586 - How to Support Your Partner Through a Breakup

Breakups are hard…for everyone

The grief that comes from breaking up is real. In 2003 a study at UCLA by Naomi Eisenberger found that social rejection activated the same regions of the brain that process physical pain. When a relationship ends, dopamine drops significantly, which leads to the feelings of loss, emotional withdrawal, and symptoms similar to those seen in substance addiction. If your partner is going through a breakup, they’re experiencing real pain, and their brain is struggling to build new neural connections to account for an absence.

Consensual non-monogamous breakups fall under the umbrella of disenfranchised grief, or grief that society doesn’t recognize or validate. When a partner’s relationship ends, they are grieving the loss and recalibrating their whole world, because when one relationship ends in non-monogamy, it reshapes the whole ecosystem.

Complicated feelings

Sometimes your feelings might be hard to parse out during a partner’s breakup. It’s okay to feel relief, secondary grief, whatever emotions you feel. You don’t have to perform emotions you don’t have, but you can choose how much to share about your real feelings and when.

Processing complicated feelings or relief elsewhere first with a therapist, friend, or journal can help you show up more for your partner without suppressing yourself entirely.

If your partner’s relationship was less “out” than yours and they had to hide it, then being unable to publicly grieve the loss is extremely isolating. You may be one of the few people they can be honest about what they’ve lost, and that’s a significant responsibility.

You might also have lost something. If you had any type of relationship with that metamour, you might be grieving too.

There’s also the burden of “successful polyamory.” In CNM communities, sometimes there’s pressure to not let breakups look like failures. This is an idea worth resisting. Ending is not failure. Your partner (and you) deserve to grieve without also having to defend your relationship structure.

Concrete support

• Ask before assuming. Figure out if your partner wants you to listen, help them think through it, or be distracted together.

• Make space for all the stages. Grief isn’t linear; don’t project a timeline.

• It’s okay to say “I don’t know what to say.” Not knowing and being genuine is better than reaching for a cliche that might end badly.

• Don’t project your grief process onto them. Criticizing the duration or expression of grief is a quick way to make them feel more alone.

• Expressing genuine concern is great, but don’t try to direct their path, particularly around the possibility of reconnecting, staying friends, etc.

• Validate that their grief is bigger than it might look from outside.

• Provide practical support, like food, presence, handling logistics, etc. Showing up helps them being able to feel their feelings.

• Help them find other support. Gently note that they might want to talk to a non-monogamy affirming therapist, online community, or trusted friend. You can’t and shouldn’t be their only support system.

Take care of yourself

Make sure you’re also taking care of yourself. You can’t pour from an empty cup, and extended emotional labor for a grieving partner is taxing. It’s okay to have limits.

• Don’t give your partner’s emotions back to them. Be present without becoming the grief vessel.

• Find your own support. A therapist, friends outside the relationship, your own community. This is particularly important if the polycule grief is collective. You may need somewhere outside the system to process.

• Your partner may not be able to support you right now like they usually do. This is temporary, doesn’t mean the relationship is broken, and is simply evidence of them having a hard moment.

• Communicate your own capacity honestly. “I’m here for you and I also need to tell you that I’m running low. Can we figure out together how to make sure we’re both getting what we need?” is a valid and loving thing to say.

• Name your own secondary losses if they exist, to yourself, and eventually to your partner when the time is right.

Transcript

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Dedeker: So there's a little reminder that I give people at the end of the somatic retreats that I do, and it's a little bit based on work that Francis Weller did. They have this really wonderful book called The Wild Edge of Sorrow, and basically it's this— it's like we have to remember that literally for tens of thousands of years, our nervous system evolved under conditions where any tragedy that happened or any loss that happened to you was also felt and held by multiple other people around at the same time. And so those are the conditions under which our nervous systems have evolved. And now when we experience a tragedy or a loss or something that we have to grieve, there's a part of our nervous system that is always like, where's everybody else? It knows that you were not meant to be holding this by yourself.

Jase: Welcome to the Multiamory Podcast. I'm Jase.

Emily: I'm Emily.

Dedeker: And I'm Dedeker Winston.

Emily: We believe in looking to the future of relationships, not maintaining the status quo of the past.

Dedeker: Whether you're monogamous, polyamorous, swinging, casually dating, or if you just do relationships differently, we see you and we're here for you.

Emily: [THEME MUSIC - "Forms I Know I Did" by Josh and Anand]

Jase: On this episode of The Multiamory Podcast, we're talking about supporting your partner through a breakup. Many of us have been in the situation where it's in the middle of the day and suddenly your partner texts you that it's over with their other partner. What do you do? How do you feel about that? Maybe we've had experience doing this with a friend, but with a partner it can be extra complicated. Even with a friend, sometimes we don't know what to do. So today we're going to talk about supporting someone you love through a loss that you weren't part of, also while navigating your own feelings about it. The truth is that not everyone feels purely sad for their partner. Sometimes it's more complicated. Today we're going to talk about what the science says, how to understand the grief that your partner is going through, how to give your partner practical support, and how to deal with your own potentially mixed feelings if you have them, and some tips for caring for yourself while you are caring for them. If you're interested in learning more about our fundamental communication tools that we reference on this show all the time, check out our book Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships. It covers our most used communication tools for all types of relationships, and you can find links to buy it at Multiamory.com/book in print, ebook, and audiobook formats.

Emily: I realized that I haven't really had that many partners at the same time, and then they also have other partners, and I haven't gone through that as much. But I do feel like the two of you have gone through this quite a lot over the years with one another, dating other people, and then eventually leaving those relationships. And then you've also had maybe challenging feelings about that from time to time.

Dedeker: Well, that's funny you mentioned that, that you've never been in that position, but I was like, wait, but I had this big breakup a few years ago and you supported me through that. But I'm like, well, I know, I guess, but it doesn't count, we're not like romantic partners.

