Multiamory: Rethinking Modern Relationships · Multiamory | Pleasure Podcasts

564 - Help! My partner's dates are difficult to endure! Listener Q&A

·38 min·2 clips

Sometimes distraction and self-soothing can backfire when the distress is trying to tell you something.

1. Multiamory: Rethinking Modern Relationships answers a listener question about why a partner’s dates with a metamour still feel hard after five dates. 2. Jace, Emily, and Dedeker host the Q&A and frame themselves as relationship coaches who also reference their book, Multi-Amory Essential Tools for Modern Relationships. 3. The episode asks what to do when emotional distress keeps showing up during a partner’s date and normal self-care does not make it easier. 4. The listener is a new mom, nine months postpartum, with a nesting husband named Dave and an anchor boyfriend named Andrew. 5. She says her daughter is being raised by herself and both partners, and she has asked for more parallel contact because of limited postpartum capacity. 6. Andrew has been dating a new partner for four months, they have only gone on about one date per month, and the listener says the dates still leave her in tears. 7. She names postpartum depression and anxiety medication, couples therapists with both partners, and an EMDR therapist as part of her support system. 8. She also uses a self-care plan during dates, including face masks, movies, video games, and treats, while Andrew texts every few hours. 9. Jace and Emily say the listener is already doing the “standard advice” well, because she has communication agreements, support, and deliberate self-care. 10. They note that the hoped-for outcome is for a partner’s date to become a little fun and restorative instead of a source of dread. 11. Emily says the issue may be concentrated around Andrew because his new relationship is new, while Dave is the nesting partner with more stability and history. 12. The hosts point out that five dates is not a lot of time for a body and nervous system to get used to repeated separation and reunion. 13. Dedeker and Jace connect the timing to postpartum vulnerability and the reality that childbirth can change what “more time” and “more freedom” mean in practice. 14. Jace cites Dr. Vicki Fallon’s research on postpartum anxiety and the stability of the child-rearing relationship. 15. The hosts say the brain can know the relationship is secure while the body still perceives threat inside a heightened vigilance state. 16. Dedeker adds that passive distraction may not be enough, and suggests active focus like crafting, reading, or other hands-on engagement. 17. Emily’s “opposite day” advice is to lean into the feeling for a set time, rather than only soothing or distracting it away. 18. She describes options like freewriting, scribbling, crying, moving the body, and using EMDR therapy to work with the emotional wave until it ebbs. 19. The conversation is conversational, self-referential, and lightly comic, with the hosts using examples from their own relationships and joking about being in a “struggle era.” 20. People managing postpartum anxiety, polyamory, or jealousy around dates will get the most from it; listeners wanting a quick answer with no therapy language may skip it.

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