how our polyamorous clients build thriving relationships

Warning: Polyamory Hurts (and that’s OK)

We all know that pain is an opportunity to grow.

Whether it’s the soreness that comes after a good workout or the difficult interview that leads to a promotion, pain helps us build the muscle to reach the next level. 

The same principle is true in your non-monogamous relationships.

When your relationships are full of hard feelings and stressful conversations you have two options. You can wallow in the pain. Or you can use those difficulties as a launching pad to build loving, secure relationships.

Want to watch the free training we mention in this episode? You can do that here:
atouchofflavor.com/pillars

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Josh 0:00
Alright folks. So something that we see all the time is we see people talking about polyamory and conversations they're having and things their partner wants and things like that. And they're like, this hurts. This hurts, they should stop. And you know, the truth is, polyamory does hurt sometimes. And that's okay. And not only is it okay, that's great. So today we're going to talk about that and dive into why it's okay that things hurt. Why that's great, and how you should really be thinking about these difficult places that you run into with your partners. Stay tuned. You're talking about

Cassie 1:01
Here a Touch of Flavor. We teach non monogamous folks how to overcome their obstacles and build thriving relationships.

Josh 1:07
This podcast is about answering one question, how do you create loving, passionate, secure relationships outside the box? Even if nothing has ever worked before? If you want to know the answer, you're in the right place.

Cassie 1:20
All of this information is 100% free. So please subscribe to and review our podcast.

Josh 1:30
So we're supposed to do host chat.

Cassie 1:34
Yeah.

Josh 1:35
And I kind of feel like still slowly recovering from COVID is getting kind of boring at this point.

Cassie 1:47
Yeah, so what else is going on aside for recovering from COVID?

Josh 1:52
Days are getting a little longer. That's nice. I'm so ready for to be warmer again and actually be able to like, hike and get this baby outside and get all of us adults outside like... that I'm definitely looking forward to although we still got a little bit of time before that is the reality here in Maryland, I think. So there's that. What else?

Cassie 2:12
Um, we had like a day that was supposed to be a snow day that was not really a full snow day. But it ended up being like at house day. And Amanda and I and the kids had a lot of fun doing like crafts and cookies and making stuff for the tree. The tree that we got for Christmas, which is still in our living room because it is a live planted tree that we have to wait until spring to plant. So we're making little like decorations for Valentine's Day to put on the tree. And this folks is why polyamory is amazing. Because if you're paying attention to Josh's face right now, it's like Uh huh. Yup. Uh huh.

Josh 2:58
Good for you.

Cassie 2:58
Yeah, exactly.

Josh 2:59
I'm happy you're happy.

Cassie 3:00
Yes.

Josh 3:01
I'm happy. You're happy.

Cassie 3:02
You found compersion.

Josh 3:03
I found compersion. Well, no. And that is something that's great. Right. Like, it's great being in a spot where you have it. It's just like, I don't like horror movies. Amanda doesn't like sex. Like, it's, there's different things that people like.

Cassie 3:16
Yeah.

Josh 3:16
It's nice to be able to interact with people in those ways. I did feel like I was walking in on a moment the other night, though, when I like walked in and like you and Amanda were like sitting there in bed with ice cream. I felt like that was like Amanda's version of intimacy time.

Cassie 3:27
It was. It was very much- she was actually like touching me- like cuddling me while eating ice cream. And it was funny because right before you came in, we had just talked about how like this was like, us experiencing closeness together. Like she's like, kind of like cuddled up next to me eating ice cream. And we were talking about sort of like our gratitude towards each other not intentionally, but it was just like we were talking about like, I was like, thank you for this. And thank you for recognizing that and da da da. So it was actually like, yes, it was very intimate time that you walked in on with the ice cream.

Josh 4:00
I like walked in on them eating ice cream. And there's like this look from both of them. Like you walked in on the middle of them doing something and it was like, I'm just gonna walk back out of this room right now.

Cassie 4:12
We were having our ice cream with drizzle, drizzled frosting, and nerds on top of it. Nerds. And if you've never had nerds on ice cream, you're missing out. You should try vanilla ice cream with nerds. Highly recommended.

Josh 4:30
Although we had some good intimacy time, so that's good. The health is coming back a little bit from COVID. So that's nice.

Cassie 4:35
We did.

