“Necessity is the mother of invention,” they say.
In Poly, I think a similar phrase would be “Logistics are the mother of boundary stretching.”
My husband recently started dating a new lady, and he seems pretty excited about where things are headed. The issue that they have is that she works evening hours (she’s in the service industry and pretty much works 7 days a week), and also has 2 kids at home. This doesn’t leave them a lot of options in terms of spending alone-time together, and not just for sexy times.
I have a hard boundary of no sex with others in the house if the other spouse is home. I’m pretty much an anti-voyeur, and the logistics of our home, and also my husband’s sex-style, would make it impossible to avoid hearing or seeing things I have no desire to see or hear. My husband doesn’t really care about me having sex with others if he’s in the house, but we’re applying the boundary fairly here.
I’ve had a lot of what I call “that probably is gonna make me uncomfortable but I’m willing to work on it” boundaries as well. A lot of them have fallen by the wayside as logistics have proven them unfeasible. There were always icky and uncomfortable feelings at first, but they faded after some hugs and mild reassurances that my world was not burning. These boundaries are generally things that aren’t a big deal, in the grand scheme, but have either surprised me or that I’ve had to untangle in my mind from “exclusivity” thoughts. So, a girlfriend leaving changes of clothing and personal care items in the downstairs bedroom and bathroom was a startling discovery, which I finally became okay with as it just made logistical sense.
Last night was another boundary stretching experience that I’m having icky, uncomfortable feelings about, but that will probably become a bit more commonplace. It becoming commonplace is the part that worries me, but I’ll get to the specifics in a moment.
I want to be a good wife and I want to continue to improve and stretch my boundaries that aren’t hard boundaries, and I want to make my husband’s dating life as hassle-free as possible. We’re not all so lucky to have someone else’s place to go for alone time, of the sexy or non-sexy variety. And asking our partners to shell out for hotel rooms (which apparently his new lady can’t even get into because she’s a germophobe) is also financially ridiculous.
So, on to the specifics.
Last night, my husband was meeting up with his new lady for dinner. So, before he was planning to go out, he came to me with a potential situation. “If things are going really well, and we want to continue hanging out for a while, is it okay if we come back to the house? And is it also okay if she crashes here and I sleep downstairs in the bed with her? No sex, of course.”
I figured this would come up eventually. I did my best to push down my icky feelings. This would be the first time (besides an unfortunate incident back in February involving our respective others being stuck at our house) that my husband and I would be in the same house, but my husband would be sleeping beside someone else. This time would be different from the events back in February, because I would be sleeping alone.
I said it would be okay, and while I had my reservations, I knew that due to the logistics of this new relationship, in the interest of not placing arbitrary boundaries or restrictions, some things were going to have to give. I have no specific objections to this arrangement, really. I think I’ve identified where my fears are based, and I’ll go into that shortly.
So, I passed out around 10:30pm. I feel bad about that, because I was texting with my boyfriend and just kinda… BAM, passed out. I think the icky feelings just got me exhausted, and so sleep was the best option.
I shot bolt-awake at 4:30am and looked over to see my husband’s side of the bed empty. My heart dropped a bit, and I checked my phone. There was a sweet “I love you” text from my boyfriend at around 11pm. There were also two texts from my husband, one from 11:45 and one from a little after midnight. The first was an “I don’t know what the plan is yet,” and the second was “We’re headed home together.” So this confirmed that my husband was sleeping in the room downstairs with his new lady.
Okay, deep breaths. Icky feelings coming back. Not sure what they’re based on, but there they are. I sat on the bed for a bit before putting on my robe and going to have a cigarette. My mind was racing. I realized I was going to have to go downstairs and pass by the bedroom because I’d put my laundry in the dryer before heading up to bed. “Dear God, I hope that bedroom door is closed.”
Luckily, it was. I got my laundry. Nobody woke up.
I was running through my thoughts the entire morning, as I mechanically brushed my teeth and took a shower and sorted my laundry and got dressed. I think I finally pin-pointed the source of my icky feelings while driving into work at 6:00am. After writing all of this down, I think I’ll actually be able to concentrate on work today.
Because my husband and I are non-sexual, I cling to things that I consider intimate. Some of the things that used to help solidify our relationship (for me) as more than friends or roommates have one by one been slowly falling away over the past 10 months, because they don’t really make sense in a poly relationship. I consider sleeping in the same bed regularly an intimate act, at least in terms of cementing that we’re not just roommates or friends. So while I have no issue with us having overnights with others, it’s hard for me to “give that up” when I know he’s at home, but he’s choosing to engage in that particular intimate act with someone else. And I know that he doesn’t view it in the same light as I do. I mean, I think he *kind of* gets it, though, because he does realize that it would be weird to bring a new lady home and then make her crash alone. It’s kind of weird for me to have my husband at home and not have him sleeping next to me. Similar concept, really.
My main fear is that this becomes a frequent arrangement. That because of the logistics of their relationship, I will be sleeping by myself at home more often, knowing that my husband is downstairs with his new lady. I fear that this act of intimacy will be one more thing that just falls away, and it’s becoming more of a struggle to identify other things that raise our relationship beyond friends and roommates.
I love my husband so much, and I make that choice every day. But it’s hard for me to feel close to him when even basic intimacies continue to erode. I don’t think there’s really anything to be done in this particular situation. I’m not freaking out, and I’m not going to snap this back to a hard boundary. The boundary has been stretched, and I have survived in tact. I’m just going to need an extra hug or kiss when I get home from work today, and I’ll ask him to tell me that he loves me, because I need to reconnect and recognize that there is still at least that type of intimacy between us.
I’m growing, and growth can hurt. I just really don’t like these moments where I feel like my growth in Poly is actually moving my husband and I further away from each other.
Gigglepig Slappyhams 