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

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Podcast Transcript

I'm currently in a situation where I have caught strong feelings for a friend of mine. We've known each other for about a year, we work together and started hanging out at work and then hung out a bit more outside of work. We quickly discovered that we have a lot of shared interests and it became very easy to talk with them and enjoy each other's company. It was a platonic connection on my end until very recently, when I developed romantic feelings for them and became aware of that (such is my demisexual life).

The situation is complicated by a number of factors. Firstly, I have up until this point, considered myself to be monogamous (although in the past year, I have been generally curious about and engaging in conversations about polyamory) while my friend is polyamorous and in a primary partnership.

Secondly, I am also friends with my friend's primary partner and we have a history of briefly dating (for about 4 months) about a decade  ago. I decided to stop seeing them because they had said that they were interested in flirting and dating other people. At the time I was completely closed off to considering polyamory. We went about our lives and about 7 yrs later, they reached out to me to reconnect, which we did and it has been a really nice, supportive friendship. And it's through them that I met their partner.

I have disclosed my feelings to the friend that I have feelings for and they have shared that the feelings are reciprocal and that they are open to dating me. (Following that, we decided it was best to share this with their partner so that everyone was in the loop). I've shared that I am open to considering dating them but because this would be my first time trying polyamory, I am scared that it won't stick and I could risk losing them as a friend.

I am going to start working with a poly(am) -friendly therapist soon to see if polyamory is something that I can realistically do. We have been open and honest about the fact that we love each other and value our friendship and will do our best to stay friends no matter what. But I know this is easier said than done when relationship stuff gets hard and real.

Thirdly, my friend's primary partner has shared that they are having hard feelings about the reciprocal feelings between me and their partner, and has asked for some space from me which I understand. But I'm sad that dating my crush may alter my friendship with this person to the point where we may no longer be able to be friends. I still want them in my life, even if it's awkward at times.

I'm willing to work through that but I'm not sure where they will land. And the possibility that they may not want to be friends with me does seriously make me consider dropping the possibility of exploring things with my crush. We haven't had the chance to directly connect yet as they have had a lot going on in their life and have asked for space. I'm feeling some shame, feeling like I've betrayed them in some fundamental way.

Fourthly, my crush and I have talked about the possibility of us dating and how it would affect our friendship if things didn't work out. While they are confident that we could remain friends, I'm scared that this may not be the case and losing them from my life would be really painful.

They've been very reassuring and shared that they just want me to decide to date or not date them based on what I want and feel is best for me. They've been upfront about the issue of time and that they would have less time for me as compared to a monogamous partner but that they do have the capacity to love me deeply, and I shared that I would just need us to figure out scheduling to make sure that we're connecting in ways that feel consistent and reliable for me.

Other things that may be important to this situation: I am interested in exploring polyamory with this person because of how strongly I feel about them, because our communication is strong, very open and honest and I genuinely feel secure with them, because I rarely experience this level of strong romantic attraction to people and because I'm at a life stage where I'm realizing that even though I've oriented myself ideologically to some aspects of the relationship escalator, the way I've actually lived my life is more congruent with values held within nonmonogamy/polyamory and I'm curious to unpack that.

Also I am someone who is highly independent, needs a lot of alone time / solitude and has interests and commitments outside of romantic relationships and generally prescribes to the principle of decentring romance in my life and having other sources of connection and nourishment in my life. The only thing that makes polyamory feel intimidating to me is the issue of jealousy and I genuinely don't know if I could handle it.

So my questions are: What's the best way to proceed in this situation? Do I deprioritize  pursuing my feelings for this person in the interest of preserving friendships? And if I did decide to pursue dating my crush, what kinds of boundaries / things would I need with them and with their partner in order for this to be a respectful and healthy situation for all of us?

Response

So firstly, you kind of buried the lead a little bit, because you said that you met at work, or that you work together, and then you were like, "I met them through my ex," basically. I don't think you're... I'm just poking you a bit, but I think that is something to consider. I don't do think that there's a little bit of catastrophising here, but also do consider the fact that it's also sad to lose a friendship and everything like that. But also, you do work together, so that might be a thing that comes to mind more if something did happen.

The false binary

But overall, fuck it. I think you should. You only live once. Just do it. Maybe that's a little bit silly, but I genuinely think you're creating this sort of false binary here, in a way. You're saying, "Okay, we get together and it goes great and there's no problems," or, "we get together, we break up, and we can't be friends anymore," and you're forgetting the plethora of other possibilities that could happen.

Any number of things could end your friendship. You could have some sort of argument that ends your friendship and that makes things super awkward. This relationship could blow up, and it may not be that polyamory is for you, and you may have to try this in order to find out. And then you break up, and then you take some time apart, but then you come back together, just like you did with your other ex that you're friends with now, and then you’re friends later on.

There are any number of situations that you're kind of completely ignoring for the sake of this ultimate binary that you've put forward. Either it does work out and it's fine, or it doesn't work out and it's terrible, but ultimately, you're not going to be able to fully control all aspects of that. You're not going to be able to know for sure if polyamory is for you without actually trying it. There are obviously indicators and things that you like, and it does seem like you are aware of that. You are a super independent person. You are kind of thinking that maybe this actually isn't what you want for your life, and that's super cool. But people can also do that and change their minds.

People change their minds

I definitely thought I wanted six children. I definitely wanted kids super passionately, and then changed my mind. When I got with one of my partners, actually, our initial plan, they did not want kids, and our initial plan was that we would be together for five years, we would check in, and if I still wanted children and they didn't, we would break up. I ended up not wanting children, and we ended up breaking up anyway, but that wasn't the reason. So it might work for you. That might change. All sorts of things can change.

