415 - Tricky Relationship Situations: Rebuilding Friendships, Setting Boundaries, and Managing Trauma
Welcome back to another Q&A episode!
Today we have another batch of listener questions from our fabulous Patreon community! This episode covers a wide range of topics; the questions we’ll be answering today are:
“How do you rebuild a friendship with an ex after a long period of no contact?”
“What was your process of self-discovery like, especially as it relates to learning where your boundaries are? Did you do this independently or inside of a relationship? How does it continue to grow and change in your current relationships?”
“When there are needs being unmet in a relationship and your partner promises to do XYZ differently, how do you come up with a timeline to give them space to implement the agreed-upon action points versus just constantly being promised they’ll do better without real follow-through?”
“How can I let go of previous relationship trauma so that it doesn't taint the future of the relationship? My relationship with my partner is fantastic, but previous transgressions feel hard to shake, despite efforts at forgiveness.”
“What are some of the best ways for ‘veterans’ to give ‘newbies’ advice? Friends, family, lovers… sometimes you know there will be some resistance, sometimes none at all. Plus, so many choices are very personal. Understanding informed consent is something I always try to lean into.”
“How do you manage feelings of comparison when you’re going through a hard time with a partner whilst they are having a great time with other partners?”
Give the episode a listen to hear our different perspectives and anecdotes for these topics, and if you want your own question answered, please consider becoming one of our Patreon supporters!
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're answering questions from our subscribers and delving into some of the most challenging aspects of maintaining healthy relationships, including rebuilding friendships with exes after long periods of time, setting boundaries through self-discovery, managing unmet needs, providing advice for polyamory newbies, managing feelings of comparison and overcoming relationship trauma. Join us as we share personal experiences and insights on how to navigate these tricky situations with grace and understanding, or at least do our best to do that.
Emily: We do need to give the disclaimer right off the top here that we've spent a ton of time studying healthy relationship communication, but we are not mind readers yet.
Dedeker: We're working on that one. We're also studying that one.
Emily: I would love that. Yes. If there's some new study out there, then please let us know. We will get on that. Our advice is based solely on this limited information that we have, so please take it all with a grain of salt. Really, every situation is very unique and we encourage all of you out there to use your own judgment and definitely seek professional help if that is necessary and needed. I would argue that professional help is always a good thing. Just in general, if you can do it, go do it.
Ultimately, you are the only true expert in your life and in your feelings. Your decisions are your own. Go out there, live your life, take what you want from this episode, and then leave the rest, whatever doesn't work for you. That is totally okay with us.
Dedeker: With that, let us get started. This first question is a doozy. I don't know, it doesn't-- I guess it doesn't have to be a doozy. For me, it read as a doozy the first time out the gate, but how do you rebuild a friendship with an ex after a long period of no contact? I know I have done that. Have y'all done that before?
Jase: Yes, I have. No, I would not say rebuild like a romantic relationship again.
Dedeker: Well, this clarifies a friendship. Yes.
Jase: Yes.
Emily: Honestly, this immediately made me think of a relationship that's not a romantic relationship, but a friendship that ended badly.
Dedeker: Your friendship ex?
Jase: Oh, a friendship.
Emily: A friendship ex, yes. That I wanted to try to rebuild or was in the process of rebuilding and finally was able to rebuild, which is great. I think that much of that happened through time. My very good friend after Jase and I became polyamorous, was not really interested in having much of a relationship with me, and yet over a long period of time, she said, "You know what? If you want to do that or if whatever it is that you're into and interested in, that's totally okay. I just needed to get over it and I needed some time to myself and I think it's better now."
That was good. It really just took a little bit of time away. I'm not saying that that's the answer to everything, because time doesn't necessarily heal all wounds, but I think it does at least put some perspective on a situation and allows you to take a step back and let your emotions heal a bit.
Dedeker: After that period of time away with your friend, how did you get back in contact? Who reached out first? What were the tangible ways that you rebuilt the friendship?
Emily: I think anytime I would come back to Tucson, I would still try to reach out and that escalated into us being able to have a conversation and talk and go out to dinner and just have an okay normal time again, which is great, especially with certain people in your life, you're able to come back and have it be as though no time has occurred at all, except for hopefully just time of rebuilding and healing.
Jase: I have a couple of different examples that come to mind. One is a case where I had a breakup, this was back in college and had a breakup and we hadn't talked for a few years and we got back in touch online trying to be friends and we just really quickly, I don't know, activated something in each other that just ended up hurting feelings again and just not being a good combo.
Dedeker: You were both still too on edge or triggered that poked at all that stuff?
