"Mountain Man": [00:00:00] Depression brain tells you evil things. Depression brain tells you, you can't get somebody who treat you, right. Depression, brain tells you that you can't get somebody who will make you happy.

Rebecca: Hey, thanks for tuning in just a quick heads. Up. This episode is rated PG 13. So expect to hear some mild language or adult concepts.

One of the cool bonuses about a lifetime of polyamory are the friends and the partners who stay in range of our lives. Even as our lives change. This conversation is with me. And one of those darling people in my life, this is us talking about the places where our lives have touched.
So this episode is with me and one of my ex-boyfriends, or we're going to call him mountain man on the show because that's what I've been calling him for years and years. We've known each other for almost a decade and [00:01:00] talked about him on the show since the beginning, this is his first time actually being on the show.
It was funny when I shared this episode with a couple of friends to see what they thought, I got some surprising responses, including one, who said, I don't ever want to talk to any of my exes again, I don't care what they think, which I can understand. I guess sometimes if you come to a point in a relationship with somebody where there's a break in trust or a break in respect, then I can understand why you wouldn't really want to have that person's input in your life anymore.
But for me, a lot of my exes are the people that I trust most to reflect back to me what matters and what I missed. 'cause they know, they know me, they know what matters to me. They know my patterns, they know how I lash out. And oftentimes they have enough distance that they can be [00:02:00] a positive and enlightening influence and useful mirror instead of a painfully destructive one.
And, uh, this person, mountain man is one of those people for me for many years, we've been able to reflect back to each other enough and kind enough ways that despite not having the typical relationship trajectory, we have still really been able to maintain a space in each other's lives on and off for, I don't know, for a good long time.
And I feel like that's something really special when you can have a friend who knows more about you than most of your just friends. Who's able to support you and willing to support you emotionally, or however you need support, I guess. And who wants to be there for you? I mean, that's really cool. [00:03:00] I think it is.
Maybe you don't agree and that's okay. And because of these conversations that I've been having with the early listeners of this episode, I've been realizing that it is kind of unusual to have this tight of a relationship with an ex partner. And what has made it work for us, I think is friendship. Like we've always cared about some of the same things.
We've always been, had a friendship based on that. And, and we've always cared about each other, right? So I want the best for him. He wants the best for me. Try and give each other the benefit of the doubt, even when we're upset, we recognize that just because we don't understand why the person is doing what they're doing, maybe they have a good.
We've never tried to hurt each other. There are definitely some experiences earlier on where he would text me and I wouldn't text back for a few days and, and he asked me not to do that. So it took us a [00:04:00] little while to fine tune response time and what turning towards means. But once we did, that was a huge impact in our ability to continue to be friends and be supportive to each other.
And we got better at saying no when we meant no. And at de committing from things that didn't feel right anymore earlier is talking and he hear about some event.

Rebecca: Hey there, mountain man. Welcome to Pleasure Central. And you can call me Rebecca it's. All right.

"Mountain Man": Hello Rebecca.

Rebecca: So I wanted to have you on the show here today because we have had a really unusual, very long relationship actually, which has bounced back and forth from all kinds of like traditional boyfriend girlfriend thing.
At one point to now a very different, very lighthearted friends with occasional benefits, but just good friends. So I thought it would be fun to have you here [00:05:00] in the recording studio and talk a little bit about it and see if we can pass on some wisdom, because I think we have learned a lot.

"Mountain Man": Yeah. I think over our long journey, we have definitely learned a few lessons of what works and especially for people who find each other a lot of fun, but have very different desires and what they want their lives to look like.

Rebecca: Yeah. Now, speaking of very long, how long have we known each other? I think you figured it out right. Eight
"Mountain Man": Eight and a half years.
Rebecca: Oh my gosh. And do you want to tell a little bit about how we met? Okay.

"Mountain Man": So that was quite a while now. I was fairly new to poly at the time. I had had some friends with benefits, but I hadn't had an actual like poli girlfriend.
And I remember this was back when OkCupid was [00:06:00] actually fairly good. Uh, you could send messages and see your incoming messages that having paid. And I was going through profiles and I came across your profile. And of course I'm like, oh, this girl's gorgeous. And I'm reading this profile and she seems really fun.

Rebecca: And...

"Mountain Man": I don't know exactly why, but normally I, I remember I told you about this one time. Normally I thought my first messages through quite thoroughly, which showed in the response rate, I thought it was really atypical, but for years, years, I like, I've got a message this girl now. And so like, I didn't really think it through that deeply.
I don't even remember what I said now, but it was like some quickly, Hey, you seem cool. Or something like that. Cause it was not the best person that's shepherd.
Rebecca: It was good that you did respond that quickly because I remember, I think I only had a dating profile up for three weeks. That time. It was the first time I really officially done online dating and it happened so quickly [00:07:00] and I found you and mark and I was like, okay, I'm happy.
I'm good. I'm done now. And I had another partner at the time too. So you also had, you were married, right? So you were testing out Polly and I bet. Quite an interesting person to jump into that with. Oh,
"Mountain Man": definitely. Definitely. Paulie knew me at the time. And uh, you know, you very experienced with that. I also remember something interesting half that time.
