That’s what’s on this week’s episode of Non-Monogamy Help.

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Podcast Transcript

My partner and I recently started reading The Anxious Person’s Guide to Non-Monogamy and talking about the workbook questions together. It has been very helpful. After discussing the first section, we felt so close and connected. However, we didn’t finish the second set of questions because he found out that I shared information I shouldn’t have with some friends. It was about the question of what information do we not want shared. I would like advice about how to make amends for information that I shared. Because he is anonymous here, I hope it is ok what I am about to say, but I might very well be fucking up again.

I accidentally outed my partner to a small group of my best friends one night a few months ago. I realized it was wrong shortly after and knew that he would be super upset by it. Did I own up to it? Foolishly, I did not. When we got to the question about what we don’t want shared, he asked if I outed him to those friends and I admitted it and apologized. He was understandably very angry and got off the call. It was video chat because we’re long distance. In my trying to apologize and make amends, I keep fucking it up worse.

My partner told me to educate myself on how damaging it is so I won’t do that again. I am trying to [do] that. I’ve been reading online about people’s experiences being outed and how damaging it is, how people apologized to them, read advice from people who were outed how to apologize, and none of that has worked. I apologized and voiced my regrets. I foolishly gave him a day of space before apologizing (I thought he was so angry and didn’t want to talk to me!) but that backfired. I asked if he wanted time or space but didn’t actually ask “what do you need?” We can see that I am the biggest dumbass at resolving conflict.

His last text said this: “You're asking too late. And like I said, it's not on me to fix the problem for you. It's very much on you. So figure it out. Or don't. That's up to you. But I don't feel like giving even more of myself to be taken advantage of just because you don't know how to repair what you damaged. I've already given suggestions and that's more than I even should be doing.”

I am the super dumb straight girlfriend who royally fucked up a loving and supportive relationship. Do you have advice on making amends?

Response

The first thing that I kind of want you to do here is to stop beating yourself up and there's multiple reasons for that. The first reason is because it doesn't help the situation from multiple perspectives. It doesn't help you mentally to be constantly beating yourself up. You're not going to make less mistakes as a person by being nasty and mean to yourself, calling yourself dumb frequently.

This is not going to help you. If anything, you need compassion towards yourself. You made a mistake. That happens. And the first thing that you can do for yourself is just to be a little bit kind to yourself. Now I don't know in what ways you're apologizing to your partner.

But if you're apologizing with this attitude, if you're going to your partner and you're saying, “Oh I'm so sorry I did this. I'm so dumb. I'm just the dumbest. I'm like—” as much as you may not feel like that is a plea to get them to, instead of focusing on their feelings and focusing on how they feel, then instead you're turning the dialogue around and making it— you're kind of making them feel like— you're not making them feel like… but basically it puts them in a position where they feel like they should be comforting you instead of them being comforted.

It's not the best way to start with an apology. And it's not the best way to focus on your partner's feelings. I don't know if you're doing that. To be fair, this may be just your kind of venting about how you feel about the situation. And it's okay to feel like that now and then. We're not perfect. We're gonna be like, “Oh, gosh, I'm so dumb. Why did I do that?” But I would really, really encourage you for any reason and for any situation, to definitely call yourself on that negative self talk.

That has been one of the things, including self compassion, including learning about how my nervous system works that has been one of the single biggest things that has been extremely helpful for me is really being able to as soon as I start that kind of thing, even casually — I'm very very strict and have become very, very strict with myself over time about beating myself up or saying anything negative towards myself.

Because at the end of the day, I know A) that doesn't mean that I'm going to be able to be a better person. B) It only just makes me feel like shit which isn't going to make me feel or make me be a better person. And C) it just doesn't work. It doesn't help me with other people. It doesn't help me like — in no way does that really help. Punishing myself doesn't help. It doesn't resolve the situation. And really when somebody's hurt me, I equally don't necessarily want them to suffer.

If you've done something wrong to somebody and you've hurt somebody, and they want you to suffer, there's more to that that's about them than it is about you. And I know that this is like— as I've talked about in the discussion question. I feel like there is a lot of — there are a lot of cultures and a lot of situations where basically it is like… we want people to suffer. You know, we don't feel power. We don't feel powerful. We don't feel like we have control.

We feel like we're being treated like shit. And quite a lot of times I mean, this is the whole reason, slightly off topic, but this is the whole reason why the Book of Revelations exists. If you want more information about that look up Dan McClellan. But I'm not going to go into that but the revenge fantasy, the sort of anger, the sort of wanting suffering, whilst it is an understandable emotion. I personally don't feel like it's very ethical.

It's not something that I think fixes the situation. It's something that I have felt in the past about people who have hurt me, especially people have hurt me really seriously. But as I've learned to be more compassionate with myself, I have learned to be more compassionate with other people and to see the humanity and other people and that has only made my life better.

So I truly don't believe that anyone who is emotionally healthy, or in a good place or doesn't hate themselves equally wants you to hate yourself. So that's my first suggestion is to stop beating yourself up. Really really work on you know— I'm not saying that you have to love yourself. I'm not saying you have to be like “I'm the best person”. No, I'm not saying that.