Jase: Yes. It was like we had too much history of upsetting each other that we just tended to assume that's what was happening, even if it wasn't, and there were some just looking back, silly misunderstandings that I had and that she had, but it was this indication of this is not the right thing to do. We didn't, we just pretty much after that happened and it happened right away, in our first or second conversation after trying to reconnect and it just didn't go well and we just stopped being in touch.
Now fast forward another, I don't know, 10, 15 years after that, now we'll message each other sometimes and share memories from college or whatever with our group of friends and things like that. It's fine, but we haven't had a close relationship again. Then I have other examples of people that I've been in a romantic relationship with, we've broken up and then maybe even a year later or a couple of years later, we've been able to reconnect. I've actually had some nice friendships, even if it's not super close one. Not to say that it couldn't be, but it just hasn't been for me in those cases.
Dedeker: I've definitely had that experience that you talk about trying to rebuild a friendship and that it's just way too activating. There've been like, I'm thinking about a specific relationship where I think I just overestimated how chill I was or my ability to be chill. Overestimated, okay, I think it's been enough time. I think I'm over this. I think I could still connect to this person. We were good friends. This will be good. Then the instant that I reconnected with them, it was like, oh, shit, no, I'm just instantly way too mad and needed more time away before being able to actually reconnect with this person.
Then I've also had experiences rebuilding friendships with exes where it went really smoothly and it was okay. I think that my experiences have sometimes, when it's been successful, I think it's fallen into two different approaches, either when I'm reconnecting with an ex, it's someone where we have the time, bandwidth, energy, maturity and skills to be able to sit down and maybe have a little bit of a clearing the air talk to be able to complete things.
It doesn't mean that you necessarily-- I've never sat down with someone and necessarily done, let's unpack every single argument we ever had in our romantic relationship, but we're able to talk about maybe where we think things went wrong, maybe there's an exchanging of taking responsibility, yes, I think I really misunderstood you in this way, and the other person's like, oh, yes, I think that I didn't communicate super effectively and those conversations have been really healing for me with certain exes and enabled me to actually have a friendship.
I feel like it's like either you need to have the resources to be able to accomplish that together, or you need to be grounded enough to be okay with it just being water under the bridge. Something where we may never go back to this and clear this out and come to any conclusions. We may just have to decide, we're going to be friends, and then that's just all in the past, and I think that's the situation where, for me, there has to have been enough time passed for me to feel like I've done my own healing work around it. I don't necessarily need to do that with this person in order to move on.
At least that's what I think of when I think about all the times that I've successfully rebuilt friendships with exes. I'm happy to say that I think I have a lot of exes that I've been able to be cordial with or maintain friendships with, but I also have a lot of exes where that's been impossible or inappropriate . I think in the non-monogamy community in particular, people feel a lot of pressure to be friendly with their exes and it's not bad pressure, right? Especially a lot of people are hanging out in the same community spaces or they're still connected via a weird, tangled, polycule, whatever.
I do think it's probably good to try to set up a situation where you can be friendly or you can be cordial, and also if you're in a situation where it's not possible for you now or ever, I think that's okay also.
Jase: It might not be something that they want to do either. If the question is about, I'm thinking about this person and I want to see about reconnecting. I think one, if it's been a good period of time, it's very likely that that other person also feels similarly removed from whatever it is that caused you to break up before. That they probably also, a lot of it's gone away and they're okay with it now, but realize that they also might not be. To them it might still feel fresh or that might still be painful depending on what happened or any number of other reasons why they might not want to reconnect. Maybe they're in another relationship with someone who would be very jealous and upset about them being friends with an ex.
There's any number of reasons there. I think what I would just want to throw out there is, if that's something you're thinking about, I think it's okay to reach out and just say, "Hey, just thinking about you, wondering how you're doing." Something like that. Give them a little context to know this doesn't have to be super serious, but if they don't react well, that's also fine too. Maybe in another year, they might be the one saying, "Hey, gosh, I was still dealing with some stuff then." It's like to realize that this isn't your one and only try, so you don't need to push for this to be something and you're not failing by not being friends with this person.
Emily: I think just on a final note, just get really clear on why it is that you want to have a relationship of some sort with them again, because sometimes that is just, maybe I am interested in getting back together with them in some way versus I thought our connection was great and I really would like to have this person in my life because I value them in a variety of ways that aren't necessarily romantic.
Jase: Yes, and be open that they might have different expectations too.
Emily: 100%
Jase: All right. Let's go onto the second question here. What was your process?
Dedeker: Oh, yes. I didn't realize this is directed directly to you, Jase, or the three of us. I don't know.
Jase: What was your process of self-discovery like, especially as it relates to learning where your boundaries are? Did you do this independently or inside of a relationship? How does it continue to grow and change in your current relationships?
Dedeker: That's a big one.
Jase: It's covering a lot of ground there.
