That’s what’s on this week’s episode of Non-Monogamy Help.

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Podcast Transcript

I'm a male, cis, 30yo, [bisexual]. My partner is female, cis, 24yo, straight. We practice non monogamy since the beginning. This is not my first ENM relationship but her first time.

We've been together for 10 months, half of the time distanced from each other physically. Other important info is that lately I've been dealing with family issues, a lot of stress and anxiety not related to the relationship. That triggered some heavy past traumas that I'm dealing with right now and that hits directly in my anxious preoccupied attachment style.

We like to discuss on quite detailed stuff we would like to experience with other people and we share how we would feel about it. It is not meant to be a permissions/prohibitions list. Usually this stuff comes out naturally and we discussed them at different times. We do that regularly. Examples are: safe sex, threesomes, dating friends, dating ex's, dating monogamous married people, sleepovers, etc.

Sexting or sending nudes to other people was something we've never talked about and she sending them to people on dating apps unexpectedly triggered something on my side. Not jealousy but perhaps a bit of fear of being left out. I just want to understand how come that particular thing made me feel bad.

I'm ok with her doing it from now on, I just want to know what triggered that feeling and now I just fear that I developed a mechanism in which everything we do with other people has to be already discussed in detail. When she told me she was doing this maybe this felt out of "my control". Which is something not nice to feel.

Response

I think that you're actually super observant about what might have triggered the situation, and I'm really—I just want to say that I'm really proud of you for not allowing that sort of emotion to override things and to make it a permission thing, or to kind of have a reaction and feel the desire to immediately go towards controlling things. I think that's a really great thing, and I think you should pat yourself a little bit on the back for that.

I don't think you've necessarily developed a mechanism for discussing—like everything has to be discussed. But one thing I would invite you to think about is that I do think sometimes, in response to a fear either of being accused of cheating, a fear of their partner's other emotions, or a fear of another relationship escalating to a point where it affects your relationship, people sometimes do hyper-disclose. Or they have this opinion of like, “We should tell each other everything. I want to know everything”, or “I need to tell you everything, because I'm afraid that if—” you think you can inoculate yourself against jealousy or against another relationship, like the feelings you might have if another relationship escalates, by disclosing everything.

Some people enjoy disclosure

And there are some people genuinely just like to hear that information. There are some people who, you know, that is sexy for them, that's a turn-on for them, and that's fine. But I think that there are a couple of things about that to kind of think through and even talk to your partner about. Like, are you disclosing things with each other because you enjoy hearing what each other's up to? Would you do this in a friendship? Would you do this if, you know, at what point do you think disclosure is needed?

Like, have you discussed that? Have you really talked about, "Okay, when do I need to be notified about something?" Because if you're kind of disclosing everything already, then maybe you haven't actually reached that point. And maybe because you're disclosing everything, you actually haven't really explored at what point that disclosure becomes absolutely necessary. And I think that's worth thinking about.

Explore your motivations

You know, explore with yourself about, like, "Okay, do I feel like I have to say something?" Have you tried, for example, not talking about something intentionally and then seeing if it's a response to a discomfort, like you're afraid that you're keeping something from your partner, so you're just disclosing to kind of get rid of that feeling?

And also, I think a big thing to consider is the privacy of the other people involved. I think that's often something that's missed when you know, either somebody makes a rule or somebody's just naturally like, "I want to disclose everything because I'm afraid”. The privacy of the other person involved is often not taken into account. Like, even if it's positive, even if it's not to get out of fear, or get out of the emotional reaction that your partner may have, or thinking that this will help you control something, even when you kind of think it's kind of sexy, and that's fine, but there is the other person's privacy to take into account, right? And I think that's important to consider.

How to react to feelings in polyamory

So yeah, I think overall, like I think you're super aware of what's going on, and I think that you did a great job. Something happened, you had a feeling about it, and you were like, "Oh, that's a not fun feeling. I'm not happy to have that." And then, you know, you want to understand it, instead of reacting in a way that's like, "Okay, now I'm going to make a rule that my partner has to tell me this stuff, right?" That's really brilliant. And I really want to applaud you for that. You're doing that in a great way.

I think where it comes from is something you explore. Like, think about the things that I've put forward in terms of, like, are you disclosing out of a fear of something happening? Is it something that you're doing to avoid a discomfort feeling? Have you actually talked about what merits disclosure within your relationships, and are you actually thinking about the privacy of the other people involved?

Disclosure in monogamy versus polyamory

I think especially in monogamy, like, there might be things like—if you, for example, you're with somebody for a long time, you split up, and then you get with somebody new. You know, you might confide in your new partner about, like, "Oh, you know, I didn't actually enjoy some sexual things with this person." You might disclose quite personal things.

