What Happens When a Client Gets into a Relationship?

I had been flooded with other emotional moments between my work, meeting up with new and old friends, my relationships blowing up, and trying to finish my next course by the end of the month.  Despite all of this, I feel great and I'm confident that this coming year will be a better planned-out year for me to better serve and be supportive of the people around me, both professionally and personally.

I'm grateful to have all of those people in my life who supports me, but not everyone has them. Sure lots of people do have others in their lives but they may not have anyone who supports them.

But what happens when they suddenly do get support? More specifically, what happens when they get into a relationship when they didn't have one before?

Let's talk about this for a bit because a client recently asked me if he should keep seeing me even after he gets into a relationship. After all, he can get cuddles from her and have someone to talk about his life with, and right now, I'm his only support for any of that.

To him, I'd say: consider seeing me AND your new partner, at least for now.

Why? Well, for a few reasons (and for the cynics, no it's not because I want the money. I'd much rather keep working with people who need me than work with people who don't need me).

The first and foremost is that someone who might see a Professional Cuddler because it's different from any kind of their everyday-relationships. Often they don't have a close relationship where they can be vulnerable about their concerns and feelings.

For many, a close emotional relationship is often associated with a romantic partner (although I'd argue and say that close and emotional relationships are not exclusive to ONLY romantic relationships). Once you get that support from a relationship, it's really easy to transfer those emotions and bonding you had developed from someone else (i.e., a Professional Cuddler) to your next source of an emotional relationship (i.e., a romantic partner).

It's great that you can be vulnerable with your thoughts and emotions with a new romantic partner, but it may not necessarily mean the new romantic partner is ready to be vulnerable with you. It's really easy to put pressure on the relationship by unnecessarily "transferring" emotions and connection onto the new person that they feel a similar bond with them. How confusingly overwhelming can that be? Why is this person suddenly telling me their life story? I just met them three weeks ago!

So to keep this from happening (and potentially scaring away your new love interest), I encourage growing your emotional support network before graduating from working with your professional cuddler.

Did you just get into a relationship? YAY! Now you get to meet even more people. For me, my emotional support network grew when I got into a relationship because it turned out a lot of my partner's friends and I got along well independent of my partner, and they were not intertwined only with my partner. Friends can happen before OR after a partner, but either way, no person has to be solely your emotional support.

“But Sam!,” you may ask, “Isn't it a little weird to both a relationship and a Professional Cuddler? What if my partner gets jealous?”

Would they? Professional Cuddling is becoming more and more widely known in the media. (Heck, even FOX News just did an earnest talk on Professional Cuddling recently. Seeing as they're known as the most conservative news station around, I think it's safe to say that people are warming up to the idea.) A good portion of my clients right now have told someone that they see a Professional Cuddler, and their friends or acquaintances have been positive in their responses. Not only that, but I have relationships while doing this. There is no bad blood between this work and my partners. It's just another part of my day to them.

I imagine the conversation tends to be a bigger deal in someone's head than it is in real life. By simply saying, "I see a Professional Cuddler, and it's helped me a lot" and you can see how they respond. If they seem pretty positive to the idea that you do this, then great! If they have a lot of questions, please do know that you don't have to answer all of them (and honestly, I struggle with answering all the questions sometimes too! If you don't want to get into it, you can always just share my FAQ page with them).

In a way, you're taking a lot of pressure off of your new partner.

Think about it. Especially in those early stages of a relationship, by not suddenly putting all these needs and demands on your partner that you would otherwise have with your Professional Cuddler, you can allow your relationship to grow at its own pace without putting the pressure on them to meet the level of support your Professional Cuddler has previously given you and will continue giving you the emotional support you need.

Because ultimately, your partner may be able to fulfil those needs someday (and in more ways than a Professional Cuddler can too). But they need to first grow into that position for you, and with your Professional Cuddler who can guide you with navigating communication, vulnerability and bonding. We're more than happy to help you find good relationships outside of seeing us. Because that's the ultimate goal: to make sure that you don't feel like you're alone in this world.