Josh 4:36
Happy we made that happen.

Cassie 4:37
And you were late.

Josh 4:40
Okay, so yes.

Cassie 4:42
Yes.

Josh 4:42
Yes. I thought I was on time but I was late.

Cassie 4:46
You were late.

Josh 4:47
It's different. Our date nights are different times on Saturday than on Tuesdays. So.

Cassie 4:51
Yes.

Josh 4:52
I thought I was dead on.

Cassie 4:53
You were dead wrong. So what happened was I came to the dungeon and I got it all set up. I got my stuff out and I even had a headache before getting into things which the orgasms did help. That did knock out the headache.

Josh 5:10
I don't know how much credit I can actually take for that.

Cassie 5:12
None. I did all the work. You were strapped down. I mean, seriously.

Josh 5:16
Well that's what I'm saying.

Cassie 5:17
It's my work, thank you. But I got everything out. I did all the things. And then I sat there, and I'm like, he's running behind. So I'll just take a minute. And then you were like, 25 minutes late. And then I texted you and Amanda in like the family thread, our poly family thread. And I was like, Hey, Josh, you're coming over here. And I was sitting there, like, not too happy that you were late. And then you walked in and your response then made me happy, which was-

Josh 5:53
I don't remember.

Cassie 5:54
Oh, you don't remember? So everything's set up. I have, like, you know, like the restraints hooked up already. I have like a bunch of our toys laid out. And I'm sitting there and I was like, You're late. And you're like, looking at the way the room is set up and the way that you're sitting. That's the last thing you want to hear is you're late to play time. When your Dom is sitting there with all of your stuff laid out saying you're late.

Josh 6:22
Looking really pissed.

Cassie 6:23
Yeah, you're like, uhhhh.

Josh 6:25
It all worked out in the end.

Cassie 6:25
It did. I got to get out some of my frustration in a fun way. And it was really cool. And I had a lot of fun. And then we went to bed together and I had some good sleep.

Josh 6:39
I did not.

Cassie 6:40
You did not.

Josh 6:41
We tried.

Cassie 6:42
We tried. Um, but yeah, that was an awesome night.

Josh 6:44
The cosleeping is difficult still. But I will say, Yeah, I'm excited for things to get back to like back to life normal. So they're finally getting back to like life normal.

Cassie 6:55
Not sick.Yeah.

Josh 6:56
Yeah. And like not sick, actually, like recovered. And then also, like I said, I'm really, it isn't warmer yet. But I can see the days getting longer, and even that's a big deal for me.

Cassie 7:07
Well, and there's more sunshine out, which is like, I noticed that the other day, I was like sitting in the kitchen and the window was open. I could feel the sun coming in. And I was like, Ah, yes. Finally.

Josh 7:18
Yeah. So I'm ready for it to get warmer again. It's like, just for me personally, it's a lot. I don't really like being in the house when I'm not working. As far as like doing activities, like I want to go out and now you know, with COVID, there's still a lot of stuff we're not going out and doing that would be indoors. And at least when it's warm, we have hiking and climbing and all of those things. And now it's just like it's too cold for that. So I'm ready for to get warm. Again. I'm excited and grateful for things to start moving in that direction. I think that's mainly it other than like, clients doing amazing, stuffs awesome. Like getting back to normal. Little Lion has decided, I don't know if you've I'm sure you have- Have you noticed her latest thing now whenever you're like, doing something or eating something she's like, I like that.

Cassie 8:08
I like that.

Josh 8:09
I like that.

Cassie 8:09
I like that. Or I don't like that.

Josh 8:12
Or I want that. All of which means I want that.

Cassie 8:15
Or I need it. That's another thing that she's doing now, is I need it.

Josh 8:20
You gotta be like precision of language. There's your nerd reference for the day.

Cassie 8:25
Yeah. All the the language stuff she's learning has been really cool. But yeah, she she found one of her old pieces of clothing the other day. I was like, I need it. And I was like, That is not gonna fit you and you don't need it.

Josh 8:41
She tried.

Cassie 8:42
She did. She did try.

Josh 8:44
Oh! We were supposed to be bringing Amanda on.

Cassie 8:47
Yeah.

Josh 8:47
Why do we keep forgetting this?

Cassie 8:48
We actually put it in for next week and have told the sitter that we need coverage for the baby.

