490 - I can't get over mistakes my partner made early on: Listener Q&A
Welcome back to another Q&A…
For today’s Q&A episode, we’re answering the following questions from our Patreon supporters:
“Hi! CPTSD-haver here, riddled with anxiety and worry, and basically I try to foresee every possible negative outcome and prepare myself for it. The problem of course is that I'm constantly worrying about things that never happen, I over-analyze situations that were completely innocuous and part of what happens is that I also make other people nervous through my over-analyzing. I'm already working on my CPTSD, but I'm finding it hard to transfer all of the wonderful things I'm learning into my relationships. There's something about relationships that just empties my brain completely and leaves me tongue-tied and unable to state my needs, boundaries and wants in fear of being too much. It leaves me instead hanging on to every gesture, every word, every facial expression instead of just having a conversation about it. I also don't want to completely trauma dump on someone and scream at them, I'M BEING WEIRD BECAUSE OF THE CPTSD! Soooo any tips for that at all?
-Nervous in the Netherlands”
“I have a strong, loving partnership of almost 1.5 yrs. We are both deeply committed to making it work but we are burdened by my mistrust and fears in the wake of many communication and disclosure missteps my partner made in our first year together.
Many of these incidents were products of his naivety, inexperience with ENM, and early attachment conditioning (predominantly people pleasing), but these incidents were objectively dishonest and hurtful nonetheless. He has been humble and remorseful, and has made real efforts to change his approach and behaviors since then.
I thought time would heal but it hasn’t. Our own therapy work hasn’t resolved the issues either.
What specific steps or resources or strategies or treatments could help us?
-Seeking Support in NYC”
“I'm nonhierarchical and I have two partners, each of whom are only dating me at the moment. We're all new to this, but have been very good about communication and checking in (thank you, RADAR!). We generally practice parallel poly, but my partners have met a couple times and get along well. I've been dating my boyfriend for just over 2 years and my girlfriend for just under 1 year.
Somehow, all this time, there has almost never been an occasion where I was invited to an event that both my partners were free to attend. I never had to make a decision over who to bring, because logistics made the decision for me. A friend of mine who they both know and love was having a birthday party last weekend. I brought up the situation to my boyfriend first, and he said he didn't mind skipping, I could just bring my girlfriend. So I did, and it was great! My boyfriend did say he was a little bummed to miss out on the party, but there was no resentment and we reached out to that friend to hang another time.
I realize this is a little anticlimactic, since there was no drama and it all worked out. But I personally was pretty panicked about the situation at first, and I don't know how to handle it if another event comes up. I realize I could just attend alone, but it's nice to bring your partner, especially when you know they'd enjoy it. Ideally I'd be able to bring both, but that's not really comfortable for either of my partners. Is this conundrum just a natural part of nonhierarchical poly? Are there any best practices to avoid either partner feeling left out?
-Lost in Logistics (or maybe Party Pooped?)”
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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're answering questions from you, our wonderful listeners. Today, we're discussing how to help someone with CPTSD, stop overanalyzing innocuous situations. We'll be going over, is it possible to get over the mistakes that a partner made early on in a relationship, and some thoughts on handling who to bring to a party when you only get a plus one, but you have more than one partner.
If you're interested in learning 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 widely used communication tools for all types of relationships. You can find links to buy it at multiamory.com/book or wherever you get your books. Also, check out the first few episodes of this podcast where we cover some of our most widely used tools there as well.
Dedeker: We have spent a lot of time reading up about healthy relationship communication, but we are not mind readers, at least not yet. Our advice is based solely on the limited information that we get in these questions. Please take it with a grain of salt.
Jase: Also, every situation is unique. We encourage you to use your own judgment and of course, seek professional help if needed. Also, this question has been edited for time and clarity.
Emily: All right. Let's dive into our first question. "How do I stop over analyzing every little thing and instead just have a conversation about what worries me? Hi, there.
CPTSD haver here, riddled with anxiety and worry, and basically, I try to foresee every possible negative outcome and prepare myself for it. The problem, of course, is that I'm constantly worrying about the things that never happen. I overanalyze situations that were completely innocuous, and part of what happens is I also make other people nervous through my overanalyzing. I'm already working on my CPTSD, but I'm finding it hard to transfer all of the wonderful things I'm learning into my relationships.
There's something about relationships that just empties my brain completely and leaves me tongue-tied and unable to state my needs, boundaries, and wants, in fear of being too much. It leaves me instead hanging on to every gesture, every word, every facial expression, instead of just having a conversation about it. I also don't want to completely trauma-dump on someone and scream at them, "I'm being weird because of the CPTSD." Any tips for all that? Sincerely, Nervous in the Netherlands."