Dedeker: This is a perfect opportunity to tease one of the tools in our book. We came up with the Yourself tool, which is our tool, and of course, classic multiamory acronymization of literally everything to help figure out what your boundaries are. We do want to record a full episode dedicated to just that. We haven't done that yet, but if you want to pre-order our book, you can go to multiamory.com/book and get that pretty soon.
This is, again, boundaries are such a tricky topic. Something that I've come around to in my life right now is, I feel grateful that I've had a lot of experiences, not only of times where I feel like someone hurt me or crossed a line in some way, and then I realized retroactively like, oh, that was a boundary or I should have put up some more firm boundaries with this person or in this situation, I've realized this after the fact, and so now I know going into the future what to do.
These days what's been on my mind is thinking about boundaries in the sense of, I don't know, thinking about what's actually worked for me. What's created more joy and more safety and more peace in my life and in my relationships, as opposed to looking at my boundaries as though like, these are the things that I need to protect myself from all the enemies that are surrounding me, all the people who want to violate me or across these lines.
I don't know if that makes sense. I think that I've had a lot of painful experiences that have created a particular sense of boundaries, but then I feel like I'm also learning to more proactively create my own boundaries around the things that I want to be doing with my life or my schedule or things like that.
I guess the example that comes the top of mind is boundaries around my relationship to social media, honestly. Having to put in literally paying a company to prevent me from going on social media at particular hours. I use the Freedom app, I pay for it. Noticing that that's created a lot of more of a sense of joy and peace and presence in my life to the extent where now when I am on social media, it's really easy for me to maintain that boundary because I'm pretty much immediately anxious and then I'm like, "Okay, let's get the fuck out of here."
That didn't require necessarily like, oh my god, someone in particular attacked me or hurt me. That was about how do I want to create more joy and space in my life? That's going to require these particular boundaries. Maybe this is going way too like 301 level too fast with this, but that's just what's been on my mind and heart recently.
Emily: That's what they've been paying for Dedeker. That's what the listeners want. .
Jase: That's so interesting that you bring up that concept of looking at what are the things that make me feel good? How can I have more time for those things and what are the things that don't make me feel great? How can I move away from those rather than just that I have to protect myself against this attack or whatever. We often talk about boundaries as being this last line of defense rather than the thing you lead with. It's that idea of the bumpers on my car are to protect me in the times where I bump into something that I didn't mean to, but you're not driving around by scraping that bumper along the sides of the road to get yourself somewhere.
That idea that boundaries are really important to protect ourselves, but ideally, we want to not have to use them or bump up against them very often, if possible, and so it's that moving away.
I was just thinking while you were talking about that with social media that for me, something more recently has been a personal internal boundary on how much of my emotional bandwidth I'm willing to put toward someone else in terms of stressing about like, is this person okay? Did this person maybe not like me based on not a lot of evidence. I know I do that one a lot.
I've started to approach it more from this sense of what am I putting my energy toward rather than is this about them or not? If I'm just thinking about it as like, oh, do I worry and care about this person? Yes, I do. If I equate that with worrying is how I show that I care about that person, the only person who's hurting from that is me, and the person who's benefiting from that is nobody.
That way of just, again, to take boundaries in a different direction of how they affect my life more personally and not just about what I'm okay with putting up with from another person. I almost feel like as I've moved more toward that, with boundaries in terms of my relationships, now it's more if something's heading in a direction that feels like it's going to be bumping up against boundaries a lot, I'm able to earlier and a little more gently just, "I'm not going to be so close in this relationship", or "I'm just not going to go that direction" and try to avoid myself even getting there in the first place. I think that for me has been the big change from way back when we started this show to now.
Emily: We do talk in the book and on this show about how the best relationships, I think the healthiest relationships are going to have less of the fear involved in is this person going to bump up against my boundaries or not that it's coming from a place of assuming that that is just probably not going to happen that often. I'd say that it still probably will happen from time to time, and that's okay because we're all learning and our partners aren't mind readers, and so they're not going to know unless you make it known to them.
I know for myself generally in my life, just have really wishy-washy boundaries and I let a lot of people take advantage of me and my time, and that's something that is my thing to work on in general. In terms of a self-discovery process, it's just been a long, long slog of needing to realize that my time is valuable and that my sense of self is valuable and okay enough to be able to set things down and to say no, and to put myself first in situations where I generally just don't. That is time and age, and I guess-
Dedeker: Being too old for some of this shit?
Emily: -repetition of doing that so many times and being like that's probably not the wisest thing to do anymore, and that's tough.