Emily: So that's the thing.

Dedeker: Yeah, it all kind of blends together. It does blend together. I do think that the specific setup of being in a non-monogamous relationship where you're in romantic partnership with multiple people and helping them through breakups does present its own unique challenges, which of course we'll get to. But there's also a lot that just overlaps with how you deal with supporting anybody that you love and care about through—

Emily: of course—

Dedeker: something devastating or something really disruptive like that.

Jase: Yeah, I definitely think there's a lot of overlap there. And that I'd say one unique area is what I thought you were getting at, Emily, where two people break up and you're dating both of those people, so that you went from not necessarily like a triad— you were all together— but at least overlapping Vs, where you were dating these two different people, they were also dating each other, and then they break up. That is a kind of uniquely polyamory situation you can get into that is extra complicated. I haven't had that happen a lot. More often it's like I'm friends with one of the people, because we're all part of the same community and we're friends and I feel close with them. And then the other one, maybe I'm dating them. And again, it's this weird thing of, do we think that's such a big distinction? I think traditionally you think of people that you're dating or having sex with as being a totally different type of relationship. I don't know that it always looks that way in practice, especially when supporting in a breakup, but it is interesting how that adds an extra nuance.

Dedeker: Yeah, not that we're gonna go by the numbers or anything, but I do think that Jase has had to support me through breakups more frequently than I've had to support Jase through breakups.

Emily: And I feel like more devastating ones too. Yeah, if I can be frank.

Jase: Yeah, sure, sure.

Emily: Just, yeah, you'd been with those people longer, and also maybe they ended a little bit more tumultuously in certain cases.

Dedeker: Well, but this even prompted a conversation that you and I had, Jase, pretty recently, where as I've been dating again, where I had this fear that maybe I've used up all the breakup support points from Jase.

Jase: Yeah, she did just bring that up recently.

Dedeker: Yes, and now if I make any more mistakes, I'm out, then no more support. You're done. You're done, Lady, bye-bye.

Jase: Yeah, I feel like, tell it to the wall, I don't care.

Dedeker: Yeah, some people hit that point though. I have worked with clients where, yeah, if— and that's, that is a very real thing. I mean, not that I think that that's a good thing to hoard a particular amount of breakup support points that you lord over your partner, but I will say that is a thing, expending emotional labor supporting someone, you know, supporting your partner if they're running into a lot of, let's call it, just like relationship drama or relationship troubles. It's a non-zero cost, let's say, to the person who's trying to be supportive.

Emily: Of course.

Jase: I think we can all relate to that one friend or relative or someone who just— it feels like they're constantly going through traumatic breakups and you kind of just want to be like, okay, there, there they go again, right? I definitely know I've had some friends over time where it's that kind of like, yes, I'm going to be here to support you, but also I'm not going to get too precious about this breakup because you just had another one a month ago and I know you're going to have one next month too. So I think there is a little bit of that depends on the dynamic of how they treat their own breakups as well.

Emily: Well, that's a very specific nuance as well, that in non-monogamy, especially in certain times of a person's non-monogamy, they may be dating way more people than at other times. I think the three of us, when we were starting out, dated a ton of people, and therefore breakups were bound to happen. Yes, there was more churn, breakups were bound to happen more frequently. And so I can understand coming to a friend or coming to your other partner and asking for help, asking for support. If that occurs over and over again, that might be a little bit more challenging to handle when you do have this idea in your mind of, okay, they're starting to date this person, but who knows how long it's gonna last. I've been seeing a lot of churn versus Dedeker Winston, what I think you've been through, which is dated somebody for like 6 years, for example, and then have a really challenging point of time in your life where you were mourning that loss for a very, very long time. And then Jase, that's a very different type of support, I feel like, that you need to give when somebody is mourning a loss of that magnitude. Yeah, yeah.

Jase: Well, and that is a tricky thing with polyamory too, where if you think about in the standard monogamous world— and we're supporting friends in this case instead of partners— but the person who has those lots of breakups in a row also by necessity means they were all short relationships.

Emily: Yeah, right.

Jase: If it's that friend where you're just like, oh my gosh, they're always going through this drama of like falling madly in love with this brand new person and then being so devastated by the breakup that you can be a little bit like, okay, yeah. But within polyamory, you could have a situation where your partner has had a few other partners, maybe let's say two other partners just to keep it simple, and one's been 3 years long and the other's been 6 years long, and somehow those end up having breakups in somewhat close proximity, like within a year to each other. That can be pretty devastating. For that person going through it because they've now lost these two long-term relationships. But then also for you as the one supporting that, that can be really hard.

Emily: I did want to do a little callback to episode 128, which was 10 million years ago, when we did an episode called How to Support Your Partner Through a Breakup, and also 198, which was Supporting a Partner Through Loss. So both of those episodes I looked at, I took a couple of things from them. And we'll talk about some of those today. But we're sort of doing a big refresh of this topic many, many years later, and hopefully we'll have some additional things to say.

Dedeker: Many, many breakups later.