Dedeker: Oh, boy, oh, boy. I think I can relate to this one just a tiny bit. Literally, Jase and I, we were just having a conversation about my tendency to catastrophize.
Emily: Oh, really? I didn't know that about you.
Dedeker: I don't think I catastrophize day-to-day situations necessarily. I tend to do a little bit more of just imagining bad futures-
Emily: Interesting.
Dedeker: -of certain things. To me, it feels like on this bigger level as opposed on this micro day-to-day level. Is that right? Does it seem like that's me, Jase?
Jase: Yes, I was going to say, "Oh, Dedeker, did you secretly write in this question-
Dedeker: Dang it.
Jase: -to get us to talk about it?" I guess I want to start with some sympathy about this that obviously the CPTSD is a contributor to this, and that's definitely part of it that they're identifying here, but I think there's also factors of this that I think anyone can relate to in terms of both the anxieties and the fears and the overanalyzing every little thing. I know I do a lot of that.
Along with that thing of like, yes, I can talk the talk real good with my friends or my therapist or whatever, but then when it comes to someone that I'm in a relationship with or I'm dating, it's like I choke. I lose the ability to be as, I don't know what, rational or well-spoken or clearly stating what it is that I want or what my concerns are in that situation. I just want to say I think even without the CPTSD, these are all reasonable things to feel.
Dedeker: To clarify, just in case anyone's not familiar with it, the way we distinguish CPTSD from PTSD, the 'C' stands for complex, so complex posttraumatic stress disorder.
Emily: I was going to ask.
Dedeker: Usually, a CPTSD diagnosis comes from someone who's been exposed to chronic or prolonged traumatic experiences. For instance, if it was a childhood marked by living with abusive caregivers. It's like something where it's not necessarily tied to one traumatic incident or just a handful of traumatic incidents, but it's been long and ongoing for a long period of time, or sometimes people who maybe have racial trauma, for instance, of having lived their entire lives in a racist environment. That can be, sometimes CPTSD.
Or someone who has had a lot of big traumatic experiences repeated throughout their lives, it can manifest as the similar symptoms to PTSD, but there's a little bit of this ongoing chronic side to it that can present slightly different symptoms and a slightly different approach for managing and for healing it.
Emily: The first thing that I saw when I was reading this question was the fact that this person is saying that they're hanging on to every gesture and word and facial expression of the other person. That immediately made me think perhaps taking the other person physically out of the equation might be helpful by simply writing something down, for instance, or texting or doing something along those lines.
I know for myself, often when I'm in the heat of the moment with a partner or somebody that I care about and it's an intense topic or conversation, that can cause me to trip up and not really articulate myself as well as I might want to, and definitely, being able to sit down and write out what it is that I need to say can make that a lot easier and a lot more beneficial for me to be able to collect my thoughts first and put them out on paper.
Then I can even either take that paper with me and say it to them with that in front of me or just send it to them and just be like, "Hey, I'm going to send you something. This is what's been on my mind for a little while. If you are willing to receive it, I would really appreciate that, and then maybe we can have a conversation afterwards when I'm less emotionally dysregulated."
Dedeker: Yes, there's something in what you just shared that I think is really important. I don't want to necessarily make all of this about the CPTSD because like Jase pointed out, there are some of this behavior that's quite normal in human relationships. I don't know the details of this person's history or their trauma background or anything like that, but what I see in this particular behavior is emotional monitoring of the other person, going to a state of powerlessness or maybe a time of powerlessness where you couldn't just ask somebody, "Hey, what are you feeling?"
Or you couldn't just say to somebody, hey, I need X, Y, and Z, that you were powerless and therefore had to overanalyze their gestures, their facial expressions, their tone of voice in order to position yourself and feel safe, which to me sounds very much like a childhood thing. I don't know if there was childhood trauma with this person, but often when we're in those places of being really powerless, it is connected to our childhood in some way. That is an adaptive mechanism that we had to resort to in childhood in order to survive.
It can be really helpful, I think, to think about, what can I do now as an adult that I could not, either when I was a child powerless, or I was in this ongoing traumatic situation and I was powerless. The example that Emily shared of, I can say, "Hey, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed right now. There's some things I want to share with you, but I think I'm going to write them down and share them with you that way, if that's all right," that you can do that as an adult, and maybe you couldn't do that as a child.