Dedeker: Yes. I feel like, just to keep on taking this to 401. Yes, I've been really thinking a lot how much sometimes our self-worth and self-esteem can be tied up in how effective our boundaries are. I think are how effective we are at enforcing boundaries because I know for me, if there's an area of my life where I feel like, ooh, if I say no to this or negotiate in some way, that makes me a bad person or a selfish person or someone that doesn't deserve to be in a relationship.
For me, this is a big one with work, to be totally honest that I sometimes have a hard time having a boundary around my own work. It's because I work with people and I have the sense of like, oh, if I say no to this person that I work with, they're going to think less of me. If I don't agree to this thing this person is asking, they're going to ditch me or they're going to dislike me. I guess it starts to relate to the stuff that you work on, Jase, but there's other areas, honestly, in my relationships where I feel pretty much a pretty solid sense of like, oh, I can say no to XY and Z to this plan or this sex act or having this particular conversation or I can negotiate that but I feel secure, like, oh, this person's still going to love me.
That's going to depend on the relationship and how good your communication skills are at being able to compassionately force that boundary. I think that's interesting that it seems like this isn't, at least for me, not an across-the-board thing. It's like certain areas are really easy to enforce boundaries for me and certain areas or not.
Jase: Yes, I think that's a great note on the process of self-discovery because I was just looking back at the question here to see what the actual question was that was asked. I think it was about the process of self-discovery, as well as how does it continue to grow and change? I think we've covered quite a bit of that. The one middle part of this just real quick, is do you do this independently or inside of a relationship? I think my answer just real quick to that one. I'm curious to hear from you, Dedeker and Emily.
For me, it's definitely both, I think a lot of the boundaries are more personal. It's just taking the time to think about where my own energy is going and what's been good for me and what's not and how to I guess get ahead of that like I was mentioning. Also, I think that having had a lot of relationships and also talking to other people about their relationships, even just friends and things, not necessarily in a professional capacity has really helped to inform those things. Sometimes you just don't even know what there is to think about or to strive toward or to move away from until you've had some experiences.
Emily: Yes, I think you need experiences to be able to figure out what your boundaries are. Some of those will happen independently of other people. It's not just necessarily going to be I'm in this relationship so I'm learning this thing that I don't like about being in relationships or whatever. It's also I'm having this experience that's telling me that this is something about myself that perhaps I need to alter or look at or think about and that's putting a personal boundary on things that you also may not be great at.
That, for me is a huge one. I think it really depends upon the situation that you certainly can have self-discovery within a relationship but you also will have so much outside of them, and that's unnecessary.
Let's move on to our next question. When there's needs being unmet in a relationship and your partner promises to do XYZ differently, how do you come up with a timeline to give them space to implement the agreed-upon action points, versus just constantly being promised they'll do better without real follow-through?
Dedeker: Yes, that's a big one. I think a lot of people complain about that one.
Jase: Yes, I think something I just want to look at right away is the fact that they use the word action points, which means one, they're probably talking about this in a RADAR. As they're doing that, they're getting to action points. I would say that just as a place to start is when this happens, often it's because the action points are what are you actually going to do that we can point out and say yes, that thing was done or this thing is being different because of it's exactly this. Those need to be clear enough, they need to be specific enough. Something like, "Be nicer", is hard to say, "Oh, yes, I did be nicer." That's difficult to point out and say, yes, that happened.
Something instead that I'm going to come in and give you a kiss in the morning before I leave for work or I'm going to send you a good morning text or I'm going to remember to text you on my lunch break or whatever it is. It could look a lot of different ways. I'm just picking this one particular example, but something that's more concrete. Then I would also add, could have a timeframe on it. Something that Dedeker and I often do in our RADARs is if something comes up about it, let's take a positive example. Something we want to do, like, oh, we want to actually go out and have a date where we get dressed up.
We'll put not just the action point of we want to do this specific thing, but we'll also put a timeframe often before the next RADAR. Even better might be, we're going to do this two weeks from now. There's even something a little more specific, so then you're not trying to cram it in the last minute for your next RADAR or something like that.
I would say, just to step back from the question and say, look at those action points. Are they specific enough that you could even say yes or no this happened and that both of you would be very clearly in agreement about that? Then also having a sense of how long will that take? What's the timeline? If you can't do that, try taking a bigger concept and break it down into some smaller pieces and then come back again, make some more smaller pieces.
Emily: Yes, I was going to say that specifically that you can have, like micro check-ins, essentially, that aren't necessarily having to do a humongous RADAR again because those can be daunting and sometimes a little scary to do every month and to know like, "Okay, we're coming up to this, and we're going to have a big dump of all the shit that I did wrong this month." I think can be implemented in bite-sized chunks, just Hey, how do you feel this went this month or how do you feel when in this two-week period, for example and have it just be about that, as opposed to a bunch of other things perhaps that might make it a little bit more palatable.