Josh 8:57
Well I guess that would be the first step.

Cassie 8:58
Yes.

Cassie 8:59
Cool.

Josh 9:00
So we will be having Amanda on next week. It's actually already in our planning in Asana and everything. So it's already there. Me and Amanda already took care of that today while we were handling other content.

Josh 9:12
Nice. Well, I think speaking of content, we should probably go ahead and hop in today's show. What do you think?

Cassie 9:18
Yeah.

Josh 9:19
All right, let's do it.

Cassie 9:21
We are talking about why, you know, it's good that sometimes polyamory hurts, sometimes it's painful. And we see this quite often, we see folks in our Facebook groups or folks that we talked to on the phone, who come to us and they say, you know, I don't want to talk to my partner about this because it hurts me to talk about this or it hurts to think about this. Or they'll say I've avoided having this conversation because I don't want to hurt my partner. I'm afraid that you know it's going to be too painful and stressful. And we see folks really avoiding a lot of really important conversations, taking important actions in their relationships, because it just hurts too much.

Josh 10:14
So and what's interesting about this is, a lot of times people have this sense of almost indignation. Like, how dare- How dare my partner have a conversation that's uncomfortable for me? How dare my partner want something that makes me feel bad? Like, how dare they? How dare they? Which is so interesting. But I was wondering, before we dive into this, like, I think it would be helpful if maybe you could give a couple of examples of things that we see. So we can kind of move in from the general to the specific.

Cassie 10:57
Okay, so, I'll give an example that I saw just a few days ago, there was a gentleman who posted in the Facebook group, right, had said that, you know, he had talked to his partner about opening up their relationship, and she basically brought back to him well, okay, so now that you found someone that you want to date, and that you actually want to open the relationship, this does mean that both of us are now going to start pursuing relationships, because we had decided that we were going to stay closed. And now that you're opening up, I want to open up too, right. And what happened was, she said that, it hurt him. And he was like, well, it really hurts. Meanwhile, he's dating someone else. And a few days later, she brings it back up to him, and says, well, just letting you know, you're now dating, letting you know, I'm going to start pursuing other relationships. And he was like, and he wrote this, he was like, I can't believe that she said that to me again. It hurts. Like doesn't she know how much she's hurting me by me hearing that she is going to be dating other men, that she's going to be out on dates. Like, I can't believe she brought this to me.

Josh 12:10
I told her it hurts.

Cassie 12:11
I told her it hurt.

Josh 12:12
I actually didn't read this. I'm just-

Cassie 12:13
But yes. And he said that. He said, I told her it hurts and, and, you know, I have this belief that if something hurts someone, you shouldn't bring it to them.

Josh 12:26
And if this was a one and done, folks, we wouldn't be doing a show about it. But this attitude, and it's not always phrased like that, because I think it's, I mean, when you phrase it that way, it's quite obvious how silly that is. But this idea that our partners owe it to us, not to hurt us, whether that means not having conversation, whether that means not talking about the things they want and need, and advocating for themselves, whether it means not making agreements, because you know, it's easier just to not talk about it, because it hurts to have those discussions and to get that stuff in place. With that, there, that's actually fairly common, even if it's not always phrased like that,

Cassie 13:15
Oh, I was I was giving the one and then I was gonna give others and then the other thing is, is also recognizing that this is not just, I'm expecting you not to say things to not hurt me, it's I'm not saying things to not hurt you. So we see tons of these that are like, this is what I need, this is what I want, you know, I just saw someone say the other day, like, they were like, you know, I'm really, really, really needing more time in my relationship, and I'm really needing more help from my partner. But I know if I bring that to them, that it's gonna hurt them, because they're gonna feel like they haven't been contributing when they've been trying.

Josh 13:52
Let me ask this, and I don't know the answer, how long had that person sitting on that?

Cassie 13:54
Oh, months, months, they've been sitting on it for months. She said that since before Halloween, she has been feeling like she's not getting help around the house, that she's, you know, feeling like she's not getting, you know, the good time together that she needed that, you know, basically, her partner has been spending their time with either their work or their other partners. So, you know, it's been quite a few months where she has felt this need and desire and hasn't said anything, because she doesn't want to hurt them. So it goes, it goes both ways. And it's in these little small things, too like, it really bothers me to hear when my partner says blank, so I just, I don't really want to have that conversation. And so we see people do this all the time, and it really ends up impacting the relationship.

