Relationship Anxiety in Polyamory: It’s Not Just You, Ep. 129
Are you polyamorous and anxious? Does your chest tighten every time your partner mentions a new crush? Are you constantly asking yourself, “Why am I feeling this way if I chose non-monogamy?” You’re not broken and you’re definitely not alone.
In this episode of Nope! We’re Not Monogamous, relationship coach and recovering bathroom-floor-cryer Ellecia Paine (that’s me 👋) breaks down:
Why relationship anxiety is so common in non-monogamy
The real roots of jealousy (hint: it’s not just about your partner’s date night)
Tools to regulate your nervous system without pretending to be chill when you're not
How to build emotional safety that doesn’t rely on external reassurance
If you're tired of people telling you to “just be secure,” and ready for practical, compassionate tools instead… this one's for you.
📰 Subscribe to Not A Monogamous Newsletter to stay up to date with new episodes and offerings from Ellecia. https://elleciapaine.podia.com/newsletter
❤️ Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by following and leaving a review or a note. And if you want more, join our Patreon! http://www.patreon.com/notmonogamous
👀 Find Us Online
🌍 Website: https://www.elleciapaine.com
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elleciapaine
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elleciapaine/
Music: Composer/Author (CA): Oscar Lindstein
STIM IPI: 572 393 237
TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] You are not the only one who's replaying their conversations and checking the red receipts or second guessing every single boundary. Here's why polyamory can stir up relationship anxiety and how to get your piece back.
Hi, I'm Ellecia Paine and this is, Nope, we're not monogamous. If you've ever found yourself spiraling after a text that took too long to get a reply to or wondering if these anxious feelings make you like bad at polyamory, then this is for you. I've totally been there.
Crying in the bathroom, wondering if I'm too much playing it cool while my nervous system is going full on red alert. And we're not gonna talk about fixing yourself 'cause that's not what this is about. It's about building the kind of emotional safety that lets you show up fully, like as you are. So in today's episode, I'm gonna break down the roots of relationship anxiety and [00:01:00] non-monogamy.
And I'm gonna share with you the tools that I use with my clients to help them stop the spiral, soothe their nervous system, and feel secure without needing, uh, to control every single thing, right? Because like, like for real, some of us chose non-monogamy because we wanted freedom and instead we got like a whole lot of spiraling out anxiety,
frustration, uh, just not feeling good. You know, maybe your nervous system didn't get the memo that this is supposed to be liberating, right? Instead of like basking in the glow of multiple loves, you're, uh, constantly refreshing your phone, trying to read between the text lines and wondering if you're doing polyamory, doing non-monogamy the wrong way.
That sound familiar, right? Uh, you're not broken. You're not failing at being chill or cool. You're just human. And your nervous system is doing its [00:02:00] job. It's trying to keep you safe.
this episode today is part of a talk that I gave this weekend at Sex Positive Portland's Polytopia, and it was so well received, and I had so many people wanting more. That I decided to create an episode for you about it. So like you can know that you're allowed to love more than one person, right?
And still feel like your chest is in a vice grip when your partner brings up a date or, uh, starts showing interest in someone else. You can believe in autonomy and still find yourself people pleasing your way into emotional burnout. And this isn't because you're not cut out for non-monogamy.
It's because most of us were trained in a monogamous culture that taught you that love should be exclusive. Jealousy means something's absolutely wrong. You're being harmed. Your partner meeting someone new equals you [00:03:00] being replaced. And these are beliefs that live in your nervous system. They're not just thoughts, they're not just.
They're not practical and logical, right? And when those old patterns get triggered, your brain does what it was designed to do, protect you. So here's what I've learned after years of, living and coaching, non-monogamy, right? The goal isn't just more freedom. Uh, the goal is freedom.
That feels really good, right? So how do we get there? I have a method I call the Beyond Monogamy Method, and it's built around five Cs, five CNM and not the cool, calm, collected kinda Cs. We're not gonna fake it here. These are the steps that actually help me and my clients transforming anxiety into connection. So the first C in the Beyond monogamy method is clarity, right? Because fear fills the gaps when you don't know what you want. Your brain. Starts to make up [00:04:00] stories to fill in all of the unknowns, right? It tells you all of the things that you don't actually have facts for. It'll tell you how much better this other person is, or how you're about to be abandoned or rejected, or how, you're not gonna be chosen.
It tells you, um. That you're lacking. It tells you, it tells you all sorts of things that aren't actually true or based in reality. So some of the ways that you get clarity around what you're doing, why you're doing it, what makes all of this worth it? What do you want? What do you need, right?
