When and How Should I Tell My Partner That I Fell In Love With A Poly Person?
Cathy: So someone wrote in and said they fell in love with someone who’s already in a poly relationship. They didn’t mean to fall in love, it was not the partnership …
Reid: It’s supposed to be casual
Cathy: Is supposed to be casual. And they don’t know, the partner doesn’t know that the two of them love each other romantically.
Reid: So they’re in an open relationship?
Cathy: Right ….
Reid: Dating casually ….
Cathy: yes! It was supposed to be a casual outside relationship.
Reid: Fell in love with the casual person and they haven’t told the partner yet.
Cathy: Yeah they’re trying they’re like do we wait until he’s more uncomfortable with us or with me or what do we do?
This is Reid Mihalko from http://www.ReidAboutSex.com/
Reid: Cathy Vartuli from http://www.TheIntimacyDojo.com/ what’s your advice?
Cathy: I look at it from the point of view if I was that person and I found out it been going on for a long time. And I wasn’t told I’d be a lot more hurt that have someone talk to me right away.
Reid: So this is really interesting because this kind of it’s not the same question and thank you, everyone, who writes in. it’s not, the question can be different but there’s this interesting the dynamic of how long should we wait if we’re waiting because we want the other person to feel comfortable? Like we’re going to delay the information because we want the other person to get used to the situation and hopefully like the situation. Right? like that’s the hope is like “oh if we wait for a little while it won’t occur as too hard too fast” and then the person will be able to handle the information or the truth differently than if we just if we just sprung it on them immediately.
Cathy: Know there’s a good point and I think like if you’re waiting a month so we can have a couple dinners I get to know you that like I if I’m putting myself in that position. I’d be like maybe that’s ok if it’s been six months I’m going to be pissed like that’s this is like nothing to see that would be me.
Reid: but so again so it’s going to be different for everybody. Baseline concept or idea, the most people’s relationship drama poly/monogamous whether you’re swinger kink whatever. Most people’s relationship drama tends to come from dating people who are either horrible fits for you want to have kids I don’t want to have kids monogamous or Poly that’s going to cause some friction at some point. right ?because we’re both hoping for the other person to change so there’s upset that comes from bad fit and then there’s upset that comes from you are dating people who have don’t have a high enough emotional intelligence. Which you could also fit in the bad fit category but think of it this way, if you dated people who knew themselves more and could handle life and all the weird ways human beings are weird and knew themselves really well and how they handle surprise upset jealousy betrayal like if they just kind of like oh I it’s not always pleasant but I can navigate life. Right? Dating people with higher emotional IQs or relationship IQs more self-awareness applied because you can know a lot about yourself like I know I should be doing such and such but I don’t do it. Versus I know I should do such and such and I do it on a daily basis as a practice. Dating people with higher emotional intelligences tends to make for at least better drama in your relationships. So here the question is can you have a relationship can you have a conversation with said partner about how long they would wait …
Cathy: well that’s clever
Reid: for information versus feeling comfortable in a situation that might be a great conversation to have with all the poly people you’re dating in the beginning of dating. hey just check it in because you’re the partner of this person that I’m dating if like I’m just curious like would you rather hear something sooner if you felt uncomfortable or wait a little bit for information when it was a good time like what….what’s your what works well for you here’s the sticker and what have you feel more respected and seen as a human being is important in the world?
Cathy: and if this is hindsight 20 20 but like you could even as you’re negotiating ok we’re going to be open but I’m going to keep it casual like okay how if I noticed something is not feeling casual what…what are you know how should you want me to tell you and what are our recourses.
Reid: honey if we’re going to be Polly and date other people and what happens if I if I start to fall in love and I wasn’t intending on? Now, this becomes problematic now because you’re having a retroactive conversation and partners might be like “wait a minute why didn’t you tell me this sooner? in which case you’re like “I didn’t know sooner, I would have told you immediately if I thought
that that was a good fit for you but I thought I made a judgment call that it would be better to wait I’m sorry if that was the wrong call” and then somebody with a high emotional IQ is like “oh yeah human beings do that sometimes, I get it I wish you hadn’t but I understand where you’re coming from. it seemed like you were trying to be kind and I’m a little upset. but I know how to navigate my upset give me don’t talk to me for two days and I’ll come back to you and then we’ll have the forgiveness conversation. Like when you date people like that then you can’t make the wrong call or forget or didn’t even know to have a conversation. So now it has to be retroactive and that’s okay like we get it! Because we’re like we have we were adulting now.
Cathy: yeah and it is it’s a challenging situation when people don’t always control when they fall in love in it just like, oh crap this happened! But being as respectful and open as soon as you feel like you can I think that’s important.
Reid: And I would check out my difficult conversation formula at http://www.ReidAboutSex.com/convo
That can also help. The last thing I’ll end on is my experience is that telling somebody sooner is almost better than later. And when you start realizing “oh shit should I have done it by now?” that’s how you know the there are exceptions to this rule. You know an example being somebody they just had somebody close to them pass away maybe don’t tell maybe don’t tell them at the funeral. Like but again like you kind of can’t wait forever. So have a conversation at some point about how do we handle when there’s information and it doesn’t seem like a good time to have a conversation.
Cathy: and it may not this may not be a fit for everybody but I think there’s a tendency to like I’ve…were in love we’re going to tell the person together it’s really between you and your original partner. Probably best to leave the other person out for now just let your partner have their responses with you. And deal with that, rather than having to deal with negotiating with another person so we hope this helps.
Reid: And also be aware of new relationship energy, you can Google that and learn what that’s about.
Cathy: Yeah! We have a video actually.
Reid: comments… leave some comments.