Josh 14:57
And it's all based on this belief that because some hurts I mean, it's bad. Right? It's bad, it's inherently wrong, we should be avoiding pain, like it's all based around this. And yet, it's something that winds up When you actually take it. And however you may be framing it to yourself. And whether you're on the giving end of the receiving end, or a lot of times, it's both. It winds up being really harmful to the relationship. And in trying to avoid these smaller, more temporary pains of having these discussions, we wind up causing enormous problems in our relationships.

Cassie 15:47
Yeah, so like, the first thing is, is that when you have that belief that your partner shouldn't be saying anything, or bringing anything to you that that hurts you, you put them in a place where they feel invalidated or discarded, like they're, they're not important enough to be heard. And that creates a completely different issue, right, that makes your partner not feel worthy in your relationships.

Josh 16:11
Well and chances are too, if this is your approach, then when stuff is being brought to you, part of the reason they're feeling hurt is because you aren't listening. And you're arguing and you're making the conversation now about them hurting you, then what they were bringing right then what they want, what they need, what they really needed you to hear. And that's, that's one of the real hazards of this, right? You know, one of the most dangerous things in conversations is these routes that we can find to derail a conversation. And now we're fighting, we're arguing about this and the other, and we never actually addressed what's here, right? So when your partner comes to you, and they go, Hey, I need this thing. And you're like, Well, how dare you hurt me now the conversation is about you hurting them, or them hurting you. And in that you get to be the victim and you get to feel wronged, then you get to maybe be right, and you get to maybe not hear uncomfortable things. But at the same time your partner isn't being heard. And they're not feeling loved, and they're feeling unwanted. And they're not getting what they want to need. Right. And when that happens, there's a lot of secondary consequences to that. Whether, you know, they start pushing away, whether they start detaching from the relationship, whether the arguments themselves, drive you apart, whether it's just your partner just continues to go and not get what they want or need and getting more and more resentful. Like I said, you managed to avoid these little pains in the moment. For much bigger problems.

Cassie 17:43
Yeah, it starts compounding, right, you start adding on more problems than the original thing that's there. And here's the thing, no matter how much you avoid something, or don't talk about it, it's still there, that issue that you're dodging, you know, you're talking about sort of dodging the problem. And we all do this, right? Maybe not even intentionally. But when we're avoiding a problem, we dodge it. We dodge it with not having to take responsibility, we dodge it with not having to look at, you know, how we may have hurt our partner or how we're not showing up. And the truth is, as much as we dodge that thing, it's still there, it's still an issue for our relationship and our partner. And it becomes sort of this, you know, it's like the shaking the soda bottle thing, right? Like, the more you shake it, eventually it's going to explode. So maybe something that wasn't as big of a problem will continue to grow and grow and grow.

Josh 18:47
Well, and that's really it. Is at the end of the day, if you're not willing to tolerate any pain, or any discomfort in your relationship, for whatever reason, right? Or you feel like you're owed that for whatever reason, you can't resolve any of the serious problems that are there because all the serious stuff is going to be uncomfortable and difficult to fix. Right? So what happens is you wind up just shoving the real problems under a rug. Most of the time, like I said, you want to arguing now about the wrong thing. It's not that you don't want to arguing at all and nobody winds up being hurt. You're now arguing about being hurt. But the problems never get fixed. And so what winds up happening is you wind up with people, where whether it's you not bringing stuff or your partner not bringing stuff. At the end of the day, you have people whose wants and needs aren't getting met in their relationship, right? They're not feeling close. They're not feeling supported. They're not feeling loved. They're not feeling heard. And that can only go on so long before it results in resentfulness and disconnection and it poisons the relationship that you have.

