Epic Fail

I tried hard. I really did. And it went well. Then something that felt hurtful to me made me lose my shit and blew the whole night up.

Master hadn't even been paying attention. He thought the night was going well enough that he didn't need to pay attention, could zone out himself for a little bit, put some headphones on. We were in the middle of yelling at each other before he realized anything had happened.

Later, I told him that I was tired of everything always being my fault. He had not seemed to have any issues with the situation. If I wasn't around, they could be happy, even in a new arrangement. They were happy before they had to put up with all my crazy. It was me who was the problem.

I tried to go to bed. Tried to read a book. Tried to fall asleep. Finally he came to me. "Don't think I'm not mad at you. What you did reflected poorly on me. You made me look like I don't have control of you. You made me look like a bad Master, like a bad Dom. You were supposed to be a good hostess. And you had been doing such a good job. You waited until my headphones were on and my back was turned and then you blew shit up."

Through tears I apologized and tried to explain about how shitty and hurtful it had felt. "You made it personal when it wasn't. You feel hurt. You feel like it is all your fault. You feel all these things. That's the problem."

"But it doesn't mean I'm not right about some things," I countered.

"Yes, many times you are right about actual things. You have such a great brain and I count on that. But then you let all these feelings, which aren't true, blow shit up. It makes it impossible to bring up valid concerns when you've made everything so big."

He was right. I'd actually realized something similar earlier in the night. I had realized that it wasn't necessarily that there were no problems before or without me. It was that my inability to control my emotions made me the problem instead of any valid or justified issue that existed. It made me & my (over)reaction the problem, not the actual problem.

Somehow without even realizing it, he'd also pointed out how I was falling into one of the bigger traps of my own mental illness. My therapy, which I haven't been making use of nearly as much as I should lately, points out how BPD people tend to get stuck in extremes, either completely in emotional mind (usually this one) or rational mind. One of the most basic skills is using the other mindset to pull you back to the center. He framed it in terms of my feelings versus my brain but it was the same true-ism.

"Next time, you need to think about how it reflects on me before you do something." We both know it's a trick, just one we hope works. He's a somewhat reluctant Master to begin with. I'm not entirely sure he buys into this concept of my actions reflecting on him, or if he thinks the others feel that way. He just crafted the best way to cut me right down to my subby brain to motivate me. What he also knows is that it might give me enough breathing space and incentive next time to make a better choice, for him if not for myself.

Why I'm Cleaning the House While Sick

[Written Saturday March 5]

I'm sick. Got the Professor's cold. Of course,  I've doped myself up on cough meds & pain meds and I'm just overall healthier than he is so it isn't as bad as his. I'm supposed to be taking a nap, a break from the house cleaning I'm stubbornly doing. I have a four day weekend, one extra day i took off for my uncle's passing, the other is because of a software update at work (have to make it up next Friday).

I would have tried to clean anyway but Ginger's boyfriend is coming to town next week. Everyone thinks I'm crazy for cleaning, especially while I'm sick. But i don't think he thinks we take care of her. Hell, sometimes i don't think she thinks we take care of her. I know we don't take care of her the way her ex did. I know we don't take care of her the way her boyfriend thinks he would take care of her if he was here. We might not do it in ways that she recognizes, but we do it. I do it.

Yes, most of the things are also things that make me feel good about the house being more clean or clean the way i want it but that doesn't negate that i still do all these things and ask for very little help. She has only cleaned the cat litter box a few times since I moved into the old place, much less here. I do the laundry because I am more particular than she is but I carry their clothes upstairs to their room. I do the dishes and i pick up. I clean the main bathroom, the one she uses for showers and getting ready.

I'm cleaning before her guest comes and I'll give the house a once over later this week because she is already gonna have to help clean the friend's house that he's staying at because she can't afford a hotel room and the Professor and i don't want to babysit a stranger for two weeks when she's at work. It's not what her ex would have done but it's all we can do so I'll clean our house and though i was going to ask for her help, I'm not going to. This is the least i can do.  I try to take care of her in ways she recognizes, but my work schedule and my own crazy can get in the way of that. But don't think I don't care for her or take care of her just because it's not what others would have done.

