¶ Intro / Opening
🎵 Music
¶ Discerning "Me" Problems from "We" Problems
Any time when I feel like I have some internal challenges having the opportunity to talk through that rationally and carefully and kindly with my partner and having them be able to validate me also and say, like, I understand that that might be hard or that that you know, I can see where you're coming from and just how grateful I am that they do that for me and that we can speak about it together and that both of us can hopefully come to a better place emotionally so that
that both of us feel good about what it is that we're doing. I think being vulnerable, yes, it is scary, but it also gives our partners the opportunity to show up for us too. And if you're in a good relationship, how wonderful is that.
Welcome to the Multi-Emery Podcast. I'm Jace.
I'm Emily.
And I'm Dedeker.
We believe in looking to the future of relationships, not maintaining the status quo of the past.
Whether you're monogamous, polyamorous, Swinging, casually dating, or if you just do relationships different. We see you, and we're here for you.
🎵 Music
On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're A listener question that comes up again and again in relationships of all kinds, but especially in non-monogamous ones. And that How do you know when something you're feeling is yours to work through on your own and when it's actually something worth bringing to your partner to have them solve or to solve together?
Today we're going to dive into some of what the research says about self-disclosure and introduce some tools and frameworks for figuring out how to tell the difference. If you're interested in learning about some of our fundamental communication tools that can also be effective when addressing tricky problems like this, check out our book.
Multiamory Essential Tools for Modern Relationships, which covers some of our most used communication tools for all types of relationships. Find out more about it at multiamory.com slash book or walk into your local bookstore and tell'em they gotta get it, so you can buy it.
A disclaimer before we start, we've spent a lot of time studying healthy relationship communication, but part of what makes relationships so interesting is that they are all different. Every situation is unique, so we encourage you to use your own judgment and seek professional help if needed. Ultimately, you're the only true expert on your own life and feelings, and your decisions are your own. This question has been edited for time and clarity.
Okay folks, here is our listener question this week. How do you discern what is a you problem and what you should take to your partner? I'm very new to polyamory and I'm exploring it as a single person currently. In a recent relationship when I was experiencing triggers, I would find it really hard deciding whether what I was feeling and thinking needed to be shared, or if it was something I should just deal with alone.
Depending on where you look, you get the opposite answer, so I'd often talk myself out of bringing things up to him. Having been single for a long time prior, I would usually keep my mouth shut and explore it myself and then maybe go to him with what I learned, but that usually ended up with me feeling emotionally exhausted and isolated. And feeling like I was doing all the emotional labor when I was already trying to unlearn people pleasing tendencies.
Do you have any advice on how to know when it's best to approach an issue as a team versus when you work through it yourself? I feel like my approach is hyper individualistic, but I also don't want to swing the opposite way. That is sent into us by Confused in Coventry.
Wow, what a good question.
Yeah, Jace, which way do I tend to swing on this spectrum?
You tend to swing into the I'm gonna solve it myself.
Yeah everything. I will solve ever I will solve all the world's problems myself and not tell anybody about it. You won't even know I'm the superhero behind the scenes that has solved all the world problems, so be on the lookout for that, folks and friends.
Yeah. I mean I'm I'm aware. I I do sometimes when I see you being really stressed remind you of the fact that you are holding the entire world on your shoulders and you every time I say it you're like, Yes, but I am though. And
Yeah, but I have to. But I have to keep the world.
Yeah.
Is there a different way in which you swing, Jace?
Hmm, yeah, what kind of swinger am I? Uh I don't know. That's actually a good question. I think it it depends. I do feel like I tend to maybe err on the side of feeling like I need to solve something on my own, you know, figure out my complicated feelings myself, but I think I'm maybe more likely to bring that to a partner. I don't know. What do you think, Dedeker? Is that true of me?
I think you do a pretty good balance.
Okay, so I'm perfect at it.
You're basically you're perfect compared to me. Don't quote that. Don't uh maybe we should strike that from the record.
I'll make a a judgment call when I'm editing this episode later. You know, I think I also err on the side of like I need to fix the problem myself, but I will at times be like the reason why maybe I had this emotional reaction to something is because of X. And recently I have tried to figure out the difference between this is a you problem versus a me problem.
Usually I will first go to it's a me problem, but I'll say like this emotional reaction happened because I felt triggered by this thing that occurred. Not that that's necessarily your fault. you may not have known that that would happen, for instance, but I think that i it reminded me of something that happened in the past, for instance. And so I think that I had a strong reaction to that.
