Examining ones own motives and preconceived notions is one of the cornerstones of healthy and effective polyamory.
It’s also one of the most difficult things for a person with Major Depression to navigate without falling into an analytical black hole where everything going wrong is our fault, and if we just delve deeper inside, we’ll find what’s wrong with us and be able to fix it and everything will be great again. Continue reading
I’m not sure if I fall within the typical parameters of a hedonist, but my desire to love and feel good with people is along those lines. There are layers of weird internal ethics, and almost paralyzing fears of harming others through selfishness that prevent me from turning it into a free for all, but the sentiment is there: I like good feelings, and I like giving those good feelings to others.
Unfortunately, it’s often difficult to feel comfortable in expressing the full height of my emotions toward someone, for fear that it will be misinterpreted as some sort of obligation on their part to commit to me FOREVER.
Why the hell is everyone so afraid to just… really like people? It’s simple. You find a person. They make you smile. You make them smile. You get all warm on the inside, and your face feels about to burst every time you see them (especially when they wink at you!). And that feeling may last a day or two, or it might last for even longer. But how the heck are you supposed to know which it is if you don’t even talk about it or admit it?!
Everyone is shoving themselves in these boxes of non-expression. Attachment and excitement are to be avoided. We’re all supposed to be “chill” and keep our options open, and don’t let anyone know that they make our tummies flutter and our faces tingle.
I’m not made for a world where people don’t say what they feel.
I’m openly fascinated by people who are passionate or who make their way in the world in a way I never thought possible. I think I’m dreadfully boring, so I like to live vicariously through others and support them in the things that make them happy.
I love a man whose understanding of the world is so logical and sound and grounding for me when I start flying off into crazy bleeding heart feelings land, and who still maintains a childlike wonder and collects hobbies constantly, and who navigates the business world as if it’s second nature.
I love my metamour, who is a tiny firebrand, and so supportive, and a genuine hippie, and who laughs and cries with me, and who rolls her eyes with me as we poke fun at our partner’s idiosyncrasies.
I love my stranded-in-Montana, brilliant, burly, bearded long distance lover whose life has been a whirlwind of experiences and exploration. I can listen to him recount tales for hours about working in metal shops, pulling pranks on friends, dressing up as Pam Poovey for Halloween, and the latest skill or recipe he’s learned from YouTube.
I have a crush on a guy who’s in a band, is refreshingly straight-forward, does fantastic photography, is politically motivated, is old school punk and who is also engaged to the sweetest, most purely loving woman I’ve ever met.
I adore that purely loving little goth woman, whose heart is as big as her black wardrobe, and who just wants to love and be loved, and who is both so young and so old at the same time and who has quickly become one of my greatest friends.
I adore a man in Chicago with the worst case of impostor syndrome I’ve ever encountered, but who continues on, day after day, pulling off technical and artistic feats for comedy, theater and other stage productions, even as his mind tells him he’s a failure.
I have a massive crush on a guy who works in a metal shop as a day job, and does burlesque, sideshows, sound work, has a bookshelf that gives me a lady boner, and is learning how to be comfortable expressing anything beyond platonic interest due to years of suppressing it for fear of making his fellow burlesque performers uncomfortable.
I have a massive crush on a guy who is an artisan, and makes a living at various renaissance festivals, whose laugh vibrates my bones, and whose wink shoots electricity up my spine and who reminds me of some sort of merry old Norse god who just wants to tickle maidens and eat and drink to contentedness.
I’m *better* for having met all of these people. And in a world that seems increasingly divided and cold, I refuse to succumb to the fear of connection.
What exactly is everyone so afraid of?
Communication breakdown
It’s always the same
I’m having a nervous breakdown
Drive me insane!
-“Communication Breakdown” by Led Zeppelin
We’ve all seen article after article after article about relationships and poly and COMMUNICATION, COMMUNICATION, COMMUNICATION! Yet communication seems to be the single biggest barrier to entry into happy, healthy, and fulfilling ethical nonmonogamy.
I can’t really blame people for being terrible at communication. When in a monogamous relationship, there are a number of things that people don’t talk about in order to “keep the peace.” Media of various sort encourage us to tell white lies and spare the apparently very tender feelings and egos of our partners and treat them like children who won’t be able to handle very simple truths like “I think that guy is cute” or “I don’t really like your family, but I’ll hang out with them anyway because I love you.”