Cassie 19:55
And here's the thing, like we get it. There's a lot of reasons why people do this. Right. And here's the first thing like, none of us like pain, nobody likes to feel hurt, nobody likes how it feels to, you know, know that you're the person who caused an issue for your partner, nobody likes that. So we do it to try to avoid that. And we do it because, you know, we get a lot of support for not handling things, right. Others do things out of good intention, right? Like when we go to our friends, and we're like, ah, you know, my partner said this thing I just, you know, it'll, it'll breeze by, you know, it's not a big deal. Because our friends try to be friends, right? So it's almost like we're supported in this idea of like, if we just ignore it, it'll go away. We also do it because we don't want to be the bad guy. Right? We don't want to be the ugly in our relationships, we don't want to have to face that reality that maybe we did cause something in our relationship, maybe we didn't show up the way that we should have. And many times, we don't want to have to deal with that. Because we feel like there's consequences that maybe we don't want to have to face, right. So there's all these reasons why we don't want to do it. And a big reason might also be because talking about it before, didn't help. It didn't actually work.

Josh 21:39
So I'm actually really curious here. So this is your topic, you put this together, right? Which is cool, because it always winds up being like with one of us being like more like an interview space. And it's interesting, because I understand and appreciate all of the reasons that you just gave. And at the same time, it's really interesting to me, because this idea of pain being bad, right? I don't feel like this is something that most of us carry over to the other part of our lives, right? Like there's a recognition for most people that and I mean, I could give you a million sayings about it, but it isn't so much about the sayings. But there's a million things where we look and we know that most of the time, the things that are really worth doing in life are uncomfortable, or difficult, right? I mean, everything from getting in shape to going through school to, you know, like, you know, taking things to the next level, and working really hard and getting promoted at work. We all know this. And you know, we don't go like ah, school is hard. How dare school be hard? So what's the disconnect? I guess that's what I'm curious about in this topic.

Cassie 23:09
There's a couple of things. Okay. So I'm just gonna kind of like spit ball a couple of things. But there's, first of all, there is for a lot of people still that myth that like non monogamy, polyamory should be easy. That like, if you're good at it, if things are meant to be, it'll just jive and just work. And it won't be painful. There won't be these hard emotions. It'll just be good. Right? So I think that is probably one of the big things right is that we expect that if we're good polyamorous people that our polyamory relationships, our relationships that are non monogamous, or or open will just come naturally to us. And we won't have to deal with the hard stuff. Okay, so that's that's one of them, which we've we've talked about that myth before. And it's just silly, because Relationships are hard, regardless of what kind of relationship it is. But I think a lot of people still have that belief.

Josh 24:09
You don't need to look any further than the divorce rate. To know that seriously, this whole idea that relationships are easy, 50% of first marriages end in divorce, it goes up from there. That's without throwing non monogamy on top. That's without anything else. Clearly, it's not easy. And how many of those people how many of those other 50% are together and unhappy? Right? It clearly isn't easy. And I'm not going to spend a lot of time debunking this because we've done this before. Right? But at the end of the day, it's obvious on the face of it that relationships aren't easy, and there's no reason to expect non monogamy to make things easier. There's things that are great about non monogamy. It's awesome. There's certain things that it makes it easier but overall it does actually make things more complicated, right? So there's no reason whatsoever to expect polyamory to be easy when relationships aren't easy. I'll get off that soapbox.

Cassie 25:03
And then another big reason. And I think there's a bunch of little tiny contributors. But these are the two big ones is, I think for a lot of people, we acknowledge the whole, no pain, no gain. When it comes to like physical, we acknowledge it when we want to, like be able to lift more weights, or when we want to do better at our job, or we want to fill in the blank that it's us actually doing something. But we don't tend to, even though there is the sayings out there, as you said, and even though there is like, I mean, there's there's a bunch of them, right? Even though there's these reference points, I think for a lot of us, we still think that emotional pain is a horrible thing. Because we look at it and we assign that pain is a sign that our relationships are bad, that pain is a sign that we are not a good partner, pain is a sign that our partner doesn't love us. And we assign a lot of these, like big things to pain, right? Emotional pain, rather than seeing pain for what it is, in both physical and emotional, which is, it's just an indicator. Pain is pain is just an indicator, just a thing that we need to pay attention to. Right? Like our bodies, and our minds are designed that when we like, you know, when we put our finger accidentally on the burner to go, Whoa, right? It doesn't mean that my hand actually like is an emergency necessarily, right? It doesn't mean that, you know, the burner is evil, it doesn't mean any of these things, it means I need to pay attention and pay attention to my hand right now. And you know what, when I pay attention to it, then I can diagnose what's actually going on? Do I need to go to the ER? Do I need to just run under some cool water? Do I just need to like giggle to myself and be like, that's silly. Next time, I need to pay attention to the burner on the stove. Right?