As an adult, you can do things like, "Oof, I'm having some strong feelings coming up. I just need to slow down and take a breath really quick." Or, "Hey, I want to ask you some questions, or I want to have a conversation with you about something but I would like us to be on a couch wrapped in a blanket, if that's okay," to feel a little bit safer. It's these things that, again, that we have access to now that we didn't at the time that the pain and trauma happened. Sometimes it's just helpful to practice that, to really take inventory of like, what are the tools? What have you unlocked now that you are a more fully formed adult that can help make this a little bit easier?
Jase: Something related to that that I think is worth touching on here. One, I love the idea that at the very least, meta-communicating and saying first how you're feeling or what might help you communicate the thing you want to communicate and then doing it. I just want to be the third to jump on that and say yes. In our history together, there have been some really serious moments in Dedeker and my relationship where writing to each other, even handwriting to each other, has been the way we've been able to communicate about something when there's a lot of heightened emotions and it's very difficult and there's a lot of challenge going on.
I just want to again, reiterate that I think that's a very valid thing to do and especially if you're able to just meta-communicate about it and say, "This is helpful," or "This is something I'd like to try. I don't know if it's helpful, but could we try this?" That brings me to this part of the question that says, "In relationships, I find myself tongue-tied and unable to state my needs, boundaries and wants in fear of being too much."
I think that when it comes to our wants or our boundaries or our fears or whatever, it can be hard, I think, to get a sense of what's normal or what's a reasonable thing to ask versus what's asking too much, what's being too much? That could be too much like this ask is too much, or it could be this is too many asks altogether and that that's too much.
In that case, this person is in therapy and working on their CPTSD, which is great. I wonder if that might be a conversation you could have there too, or if there's any trusted friends or communities that you could ask just in that sense of like, "Hey, can you give me a reality check on if a partner asks this of you, is that a big ask or not?" Get a variety of opinions if you can, because then you'll have a sense of if you do ask it, and everyone's like, "No, that's super reasonable," and the person you're dating is like, "What? That's too much." Then it's like, "No, actually they're too little." , I guess, right?
It's like, no, then you get some validation of like, "No, this was reasonable. They're not willing to do," it doesn't have to mean they're a bad person or anything, but this isn't a relationship for me. Maybe getting a little bit of a reality check on it too because it seems like you're quick to jump to whatever I'm asking is too much. I get that, that's a place a lot of us can go.
Emily: I will also say I've been in situations where I'm analyzing and overanalyzing something that maybe I said to a person and I'm like, "Oh, they're going to be pissed at me, or they're pissed at me for saying that," and then I might ask them about it later and they're like, "Oh, what? I don't even remember you saying that" or "That didn't even clock for me."
Jase: Yes.
Emily: Just going through a scenario like that a couple of times of realizing, hey, maybe I am over, I guess, catastrophizing this thing that happened and it's actually not as big of a deal as I thought it was. At least for me, it's been nice to realize sometimes that's on me and it's not them thinking bad of me or thinking that I did something wrong. I know that that can be difficult and that it's difficult for us to remember those times when that happened but at least it gives you some data points of being like, actually no, I didn't say something really wrong or something that somebody's going to hate me about or for.
Dedeker: I want to talk about the trauma dump portion of this. "I don't want to completely trauma dump on someone." I think that the concept of the trauma dump is it's real hot right now.
Emily: It's really hot right now.
Dedeker: Yes. How would I even define a trauma dump? I guess my impression of it is that someone comes to you, a partner or a friend or an acquaintance or maybe even a total stranger, and they start to open up to you and then next thing you know, they've been talking for two hours about every horrible thing that's happened in their life and you haven't been able to really get a word in edgewise. I suppose they're using you as an outlet probably without even your consent. They probably haven't even asked, "Hey, is it okay for me to talk about these things or to just have you listen to these things?"
Yes, if you're on the receiving end of a trauma dump, it can be rough. Let me tell you, it can be really hard, especially if you're not expecting that or you didn't know that you were going to be doing that emotional labor, maybe emotional labor you would have otherwise been happy to do, but then when it was forced on you or someone felt entitled to it without asking, that can be hard.
I think because this is a concept that people are becoming more aware of, on the opposite side, we're getting a lot of people really afraid of being that person and not wanting to be that person. I think this goes back to before even trauma dump was a concept that we received a lot of values and messages from previous generations about keep that shit to yourself. No one really wants to hear that. You just got to power through and get through it and just bottle it all up. I think there is a tension there.
I have some clients who have had really traumatic things happen to them, and they're so scared that if they share any of that darkness with someone that they trust, they're going to be seen as a downer or they're going to be seen as trying to take advantage of this person's emotional labor or things like that. I felt victim to this too. I, for a long time, didn't want to share specifics about the traumatic experiences that I'd been through because I didn't want to ruin someone's day. I didn't want to go too dark. I don't know if this might be an American thing in particular of like, we can't be too much of a bummer. I think there's something there as well. It's a whole thing.