I remember you, um, like we talked and then you disappeared for like three days and then you popped back up and we talked like for an hour or two, it needs to spirit for four days. I don't like what's going on. Is she getting bombarded with messages and it's just running away. Cause I remember when we talked about this, cause you didn't hear you confirmed that and then like you come back the last time, you're like, I'm going to turn off my profile.
Here's like, you know,
Rebecca: yeah. Basically I had decided who I wanted to see for a little while and [00:08:00] keep staying connected to, and that was. Good choice. Yeah. So we met about eight and a half years ago. We started dating and you're better at timelines than I am. What, what happened next? We dated for a while,
"Mountain Man": right?
Yeah. We dated like officially dated for almost exactly a year. Yeah. It was almost exactly a year almost to the day. I think it was like to the week.
Rebecca: I promise that was not intentional, but I do remember one of the first like poly cool things that we did was Thanksgiving at your house with your wife and her girlfriend, I think.
And we played
"Mountain Man": her friend,
Rebecca: her friend. Okay. Anyway, and we all played cards against humanity together. That was the most untraditional Thanksgiving. I think I've ever had
"Mountain Man": [00:09:00] probably the most on traditional Thanksgiving. I've ever had either, I guess at this point. Okay. Timeline. And so I needed a little space after that, so we weren't talking too much, just a few messages here and there.
And then about two weeks before my birthday. So that was about three months later. I met two gals at an event. Well, two different events, but very close timeline. And they both seemed cool and interested. One of them ended up going nowhere, but the other, I ended up dating for like six years. And I remember texting you when I first met the two of them telling you about it, because I knew you'd be happy for me.
And you'd like to hear about it. And you know, as the conversation went on, it kind of became a, Hey, what are you doing? Do you want to hang out? We had fun.
Rebecca: Nice. That's funny. I remember it a little bit differently. I remember we hadn't been dating and we hadn't been talking for. At [00:10:00] least almost a year or something like that.
And your birthday was coming up and it's the same day as Christmas. And I reached out to make sure that you weren't going to be alone and not doing anything that day, because I was not doing anything that day. And it just so happened that there was a good time to get together and we connected and reconnected and it was very sweet and lovely.
And then we were friends with benefits for a while months. Yeah, that sounds, um, I
"Mountain Man": hear too, I, this detail is timeline. I can't quite remember it. We, it did. Oh, that's why I can't remember because instead of like being at abrupt end, we just kind of both got busy. And so our visits to each other kind of dwindled naturally over time, because we were, you were busy with partners and so was I, and then it just dwindled and it was quiet for a while.
And then something happened. And we don't need to go into the details, but [00:11:00] I broke up with my now ex-wife and I texted you a week or two after I made that decision. Once I had calmed down from the actual like, impact of the decision and I was telling you about it, and then we ended up like reconnecting and seeing each other every week, every other week for another, like for like nine months or something like that.
Rebecca: I don't remember.
"Mountain Man": Yeah. I don't remember the exact timeline at this point. Like we're, we've gotten too far into the, uh, the muddiness where we were just kind of drifting back and forth across like levels of attachment to each other. Yeah. So we started seeing each other regularly again, and I tried doing tango with you,
Rebecca: like two classes or three classes.
Right? Cause was, it was the beginning was
"Mountain Man": for four classes. Yeah. Was for. Now I understand in retrospect, because I've learned some things that we'll get to later, [00:12:00] I was enjoying it both for itself and then even more so for doing it with you, but I was also extremely self-conscious about it. And that made it nice
Rebecca: for you.
Yeah. Yeah. I remember that. And it was interesting cause I was still pretty much a beginner as well. It was, I don't know, maybe like the third or fourth tango class I had taken. So we were both fairly new, but it's interesting. I am always telling people not to do this, not to go and take a dance class together if they've never actually danced before, because it's so much pressure to be a lead and all of a sudden trying to figure out how to move the other person across the floor without stepping on them and without, and not having like that kind of body training in your body already.
Oh, my God. It's so hard to not be good at something, especially for as long as it takes to be a good dancer. So I totally understood the self-consciousness [00:13:00] and yeah, it wasn't fun. We didn't learn a lot because there's not a lot of brain balanced to allow us to learn, I guess.
"Mountain Man": Yeah. That's I I'd say that's a good way of putting it and I guess it's probably, now it'll have to explain what I learned later.
So I learned later what, two years after this, that I had been chronically low level depressed probably since I was like five. And so I was going through life unmedicated, depressed, trying to deal with that. And one of the consequences. That self-consciousness like, I couldn't exist in spaces where I had no benchmark for how well I was doing at something, how quickly I was improving at it.
Even if I found it fun without that, it still was just too anxiety making for me. And like, it's amazing what [00:14:00] a little medication can do, but I have a fitness watch. Of course I have a fitness watch. I'm a mountain man. I do too many mountain things, but, uh, when I started taking those meds, my resting heart rate dropped by like my sleeping resting heart rate dropped by 10 beats per minute.
So like, yeah.
Rebecca: Yeah. That's quite a big deal. As a lot of chronic stress. I remember a couple of weeks ago we were hanging out and you were telling me how much better you had been doing for the last few months. And you said something like. Chronic depression sometimes presents as you just acting like a fucking asshole.
