This post falls under both the depression and poly categories, because one of the big things I have to contend with is tempering my expectations and being okay if things don’t go down exactly as I would have hoped.
In my ideal world, I would see everyone I love in a one-on- one time capacity, as well as normal group activity capacity, as much as I could ever want! In reality, things don’t often work out that way.
My boyfriend works a crazy job. Sometimes he’s out of state for a week or more. Sometimes he’s in town for 22 hours before having to head back out – and he doesn’t really even know this until the night before he has to head out again. And he’s been honest and upfront about this from the beginning.
So, from the get-go, we’re talking about limited time seeing each other. Add on top of this that he obviously has other things he needs to do and other people he wants to see. And when you’re a person who’s not sure how long you’re actually going to be in town, you’re going to tend to try to get in as much time with as many people that you haven’t seen in a while as possible.
My current struggle is really the tendency for my depression to take over and entirely reject the non-ideal scenario of group activity because I’d prefer some one-on-one time. This is obviously compounded by the newness of the relationship, as well as the general lack of seeing each other. Aaaand there’s also the mild social anxiety of hanging out with a lot of people I don’t know, who my “anchor” is very interested in catching up with, thus making them a somewhat less reliable anchor.
If you’re unfamiliar with what an “anchor” is in this scenario, it would be the person that you know who makes social situations less anxiety-inducing because you can look at them or signal to them and they can give you a little bit of reassurance that everything is cool. A lot of people with mild social anxiety are able to function in large crowds of strangers if they’ve got a reliable anchor.
This then feeds into my depression, because it’s quite a burden on someone else to make them your anchor like that, particularly if you’re going into a situation where they want to interact with a lot of other people, and thus shouldn’t feel obligated to constantly be reassuring you throughout the evening that everything is cool. I mean, let’s be real here – I’m a grown ass woman. I should be able to handle interacting with people I don’t know. All of that makes sense on an intellectual level, but I can already feel my heart beating faster, and tears behind my eyes threatening to pop through just thinking about it.
And get this: There’s no guarantee that a group thing is even going to happen!
So here I am fretting, as usual, about how I’m going to react to varying situations that may not even happen.
I thrived in a monogamous relationship, let me tell you. The routine, the comfort, the reliable anchor, the balance of alone and group time. I can’t even remember a time during those 5 years of monogamous marriage where I ever felt even REMOTELY the amount of anxiety that I have over the past 10 months. Routine is a godsend for someone with depression and anxiety.
Poly is not really known for its routine. But it has brought many wonderful things into my life – including actual semi-regular sex (kind of). It’s brought amazing people into my life who love me and care for me and make me laugh and who make time for me when they can. But good Lord does it make you work on your insecurities. I have insecurities that I had completely forgotten about since my early 20’s.
So, I continue on my road to improvement in both my relationships and, more importantly, myself.
“No one can be your everything” is something that is at the core of ethical nonmonogamy, and it shouldn’t be taken as a negative, like that everyone is shitty or something. What it really means to me is that all relationships you choose (very important word) to engage in are valuable, even if they’re not what one might consider “ideal”.
Now, this isn’t to say that some relationships aren’t entirely untenable based on actual compatibility issues – but if someone is meeting your basic relationship needs, and you have no other MAJOR issues, there’s no reason to throw that baby out with the bathwater just because they don’t have sex the way you might want them to, or don’t high five you as much as you’d like, or whatever part of your individual self that might not be embraced or stimulated by this single other human being.
I think I can adapt that to my current issue and say that not all situations are going to be ideal or satisfy all of my needs at once. There’s no reason for me to completely reject a less than ideal scenario and opt for NO needs being met when I should view it as an opportunity to get at least some of my needs met. Time with those I love is time with those I love. (There are limits to this – like, I’m not going to attend an orgy with either my husband or boyfriend just to get some time with them – that’s where my need to NOT watch them fucking other people overrides my need to see either of them.)
Now if I can just get my head and emotions in agreement on this one that would be… ideal.
Gigglepig Slappyhams 