Emily: That's interesting.
Dedeker: Yes. I think there's something there. Years ago, the first time that I was starting to date after having gone through a really traumatic relationship experience, after escaping a physically abusive relationship when I was first starting to date again, I very much had this feeling like, I'm not even going to talk about it to anyone that I'm dating. Not because I want to protect them, but because I don't want that to be a part of my identity. I don't want that stain on me. I don't want to be the broken, traumatized person. I'm going to pretend that that didn't even happen, at least with the way that I present to new people and that's going to be it.
I learned really quickly that once I started getting close to somebody, it's still there. It's still a part of me. It's still relevant and I have to talk about it or I have to share it and it was totally fine. Fortunately, the person that I was with was able to receive it in a really loving and compassionate way.
The whole point of my story is that you probably could stand to open up the channel of trauma dump a little bit more. Of course, I think people still need to demonstrate to you that they're trustworthy, demonstrate to you that they're able to listen and can be compassionate, but you may be surprised how well people can handle it and how much people are often happy to handle it and be understanding.
I just wanted to drop in that note as well, that if you're getting hints that this person may be a safe enough person to talk to, this is a part of the vulnerable process of opening ourselves up in relationship. It may be better to do that sooner rather than later.
Jase: Yes. That's beautiful. I think that's a great note to end on and thank you so much for sending in your question, Nervous in the Netherlands. As I mentioned, I think it's something that basically everyone can relate to some piece of this too. I hope that one is a little bit comforting to you. Then also knowing that your question probably helped a lot of other people too. Thank you for sending it in.
Before our next question, I just want to take a quick moment to say, those of you who are in our Patreon already, you already get this, but it's so cool seeing the way that people support each other, bring their troubles to each other, as well as celebrating with each other. It's really cool to see. if you want to be part of that, you can join our patreon @multiamory.com/join and you can become part of that online private discord community or private Facebook group there.
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Now for our second question. Outside of book and podcast wisdom, the greatest wisdom of all, I might say, book and podcast wisdom, what are some resources you would recommend for polyamory relationship support when the going gets tough? Here's the full context for the question. I have a strong loving partnership of almost one and a half years. We're both deeply committed to making it work, but we are burdened by my mistrust and fears in the wake of many communication and disclosure missteps my partner made in our first year together. Many of these incidents were products of his naivete, inexperience with ethical non-monogamy, and early attachment conditioning, predominantly people-pleasing.
These incidents were objectively dishonest and hurtful nonetheless. He's been humble and remorseful and has made real efforts to change his approach and behaviors since then. I thought that time would heal, but it hasn't. Our own therapy work hasn't resolved the issues either. What specific steps or resources or strategies or treatments could help us? Seeking support in New York City.
Dedeker: I feel like I've lived through this one also. I had this pet theory for a long time that sometimes the early days of a relationship, and by days I mean weeks, months, maybe the first year or so, sometimes the way your partner behaves can create just weird impressions that last on you, that create a pattern that lasts a long time.
I think some of that may have to do with some of it is the chemical cocktail in your head, all the NRE chemicals, your own fantasies about how you think the relationship is going to go, transitioning into the process of when your partner disappoints you for the first time and the first time they show up as a human being or the first time that you disappoint them. Those fantasies coming crashing down that, yes, sometimes the stuff that happens early on, I think, can leave a deeper impression on people than the stuff that happens later in certain cases.
Jase: I like to think of it like an average. If you have a graph of various numbers and you're tracking the average of it, if you're two data points in and one is way higher than the other, suddenly your average has shot up by a huge amount. Whereas if you've had 100 data points that are all around, let's say five. They're all around five. Then you have one that's 100, your average is going to jump up to six or seven or something like that. I have not done the math on this, so I'm sorry if I'm wrong, but my point is just that early in the relationship, you have less data points while you're developing your impression of this person.
That can set you to calibrate certain averages for them that then time can bring those back down, but it's like you've locked in some of that versus someone 10 years later does something dishonest out of nowhere, that's still hurtful, but there can be more the sense of, okay, but this isn't normally how they are, so let's try to understand what happened here.
Emily: I think as time goes on and you get to know a person more and more, sometimes you actually know them a little bit less because you have all of these experiences with them that really color the way that you think about them.
