Dave's Blog

Too Much Information?

Isn’t information and communication a good thing in any relationship? Well, I agree that a lot of communication is the key to making a relationship work. However, the style of communication has as many variants as there are people in relationships.

A few basic keys. If you use the dreaded phrase, “We need to talk.” or any of its variations, you are likely to run into a wall. Fighting your way through this wall is likely to leave all of you frustrated and not ready or able to actually have the talk you wanted to have in the first place. For every relationship, certain guidelines and rules need to be set down.

The basic rules should be a step by step process. You will either have some rules for your relationship based on your experiences with others, or you will run into something that is uncomfortable and create a rule based on this discomfort.

It’s ok to express rules that you’ve created from previous experiences through stories, or directly. Having too many “my way or the highway” rules expressed too early in the relationship is likely to kill the attraction before it has a good chance to start. Having too few rules expressed early in the relationship and you’re likely to run into one or more of them and that may end up killing the chances for your future as well.

If you’re a very logical person, your partner is likely to be the more emotional one. Discuss what you are both feeling as you are talking (especially when the topics turn uncomfortable). If these feelings are unusual for you, be prepared to have to pause the conversation and acknowledge the discomfort. This will help create a stronger connection between you.

If you’re the more emotional in the relationship, be open to your partner being uncomfortable with either of you sharing emotions. There will be some topics that you will discuss that will take a lot of time to work through. Be patient.

The only way you are going to know what is best for your relationship is to feel it out. Trust your emotions as your conversation flows. Start a conversation, feel the reaction (yours and your partner’s), gauge where you can go from there. Talk about how you are feeling as these things come up. This type of conversation alone can be a great way to connect with your partner. Set aside time to regularly talk about just anything and this will be a good opportunity to bring up potential issues. Create the space to build your relationship and it will grow naturally (thanks “S”).

I’m not talking about your taxes. I’m talking about your communication. When you have a strong emotional reaction to something your partner has said or done, talk about it with them. Often, your partner has no idea that it was any kind of deal at all, much less as big of a deal as it is to you.
Wedges get driven between you and your partner when you withhold communication. If you wait too long to discuss it, it will be VERY difficult to resolve.
People are often very surprised when a single action causes reactions that appear totally unrelated years later.

 Find an existing relationship and become the girlfriend of the married couple?

Find a great woman, that happens to be in a relationship and is looking for something more?

Create a relationship from the component pieces?

Basically, there are two avenues to multiple partner relationships.  One, the person you are interacting with is already open to it.  Two, the person you are interacting with isn’t already open to it. 

If you are on option 2, it’s most likely that there is no historical experience.  If there is, and the person isn’t open to it, you’ve got a much harder road to travel.  You will need a solid connection to be able to discuss their history and discover WHY they are NOT open to it.  Most likely, they had a horrible experience that turned them off to the idea because of that one experience.  This is your chance to listen and pay attention to figure out if you’ve got any chance of making it happen.  Don’t force it. 

If you are on option 2 and they have no historical experience, don’t try to sell the other person on the idea.  Just let them be attracted to you, and comfortable with you.  When things develop into dating then relationship, it’s their choice to keep things going.  As long as you’ve done right, and made it clear that you’re not a monogamous person, you don’t need to make waves and waste time and energy and effort and drama forcing them into “deciding to become poly.”  It’s actually disrespectful to the other person to insist on “the conversation about how poly is ok” if you’ve made it clear that you are poly.

If you’re on option 1, and the person has experience being poly, have your discussion.  Set the rules and the guidelines and let them know which style of relationship you want.  Negotiate the limits and what is and isn’t acceptable.  If the other person is open to poly, and they are familiar with it, it’s a reasonable and responsible thing for everyone to know what rules are to be followed. 

If you’re on option 1, and the person is merely interested, but has no experience, you’ll want to be more careful.  Setting rules and guidelines may push them away.  Detail the dealbreakers and let the other parts of the relationship work themselves out as the relationship builds.

From Different paths, different relationships I stated

Most people assume that when you are casually dating, you are dating a few people at the same time. They also assume that you will either stop dating them, or stop dating the others when you decide to take one of the relationships to a “more serious level.” This isn’t the case with poly relationships. Simply waiting for the explosion and stating at that time, “I never agreed to be exclusive with you.” is one way to do this. This is also the path that will lead to the most drama and pain for your partner and yourself.

I believe Kevin had a question about this paragraph so I will attempt to make this more clear.

If you want your partner to get royally pissed off at you and cause all sorts of drama, that you would well deserve, do the following:

Wait until you have been dating someone for a while, and decide to take that relationship “to the next level” of seriousness (commitment, officially calling her your girlfriend, giving her a “promise ring”) but never ever suggest, or hint, or tell stories about, or bring up in any way the fact that you may never be exclusive with anyone.  Then, when your partner assumes that you are exclusive, and you act otherwise, and get caught, only then do you tell this partner “I never claimed that I would ever be exclusive with you or anyone else.”  This works especially well if you somehow give the person you are dating the idea that you haven’t been dating anyone else the entire time you have been seeing him/her.

If you don’t give the other person any idea that you may view relationships differently from what is considered “normal” it really isn’t fair to let them assume anything. Just because you are a different type of person from what they are used to dating doesn’t mean they will assume that everything about you is different.

It is generally a bad idea, also, to build a poly relationship with any of your partners thinking that they have a chance to become “the only one.”  If you truly are looking to be monogamous some day, then this doesn’t apply to you.  If you are like me, however, don’t give someone a false impression.

Bad karma.  Bad relationship.  Bad reputation. 

Try to leave them better than you found them.