Cassie 27:17
But that's the thing. We don't look at emotional pain the same way. We don't look at it as when I feel this pain. Is this an indicator that I need to pay attention? We look at it as this means bad. So and that's really the big thing here is that we need to start shifting how we're looking at pain in polyamory. Right? The way we need to look at it is this is an indicator that I need to put a lens on this, that I need to look at my relationship and see what's really going on here. Is this something that requires a lot of help? Is this something that requires a small conversation? Or is it something that I just need to let go and shake off? Right? But when we ignore the pain, regardless of what those things are? Right? It just builds on it. So even if it was something that could have just been shucked off, it gets hidden and buckled underneath all of this other stuff. And I think that's really like, as I said, the first one, I think is because people believe that polyamory should be easy. And then the second is because we just don't believe that pain in the emotional sense, is the same as how we look at it in the physical sense.

Josh 28:40
Folks. Nothing worth doing in life is easy. Non monogamy is not any different. Relationships aren't any different. Like nothing worth doing in life is easy. And you're going to have pain. Come on, I can promise you, you're a human, there is going to be pain, like you are in relationships with others, there's going to be pain, maybe you're moving to non monogamy for the first time and you're approaching all these difficult things that you haven't had to approach before. And you know, all these things you've never had to experience and live through. There's going to be pain. That's it's part of being human, like I can guarantee you there will be pain.

Josh 29:32
But the question is what you do with that, because when that comes up, you have two choices. You can you know, rail against your partner and the inhumanity of HOW DARE YOU have to suffer and how dare you have to have pain, right? Or you know, or maybe it's you you can hold that inside and not put it out. Right and you can ignore the real problems and let people get distant and resentful, and argumentative and pull further away from each other. Or you can look at the pain like Cassie said as a place where you now have an opportunity and a sign here that something isn't where it needs to be. And you can build muscle, you can repair that problem, not just repair that problem, but build your muscle in that, whether it is to manage your emotions, to show up as the partner that you want to be to deal with jealousy to communicate well, right? It isn't just an opportunity, like when you run into these painful situations, it isn't just an opportunity to deal with that challenge. It's an opportunity to actually grow in a way where you're not going to run into problems like that, again, where they're not going to be as bad and you can continue moving your relationship in an upward trajectory.

Josh 31:14
If you're going about things in the way that you want, this is what your relationship should look like. You should be in this spot. You need to be in this spot where you go through these these down cycles. Right? Like there's things there's challenges that are gonna come up. But what having a successful thriving relationship looks like, what the people who have those are doing, what our clients are doing, what other people who have thriving relationships are doing is when they hit those challenges and those life things and the pain that's going to come up, instead of hiding from it. They use that as an opportunity to fix what's there, to improve, to grow, to do things better than next time. And that lets them continue to go upwards.

Josh 32:21
And for those who are listening to podcasts and can't see what I've got. It's it's a line that it dips down at points. But it should be slowly continuing upward and upward and upward in spite of the fact that they're going to be dips down. That's what's possible. When you look at the painful things in a relationship, you look at a difficult conversation, you look at hard feelings, you look at your partner wanting or needing something. And you go, this is an opportunity to grow. Like what could be great about this right now? What could be great about the situation that I'm in? What are the opportunities to grow? What can I learn? What can I do differently, so that we don't run into this? What can I take away. And that's why it isn't just okay, that there's going to be pain in your relationships, your relationships are going to hurt. Right? It's going to hurt for everybody. But what's great is that if you approach that, and you handle those hurts in the right way, you can lose it as a launching place to be more connected and more affectionate, more in love to have more passion, and to continue to grow. your connection, your communication and your problem solving skills and your your ability to manage yourself so that your relationship can keep growing and keep thriving, and continue to get better and better and better. Is there anything else you want to throw in there?

Cassie 34:07
No, I think that is the big thing, is that it's this idea that when you approach them, you can grow in a positive way. So the one thing that I was going to throw out, because what I hear from folks a lot when I'm having these conversations with them is well, we have at one point, tried to deal with it by talking about it or hearing it from our partner at one point and I don't want to I don't want to hear it anymore. Like how is hearing it again or hearing something else going to change anything. And the truth is, is that as we said, this is an indicator that you need to pay attention to something and maybe you have in the past had that conversation. Maybe in the past you have payed attention, and now you have a, it doesn't mean you need to stop paying attention, it means that you need to take a different approach to handling that situation.