And when someone is just starting out in polyamory, it’s hard to break away from those habits. But you HAVE to, or you’re going to keep running into miscommunications, poor expectation management, and people just not being a big fan of dating you.
For example: You should be extremely upfront with everyone you date that you are nonmonogamous. No exceptions. Informed consent is extremely important, and while you may have friends who would be interested in giving it a go because they already know you, not disclosing that before a date with someone who has no history with you is just not going to go well. Some people might disagree with me here, but I tend to find that those who disagree enjoy a level of conflict and drama in their lives that repels me.
The biggest thing for me on communication is that you shouldn’t shy away from awkward, uncomfortable or, as I like to call them, “courageous” conversations. These are the conversations that make your heart beat a little faster when you think about having to bring it up. These are the conversations that make your palms sweat. These are the conversations that you would avoid in order to keep the peace. The earlier you have these conversations, the better, though. These are the conversations that, if they go unspoken, lead to people feeling used, or lied to, or misled. These are the conversations that keep people honest, and vulnerable, and able to connect with each other. By avoiding the uncomfortable, raw conversations, you avoid real connections with other human beings.
And always, always, always take people at face value. If someone tells you who they are, believe them! Don’t try to decipher what you think they meant. Operate as if everything they’ve said to you in earnest is exactly what they meant. It is not up to you to determine hidden meanings. If they become frustrated with you for not understanding or reading their mind, it is they who are having the issue, not you!
On my first dates, I make it very clear that I’m an over-sharer and that I’m extremely awkward because of it. I have those awkward conversations early. I inexpertly let someone know if I’m keen on them pretty much immediately. I’m also extremely honest about my insecurities when they arise. If I need reassurance that someone’s silence is not an attempt to ghost on me, I will ask for it. Some people have decided that this means I’m moving too fast, or that I’m putting them into a box, or that I’m clingy, or whatever other nonsense that commitment-phobes freak out about. I just LIKE people, and I tell them that I like them, even though it’s scary to do that if you don’t know how the other person feels! And if I’m worried about a change in the other person’s behavior toward me, I will absolutely ask about it, instead of just sit and agonize about it.
(Okay, so I’ll sit and agonize about it for a bit, and probably internalize it a little bit… but I mean, HELLO! Anxiety and depression over here!)
But seriously dudes – I’m already married, and happily so. I’m not looking for a new husband, nor are you capable of making an “honest woman” of me – and my feelings for you aren’t going to keep me from dating or connecting with others. So just fucking chill.
The only expectations I have in my interactions with anyone are honest communication and keeping of agreements. 95% of my dating and relationship issues have stemmed from someone breaking agreements without prior communication. And when I say agreements, I’m almost exclusively referring to times when we have agreed to see one another.
I do *not* subscribe to the “better to beg forgiveness than ask permission” school of thought. Mostly because I’m not your mother, so I have no authority to give anyone permission to do anything. And forgiveness is reserved for those who are actually remorseful. Those who subscribe to this school of thought are generally dramatic people who suck at communication and breed insecurity in their partners and who have no remorse after the fact. If they cared in the first place, they would have communicated to prevent the hurt, or at least prepared the partner for the potential to be hurt. No thanks!
This post isn’t as clean, or coherent, or thematic as my prior posts, but my brain isn’t as clean or coherent as it once was.
I hope something here resonated with you, though. And I hope to continue writing my nonsense thoughts for others to read more regularly again.
It’s nice to be back!
“Come with me
and you’ll be
in a world of pure imagination…”
–Willy Wonka
_ _ _
I’ve always thought that my imagination was a bit overactive. As an example – I can’t actually watch The Walking Dead because I get realistic nightmares about being in a zombie apocalypse. And my reaction to that, anytime someone asks what I would do in a zombie apocalypse, is to say that I will immediately shoot myself in the head. Not even kidding.
My brain has always had a way of incorporating fears and anxieties into fantastical scenarios. And it’s also really good at turning my optimism into unrealistic expectations and fanciful scenarios, too.
What an ass.
But in some ways, my imagination is boring, cliche, and absolutely stupid. The most notable would be when it comes to dating and attraction.