And I was like, oh yeah. You know, sometimes I see that on myself too. I see. Why am I being an asshole? Oh yeah. It's because the middle of winter in Seattle and I need to up my vitamin D or I need to get outside and do something and find some passion again, because it's all evaporated. So I'm really glad that you said that and that you have [00:15:00] that self-awareness because self-awareness is way sexier than ignorance.
"Mountain Man": Definitely. Yeah. And that brings us to this. Cause I don't remember if we actually defined it as a formally dating again when we were seeing each other every week, that second time and dancing and stuff like that. But before the class was even done, you're like, I don't want to hang out for a while. And then later we talked about it and you had told me that, like, I was just like angry and.
Now in retrospect, I wasn't consciously aware I was angry. Part of that chronic depression is chronic depression becomes anxiety. And like you're routing your inputs directly to your amygdala before you, instead of going up to the parts of the brain where you decide the level of reaction you're supposed to have, it's going straight to the amygdala.
And there was some things going on in the world, political things that entirely justifiable to be angry about. I couldn't calm [00:16:00] my nervous system back down after that, and just exist and chill and have fun with an awesome person. And so of course you're like, this is way too much angry energy. I mean this
Rebecca: away.
Yeah. Yeah. And it was also difficult to watch you going through what you were going through, the relationship split and how much bitterness was being held there. And I totally understand, sometimes we are just hurt beyond repair and it takes a long time to get past that. And from my perspective, it was so hard to be another woman watching you bitch about this other person who was so important to you and be like, okay, is that going to meet me next?
What the fuck? Right. Cause I knew that I didn't have the same behavior patterns as her, but how, how much you were holding on to that and stuck with, it was part of what made it really hard to be around because it wasn't just, the anger was the anger and the bitter. And that that's like, [00:17:00] I don't know how to help you.
I'm sorry. What if I could, but I don't know how
"Mountain Man": that, that makes sense. I don't think you actually mentioned that part of it before, but that does make a lot of sense. And even though, like, we both know you could never be in that situation, you would never be her. You would never take advantage of that in fashion, even if you could, it's still not a fun energy to be.
Um, completely understandable. And I think if I had known that you were picking up on that a little too much, if I was expressing and do much of the time I could have done, but again, this is, this is us figuring out things in retrospect later. Exactly. You're just like, this is for four years later now. I think so.
Yeah. Yeah. But that figuring things out, in retrospect, there's also an important part of this conversation because being able to figure things out is one of those important details for being able to sustain [00:18:00] an evolving relationship or any relationship, really, even if it's a stable, like you're like super tight partners and investing partners, you need that you need that turn, turn turning towards each other after conflict and, and figuring things out eventually and going, oh, this is what happening in retrospect.
And being able to talk about it.
Rebecca: Yeah. That's really helpful. I agree. Yeah. And I think for me, Particularly hard, knowing that as bad as someone is behaving, even when they are being awful, taking advantage of someone being manipulated, all of those things, nobody does that unless they are really, really hurt.
And so I understood your bitterness, but I also understood that someone was really, really hurting in order to do that. Right. And I've been really hurting relationships and I've done things that I wish I'd never done. And I've strung out of restaurants at brunch. What the fuck like that is so not me, but you know, there was a [00:19:00] time when I didn't know that I should have something to eat before 11 and I didn't know, I shouldn't show up at a restaurant at 11 for brunch, wait 45 minutes for table and then eat.
Pancakes and, uh, like Swedish pancakes with sugar and dairy on them. Yeah. That is definitely going to make me touch. It's still well, but now I have more understanding about what I need, so I just don't end up in those situations anymore. I don't know what someone else had that might make them react that way.
But I know that it can't have been fun. Oh, people just aren't assholes if they're, they're not in pain.
"Mountain Man": Oh, definitely. Like part of me is still angry at her behavior because it's an appropriate reaction to it. But now it's, it's, it's, it's that cold intellectual anger, like girl, what you did was really bad and evil, but you're right.
Her behavior absolutely came [00:20:00] from a place of pain. Like I, I also feel sorry for her because there's, there's two women in my life where my past. Both of them, I'd say took advantage of me. And both of them are in that spot where now, like, I can't even be ad mad at them. I feel bad for them because they they're stuck in a place of pain and dysfunction.
I can't help them. I can't, I've tried. I got mildly politely chewed out by my therapist for taking it way too far in trying to help them.
Rebecca: Yeah. And well, let's see, that would be a symptom of insecure attach preoccupied and secure attach. Not quite,
"Mountain Man": but it was, that was definitely a contributing factor.
Absolutely contributing factor along with the depression because depression brain tells you evil things, depression brain tells you, you can't get somebody who treat you, right. Depression, brain [00:21:00] tells you that you can't get somebody who will make you happy, even though. When I was getting ready to go on dating sites.
So for the context here, I have a new wonderful partner who I've been seeing for about four months. She is absolutely awesome. And I didn't think I would meet somebody. I was, you know, seeing like the negatives, like, cause I don't know if Rebecca is ever mentioned on her podcast before, but I'm a cancer survivor.
I have this huge scar from the surgery and I dunno, I think I'm pretty average. Like I'm not, I'm not Favio. Um, and so like when I was getting ready for getting dating profiles set up, I hadn't had that depression diagnosis yet. It was literally like. A month before this diagnosis is when I was getting ready to settlement profiles.