Josh 35:11
That's being like, that's basically being like, well, you know, we tried once to fix this, and it didn't work. So now we're just going to suffer through it forever now. Like, just because you didn't fix it once, doesn't mean it's not fixable. Now, you don't want to keep trying to fix it the same way you did before. Obviously that didn't work. But you don't give up on healing it, you, you do it better, you approach it differently, you get help, you get different help, you do whatever it takes. But you don't just let those problems linger and poison your relationship because it's difficult to talk about didn't work the first time you do it, you do it differently. And that's part of- when we're talking about like building this muscle. Right? That's, that's part of this process, is figuring out how to solve these problems, whether it's the resources, whether it's the mentors, whether it's whatever, right, but figuring out how to solve these problems, when they do come up, so that you don't have to be paralyzed when you run into something that you don't know how to conquer. Anything else you wanna throw in there?

Cassie 36:18
No, I think we covered most of what I brought. So is there anything you wanted to add?

Josh 36:22
I guess, just folks, listen, if you're in the spot, I just want to offer you something. Because like I said, we see people going through all this all the time. But you know, these places that people run into challenges, whether it's communication, whether it's connection, whether it's the feelings of jealousy, like all of these places, they're opportunities to grow, right, and they're opportunities to grow if you approach them in the right way. So what we've done here a little while back, is we took really, what, when we're working with our clients, the five principles that we see, that allow them to build thriving, non monogamous relationships. And how they approach these different problems, the jealousy, the communication, the feeling distance, right, and how they take those things. And instead of being stuck in those and mired in those, and just sitting in those forever, and things continuing to get worse, they actually use those as opportunities for healing. They use those as opportunities to improve, as opportunities to make things better and to build thriving relationships for themselves and to grow as partners. Right? Because that kind of growth, like you deserve it, your partners deserve it, like that is what- that's what it's all about. Right?

Josh 37:33
So like I said, we put those into a training for you, we want to make available to you to watch, it's super helpful. It's going to give you a whole different perspective on how to solve these challenges in your relationships and how to take things to the next level. And how to build the relationships that you want instead of being stuck. Even if you've tried before, if you've had the conversations, even if it hasn't worked, even if it's hurting. All of that, right. So what you can do to watch that, go to atouchofflavor.com/pillars. I think we'll probably drop the link below this video. But like I said, atouchofflavor.com/pillars. Click that link, it's going to take you to a registration page, punch in your name, punch in your email. So we can send you the link and then it's going to take you right to the video that you can watch. There's no waiting, there's no anything like the right to the video, you can watch and learn what those things are and how you can approach these problems better, and transform your relationship into something better and more powerful and more resilient. Alright, so like I said, atouchofflavor.com/pillars it's going to be amazing for you. We're super excited to share that with you. Anything else you want Cassie, before we go.

Cassie 38:40
Nope, just remember, the pain that you have in your relationships is not a bad thing. It is an indicator. Pay attention to those things. And we'll see you next show.

Josh 38:49
I'll see you next show.

Josh 38:50
Thanks for tuning into today's show. We release new episodes every week. So make sure to subscribe.

Cassie 39:02
If you're ready to transform your relationship and you'd like to see if you're a fit to work with us. Here's what I want you to do next, head over to atouchofflavor.com/talk and book an appointment to speak with our team. We'll get on the phone with you for about an hour and we'll get you crystal clear on three things. What's really not working in your relationships, what your dream relationships would look like and a step by step plan to close the gap and save your family even if nothing has worked before.

Josh 39:30
We talk with hundreds of non monogamous folks like you every year. And here's the truth, building loving, thriving relationships that doesn't happen on its own. You need expert guidance to make that happen. And unfortunately, when you're building relationships outside the box that's impossible to find and we get it but that's exactly what we do. We've helped clients all over the world, save their families get the passion back and become best friends again.

Cassie 39:54
So if you want to see if we can help you do the same head over to atouchofflavor.com/talk. I'm Cassie.

Josh 40:02
And I'm Josh Let's Talk soon