And I would like to maybe speak about that or brainstorm some ways that we can maybe have a different set of behaviors that happen surrounding something that may come up that is similar in the future.
The way that you're describing it, that sounds like that's a part of a repair process almost. Right. It's like I'm imagining a situation where maybe you I was gonna say you flew off the handle. I don't think you're someone who really flies off the handle, right? But yeah, maybe you have an emotional reaction.
An emotional reaction.
Yeah, you know, something comes up and that then is part of getting closer to your partner and trying to figure out it sounds like either just letting them in or inviting them into some kind of like let's collaborate on problem solving here that that's when you will choose to disclose.
Yeah. I think especially if if I have an emotional reaction to something that is said in front of them versus like something that is said asynchronously or if it's through text or whatever. It kind of depends on the way
I think that it's framed and the way that we discuss it and my state of mind at that particular moment in time or whatever. Like there's a variety of factors involved, I think, when it comes to the way in which we process emotions and how we tend to bring that to our partners and how we tend to deal with them on our own.
Well, so from what we're all talking about here, it sounds at first glance like we're all leaning a bit similar to the question asker here, to confused in coventry of being a little bit more of the individualistic approach of like I have to figure this out, solve this myself.
But as I was thinking about this, I was first gonna ask the question, have we had experiences of friends or people we've dated who lean hard the other direction? But then as I was thinking about it, I feel like I've also been the person on the other side of that at different points in my life too.
Like where whereas in a partner is bringing too you think like too much to you?
Where I've been the one bringing more stuff saying like, Oh, this is this is because of you, this is because of stuff that you're doing or like, Hey, I need you to solve this for me, or I need you to solve this with me. And I feel like th it's hard to pull apart what is it, right?'Cause I think that whole thing of you did this, that was bad, you need to change is something that we do see come up. Like it comes up in people's questions that they write in.
It's something that I think we've all experienced and is generally generally tends to have negative consequences when it's unilateral on that side. But I think we also see a lot of people have the negative consequences of unilaterally trying to do it all themselves, right? And those are the people that
And like the question asker here, who often will go and seek support in like the polyamory subreddit and everyone tells them, Oh, it's your own problem to deal with. And kind of erasing the fact that no, actually there might be bad behavior that's making you feel this way.
Yeah, I I do think a lot of like pre twenty seventeen non monogamy resources and cultural norms leaned more in the direction of it's all a you problem. I I think it leaned more in the direction of
But all internally.
Yes, if you're getting triggered, if you're feeling jealous, yeah, you gotta work through your shit, you gotta figure out why that's getting triggered in you and like don't make it your partner's problem, don't use it as A lever to try to control your partner in a way. And and I I still see the ripples of that.
I think especially yeah, we see this in like in like the big online nominogamy communities or subreddits, right? Like I do think people lean hard in the direction of like you gotta get your stuff.
together when that's not always appropriate. I I think that over the years I've learned it's it's what's makes this difficult is I think in most situations it's almost never one hundred percent one way or the other. Right. I think in most situations in life it's Rarely, one hundred percent, this is all on your shoulders and you shouldn't bring your partner in on this at all.
And it's almost never this is one hundred percent your partner's fault and you have no responsibility and no accountability in this. And that's not to say that everything is the middle. I don't think that everything is fifty fifty. I think the devil's in the details of figuring out the nuance of how much of this. Do I tackle on my own? How much of this do I bring my partner into?
Yeah, and I think what you were alluding to before, Dedeker, about l the repair attempts when we talk about something like repair shop, for instance, which is one of our tools for repairing after a fight. w when we look at the history side of things, the personal feelings that we have surrounding like an incident that may have happened. And okay, the reason why I had this reaction is because of something that happened to me in my past.
And therefore I can recognize that maybe to some people that thing that my partner said wouldn't have been as hurtful as it was to me because they didn't have the same sort of history that I have surrounding that incident. Right. But There are of course other instances where, yeah, the thing that the person said or the thing that they did is just downright not okay. And, you know, I do tend to want to first look inward and ask myself.
Do I have my own personal story or personal history surrounding this that caused me to have this type of emotional reaction to that? Or actually no. Like I I really don't think that there's anything in my past that would have caused me to have a weird feeling about this or be hurt or triggered by it. And it's something to do potentially with them or with our relationship with one another or with any other number of things.