[Written Monday March 7]

So I didn't get much more cleaning done after my nap. Our tiny human was starting to be fussy by the time I woke up and the Professor was starting to tire out. As the night wore on, the tiny human got more sick. I ended up going to bed shortly after the tiny human did but I woke up several times during the night to take care of her, once because the Professor and Ginger were wondering if we should take tiny human to the ER, since she had an elevated temperature. The nurse on the hotline told me that I should take her to an urgent care clinic within 24 hours not because of her temperature but because she was rubbing her ears and might have an ear infection, so I did that. Ginger stayed home all day and evening to help me take care of tiny human and the Professor, and to help take care of me. I feel bad that she didn't get a break but I really did appreciate it. 

Last night I got more sleep but still not enough to make up for being sick. As soon as I got up the tiny human threw up her whole six ounce bottle on me and then acted like I was killing her when I forced her to take tylenol and antibiotics. The Professor had not gotten any sleep overnight and had an asthma attack shortly before I got up. I called into work. Ginger is going to come home after a midday appointment. 

I wanted so badly to make things good for Ginger and to help as much as I could for this visit. She bent a good deal on things to make the Professor and I comfortable and I know that we have not lived up to how her ex would have handled things. I'm sure that her boyfriend is probably upset with us over it all and is also upset that he is not going to get the opportunity to see if he fits in our family full-time as they had both originally hoped for on this trip. But just because it can't be all that I did want to do something to help her and now all that is down the drain. I need an eight hour cry and a twelve hour sleep. I feel useless and drained and tired. I can't make anything right and I can't make anyone better. I'm so sorry, to both Ginger and her boyfriend. And if he ever reads this, even if we don't get along, even if we never like each other, I'm sorry. I wanted to take care of your girl. I'm sorry I'm failing in that.  

More & Less, At the Same Time

How to explain that I want to do both more and less, at the same time? That I want to do less penny any shit, less close the cabinets,  less pick up trash & dishes, less turning off the bathroom light that you left on when you left while also asserting that if directly asked I'm happy to, as I have time and energy, do weekly and bigger cleaning projects, make calls and plans on household business, organize things, etc.

Not Worth It

Recently I've had some epiphanies and I seem to keep coming back to them which means i really need to get them out. It might be a bit circular so just try to bear with me.

I was asked recently about why a new and/or non-entangled partner might feel they have a better place to negotiate from than they really do. It is a thing i have seen often with new partners, whether from stories I've been told or seen in the poly forums I read. I think this is especially a problem for people who have previously only been in monogamous relationships.

Early in monogamous relationships, each person is finding out their partner's boundaries. There is all this new relationship energy (NRE) on both sides so at first, maybe the first 3-6 months, there aren't as many boundaries. But then the person wants to spend time alone with their friends instead of with you or their parents come into town and they don't invite you to meet them...little things start to happen where they draw lines. Maybe it's a "not yet" line, maybe it's a "not ever" line. But, especially because of how our culture views romantic relationships,  we tend to want to made a priority in their life, if not the priority. As we date older, that can be different because many people will have others who are a priority, children, ailing parents, etc, but that is usually spelled out very very early and can be a reason why someone might not date someone with children.

So you take someone who is used to monogamous relationships where this happens, who is very romantic,  who has had culture and media largely shape their ideas about what romantic relationships are like, and put them with a poly person who has other entangled partners. Once both people claim love for each other, the previously monogamous partner wants to be treated like they are in a loving relationship. They want to be a priority. They also largely don't see why they wouldn't be a priority. They are the fun, new, shiny. If you were really happy with that other person, you wouldn't be with them, right? They hear you bitch about that person, beacause you need to vent, but probably don't hear good things about that person because all those things you thought were awesome when you got together are now old hat and you don't talk about it. Also you worry about this person not dealing well with hearing the good things, because they are still adjusting to the poly and maybe don't want to hear it. But eventually they run into the previously invisible force field of the other relationship(s) in your life. They want something and think they are in a good position to get it but it is not something you can give them because of the boundaries of all the relationships. Many times it leaves the previously mono partner a bit stunned to realize that they are not being made the priority. (In fact, what I have read most often by people who tried poly and won't go back is that they want to be the priority.)