Work towards a personal neutrality and work towards like even when you catch yourself going “oh I’m so stupid” like change it to like “I'm a little bit silly” but it's okay. I work actively now on any time I get that urge immediately going like “Oh, yeah I messed up a little bit, but it's okay”. Being compassionate towards myself. It's not about — I know that some people might feel like this is very “bootstraps” and if you think about it, a really harsh attitude, that doesn't help.

Being harsh with yourself in that manner is not going to make you a better person. And I'd also encourage you to look up — what's really helped me with this kind of dialogue is gentle parenting, because when I've learned that actually, that sort of tough love approach really doesn't help children. It doesn't help me either and I'm not a child, obviously, but the way that I talk to myself you know, you sometimes — you can deconstruct it however you like — you're talking to your inner child.

And that's the reason why you're doing that if you kind of grew up with a tough love, sort of attitude, or this idea that you need to toughen up or be better. And this this whole approach, it just doesn't work. So please stop beating yourself up.

The other thing that I would say is that there's a little bit of a difficulty I have with what your partner is doing. I absolutely emotionally get where he's coming from and obviously like you fucked up because the second that you outed this person you didn't come to them and say, “Look, I really fucked up. I made this mistake”. You should have done that.

However, there's only so much you can do about what has happened in the past. And I think that understanding a little bit more about why you did that… like sometimes and I've seen the situation and been in the situation. Sometimes people are actually really bad at lying— I'm really bad at lying if I'm asked a direct question.

I can end up outing someone because I —you know, if they just asked me “Oh, is this person bi or this person that?” and I'm not prepared. I can just blurt it out, without meaning to and it sucks. And it's not something that you have done because you're straight. Although being raised in a straight society, and if you've never really had that kind of interaction with the queer community, then yeah, like you're going to be influenced by that.

But it's a thing that you can do even as a queer person. You can accidentally out people as well as a queer person. So I think, let's have a breakdown of like, why did this happen? Did someone ask you a question? Did you volunteer the information in the future? How can you go about you know, practicing situations where people might ask you directly and you can you can get used to saying “oh no” or however you want to, you know, be in that situation so that you don't get caught off guard?

So I need to know a little bit more about the context of why this happened. And you can explore the context of why this happened to understand why it happened, and how you can do better going forward. However, I kind of take a little bit of issue with the way that your partner is dealing with this because — I don't know what suggestions your partner has made to be fair.

I don't know to the extent of which that he has attempted to support you through this. And whilst, yes, I do feel like I agree that it's not necessarily his responsibility to help you fix it. At the same time, queer people aren't a monolith. Not every single queer person feels exactly the same about how to fix situations like this. So this idea that you're just supposed to figure it out— And you've done that. You've tried to read experiences and read what other people need.

And you're kind of beating yourself up for giving him space when that could be exactly what some people needed. How the hell they— like, not every single person is, you know, we're not the Borg Queen. Queer people are not the Borg. It's not like there's one single way of fixing a situation like this. Everybody's different. And yeah, you recognize that you didn't ask specifically what you need. But you're only a fucking human being and like, you can't change the things that you've done in the past.

You can't completely erase those things. And I just feel like, you know, it's hard for me to say because, you know, I don't know necessarily know what suggestions he's given you. I don't know to what extent he's supported you already. But I feel like this idea that like, “Oh, you're supposed to figure it out or don't”… I just feel like look — at this point, if he feels like he can't trust you, he thinks that you're going to take advantage of him…

Like I feel like yeah, you fucked up and you made a mistake. But at the same time, if he genuinely doesn't feel like he can trust you any more than why is he still with you? There's — sometimes I just feel like you know, once once a level of trust has been broken, then why are you still there? I don't understand what that — this feels like it's going beyond a situation of like, “Look, you've fucked up. We need to rebuild this trust”. And it's going into a punishment realm. Like you're being punished and I don't know as that is going to help the situation.

Because clearly, like, for better or for worse, you don't know what to do. You don't know how to fix this situation. And truly, he is the best person to advise on how to make amends to him personally. It's not about it being on him to fix the problem. You're a team. You're in a relationship. You're supposed to be working together on things and yes, you messed up and you shouldn't have done that. But now you have to repair the trust that's been broken between the two of you, as a team.

You can't do this all by yourself and you can't figure it out all by yourself, and you're doing your best to try. The only thing that I could advise is that like maybe you can look up different ways that people make amends. It's hard for me to say because even like not all queer people are the same. I don't think I would care that much if they were just your best friends and I had to like already met them. But I'm not in a situation where I have to worry. I'm in a more or less privileged situation. So I don't have to worry about being outed. And I'm not not out. I don't really care about that sort of thing.

So it's hard for me to say, well, you know — there's so much about the situation that I don't know. Why does he care? Is there any specific thing that he's worried about that has happened or will happen or in the past has happened to him because of something like this? Are you in like a super conservative place where he could be physically in danger, or is he going to lose access to his family that offers him financial support? There's so many variables here, that make an impact on whether or not somebody is out or not.