Let me explain…
I’m a big fan of the idea of “dating your own species”. This can mean any number of things, whether it’s about poly vs. monogamy, or life priorities, etc.
If you’re an avid outdoorsy type – chances are, you would not be happy dating a couch potato who would rather marathon Gilmore Girls and eat take-out food on a Friday night.
If you’re a gym type, the same is likely true.
So when approaching dating, I have sort of self-selected my range of guys who I find attractive, who would likely also find me attractive. And with that second part, I am absolutely making the choice for them.
Which, if you aren’t aware, is kind of stupid and isn’t giving anyone the ability to decide for themselves.
But the thing is – I haven’t learned how to turn that part off. It’s obviously rooted in insecurity about myself.
I’ve always been this way, for as long as I can remember.
Someone conventionally attractive is showing me attention that I might be able to construe as flirting and/or interest? Well, obviously this is a Josie Grossy scenario from the movie Never Been Kissed, and I’m going to end up being egged by this hot guy and his equally hot date as they slow roll my house.
Girls like me aren’t supposed to date conventionally attractive guys. It doesn’t matter how nerdy or dorky they are. I’m a large woman (tall, previously muscular, and yes a little fat), and thus I should only be dating fat guys. Anyone who is of a healthy BMI is off limits, says my brain, don’t even THINK about it! You can get away with a guy who has a nice face, but that’s IT!
So, I just sit there, and look at a ridiculously attractive guy, who is saying that he finds me attractive, and my brain is all “DANGER, WILL ROBINSON! DANGER! DANGER!” and I just make this face the whole time:
And I look at myself from the outside, and imagine how RIDICULOUS it must look for someone like me to be actively flirting or trying to maintain the interest of this actual attractive guy.
Girl, you ain’t sexy, wtf are you doing?
Oh god, you didn’t just say that?!
Come on, you look like an idiot…
Oh, now you’re biting your lip? Great move! Now they’re going to assume you’re hungry or something…
And I proceed with caution (if at all). And eventually my seeming lack of interest (due to crippling anxiety about my obvious inadequacy) crushes any hopes of a connection. Because my actions are basically calling this person a LIAR! And who wants to be thought of as a liar? Or have their motives questioned?
And my brain does this every. single. time.
Boring. Cliche. Stupid.
My brain definitely needs new source material, because it’s obviously not creative enough to come up with its own script.
Fuck you, Drew Barrymore.
It’s been almost a week since I last heard from my ex (5 days and roughly 4 hours). The last words he said to me were “I’m done.” I texted him a few times that night until I gave up in the hopes that he would cool off and get back to me in his own time.
His big thing has always been cutting the bullshit out of his life without a second thought or any remorse. And I suppose that means I qualify as bullshit.
It’s getting easier each day – though several things have caught me off guard and sent me on a little bit of a back slide.
When I noticed he had unfriended me on Facebook yesterday (or very late the night before), that sent me off on a crying jag. It fit well with the mood I was already in at the time, since I was heading out to a visitation at the funeral home for my aunt’s mom, who was pretty much like another grandmother when I was growing up. The funeral home was right down the street from where my ex lives.
At least no one questioned my tears.
In my life, the only exes I’ve completely cut contact with were the ones who treated me so heinously that I couldn’t stand them as *people* anymore. And so while I have issues for sure, I just can’t imagine that I was so much of a monster to my ex that he had to completely remove me from his life without even a moment of considering being friends. But I must have been.
It still feels weird calling him an ex. It doesn’t sound right. The word just seems to catch in my throat.
I would love to be his friend, still. He’s funny, insightful, intelligent, witty, weird, sarcastic, snarky, irreverent, nerdy, and incredibly interesting. He is entirely who he is, and even though we can’t seem to work in a romantic relationship, I’m definitely mourning the loss of that presence in my life. There have been so many things that I’ve stumbled across out in internet world, or thought up in my head, that I’ve wanted to share with him, because I know he’d laugh. And I always love making him laugh. It’s a real laugh, and so few people truly let themselves laugh that fully anymore.
I’ve gone back and forth between being furious with him and deeply troubled by what sort of monster I must be to cause someone to completely disregard me as a human being.