Dedeker: Yes, but I think having the intention and hopefully, a shared intention of let's follow up on this in a couple of weeks or in a month or let's set some time aside to talk about this, again, that I've seen is probably your best tactic for not falling into that situation where you feel like you're just like waiting and waiting and waiting and like, do I bring it up? Do I not? Why do I have to be the one to bring it up? I'm just going to sit here and wait and test my partner and see if they ever remember. No one wants that shit at all. No one wants that shit.
I think it really is important that when you're collaborating with your partner, you're able to decide when you're going to follow up on this. I know that can sound weird, it can sound formal but again, it really is just figuring out how do we set ourselves up for success here so that you feel-- the person that I'm making a request of, you feel like you're able to do the things that will help make me feel better in the relationship and myself. The one making the request won't just be sitting and wondering what's going on? We close the loop on this, essentially because also life happens.
Sometimes I've made a request of a partner and they forget to do it. Then like between now and our next check and I'm like, Oh, don't forget to do this. So neglectful, yadda yadda yadda. Then we come to our next check-in and they are like, "Oh, my god, shit, I totally forgot. I said that I was going to do this thing. I'm so sorry. Let's put that on the calendar now" or whatever. It's just purely just human brains not functioning, versus someone being like, I don't know, an ass to you or something like that.
Emily: I just want to throw out, assume good intent and try to have you and your partner be looking at the thing that is a problem that you are coming together to help solve. I think it will, hopefully, differentiate in your brain that my partner is doing this thing to me or I'm asking them to fix something about them. Rather, I have a need to feel more secure in my relationship or something along those lines. I'm asking that of my partner instead of getting pissed at them. It's like, let's come together for a solution. If that's something that is hard. It's really really hard.
Dedeker: It's hard. It's hard especially if there's a dynamic where you feel criticized or feel like, Oh, I'm failing my partner and I feel this shame or if the two of you only ever have this kind of talks in the context of a problem, that's why we're so very pro RADAR, pro-check-in, is it's so important to have this channel open so that if you're the person who has a complaint or criticism, you're not just like the parent or the boss having to tell you what to do.
Then I check in, are you doing the thing that I asked you to do or be the taskmaster or whatever that again, it's so important to have that channel open, so it can feel more of a collaboration rather than I'm your boss and you're the employee and you got to do what I have to say.
Jase: Yes. I think just to go back to what Emily said, of it's us against the problem can be a really nice way to approach that action point step of, okay, we both agree, this is something that we want to change, maybe we have different reasons for it, maybe it's because I want to feel better and you want to make me happy or vice versa. We both agree we want this thing to change. Then, okay, what's the action point version of that and that's a collaboration and also when will this happen? Can be a collaboration rather than one person demanding or requesting that of the other.
Dedeker: Again, if you're completely lost when we're talking about RADARs, if you have no idea how to have a check-in conversation, go to multiemery.com/radar. We're also going to be covering this in our book. You can also once again go to multiemery.com/book to get more information about that.
Jase: Before we go on to our next few questions here, we're going to take a quick break to talk about how you can support this show. If you value this content, if you appreciate the fact that we put this out there into the world for free, which we love doing, it really goes a long way for you to take a moment to check out the sponsors of this show. Visit them. If they seem interesting to you, listen to them. It does directly support our show whenever you do those things and we really appreciate it and we look forward to continuing to bring this to you for a long time.
Dedeker: Let's dive into our next question. How can I let go of previous relationship trauma so that it doesn't taint the future of the relationship? My relationship with my partner is fantastic, but previous transgressions against the relationship feel hard to shake despite previous effort that forgiveness.
I initially misread this question. I thought that this person was saying I was previously in a bad relationship and I'm worried about that tainting the current one. If that's the case for you, that you're struggling to feel like you can relax and enjoy your current relationship after you've left a bad one, you can go check out Multiamory Episode 376 where we dive into that. This is a little bit different. This feels like it's starting to speak to feeling resentment, having a hard time forgiving a partner, having a hard time repairing stuff that happened in the past.
Jase: I think that, Dedeker, when you read the first question of today's episode and you said it was a doozy, I think this one's actually the doozy.
Dedeker: Yes, you're right.
Jase: It's hard, right? It's hard and the advice out there in the world, and we've looked at this before for example, when we did our episode on forgiveness when we were researching this for a couple of past episodes. One is 342, which is to forgive or not to forgive about the concept of forgiveness in general and some of the research about that as well as episode 354 called Rethinking Resentment. What I'm getting at here is that the advice about these is hard because often people will come out with very clear advice of like, this is the thing that you should do, or this is how you can forgive, or this is how you can move past trauma, or this is how you can rebuild trust in a relationship.
