It isn’t always rational. Sometimes it just comes up in the moment and you go with it.
Either way, the bare minimum to do is talk it through after and see how it impacts everyone in the mix, and address that. The worst to do is not to say anything and hide it until it breaks someone.
I have a habit of openly talking about this kind of thing with my partners. I’ve been in poly relationships and I’ve learnt to talk about all this without emotion taking over, but I still understand the taboo and kind of weird gut reactions to these things people have. So I often like to explain that if things happen in the moment and just kind of pass, that’s okay: but it goes both ways, and I hope they’ll at least try to be understanding if it ever happens to me too and talk it through.
It’s exactly as awkward and kind of “fragile” to talk about the first time over, as you’d expect. But once out there in the open, I hope it gives us confidence and trust to talk freely. To this day I’ve always managed to control myself and break off the fling when it happens, but one day I might not and I think it’s okay. For them too. Life throws us shit and we aren’t really prepared for all of it. And sometimes it throws sweet stuff and it’d be a shame not to indulge if it really is that strong a moment. In mono relationships that is. In poly or free it’s just much easier about all this. But tougher on some other things, like sharing time and learning to accept and deal with not being the sole focus and not keeping a sole focus yourself.
I haven’t had any reason to believe any of my exes would’ve cheated, and I feel like we’d have all been comfortable enough to talk about it if it ever happened. Neither have I broken anyone’s trust once earned and kept.
But things happen and I’m not going to pretend to be immune somehow. World is chaotic and unpredictable and fucking beautiful.
Very similar process here. I’ve yet to block anyone as far as I remember, but I see red tags, I know to scroll past and ignore. Or if I see it in a thread I’m reading, I know not to engage if it’s bad faith or clearly just unpleasant, even if I have to read it to understand what follows. Wherever I see green or blue, I’ll stop and read even if it seems uninteresting, because those are the people that have proven insightful and empathetic or whatever else it was that made me tag. I usually write the description too in the tags.
Perhaps worth noting though, I’m not sure these tags are a built in lemmy or equivalent feature, or rather a client thing. I use voyager if someone’s interested.