502 - Help! My relationship is going TOO well! Listener Q&A
Welcome back to another Q&A episode!
The questions we’re tackling during this week’s episode are:
“I have two long-term partners- one of them is a nesting partner (Drew), and one of them is long distance (John). I've started to realize that I'm more sexually attracted to John. I do enjoy sex with Drew, but it's a lot less charged than the sex with John, and it's much harder for me to get turned on, initiate sex, or be in the mood. I know that's par for the course when it comes to long distance vs. nesting, but I also feel like John and I just have a sexual chemistry that Drew and I never did. Recently I've found myself imagining sex with John while I'm having sex with Drew. Or, I use my sexual excitement for John to get myself in the mood with Drew. I feel really guilty about this. And I know a lot of it comes from mononormative conditioning. I'm trying to remind myself that it's okay if both partners don't make me feel hot and heavy all the time. And I'm deeply in love with Drew for a billion reasons. But when it comes to sex and physical attraction, my mind goes straight to John. I have a deeper fear that I'm just not sexually attracted to Drew anymore and will have to come to terms with that. Do you guys think this is something to be concerned about? Is it shitty that I have one partner on my mind while having sex with the other?
-Anxiously Adrift in the Middle of the Atlantic”
“My partner and I (both she/her) are coming up on 3 years together. I am an avoidant person, by nature and by choice, but her and I have grown incredibly close.
Ever since I realized it's been almost 3 years, I've felt an impending sense of doom that is not substantiated by anything in reality. I feel that something terrible (possibly even a break-up) is going to happen, because the relationship seems too easy, too good to be true, and too good to be something I deserve.
I have communicated all of this to her, and she's reassured me, but there isn't much else she can do. We are each other's first serious relationship, so it is not a matter of past romantic baggage. Basically, there are no significant problems in my relationship, so I made one up in my own head. Do you have any insight, or do I just need to wait it out?
-In Inane Pain in Maine”
“How do I tell my partner I can’t do hierarchy anymore? Context: 5 years into Polyamory, I'm finding the hierarchical style is just not fitting who I see I am in this journey and I see the strife it's causing. I believe we have had conflicts that could be avoided if my partner changed his views on the practice.
For example, he wants to see his gf, but if he hasn't okayed it with me days in advance, then he thinks he's not putting our relationship first with me approving it, which is something I've never asked to do or want to do.
I think I'm already practicing it mostly already, but my NP won't let go and I see him stressing out about being everything to everyone. My NP doesn't do change well and likes a set of behaviors to be followed for him and others. When I have brought up a desire to reevaluate, he thinks it will mean too much change, even though I see his style causing angst in him and me. Any tips on how to open his view without triggering fears this new style means I love him less or he thinks I will think he loves me less?
-Supporting an overthinker in Toronto”
Visit multiamory.com/join if you want to join our community and have your question answered on a future episode!
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 for another listener Q&A episode. We're discussing three different questions that we've received from you, our beautiful, wonderful listeners. We're going to be discussing varying sexual attraction to different partners, if a relationship might be going too well, and how to tell a partner that you don't want to do hierarchy anymore. There's a lot of good ones coming up today. We're excited to talk about all of these. Also, if you are interested in learning about the communication tools that we reference on this show all the time, especially during these Q&A episodes, 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 it at multiamory.com/book or wherever books are sold.
Emily: Before we jump into all of this, we do have a quick disclaimer that we have spent a lot of time, 10 years worth of time, studying healthy relationship communication, but we're not mind readers. Our advice is based solely on the limited information that we have from the question asker. Please take everything that we say with a grain of salt.
Dedeker: Everybody's situation is unique. We encourage you to use your own judgment, seek professional help if needed. You're the one who decides whether or not our advice is applicable to you or not because ultimately, you are the only true expert on your life, your feelings, and your decisions. These questions have been edited for time and clarity.
Jase: With that, Question Number 1. "I'm finding myself to be more sexually attracted to one of my partners than the other and feeling guilty about it. Is this something I should be concerned about?" Here's the context. "I have two long-term partners. One of them is a nesting partner who we'll call Drew. One of them is long distance who we'll call John. I've started to realize that I'm more sexually attracted to John. I do enjoy sex with Drew, but it's a lot less charged than the sex with John, and it's much harder for me to get turned on, initiate sex, or be in the mood.