Emily: Many, many breakups later. Many, many years later. Goodness. Yeah, we've been through a lot. But I kind of like that though, that we can look at where we were. That was very much at the beginning of this journey that we've all been on. And now here we are 10 years later or something, which is incredible to think about. That's very cool. So, okay, let's start off with talking about what your partner is going through. So again, that scenario that we spoke of right at the beginning, Jase had talked about, you get a phone call or you get a text message and you see that your partner broke up with their other partner. So their partner is your Metamour and now they are not together anymore. And that most likely is depending on the situation, going to be very difficult for them. I know that like I've had breakups where I was ready to leave, I was happy to go, and I was the one doing the breaking up. Doesn't really matter. I feel like even through the breakup process, you still have a lot of moments of challenge, a lot of moments of feeling like, shit, this thing that was in my life for a period of time is now over, and there's an adjustment period there for sure. So that's something to just remind yourself of when your partner is going through this, especially if you've ever been there, that they're going through and going to be going through a long period of grief. So breakup grief is definitely real grief. The brain doesn't really distinguish between this concept of I have other partners, so whatever, or this person was a comet, they weren't primary. It's okay because I have these other people. Attachment is attachment. If a friend and you had a bad falling out and they're not in your life anymore, like similar stuff is going on there. I want to talk about a UCLA study from 2003 called Does Rejection Hurt? An fMRI Study of Social Exclusion by Naomi Eisenberger. And they found that social rejection activated the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula. So these are the brain regions that process physical pain. And so basically social rejection or ending a relationship activates those same parts of the brain as physical pain does.

Dedeker: Mm. Yeah.

Emily: So they share the same neural hardware. And then when a romantic relationship ends, the brain experiences a significant drop in dopamine, leading to feelings of loss, emotional withdrawal, and symptoms similar to those seen in substance addiction. And then alongside dopamine, oxytocin and vasopressin, which are essential for bonding and social attachment, those also also decrease significantly post-breakup, and that intensifies feelings of loneliness and emotional isolation. So even if you are around other people, you have people supporting you, there's generally going to be a time maybe when you have to be alone, you have to sit and process your emotions, and these really intense feelings of loss can come up during that.

Dedeker: So to put it plainly, someone you love is going through a breakup, you're dealing with someone who's just not in a normal brain state. Whatsoever, their normal cognitive, logical self, perhaps.

Emily: Absolutely.

Jase: And I think it's also worth looking at what you were saying there, Emily, about which chemicals are suppressed. And it's basically the ones that let us feel comforted and attached and also to feel satisfied. And that because those are suppressed, if you think about it, it makes sense that what our body is trying to get us to do is to make sure we don't get abandoned and left alone in the forest. That it wants to make sure we're still attaching to people, we're still getting community. But that's what can lead to that kind of clinginess or neediness that can happen post-breakup. And also probably what leads to the rebound thing of like you've got this lack of those good feeling hormones. And so you're really going to want to seek out ways to get those right, ways to get that. And starting a new relationship and getting into NRE is one way, I suppose, to deal with that.

Emily: You talked about that in a recent episode, Jase, that grief really causes sometimes that feeling of I need to find somebody else to attach to so that I can make other connections and make myself feel better. That kind of addictive part sort of comes back in and wanting to help all of those happy hormones come back to you and be flooded back into your system.

Jase: Yeah. I mean, and that's the addiction piece, right? It's why we drink. It's why we smoke all those things. It's like, I want to not feel these bad feelings I have right now. So I would like to do something to replace those. With other feelings, and that can be done in healthy and unhealthy ways.

Emily: Absolutely. There's also a really fascinating neuroscience angle from grief researcher Mary-Frances O'Connor from the University of Arizona, which is in Tucson, where I am from. So she found that the brain develops automatic expectations around a loved one's presence. So at one level, it's really a long time before someone stops, like, instinctively reaching for their phone to share something with somebody that is no longer in their life anymore. And this behavior suggests that this thing of automatically reaching for your phone or automatically thinking about that person, if a certain thing happens, that needs to be relearned. New neural pathways need to be shaped and formed with other people, or you just kind of have to stop doing that to stop teaching the brain that that's the direction it needs to go in when you see something that reminds you of that person, for instance.

Dedeker: Boy, breakups suck. Sorry, that's, that's—

Emily: I'm just like, man, yeah, that is sad, right?

Dedeker: How can I avoid doing those ever again? I guess never dating anybody.

Jase: Oh boy. Okay. Yeah.

Emily: Yeah. So that's just something to realize as well, that especially I think a layperson, not necessarily people who are familiar with non-monogamy or who are familiar with these types of relationships that people can have with multiple partners, there might be a tendency for someone on the outside to say like, 'Just get over it. You have other people in your life, whatever.' Or even maybe you personally sometimes may have that knee-jerk reaction of saying that to a partner, especially if you didn't necessarily like that person. But again, if your brain just goes there automatically, so feeling grief or feeling like, 'Shit, I want to, I want to tell this person about something that happened in my day and I can't do that anymore,' just know, like, it takes time. That pressure to get over it quickly is something that we just need to be aware of to maybe not put out there into the universe, especially with our loved ones who are going through something like this.

Jase: Yeah. And I think that's worth being aware of for what we'll talk about later in the episode about how to take care of yourself and your own feelings during this, because there is a certain amount of this of they just have to take time for their brain to readjust and for their habits to readjust and to process their feelings. Whether they wanted the breakup or not, there's still that grieving process to go through. So it's worth at least keeping that in mind, right? To at least not put your own judgments that you might put on yourself on them of like, I should just get over it. Come on, you have these other people. Like, oh, do you not appreciate your relationship with me and that's why you're so sad about this breakup? But just to realize like it's not about that. Our brain is going through stuff, our emotions are going through stuff. Yeah.

Emily: Something that kind of goes along with what we were just talking about is it may be more difficult to feel like you can really fall apart or have moments of, you know, just needing to lie in bed all day or be in this really rough place because there's kind of an unspoken pressure not to let one breakup destabilize all of your other relationships, which I think is always a good thing to strive for. But it's also maybe not realistic in certain moments. And it definitely, again, if the partnership was a really long time, if it was really intense, if there were periods of tumult and then finally it's ending, all of those things can potentially cause like a lot of destabilization within a person. And therefore I think that it's understandable that that'll ripple out across multiple relationships and it's just something to be aware of and to give your partner grace about.

