesitant Honey. Yes, that is a tough one.
Dedeker: Sometimes I know for myself, I definitely feel a lot more stable in relationships where I've already experienced a partner going through NRE with someone else, and we got through it and they're still there. Then the relationship has settled versus any time I've been dating someone where I haven't had that experience with them because then it is this like, well, what's going to happen?
I know that for a lot of people, and for myself included, there's this catastrophizing part of the brain that can treat it like your loved one is a werewolf, and you're not sure when the next full moon is going to be. When it happens, you don't know what's going to happen. They're not going to be themselves. They're going to be unrecognizable, and it's going to be horrible, and maybe they're going to rip your face off.
Jase: Something worth noting there that you were talking about is the first time experiencing that with a particular partner, so that even if you had experienced this before with someone else, that doesn't necessarily mean that this partner's going to react in the same way. It's like, even if you had experienced this before, if it weren't with this partner, you would still need to go through this kind of first time of seeing what they're like in this circumstance. Right? Seeing, how they handle that. How does your communication get affected by it?
I guess what I'm trying to say is that a little bit of, I'll call it anticipation instead of nervousness where it’s just this like, okay, I want to find out. I'm a little nervous, but just I want to see what this is like. I want to understand how we can get through this. I guess just to understand that that's going to be unique to this relationship, to this particular person, and you get to be part of developing what that communication looks like and and seeing how that goes. It is often a big challenge
Emily: As a person who is currently going through this with my partner, but from the other end, I'm the one who's entering into a new partnership and having a lot of feelings of NRE, but also wanting to be very present with my established partner at the same time and give him reassurance because I know that it's very challenging. It's not only a new relationship for me, but a new non-monogamous paradigm for him, and so that's a lot of things at once.
I would say some of the advice that I've been giving him is to really lean into the internal things that give you joy, that allow you to emotionally regulate, that make you feel happy and secure, that are not just external factors in another person. I know that that can be really challenging because we're focusing on the other person here in this moment.
If you can first find some equilibrium within, in whatever way that is for you, if that's like, I'm going to go volunteer or I'm going to go work out, or I'm going to go take a yoga class or take a Spanish speaking class, or whatever it is, to try to make myself feel regulated without it needing to come from the other person's validation.
Then once you've gotten to that point, I think if you are able to come to the relationship and come to the person and say like, "Hey, I'm having a moment of challenge right now." This is a tangible thing that I need in this moment, or that I would like in this moment. Maybe just for some cuddles or for some intimate energy, some sex or something tangible as opposed to amorphous would be great. Then also knowing that some of the work is going to have to be done on your end. It can't just completely come from the other person.
Dedeker: I really like to recommend Martha Kauppi's tool that's in her book so people can go check out our interview with her that we did. We've done a couple interviews with her, but I'm specifically referencing episode three 340, Polyamory in Therapy with Martha Kauppi. She's a therapist and her book is full of fantastic tools for both therapists who work with non-monogamous people, and non-monogamous people themselves. She has this tool literally called, How I Plan to handle NRE.
I think it's a great tool for this situation where it sounds like the question asker, their partner isn't in NRE currently, it's just the specter of their partner being in NRE that sounds scary. Basically, Martha Kauppi's tool is a series of questions to help you create essentially, your own guidelines for how you're going to handle NRE. It includes things like, what are the relationships like? Not just the partners, but the friendships and the family members that are important in your life that you want to stay in touch with.
How do you plan on still maintaining those relationships? What are the values that you hold? How do you want your partner to feel about your relationship? How do you want your partner to feel about the fact that your relationship is polyamorous, right? I think it could be maybe a good exercise for both you and your partner to do individually and then come together and talk about what came out of that. Because I think it is good to at least have a conversation where you could acknowledge both, this is an anxiety and this is a known phenomenon that people get into NRE and their judgment is clouded. They make weird decisions.
That all falls on a spectrum from just giving a little bit more attention to another partner all the way up to completely blowing up their life for the sake of the partner that they're in NRE with. I think it can be helpful just to have that on the table. Just because you make a plan or your partner makes a plan, it doesn't mean that nothing will be uncomfortable or nothing will be challenging, but at least you've acknowledged it. It's not you just sitting there hoping that your partner will be good enough to you when they get an NRE, right?
Emily: Yes. It takes some agency .
Dedeker: Yes. The other piece of this is, I find it's really helpful for me. If I've had my own experiences of being an NRE with someone while also having an established relationship where I'm not an NRE because it gives me a touch point to knowing, even when I had that chemical cocktail firing in my brain and the amorousness and the horniness and the excitement about this relationship, I know that I still loved my existing partner or partners, right? I was still invested in the relationship, and for me, it's helpful to just have the reminder of, "Oh, I felt that way and it was okay. My partner can feel that way too, and it can be okay." Again, provided I'm feeling like my partner's still showing up in the relationship.