I’ve wanted to reach out to him so many times, but every time I try to think of what I would say… it all comes across as begging, or adversarial, or pathetic…
And I know that it’s absolutely useless. He’s unfriended me on Facebook. He more than likely deleted my phone number after he told me he was done.
I can pretend that reaching out would mean something, but I know he doesn’t fuck around. Even if I managed to craft some sort of non-begging, non-adversarial, non-pathetic message… it wouldn’t make a difference.
I’ve been trying to stay distracted. I’ve been trying to listen to my podcasts in my car instead of running through scenarios where he and I end up friends again. I succeed in remembering driving to and from work on occasion. Most of my trips are over before I realize I’ve been driving. Which scares me.
I’ve been through break ups before.
I know it’s not the end of the world.
I just wish I had better options on healing, because this knot in my stomach is exhausting.
Enthusiastic consent is the name of the game when it comes to sex, but it should also be the name of the game when it comes to serious relationships.
For the record: my boyfriend broke up with me yesterday.
I wrote a pretty angry blog post (which I’ve since set to private) that was kind of petty and self aggrandizing. I needed to get it out, but I didn’t need to put it on display.
But in reading back through it, I realized the one thread that ran through everything in regards to our individual conduct in the relationship: For the past month of our relationship, I felt like I wasn’t getting any Fuck Yes!es from him anymore.
And so my brain started interpreting everything as Fuck No!
And as I tried desperately to articulate this feeling to him, he just refused to say or do the things he used to in order to indicate that he was still saying Fuck Yes! to our relationship.
We almost broke up a few weeks ago after I’d brought up that I was hurt that he didn’t seem to make as much time for me when he was in town anymore. He disagreed.
And yesterday, I brought up the subject again, because I was hurt that he was once again in town for multiple days and had made a last-minute half-assed effort (So, not a Fuck Yes!) to see me for a few hours Saturday night. And hadn’t made any effort since. And would he make some time for me on his next trip without me having to guilt him into it next time…
And he said I was guilting him into it now, and that he couldn’t be who I wanted him to be and that he was done.
… and I wasn’t surprised.
Because he had basically been broadcasting “Fuck No!” to me for the past month.
And the delicious irony of the whole thing?
The title of this post is one of the most memorable phrases that he said to me when we first started dating. It made me think “Wow, this guy GETS it!”
I just wish he’d been able to be honest with me about when he went from saying Fuck Yes! to Fuck No!
It would’ve saved us a lot of time. And it would’ve saved me a lot of tears.
In closing, I must say… while I’m still reeling, and crying a bit, and keep having mild panic attacks (which my husband has been supporting me through, and who has been really awesome throughout this and said Fuck Yes! to pizza and funny “True Facts about Animals” videos tonight)… my brain is also relieved that I’m no longer in a relationship with a person who keeps telling me “Fuck No!” over and over and over again by *never* saying “Fuck Yes!”
Never settle for less than a “Fuck Yes!”
Early on in my poly dating, I didn’t realize it, but I naturally drifted toward a non-hierarchical model of polyamory. It wasn’t planned that way, it just made sense to me on how you treat human beings.
Others that I have met on my journey are not so great at that.
I’m sure many of the folks who read this blog are familiar with the Secondary Bill of Rights, and when I read through them the first time, I was like “well, duh… these are just common sense.”
Going back and reading through them again the other day, I realized one of the main reasons a relationship I had pretty early on didn’t work out – and it was because the guy I was dating was treating me as a secondary human being. I would *always* come second to his relationship with his primary partner. Plans were constantly being canceled because his partner’s plans had fallen through and he didn’t want them to be alone.
Looking back on my own relationships, I try not to smile in smug satisfaction that I’ve avoided most of the couple privilege pitfalls, for the most part. And not just with my own partners, but with my husband’s partners as well.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not perfect. But I’ve avoided using my position as “wife” to arbitrarily control how much time and what type of interactions my husband has with his other partners. Sure – early on I was much more cautious about what type of things I was comfortable with, but I was testing soft boundaries all the time, and allowed myself to experience scary shit because I knew it was important.
Do my opinions and suggestions and thoughts carry a lot more weight with my husband than his new partner’s opinions do? You bet your ass they do. But the same can be said of his best friend of 15 years. It’s about how well we know one another, and everything we’ve been through and experienced. The fact that I’ve known my husband longer than his new partners just means that I’m a more trusted adviser – not that I have some arbitrary position of power to dictate his personal life. And yeah, we share financial obligations and chores and mundane shit, so anything that impacts our shared resources will involve my input.