You know, I I try to assume good intent first when it comes to my partners, but that's not always the case at all times. And so yeah, that's I think becomes the challenge here.
I do want to take a quick moment just to validate the the side that we're kind of criticizing right now, which is the one saying, Oh, you've got to do it all internally. You've got to figure that out yourself. And I think that
Where that comes from is from people's experience of opening up a relationship or dating people that are new to non-monogamy or something, is that there is a lot of unlearning that you have to do. And for a lot of us, during that transition period, there are a lot of things where you can just sort of knee-jerk go.
Oh that's
this is bad, it made me feel bad, therefore it was wrong, when that might actually be because of your conditioning or because of how you were taught relationships should go or like what should be meaningful. So I think it makes sense where that comes from. And I think that that
urge to tell you to work on it a little bit yourself makes sense. But I like that second step that Emily put in there of doing that inner work, but then deciding if that's something to bring to your partner rather than you do the internal work and that's it.
That's it. You can't you can't bring anything to them. You can't expect any teamwork. Which I think is where some people online who've maybe felt like they were traumatized by a partner who demanded everything of them or put all their problems on them.
to then tell everyone, oh, you can't do that at all. Right? It's that again, trying to jump to an extreme as the answer instead of spending the time to figure out where in the middle is this? If everything's somewhere in the middle, where in the middle is it?
Well believe it or not, I actually found some research relevant to this.
Very cool. I'm excited to get into that. We're gonna take a quick break to talk about our sponsors first, so please do Use our promo codes, links, things like that in the show description. That really does help our show. And then of course, the best thing you can do is to join our community by going to multiamory.com slash join.
And there you'll get ad-free episodes, access to our amazing community, our monthly video processing groups where you can bring your concerns and celebrations to other people in real time. It's a really fantastic place to be, and we hope to see you there at multiamory.com slash join.
This episode is brought to you by Uberloop. Lube is the key to maximizing pleasure, whether you're alone or with a partner. If you're gonna lubricate, you wanna make sure it's done with the highest quality, body-safe ingredients, and nothing out there beats our favorite Uber lube.
We are huge fans of Uberlube, and Uberloop is for everyone. Thousands of doctors recommend it as their go-to solution for patients experiencing dryness. And it has this super simple ingredient list. All it is Is high-grade silicone lubricant just with a little bit of vitamin E in it, which means that it can be widely used by people with sensitivities to other lubricants.
You're in control of how long it lasts. It offers long-lasting performance when you want it, but then it quickly dissipates without leaving a sticky residue. And the vitamin E means it just kind of feels like a nice moisturizer on your skin when you're finished. Plus, there is no flavor and there is no scent.
Ugh, that's my favorite part about it. It doesn't have that lube smell. And right now, Uberloob is offering Multiamory listeners a special offer of ten percent off and free shipping when you use our code MultiAmory at Uberlobe.com. That's 10% off and free shipping. Just use code multiamory at uberlube.com.
Support for multiamory comes from Mint Mobile. So when people hear that Mint Mobile plans are only$15 a month, a lot of people wonder, okay, what's the catch? And we can tell you that there isn't one. There's no gimmicks, there's no gotchas. Just unlimited talk, text, and data with fast, reliable coverage on the nation's largest 5G network and an award-winning customer care team.
Rather than relying on contracts where they try to get you with phone deals and then upcharge you later and lock you into a contract, Mint Mobile just took away all of the nonsense with wireless billing and made it right with premium wireless. For just$15 a month. You can bring your own phone, your own phone number, and then you can choose from three, six, or twelve month plans and say goodbye to a monthly bill or surprise overages.
Ditch overpriced wireless with Mint Mobile. It's easy, you just go online, you get three months of premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month with our promo.
To get your new wireless plan for just fifteen bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com slash multi. That's mintmobile.com slash multi. Cut your wireless bill for fifteen bucks a month at mintmobile.com slash multi. That's it. There's no catch. Forty five dollar upfront payment required equivalent to fifteen dollars a month, new customers on first three month plan only.
Speed slower above forty gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. This episode is brought to you by Quince. Summer always makes me rethink what I'm reaching for every day. Lighter fabrics, better materials, pieces that just feel good the moment you put them on and look effortless. That's why I keep coming back to Quinn's.
