Hello. Hi, Fox. Hey, Nova. It's time for the crowdsource episode. Yes, which was one of my favorites of last season. Mine too. I loved how it came together. I would say the most challenging aspect of the crowdsource episode was coming up with a question this year. Oh my gosh, yes. Like, our question last season was just so open-ended and so open to the audience. Yeah, we definitely wanted it to have room for nuance and have no right or wrong.
Yeah. Hopefully, this year, I think we found that sweet spot again. Yeah, yeah. So the question we arrived at is what makes you feel secure in a relationship? Some of the answers we got were audio, and some of them were written. So for the written ones, we have recorded our own voices. You'll hear us throughout this episode, but it's not a full-on video. So we're going to be doing a full-on video of the answers. You'll hear us throughout this episode, but it's not our actual responses.
We're just lending a voice to a written response. Yep. So let's get to it. What did people tell us about feeling secure in their relationships? Yeah, let's check it out. So what makes me feel secure in a relationship? I'm not really sure. I live my life very intuitively. I don't think a lot about my relationships. My secure ones, anyway, the ones that I feel secure in, I don't think about them a lot, which I think is one of the things that makes me feel secure about them is not questioning them.
When I get to a point of not questioning them, when I really enjoy being around a person, when it never feels like a chore to be around a person, that leads to a good relationship. My longest relationships are the ones that I feel the most secure in. So having spent a lot of time with a person is definitely something that makes me feel secure. And I think also feeling like that person is engaged with me in a very similar way that I'm engaged with them.
So sort of a mutual level of engagement with a person to where like, I'm not way more into them than they're into me. They're not way more into me than I am into them. Like when it feels mutual, that helps with security. I definitely have like at least one friend that we do get on each other's nerves after a while, but the fact that we get on each other's nerves makes it okay somehow. I don't get on their nerves and I'm fine, you know.
We get on each other's nerves and the fact that that's mutual just means we need to spend a little time apart from time to time. And understanding that we need to spend a little bit of time apart is a good thing that makes me feel secure, that we like understand. So communication also, like knowing these things about ourselves and all that, that's definitely a thing that makes me feel more secure in a relationship. First of all, I'm immediately in the mindset of attachment theory.
Secure versus anxious versus avoidant styles of attachment. Super illuminating for me in my early romantic life. In past relationships, I have felt a mix of each, naturally, but what often tipped the balance from anxiety to more secure footing was to establish consistent communication channels. If I messaged my guy on Instagram, but he didn't have notifications turned on, I could have saved myself an evening spent spiraling if I had just texted.
I would say just like being super blunt and truthful. Like I need someone to just be like, that's BS, Vic. Like that is totally your BS, you just made that up. And I'm like, yeah, you're right. I did. Like I just need, I need like realness. I think that keeps, because then I know that that person's like really believing in who I am and who they are. And we can like just have that trust. I don't need you to like fluff anything for me.
Like tell me how it is. You're gonna break my heart? Just do it. Like, yeah, I think that's, that's what makes me feel secure. Security in a relationship for me is being honest with each other about expectations, boundaries and the like. Knowing each other's boundaries is important to me because of the PTSD I've suffered from toxic relationships. Having a partner that is aware and empathetic is something that makes me feel secure.
And when I feel secure, I feel more intimate with a partner emotionally and physically. Relationships are really complicated things and they involve a lot of patience, love and acceptance. For me, I know perfectly well that I need to feel secure, but that doesn't mean that'll be what my partner needs. First and foremost, I pretty much begin to feel better with someone once I've learned what I have to do to bring them the most comfort and happiness.
If that fits into my comfort zone and I can see the effects of my efforts, then I can begin really worrying about my own needs. It's not that I see myself as some great provider or selfless champion of love. More that I know how much work these things can be and I want to be sure that I have what it takes to be in it for the long haul first. That's the first element I need to feel safe, giving this person access to the private elements of myself that I mostly keep walled up from others.
Once I know I'm in a good place to make my partner happy, I start looking for the little things that make me feel good. It's not always the same from person to person. Everyone has their own style and what might feel really sweet coming from one person might feel very different from another. The biggest and most important thing for me is that I don't feel like I need to be special or different for them. Like I want the me that they met to be enough.
And as we age and change, I want them to love me for who I become. One of the biggest challenges in my life has been the loss of long-held relationships because the person I was with changed and stopped being happy with me. It was never a big fight or some awful event or series of events that broke things off. It just seemed like a gradual and extremely heartbreaking loss of interest. Selfishly, I want to always be interesting to the person I'm with. I want to feel valued and appreciated.
Once that feeling is lost, that's when things start to feel very insecure. I don't need to be a mind-blowing superstar in their eyes or anything. I just want to always feel like I matter to them. And like the time we spend together isn't a chore or line item on a schedule. That's what I really want. And that's what I try to provide as well. For me, feeling secure in a relationship comes from being able to trust each other completely without worrying about getting in trouble.
When there are no secrets between us, I feel much closer and more connected to my partner. And there is more intimacy in all aspects. One thing that really helped us get to this point was deciding to be open to the idea of including someone else in our relationship, which got rid of any sneaky behavior. Now my wife feels comfortable sharing all her worries and intimate desires with me. And I feel good knowing I can tell her anything without upsetting her.