My husband HAS canceled plans with others when I’m having a particularly heinous day – but it was never at my urging, and has happened maybe once or twice. And in those situations, it was always a decision weighed BY HIM on what actually took priority in that moment – not based on the arbitrary fact that I’m “primary” and thus my needs, no matter how small, take precedent over others. Even if in some small selfish way I wanted to make him drop everything, I resisted, because couple privilege is intoxicating, and letting it seep in has a damaging impact on your partner’s ability to grow new relationships.
When entering into a relationship with someone, there are always considerations to be made.
If I were to date a single father, I would understand that the needs of his children outweigh my own. In those instances, I would tread carefully in dating them.
If I were to date someone with a demanding work schedule (like this emergency medicine resident I’ll be seeing soon), then I would understand that the demands of his job would take priority in a lot of cases, and I will tread carefully in dating him.
If I were to date someone who was the primary caregiver for their partner, or a parent, I would understand that the needs of those people who depend on him would supersede my own in many cases.
But if I’m dating someone who is in a long-term relationship, with no children, and nothing beyond the normal obligations of work and maintaining a healthy relationship with their other partner(s), it would not be my assumption that every need, whim and desire of their “primary” would automatically invalidate my own very basic needs. And if that were to be the case, then I would expect it be the responsibility of that individual to disclose that information so that I can make the best decision for myself, which is namely: run the fuck away.
I am not a pretty, shiny thing to be picked up and played with when it is convenient for you, only to be put away and forgotten about until you wander by again and remember I exist.
I should not be made to feel guilty for wanting to spend time with you.
I should not have to beg for your time.
I should not have to constantly reschedule dates because your partner’s plans fell through.
I should not feel as if my time is deemed less valuable than yours.
In turn, I will do everything in my power to make sure you *never* feel like a secondary human being, either.
Apologies for the lapse in posting – I’ve been sick and hopped up on cold medicine, and coherency has not been my forte as of late.
Should have a few posts in the chamber this week, though! Enjoy!
_ _ _
I would consider myself poly-flexible. I didn’t come to it naturally, but it always made intellectual sense to me.
I was thinking about it the other day, and it dawned on me that my approach to poly in my life almost exactly mirrors my approach to creating characters in video games.
Let’s use World of Warcraft as the model here.
When I first started playing WoW, I had no idea what I was doing! I created a Mage and just screwed around and learned the game. I didn’t bother trying anything else, and I wasn’t even interested! I had limited video gaming time, and I was going to invest that time developing this one character to be the best it could be!
Years went by before a situation arose where playing a Mage was not in the best interest of what was trying to be accomplished (such as needing an additional healer for a raiding guild, etc.). So I still maintained my Mage, and she was still my main, and she was AWESOME and burning up the DPS charts, and she was just an extension of myself – but I began developing my Priest!
That Priest was a lot of fun, but every time I got an achievement while playing her (and was super excited about the achievement!), I was somewhat disappointed that my Mage was missing out on that achievement, too.
Sometimes an expansion would come out that was absolutely brutal for Mages, either in terms of solo questing, or raiding DPS, and I’d create other characters just to try them out and level them to max level.
But there my Mage was, always calling to me. Reminding me of those early days of exploration. She’s who taught me the game, through trial and error and dumb newbie mistakes. And every time a new expansion came out, she was the first character to make it to max level and get the cool gear.
I would then seek to level other characters, but I just never invested as much enthusiasm with them. I’d get them all to max level (by the most recent expansion I couldn’t even do that, because I’d gotten 8 different classes to max level during the previous expansion, and I was BURNED OUT!) They’d always lag slightly behind my main, except in extremely lucky loot drop scenarios sometimes my Priest would come out ahead for a while (she seems to be my home away from home).
Some people talk about managing to switch main characters later on in the game – they’d played a Warlock for years or something and then during one expansion they tried out Paladin tanking and fell in love and abandoned their beloved Warlock. That always made me sad. Regardless whether the expansion was ruthless with nerfs – my Mage would still be what I consider my main character, even to this day.