And here's Rebecca giving me pep talks. And some of my other female friends [00:22:00] giving me pep talks that you will absolutely find the person that you want and thought, you know, all of this. And I'm like, but like, look at
Rebecca: me, it seems impossible until you find it. And you're like, oh, well, yeah, of course there's someone out there that likes me.
I'm pretty cool. Yeah.
"Mountain Man": Um, I actually started the meds a week before meeting. My slow Monday was the most perfect timing ever. So we were talking about, um, I had a couple negative partners and of course that wasn't fun to be around because at the time I didn't fully understand how they were affecting me.
And I didn't yet understand how to move forward. Sullivan. Obviously you need just need time to move forward. But at the same time, like I just didn't know how to. Quite accept fully that their behavior wasn't reflective of some thing about me, which is part of [00:23:00] depression, Britain speaking.
Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah. No, that makes perfect sense.
Yeah. And I have noticed a big personality difference in you, so good for you for taking care of yourself. And yeah, it was fun that summer knowing, Hey, you're going to meet someone and it's going to be awesome. It's going to be great. There's lots of opportunities out there. I think one of the great things about this whole COVID relationship breakup pandemic is that there are now a lot of people that wouldn't have been single a couple of years ago because they're so amazing.
And now they are, they have a lot more stress experience and have learned to be a bit more resilient, whether they want to do or not. And now people are back out and dating and checking things out. And yeah, so I knew you would find somebody
"Mountain Man": there's not, there's not only the people who they learned. They learned their own value because a lot of those from the people I've talked to a lot of the relationships that didn't survive COVID were relationships where [00:24:00] there was some problem.
Usually one partner is capable of processing moving forward and handling the problem and the other won't. And so you get a lot of people who are actually awesome experience people who are now available. So, Hey, yeah. Lucky you. Yep. Perfect timing.
Rebecca: Yes. Okay. So the first time that we dated, we were, I remember that we were calling each other boyfriend girlfriend, and at some point I started to feel like that wasn't working for me and not so much the relationship, but the title.
I couldn't figure out why. And it still is to this day, a bit of a problem. I don't want to be anybody's girlfriend. And there's a very rare exception to that.
"Mountain Man": A certain level of like intertwineness is implied by that title. And it was a bit too much intertwineness for [00:25:00] us. It was the, it was implying the wrong energy to you.
Um, and so it just kind of, I guess, built up pressure on you and your eventually you had to hit eject.
Rebecca: Yeah. And I, I wonder if this is part of why you assumed that I was a fearful avoidant person, that's
"Mountain Man": entirely possible why I thought you were fearful of what it, because that did come across as fearful avoidant behavior, but with a little bit more information, again, us being able to figure out things, even if it's delayed, it makes sense where it was, um, just a little stifling, which is another thing that, you know, we figured out in retrospect, because we both read the book policy.
I was fairly familiar with attachment theory, but I hadn't seen anything about plying attachment theory to poly and combine that book with it was a month [00:26:00] maybe after I got the you've been depressed your entire life diagnosis. And I suddenly put the connection together that consciously every time we were seeing each other regularly consciously, I was trying to respect our negotiated level of commitment, but subconsciously my emotional attachment system was casting around and trying to grasp too strongly.
And I wasn't aware it was doing that. And so it would start trying to grasp at you and you're like,
Rebecca: no, hang on. I'm not prepared for that level of involvement. Yeah, yeah. That does sound about right. And I think we did a pretty good job of navigating that all things considered. Uh, we've always been just really honest with each other.
I'm pretty sure we've never lied to each other. I can't think of any time. And I can't think of any time
"Mountain Man": either. I we've always been really good about turning towards each other when there's conflict and talking it [00:27:00] out, trying to figure where we're not matching up and what we can do about it, which is that is, again, one of those key points in successful relationship evolving or otherwise is you've got to turn towards each other.
Rebecca: Otherwise you're not in a relationship anymore soon. Exactly. Yeah. And that letting a relationship die off in that direction, I think is usually one of the hardest ways to do it. Not always the hardest way. Cause I have had a relationship that just sort of drifted off into something, but it wasn't like we ghosted each other.
Uh, however, It was really helpful that he was able to talk and say, Hey, this is what's going on. I'm not gonna be able to hang out for a while. This is still going on. This is okay. This is taking a really long time. This is six months now that we haven't seen each other. Right. But the fact that we were still communicating was helpful enough to maintain something until we were able to get together and say, all right, this isn't going to be able to continue happening.
And [00:28:00] now what are we going to do? And I still have brunch with him like once a year. So
"Mountain Man": yeah. Well, respect each other's time you went through some external force interfering. Cause I think I know who you're talking about. There was an external, you know, if there's external forces inter interfering with the relationship and event and sometimes it just, those external forces make it not possible.
But the fact that you kept communicating, that's showing respect for each other. Even if you can't spend time together, you're still valuing each other. And even if it ends in bummer, we can't hang out anymore. Horses I've made it untenable.
Rebecca: So I don't think I've talked about the second time that we broke up yet, but first I realize we have a really unique opportunity here.
We've had a couple of different relationships over almost a decade, and there's been three major transitions in our relationship. And I thought it would be fun if we [00:29:00] have each one of us give one statement about what happened during each breakup. So we can see now with the benefit of perspective, both whether or not we agree and kind of help highlight how even when two people never lie to each other and they care about each other and their friends, how things can be miscommunicated you game.
