What If My Partner Asked Me About Polyamory, What Should I Do?
Cathy: I’m a little bit scared guys. Hi. So, another question from one of our intrepid viewers. I’ve recently been asked by my lover this is a good this is a sweet question. I’m serious
Reid: Focus
Cathy: I recently been asked by my lover if I would be interested in polyamory? This person is someone is someone I fully trust and I take their words really profoundly. I’d like to see beyond my perspective and invite newness to it. After [Inaudible 00:00:28] through your website and reading several articles, I’d like to explore more. How do I do this? Where do I start?
Reid: I will leave a link in….in the description to the polyamory and non-monogamy resource page which I think is https://reidaboutsex.com/poly-resources and if it’s not by the time if you’re watching this
Cathy: It will be
Reid: It will be a link
Cathy: And this….I’m Cathy Vartuli from http://theintimacydojo.com/ and
Reid: I’m Reid Mihalko from https://reidaboutsex.com/ that’s the best one.
Cathy: I….I mean I think I love….it’s a great question it’s like “okay, I want to…..I’m curious what do I do now?”
Reid: It…..it’s kind of this is going to be a bad analogy. I’m the king of bad analogies. It’s like when you realize that you want to go on a trip to some far and distant faraway land, a lot of people start geeking out and researching you know different blogs, websites, they read books about visiting wherever Egypt or wherever you’re going….in Italy like wherever you’re going. So imagine that this idea of an open relationship is a faraway distant land with promises of exotic experiences, cuisines, traveling and experience like architecture and start doing your research and if you have a partner who’s open to this invite them to do the research with you. Read the books the resource page actually has…..has some of my favorite books and then do all the exercises in all the books; have all the question conversations at the end of the chapters for these books; discuss; make your own little mini book club; talk about these things; do the worksheets and whatnot; listen to the podcasts and keep having conversations and feeling for what feels exciting and feels congruent for who you are not what you think your partner will be okay with because we all do this and especially odds are if you’re both exploring, going to this faraway distant land you’re already hedging your bets and not asking for what you want. “I want to go climb Mount Kilimanjaro.” You’re….you’re suggesting what you think the other person is going to be a yes to or if you’re like me you’re suggesting the thing you think they won’t get mad at you about.
Cathy: But then you’re never getting the thing you want.
Reid: Oh! So true. So true.
Cathy: Yeah. It’s okay to take this slow, it’s okay to explore and….and take brakes, it’s okay to take a couple steps forwards, a couple steps back. It’s not like you have to jump off the cliff in….in the deepest area. So for me it’s like what feels good? What would feel good to start with? And then experience it and realize that poly relationships can often like they or they can be beautiful, they can really strengthen your skills with communications and boundaries, they often bring up feelings that might have like dormant otherwise so if jealousy come up that doesn’t mean either of you were bad and wrong or that any…..that anybody did anything bad or wrong. It just means that there’s some skills and Reid has some
Reid: I have a jealousy course.
Cathy: It’s really powerful.
Reid: It’s all in the resource page.
Cathy: Yeah. So like learning to deal with those strong feelings that can come up so that you can be like “oh, I’m having the jealousy thing. Oh, yeah…..yeah okay.” There’s not actually anything wrong because our brains tend to freak out when we
Reid: Yeah.
Cathy: have strong emotions so you know kind of going slow. I love that you’re….you’re you have someone you really trust and that you want to explore this it’s a beautiful place to be and it’s okay to not again dive in the deepest end first.
Reid: No. Take baby steps, go slow, don’t buy the plane tickets immediately and then it’s okay to go visit Italy or hike Mount Kilimanjaro which is not in Italy.
Cathy: No.
Reid: And then like come back and be like “honey, I didn’t like that trip.” Congratulate yourselves on going on an adventure at all as a couple.
Cathy: Yeah. And just the…..the process of discussing this and going through the questions and figuring out this stuff even if you decide you’re never going to do any of that you’ve strengthened your relationship in ways most people never do. So, we hope this helps. Leave comments below.
Reid: And I’ll go to make sure that link is a link.