I know that's par for the course when it comes to long-distance versus nesting, but I also feel that John and I just have a sexual chemistry that Drew and I never did. Recently, I found myself imagining sex with John while I'm having sex with Drew, or I use my sexual excitement for John to get myself in the mood with Drew. I feel really guilty about this, and I know a lot of it comes from mono-normative conditioning. I'm trying to remind myself that it's okay if both partners don't make me feel hot and heavy all the time. I'm deeply in love with Drew for a billion reasons, but when it comes to sex and physical attraction, my mind goes straight to John.
I have a deeper fear that I'm just not sexually attracted to Drew anymore, and we'll have to come to terms with that. Do you guys think that this is something to be concerned about? Is it shitty that I have one partner on my mind while having sex with the other?" This is from Anxiously Adrift in the Middle of the Atlantic.
Dedeker: Do they live in Malta?
Emily: Do they live on a boat?
Jase: I'm assuming a boat. A raft is actually what I pictured.
Emily: Cool.
Dedeker: Okay. Just a raft. Oh God, no wonder your sex drive would be out of whack. Mine was.
Jase: A stressful situation, yes.
Dedeker: Really stressful situation, yes. I want to zoom out and separate from this question asker's question. I want to hear from the two of you, your thoughts on thinking about somebody else while you're in bed with someone who is not that person that you are thinking about.
Jase: Right.
Emily: It's happened for sure. It's definitely happened, or even, I think if you're thinking about a pornographic scene that you watched, or a celebrity, or an act, or something to get you in the mood a little bit more. I do think that probably plenty of us out there, myself included, have done all of the above. From that standpoint, is it bad? I don't know.
Dedeker: How do you feel being on the receiving end if you could read your partner's mind?
Emily: Knowing that that probably has happened. That's a great question.
Dedeker: How would you feel?
Emily: I think I would try to do the Dedeker Winston of, "What are you longing for here?"
Dedeker: Is that the Dedeker Winston?
Emily: Yes. I say this all the time to a lot of people.
Jase: There's a lot of the Dedeker Winstons.
Dedeker: Hold on. You would ask your partner whose mind you are reading and seeing all the various things that are not you that they're thinking about during sex, and then you would ask them, "What are you longing for?"
Emily: "What are you longing for?" Clearly, it might be those things. That's fine. It might not be me, but it might also be a deeper, "I'm longing for trying to reclaim some of the excitement that I felt in the initial stages of this relationship, and it's difficult for me to do so without putting my mind somewhere else." That is something that I've had to reconcile or come to terms with, but maybe it would start a collaborative conversation about how are some of the ways that we can reclaim that excitement because it was there once.
Clearly, a lot of chemicals and a lot of other things were happening to cause that to be the case, but if there's any way in which a person can really speak about what it is that they want and need in a relationship and in a sexual relationship specifically, then I think that, yes, just being able to have the courage to have those kinds of discussions is huge. Yes, "What are you longing for?"
Jase: I see.
Emily: Not just the sexual act, but what is it actually at the core of the need?
Dedeker: What about you, Jase?
Jase: This is something that I do feel like my thinking about it changed a little bit from back when I was monogamous to being non-monogamous. I think more the one that came up is there's that cliché of accidentally saying the wrong name while having sex.
Emily: I feel like I've done that too.
Dedeker: Oh, man.
Jase: That's this big faux pas. I found for myself in being non-monogamous, that suddenly, I had much more understanding for that and was much less concerned about it. It's like, okay, yes, that just happens. There's neural pathways and habits and whatever. When it comes to thinking about someone else, I guess where my mind goes is that, whether that is some other real person like your other partner, or whether it's a fictional scene from pornography or some celebrity or something that you're into, in all of those cases, I think the main problem I would have with it is it means that you're not actually present right here.
The same for myself, if my mind were wandering to those things. Sure, your mind will sometimes wander during that, but I'm usually like, if I notice that, I want to bring my focus back to the moment that I'm actually in and enjoying that. I guess I come at it nowadays from more of a mindfulness point of view, that I wouldn't want to just be off in my head somewhere rather than actually being focused on what I'm feeling and what I'm doing now. I do think Emily brought up an interesting point, though, about what are you looking for, what are you longing for?
Not even just what are you longing for by thinking about this other person because maybe it is just that other person, but more that sense of, okay, if I'm not feeling as excited or interested in this, is there something different that we could be doing? I've been thinking about this recently with work or creativity of, rather than thinking, maybe I don't like making my art anymore, if you're having a block, going, "Now, if we assume that I do still like being creative and making this art, what else could I change to reinvigorate that, make that feel different? Is it doing it somewhere else? Is it changing the way I'm approaching it?"