They focus on high quality essentials, think breathable linen, soft organic cotton, washable silk, but without the luxury markup. It's that rare balance where everything feels elevated but still easy. I just bought their Italian low-rise bikini bottom and Italian triangle bikini top. And let me tell you, these pieces were$25 each.
Now we were lamenting before we started recording this ad how freaking expensive swimsuits are. It is ridiculous. And these are beautiful pieces and they don't break the bank. I'm so happy that I found them and that they fit as well and are as beautiful as I had hoped that they were going to be.
Yeah, we've been really happy with Quince because everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. And it's also not just clothing. They've become a destination for home essentials like kitchen stuff, bedding stuff, and beyond. We ordered some really nice German and Japanese knives from them that have been great. And it's because Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen so that you're paying for quality and not just paying for brand markup.
Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com/slash multi for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U I N C E dot com slash multi for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash multi.
This episode is brought to you by Masterclass, the platform that lets you learn from some of the most brilliant minds in the world, all from the comfort of your own home. And honestly, as somebody who spends a lot of time thinking about relationships, I'm genuinely excited to dig into what masterclass has to offer. So for instance, Esther Perrell, who is the patron saint of relationship podcasters, one of the most celebrated voices in the world on love, desire, and human connection.
She has a class specifically on relational intelligence on master class that is right up our alley.
And if you want to go a little bit deeper into the science of attraction, Shan Boudrum's class on the art of sex appeal looks absolutely fascinating. And Masterclass has so many courses on whatever you're interested in, like science. or writing, like NK Jemison has a class on writing science fiction, which is amazing. Wellness, health, mathematics, community and government, music, all sorts of topics. So whatever you're interested in, you can find a class on masterclass.
Whether you're looking to strengthen your relationships, understand yourself better, or just follow your curiosity, Masterclass has something for everyone. And now you can get 15% off if you head to multiamory.link slash masterclass. To check it out for yourself and support the show. The link is in the show notes.
¶ Understanding Protective Buffering's Impact
So in the nineties, researcher James C. Coyne came up with this term protective buffering.
And
Basically, the identified, it's this behavior pattern. It's a way of coping with stress within the context of a relationship. Now, they usually study this specifically in couples who are coping where one of them has a chronic illness. But basically protective buffering is this strategy of coping that includes hiding or denying your emotions or your worries in order to avoid distressing your partner or to avoid disagreements with your partner.
And most of the studies find that protective buffering is related to increased distress in the relationship. Yeah. So it actually tends to produce more distress than it protects us from. And then there's also this like particularly ironic finding. So Basically, protective buffering predicted more distress among people who rated their relationships as more satisfactory.
And then they found the flip side that buffering didn't protect did not predict distress among people who rated their relationships as less satisfactory. So what that means is that. The closer and the more satisfying the relationship is, the more that it backfires to try to hide your emotions or hide your worries from your partner.
Which I think just looking at on the surface, I think that makes sense that it's like if you are in a relationship that you don't feel very satisfied in or you feel like it's on the rocks, it makes sense that like maybe choosing to hide more of your emotions and your distress keeps the peace.
Like I'm just getting through it. I'm just here to get through it. Like
Just in survival mode. Yes, exactly.
Right. Versus if you overall feel pretty good to hide those things. you you like feel it more and then it doesn't get resolved and y you can't move forward and maybe
I mean I feel like Jace, you and I have been running up against this recently, that like Anytime I'm having stress or angst and I tend and it doesn't that doesn't have anything to do with you or like with us, right? That and I trend towards, oh, I'm just gonna deal with it, I can deal with it, I can deal with it, I can deal with it, but like you always notice, you know?
Right.
Very attuned to me and my emotional patterns, right? And and so ultimately it's it's like rarely a good thing for me to choose to, you know, quote unquote buffer you from that.
Yes, and I think that brings up a good point with the satisfaction thing of not just, oh, I'm I'm holding this back and so I'm, you know, maybe building up resentment or fear or whatever, but there's also the effect on the other person that if you're saying I am pretty satisfied in this relationship Hopefully the other person also feels that way and feels close to you so that they might be more likely to sense that weird disconnect from you.
And like in those situations, like you were just talking about, you were stressed about other things and you kept telling me you're not, I was like, something feels weird. It puts me a little bit on on high alert of
Uh oh, something's wrong. Something did I do something? Is it that? Is is there something else going on that I don't know about? What is it? And then as soon as, you know, I pressed you like the second time and you're like, Okay, fine. I'm still stressed about this this other stuff that we talked about before. I'm like, okay.