Jase: I think that one's worth noting too with friends as well as with partners that I feel like as the support person, there is this push-pull. And I think some people can gravitate too much to one or the other, which is there's this push-pull between I want to give you other things to be interested in, kind of snap you out of it, of like, oh, let's go do something fun, like, oh, stop thinking about that. Let's, let's go do something that you like, to that kind of distraction piece, or like escaping from those feelings. And then on the other hand, there's the importance of letting yourself mourn and having those days where you stay in bed or you just eat ice cream all day or whatever it is. And I think that as the support person, it's important to be aware that both sides of that are valuable. And when you're trying to do your support, you might not always know which is the one they need right then. And so you might have to feel it out a little bit, kind of propose one, see how they react to it, and then propose the other and realize that some of it might be giving them the permission to be like, "Yeah, you can be a slug today. You can stay in your pajamas all day. You don't have to pull yourself together. You can be sad." And sometimes just being given that permission is so important. So I guess just thinking it's also not like, oh, you make a plan, you come to them and you just force them to do your plan, right? But then on the other hand, I've had times where I've been going through a breakup and when the friend or a partner or someone was like, all right, dude, you've been moping. Let's go. Let's go out and do something, right? Like you like it when you go to the gym or like, hey, you know, like it when we play games. Let's go do that. Like, let's go do something. And that's valuable too. So I think just being aware that there needs to be a balance of those, and that as the support with your partner, you can make sure that both are portrayed as being valid options too. They're not failing if they are choosing one or the other, but you can also encourage some balance for them.

Emily: Absolutely. I want to hit you with one more study. So in 2024, there was a study in the Archives of Sexual Behavior by Arter Bunge called Perceived Impacts of Partners' Other Relationships on Oneself in Consensual Non-Monogamy. And they found that Consensually Non-Monogamous individuals commonly reported both costs and benefits from partners' other relationships, including emotional instability and conflict, particularly early in non-monogamous relationships. So there were great things about, of course, your partners being in relationships with other people, especially if you know your metamours, if you get to hang out with your metamours, if you create like a long and lasting relationship with them. But there can also be challenges, and we're going to get into that in the next part about what those challenges may make you feel like once your partner gets out of a relationship with somebody that maybe you didn't care for, you just have complicated feelings around them. So those costs are real. They're documented. It's just something to be aware of as well, that understandably your partner is going through a lot, but you might go through some intense stuff as well.

Jase: So true. Before we go on to that, we're going to take a quick break to talk about our sponsors for this show. Please do check them out. We have links in our show notes and listen to the ads. That does really help support our show. And then of course, if you want to support directly, you can go to multiamory.com/join and there you can join our community, get ad-free episodes, be part of our amazing discussions, our monthly video groups, things like that. We would love to have you there. And that is, of course, the most direct way you can help support this show that we put out into the world every week for free.

Emily: So now I want to talk about the hard part: when your feelings are complicated. When your partner breaks up with someone and maybe you feel a little relieved, or maybe you feel really sad because this person meant a lot to you, and now you're like, how are they going to stay in my life? Are they going to stay in my life? Is that okay if I have them as a friend still, or would that be kind of weird? So to start off, I want to just validate everyone who maybe is going through this. You find out that your partner broke up with someone that you were maybe not that close with, that maybe you didn't really like that much, and the first thing that you feel is relief. Maybe you had some concerns about that partner. Maybe there was some friction between the two of you, or maybe the relationship took a lot of your partner's time, and now you're maybe gonna get some of that time back. These feelings are really human. They're really understandable, and they can coexist with genuine care for your partner's pain.

Dedeker: Or a really— let me tell you, my most negative Metamour experience ever, like to this date.

Emily: I think I know who you're speaking about.

Dedeker: You know who it is. Um, but when that partner broke up with that Metamour, not only was I so freaking relieved, even in the midst of the relief, I was able to produce some freaking crocodile tears.

Emily: Wow.

Dedeker: With him. And I just— to this, like, the Academy still hasn't called me yet, but I am waiting.

Emily: But they should. Okay, my goodness, I am waiting. So what you're saying is you produce crocodile tears, but you in no way, shape, or form were mourning the loss of this Metamour?

Dedeker: I want to say the tears were 99% crocodile, 1% genuine, right?

Jase: Like, there was one for your partner's sake, for my partner's pain.

Dedeker: Yeah, yes, yes, yeah, genuine empathetic pain, but mostly—

Emily: that's very kind of you, Dedeker Winston. Yeah, got it. Okay. Yes.

Dedeker: I've never done that since then, just so you know, Jace. I've never had to pull out that level of, you know, Oscar-worthy performance in supporting someone through a breakup.

Emily: We've been pleased when you've broken up with certain people, Dedeker Winston. And again—

Dedeker: Oh, sure.

Emily: Yes. And I know that we have felt your pain because of course it's painful, but we have also felt relief.

Dedeker: Yes. Yes.

Jase: And that is such a tricky thing of that feeling of relief when they break up with that person. But also, yeah, also realizing this is going to be hard for them. And you kind of have to keep those feelings in check a little bit. You can't just be like, let's throw a party. That's awesome. You broke up with them, right? Because especially if they got broken up with, you might be like, oh, thank God that partner took care of it for them. So they're now— they're not together, but supporting them through that. And then the complicated feeling of like, oh, I want, you know, support you, feel bad about your sadness. But I also don't want to do it in a way that makes you think I'd be happy if you got back together.

Emily: Wow, that's an interesting—

Dedeker: so you're like, yeah, really trying to thread that needle, right?

Jase: Because I feel like sometimes that, that has happened to me where someone does break up with a partner and you're like, okay, yes, thank God, that, that was a rough relationship. It was hard to support them in that relationship, so I'm glad it's over. This happens to be more often with friends than with partners I can think of.