Being open with each other has actually shown us that we have more desires and dreams in common than we thought. So this topic feels really timely to me because I've been reading PolySecure, a book about consensual non-monogamy and attachment theory and how polyamorous individuals or people dating multiple people can get to a state of securely attached relationships with multiple people at the same time.
And if you'd asked me before I got to a certain point in the book, what makes me feel secure about my relationships, it would be about things like whether I feel fully seen and feel safe exposing all different parts of myself. How has the relationship already evolved that's allowed us to build up trust that as it continues to evolve, we'll stay close and we'll work out the issues. And do I know that the person is willing to do the work to to be a safe and caring human in relationship with me?
And all of those things are still true. But what I learned from the book is that there's a difference between being in a secure relationship with somebody and being in a securely attached relationship that has dramatically changed how I've seen my relationships that I'm in today. So to take a step back, I'm solo poly. I live alone and I don't even live in the same state as any of my long term partners that I've had from anywhere between five and 15 years.
So these are very secure relationships where they've obviously evolved a number of times over the over the years. And I have deep love for them. They have deep love for me. But what I've realized recently that as we've evolved, we haven't always evolved in a way that Jessica Fern and the woman that she quotes from Sue Johnson would consider securely attached.
So the difference here is that secure connections are, and I'm going to just quote her here, secure in the bond that we have with such people. And this bond might be immensely meaningful, special, and important to us, but it's not necessarily a relationship that requires us to invest regular maintenance and attention. On the other hand, securely attached relationships answer three questions affirmatively. Are you available? Are you responsive? Are you emotionally engaged?
And over time, even though I feel that my partners are committed to me and I'm committed to them, what that commitment looks like changes and we're not always available for each other on a daily basis. So thankfully, I'm very grateful to have partners that are that anytime I'm respond, I'm going through a hard time. Can you talk? They will make time for me.
And then I have partners who have a baby right now, and as much as they love me, they do not have the capacity to be always responsive and available for me. And I don't always have the emotional availability for them either. And yet I still know and believe deeply that will be a meaningful part of each other's lives in 10 years.
And I think that this is the beauty of polyamory, that we can be seen and loved by people in such very different ways that that emotional availability or how we show up in each other's lives doesn't have to look the same, but they can still feel secure. Or they can help us feel secure in who we are. And that's what I found with my partnerships that I have anyway that I feel completely loved and our agreements or commitments to each other evolves as needed.
In response to your question about what makes me feel secure in a relationship, here's my comment. For me, communication, honesty, and respect are essential to feeling secure. If there's an issue, it should be openly discussed with my partner. When these elements are present, there's no need for secrecy and I feel confident discussing concerns or worries. This leads me to a transparent and healthy relationship.
Both within the context of polyamory and in the wider scope of any kind of relationship, platonic or otherwise, the one thing that makes me feel the most secure in those interactions is when those involved are vocal about enjoying my company. And coupled that with actions that reflect that. Something as simple as saying, I look forward to seeing you, or reaching out occasionally with a, this thing reminded me of you, helps me ease my insecurities.
It lets me know without a shadow of a doubt that the other person not only doesn't mind me being part of their life, but actively seeks my presence. It makes me feel like an active and genuinely desired choice, rather than a passive option that doesn't matter. How I see someone treat others can make me admire and trust that person.
If they don't want or need anything from someone else, and they are still kind and try to see the other person's point of view, that makes me think they are a genuinely good person, who will still be kind to me even if they lose interest in me or become preoccupied with something else.
If the person lets me into their interior world, not just telling me about what they did or what happened to them that week, but telling me how they felt about it and what motivated them, it makes me feel like I know the person, what drives them and what to expect from them in the future. It makes me feel safer being myself and sharing my internal world with them. And if I can do that and they don't run away screaming, that's a pretty good sign.
If the person really listens and tries to understand what I am thinking and feeling, asks for clarification when they don't, I feel heard and seen. And even if they don't understand what I'm saying, I feel cared about because I see them trying. Hey, it's us again. Nova, what did you think? Well, you know, I loved that there ended up being some threads that showed up in multiple answers that kind of surprised me and I liked that.
Yeah. I also really liked the variety of answers, which I was hoping for and it was really cool to hear the different directions that it took different people as they explored their answers. Yeah, every time we do this, that's what I'm hoping for. I really want to highlight just how it's so different for each person. Yeah. Like there's no one size fits all perfect formula answer for feeling secure. Yeah, for sure.
So like I love doing these episodes because they're just like more than anything, I think they just show people that there's such diversity out there. Yeah. I love the podcast in the sense that I love that we get a chance to share some of the experiences we've had and some of the things we've learned. But I also really, really cherish these kinds of episodes where we get a chance to invite others to share their voice and share some perspective that they have.
Like, I really do love having more voices than just ours. Yeah, I think that's super important, actually. And it's something I hope that we get to keep continuing to do. Yeah, me too. So that's the Crowdsource episode. Yep. Thank you so much for joining us again. Yeah, this was awesome. And thank you, Nova. Really? Yes, because like you said earlier, you love this podcast and I do too because I get to spend all this extra time with you. Working on this project together. It is pretty special.
So thank you. Thank you too. Bye. Bye. That was our intro music as Beatbox by Fox. All Fox all the time. Radio 3.5.