An example of this: early on with the Professor I knew that Ginger had two days a week off, sometimes only one of she worked overtime. That was their time together. I wasn't going to get to stay over then, unless Ginger specifically asked. I could text him but he might not answer at all and he would largely rather I not. Now, I did know that they both cared about me by then and I know that if something horrible happened, like one of my parents became suddenly ill, they would have been there for me. But they also wanted to establish early on this boundary for their relationship. I knew it was important that I show I could respect it.

Now, I think that we all do it to a certain extent. I'm sure Ginger or the Professor could come up with examples. But in thinking about this, I realized that why I have done slightly better than other people has been in part because I have worked hard to keep their relationship a priority, which then let me assert when I did need something of mine to be a priority. The shitty realization is that it is also in part because I don't feel like I deserve to be made the priority. I spent a long time in relationships where I was told that me being the priority either was never going to happen or would only happen if we married and that wasn't something they wanted with me, probably ever. Price of admission with Ginger and the Professor was that they were not out with their families and, unless we had children, they wouldn't be. Even while it made me sad that we were not, it still made me happy when they claimed me as their good friend or that they'd move in with me.

As we've been dealing with the V Ginger is creating with her long-time friend and now long-distance boyfriend, we've all had to deal with our feelings. In discussing my anxiety about his visit, I admitted, "I am just worried I'm going to end up out. I know that no one is ever going to choose me. That's fine. I always knew that. I'm not saying it for you to just reflexively tell me I'm wrong. But if Ginger has to choose between him and I, she'll choose him. And if the Professor has to choose between Ginger and I, he'll choose Ginger. I get that. But it means that I'm out and that makes me sad and anxious." For the record,  they both in their own ways disputed this, but it is what I have always felt like I had to accept to make this work. Well, i always had to accept that he'd choose her. The "Ginger choosing the boyfriend" has been a tougher pill to swallow but one I had to earlier in their relationship. Looking at it though, how easy it is to accept that I won't get chosen,  accept that no one will choose me....if I wasn't talking about myself, if I wasn't talking about someone else,  it would make me sad for her.

*****
Another thought train I had-
I was listening to the Hamilton soundtrack yesterday and I was struck by something. In the song "Helpless," Hamilton and his wife Eliza meet, court, and get engaged. After they're engaged he sings "  Eliza, I don't have a dollar to my name, an acre of land, a troop to command, a dollop of fame. All I have's my honor, a tolerance for pain, a couple of college credits and my top-notch brain. Insane, your family brings out a different side of me. Peggy confides in me, Angelica tried to take a bite of me. No stress, my love for you is never in doubt. We'll get a little place in Harlem and we'll figure it out. I've been livin' without a family since I was a child. My father left, my mother died, I grew up buckwild. But I'll never forget my mother's face, that was real and long as I'm alive, Eliza, swear to God, you'll never feel so (Helpless!)" Though I know it isn't explicitly stated there but it felt like he wants to create a future for them, that he's going to put in work for her, doesn't want her to feel as helpless as his mother after his father left, etc. It made me think of times I've heard in movies or tv or read in books of a man who'd fallen in love saying that he was going to better himself for her. He might not have anything now but he was going to do it for her. I rarely hear that these days and I started to wonder about why.

My first thought is just that we marry older so we've often started that work before we meet the person we'd want to do that for. If you were my grandparents who married at 15 and 20, you largely hadn't made anything of yourself yet. Colleges used to have housing for married couples because many men were married as undergraduates but especially if they were graduate students. Now if people waited until they had found that person to do it, they'd be in their late 20s or early 30s.