If I were to go out and buy the newest expansion and fire up the game again, Ajatara the Draenei Mage would be waiting there for me, and I would be so happy to relearn the game all over again with her.
My poly life seems to mirror this. I enjoy meeting new people (creating new characters) and developing relationships (leveling them), but my husband has been there through so much, and taught me so much that he has become synonymous with how I live my life (my main). And it sounds hierarchical, and it sounds like no one could ever be him – and I think for me, that’s true. It’s not on purpose. I’m not LIMITING other people or my relationships with them – this is just how my brain naturally works. I hitched my wagon to my husband, and we’ve built our life together, and I want to keep our life together until one of us kicks it.
Ajatara can’t do everything, though. She can’t heal. She can’t tank. And I like doing those other things, too.
And seriously – I absolutely LOVE playing my Priest (She’s a red-headed human named Hymnpossible, because puns within cartoon references are the BEST). She’s always the second character I level to max after a new expansion hits. I would never abandon her or leave her unleveled during an expansion, and I play her almost as much as Ajatara. But she’s not Ajatara. She does different, awesome things, and provides a different experience, but Ajatara is like my home.
(I’d say my boyfriend is totally my Priest)
(And my current FWB would be my Paladin, because wrecking faces is just FUN)
Right, wrong, or indifferent, that’s how my brain chooses to allocate my attention and time resources, whether we’re talking romantic relationships or video games.
Also…For the Alliance! 😉
I was working in my lab, late one night…
This turned out to be a long one – Bear with me, because the context matters.
_ _ _
Ah, boundary stretching – we meet again.
Today was not my best day in recent memory. I’ve been feeling under the weather, and it was confirmed that I have ye olde tonsillitis, which is a common consequence I come across as a smoker. Smoking sucks; I’m working on it.
What I’ve learned today, and what I continue to learn, is that boundary stretching experiences rarely take place in lab conditions. There are so many confounding variables in any given situation, that things are just not going to go as you plan or expect.
This all comes back to that expectations and idealism that I’ve gone over a lot in my previous posts. It’s my biggest sin, every time.
So, today was the first time that I agreed to leave the house without any actual plans so that my husband and a partner could specifically have alone/sexy times.
The original plan was that they would be seeing each other between 4pm and 6pm and that I would be home at 6pm after “festivities” had ended. He even set an alarm for 5:40pm to make sure that things were wrapped up by 6. Our definition of “wrapped up” was never clearly communicated, and you’ll see where that ended up taking us as the story progresses. In case you can’t tell already – things did not work out as I expected.
At a little after 3, hubby gets a text that his new partner is on her way, so I hustle to gather up my coat and purse and get out of the house before she arrives. (We have not met yet, and springing me on her when she’s first arriving to initiate sexy times would be uncool).
So already we’re off to a rough start – I was not planning on leaving until shortly before 4, and here I was leaving a little after 3. Hubby still wants to enjoy their time until she has to leave (which is 6). Sooo, instead of finding distractions and things to do for 2 hours, it’s now for about 3 hours.
First stop for me was the Patient First, as over the past two days, my left tonsil had become exceptionally swollen, and I knew it was tonsillitis, as I’ve been down this road before. So, I get to the Patient First, and it looks like this is totally going to eat up a ton of time! Not bad!
Nope. I was out of there in just shy of an hour.
At this point, I’d started feeling very lethargic and significantly more “sick” than I was previously – I had a slight fever when they took my temperature. This made the prospect of staying out and finding more things to do really annoying – but I knew that hubby and new lady have limited time, and I didn’t want to intrude, even though all I wanted to do at that moment was nap.
Okay… so… what to do now?
Second stop became an oil change! That should eat up some time. I thought to myself “I bet there’s a long line with people gearing up their cars for holiday travel!” I got there, and it seemed to be the case, with a full garage already and 3 cars ahead of me! Woohoo!
Yeah, I was in and out of there in 45 minutes…
So at this point, I still had an hour left to kill.
I headed to the WaWa right next door to the oil change place, grabbed a coffee and sat in my car staring at the clock for a while.
And for almost all of this, I was chain smoking cigarettes like crazy. My car smells hideous right now.