Emily: Oh, interesting.

Jase: In terms of memories I have. But then you're kind of like, oh yeah, that really sucks, and you're trying to be supportive, and then they get back together with that person. And you're just like, oh, you're like, this is not what I wanted.

Emily: This is not where I was going with, with my trying to support you through this. In the back of my mind, I was really excited about it. Yes.

Dedeker: Well, but I feel, but I feel like what you're trying to lead up to though is that I think, yeah, if you're the person supporting your partner through a breakup and you have a wide mix of feelings, that, that, that's normal. That whatever feelings are coming up for you are not necessarily within your control. Like, your feelings are just your feelings that are coming up around this.

Emily: Yes.

Jase: And I think what I'm getting at though there too is that it's important to be honest about them while also keeping them in check, right? That if you were really glad that they broke up and you never said that because you're just trying to be supportive, and then they get back together, and then finally you're like, ah, I wish you hadn't done that, it's like a rug pull for them. So I think there's this interesting balance of how do you honestly express your own feelings while also not just dumping them all over your partner and making it about you instead of their own breakup.

Emily: I think that's really good advice because of course you want to be honest with your partner, especially, especially if there were certain things that you felt were really lacking in that relationship or there were even things edging on abuse or just like major incompatibilities. And all of those things, I think maybe after the relationship is over, if you can gently speak about them, not in an accusatory way, but rather like you know, I've always had some challenging feelings about your relationship and this is why, and I know how difficult this must be for you right now, but I do hope maybe some of that is lifted off of your chest, for instance, because I, I don't know if that was something that you were feeling or going through as well.

Dedeker: Maybe not something to drop on your partner when the breakup is super fresh.

Emily: I wouldn't say that.

Dedeker: I would say, yeah, I think that, yeah, it's important Yeah, for you as the supporting partner to know how to, yeah, regulate yourself, keep him in check enough to wait until it's like an appropriate time for your partner to hear that or to even ask for that from you. Yeah, especially since, as we established, they're not in like normal brain mode. And so it's like also the way they receive anything like that from you is, uh, might be unpredictable.

Emily: That's a very good point. You might also have a bit of secondary grief going on as well. So some people might grieve alongside their partner and they might feel their own sadness, especially if they had a relationship with the Metamour, or, you know, if you just really appreciated seeing your partner so happy, so in love with someone else, if you had compersion for that relationship, you might really feel a sense of loss as well in the midst of their loss. And that's something to navigate, something to realize. This person is not going to be in my life anymore, necessarily in the same way. How is that going to change the way in which I interact with my partner when it's not necessarily going to be around this person anymore as often, for instance? So you don't, of course, have to perform emotions that you don't have unless you're an incredible actress like—

Dedeker: I guess, yeah.

Emily: And then, yes, like you two said, you can choose when to share your feelings and when to not. And I think, again, it is important to allow your partner to grieve and maybe just aid them in that grief initially. But perhaps if you're at a radar, for instance, and you want to talk about like maybe a month afterwards, hey, can we talk a little bit more about the breakup that you went through and kind of see where you're at? I have some feelings surrounding it as well. Maybe we can talk openly and honestly about that. So I think timing is everything and it's not in the midst of the actual breakup happening. The time for you to say like, you know what, I always really disliked that person. I don't think they were good for you. Yeah, no, not helpful.

Jase: And I think some people will do that thinking they're being supportive. Like, I see friends do this a lot of when their friend goes through a breakup, they immediately are like, oh yeah, that person totally sucked. I hated this about them, this about them, this about them. And that is not helpful, right? It's one, it makes your friend worry. Have you always been thinking this thing about all of my partners? They're going to fear that in the future. That's not a good look for polyamory too, if it's assuming, oh, you're just keeping secret all these bad things you think about the people I date. And then also, it's not helpful for them because it's another way of kind of invalidating the grief that they might be feeling about that, even if it was their choice to break up, right? There's still going to be some things they liked and some sadness there. At the same time, I think sometimes there can be this feeling if you're the one who had the breakup, where you go to your partner or your friend and you tell them about the breakup and they're supporting you, and you're like, well, I know you never really liked them, Or like, you probably feel relieved, right? You probably feel good about this. That's another one of those tricky situations where I don't think it's right to lie and be like, no, no, totally. Like, but to say like, yeah, I didn't, but also I know that you cared about them and I want to support you. I think there's room for both of those things to exist. And being honest about that lets them be honest as well, right? And I think that would be the hope, that they can actually process their feelings. And also, if you have complicated feelings Hopefully they can get that for you too.

Emily: For sure. Absolutely. There is an additional complication that happens if you and your partner aren't necessarily out as non-monogamous. So if your partner had a breakup but nobody else really knew about that partner, that is a lot to potentially place on yourself because you may be one of the only sources of comfort for your partner in those moments. And I think that that becomes really challenging for both of you. And that's the kind of thing where maybe that's really helpful to process with like a therapist, for instance, or some sort of support group or friend that you really trust so that both of you can get support outside of each other. Yes. Yeah. Community is so important in that way because being the only source of comfort in those moments, I think especially if there's the additional complication of I didn't really like this relationship. I didn't feel good about it. Now I'm kind of relieved that you broke up, but you're going through it and I want to support you. How do I do that? And how do I put my best foot forward in these moments? Of course, many of us want our non-monogamy to kind of look perfect to people out there so that they understand it. And so they look at it and they're like, this is a valid relationship choice. And so I think that sometimes we have this pressure of not letting breakups look like failures, not allowing them to seem as challenging as they might be in the moment. But we need to realize, I think all of us, that endings are not necessarily failures. So your partner and you deserve to grieve without necessarily having to defend your relationship structure. Again, so many therapists out there are people who are just not necessarily in the know. They might say like, well, of course you broke up. You're non-monogamous, and that makes sense. That's a structure that is doomed to fail. And if you can remove yourselves from perhaps people like that for a period of time so that you can have your time to grieve, both of you, if you are also grieving with your partner, then that's just something to be aware of and something to kind of shelter yourself from during this time.