Okay, that makes sense. Now I understand it. For both people, assuming you have a good close relationship where you are attuned to each other, that's gonna leak out, right? You're gonna notice it. And if you don't know what it is, it's scarier.
Yeah, to go along those lines, I I have found that after being in a not as close relationship and now being in a close one. Seeing any changes in patterns of behavior tend to like make my brain go, Oh, whoa, something's going on here. What is happening?
does that spell disaster or danger for the relationship if I see like a pattern of behavior change. And I think that that's just something to be aware of here as well. That yeah, when maybe you're not as attuned to it or you just like simply don't care as much if a relationship is kind of on the rocks that yeah, I if something is weird or something is off or people are hiding stuff or whatever, it just doesn't matter as much.
But if you are really in tune with that, like you the two of you were talking about, it can become very glaring and very obvious, wow, something has changed here or something feels different or off.
And then that can lead to some anxiety. So that research there shows how important it is to A, be attuned to your partner, especially if you are in a good relationship with them, but then also be like talk to your partner about the things that are challenging, just because it is important for them to know and hopefully like alleviate some anxiety that may happen if, you know, all of a sudden you get into this pattern of I'm feeling shitty about something and I don't want to talk to you about it.
¶ Self-Disclosure Benefits for Relationships
Yeah, overall the research shows not just this not just these research studies on protective buffering, but there's uh so many research studies that show consistently that self-disclosure is positive for us individually and also positive for relationships. Like self-disclosure I learned lights up basically the same reward pathways as eating food and having sex. Yeah. As it turns out. Yeah.
Right. I didn't expect that to be so extreme.
Uhhuh. I'm a s I'm assuming if that's in a context where that self disclosure can be received, right, in a safe in a safe way.
Exactly.
person that you're disclosing to.
Much like sex, I suppose. When it can be received in a safe way, that's also better. Yeah, and yeah, same with food, sure.
Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. So but but I really okay, so overall we can agree that like as a general trend, disclosing what's going on with you, maybe you don't have to work out every single nook and cranny with your partner. Maybe not every single piece of it is relevant to your partner to the relationship, but it seems like research is pointing towards generally disclosing more rather than less.
is it does a body good and it does a relationship good. But I want to get into the nitty-gritty of things like For many, many years I've been operating on this spectrum where if something like hurts me or stings me or brings up weird feelings. Or triggers a little something. Like I always try to think about like, okay, is this like a paper cut?
As in I'm like, ooh, ouch, that stung, but it's like so tiny and manageable. I'm just gonna go put some neosporin and a band-aid on it, and then it's gonna be fine. Or is this like I like actually sliced my finger with a kitchen knife? and might need to go to urgent care and get stitched up. Or is this like I accidentally cut my finger off and like we need to stop absolutely everything, you know? And I'm sorry to be gruesome about it, but
Metaphors are
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Okay, sorry, sorry. Um Well but but like I I try to see that it's not just a black or white, right? If I keep this to myself or I don't. It there's some s there's a little bit of like how much can I care for myself here?
How much can I care for myself but also need to bring my partner in? How much is, whoa, this was like completely unacceptable and I need to stop the presses right now so that we can talk about this or process this? Or like in the middle of the spectrum is it like
Yeah, this feeling got triggered for me, but I can manage it and then I'll make a note to bring it up at our next check in or next radar, right?'Cause I feel okay enough that I can do that. You know, that like there's a lot I think in the in between.
Yeah, and I guess in my question also is when things are like compounding too, when it's not just one incident but multiple that happen over a period of time. And I think the problem comes when you decide that like, okay, I'm not gonna say anything about this that kind of stung, that kind of hurt, but I'm just not gonna bring it up because it's not a big deal. I can brush it off. But then it happens again and maybe again and maybe again and over time
Paper cuts getting opened.
Yes.
Yes.
So that it never has a chance to fully heal. And I think that that sometimes is a challenging thing to deal with when you're in essence sort of teaching your partner that it's okay to speak in a specific way to you or it's okay to rub a wound that is there but that they don't know about, for instance. And so again, I think that's another instance of
it being very important to when something comes up over a period of time or multiple times to say something if it is harmful to you. If it's like, hey, that way that you're teasing me, it really does actually not feel great. And I know that I didn't say anything the first time or the first couple times. But it actually reminds me of this thing that my father said to me ten years ago and it really hurts every time I hear that. So maybe can you not tease me in that specific way?