I feel like that could apply to sex as well, or your physical connection to each other because sex is a pretty broad thing. It doesn't always have to look like one particular activity, that maybe there is something of like, you know what? In this relationship, we find some other way of connecting and being physical, being intimate with each other, whether that's sexual or not, or maybe it's like we can find a kink that we're into together. That's what we do, or maybe in this relationship, we watch porn together. There's all sorts of things you could do to just see what else could fit here, I guess in the hope that it'd be able to bring a little more focus and presence and have it be its own unique special thing instead of just trying to be a less good version of the other person or what you could have with that other person.
Dedeker: Yes, this is tricky because this person does say that they know that it's par for the course when it comes to having a long-distance partner versus a nesting partner, that the way that your desire shows up is probably going to be different. There are so many experts and authors that have talked about-- Esther Perel talks about this idea of you need obstacles and you need distance to create that sense of eroticism. Of course, when you're nesting with somebody, you don't quite have that. Also, this person didn't mention the length of relationship with both these people, but usually, the way this plays out is that the nesting partner is the person you've been with longer, and so you're further away from that NRE period.
This person didn't mention if they're still in NRE with their long-distance partner, but if they are, that's of course going to affect the way that desire shows up. Let's say that we settle that to the side. Let's assume this person is out of NRE with the long-distance partner, and they're still just realizing, "I just think I feel like I have this better sexual chemistry and attraction to this partner versus this other one." First of all, I think that if this person were my client, the first question I would ask them would be, "Do you want to change that? Do you realize, Oh, I think it's easier for my desire to show up with this other person than it is for my nesting partner, and I don't feel motivated to change my sex life with my nesting partner?"
That's very different if you're feeling like, "I actually do want to change that. I want to have my desire show up in a particular way in my sex life with my nesting partner, or I want to capture some of that juiciness that I have over here and bring it home with me, essentially." I think that's very different.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: That's a good point, yes.
Dedeker: I think another clarifying question there is okay, so if you feel this discrepancy in your attraction and desire, is that causing problems in your sex life with your nesting partner or causing problems in the relationship? Maybe that's just how it is. Maybe there's just a difference here, and there are other things in your nesting partnership that you absolutely love, and it's just another classic case of, yes, you're non-monogamous. We date multiple people, and they bring different things to the table. Assuming that because this person wrote in with concerns about this, I would piggyback off of what Emily said about this is a great opportunity to open up the channel of communication between yourself and your nesting partner about your sex life and about what you like there and what you don't like there.
If you already have a check-in around this, or if you already have open channels of communication around this, that's going to be a lot easier than if you don't because even if you've been having sex with somebody for years, sometimes talking about it in the light of day can still be stressful. I do think this is a good opportunity to start to check in, and it can start with a self-check-in about what is about the sex that I have with this other partner that is very exciting to me? Is there a particular way that I feel? Is there a particular way that I feel seen?
This can go beyond just whatever sex acts happen between the two of you, but it does get to this emotional level of how you feel and how can I bring more of that feeling to my sex life over here with my nesting partner? There's a lot of resources for things like this. We interviewed Emily Nagoski on the show a while ago. Her newest book, Come Together, is fantastic for this, specifically about sex in a long-term nesting relationship. I do feel that underneath this is some of it is the acceptance of things being different and that that can be okay, provided there's not a negative impact on your relationships and not a negative impact on yourself. To circle back around, I do have some strong opinions for myself about what goes on in my mind or other people's minds during sex.
Emily: I'm interested to hear, yes.
Dedeker: Obviously, I cannot police what happens in other people's minds, unfortunately.
Emily: As much as you would like to.
Jase: Right. Top crime, yes.
Dedeker: I can police what happens in my own mind, which my code that I live by is I will not fantasize about someone else who is not the person that I'm having sex with because I'm like, "I get plenty of time to do that other times in my life." I can masturbate and think about whoever the heck I want to because that's just me time, but when I'm having sex with somebody, hopefully, I want to be having sex with that person. Now, I totally get fantasizing about scenarios or things like that, all the weird places and fantastic places your brain may go when you're aroused. I feel like the snippets of that for myself don't bother me too much, but I would be concerned for myself if the only way I could get through sex with a particular partner was to think about another partner the entire time.