Then I realized that is what happened to me. It wasn't until this relationship that I realized if I wanted to keep it I'd have to work hard in my work life. Early on I told a friend that I realized the pants-shitting amount of fear it can create in you to realize that if you fuck up, your family could be fucked, and had a new appreciation for men in single-earner households. I will grant that the hard work of getting my mental house in order was something I'd already started and come a long way in. You could argue that I did that for myself, but I remember the conversation I had on that first day with my therapist. I told her that I knew I couldn't live like this because someday I'd want a job, a partner, maybe a kid, and I couldn't do any of that like I was. So I did it for future me and for future me's loved ones.

I think there's a struggle here. I think there's this idea we're taught that says that if someone loved us enough, they'd do this thing and be able to do it because of the strength of our love for them and their love for us. Then life happens. We know that there were things we just couldn't do, no matter how much we loved someone else, addictions or habits we couldn't break, shit we could not get together, parts of ourselves we couldn't change. Maybe we even were able to change it after they left, which ads insult to injury when that ex we couldn't do it for sees us do it with our new love. We realize that people we love will never change for us, have to either accept or move on when they won't do or not do this thing or that thing. But despite that, there will always be that part of us that says, if they really loved us, they would.

So why do so few of us frame working harder outside our home as something we do for others? Why are so many of us in relationships where we know they'll never work hard and sure as hell won't work hard for us? Is this because I let my pussy decide my relationships and not my brain? Are all those marriages where women have stopped wanting to have sex with their husbands because they picked someone who did for them and worked hard at it 24:7 instead of just someone they wanted to fuck 24:7, all other things be damned, so the sex eventually dropped away? I know that I dated men who either were financially stable or were working hard on it and at least one who might have framed that as something they did for a partner if in love, but I was not sexually attracted to them hardly at all, definitely not the way I am the Professor.

This is where it comes back to the other point, where I feel I accept it in part because I completely accept that I am not worth doing these things for. Most people might think "since they won't do/not do x, they must not love me enough," but I think no one is going to love me enough to do anything hard or out of their way, I'm not worth loving that much. I feel really happy when someone does do something but I don't expect it.

My partners accused me of Lesley Knope-ing them by buying them great gifts when they didn't know what to buy me. They never even celebrated it before me. I like celebrating and, like Christmas, i know that if I do most of the work, they'll humor me. I wanted to give them gifts because it's what you do and I wanted them each to see that the other two of us cared, as i did the gifts with each one for the other person. Honestly, i had just prepared myself that my gift was just us getting to go out and be together. Especially lately, they've had lots on their mind and aren't feeling well physically. I even wrote a post about how the things I wanted were in tangible, were just about feeling like I belonged, being out back in my place, feeling like they saw me and what I do. I work hard and do many things that in other dynamics or maybe other situations I would expect help on, but it feels like that blends into the background. Sometimes I feel like I don't get noticed unless I'm exploding. I'm trying to be a good girl, make everyone's life easier, but that means I feel like I don't get noticed. Tonight as everyone went to bed and I got the one kiss I got all day,  have hardly been touched for days, haven't been fucked for a week and half, haven't been played with for longer, all I could think was that I accept this because I don't think it's possible for anyone to love me in a way that would make them want to work for me at all. I am difficult enough already with the crazy that no one will love me if I'm any more difficult,  in fact not if I don't make up for it by making other things easier. I try not to expect more because I'm not worth more. 

Topics in Poly Living: Relationship Transitions

Surprisingly, despite the months of fighting, it didn't end in in screaming. There was a month of everything just going along, where I spent all my time in my head, turning everything over and over again, all the things I could not and would not say, what my options were, etc.It's only in the last week that I've been able to articulate a fair assessment of the problems. Apparently she had much the same thought and today we told them to each other.

My version: While we both work hard to love each other, trust each other, and be there for each other, what we think those things look like are so different that it is recognized by the other person, who ends up not feeling loved, trusted, or taken care of. This is a gap that I don't know how to bridge.