The problem is that it really depends so much on the context on what happened, what's been actually done to repair that, what's changed, how long has it been? There's a lot of factors that go into it. I can understand why this person would reach out with the question because it's hard to find good advice about it because you'll go one place and it's all these things about like, here's how you forgive and that's what you should do.
Then other ones where it's about, no, actually you need to make them earn it or you should just leave. There's all these different things and it's such a hard one because there's not one clear answer and people get more clicks on the internet if they give you a clear answer. That's why you find a lot of that.
Emily: It's so difficult because relationship issues compound over time and they do often in our brain and hearts and yet we are different people throughout the course of our relationships. Especially if you have a long-term one, you're different people all over the place throughout the course of that relationship. You may not be the best person at all times in your relationship. Then you may learn and grow and be a better person. The same is true for your partner as well. I think so often, so many people get caught up in, well I remember when you did this and remember that thing.
I'm not saying that that trauma isn't there and that we shouldn't acknowledge it, but we should also try to acknowledge the people that we become and the lessons that we learn. I wish sometimes that that is the case more, that we are able to forgive more than perhaps we want to.
Dedeker: I was going to say, I think that's like a necessary factor to have a healthy relationship. It's because inevitably--
Emily: Yes, because we're going to piss each other up and fuck each other up and it happens.
Dedeker: Yes. I mean not to normalize any toxic or straight up mean behavior, but it is just, we're going to bump into each other and we're going to step on toes, right? We need to have some way of being able to forgive and move on and not just pile up a grudge or a list of wrongs. I like to think about these situations, especially when I'm working with clients, I like to hit the fast forward button or imagine that you're stepping in a time machine and jumping to the future of the relationship. Let's say we skip past all the hard work, we skip to the point where you have forgiven your partner and how would you know, how would you know that you've forgiven your partner?
How would things be different? How would you feel different? What different thoughts would you be thinking? What different feelings would you be feeling? That can give some insight into what it is that's missing or what you're craving or maybe clarify what needs to be worked on in the relationship. If this is something that you're working on with a partner, if the two of you're able to talk about this that the partner who feels like they haven't been forgiven, because that's a shitty position to be in also.
The partner can think about, "Okay, again, if I fast forward into the future, how would I know that my partner has forgiven me? What are the things that I would notice? How would they talk to me? How would they treat me? What are the thoughts I'd be thinking? What are the feelings I'd be feeling?" Again, that can also help to clarify what might be missing here. If that's just way too much, this is also a great exercise again to do with professional help, either individually, working with an individual therapist, coach, counselor can help you figure out what's missing here or together with your partner as well.
Jase: I want to come back to some of the wording in the question here where they say, my relationship with my partner is fantastic, but previous transgressions against the relationship feel hard to shake despite previous efforts at forgiveness. We've been talking about the forgiveness piece and I think that's valuable, but I think the other piece is the trust piece and trust and fear, I guess, which are sometimes related, but not always. A couple of things to think about with this is one is we don't have any context, right? I don't know what these transgressions were, how long ago it was, what's been done to change that, what mitigating factors there were-- I don't know.
This might really vary depending on those circumstances. One thing to think about is the pain or the hurt from that whatever happened can still be there and can still be valid but looking at what's the evidence I have now? Is it that I'm afraid this is going to happen again because I don't really have any evidence to show me that it won't? Or is there even evidence to say that it might still? Was it related to some other behaviors or some things I see in my partner that I'm still a little bit concerned about? It also, maybe it's just new. Maybe it just hasn't been that much time yet and how much time is all relative.
To look at, what's the evidence I can point to and say, actually here's the reasons why it is different and this is why that's not going to happen again. Or at least I don't think it's very likely to, when you try to step back and look at the evidence because it allows you to acknowledge I might still be upset about it sometimes. I might still think back on it and be pissed off about it. That doesn't necessarily have to then mean, oh, and my current fears about it, I should be listening to those.
On the other hand, you might say, I've done such a great job forgiving and when I look for evidence that anything's changed, I don't see any. Then maybe it's like, hey, great for you that you've let that go, but also this maybe is a thing to still be concerned about. That's just one approach to look at that.
Dedeker: That's a really good way to flip it on its head and think about that.
Emily: All righty, let's move on. What are some of the best ways for "veterans" to give "newbies" advice? Friends, family, lovers. Sometimes you know there will be some resistance, sometimes none at all. Plus so many choices are very personal. Understanding informed consent is something I always try to lean into.
Jase: I'm assuming in this case they mean newbies to non-monogamy or polyamory.
Emily: I'm assuming that as well and veterans of polyamory as well.
Dedeker: I don't know. It could be for paintball for all we know and that they wandered into the wrong Discord. It's--
Emily: It's interesting that they're talking about friends, family, and lovers that all three of those potentially will be different, which I think they certainly can be. If you're going to be giving some sort of advice or talking about something very specific within your relationship, you may want to be gentler around certain groups of people perhaps.