Jase: Yes. I think that's what I was getting at with the mindfulness thing, that I don't like to feel like I'm not present here. The way that Dedeker put it, if it is I have to think about this other person to get through sex with this other one,-
Emily: That's tough.
Jase: -that's worth taking seriously. Not just tough, but that's like, okay, maybe take a step back and have a conversation about is sex still a part of this relationship. I do think it's important to look at that and see how can I be present here and now in this relationship. Maybe it means having sex less often or in a different way. I don't think it's wrong that your mind wanders to someone else, but it just doesn't feel like a nice, fun, sustainable way to have a relationship if I'm always gone to another place in my brain.
Emily: We've talked about this before in the show, but I do want to mention that if you want to infuse your sex life with more excitement or novelty, go to mojoupgrade.com and fill out that long questionnaire about kink and fantasy, and stuff like that, with your partner, and see if you two align in a way that potentially you didn't even know about before. I did this with a partner of mine really early on in the relationship, and it's great. It makes sex awesome because you know what the other person likes. You both can mutually decide, "Okay, yes, we're going to do these things together."
That's awesome, and then you have a long list of things to explore over the course of your relationship. I think so many of us just don't even go there in our relationships. We don't even want to talk about sex because it's assumed that if it's going to be good, then you'll just know how to do it, and that's it, as opposed to trying to figure out what is it that you're into, what is it that you want and like, and then how can I best explore that with you? That's really important, I think, to do early on in a relationship so that you can continue to thrive and to change and to grow.
Dedeker: The cool thing about Mojo Upgrade also when you fill it out is that if you and this other person mismatch on something, they won't show it to you. You can be honest without feeling like you're risking maybe sharing something about a kink that you're not sure the person is going to like, or things like that, which is why it's a super handy tool.
Jase: It's excellent.
Dedeker: I think, to really bring it back specifically to this person's situation if they really want to foster a good environment for sex with their nesting partner, sometimes it's good to make sure you scrub all the barnacles off your bed, and light some lanterns, and rig the sails, and make sure you open up the cask of rum and just enjoy your time in the Atlantic. Jase: Right, because we're in the Atlantic.
Emily: Oh, because we're in the ocean. Got it. Okay.
Jase: Okay. Good.
Dedeker: Okay, but really though, truly being with a nesting partner can feel like you are adrift on a boat in the Atlantic together, supporting each other through the hard times and then also sometimes driving each other crazy if you think that you can't get away from each other. Just be mindful of your position in the Atlantic together.
Jase: Definitely, yes.
Dedeker: That's all I have to say about that.
Emily: I love that. Now it's time for our next question. "My relationship is going too well. Is it doomed?" For some context, "My partner and I, both she/her, are coming up on three years together. I am an avoidant person by nature and by choice, but her and I have grown incredibly close. Ever since I realized it's been almost three years, I felt an impending sense of doom that is not substantiated by anything in reality. I feel that something terrible, possibly even a breakup, is going to happen because the relationship seems too easy, too good to be true, and too good to be something that I deserve.
I have communicated all this to her, and she's reassured me, but there isn't much else she can do. We're each other's first serious relationship, so it's not a matter of past romantic baggage. Basically, there are no significant problems in my relationship so I made one up in my own head. Do you have any insight, or do I just need to wait it out?" An Inane Pain in Maine. I love that.
Emily: Also really good.
Jase: Inane Pain in Maine. It's like a tongue twister.
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: It's like My Fair Lady.
Emily: Exactly.
Dedeker: It's the rain in Spain
Emily: Stays mainly on the plane.
Dedeker: Ooh, can I just say I am so good at this?
Jase: I was going to say this sounds like Dedeker wrote this question.
Dedeker: Yes.
Emily: Dedeker writes a lot of these questions it seems like.
Dedeker: I'm secretly writing all the questions.
Emily: Got it.
Dedeker: I label this catastrophe anxiety. Unlike the question asker, I have a number of things that I can point to in my past of acutely traumatic upsetting things that happened, and I mean both lowercase t trauma and uppercase T traumatic things that happened completely out of left field that I was completely not expecting or never thought that I would have to go through in my entire life. For me, some of that has meant a little bit of this hypervigilance that shows up sometimes even when things are going great. When life is good, relationships are solid, work is going well, there's still this sense of, oh, no, something could pull the rug out from underneath me.