You have to start asking yourself what do I need to feel seen and safe and chosen? What actions actually help me feel that way. Right? And so many people will say that they wanna feel safe, they wanna feel seen, but they don't know what creates that feeling for them. That's where your work comes [00:05:00] in.
Because just telling your partner, just saying, I just wanna feel safe, make me feel safe. Doesn't give them a lot to go on telling them I want to feel seen and heard. And they're going, but I'm literally looking at you and listening to the words you're saying. What else can I do? Right? So we need concrete information to give them.
So some examples are like, I feel safe when plans are communicated in advance. I feel seen when my partner checks in with me after a date because that's what I requested, right? Or I feel chosen when I am prioritized for some really good quality time. Not just leftover time, not just whatever's left available.
So what I want you to do is actually journal out your answers, right? Actually journal out. What do you need? What makes you feel emotionally secure in relationships? What erodes that [00:06:00] security? And ask yourself, what do I want more of? What feels really good? What is working and what do I want more of? Right? And then the third thing I want you to ask yourself for clarity, and this is an important one, is what am I tolerating that erodes my peace? What am I tolerating because I think I should be able to handle it?
Where is my body saying no? Creating anxiety, creating fear, creating insecurity, jealousy, right? Where is my body saying no, but my mouth keeps saying it's fine. I'm fine. Everything's fine. Yeah, we agreed to this. It's all good.
And make yourself a list. Actually journal it out because you know, like people pleasing your way into a structure that looks good on paper, but feels like hell in your body. Is not a good long-term [00:07:00] solution that is not gonna create a good relationship with yourself or your partners. Okay, your second C in the Beyond monogamy method is communication seems obvious, right?
But you wanna say the hard things before they turn into resentment. You can't. Process things that you can't name, that you, if you aren't aware of what they are and you aren't sharing them and you aren't communicating about them, how are you gonna process them? How are you gonna solve them? Right? And if you're too scared to admit them to yourselves, how are you gonna, how are you gonna communicate them?
Right? So if you're keeping the piece externally, you are saying, everything's fine. We agreed to this. Yeah, go on that date. This is awesome. Uh, while internally you, you're anxious and fraught, uh, you know, you've got this internal war going on that's getting louder and louder and more creative until eventually it all boils over and, and you [00:08:00] explode.
You have to practice stating your truth, speaking your truth, speaking honestly before it leaks out sideways and ditch the belief. That being cool, being chill. Means like being quiet and not speaking up. Okay, that's just avoidance. All right? That's not good. Healthy communication, that's avoidance,
So you might say things like, I am supportive of your date tonight. And I also noticed that I got a little quiet afterwards. Can we talk about what came up for me or, um, I am feeling a little jealous and, and scared, and I wanna stay connected to you through this. Doesn't mean don't do the thing that we already agreed to do, but like also, this is what I'm experiencing.
When you're able to start naming your needs, before resentment starts, whispering mean things in your ear, you're gonna save yourself so much trouble down the road. So I'm, I'm a big fan of using a, [00:09:00] like a both and script, right? Uh, I'm happy for you and I'm noticing fear in me. Can we check in later? These are really great ways to communicate. Okay, your third C in the Beyond Monogamy method is connection. And this doesn't just mean connection to your partners. It means connection to yourself, to your own body. Your body knows when you're not. Okay. Okay. Even if your brain is still debating it, even if you're trying to convince yourself, you're okay, your body knows. So start learning your signals. Learn your patterns. Learn how to come home to yourself. Learn how to check in with your body. Anxiety is not just a thought problem.
It's not just a thing that you're gonna logic your way through. You can listen to my podcast all day long, all year long. You're gonna get great tips. You're gonna figure out a lot of things, but you have to [00:10:00] utilize the tools that we give you, okay? You have to use the tools, okay? Anxiety is a felt experience.
It's something that happens in your body, and so your brain might say, this is fine. Nobody's breaking the rules. I agreed to all of this. I don't know why it feels so bad, but like it shouldn't, right? Meanwhile, you feel nauseous or you have butterflies in your stomach. Your chest is tight, your throat is tight, your breaths shortening.
Uh, you're getting a little bit of tunnel vision. Your body is like, no, everything is terrible. So I'll give you a couple of tools for this because soothing yourself. Learning how to connect to yourself and reassure yourself and regulate your nervous system is an essential skill. It's an essential skill in life, but it's definitely an essential skill in non-monogamy.
So, um, [00:11:00] there's a few things that you can use. Breathing movement, music, touch, affirmations. Smell, taste activating your senses is gonna go so far.