Dedeker: Well, I think this person mentioning the informed consent thing is key here. It's, don't be giving advice that you haven't been asked for. Don't be assuming that you know more than this other person necessarily in all situations.
I found myself wondering, this is maybe adding another question into the mix, but randomly this morning I was thinking about is there ever a situation where it's appropriate to "pull rank" in the sense of, I've been successfully non-monogamous for 10 years and you've been successfully non-monogamous for 6 months and trust me on this one, just trust me. Do you think there's any situation where that's appropriate or do you think it's always going to be something like, I don't know if that's going to be going too far?
Jase: I would take it back to what Emily was mentioning about the difference between what is your relationship to this person? I'm always hesitant to make sweeping declaratory statements.
Dedeker: Sure.
Jase: I would say that when it comes to a lover of your own, like a romantic relation of your own, that's never appropriate. I just think that's a line you don't want to cross. It's a dynamic that shouldn't be there.
Emily: That's like a power play there a little bit too.
Jase: Yes. Right. It's just so rife with opportunities for that to just go really badly. Even if it doesn't go badly at first and even if it comes from the best of intentions, that's just not a healthy dynamic to have in that relationship. I do want to clarify that maybe you do have some intentional power dynamic in the relationship. A kink dynamic of some kind that involves those types of roles of giving instructions and following instructions, for example.
When it comes to this type of thing that's outside of that play, that's more of, I'm actually just trying to help you live a better life or trying to give you wisdom that I have in those romantic relationships or those intimate relationships, I just don't think it's appropriate when it has to do with their own relationship with you that way. I've never seen it lead to good relationships and so I really don't recommend it. Even if you think it's working in the short term, it usually doesn't.
Now, on the other hand if this is a friend, I could see an opportunity or a family member that they're wanting advice again. The consent thing, they want the advice. There might be some times where they're like "Well, but I think this might be okay." If you're like "No, look, I've seen so many people, including myself, think that they could do that and that it would be okay just trust me on this one, it's not." Realize they're probably still going to do it anyway but at least you said your thing, you're not going to stop them from it. I think in that case it could be okay.
Emily: It's so funny because, Dedeker, you have talked about this a lot that there are people who come up once they hear that you're non-monogamous or write you or call you like past people that you've been involved with and say "Oh, guess what? Me and my wife are maybe interested in trying this out. or if you want to sit down for coffee and just chat." Something along those lines.
Dedeker: Anytime I hear from a man, it's usually a man, anytime I hear from a man that I've not heard from at least 10 years and it's just like "Oh, hey" I'm always like, "You and your wife tried to have a threesome, right?" Or "You and your wife just opened up your relationship, right?" Most of the time, it's accurate.
Emily: Maybe in that scenario go for it. Just lay it all out. I don't know. It does depend. It's going to be very specific to the scenario and the person that you're speaking to. I do agree with you, Jase, it's tough because sometimes when you have multiple partners, you want to come to a partner as more of a friend for advice. It's so challenging because there are so many things that can color that relationship and that experience and the discussion that you may be having with that person. I hear you, I hear what you're saying by just like don't when it's romance. Sometimes I want to come to a partner as a friend and be like what do you think about this? This, this-
Jase: That's a great point. I do want to clarify. I'm not saying don't ever give advice to them but don't ever do the pulling rank like, I know what I'm talking about. Just do what I say. That's more what I'm getting at. I think as far as giving advice, it is tricky and you got to be a little bit careful there especially if you are clearly more experienced with anything. With relationships in general or non-monogamy or whatever the context is, just be careful because as the one with more experience, your partner will often take you more seriously and take you at face value.
Maybe they shouldn't. Maybe they should be questioning things and figuring their own stuff out a little bit. That doesn't come from any ill intent on either of your parts but that's an easy place to go. Just be extra careful in that situation.
Dedeker: Also, let me just say be extra careful. It does not matter how many years someone has been non-monogamous unless you know, unless you've been there for all 10 years of that history. They could have been doing 10 years of fucked up non-monogamy for all you know. This is so tricky because we're in a community where we want role models and we want leaders and we want someone who has gone before us to point out where the obstacles are and where the potholes in the road are. Some people can do that. There's a certain amount of knowledge and information that is helpful in that way. Also just be careful. That's all I have to say.
Jase: I guess to wrap up this one a little bit, I did want to say just that even if you've been doing something longer, like Dedeker said, the other person might not know what they're talking about if they've been doing it longer but if you're the one who's been doing it longer, you also only have your own experiences to go on. That may be completely different from the person you're talking to because of their personality, because of their past, because of the way they want to do relationships. There's a lot of things there.