Her version: The things we need to be in the kind of relationship we were trying for are both incompatible and non-negotiable, so we can't have that kind of relationship. We need to focus on what we can have, what we are good at. 

So I guess my triad is now a V. Maybe it always was. We are good at running the house together. Sometimes we are good at being friends. I think that we still have a partnership of sorts. Maybe we're sister wives after all. 

Of course, with the way my brain works, I have all kinds of questions, ones neither of us have answers for. What does this mean for co-parenting? Does she still see us as both being mommies to our kids? What do we call each other to outsiders? Is it dishonest to still call each other girlfriends? I know lots of married men who still call the woman they don't have sex or romance with "wife" so maybe that's just as good. Did I fail because it didn't work out as a triad? Have I just become another failed unicorn, another example for why triad poly doesn't work? What basis do we have of asking that boundaries be set in regards to she or I dating others when we aren't dating each other? If / when the Professor isn't around, does she want to keep our household together, especially for the kids growing up, or not because we don't have that link? How are we going to sort out fluid bonding?

But the more important question for now is how to I mourn that relationship we had hoped for for so long while we're still living together and having this other relationship?  

Sitting on top of the floorboards

A man I went on a few dates with when I was on my de-escalation with the Professor and Ginger and stayed friendly with afterwards sent me an email asking if i might want to catch up sometime, let him pick my brain about poly, compare where we thought we'd be when we met to where we are now. He seems most interested in ideas and opinions about poly. Though he decided to get into a monogamous relationship with a nice woman he dated awhile after me, he said that he still thinks about meeting other people. If he can fit it in when I can, next weekend while the Professor and Ginger are having their alone day, then I will. If not, then it probably won't happen.

I've been wondering what I'd tell him and there seems to be a list of things that I've had on my mind lately, some related to poly, some related to love and relationships,  some just things about my life as it's lived right now. So here goes, in no particular order....

I'm a shitty friend right now. If it fits in my schedule and seeing you brings me up, i might see you. If i have something new and/or romantic and/or sexual with you, i might see you. That's about it. I don't have much to give anyone and I largely don't feel like sharing things about my life with you, so I don't hang out. I have a weird work schedule and don't get to see my kid or my partners very much so I tend to take advantage of that when I can. I'm not really sorry about that. I also don't expect you to be there when i do come around or to help me out after I've ignored everyone forever, though it is appreciated if you do.

In the last few years, I've discovered that I'm quick to get infatuated, can't really predict who I'll become infatuated with, but I'm also very quick to distance myself from them when it stops feeling ok. I can also accept something if I know it from the start of a relationship that I might end another relationship over if I find it out much farther in or if it changes to that same thing farther in.

I'll never "be the girl" in a relationship with another woman and I need to just accept that. I wanted to find a woman who made me feel like a man does, like the Professor does, able to be vulnerable, like i could finally breath and not worry about protecting myself, like being the little spoon. I can find a partner and I can find a friend who understands things that a man doesn't or can't. But I may not ever find a woman where we both want something with each other who doesn't make me feel like what I imagine straight men feel when they love a woman.

I am probably not "truly" polyamorous. I've seen some people on forums say that swinging and open relationships are polyamorous but I do not share that view. Those are forms of non-monogamy, but if there is no caring relationship there, I don't consider it to be polyamorous. I fell into a polyamorous relationship with my people because I fell for both of them together. I didn't really know who one was without the other and had no intention of finding out. But I am probably more mono-amorous and polysexual. As I've seen Ginger develop her love with her new boyfriend/ old friend, I know that I could never deeply love and have different relationships with two completely separate and unentangled people. As with many abilities, that ability she has to do this is something I simply do not possess. While I may care about the other people I have sexual or romantic relationships with, I do not feel like I have it in me to feel anything on the same level as what I feel for the Professor.