Jase: As you've been talking, I've been thinking about this and trying to think through my own times of handling a partner being in NRE. I feel like I want to go in a totally different direction with some advice for this. When I think about the times where I've been the most settled and the most calm and the least bothered by NRE that a partner would be feeling is it a time when I have something else other than relationships or sex on my mind that are fulfilling. That could just be, I've been really craving time alone, and so I'm excited, I get to be excited too, of like, cool, you've got an exciting thing to do. I get time to do a project or play a game or have a game night with my friends or something else.
Rather than it being about, Oh, I'm dating and you're dating and we're both experiencing NRE, which I've also been in that situation. Sometimes it can be more challenging because one of the challenges in NRE is that you've got all of these chemicals flooding your brain when you're with that person and then you're having withdrawal when you're not with that person. It can then make it harder if you're not always on your dates with these other people at the same time, which is unlikely to happen, that then you're in an extra down phase while they're experiencing their NRE. That can lead to some mixed feelings because both of you are a little bit on a rollercoaster of your feelings.
I might just throw it out there, if there's anything you can find for yourself where you're stoked about having some of your own time about being able to take some of your energy that you normally would put toward this relationship, and put it into something else during those times, and get some benefit out of that yourself, that's not just about trying to be equal or trying to do the same thing that they're doing. I found that for me, that's when I've been the most at ease and calm and settled. In fact, I would say to the point where I think in Dedeker's last couple people that she dated, I felt a little bit sad that I don't feel like she's experienced as much NRE in those relationships.
Dedeker: Oh.
Jase: I think one, because it was someone you'd known a long time, so it wasn't quite the same like, "Oh wow, we just met each other. We're just connecting." With the other one, I feel like you've held yourself back a little bit. I think that can just happen depending on the relationship too or sometimes that NRE is stronger than others.
Dedeker: Or maybe I'm just really, really good at making you feel so secure. So secure you didn't even know I was in NRE.
Emily: Damn. Look at that shade, damn. No, but I do think that's part of it that I just want to touch on that slightly because I feel I am trying to do that in this moment as well. There's a lot of internal NRE happening, but for myself also, in order to, as Dedeker says, keep your head in the clouds, put your feet on the ground, you have to temper that emotion to a degree. You have to be able to be like, no, I'm not going to let this get the best of me. I understand what it is that it's just a lot of chemicals and chemistry happening in my body, and that at the end of the day is all that it is. It feels great and it's awesome, but it also is just that, and I can't let it get the best of me.
I think that that knowledge will help a partner. I do want to say, this person is talking about something that hasn't happened yet, and so be honest with your partner about that fear and come up with a solution together if you can, and come up with a way in which to figure out like, Hey, I'm worried about this. What can we do on a weekly basis, for instance, to help us come back together and feel secure within this relationship and come up with a plan, like Dedeker said. I think that's a great way to just head it off a little bit. Head off the fear and make it work for you instead.
Jase: And that you're approaching it as a team. That it isn't just, "Oh, I've got to find some way to deal with this regardless of how my partner behaves." It's like both of you need to show up and do your best that you can.
Question number three. Is it possible to limit the expansion of our feelings for others? Big one here. "My partner and I opened up last year, our previously monogamous relationship of seven years. We decided to go very slow and explore how far we want to take it. We basically agreed on romantic exclusivity, allowing for a couple of dates a month with people outside of our area and to compromise on stepping back if our feelings kept on growing.
So far, it's been great, but it's also been easy because the people we've met live very far, and other circumstances. I've been questioning if it's realistic to think that it is possible to set boundaries on one's feelings or even fair for the third person. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, especially from Emily as she has practiced various types of non-monogamous relationships from what I've gathered. Thank you so much." This is from Baby Polly in Barcelona.
Dedeker: Why does Emily get credit for the non-monogamy CV?
Emily: I don't know. Look at me go. She's getting back into it. That's why she's like a new card-carrying member again. She's a new woman, and also Barcelona, this is somebody from my land, so there we are.
Jase: That's her home country, yes sure.
Emily: She's from Spain. That's a fascinating question. I love it because I think that often, and I know that I've done this, in order to try to make a partner feel better about a situation, you may say to them like, Hey, this relationship or a relationship that I'm going to get into is just going to be a tertiary relationship or it's just going to be friends with benefits thing or something. It's really hard when you really connect with someone to realize, fuck, I want this person to be in my life in a really meaningful way. Then having to go back to a partner and say that to them can be extremely challenging because that's not what you first relayed to them.
Ideally, if you get into scenarios like this, I think it's good to expect the unexpected. Expect that you're going to not necessarily know how intense you're going to feel for a person. Sure, there are ways to limit it. You can limit your time with a person. You can limit the type of conversation you have with them. You can limit the amount of times that they spend the night. You can limit the fact that they maybe won't spend the night ever, or that you'll only have sex with them with a partner present. There are limits that you can put on the relationship, of course, but if it is a free, open, communicative thing, I think the sky is the limit.
Dedeker: I think the short answer to this is, no, it's not really possible to limit where our feelings go. Often when we try to, it backfires. I think of it like creating a garden.
Jase: Okay. All right.
Emily: We're just all about the metaphors today.
Dedeker: We are, yes.
Jase: Yes, I love it.