Sure. Okay. So before I talk about the second breakout, Lucy, my statement for the first breakup is. I got really busy and I still wanted to spend time with the people that I cared about, but stuff was falling off my plate and I couldn't let the businesses that I was building, take the hit. So I had to find some creative way of working around it.
And when I looked at my life and I realized that what I really cared about, like [00:30:00] spirituality was a big, big piece of my life. You didn't fit in with a spirituality because of some of the beliefs that you have. And so we were often kind of like both butting heads on it. And then when we weren't butting heads on it, you just couldn't hang out with a bunch of my friends because you would get in arguments with them.
So I thought, okay, if I've got to figure out how to adjust my life, this is how it's going to go. That was longer than one statement. Dammit. All right. Your turn,
"Mountain Man": I guess. We're that? Kind of how it's more details, but I saw it externally as in like, basically you decided you couldn't date me because I didn't believe your same beliefs.
So we, I guess we understood that one on the same page. And I was just like, what?
Rebecca: Yeah. Disappointing that it is what it is. Right.
"Mountain Man": I was a [00:31:00] little irked, but yeah, it was mostly
Rebecca: disappointed. And then the second time was a little bit similar. Uh, but it was when you were really stuck in the anger and the bitterness of other things going wrong in your life.
And there was a whole lot of that in, it was too hard to be around. So I realized that you'd probably heal better on your own without me nagging at you about it.
"Mountain Man": That time. I was very confused, but that goes back to the, I didn't know how much of that energy I was admitting. I was, it was coming out subconsciously a lot more than I realized.
And all I knew is like we were having, we were doing tango classes and I thought we were having fun. And then suddenly we want to see him, like now I realize we mentioned this before that the first time we kind of quote unquote broke up. That that was so one of the things that made me think you were fearful avoided, [00:32:00] this was also one of the contributing factors to making me think you were fearful of flight.
Or now in retrospect, I know like you were just overwhelmed in different ways. Like the first time your schedule is overwhelmed. And the second time, like the negative energy that was shedding off me that I needed to get it off me, but I just didn't know how to channel it in the right direction. So it was going all the way.
Over there in the dump. Yeah. Yeah.
Rebecca: And actually I have a question about that because I know that there are people out there in situations like that. I know sometimes I've been the depressed one that someone has to leave because they just can't stand to be around me. I'm not the happy go. Lucky Rebecca sometimes.
So was there anything that I could've said that would've helped you get help quicker or helped you understand what it was?
"Mountain Man": I think so. And I would like to also point out that we should never [00:33:00] expect our partners to always be super happy and up, up and stuff. We should always expect to support our burgers when they're having a hard time, but sometimes they're hard.
Time is way too hard for us to handle and we need to accept that we are not expected to be the hero we need to respect our own lens. And not give too much of ourselves. And in this case, it was a combination of the state of the world, which was obviously it was quite frankly a very disturbing statement combined with the way mine, X was acting.
And I'm not sure if you could have explain, I was at the start of the road, the journey of fixing the results of my chronic depression, but I wasn't on the road [00:34:00] yet. And I guess the only thing you could have done at the time is encouraged me a little more to start seeing a therapist.
Rebecca: And everybody loves it.
When you say that, right, honey, I love you very much, but you should go get therapy.
"Mountain Man": The thing is people need to realize that that statement can completely come out of love. Yes, I totally agree. Sometimes people are saying it to be an S, but it can also completely come out of us. And so after that, we, we transitioned to see each other less.
And I met another gal who ended up not being a great, she had her own stuff,
Rebecca: but
"Mountain Man": she actually gave me the nudge I needed to get on that road. And so even though [00:35:00] in the end that didn't work out with her, I'm still glad that I met her.
Rebecca: Well, Hey, cheers. Metta. That was really cool. Yeah. You know, I had an aha a couple of like a year or two ago, something like that, where I realized what people could have said to me when I was having issues that I probably shouldn't go, I should've gotten more help with was some version of, I love you and you have to do better.
Just that reminder of, Hey, you're not being abandoned here, but you're not doing well enough. You need to be able to hold yourself up. You need to be able to like, and I'm not looking at you saying you need to be. I'm saying, I have realized that I need to bring more of myself to the world really, but I need to be able to take care of regular things in my life better so that I'm not so stressed and be a grownup being adult.
Right. And. [00:36:00] I do kind of wish someone had said that to me. So would that have been helpful, do better or something? Some version that
"Mountain Man": I'm not honestly sure, but absolutely I needed to do better. Fortunately. Um, we've always had this ability that we mentioned before, where we turned to towards each other and we can talk about it and eventually I was able to do better.
Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Eventually you were. Yeah. And I think that turn towards is important. But the other thing that really is important that I don't think we've said is that we've never tried to hurt each other and we've never been stuck together in the same house. And so frustrated that we had to hurt each other because there was no other outlet, right.
That that's been a problem for me before living with people or spending too much time living with people,
"Mountain Man": we've always been able to take space from each other when we needed. [00:37:00] You've always been willing to let me try to do better, which is something that's very important because not everybody gives the chance to do better.