And within the context of monogamy, this doesn't become an issue, because yeah, your new partner might know some things about what happened between you and your old partner, and I don't think that's necessarily bad. I think sometimes that can be the key to avoiding abuse. Like, I think one of the reasons why abusive people kind of seek to isolate their victims or the people that they're abusing is because they can talk to their friends about these things, and their friends can be that person that goes, "Hey, wait, actually, this isn't great," because they're separated from the situation. So I don't think that that's necessarily always bad.

I think people should talk about things, you know, maybe things that details about their relationships with their friends and their new partners that they are kind of private and kind of personal. But it's not necessarily bad within that context to disclose that, because that's about processing things. That's about getting friendship advice about things, right?

And I don't think that within those contexts there is any risk of like that person—I mean, maybe there is it, depending on, but I don't think that there's necessarily, like, your best friend. If you tell your best friend about, like, "Oh yeah, I like to do such and such with my partner," because you have that kind of friendship, and some people do, then there isn't necessarily a risk that at your next meet-up at like a big hangout together with you and all your friends and your partner, your friend's going to go up to your partner and be like, "So I hear you like such and such." That's not necessarily an issue.

How polyamory differs

So people using this kind of framework can go into polyamory with the idea that like, intimacy involves disclosing stuff about other relationships. Intimacy involves sometimes comparing partners. And people will do this in polyamory all the time as an attempt to like soothe other partners, say things like, "Oh, well, I care about you more than other people," which I don't think it sounds like you're doing.

Or they'll sort of, you know, people do that in monogamy of sort of like, "Oh, you're better at this than my other partner was," or something like that. And that's not something that I think is super helpful in a polyamorous context, but it can kind of lead the path towards the kind of hyper-disclosure, the kind of thing of like, "Okay, I'm going to tell you all about these things," and that becomes the intimacy, and that becomes the thing that builds trust within each other.

And so if you can't do that, or if doing that violates the privacy of somebody else within a polyamorous context, then you kind of have to build intimacy in other ways.

Explore your motivations together

So yeah, I think you're kind of spot on. I would explore that, you know, what is the motivation behind this for you and your partner? You could have completely different motivations. This isn't your first relationship, ethical non-monogamous relationship, but it is her first time. So maybe, like, she's been in situations where she's been cheated on before, or maybe she's just worried that she's not doing it right.

So she kind of discloses everything, because she doesn't want— the line between what is cheating, what is not, when it went to disclose. Like, you haven't explicitly defined that. So she's kind of thinking, "Well, I've got to disclose these things," and then maybe she didn't think about this thing. Or, you know, it could be that. What is the reason for the disclosure?

I don't know if that it's that if she was sexting other people and didn't tell you about it ahead of time, like that may not be her motivation for disclosure. But think about like, what is your motivation for talking about these sorts of stuff, like being quite detailed, and it is about what you would like to experience.

But yeah, like, think about what does that mean that you talk about other things? Like, what does that mean within the context of your relationships? Because I think it's nice and I don't think it's a problem, but I do think there's a difference between talking about what you would like to experience and what you have experienced.

The difference between planning and disclosure

I mean, you do kind of tend to bring that into what you would like to experience. Like, "I've done this before, and I'd like to do it again." But does that lead to then talking about the things as they're happening? I think that might be a little bit worth exploring and talking about with each other.

So yeah, I'm kind of repeating myself, but I think basically it's about talking. Like, it might be that this pulled up something about disclosure, and that's not something that you've actually explored with one another, because you kind of have assumed, because you talk about all the stuff that you would like to do, it's almost kind of assumed that disclosure has already happened in a way. And that might be why you kind of went, like, "Oh, wait a minute, we weren't told about this."

Because even if you're not intending for this to become a permissions/prohibitions list, is it functioning as a disclosure thing? And then you sort of like, "Okay, you know, my partner's interested in doing this with some other people. Maybe we can explore that. Like, I know that's an option. Or maybe they're not interested in exploring that with me, or I'm not interested in it, so I don't mind if they explore it with somebody else."

Invite them to share new experiences with you

So yeah, I think it's more about that, like thinking about where disclosure fits into your relationship, and talking a little bit about that. And seeing when that does come up. And I think also, too, it might be worth—one thing that I just thought about now is that this fear of being left out that you talk about. I think it might be worth talking—when you're going about these discussions and going about disclosure, maybe to respond to that fear, and I think that's okay too.

If she is doing something new with somebody else, and you haven't talked about it before, maybe when she kind of says, like, "Hey, I've done this- If you want to do that, I'd be cool with that too”. Like, you know, because it might be you could get—I don't know how much you discuss the actual sexting and nude stuff. It might be that she didn't facilitate it. Like, she didn't introduce it. It might be the other person did. And it might be that she didn't even think that she would be interested in that until somebody else did it. That happens a lot.

