527 Establishing relationship patterns

Polyamory Weekly

What behavioral patterns do you establish at the beginning of your relationships, and why does that matter?

0:00 Introduction and host chat

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1:00 Announcements

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5:10 Poly in the News

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6:20 Topic: behavioral patterns in your relationships (and how to establish them)

Sarah from Australia asked for Lusty Guy to elaborate on his comment about patterns at the start of relationship establishing what will happen later on in the relationship. What patterns do you establish when you start dating? Any red flag behaviors? What the hell is Lusty Guy talking about?

• A pattern is the behavior you adopt in the face of differing styles or approaches to stuff in relationships
• The way you establish a pattern is to ask yourself how you ideally want to respond to conflicts or conflicting patterns (such as who plans a date)—and those will often persist throughout the duration of the relationship
• What do you want your partner to learn?
• LG likes to look for ways to be his very best self in the first relationship conflict. “Whenever you want to reach someone, you have to be reachable.” Be vulnerable!
• Red flags: pay attention to the nature of the stories people tell about themselves. Are they the avenging hero? Martyr? Berserker? Affable buffoon? And look for the differences between the behavior you observe and the stories they tell
  • Also, do they share?
  • How do they talk about their past relationships? Are they respectful of past partners and relationships?
  • What comments do they make about strangers?

24:25 Feedback

Thanks for having Goody Howard on the show!

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