I drove back toward the house around 5:15, and decided to stop at the Royal Farms nearby the house. I gassed up my Prius (which didn’t take long), and then I sat in the Royal Farms parking lot listening to Podcasts, drinking my WaWa coffee and staring at the clock some more. (You may note here that I did not get gas at the WaWa, and that it was really weird for me to stop at one gas station and then shortly thereafter another… but I really was just trying to come up with things to do as I headed toward the house – don’t judge me).
It was about 5:30 at this point.
I started to play Farm Heroes Saga. That eats up another 15 minutes.
Checked Facebook. Texted boyfriend back and forth.
5:59pm.
At 6:00pm on the nose, I figured I would have heard from my husband giving the all clear, so I text him an “Are you decent?”
He then tells me that he is, and then asks me if I’d like to meet his new lady.
I mention that I’m exhausted and just went to the urgent care and am just not in the best state to meet. I’m getting upset at this point, because I was SOOOO ready to be home. There was no actual discussion about meeting her prior to this. Plus, in our initial conversations I said that I really didn’t want things to run over the 6 o’clock mark.
He understands and says she needs to gather her stuff to leave, and he’d text me the all clear.
10 minutes go by, and I get a text that’s likely meant to be light-hearted but pissed me off about how she’s just chatting away and he’s trying to nudge her toward the door.
At this point, I’m so over this waiting game and angrily text “Fuck Dude, I’ve been sitting in this Royal Farms parking lot for almost an hour!”.
He gets the hint, and about 5 minutes later he gives the all clear.
I am in a terrible mood when I get home. He’s in the shower, and I just crawl into bed, super upset and exhausted.
He comes out of the shower and doesn’t understand why I’m upset. Initially I do not want to talk, but he lays down in the bed and just continues talking to me and asking ridiculous nonsensical questions until I get to the point where I’m cooled down enough to explain why I’m so upset.
What it boils down to is that I thought we’d agreed to specific things, and then it felt like none of them were adhered to. The time frame was shot to hell on both ends. There was no discussion of meeting and I expected to be home at 6 with her having already left.
In reality, the only thing that was really dumb was that my husband brought up the possibility of meeting me to his new lady at around 5:30pm, and she said that would be alright, and he forgot to close the loop because he assumed I’d be okay with it. He had forgotten that I felt awful and just wanted to take a nap (which I’d texted to him while at the Patient First). He got caught up in conversation after asking her, and forgot to get the other person involved in this meeting (me) on board. If he’d asked me around 5:30, I might have made the effort, but when he asked me at 6, when I was expecting to be at home, I was not in any mood because I’d already felt like the boundaries of what we’d agreed to were violated.
After about an hour of conversation and discussion, I started to feel less awful – at least about the situation (I still feel sick).
As I write this, I feel stupid for being so upset. I definitely overreacted (though I didn’t yell or threaten or anything – I mostly just whined). I’m not generally on my best behavior when I’m feeling sick, and I spent the last 2 hours of my “trip” wanting nothing more than to take a nap, but being unable to do so because I was exiled from my home. And then when the moment arrived that I was supposed to be free to go home… it was snatched away from me, and I had to wait an additional 20 minutes. Which is an eternity when you feel like hot garbage.
Boundary stretching experiences are not guaranteed to occur under the best case scenario or circumstances. Just like experiments outside of the lab, you are likely to come across a lot of confounding variables that may taint your view of the boundary, but really have nothing to do with it. But coming across those variables is extremely valuable if you take the time to separate them from the actual experiment.
I think this whole thing would have been absolutely fine if I hadn’t felt so sick and shitty. And if my husband hadn’t have been so dumb and forgotten to ask me if I was in any state to meet his new lady. But that probably also wouldn’t have been so upsetting if I hadn’t been desperate to get home and curl up in bed due to being ill.
So… at the end of the day, what I learned is: Don’t try to stretch your fucking boundaries when you’re a whiney sick baby.
Just kidding (sort of).
The real lesson is that taking the time to separate the incidental shittiness from the broader experiment is key in stretching your boundaries in a healthy way. I could very easily assume that this is a hard boundary for me if I were to forget to remove the confounding variables of my illness and my husband’s forgetfulness.
Don’t give in to the idea that a bad experience is bad and should never be attempted again because of the boundary stretching – look closer and see if it’s not something else entirely.
“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 