Something absolutely horrific could happen. I feel what this person is feeling. For myself, for many, many years, I've turned to Buddhist thought as a means of coping with the suffering of life. In these situations, I found that Buddhist thought is not very helpful because if you're like, "Oh, no, I'm worried something really terrible is going to happen," I think the Buddhist perspective is like, "Yes, it could. It's all impermanent. You're right." It's not very comforting necessarily.
Jase: Yes. I think that with these sorts of things, there's this balance between, on the one hand, taking everything for granted and just assuming everything is always good, which lets you not really appreciate things, and then maybe something does happen, they go away. Then on the other extreme is this catastrophe anxiety of not letting yourself enjoy what's good. Not because you're taking it for granted but because you just can't let go of this idea that something must be about to go wrong. I think that trying to find the balance of those two things is hard.
I think Buddhism is great for the not taking stuff for granted because of that focus on, it's not permanent, everything is going to end in life, and so, be in the moment. Yes, if this is where you are, that's probably not the most helpful thing to think about. I do want to take just a moment to say that if you are finding that these thoughts and this anxiety are really truly pervasive, that is something that could be worth talking to a therapist about, looking at medication or therapy or supplements, or something like that. There could actually be something going on.
I'm of course, coming at this from someone who's fairly recently found that about myself, and that it has helped quite a bit to realize that there's actually a chemical imbalance that was going on for a very long time that led to some suffering that I probably didn't have to go through. I do want to throw that out there that if you're like, "No, this is really truly pervasive," that that's something worth looking into and could be really important. If we're assuming that's not the case, or even in addition to that, what are some things to look at and think about here besides just saying, "No, just enjoy it, don't worry about it."? What are some concrete ways that we could think about to let those fears go a little bit or not just assume there's a catastrophe coming?
Emily: The thing that this person said, "Basically, there's no significant problems in my relationship, so I made one up in my own head." That is something that, Jase, your and my acting teacher used to say all the time, that we just create our own problems. We create a problem for our brain to solve and that this happens all the time. If we feel as though something is going too well, or we feel like I haven't been in a fight for a while with my partner, does that mean that they don't really care about me in a specific way, or whatever the heck it is, our brain makes these problems that it needs to fix just because our brain needs something to do sometimes.
It's tough. I think all of those mindfulness practices, meditation, medication if needed, all of that is great. Just continuing to realize that what your partner is saying to you and the actions that they are doing every day, hopefully, can show that this is a relationship that matters to them, and you are an important person in their life, and they are that to you as well. That nothing is going to last forever, and so enjoy it while it is here. Hopefully, it will continue to stay in your life but try to live in the moment as much as you can, just because we never really know what's going to happen, and so enjoy it while it lasts.
Dedeker: I think that a good exercise, and I believe that this is a CBT exercise that's related to resiliency building, but you can sit down and you can journal about what's the worst case scenario here.
Jase: I was just going to say this one.
Dedeker: That impending sense of doom, what is it telling you? You can journal about it, you can write it out, and then you can also do some exploration of, how would I handle that situation, or how would we handle the situation together. I think that can be helpful as a reminder to be like, "Hey, we have three years under our belt, and these are all the strengths that I can see, and these are the ways that we communicate. These are the skills that we're going to use if we run into a particular roadblock." It's going to be helpful to have that on your mind because maybe you do run into a roadblock.
Maybe you do run into some kind of disagreement that lasts longer than what you're used to, or one or both of you get triggered, and the octane of particular fight gets higher than what you're used to, that there's going to be a part of your brain that's going to say, "Oh, this is it. This is the impending doom. Now it's all falling apart." That's not going to help you in that situation, but what is going to help you is finding a way to self-soothe and to ground into this reminder that it's okay, I've got the skills to work through this. We have the skills to work through this together.
Jase: Yes. I want to throw out one that's I think a little bit of an out-there approach, but something that might be helpful for you, which is the first part of it is intentionally setting aside a little bit of time every day for worrying. I know this sounds weird and counterintuitive.
Emily: Interesting.
Jase: I would recommend don't do this first thing in the morning or first thing before bed, but find some other time during the day. That's just my own personal recommendation. I've not heard that advice before, but just, I feel like those are special times. Sometimes during the day, give yourself whatever you think is right. 20, 30 minutes, maybe just 10 minutes, 5 minutes is enough, but just some time where this is when I'm going to worry. Then if any of these thoughts come up outside of that time, write them down. Make a note, write them down on a Post-it, or in a note on your phone, and be like, "I'll worry about that tomorrow during my next worry session."