If you have a lot of experiences at the beginning that aren't particularly good or that cause trauma or that are just challenging in general or that cause you to feel like I'm holding a grudge in some way against this person, even if you try to change that, your mind still glues to that thing and globs on to that idea of what you think of them and your personal narrative of them and not necessarily the narrative that I am trying to change. I am trying to do better in this instance. That's really hard. I think that that's something that we have to recognize in ourselves that it's difficult for us to see the change because we're not allowing ourselves to do so.
Jase: Then with this, there's also the factor of being new to ethical non-monogamy. We all make a lot of mistakes when we're first starting out with that. There's definitely some things here that can hopefully improve over time if they're actually improving.
Dedeker: The impression that I get from this question is it seems like the two of them have had a lot of conversations about this. They've maybe been able to identify and point to some of the reasons why things happened, why things went awry, why there were missteps. It sounds like they are doing their own therapy work, although they're mentioning that it hasn't exactly resolved the issues. This is something really difficult when there's been some betrayal of trust or broken trust or some sort of wounding in a relationship that sometimes sitting down and unpacking everything and analyzing everything can be good.
I do think that sometimes we need to understand why did this happen and understand the impact that it had and understand where your heart was at and you can understand where my heart was at and we can connect in that way. Then sometimes there just needs to be a line in the sand moment where we're deciding, okay, this is the time that we're putting this to bed. Now, I think that this is important if, as this question asker has said, that their partner has been humble, has been remorseful, has made real efforts to change his approach and change his behaviors, that's a key component of this.
If you feel like, oh, my partner's just not making an effort to change or they're never going to understand. I guess I just need to get over it. That is less healthy to me. If you can see in the present moment, my partner's trying to change. I am trying to change also. I'm trying to do what I can to contribute to this relationship and make sure that we're setting ourselves up for success. If that is the case, yes, it may need to be, okay, we're going to put this to bed now. You're not going to feel ready. Like this person has mentioned still feeling triggered, still feeling hurt. You're not going to feel ready.
I think if you're going to wait until you feel ready, it may never come because sometimes that's not the way things get healed. It's not how it works. What you may need is more of these instances, I think like Jase was saying, is more data points of your partner having your back and being honest and being there for you and your body and your nervous system may need to go through that 25 more times, may need to go through that cycle of, ooh, I'm nervous, oh no, what if they're going to hurt me again? What if it's not going to go the way that I want again? Oh wait, no, it did. Oh, okay, all right, I'm safe.
That just may need to repeat enough that eventually over time, your system's able to let that go and that that becomes the new dominant narrative instead of the narrative that like, oh no, I need to be vigilant because maybe they're going to hurt me again.
Emily: I've been in situations with partners where they say that they have changed and they say that they have gotten to a place that's different than where they were when we had conflict, but I don't know how they got there and they don't want to share with me the process that it took for them to get to that place.
Dedeker: Oh, interesting. They just told you, "Oh, it's going to be different now. Just trust me."
Emily: Exactly. It's really hard to believe that, I guess, because I like to see what happened to get there or have a conversation about what happened to get there. It sounds like, and I'm not sure because I'm just extrapolating this out of what I'm reading, but it sounds like your partner has talked to you about, I can see that this is my naivete, my inexperience with ethical non-monogamy, my attachment conditioning and people-pleasing, all of those things were causing me to do what happened. These are the ways that hopefully I'm going to change this in the future. This is why I feel so bad about what happened.
All of those things tell me that they are giving you a map of how they got from point A to point B. At least for me, that would feel really good. That would feel great to know, okay, yes, I can see the journey that they went on to get to this place. I think what both of you said about the nervous system just needing to rewire and rework itself to a degree over time because a year and a half isn't that long. It's a long time, but it's not that long. It still may take a while to get there. Give yourself that time. Also like Dedeker said, don't just hold it over your partner's head for goodness sake, because that also sucks.
Yes, you can feel your feelings and yes, you can be hurt, but also understand that there are two people in the relationship and that if someone really is trying to change, then that should be acknowledged and celebrated.
Jase: I think that everything that Dedeker and Emily have said is brilliant and great and that's who you should listen to. Now I'm going to come in. I just want to throw out a few other things to think about in case you're like, yes, that's great, I'll do that, and also some other things could be helpful. One is just looking at the numbers and saying, it sounds like this happened several times. They said, many communication and disclosure missteps made in our first year together, and like Emily said you've been together a year and a half. A year is two-thirds of that. It's a significant amount of time for it to be bad and a relatively short amount of time where it's being fixed. One thing to think about is just-- I don't know how frequently this was going on but the fact that it was multiple times, means this is going to take some time to truly feel safe again. I think that part of that too is going to have to do with what's the environment around it?