Dedeker: Sure. Can you create a garden where it is very difficult for a very particular type of plant to grow? Yes, you can. I think that's what Emily was speaking to with like, sure, you can limit your communication with somebody. You can limit how often you see them. You can limit how vulnerable you get with them. You can limit whether or not you even have sex or what types of sexual contact you have. You can choose to date people that you don't actually like that much or you're not actually that attracted to. You can create an environment that maybe is more hostile towards feelings growing or intensifying.
Sure, but plants evolve to grow and people also evolve to bond with each other and connect with each other. There is just a lot of force behind that. I think it's the kind of thing where I never want anyone to feel like you're just completely at the whim of Cupid's arrow and if you fall madly in love with someone, there's absolutely no way that you can control that. There's a seed of truth in that, but sure, yes, you could be making choices that maybe make it harder for feelings to develop, but not impossible.
Jase: I'm thinking a lot about the swinging community and the decades of community that's been built up around the idea of swinging, which a lot of what you're describing here fits that. It's often these particular limitations on the other partnerships, they're more like these little flings. There's certain limitations on developing feelings, stuff like that and--
Dedeker: Limitations on exchanging contact information.
Jase: Right. There's various ways people come up with how to put those limits on those things. I think that normally within the more polyamorous sphere, that's look down upon. That's seen as like, oh you're being bad to these other people that are involved and you're going to develop feelings and it's going to be bad. I think that that's just a reactionary way of looking at it. There are people who've been part of the swinger community for a very long time and have had a lot of happiness with it and a lot of success with it. I just want to first come in and say I don't think that necessarily approaching something like this is bad or unethical.
However, there are a lot of pitfalls to watch out for. Like what we've been talking about where feelings do develop. What I've found is that of swingers that I've talked to, especially ones who've been doing it for a while with the same partner, both of them are fairly experienced with it, generally, a theme I've noticed is that somewhat early on within the first few years of that, they do away with the, "We can't develop emotional connections with these people," and instead, they accept there is going to be a certain amount of, yes, these people become our friends, we become close with them.
There is a important emotional, personal connection with these people and that to try to limit that just makes things shitty for everyone. Then it's like throwing away the relationships that are the best ones and only keeping the not-so-great ones. I've seen a lot of swingers move away from that and a little more into what poly people would look at and go, "Ah, that's more like what we are talking about."
They may still mostly play together or they may still have certain aspects where it's like, "No, we want to communicate clearly. I'm not looking for another relationship similar to my primary one. I want something that is a little more flirty, friends with benefits-type relationship, but that can still be a relationship," since every relationship we have is a relationship. Whether it's one that we call romantic and call a relationship or not.
I guess just something I would throw out there is one, look into some of the resources from people that are knowledgeable in that community as well, where I think those sorts of restrictions are both more normal, but also, I feel like a lot of swingers now are talking about how they don't need to be as strict as once was preached. Then also to just realize feelings will happen.
Doing that in a way that's ethical to the other people involved is important. What I mean by that is, I will say, I don't think it's necessarily bad if you go into a relationship with someone saying, "Hey, my availability to you is limited. This is the amount of time and I'm not interested in changing that. This is the amount of time I have to offer you. This is the type of relationship I want." They have their own agency to then accept that or not.
It might not always go great. They might not always love it. There's always going to be disappointment and hurt in relationships. I don't think there's anything inherently like, oh you're doing a wrong, bad, evil thing by doing that. As long as you're clear about it and they in their own full agency say, "Yes, I want to do that with you." I've been on that receiving end of things and it's been great sometimes. Then sometimes it's like, no, that's really not what I wanted. That doesn't always work out, but that's okay, because not all relationships work out.
I guess what I'm trying to throw out there is that while that's true, understand that feelings are going to happen in some way or another, especially if you're dating good people, because you want to be friends with good people, you want to be around good people that you connect with. That's going to happen so I might revisit that specific part about the developing feelings, even if you want to keep some of the limitations about amount of time or where they live or things like that.
Emily: I just want to throw out there as things change and they really can be altered from your initial idea of what the relationship is going to look like and you can have all these intentions of yes, this is what I expect for the relationship and tell the person that, and tell your existing partner that and all of those things, and things can still change. We have to be flexible in these configurations. It's not going to be 100% the same all the time because we're people and we change all the time and our emotions are fickle and ever-changing and ever-moving.
I think there has to be a part of you that's going to be aware of that and going to be okay with that, and just know as difficult as that is, and as much as you want to keep people safe and yourself safe-- I mean, god, I want to keep myself safe through all this too, but I know that I don't know, and that has to be okay too, and you just go along for the ride and move it in the manner that you can as much as you can. Also know that at the end of the day it's going to be okay. You just have to do it with as much integrity as possible, and be true to yourself.
Dedeker: Well, thank you, Baby Polly in Barcelona. I appreciated that all these questions had a theme of people maybe somewhat new to this or exploring some of these topics. There's a lot of fundamental stuff and fundamental challenges that we have to take on when we're deciding to love a little bit differently. Thank you to everybody who submitted your questions for this episode.