You're training your brain to be like, "I'll have a time for this. I'm not ignoring it by not thinking about it right now, but I'm also not thinking about it right now," as an exercise to get yourself to become more aware of your thoughts and put them in a place where you can actually address them in a healthy way. During your worry session, that's when you could really think about, what would I do in that case. Or you could do that exercise like Dedeker said, of, imagine the absolute worst case happened. What would I do? How would I get through it? How would I survive that? Know you've got time set aside for that, so I don't need to worry about it during all the rest of my day. That's a little bit out there, but that might be helpful for you.
Emily: Love that. Thank you so much, an Inane Pain in Maine. We love your name. It's interesting because initially, when I read, "My relationship is going too well, is it doomed?" I figured that this was a new relationship because I do think that there's a lot of precarity in new relationships. You're not quite sure where it's going to go, but the fact that this is three years, time is on your side, I think. It's probably not going to just completely erupt immediately and go away. You probably will have time, even if something goes horribly wrong, to talk about it and to make adjustments, and not for this person to just completely bail. Know that they have set up a precedent of being there for you in your life and hopefully, that'll continue. Good luck.
Jase: I love the word precarity, by the way. I don't know if you just made that up.
Emily: Is that weird?
Jase: I looked it up and it's a real word. No, it's a real word.
Emily: Yes. Hell, yes.
Jase: I've never heard it before, and I love it. It's great.
Emily: I was like, "I don't think that I'm pulling that word out of my ass. I think it's real," and it is. Look at that.
Jase: Yes. I would've thought precariousness would be the best we had, but precarity is way better. I love it.
Dedeker: Here's our last question for the episode. "How do I tell my partner I can't do hierarchy anymore? Five years into polyamory, I'm finding the hierarchical style is just not fitting who I see I am in this journey and I see the strife it's causing. I believe we've had conflicts that could be avoided if my partner changed his views on the practice. For example, he wants to see his girlfriend, but if he hasn't okayed it with me days in advance, then he thinks he's not putting our relationship first, which is something I've never asked to do or want to do.
I think I'm already practicing non-hierarchy mostly already, but my nesting partner won't let go. I see him stressing out about being everything to everyone. My nesting partner doesn't do change well and likes a set of behaviors to be followed for him and others. When I've brought up a desire to re-evaluate, he thinks it will mean too much change, even though I see his style causing angst in him and me. Any tips on how to open his view without triggering fears that this means I love him less, or he thinks that I will think that he loves me less? Supporting an Overthinker in Toronto." Yes, overthinkers unite.
Emily: I was like, "Who's the overthinker here? Is it the guy? Is it you?" I don't know.
Dedeker: I'm a huge fan of overthinking. Libby just sent me a meme about Virgos, in particular, that basically was like, people say I'm overthinking, but it's just because everyone else is underthinking everything all the time, which is just a fact.
Jase: Oh, my goodness.
Emily: Okay, Dedeker, Ms. Double Virgo.
Dedeker: People can sound off. That is just a fact. Everyone is underthinking everything all the time. Bringing it back to the question asker, yes, this is an interesting one because I think the normal scenario that gets presented to us is two people in a relationship are hierarchical. One of them wants to switch to non-hierarchy because they've started to develop a more intimate, emotionally entangled relationship with a new partner, and then the other partner has it, and they don't want to get rid of hierarchy. That's usually the conflict that we tend to see around this discrepancy.
This is interesting and very unique that this person is making it sound like they haven't really asked for any hierarchical practices. They haven't asked to be the one to have to okay whether or not their partner sees his girlfriend or stuff like that. It's the partner who's feeling nervous about this idea of being given more freedom or less of a ceiling, or something like that.
Emily: That's really interesting. Again, it's, ask some of the hard-hitting questions, like, "What is it that you're afraid of happening here if we choose to not do hierarchy? Are you afraid that there is going to be that sense of loss of control, that for whatever reason, I'm not going to be placed in a certain light with other people? They're not going to know the type of relationship entanglement you have with me, and it's going to get confusing to them, or you're just worried because this is what we've been doing for so long that if we change it, somehow the relationship is going to fall apart in other ways?"