For example, if it was he did these things that were hurtful and dishonest because he was excited about somebody he knew, and that's now ended, that relationship has ended. We've talked about it, he's worked on this thing but since then he hasn't dated anyone else that he's really excited about. There can be that thing of I haven't really seen proof yet.
Dedeker: Sure.
Jase: Even if you're not consciously thinking that way, it's like sure it's all fine right now until you get back into that situation and then I don't know that I can trust you to behave differently because I haven't seen it. Just as an example, I don't know what the circumstances were but I see this a lot. Where it's like someone will change their behavior, but as soon as they get back into a similar situation, they can do it again.
That's something where hopefully your partner has done some work here and it sounds like you two have been very proactive about it, so hopefully that has changed. I also think it's understandable that it can take some time to get that proof for yourself to be able to feel a little bit safer to feel more comfortable.
Dedeker: Well, I don't feel comfortable using the word "proof," because I think proof makes it feel very subtle.
Jase: Well, sure.
Dedeker: I would use the very therapistie term of corrective experiences.
Emily: That's good.
Dedeker: Well, it's less about okay you're going to do this one thing that's going to prove to me that you won't hurt me again because that's impossible. Over time, if I have enough "corrective experiences" that challenge, the narrative that my hypervigilant nervous system is telling me, it helps to-- literally it's corrective. It helps to correct it into the better narrative.
Jase: Yes. Or you could think about it in science terms of I'm getting enough evidence to support a hypothesis even if I can never fully prove it. If I get enough evidence to support it, I'm going to feel more confident in it.
Dedeker: Right. Yes.
Jase: That was one thing I wanted to throw out there. Another was about this statement here saying, "I thought time would heal but it hasn't." One is just it hasn't been that much time yet. That may still take more time. However, I want to reiterate what Dedeker said about there also may come a time where you just need to make the decision to stop and move on. Again, have some evidence first I think is fair.
You might not be there yet but there might come that time. I say that from personal experience of needing to eventually just decide to let a thing go and it's not like it changes overnight but making that decision is what started us down the path toward feeling better.
Dedeker: I think we need to clarify that you're not going to be able to stop your feelings.
Jase: Right.
Dedeker: It's not going to be like I flip the switch and I no longer feel hurt, or I no longer have these scared thoughts that come up but it may be about the behavior that comes out of those feelings. It may be about, all right, I'm going to decide to not bring it up. I'm going to decide to-- whatever letting go or closing the book looks like to you from a behavior standpoint because your feelings are probably still going to be there.
Jase: For me specifically, it was stopping waiting for the right big gesture to make me feel like they got it or to feel like I finally got through or I finally got the closure I wanted or something like that. That was the thing I had to let go of thinking something like that's going to solve it. There'd been some stuff that that could have been that but it just never was enough, and so yes. Focusing on maybe the expectations of a behavior that you want from him, or your own behavior like Dedeker said of at a certain point I'll make a decision to stop bringing it up, or stop expecting them to apologize for it, or stop something. That's one.
Then the second piece of this same part here is, "our own therapy work hasn't resolved the issues either." I'm assuming that means that you've done therapy work together about this. You said, "our own therapy work," so maybe you mean individually I'm just not sure. The thing I would throw out there is just as another thing to consider, try a different type of therapy.
Maybe you need something that is more somatic, that's about getting these feelings of threat and upsetness to be expressed and to complete that experience or maybe it's just needing a different approach that's more of a behavioral approach instead of more of an analytical approach. There's a lot of different modalities in therapy and it may just be that for this particular issue, something else would be more helpful.
Emily: The question asker did ask if we had any resources for polyamory relationship support. I guess I wanted to throw out a couple that just came to mind. Evita Sawyers does have a lot of really great pithy wisdom in her polyamory daily reminder series. Some of that, you can just scroll through her Instagram and see what she's got going on there because a lot of things are just really nice to look at and to listen to.
Also, her book A Polyamory Devotional, there's a lot of really great wisdom in there as well. Then Esther Perel talks a lot about trust that is being broken and how to work through that as well. You can look at some of her work and also her podcast, Where Should We Begin?
Jase: On that note, don't be afraid to look for some resources that are not specific to polyamory too. A violation of trust is, at the end of the day, just a violation of trust and rebuilding that is something that happens. Particularly, you might get some benefit from looking at some of Esther Perel's content about healing after affairs or things like that, and just kind of read it but take it with a grain of salt. Of like okay, yes this is all going to be based on some assumptions about how these relationships go, but realize there might be some useful things in there.