Dedeker: Yeah, it's hard if you feel like you have people in your life where you're just bracing against the 'I told you so.' Yeah, that's such a— said by someone who loves telling other people, I told you so, and always has to hold yourself back.

Emily: Yes.

Dedeker: And then, yeah, that's hard. That— yeah, you have to be, I think, choosy about who it is that you turn to when you're opening up about that particular grief.

Emily: Maybe you have a parent, for instance, that didn't really know this person, or they didn't ever really like this person, or they think, uh, and your non-monogamy is kind of silly and I don't understand it. And so perhaps that's not the person that you go to when you're like, hey, my partner is having a really rough time right now and it's because they just broke up with my Metamour. Perhaps not the person to go to in these moments.

Dedeker: Although I, I feel like when I think about when partners have supported— partners or friends have supported me through a breakup and I'm in those situations, like maybe around family or around friends where you're not totally out to— I think one one of the great moves you can pull as a support person is to be the one who's like the first line of defense. And what I mean by that is like you can collaborate on like, okay, I know we're heading to this social event together, but I am just like feeling absolutely horrible and depressed and so sad about this, but I still want to go. But it's like you can collaborate on like what's the story for like why you may need to bail early or something like that.

Emily: Oh yeah, that's a great idea.

Dedeker: Right, right.

Emily: Absolutely.

Dedeker: Like, as the support person, you can kind of be the one who like makes the excuses. For that person or whatever, um, without needing to go into the full detail of what's actually going on. Like, I think that's actually a really wonderful way to show support for someone who's grieving but maybe doesn't have the bandwidth or the emotional safety to be able to be completely honest. I love that.

Emily: That's great.

Jase: Absolutely. And you can talk about what that is based on the situation, depending how well they know them. If it's not their family but just a social gathering or something, it could even just be like there was a loss in their family, like not someone they're super close to, but, but still it affects them. Or, you know, you can kind of come up with what fits the feeling you want to portray of like, here's how you should treat this person, here's kind of the affordances that you should give them. But that's something you can collaborate on there. Something that I think is worth hitting on about that pressure to do polyamory good, to do it good, is real good.

Emily: Yeah.

Jase: If you're newer to non-monogamy, especially like you've opened up your relationship recently, there's a lot of complicated feelings that come up there in general. And one of those is often this feeling of, ah, my partner's dating someone else. I don't feel good about this. I— my insecurities, my jealousies come up. In that situation, if they do have a breakup, there can be a feeling of relief that's not relief like I thought that relationship was bad, but relief because I thought it was good. And that was threatening to me. And I think that on the one hand, it can be easy to just feel like, oh yeah, okay, they were bad. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why my feelings were okay. I don't really need to question my own issues there about why I didn't like that relationship because, oh, they were bad because it didn't work out. I think there's that temptation. And again, to balance it out on the other side, there you can feel guilt about feeling relieved with that breakup of like, oh shoot, that means I'm not a good enough poly person. Maybe this is my fault because I never liked them, or I didn't feel secure enough. So just to bring that up, that there are some complicated feelings that can come up about like, am I doing this type of relationship well enough? And just to realize that's part of this too, and that that deserves your attention and time to think about what that means for you, how that fits for you, and that that's okay too. Like, it's okay to have those complicated feelings.

Emily: Yeah, there's a lot of opportunity for reflection here. And maybe how you can continue to show up better for your partner, because this will happen again, probably, eventually. And then also how you can show up well for yourself.

Jase: We're gonna go on to some practical tools, but before we do that, we're gonna take another quick break to talk about a couple sponsors for the show. Thank you to them for supporting this, letting us put this out into the world for free every week. Please do give those ads a listen, use our promo codes. Or, if you'd rather not get ads at all, you can join our community. And connect with some amazing people there at Multiamory.com/join.

Emily: Alrighty. The last section of this, I want to go through how to support your partner and then some practical tools for taking care of yourself while you are supporting your partner. So we talked about quite a lot of things throughout the course of this episode already, but I wanted to start out with just ask, just communicate. Ask before assuming what it is that they need in the moment. So this is a great opportunity to use the Triforce of Communication. For instance, if they are starting to tell you about something that they're feeling, maybe come back and be like, hey, do you want me to just listen, be here for you? Do you want some love and support? Do you want some suggestions? What is it that you need in this moment?

Jase: I also like the extension of that, like I mentioned before, of that Do you want to be distracted right now, or do you want me to take out the trash so you can just keep watching Friends reruns or whatever it is that you're doing?

Emily: Yeah, that's great.

Jase: Kind of check in of what of those feels right to you.

Emily: Absolutely. Also make space for all of the stages of grief because they will probably be there. And remember that grief is not linear. We talked about this, I think, was that my Breakup episode? We talked about the stages of grief. Yes. So they might feel devastated and then totally fine. And then wrecked again at 2 AM. Don't project a timeline on it. Just try to resist the urge to say you should be feeling better by now, because of course, I know, I think all of us know, like 6 months down the line, something may just come up and it all, you know, comes flooding back out again. So allow for the possibility for that to happen, especially if it was a long, meaningful relationship. It's totally okay also to just say, I don't know what to say or do in this moment. Just try to be genuine and try to be warm and know that sometimes it's better than just reaching for a cliché that might land badly. Like, you know, everything happens for a reason, or you still have me, or I never liked them anyway, or any of those, you know.

Dedeker: Yeah.

Jase: Yeah.