I would just be careful of approaching anything with too much of an absolute. Maybe you're like, "No, I've really seen evidence that this goes badly. If you do want to try it, especially look out for these things but I've just never seen it work. I really recommend you don't." Is better than, "Just don't because I said so."
Dedeker: I think that's maybe a good little note to end on is if you're giving advice to someone who has specifically asked for your advice, you have to learn to not be attached to whether or not they actually act on that advice or not.
Jase: That's great.
Dedeker: That's going to save you a lot of heartache and frustration in the end that you can give what you think is absolute gold and they may not take it. Doesn't matter I think--
Jase: That's so true. Maybe they'll make the mistake this time and think back and then next time they'll remember your advice. You can't control that. We have one last question that we want to get to today and that is, how do you manage feelings of comparison when you are going through a hard time with a partner whilst they are having a great time with other partners?
Dedeker: This is the worst situation. I hate--
Jase: A few things. Of all the questions that were submitted, this was the one in our Discord server that the most people reacted to this. I wanted to be sure we got to this one. Also, I wanted to give props to someone using the word whilst in a sentence. I love that.
Emily: I'm assuming you were from the UK or somewhere.
Dedeker: I was assuming you were from 1598 or something.
Emily: Oh, there you go.
Jase: I love the word whilst just fun fact. It's such a cool word and I don't use it often enough. Feelings of comparison when you're going through a hard time with a partner whilst they're having a great time with their other partners. Oh gosh this is hard.
Emily: There's so many hard ones today.
Jase: Great questions, everybody.
Emily: I think the low-hanging fruit and I don't want to just say this and have people groan into their podcast players or whatever the low-hanging fruit would be, it's about working on yourself. It's about finding self-love. It's about doing things that make you happy regardless because sometimes it's not going to really do anything.
Sometimes maybe you just have to live in your feelings or talk to a therapist or talk to your partner and say, "Hey, I'm having an rough time here so can we do something about that together? Can we proactively help the two of us feel like we're getting a fun good time out of this relationship at this moment? Because my feelings and not that this is necessarily reality or truth, but my feelings are telling me that you have a better time with other people than you do with me."
Dedeker: That conversation is a great candidate for being really clear about what it is you're wanting out of expressing that to your partner. This is a great candidate for the Triforce. If you don't know about the Triforce of communication, go check out our fundamentals episode about that because you can be coming to a partner with, I really want some action on this. I want us to problem solve together. I feel like we're having a hard time and I feel like I see you having a great time. How can we make this relationship feel more fun or great or smooth or whatever it is?
It could just be what we would call a T2 or just wanting empathy or care. Where it's like I know we're going through a hard time, it's really stressful in our lives right now. I know there's nothing we can do to change it right now at this moment, but can you just comfort me and hold me and understand my feelings about that and how that's hard.
In my personal experience, I've also gotten a lot of value of being able to just T1 as in just express it to a partner without an expectation that anything's going to change in that moment. I've gotten a surprising amount of benefit from just being able to say to a partner, "Wow, I'm just feeling really envious right now of what you're experiencing that I'm not experiencing" and really clarifying that's it.
I don't need to respond to this right now. I don't need you to fix it. I just want it to be known. I just want to be heard. I'm experiencing a lot of envy right now. Maybe that is, then I'm like I know that I have this under wraps as I can go do my own self work or comfort myself or self-soothe myself if that's the appropriate situation.
Jase: I think that's a really important thing to think about from that teamwork with your partner point of view. I think that another way to approach this is from what does this look like for me if my partner's not part of this equation at all? That's maybe easier said than done but just as a mental exercise to think I'm having these feelings of comparison in that I think they're having this great time with their other partners. At least that's how it seems to me. Maybe that's what they're telling me and I know I'm struggling in this relationship.
To look at if I am leaving out just the part of me comparing, what is it that this is maybe bringing up that I wish I had that I didn't, or what's a feeling I want to have that I'm not having and look at, are there some ways that I could be getting even just a little more of that? Even if it's not okay, cool, magically, I fixed the problem, but if it is, I want more physical affection. That's the thing I keep coming back to is that's what I'm so upset thinking that I'm not getting, and I'm sad about that.
Maybe looking at are there ways to either ask for that? Are there ways to get that from other people, potentially in a more platonic way even or is it about I want someone to just get to know someone and have new experiences? That also could mean going on dates, but that could also mean finding a new community, going to a meetup group in your area or joining a new Discord, finding people with a common interest, something like that of looking at what's the thing I wish I had more of? This isn't going to fix it overnight, but it at least might give you a proactive place to be focusing on when you're thinking, "Gosh, I'm just sad that I don't have this other thing."