And that is another one. Those things as important for the long-term sustainability of relationship, good relationships come from both people trying to do better for the other person. And that means you must be able to accept each other as flawed and accept each other as struggling to do better. And sometimes you can help each other do better.
Sometimes you can't. And sometimes fortunately this has never happened with us, but it happened with somebody else in my life. You have to realize there is absolutely nothing you can do for them. And you need to do better for yourself.
Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah. Doing better for yourself is probably a much higher priority than doing better for others.
But [00:38:00] it is nice to have them both there. It has really beneficial, I think, to have other people that you can do things for. I cook for myself all the time. I don't necessarily enjoy it as much as if I'm cooking for other people. It's way more entertaining and more engaging for some reason.
"Mountain Man": Yeah, definitely.
And when you do well by yourself, that enables you to do well by others
Rebecca: and with others. Yes. Yeah. Here, here. I feel like we're preaching to the choir now. All right. So then the third time, what, what do I want to talk about the third time?
"Mountain Man": I'm honestly not super sure what happened there, from my perspective, it just kind of seemed like you weren't in interested anymore.
You weren't like having. And fun for some reason. And I couldn't figure out like, [00:39:00] who was it? Know it wasn't me. And I know this, those third time happened during the pandemic. And at first we were both like, Hey, we can hang out to the other in the pandemic and help relieve the loneliness and stuff. But I don't know what changed quite on your side, but like it fizzled and it's like fizzled rapidly.
Rebecca: Yeah. Well, there's a couple of reasons for that. And one is keep in mind the context. So w when this happened, we had been kind of occasionally seeing each other for a couple months, every couple of weeks or something like that, I think. Yeah. And so for context, this was four or five, six months into the pandemic, and I had spent three of the last six months on crutches.
Alone in an apartment with stairs where I had to hop up and down the stairs all the time, make food for myself [00:40:00] and then figure out how to replace all of the things that I used to do to keep myself saying, cause I'm as an entrepreneur, I work from home. So I would go out to work out to be social and I would go out dancing to be social.
And I would go out to eat with my friends to be social. And all of a sudden, all not only are all these things closed down, but most of my friends are so nervous and afraid that they're unwilling to hang out. Like a few of them were still willing to go on walks. And I totally understand that, but so much of my social life had shut down.
And the things that I had used to balance myself out were not there. There were riots in my city. There was all kinds of crazy things going on that I had nothing. I had no ability to. Really react and respond in a strong way. And so what happened for me? Yes, we were keeping each other company and that was fun during the pandemic, but I was also figuring out shit.
I might have to come up with a new way of [00:41:00] having an income stream overnight. And how am I going to do that? So I'm working more on some entrepreneurial projects and doing some other things that were really important to me. And I realized that I wanted to have more of that stable relationship structure.
And it wasn't like, we couldn't be doing that at the same time, but you're sitting there in your corporate job doing your nine to five and trying to spend as much time outside as you can. And I'm in a completely different mindset and basically 24 7, because there's nothing to do outside of the house. So might as well work all the time.
What else am I going to do? Yeah. So my needs had changed so much that we weren't a fit again, which is kind of what has happened. The first time and then the third time. Yeah.
"Mountain Man": Yeah, I guess we kind of drift there. I remember our original idea for this episode in this conversation came up because you and I want very different things for our lives.[00:42:00]
You're very much about all your entrepreneur projects and all that. And I'm super excited for you with your projects. I see that they, you know, bring you joy and they're fun. And I do try to support them as when I can and how I can such as, Hey, this interview right now, but I've kind of achieved my goals.
I wanted a comfortable life that, uh, and a comfortable job that would give me time for vacations. Like I know you've mentioned me on the podcast before. I love road trips to national parks. I look like I've got 28 days on the mountain, the ski season, like I am. As soon as that job, that nine to five is done, I am doing something fun.
And so we kind of don't mesh there all the time. And so I think it's always been a little bit about for us and trying to navigate where the places we do connect and finding the [00:43:00] joy in where we do overlap. It's just not a huge amount of overlap on a day to day basis.
Rebecca: Yeah. And even like the places that we live are diametrically opposed like me, I'm living in uptown in the middle of the city as in the middle of the action as I can get, but I've got my own little space and I work in my house and it's just me.
Right. So I like to be able to go outside, see a bunch of people and come back inside. And you, whenever you buy a new house, you buy it further and further away from the city because you want to be close to the mountains, which makes perfect sense. It would drive me crazy.
"Mountain Man": And part of that's just being frugal because I look at the prices in the city and, you know, understand that I'm a Midwestern boy.
I look at the prices out here and I'm just like, oh my freaking God. But at the same time, I do like a certain amount of urbanness. I like the convenience as a civilization, like my [00:44:00] fiber optic internet connection, but I don't like the city corner. I'm always only ever going to be a visitor to the civic city card.
So this is just another spot that, you know, we don't quite mesh up.
Rebecca: Yeah. Or I think you said earlier, sometimes you work really well together as people, but your lives aren't the same shape.
"Mountain Man": Yes. And we always trained to find the fun overlap in those shapes, but
Rebecca: that doesn't
"Mountain Man": mean we can do that. And so we have this eight and a half years where we've found a lot of joy with each other when we can, we can never be that nesting partner with poly people because the shapes of our lives are just two different,
Rebecca: but I'm glad that we were honest enough with each other this whole way to figure that out.