Being in my life is conditional. My trust is conditional. Even my love is probably conditional. There is always a limit and a breaking point. I won't feel bad for that. No one else will always protect me or take care of me but me (and even then I kinda do a shit job.) No one else is ever gonna be with me my whole life. I have to do this myself and that means having limits. I try not to expect any different from others.

Everyone is selfish. If someone seems selfless, it's just that you haven't found what they are selfish about.

I miss alone time. I'd love to be alone in my house sometimes, especially just to watch tv or movies I want, that no one else likes, to make food no one else likes or that I don't want to share. You know what I want more? A clean house and clothes. Time with my kid. Time with my family. To fuck and/or play with the Professor. (That last is what I'm really selfish over and I will call every relative we have to find a babysitter on the Saturday of the month we get together.)

I am still lonely. Right now I am lonelier than usual because there is so much I don't feel I can share with anyone. I can tell you all of the above things and still feel like I habe told you nothing about what lurks in my heart and mind. ("And in my best behavior, I am really just like him. Look beneath the floorboards for the secrets I have hid." - "john wayne gacy" by sufjan stevens ) There are so few things I don't tell people that I know that more private friends and family think I'm too open. I am open to friends, family, even people at work about my relationship and my life. I am constantly keeping my partners updated on what I'm doing, on plans, on appointments, etc, even when they really don't care. I run every step of new relationships by them for their approval. There is so much I lay out on table before anyone can ask, before anyone could say I was keeping something from them, before one person could use a piece of knowledge they have against me with someone else. There is not an action I have taken that I would keep from my partners if asked and I feel I offer as many as I could think to that might have any significance, but I didn't realize how much I was keeping in until someone told me that they wanted someone they could tell everything to, their deepest, their darkest, everything. I don't know when I stopped believing that person existed but it's been a long time. There isn't a single person now that I'd want to tell the things that run on a loop in my head to now. I think that is part of why I don't want to hang out with people,  because of how fake it can sometimes feel when they share with me but I know I have no intention if sharing back with them, or at least not of sharing anything with any value to me. One of the things I've always appreciated about the Professor was that he's known things I might never have told him and he didn't punish me for them, but often found a way to integrate them into our play and our lives. Unlike previous times in my life though, I don't really WANT to tell people these things. I don't feel the need to unburden myself like I used to. It might be better if I did. All of this stuff may tell you a great deal but it also tells you very little. I'm still wrestling with exactly how I feel about this.

[Added a few days later because I was tired the night I wrote it and forgot about this point]  A thing I am working really hard to do is to not feel guilty when something good happens for me that doesn't happen for someone else I know and or love you I know also wanted that day. I know life isn't always a zero-sum game but sometimes it is. Also sometimes I know that it hurts when someone get something that you wanted. I've spent a really long time feeling guilty when I got something that someone else did. Many times I try to set things up in a way so that someone would get that thing as well only to be disappointed when I realized that I didn't have control over everything in that situation. I've been very fortunate recently. Sometimes that was through hard work, sometimes through a difference of personality or circumstance, and sometimes it was just sheer dumb luck. I've been lucky that no one in my life has made me feel guilty about these things, and now I am refusing to make myself feel guilty anymore. I want you enjoy what I have and be thankful for what I have. That doesn't mean I won't help others have things that they want, or even the same things I have, but I won't let myself not enjoy what I have anymore.

Failing

Wrapping Christmas presents at midnight on Christmas Eve but I can't listen to Christmas music. I know I'll cry and I still have things to do before I go to sleep. And I'm so tired of crying right now.

Christmases have always felt bittersweet to me. When I was in school, between the end of semester crunch and preparing for the holidays, my bipolar hit high gear. There was usually some bickering, usually starting between my step-father and I, then branching out from there. But there were always family members I liked, friends,  food, presents, grades, vacation, the promise of a new year.

This year has been kinda a mess. I'm super behind in everything in life. There are no ormanments on the tree or lights in the windows. The first presents i bought were online last weekend. We only bought presents for our tiny human today.

