Hello, Polyamory community!

First time ever posting, and I wanted to pick this community’s brain about the nuances of dating married couples.

I have a friend who recently ended a short-term relationship with a couple and she’s pretty shaken up about it. Beforehand, when she was in talking stage, I sent her resources like: Ethical Slut, Multiamory podcast, Unicorns-r-us, More than Two, and any other books/talks/articles I could find to help her.

She still got hurt though because she developed stronger feelings for the wife and the husband dropped a veto.

I know this sub-Reddit has a history of disdain for dating couples but I’m just curious if anyone has any advice about dealing with couples:

-Like how to handle if someone in the relationship develops stronger feelings?

-How do you have a conversation about dating separately? (My friend wanted to do this but wasn’t prepared to hear their answer so she refrained from asking)

-How do you navigate couples privilege with a couple that doesn’t think they have any hierarchy or privilege?

-How do you communicate? (At first friend talked more with the husband, but finally started to talk with wife, and then apparently friend and husband started communicating less causing an imbalance)

-How do you talk about unicorn hunting? (The folks my friend was talking to were unintentional hunters but hunters nonetheless)

-How do you advocate for your needs?

-How do you assess compatibility?

I know the answer to all of these is probably to NOT date couples and date separately but I’m trying to gather this information for my dear friend as she hasn’t taken couples off the table entirely. She just wants to know how to handle this situation going forward.

Tl;dr My friend got dumped by married couple and wants advice on how to handle dating couples in the future