Emily: Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Seeking Support in NYC. We hope that you find the support that you need and that hopefully, you can move on with your partner past the things that happened to the two of you.
Jase: We have one more question for you today, getting into who to invite to a party when you only get a plus one. First, please take a moment and check out our sponsors for this episode. We really appreciate them sponsoring this show and allowing us to continue to grow and keep this going. We thank you so much for taking a moment to just check them out.
If they're interesting to you and the discounts seem good, use our promo codes. That really does directly help support our show. If you want to support us in the most direct way, you can become one of our patreons at patreon.com/multiamory.
Dedeker: Here's our last question. How do you decide which partner to invite to an event when you're in a non-hierarchical parallel polyamory situation, and both partners are interested in attending? I'm non-hierarchical and I have two partners, each of whom are only dating me at the moment. We're all new to this, but have been pretty good about communication and checking in (thank you RADAR). We generally practice parallel poly but my partners have met a couple of times and get along well.
I've been dating my boyfriend for just over two years and my girlfriend for just under one year. Somehow, all this time, there's almost never been an occasion where I was invited to an event that both my partners were free to attend. I never had to make a decision over who to bring because logistics made the decision for me. A friend of mine who they both know and love was having a birthday party last weekend. I brought up the situation to my boyfriend first, and he said he didn't mind skipping, I could just bring my girlfriend. I did and it was great.
My boyfriend did say he was a little bummed to miss out on the party but there was no resentment, and we reached out to that friend to hang another time. I realized this is a little anti-climactic since there was no drama and it all worked out. I personally was pretty panicked about the situation at first, and I don't know how to handle it if another event comes up. I realize I could just attend alone but it's nice to bring your partner especially when you know they'd enjoy it.
Ideally, I'd be able to bring both but that's not really comfortable for either of my partners. Is this conundrum just a natural part of non-hierarchical poly? Are there any best practices to avoid either partner feeling left out. That is from Lost in Logistics (or maybe party pooped). I don't know. I like party pooped better, I think.
Emily: That's cute.
Jase: That's the one that we've all gravitated toward, is calling you party pooped, so that's a good one.
Dedeker: Let me slide in right away to say that with the panic part, I have this scenario that historically I've panicked about, and I still panic about, and it still never happened in my history of being non-monogamous, and it's specifically around concerts. For instance, if I want to go to a concert that's a band that I like and a band that both partners like or multiple partners like, and do I invite everybody? Do I just go by myself? Do I invite one person? How do I deal with that situation? I have yet to run into that situation, but that's the situation that for some reason in my brain I'm always like, "Oh no, what am I going to do?"
Jase: Give us some insight. Where do you tend to land when you think about what you might do?
Dedeker: I suppose I land on the side of floating the idea of, "Hey, does everyone want to come along to this concert?" I suppose that's what I would do. I think it can be a little tricky because with something like music, a particular band or a particular artist can be something that you share with another person, that can feel very intimate and can feel very special.
I think for some people, there may be an emotional tie to a particular artist, where it's like, "Oh, I thought that that music was our thing." For some other people it may not matter. It's like, "No, I'm just excited to see this particular band or whatever. Sure. The more the merrier." It would depend on the situation.
Jase: That makes me wonder about this question asker here too. Part of the scenario they set up is that they've been dating these two people, and they said, "We generally practice parallel polyamory." That they don't all hang out together really, but they said they've met a couple times, and that's been fine. Part of me wonders if this thought that you had to pick just one to go to this birthday party, how much of that limitation was actually from the invite? Like a very clear, you can only bring one other person besides yourself, especially since both of them know the birthday person.
They already have their own relationship to that person. Or how much was you feeling like, "Oh, well, that might be too much, all of us hanging out?" Which is a fair concern, but it does bring up for me that question because I do find that often, I've seen people worry about this type of situation, and then if they ask, it's often actually just fine to bring multiple people, or there is a way to bring multiple people, especially for something more casual like this, not like a formal dinner with multiple courses already planned out in a seating chart and everything.
Emily: I will say towards the end of this question though, it says ideally I'd be able to bring both, but that's not really comfortable for either of my partners.
Jase: I see. It is something they've expressed.
Emily: Exactly. Which is interesting because saying that they get along well, and then it's not comfortable. It sounds as though they all are maybe still in the beginning stages of non-monogamy. Perhaps it's simply a question of, I don't feel very comfortable watching you expressing physical affection towards someone else. It's just difficult for me to view perhaps. Maybe that's what the issue is.