For breath, try doing a four count, box breath where you inhale for a count of four and you hold it for a count of four, and then you exhale for the count of four and you hold it hold. Exhale and hold, right? You do that four times, your heart rate slows down a little bit. You start to calm a little bit.
Uh, movement. Go for a walk, shake, stomp, dance, uh, stretch. Do the dishes. Move your body. Don't just sit in it, put on some music. [00:12:00] If there's music that you listen to regularly that is soothing or calming. Or helps you get things out, like create a, a playlist for yourself and put music on. Um, you can utilize, touch, self massage, hugging a pillow, wrapping yourself up in a blanket, petting your pets, um, cuddling with a friend or a kid or, or someone, another partner, right?
Uh, affirmations, utilizing affirmations for yourself, like, I'm, I am allowed to take up space in this relationship. My emotions are valid. They make sense. Uh, I am still lovable and loved, right? Um, eat some sour candy. Hold onto an ice cube. Do things to help your nervous system
not go into. Uh, an activated or triggered state
trying to think your way out of a triggered body doesn't work. Okay. So start with the [00:13:00] sensations you're experiencing and then build on from there. Your fourth C in the Beyond Monogamy method is collaboration. Collaboration is so much better than compromise. Compromise usually means that someone is swallowing their no and calling it a yes, but true collaboration.
That's where you build something together that actually works for everyone involved, right? Your agreements in your relationships, they're not contracts signed in blood. They're conversations, you get to revisit them, you get to rewrite them, you get to burn 'em. If they're not working, um, you have experiences, you try things on and you go, who did I like that? Did I not like that? What part of it was good?
What part of it wasn't? And then come back together and collaborate on it. Most of the rules that people have in non-monogamy are written from fear and when we're building a relationship with real collaboration. It's about building something that works for everyone's nervous [00:14:00] system and not just appeasing the most vocal partner or the partner who is the most adamant about getting what they want.
Right? So collaboration looks like creating agreements that are about support rather than control. Um, collaboration looks like. Talking through your desires and limits until everyone feels actually really heard. Throwing them all onto the table, making a pile of everyone's desires and digging through 'em and going, okay, which ones do we have in common?
Which ones do we not? And what else is available to us that we could throw on the table that we didn't even think of? Right. And then revisiting those agreements so that they can evolve, so they can change. 'cause they will. So here's a way you can practice this, okay? Revisit one of your current agreements with your partners and ask, does this feel like it supports me? Or [00:15:00] like it suppresses me? Does this feel like it fits who we are now? Or does it need to be changed? Get curious. Get curious and look at like, what's underneath that need? What is your nervous system trying to protect? And you don't have to default to either or your desires or my desires. You can often co-create a third way. All right, your fifth C in the Be Beyond Monogamy method, really important one here is confidence. Confidence doesn't mean you never get anxious or jealous or uh, nervous or insecure. It just means that you can trust yourself to handle what comes up. Okay? Confidence isn't about being unbothered. It's about being resourced.
it's about knowing that you can make the right choices for yourself. It's kind of [00:16:00] like confidence is taking a deep breath before you have a hard, scary, vulnerable conversation. Right? Um, it's the voice in your head that's like, this is really hard and I know I can do hard things and I'm going to do it. When you have your own back, when you can keep returning to yourself, you actually stop needing everything to go perfectly. You can move through jealousy, discomfort, fear, insecurity, and still know that you're gonna be okay. And, and this is. Confidence is building a long game. It's creating the belief that your needs matter, your feelings are valid.
You don't have to be perfectly evolved to be loved. So let's talk about some of the, let's give you some of the tools for building confidence, right? Uh, some little things. Making and keeping small promises to yourself, celebrating your emotional wins, even if nobody else sees them. Right? Asking yourself, what would I do if I trusted [00:17:00] my self-worth, if I trusted that I was lovable, valuable, worthy.
one that I really love. A little bonus tip here is create a proof positive list. A running list of the times that you have done things well, or you've done things brave, you regulated your emotions, you advocated for yourself, you showed up in the way that you wanted to despite feeling anxious or jealous or insecure, right?
Um, keep a list of when things are going well, when you've done things in a way that you feel good about. So you can look back and go, oh, actually that's totally possible for me. You start to build confidence by having experiences that build confidence. Uh, and then bonus in there. The bonus part was the proof in the proof positive list.
And I've said this before, I don't know in which episode, probably several. One of the things I love to do is I put on my phone in my, uh, little notes. Pad is, I do like screenshots [00:18:00] or just notes about times that my partners have said, like really loving things to me. Things that made me feel heard and seen and validated and loved so that when I am feeling anxious, when I'm feeling insecure, I can go and look at those, at the proof that, oh my God, look at that.