There are things that you're totally not interested in. And then you meet somebody that you're interested in, they're interested in that, and then because you're interested in them, you start to become interested in that. And so it might be something that she just never thought that she'd be that into, or it's kind of a responsive thing. Like, she doesn't facilitate that herself. It's not something that she does on her own, but it's something that the other person enjoys. So then it becomes something that she's interested in. So that's another thing worth exploring, too.

Make it less about what happened, more about what's possible

And if you've kind of had this situation where you've talked about a lot of things, and she tries something new, or you try something new, and then when you talk about it with one another, it can be less that, "Oh, I've done this new thing with this new person," period, that's the end of the sentence. And it can be more of, "Hey, I didn't think that I'd be interested in this, you know, or I did—I didn't even like it, or whatever, or I didn't even think of this. And I've tried it with this person. I'm open to doing that with you as well.” If they are. That might help with that fear of missing out.

Because I think that makes sense. I think you can find—it's not even about sexual stuff. You could easily have the situation with two partners where one partner says, like, "Oh, I really like to get flowers. That means a lot to me”. There's a symbolic reason why flowers means a lot to them. And so you buy them flowers because, and it never really occurs to you to do that, and you kind of—flowers don't have any symbolic meaning for you. So it's not something that you think about.

And you do that for one partner, and then the other partner notices, like, "Huh? I, you know, they could approach it and be like, 'Why don't you ever buy me any flowers?'" And, you know, or they could sort of say, "Hey, I didn't even think that I'd be interested in flowers. But I'm seeing this other person get flowers, and actually I'm thinking, maybe I would like to have some flowers, or maybe I want to have something like it, something that symbolises that you're thinking of me. And I didn't know that I wanted that until I saw you giving it to someone else."

Like that can totally happen. And I think that you are—it seems like you're self-aware enough to be able to deal with that in a situation where it's not about, "Well, this person got that. Why haven't I got that?" But it might be that like that comes out, because I think a lot of people, sometimes, especially myself in the past, like I have been afraid to ask for the things that I want.

Or I've been in situations where I did ask my partner for something. Like I did want my partner to do something with me. I assumed that they just didn't want to do it, and they wouldn't do it with anybody. And then they dated somebody else, and they did do it with them. And that was not fun. That's a whole mess of not fun feelings.

Monogamy versus polyamory

So I think things like that can naturally arise in situations where, you know, in monogamous situations, you wouldn't necessarily see that arise, because you ask for something, you don't get it. Either you decide, "Okay, I'm done with this relationship," or you just accept that you're not going to get it from that person, and then you never have to see them give it to somebody else.

So then you just think, "Well, that's just not what they do." But then when you're in a polyamorous context and you see them giving that to somebody else, and you're like, "Oh, so you can do that. You just, for whatever reason, don't want to do it with me." And that's a whole other kettle of fish.

Overall

But yeah, in general, I feel like I've blathered on and been really confusing and unhelpful. And hopefully that's not the case. I think that you're overall really, really observant with yourself. And I think that's really, really great.

I would talk a little bit about what disclosure is, because I don't know how much of what your discussions are—of like, just what you would like to experience, versus what you've already done, versus what you plan to do. Like, that could all be encompassed by that description. But I think, think about the motivations behind this type of stuff.

And like, is there any fear on your side, or her side, of being accused of cheating? Or fear of the emotional reaction that might happen? Or like, are you doing it because it's genuinely fun on both sides? Or are you doing it? Like, is there kind of a fear motivation there for either of you? And it's okay if there is. But consider the privacy of the people involved, especially as it becomes less of like what you have done in the past and what you're doing with other people.

And yeah, just think about you have that discussion about disclosure. And also think maybe you all can think both about, when you talk about new things that you become interested in, making it known that, "Oh, I'm also interested in doing this with you." And that might soothe a little bit of that fear of being left out, because you don't have to be left out.

And you know, if it becomes a thing of like, "Well, I wish I was the first person to do that with you," I mean, that's a little bit tricky, but I think that if you have at least that option of like, "Hey, I've done this with this person, I'm actually really interested in you. Like, you know, I didn't think I'd like roller coasters, but I went on this roller coaster with such and such, so if you want to go on roller coasters now, turns out I'm okay with it." Like, you know, that's a silly example, but it emphasises the point.

And yeah, overall, I think you have a good handle on the situation, and you have a good handle on your emotions. Once again, applauding you for not sort of letting that emotion dictate how you would go about asking your partner for things or whatnot. Really good on you for that. But overall, I think you're headed in the right direction, just some things to think about.

And I hope that helps, and good luck.