Dedeker: Well, it's interesting that sitting with a partner who's in pain or in grief, what I've noticed is it immediately confronts your own discomfort with pain and grief in general. And so I know for me, often that manifests as, I can tolerate just sitting with this for about 5 minutes, and then I need to do something to try to fix it for you, right? Because then it's my own discomfort of just sitting with it. And I think especially it can bring up really challenging feelings around feeling helpless, right? Because the fact that, like, you can't fix this for your partner, really. You can't speed up the timeline for them. And so you can do everything that you can that they're willing to receive from you to be supported through this. But yeah, it's like you're also going to have to attend to your own feelings of discomfort just being around someone in pain, which is— poof— is a powerful learning experience.

Dedeker: I think probably, yeah.

Emily: One that I'm sure you're quite good at because you've worked with so many clients.

Dedeker: I know. I mean, I sit with a lot of people in pain and suffering. It's still hard. It's still hard. I think honestly it could be even worse when people are paying you because there's like more of an expectation that you got to deliver something to fix it.

Emily: Yeah, that's very true. But of course, like, we want to help our partners. We want to try to go immediately to, let's fix this problem. Let's make sure that you're okay in this moment. And sometimes that's just not, that's not reasonable. That's not something that's actually going to occur right then.

Jase: Yeah, that's such a good thing in terms of taking care of yourself too, is just realizing like you don't have to fix this. Yeah, you don't have to come along and fix their bad feelings. Sometimes you just need to give space for them to have them. Because yeah, it is hard to feel like, wow, but I can't make you happy. I want to make you happy. I love you, but I can't. And that's frustrating.

Emily: Yeah, absolutely. Kind of to go along with that is don't project your grief process onto them. If you're maybe feeling more intensely about their breaking up in that moment, don't make them feel like if they're not crying, that that's a bad thing. I think that if they're crying a lot also, that's, that's fine. So criticizing the duration or the expression of grief is just a really quick way to make them feel more alone. And that's something for all of us to be aware of, that it's— the grief process is not linear, and we are not necessarily going to have the same grieving process as our partner.

Dedeker: Yeah, and that can get really complicated if they broke up with someone that you really liked and really got along with.

Emily: Yes, correct.

Dedeker: You also to go through your own complicated feelings and grief around renegotiating what that relationship means, or maybe having to come to terms that maybe that person is now out of your life also, and you didn't get to choose that necessarily. And yeah, that can be hard. And I think it is important to be mindful that, again, you're not immediately bringing that to your partner to have them try to fix that for you.

Emily: Know that their path is their own. And this is very much a thing around the possibility of them reconnecting with that partner ever, or staying friends with that partner, for instance. Again, in non-monogamy, so often we feel like we do have to kind of stay connected to that person in some way, but that might not be the case for these two people. And therefore you might not see as much of them either. So just understand that like each of you may have your own timeline surrounding this. They may take a very long time before they even want to be like at the same party as that person, for instance. And that's just something to be aware of and to realize that it's going to take time. All of this just continues to take time. And validation that their grief is bigger than it might look from the outside can be really healing for your partner. That can be something that I think is really lovely to hear that like, hey, I see you. I know that you love to put on a strong face and really make everyone feel like you're doing okay. But I also understand that if underneath all that you're not, that's okay too. And just validating that is lovely. Practical support is something that is really wonderful to offer to your partner if they want it. So things like food or just being there, like maybe hanging out with them while they're playing video games, not necessarily talking, but just being present, doing things like handling logistics, like exactly what you said, Jace. Okay, I'm going to take out the trash or I'm going to take the kids to the doctor appointment. 'Even though you said you would do it last week, I'm gonna go do that so that you can feel your feelings.' You know, you don't have to necessarily say the perfect thing, but sometimes just showing up is the best thing that you can do for that person.

Dedeker: Yeah, so, so there's a little reminder that I give people at the end of the somatic retreats that I do, which— and it's a little bit based on work that Francis Weller did in, uh, they have this really wonderful book called The Wild Edge of Sorrow, And basically it's this— it's like we have to remember that literally for tens of thousands of years, our nervous system evolved under conditions where any tragedy that happened or any loss that happened to you was also felt and held by multiple other people around you at the same time. And so those are the conditions under which our nervous systems have evolved. And now when we experience a tragedy or a loss or something that we have to grieve, there's a part of our nervous system that is always like, where's everybody else? It knows that you were not meant to be holding this by yourself. So that's just a reminder.

Emily: Well, it's a reminder to me first and foremost that you can't do it all alone.

Dedeker: You can't do it all alone. It's okay to take the risk and like open up maybe more than you would. Maybe that is to a partner. Maybe if you're someone who isn't out or you don't have access to community, if it is like having to go to a friend with a cover story, right? If it is just like, hey, like, I lost a friend, or I had a falling out with a friend, where you don't have to go into super intensive detail, but if that's something that enables you to at least be able to like hold your grief and have a friend hold your grief with you, it's like even that is better than just feeling like you gotta keep it all under the surface. And of course the ideal is that over time, you know, you are able to build out your community of affirming people where you don't have to censor and you don't have to dodge what the truth is, that you can go to other people and share what you're going through, right? Because yeah, in the non-monogamous community, there's a lot of people who are now very experienced and have gone through multiple breakups and understand the nuances of these in a way that like maybe your more normie friends might not. So I just say that just to say, take the risk to, you know, find more people rather than fewer people. And if you're the support person, like encouraging your partner also to find more people rather than fewer people to, um, help them hold this grief.

Emily: That's beautiful.

Jase: I love that.

Dedeker: Yeah.