Just yesterday, my partner was like gushing to me about how much they love me and here I am today, anxious that they wanna leave me. But it was less than 24 hours that they said the exact opposite. I have proof of it. Right. And this works because your brain needs reminders that you're not starting from scratch.
Um, so making a list of not only what you get from your partners, but also the way that you are showing up yourself, like receipts for what a badass you actually are capable of being. So, what I want you to do is actually create a self-soothing kit for yourself, right? Because you can't logic your way out of a [00:19:00] triggered nervous system. Your body doesn't care how enlightened or poly educated you are. It wants to feel safe and you need a felt sense of safety first. Most of us, our default just coming from a monogamous society, just from the culture that we are in, our default is to look for that sense of safety from our partners, from our romantic relationships, right?
We're looking for that externally and when you can cre create a, a sense of safety for yourself. You build yourself a self-soothing toolkit, you start to create a lot of confidence in your ability to show up for yourself and your ability to make relationship decisions that actually work for you and your ability to make choices that are aligned with you, to uphold your own boundaries, to ask for your own needs and desires to be met, right?
So this [00:20:00] isn't just self-soothing toolkit is not just for calming down, it's for coming home to yourself. It's for taking care of yourself. Okay? If you are feeling anxious or you're feeling jealous, do not believe that you're failing or that you can't do this or that it's not for you. Okay? You're literally just human. You're just human. And confidence is about how you respond rather than how you avoid. So you don't need to be fearless, okay?
You just need to feel safe enough to keep going, and you can create that for yourself.
And when you build relationships on clarity, connection, communication, collaboration, and confidence, this beyond monogamy method, right? You're not just. Getting through. You're not just surviving non-monogamy or just getting through polyamory, this is how you start thriving in it. This is how you start to feel really freaking [00:21:00] good.
Okay, so the quick recap here, clarity, because your nervous system needs a map. It needs to know where you're going. It needs a north star to follow communication, say the hard things early and often get it out of the way connection. Your body deserves a voice. Your nervous system deserves to have a say in what's going on.
Collaboration, make agreements that feel good, not just look good, not just work for everyone else. And then confidence. Trust your capacity to come home to yourself over and over and over again. Okay. I wanna give you a little action plan. I wanna give you a little tool. You can do this right now, okay? 'cause for real fear is going to show up. Okay? It happens for all of us. You're so normal. You're so normal. The goal isn't to eliminate it completely. You can't, don't worry. It's not gonna happen if you aren't feeling it.
Now, [00:22:00] all that means is that there isn't anything activating it. That's all that means. Um. So the goal here is to befriend it, to learn from it, to listen to the messages that it has to say to you to make sure that it's not the one making your relationship decisions for you. So do this. I want you to place your hand on your chest unless you're like driving and can't.
But, uh, and you can come back to this, okay? Place your hand on your chest and feel your heartbeat. This is proof that you're still here, you're still loving, you're still trying. Okay? And take a deep breath.
And say to yourself, I get to be scared and still choose love. I get to be human and still be worthy. I get to feel everything. I feel I and still belong here. I get to create safety [00:23:00] for myself.
You can say it out loud. Say it again. Take a couple more breaths. Right. Just let it land in your body. Let it be a way that you keep choosing yourself.
And then I'm curious, which one of these Cs feels most, um, necessary for you right now, feels most needed for you to work on right now?
And then like. Work on it, right? Like, ask yourself like, where in my relationship am I letting anxiety and fear drive the car? Like, like lead the way? Where am I saying yes to avoid losing connection, to avoid being abandoned or left? Where am I holding back my truth, my, uh, desires, my boundaries, my needs?
Where am I holding back my truth? Just to keep [00:24:00] the peace? Pick a question, journal it out, type it into the comments. Um, whispered into a voice note, right? But like, start working on that one. One. Just start utilizing the tools. Pick one and do it. Okay. If any of this is hitting home for you, like drop a comment with your, uh, like, yep, that's me moment.
That's the one. And don't forget to hit subscribe if you want more real talk about non-monogamy. That doesn't skip out on the messy stuff. Um, if, you know, you can go back and listen to several episodes where I share all the hard things. And if you want, um, all of the behind the scenes content, you can head over to patreon.com/notmonogamous and, and get some bonus.
Just the tips, you're not too much, you're not meant to, you're not meant [00:25:00] to shrink, you're not doing it wrong. You're just growing. You're just human. And you get to do that, and you deserve to have support in that. Thanks for listening. Bye.