No relationship is safer than any other

You're never, ever going to be able to prevent bad things, bad feelings from happening, or even bad things. Jealousy might happen. And I think that all sorts of shit might happen, heartbreak might happen. Approaching polyamory like it's this atomic bomb waiting to explode is only going to create a self-fulfilling prophecy, because what you're telling yourself is that you don't trust yourself. You don't trust yourself to be there for yourself if you do experience jealousy. You don't trust yourself to be there for yourself if you do end up losing this friendship.

It sucks to lose friendships. Friendship breakups are horrible. Genuinely, I have felt friendship breakups that have hurt me worse than romantic breakups. But friendship is not inherently safer. No relationship is safer, and you kind of need to abandon the idea that you can completely control all aspects of the situation by tiptoeing around it, or reading up and being super, super careful.

I appreciate you wanting to be considerate, and that's fine. You all sound like you're considerate, but you're considerate enough. I don't know if you can be any more considerate. There's no way, you're like a princess at the pea level of considerate. You've got that down, but you're not going to be able to prevent a breakup, and honestly, you could lose your friendship for any number of reasons.

Just go for it

So really, if you both have feelings, you're both trying to be as considerate as possible, you're both trying to see where this goes, fucking jump. Piss or get off the pot, is what I want to say, but that's not very supportive or helpful. But that's genuinely, just go, just do it, and trust that you will be there for yourself, that you will be able to communicate, that you will be able to talk with one another. You're already looking for polyamory therapists to help you out with stuff. You're doing everything you can. So why not just try it? Trust that you've done your due diligence here, and you've done more than your due diligence.

Your friendship with your future metamour will change

The other thing that I want to mention is that your friendship with your ex, who will become your metamour, is going to change. That will change not necessarily because you've done anything wrong, but because of them being a metamour. It might be something like, they're right to ask for a little bit of space, and they're going to have feelings about things, especially because your relationship ended because you couldn't do polyamory at the time.

So they might feel some type of way about that, and that's okay. They're doing the right thing by asking for space, but them being a metamour means that you may not be able to confide in them in the way that you might if you were dating somebody who wasn't their partner.

That's something to be aware of, and that doesn't mean that your relationship can't be deep. It doesn't mean that your friendship together can't still be enjoyable and meaningful and supportive, but there may need to be an "X" on discussions about the relationship that goes on between you and your (partner), because they might not be the best person to talk about those things with.

So one thing that you kind of do risk here, with the good amount of consideration that you have, is that sometimes people are so considerate and so careful that they over-communicate to the point where they feel like they need to talk about everything, and everything has to be disclosed, and there's basically no privacy. I don't think that needs to happen here. So I think that you've already done what you can do, and I think that you need to trust yourself a little bit more here.

Trust yourself, whatever happens

Okay, if the worst thing happens and it doesn't work out, and they both hate you and they never want to speak to you again for the rest of your life, will that suck? Absolutely, it will, especially because you work with one of them. It will suck, but you will survive that situation.

There are billions of people on this planet, and you will find another friend. I know that seems quite cold to say, but I'm saying it because you need to trust yourself, and trust in your ability to take care of yourself, trust in your ability to overcome situations like this.

Because if you lean into that fear, if you lean into the idea that you're not going to be there for yourself, and that you can't trust yourself, then you're going to end up making decisions in relationships, not just this one but in any relationship, to save that relationship over saving yourself and saving the relationship that you have with yourself. The relationship that you have with yourself is one of the most important things, and take equal care in that relationship as you do with anybody else, because you can, and you have survived a lot of things.

I'm sure that even if the worst thing were to happen here, and for whatever reason they both end up never wanting to speak to you again, that's going to be sucky, it's going to be sad. But there's all sorts of sucky and sad things that can happen to you in this world and in this life, and you can't prevent and control all of them. You can be there for yourself if those sucky and sad things happen.

So if you have a situation that might be really fun, that might be enjoyable, that might be a really good relationship, try it. Because okay, the worst thing that ends up happening, then you lose a friendship, and that sucks. I'm not saying it doesn't suck, but there's all sorts of reasons why that might happen anyway. Get rid of this dichotomous, binary pattern that you've created in your head where it's either this ends up being great, or it ends up being terrible. There's so much more complexity to the situation than that.

Recap

So yeah, to recap: YOLO, fucking do it, just jump. Definitely consider the fact that the relationship you have with your ex, who would become your metamour, might be a little bit different. Them asking for space is understandable, and you can respect that space. It might change your friendship, and that's okay.

It doesn't mean that you still can't have a supportive friendship, but I would definitely advise not using them to discuss stuff that happens between you and this new person, who is their partner also. And no relationship is safe. I know that sounds really pessimistic, but I think when you abandon the idea that anything is inherently safe, then you have no other choice but to trust yourself.

Resources on non-monogamy

Also, not to be a super plug here, but my course might really help, because things that you can do, starting out, are like: okay, how much time do you want for your own independent interests, your own independent hobbies, other friendships that you have? How much time does this person have to give you?

Can you agree on set, scheduled, dedicated time? That's the thing I always talk about and think about, the physicality of those things. I'd also recommend my 101 and 102 articles. You can find them at https://NonMonogamyHelp.com/101 or 102, and those can be really helpful in learning to let go of that need to control every aspect of the situation, because you're not going to be able to control every aspect of that.

Even if you never spoke to them again and you decided that monogamy was your deal and you're not going to try polyamory, you could meet someone and then it could go badly too. There's no way to fully prevent something like that. So don't put it on yourself to prevent that by being extra, extra careful and tiptoeing around everything to the point where you're more concerned with controlling what's around you than controlling how you interact with yourself.

So yeah, I hope that helps, and good luck.