Emily: Uh, to close out here, we're going to talk about a couple ways for you to take care of yourself while you are supporting your partner through this time. Remember that you cannot pour from an empty cup. Extended emotional labor for a grieving partner is really taxing, and it probably has its limits. So there are moments where you are also going to have to take care of yourself. And of course, we want to be there for our partners. We want to be able to give them whatever it is that they need at all times. But you can't do that indefinitely. There are going to be times when you also need to rest and relax and recharge and take time for yourself as well.

Jase: So that whole community thing that Dedeker Winston just talked about, that applies for you as well, right?

Emily: Absolutely. So if you're absorbing your partner's pain so thoroughly that you're just drowning in it, that doesn't actually help them. You can be present without becoming the vessel for their grief or a vessel of grief yourself. I think, again, all of these things are really important so that you can be present and be there for them when they need it, but not just a constant, like, place for them to dump all of their emotions and for you to absorb those emotions and be constantly feeling them as well. So this is why it's so important to find your own support system as well. And this could be a therapist, a trusted friend outside of the relationship, or your own community at large. Even like our Discord group, for instance, people that really get it as well. If you don't necessarily have friends who you're out to, but maybe you have community members who you are, talk to them about it. Have them be there for you. Have them take on some of this grief as well. Because again, it's very difficult to do that all on your own.

Jase: Even just knowing that you're not alone in struggling with it can be really helpful, right?

Emily: Yeah.

Jase: If it is a community where maybe you don't even have someone in that community you're so close with that they can carry that grief for you. But just to have that conversation of like, hey, I'm struggling with this. Where my partner is so sad about this thing and it just, it's affecting me and it's hard to get through that. Just knowing that other people have done that too is helpful. Hopefully this episode gives you a little bit of that as well because I know that can be a struggle. Something that I just wanted to tag on to that as well is that having the perspective of time is really important. And so something else to note here is that while your partner is grieving, they're probably not going to be able to support you as much as they normally do, whether that's in practical ways around the house, or if that's just emotionally with your own things going on with work or your family or any number of things. And that can be hard, and it can last for a while, especially if this was a big breakup of a relationship that lasted a long time.

Emily: Yeah.

Jase: And like, I'll be honest, having been through that several times, that period does suck a bit, right? That is a hard thing to get through. But knowing that in the big picture of your relationship, that's just going to be this chapter, this section right here. That's harder earlier in a relationship, and I think it's also harder earlier in your life where you just have less time to compare it to. But just to be aware of that, that, that life goes in chapters and our relationships go in chapters, and this is going to keep evolving and changing. And to not feel like even if this has gone on for a couple months that this is now forever and this relationship's broken and this is just now ruined and it's gonna be like this all the time.

Emily: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's also really important to communicate honestly about how it is that you're feeling in any particular moment because you might have the bandwidth to really be there for your partner one day, but then due to like work or other circumstances, you might not have the bandwidth to be there for them in the same way on a different day. So just be honest about that and let them know, I'm here for you, but I'm really running low today on energy or whatever. And so maybe can we figure out how to make sure we're both getting what it is that we need? Or is it okay if maybe instead of processing tonight, we just kind of hang out and do a quiet activity or watch a movie or play some video games or cuddle or anything? Because I think that that's still being there for them and being very loving and validating, but It's not necessarily like needing to be their absolute emotional support system and listening to them dump on you all of the things that they're going through at that particular moment in time. It's okay to be honest about that. Eventually, like we said, maybe not immediately when they break up with this person, but after a period of time, it's nice for you to be able to name the secondary losses if they do exist. So if you lost something through this breakup, like a friendship with your Metamour or a community space or routine of all three of you—

Dedeker: Somebody took your partner out of the house. Sure. Now they're around all the time.

Jase: You don't have any more free time.

Dedeker: Yeah.

Emily: Yeah. All three of you hanging out together or whatever it might have been, you know, it's— that's also real and it's worth acknowledging to yourself and then also maybe eventually to your partner when the time is right. So that's something to just be open and honest about eventually so that they can maybe have the opportunity to support you through that too.

Jase: Right. And doing that in a way that doesn't come across as you're blaming them for you losing your friend or you losing these activities or something. But hopefully they can also, after a while, be able to be there for you too and acknowledge like, yeah, that sucks for you too. Like, this change did affect you as well, if that's the case in your relationship.

Emily: Definitely. Of course, things like bubble baths and yoga and taking long walks and masturbating and doing whatever, those are all great self-care things. But really what it is that you need in these moments is making sure that you have practices in place, people in place, community in place, so that the weight of caregiving doesn't tip into resentment. I think that's something to take away. From all of this is that you really have to make sure that you're doing the right things to help your partner out, but also help yourself, because it's destabilizing. All of this, like, non-monogamy is a constant flux and push and pull of people coming in and out of relationships and things changing and moving and progressing, and you got to stay on your toes. But you also have to make sure that there are things in place for you to be able to withstand those challenges and those changes. Because they are going to be there. That's just kind of how this type of lifestyle works, and that's okay. It can also be really beautiful. So for all of you out there this week who have probably been through something like this, we want to hear about it on our question of the week, which is going to be on our Instagram stories. Have you ever felt relieved when your partner broke up with one of your Metamours? How did that work out for you? Was your partner really hurt for a period of time? Did you have complicated feelings? What happened there? We want to hear about it. This is always anonymous, so feel free to give us all the hot goss on Instagram and we will post it anonymously for you. And then the best place to share your thoughts with other listeners is in the episode discussion channel in our Discord server, or you can post in our private Facebook group. You can get access to these groups and join our exclusive community by going to multiamory.com/join. In addition, you can share with us publicly on Instagram @multiamory_podcast.

Emily: Multiamory is created and produced by Jase Lindgren, Dedeker Winston, and me, Emily Matlack. Our production assistant is Carson Collins. Our theme song is "Forms I Know I Did" by Josh and Anand from the Fractal Cave EP. The full transcript is available on this episode's page on multiamory.com.