And I I think that most likely if your partner cares about you, they'll immediately be like, Oh shit, I didn't realize and absolutely, I'm not gonna do that again. I'm sorry.
¶ Cultivating Vulnerability and Using Disclosure Tools
So I wanna bring this back to the question asker a little bit and and look at the text of the question again, because it sounds like with the context of being new to polyamory, Some of this might be polyamory specific. They didn't clarify exactly. She didn't clarify whether it's like
they went on a date with someone else and that freaked me out, or they did or didn't tell me about something that they did and that felt weird to me. There's all of that too. Or it could be something like you were saying, Emily, that's just more
in this relationship. This is just a thing in this relationship regardless of its structure. I think with all of it though, I did wanna point out this one part where she says Having been single for a long time prior, I would usually keep my mouth shut and explore it myself, and then maybe go to him with what I'd learned
But that usually ended up with me feeling emotionally exhausted and isolated and feeling like I was doing all the emotional labor when I was already trying to unlearn people pleasing tendencies. So I think that piece there is interesting too of feeling exhausted by it. And I think that's That's something to explore of like what is that exhaustion? Is it exhaustion of feeling like I'm doing all the work for both of us here and that I feel like I'm alone and I can't depend on you for it?
Is it that and like maybe that's self-inflicted? Or is it I feel like I'm doing all this emotional labor because when I come to you with it, I'm then being asked to justify it. And it doesn't feel like teamwork, but that I'm just having to like bring this and kind of
argue a case in front of you rather than bringing you something and then we collaborate on a solution together. And I think that those two things are very different from each other. And we don't know from the questionnaire exactly what is going on. But I do think that's something worth bringing up is that whole, you know, what's your experience of that? Is it feeling like you're left alone to deal with this?
Or is it just feeling like I needed that time for myself to figure that out and now I do feel like I figured something out? Does that make sense what I'm saying? I think especially coming at it from that more individualistic I want to solve this myself. Yeah. There's still a difference in do I feel like I did solve it? Or is it like I'm keep I keep having to redo the same thing over and over again because nothing's changing and I don't I'm not getting any help?
Yeah. I think that for this person specifically and anyone who's listening, if this sounds like you, if you know that you already have this trend towards being hyper individualistic in taking things on.
To me, I think that's a sign that you could probably stand to take some emotional risks and just see what happens with your partner because I know, you know, Confused in Coventry says I don't want to swing the opposite way. Like if you have those hyper-individualistic muscles, they're not gonna go away overnight. Right. You're not gonna suddenly swing into oh my god, I'm like this mess who can't deal with anything on their own.
and has to bring their partner into everything, you're not gonna transform into that person magically. Like I think that discernment and those muscles will still be there. And so you have the capacity to experiment with what it's like.
to take some emotional risks and go the opposite direction. I will say to talk about myself As someone who tends to be a chewer, an internal processor who wants to keep the world together and like solve it all on her own, my experience in therapy, especially working with the same therapist for the past five or six years.
has helped me a lot and and I didn't even have this intention going into therapy. It's just sort of what organically happened that There's been a lot of, I think, healing for me in just the relationship between myself and my therapist because it's like the I realized over time it was the one place in my life, the one relationship where I was showing up and letting myself just spew.
And just externally process and like not have my thoughts all sorted out right away and not have a sense of exactly where I was gonna go or what I was gonna say and just like let it all happen in real time and have it be her problem to sort through it.
Basically, which is so not how I show up in the rest of my life and the rest of my relationships. But having that as a safe place to do that has actually helped me a lot to develop a little bit more self-trust and a little more trust in myself to take some of these emotional risks.
in opening up to people. So so I just I don't know, I guess get into some kind of relationship with my therapist or or something. No, that's not that's not my takeaway. I think my takeaway is like If you know that this is you, you can you can take some emotional risks because you're not gonna just suddenly transform overnight into, you know, the complete opposite.
And I would just add to that to say that relationships do involve at least two people, that there is a a give and take there. And it's possible that you'd open up and bring things to them and they would push that back on you or use that against you or be like, absolutely not. What that's inappropriate for you to ask of me. And, you know, it's it's easy to either fall into, oh, well, I did that once and it didn't get a good result, so I should never do that.