From a logistical standpoint, I'd say, if you can just maybe take turns, I know that that's a silly and easy way of doing something, but if you get into a situation where you know that one partner is going to really care about a certain type of event more than the other, then that's an easy thing to take a specific partner to versus the other. In a situation like this though, I think I'd be interested to ask, is there a compromise to be made here, so that all of us can enjoy this? Because I think we all would like to be at the party together, or at least everyone involved would like to go to this party.
Dedeker: They mention the fact that with this particular scenario, that the boyfriend seemed to step up and be like, "I'll take one for the team." Acknowledged, "Yes, I was bummed to miss out on that, but it's okay, there's no resentment, and we found another time to hang out with this friend," and things like that. I'm like, "If there's that amount of, I suppose, fluidity and flexibility, that may be enough to make it, so that y'all can navigate this together." Because this is how it goes with human relationships, is not just in non-hierarchical, non-monogamy, we're having to navigate, competing priorities, competing invites all the time in life, and then also having to take care of people's feelings.
First of all, this person doesn't have to apologize for it being anticlimactic. I'm like, this sounds great, honestly. It sounds like y'all are at least trying to work together to be team players, recognizing that, yes, sometimes you don't 100% get what you want, but if you feel secure enough in knowing that, yes, but I know my partner's going to come through in other ways, or I know I'm going to get invites to other things-
Emily: You get what you need.
Dedeker: -if you feel that, yes, it makes it a little bit easier, I think, to be giving in that particular way, versus if you're in a situation where, "I think I've seen this one play out." Let's say you are really craving one-on-one time with a partner, or datetime with a partner, but all you're really getting is group invites to hang out with the whole polycule.
Emily: Good point.
Dedeker: Or group invites with your metamour.
Jase: I think that's more often a problem I've seen.
Dedeker: Yes. To come to the party. I totally get why hinges do this, it's a tempting thing to do, but in that situation, it can feel a lot harder to constantly be asked to be the one to sacrifice that one-on-one time. I think there's an ecology to this, where we need to look holistically at, is everyone feeling like generally they're getting their needs met around this? If so, that hopefully makes it easier for everyone to be a little bit flexible.
Jase: I do think in this case, I'll just reiterate again, it seems like this went great. It's not like, "Oh, drama was narrowly avoided." It's like, no, you've got good communication. At least in the case of your boyfriend here, understanding, yes, I get that you're in a weird situation and that's fine. Just go without me. That's okay. You found a way to still hang out. All of that's great. You're already doing great at handling this situation.
Just if you did want to investigate this further, and if you're a little worried, I do think it could be worth talking to both of these partners. If they really did express that they wouldn't be comfortable going to this party, if the other one was there, but then you said that they do get along, that brings up a question for me of just, "What is it?" Unless this was a birthday sex party, and maybe were just not reading in that detail, and they're both like, "I don't know that I want to be around for that."
Assuming that it's not, is there a specific concern? Maybe that's something that you could work around as well. Maybe it is, "I still have a hard time seeing you kissing or being really affectionate with this other person, even though I'm cool with them and all this, that's still a little difficult for me." Maybe you could talk about that with both the partners and say, "Hey, if we're going to all go to an event together, because it's all people we know and like, let's all just chill on the PDA between any of us, just so that everyone can feel more comfortable, but we can also all have a great time and hang out."
I just would be curious to see how that conversation goes, since it seems like you've already got some pretty open communication pathways with doing RADARs and having check-ins and things like that. I just think that could be worth knowing so that in the future you know you have that option as well.
Emily: The fact that you're utilizing RADAR is awesome. So many bonus points there, and hopefully, you can get to the bottom of what each of you are longing for in terms of what it is that you want in this relationship, and what are the challenges that you see from needing to navigate certain situations where a partner's partner or metamour may or may not be present, and what's going on there exactly. Just for curiosity's sake, if nothing else. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to change anything, or even work towards changing something, but it may inform at least the reasons behind why you feel a certain way about something or why something is currently challenging now.
Jase: That might change, which is the beauty of RADAR. That you can do it regularly. You can see, "Oh, you know what? I'm feeling different about this. Now it would be totally fine." There's also opportunity for that to change over time, which I'm pretty certain that it will because we all change. Just this morning, my therapist said to me the old cliché, "The only constant in life is change." I'm like, "Yes, yes, I know." It is good to be reminded of that sometimes.
Dedeker: Thank you so much for writing in Lost in Logistics or maybe Party Pooped. I think we're going to land on Party pooped. Good job navigating this. Hopefully, it continues to be smooth sailing from here. It's time for us to hear from you out there. On our Instagram stories this week, we are throwing up this question, how do you get over a mistake that your partner made in the past?