There's a myriad of reasons why somebody would want to retain that type of control on the relationship, but I would want to really get to the bottom of what is it that's going on there underneath it all because I think there's got to be a lot more than just, I'm not very good at change, but it's like, why aren't you very good at change in this particular instance? I think that ultimately, it would make our relationship stronger, and it would allow for more flexibility in the relationship if we didn't have to put such stringent parameters upon it.
Jase: The part of this that jumped out to me was the sentence where the question asker says after, "Doesn't do change well and likes a set of behaviors to be followed for him and others." To me, that's actually the one that grabbed me more than not liking change is liking order, liking a system to follow. I do think that there is something there for people where it's like, yes, I want to know that I'm doing the right thing because I could see a fear of, if you say, "Hey, we're not going to do this hierarchy thing, you don't need to check in with me," that I might have a fear of if I'm not doing that, how will I know that you're okay with things?
How will I know that you know that you're important to me? It goes a little bit back to the catastrophizing fear that we talked about in a previous question, where for that person, it could be if I don't have this system that I'm following, how do I know I'm doing the right thing to do right by my relationship here? If it were just, oh, I can just go on dates whenever, how will I know once I've crossed the line into doing it too much or to not considering you enough? I think to some people, they might hear that and go, "That's ridiculous. You just go with it and you'll figure that out." I do think, to some people, that having an order and having a system they can follow is really important. To me, this sounds a little bit like autism spectrum behavior, which is something that is near and dear to my heart, but that's why that jumped out to me.
Dedeker: So very well-represented in the non-monogamous community.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: Yes. Whether or not it's actually that or not, I think is not important in this case, but more the fact that they do have this desire for that. With that in mind, I think it could change the way that you approach this a little bit to rather than presenting it as, "Hey, what if we did away with those systems?" instead, trying to think more about, "Can we have an ongoing discussion?" Maybe doing a monthly check-in like a radar could also help have some sort of formality and regularity to it and the ability to slowly tweak things. To say, "What if there is a different system? What if it is, I do want you to tell me about your dates ahead of time. I'm not going to give you permission or not, but I do expect you to tell me about them beforehand."
Maybe there's some kind of middle ground so that they can know, okay, by telling you, I'm doing the right thing, I'm doing my part of it, rather than thinking that I need to ask your permission or okay it with you. It's maybe those little changes might help to still have a system without it being so hierarchical. Just as one possibility to throw out there.
Dedeker: Yes, I think doing little iterative changes is a good idea. This is a situation where sometimes I'll have to go through this with clients if I see people as a couple, where we may need to take the labels off of everything because labels can become very polarizing between two people. I think especially with the hierarchy, non-hierarchy thing, people can get so attached to the label and can really dig their heels in.
It become this very black and white, it's me versus you, you want the hierarchy, and I don't. I'm just going to die on that hill, essentially. Sometimes we need to throw the labels in the garbage and get down to the bottom of, what are the behaviors that you want without having to attach it to, "I want this behavior, which is non-hierarchical, or I want this behavior, which is hierarchical."? Just get down to what are the actions that you want to give to your partner, that you want your partner to give to you. Sometimes that can simplify it.
I think that's going to open up the pathway towards being able to do these small iterative changes because I do think trying to come to your partner-- The other thing in this question is there's a lot of language of, how do I get my partner just to see, to understand, or to be open to this style, or to change his style, or whatever? Telling someone, you need to change your relationship style, can feel very threatening, no matter what it is that you're saying to them, but collaborating on how can we make these small iterative changes or these tiny experiments in behavior that we'll check in on again in order to make us both feel better and happier and more soothed in this relationship.
Then on top of it, I think what Jase was saying is this may take a lot of reiteration and repetition for both of you to have that sense of, oh, okay, these tiny changes, they are safe. It is still secure. I think that it's probably unlikely in this situation that you're going to convince your partner to just completely forget the way that he's been doing things.
Jase: Chill, yes.
Dedeker: You can't tell him, "Oh, just chill." That's not going to work. The two of you together can come up with a series of small experiments and then see what happens.
Emily: I like that a lot.
Jase: Yes. I like the idea of treating the change itself as a system, that that might help add a feeling of stability to the change in a way. It's that we're collaborating on this and having some kind of a regular check-in with structure and still trying to be understanding and respectful of, there's comfort in having a order, or a ritual, or a system that you can follow to know that you're at least mostly on the right path and trying to see, okay, what could that look like for us then? Looking at each of these little things, rather than feeling like, oh, we just got to throw the whole thing out and be chill. For your partner, that might just not really be an option that they can actually go to, that they can do.