People can go the other way of, oh, that person didn't agree with me on this thing, so therefore they're bad. And I think that the truth is often somewhere in the middle here of, well, maybe they didn't agree with me on that, and I can think about it. and evaluate what I think, but ultimately I may decide
Yeah, no, I this is important to me. This is part of my value. And if they don't agree with that, they don't want to change that, then this relationship isn't meant to be. They don't have to be a bad person for that to be the conclusion that you come to. But I do think just leave that open too. In a way, by opening up and doing more self-disclosure, you're giving that other person more opportunity to show up.
and to show you what kind of person they are and how they care about you and interact with you, whether or not that's compatible or not, you'll get to find out. But if you're keeping that held back, you kinda don't ever get to discover that. You don't get to find out whether this really is a good relationship that you can keep pursuing long term and that will ultimately be rewarding.
Yeah, I I mean I was essentially gonna say the same thing, but just that any time when I feel like I have some internal challenges surrounding like non monogamy in general and me coming back to it. for the first time in a very long time and me having to deal with, you know, the emotional upheaval of like, oh, my partner slept with someone else or my partner is getting close to someone else and how do I feel about it?
having the opportunity to talk through that rationally and carefully and kindly with my partner and having them be able to validate me also and say, like, I understand that that might be hard or that, you know, I can see where you're coming from. And just how grateful I am that they do that for me and that we can speak about it together and that both of us can hopefully come to a better place emotionally.
so that both of us feel good about what it is that we're doing. I think being vulnerable, yes, it is scary, but it also gives our partners the opportunity to show up for us too. And if you're in a good relationship, how wonderful is that.
Yeah.
So I want to I I really feel like confused in Coventry and myself or cut from the same cloth. Like I feel ya, I feel ya. And so I wanted to share some of the things that have been helpful for me in the past to to have an on-ramp. to self disclosure because again I do think if you're so used to just processing things on your own and keeping it to yourself, it can be hard to switch modes. And I know I need some like opening lines
some catchphrases to use, some prep phrases that will help me slide into that or transition into that a little bit easier. So of course the first one being that you can always open with telling your partner which triforce you're going for in disclosing to them. And if you're new here and you have no idea what I just said, you can go check out the first ten episodes of this podcast or you can go check out our book to to learn more about the Triforce of Communication. But
to put it simply, it's just being honest about what you're looking for, right? And it could be like, hey, I've been chewing on this for the past week and you know, I have a lot of questions that have come up and I've been trying to deal with it myself, but I haven't really been able to. And so I really wanna know where your head is at with this thing. Or I wanna share this with you.
because I wanna feel closer to you or I wanna share this with you because something bothered me and and I have these insecurities that are coming up, right? So just being clear with your partner about like what you're hoping for in Sharing with them. It can also help to do just a little preempt to the disclosure. And what I mean by that is things like
All right, this is gonna be hard for me to share because I don't wanna scare you off. Or this is hard for me to share because I've been trying really hard to just deal with it on my own, but I'm trying to let you in. Or, you know, I want to be honest that what happened affected me more than I let on initially. So let me actually share what's been going on with me, right? That I think there are these very simple little phrases that you can drop in just to lay the groundwork.
To help make it a little bit easier to make that switch in your brain. Alright, Confused and Coventry, I hope that as you continue on your polyamory journey, my deepest hope for you is that you're entering a little subculture where
Allegedly, most of us prioritize communication, trying to make ourselves be emotionally safe people, to disclose things to each other. So I'm hoping that you continue to meet people, friends, partners, metamores who are able to receive what's going on inside you and help you to learn that like you don't have to carry it all on your shoulders all the time.
Yeah.
To the rest of you listening, on our Instagram stories today, the day that this episode drops, we are asking the question, how do you know when to keep something to yourself? versus bring it up with a partner. So again, go to our Instagram. We're going to be sharing some of the responses from that anonymously. But also the best place to share your thoughts with other listeners is in the episode discussion channel in our Discord server, or you can post about it in our private Facebook group.
You can get access to these groups and join our exclusive community by going to multiamory.com/slash join. Or you can share with us publicly on Instagram at multiamory underscore podcast. Multiamory is created and produced by Jace Lindgren, Emily Matlack, and me, Dedekerwick. Winston. Our production assistant is Carson Collins. Our theme song is Forms I Know I Did by Josh and Anand from the Fractal Cave EP. The full transcript is available on this episode's page on multiamory.com.
🎵 Music