Right. Because we could have ended up trying to force it and have [00:45:00] another really unpleasant, angry, bitter experience at some point. And we didn't, we decided to be thoughtful and to maintain our connection at a place where we can actually still like each other all the time.
"Mountain Man": Yes. Yeah. You said instead of forcing, forcing too many moments, we just try to find that balance where we can connect sometimes, you know, it's always nice when it can be like a periodic, even if it's this low frequent.
But where we can find that spot where our shapes touch and we go enjoy them together.
Rebecca: Oh like that. And that spot where our shapes touch and go into it, them together. Maybe that should be the subtitle of this episode.
"Mountain Man": Speaking of touching our shapes over time, we'll, you've found some things that we can improve on and every [00:46:00] relationship can always improve on something. Even if it's just a friendship. In our case, we both have a little bit of, uh, of attachment distress in our
Rebecca: history. Oh, this might be a good time to explain what that means.
If we're going to talk about
"Mountain Man": that is a good point. So we're referencing attachment theory and in attachment theory, there's secure attachment. And then there's various types of insecure attachment. And I would say. That most people drift a little bit on it. And usually if you have insecure attachments because of adverse experiences like being upended, um, when people say abandoned, she's, they're often talking about insecure preoccupied attachment.
And like, when I met, when I mentioned earlier that my attachment system was kind of casting about subconsciously and, um, stifling, Rebecca, a little, that was [00:47:00] my, when I'm an insecure attachment, I am insecure preoccupied. And that it's, it's very intense. You're, you're stuck on the person. You can't stop thinking about them.
You're afraid that you're going to lose them. And so you kind of overdue a lot and then there's like fearful avoidant. And those are kind of the people that when you start getting close to them, they run away because suddenly it gets too serious and they're afraid and they scamper away because they can't deal with.
And there's two other types that I don't have great top of the head recollection of them. One's like disorganized and the others. Uh, oh, the other one is dismissive where like they dismiss the entire like, oh, I don't need attachments basically is what they're saying because they just, they got so used to having to be on their own.
That even the idea of not being on their own makes them afraid, but there's also [00:48:00] legitimate levels of attachment insecurity. Say you're a security attached person or what's called earned secure attachment. That's somebody who's has a history of insecure attachment. Who's done the work. Who's done the therapy or gotten the meds they need, or just over time healed on their own.
Who now conform secure attachments.
Rebecca: They don't have to start out and secure attached though. Secure attachment earned secure attachment can be. From any of the
"Mountain Man": levels. So yeah. Earn secure attachment is basically when you now can attach securely, but you weren't originally in secure attachment naturally because your life experiences, so you can be in secure attachment or earn secure attachment, but then like the other person something happens that makes you the shit, it mentally nervous that they might be pulling away from you.
It could be stress in their life that they're kind of cocooning a little bit and you just [00:49:00] need to have a conversation with them. Hey, what's going on? Sometimes it can be, they promise something and then they don't carry through with it. Sometimes it, I guess the easiest way to say anything that would make you think that they're not valuing view can put you into a state where you're legitimately insecure about the attachment without being like.
In quote, unquote, insecure attachment. You have a little bit of attachment anxiety for
Rebecca: legitimate reasons. So basically what you're saying is if your partner is cheating on you or is doing something that's causing them to pull away from the relationship that should cause some kind of distress, but it's a legitimate attachment distress.
It's not, you're just being an insecure person, you know, suck it up. Exactly.
"Mountain Man": And so over time we learned some of those things where we [00:50:00] were accidentally making each other feel, attachment insecurity, like me trying to attach too much in a way creates attachment insecurity because now she's feeling stifled and like, it makes her feel like, like it's insecure because I'm being too much and that might be masking something.
Rebecca: Yeah, well, for instance, this is a good one. So you take awesome road trips in the summer where you have your vacations and you've wanted to bring me along numerous times. And the first time where it started to be like, okay, this is too much, and this is not okay. Was we started talking about making plans, but I wasn't ready to put anything on the calendar because we hadn't talked very much about it.
And then you're like, okay. So I'm thinking we do this week in this month. And I was like, well, wait a minute. Let me think about this. This [00:51:00] is summer is the busiest time for my work. I love Seattle in the summertime. I don't actually want to be anywhere else, but Seattle in the summertime. And you want to take me into the desert where I've been all my life, nothing wrong with this.
Like, I think this could be really fun. I do like road trips, but it's not the right time. It doesn't fit. The only reason why it got to be a problem was because you didn't. I asked me to go. You just assumed that I was going to go and then a week in the summertime, I would be a fuck. Yes. For, but because I didn't have an opportunity to explain.
It was like, Hey, wait a minute. No. Okay. That's that is over attached. That is insecure attachment, right?
"Mountain Man": Yeah. Um, that might not have been, I don't think you had mentioned this before. And then in retrospect hearing you, I think I had thought you had said yes to the trip, but this is, that's a great demonstration of how little miscommunications can snowball into big
Rebecca: issues.