And why somebody wouldn't want other people to know that it's really, really hard to say. And obviously if he told you at some point— and I don't know if he told you at some point. Did he say, “I don't want you to tell anybody this. This is just between us two”. And you knew that then this is less about the overall impact of being out. Because that is one thing, but it's also about the kind of personal trust in between the two of you. If you promised not to say anything, if you knew fully well, that he this was just something that he only wanted to tell you and he told somebody else, then that's you know…

But I just feel like in a situation like this, if I had a partner who wasn't out, they asked me not to tell anybody. I rely on my best friends and I rely on people to help sanity check stuff for me and that's actually very, very important. And I think that I might in some situations like that, if I needed advice, if there was something that I was really concerned about, and it was relevant to the discussion, I might tell them, because you need that friendship support.

And obviously, like I would tell them, “Please don't tell anybody”. We have that trust in between us as friends, but it— I might do that in some situations like that. I don't know what the context is of when you told them and why. So, there's so much about this context, that it's really really difficult for me to tell you what he needs and really I understand. I just want to make it clear.

I totally understand his emotional feelings about this and I'm not saying that he's wrong to have those feelings, or he's wrong to sort of feel like like “God, I don't want to tell you”. Because if you do have to explain to somebody exactly how to apologize, then sometimes it does feel like “okay, this isn't a genuine apology because I'm literally having to pull it out of you”. But it doesn't really feel like that's that situation. It does feel like you genuinely want to know what you want and you're just working this stuff out.

As the first time it seems like you've made this mistake. You're not perfect. You're just a human being. And so I do feel like there's a certain aspect of this is like, “Okay, do you want to work as a team together? Are we a team together anymore? Do you trust me anymore? Or is this done?” And it's just saying that it's up to you. It's not up to you. You guys are a team. And this is a relationship. This is you know— it's not just you.

And I feel like if he can't trust that you're going to — if he thinks you're going to take advantage of him, then I just feel like that's a sign that maybe he doesn't trust you anymore. And I would go like, “Look, if there's no basic level of trust, then how can there be any repair?” I would look up Mathias Barker. And I'll send you the link as well about— he has a lot of really great clips about apologies and how to apologize and how to have some of these discussions.

Because again, if you have approached this entire situation from an apology standpoint where you're like, “I'm so sorry I'm such a terrible girlfriend I'm so horrible. I'm so terrible”. And you know, that is one thing, then I can understand why he's frustrated. Then I can understand — because that's not really an apology and it's not really the best way to go about it. I don't know how you've apologized.

It sounds like you're trying your best to make amends and fix the situation and you're fucking up but you're also a human being. And I just think that he should have a little bit of compassion for the situation. But again, like there's a lot about this situation I don't know.

But yeah, to sum up, I think number one, stop beating yourself up. Absolutely. What you did was wrong. You should have admitted it when you did it. You didn't. That's not the greatest thing as well because that really breaks the foundation of trust. It's one thing to mess up. Then immediately fess up that you messed up. But then it's another to kind of like not say something until way way later. Like that makes it even worse.

Obviously you fucked up you got to rebuild the trust. But queer people are not the Borg. I can't tell you and no queer person can tell you the right way to fix the situation with this one person. And it's actually way more insulting. I feel like personally for you to believe that all queer people are the same and that you can fix a situation like this just by reading what other queer people think like — and I'm sure if he you know, once he calms down a little bit, maybe he could understand why that's not the best approach to this either.

And then I think like maybe you need to approach this in terms of like— it depends if you've had that kind of over apologetic “I'm terrible and blah, blah, blah”, then maybe you apologize in a different way. Looking at kind of the resources that I've talked about with Mathias Barker but I do also think there's an there's a discussion to be had around this thing of like, “Okay, is the trust between this gone? Do you want to rebuild it? Do you actually want to rebuild it? Or are you so angry with me that you can't even trust that I won't take advantage of you?”

And I do genuinely feel like if you have a person who just doesn't trust you anymore, then there's a bigger picture there and doesn't want to rebuild trust with you, doesn't want to hear any more from you. Than that's kind of a little bit your answer. But again, I really wouldn't beat yourself up like you've it doesn't seem like you did this with any mal intent. It doesn't. It seems like you just made a stupid mistake. And you tried to repair but you maybe were really clumsy at it.

This is how we learn things. Very few of us are given the tools to really handle situations like this let alone issues with like queerness and all those other social issues. But we're very rarely given the tools to our pair conflict effectively. And I know that I sure as hell — sure as hell was wretched, wretched at dealing with conflict. I was good at dealing with like highly intense, really, you know life or — not life or death but like you know, break up our makeup type of conflict.

I can have a fight, but I could not deal with healthy conflict in any way shape or form. So we are not given these tools. So please don't — this is understandable from many, many aspects. And queer people aren't necessarily given those tools either. So let's all be a little bit more compassionate with ourselves and yeah, depending on how you've approached this, depending on how you think you can go forward with how you've approached this. I genuinely hope that helps and good luck.