Yeah. Yeah, glad we figured that out [00:52:00]
"Mountain Man": five years later,
Rebecca: something like that. Yeah. I'm really glad that we brought that up and talked about it. Cause you know what? This reminds me of something this week, we figured out how to work with us in our relationship, but I'm a huge fan of Google calendar. And once I was able to show you how my Google calendar works and what it mattered, what mattered to be on there and stuff.
I remember you use, you used to flirt with me and I would call it this to other people by sending me calendar invites for things that we were going to do. It's the nerdiest thing, but it always made me so happy and I loved it. And I think that's why I didn't think I had said yes to a trip because there wasn't a calendar invite until something is on my calendar.
It's not real. So that is really funny.
"Mountain Man": Well, I've always joked that polyamory is a relationship with N people and end plus one Google calendars.
Rebecca: That's pretty funny. All [00:53:00] right. Well, I think we can look back on this conversation and in the last eight and a half years that we've known each other and see that friendship has definitely been a thread through that.
This entire thing romance has come and go and physicality play has come and go. And you know, who knows where it will end up and if it ever does, uh, hopefully we know each other for a very long time and we can continue to support each other and enrich each other's lives for ages.
"Mountain Man": It's definitely, yeah.
We've always valued each other, no matter what we're doing with. Well, we're not doing with each other at that time. Yeah.
Rebecca: And I think this is a good, very clear demonstration of the fact that we like people and people grow and change and we keep liking people because they're people we don't, we don't like them because of what we get out of them.
We like them because of what we can create with them. Yeah. [00:54:00] Creation. Hell yes. Well, it's such a pleasure to have you on the show mountain man. And thank you so much for these years
"Mountain Man": of Pleasure. It's been absolutely a pleasure to know you for the last eight and a half years
Rebecca: and here's to many more. Yes.
Were you surprised at how this conversation turned out? I was, I learned a lot, you know, one of the things that I like about my job the most is that I get to listen to people. I get to listen to people on the podcast. I get to listen to my client. And I love that because listening builds, understanding, understanding builds empathy and empathy can help us be kinder to ourselves and to each other.
I think the key to our success and this episode was that we were both in a good place when we had these conversations, we still care about each other. So we were willing to share ourselves as openly as we could and trust that the [00:55:00] other person had our best interests at heart as well. And we had the understanding and empathy that helped us both be better to ourselves and to each other.
If this conversation has sparked a desire within you to reconnect with someone about your past, maybe it's some healing or some clarity on your relationships, I'd recommend you think about a few things. First I find when I'm doing something emotionally challenged, And it's really helpful to have a good friend who knows you and loves you and can talk things through with you and help you stay sane while you navigate this conversation.
Because undoubtedly things are going to come up. And if you're both in a really good place before you have the conversation, that's going to make this so much easier, but one way or another stuff is going to come up and having someone that you can trust to talk this over with will be very helpful. The other thing I want to say is no one to walk [00:56:00] away, no one who wants you to be upset off balance or unwell is worth spending time with.
So if whoever you're having this conversation with is enjoying making you sad or enjoying making you feel bad about yourself, just leave. You don't have to continue and put up with any kind of abuse, no matter what it is. And I know that whatever you find out about yourself, it's no information. And you can't judge your former actions from your new place of knowledge.
So if you learn something and you realize shit, that was really my fault or damn, and I wish I'd been able to do this differently, or I wish I'd seen that. Well, I was happening. It's okay. That happens to us all. You'll be okay if you can apologize for it, if you can't forgive yourself and move on and know that [00:57:00] the point of having conversations like this is not to justify what you've done or to make anybody else feel better it's so that you can move forward in a way that is stronger and full of life.
You're not having to repeat the same patterns that you've done before, because now you know how to learn from them. Once we see the way those repeated patterns have affected our lives and choose something else. Everything changes for us. And that's good news. It's a little scary because now you have no idea what to expect.
You don't know what comes next. Everything is new, but it's also freedom. So enjoy it. And I hope you have many, many friends to support you.
Hey, a pleasure seeker. Well, that's it for today's conversation here at [00:58:00] Pleasure Central Radio, we love using conscious communication, science geekery and copious amounts of true pleasure to improve our partnerships, our money and our love lives. And we hope you do too. If you loved what you heard here, we love.
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Follow me on your favorite podcast player. Find out more and get in touch at Pleasure Central Radio dot com. Your thought to ponder today is that you have that self-awareness because self-awareness is a way sexier than ignorance. Definitely.
So you may have noticed that we talked a lot about attachment styles in here, [00:59:00] and I'm going to have to do another episode where I talk some more about these books that we mentioned. So we're going to be talking about poly secure, which is a book by Jessica Fern. So if you want to catch up on some of the.
References that we made about attachment theory. I wouldn't say, just go and get any book on attachment theory. Poly secure is one that I actually respect is one of the few that I respect on the topic. So if you want to know what we're talking about, when we put out that episode, then go and download poly secure and catch up and I'll see you in a couple more weeks.
Catharina: Thanks for listening to Pleasure Central Radio hosted by Rebecca Beltran. The guest today was mounted man-to-man technical production by me, Catarina with advice from our podcast consultant, Sandy waters, Rebecca gets significant greater feedback from her beta and the snowbird for this episode. Special.
Thanks goes to Derek, Bob, Josh, [01:00:00] Marshall, Tony, and Jody, and to anyone else we might have missed you are loved. We look forward to your company on the next episode. Ciao.