My crazy has been in high gear for awhile as has Ginger's so there has been a great deal of fighting and push/pull. We talked things out tonight and I feel like we're at a better place. I hope that this necessity of a talk didn't hurt her mental state too much.

Even with it, I feel like such a failure. There was so much I wanted to be able to be for her and do for her. I know she's trying really hard to do a bunch of things with her mental health but it's one of those situations where it will get worse before she gets better. I wanted to not be this endless problem and I keep failing. I wanted to be able to be intimate with her in all these ways but I've failed at that too. The ways that involve this new person in her life have so far made me feel used and degraded, and not in that good way. The ways that involve us here make me feel so pressured.

"And we can talk it round again girl
Round and round, round and round again
Or we could leave it out tonight
Leave it out just leave it out
I never tried to trick you babe
I just tried to work it out
But I was swallowed up by doubt
If only things were black and white
Cause I just want to hold you tight
Without holding back my mind...
But no flame burns forever, oh no
You and I both know this all too well..."

Both for the increased intimacy between us and to help everyone's mental state, since coming home from the hospital, I've felt like I have to be ok all the time, like i can't be me. Tonight she said that she doesn't know how she can be romantically with someone where there's always a new problem. My honest response was that with me there is always a new problem. Sometimes I wish it were different but this is how it is now and how it always has been. I can't say it will ever be different. For months now, I've tried and failed. I don't know how to be what they need without breaking myself and I don't know how to be me without breaking her. (He and I seem to be able to reach a better equilibrium. Or it doesn't break him/us like it does her/us.) Then I have big outbursts when it gets too much for me. She said that I'm holding my breath but I can't hold it forever so it is bigger when i finally do breath. I guess she's right.

None of this is helped by the current med situation. My doc and I added an antidepressant to my cocktail. It's only been about 2 weeks though, so I'm in that awesome area where I have more energy but my mental state hasn't been helped yet. So unlike before when I could escape the shitty thoughts by going to sleep, those thoughts are now racing and I am not sleeping quite so easily.

This week when I did have it in me I tried to think about what might help me. Maybe I'm just not thinking very clearly because I'm having trouble coming up with concrete answers to that. I did have a few thoughts and then a few more when talking to Ginger. Some are physical well being issues. Since Ginger hasn't been able to eat the veggies like we were, I have slacked off on that. I need to get back to that. It did make me feel better even if it didn't taste awesome. Honestly nothing tastes awesome right now (depression) so maybe it shouldn't matter how it tastes. I should also either do yoga or meditate at least a few times a week. I'd also like to do some ab exercises and light free weights everyday, maybe make my body feel stronger.

If I wasn't sure before then I really am after tonight that Ginger and I need to go back to how we were leaving things before her new guy came along. For as much as I usually like concrete definitions, it was much better for us just to be what we were, with no expectations in the physical /romantic / sexual realm, and just let things happen when / if they were going to whenever that was. It isn't helping anyone right now and nothing is even happening. On the other hand, I do need to take the reins and be more rigid about scheduling time for us to hang out and not letting anything interfere. If I don't,  we both end up doing our own things and not connecting. She has said she's fine with me being more rigid in this so I will be.

I've also realized that right now I can't be friends with her guy. Whether by accident or by design, all of my poly experiences have been ones where I was either involved with or at least good friends with my metamours.  But metamours are like in-laws. You should be civil, courteous,  friendly, and promote your paramour seeing them, but you don't have to be friends with them. Now you can be. I'm developing a real friendship with one of The Professor's step-sisters, but O don't have to be friends with any of them to be friendly and encourage the relationships there. This is the same.

Now I tried. I really did. I know I exchanged more messages with him and messaged on a more regular basis than I have any of my own friends in the last couple of months.  And he tried too. But we have very different life views and personalities. Even the things we both enjoy we come at from very different angles. But we wouldn't become friends if we met at work. On a deep personal level,  I feel like my particular brand of crazy is ....well, he said that I was an emotional blackhole, because you can't see what's on the other side. He doesn't have the same emotions as a 'normal' person, so my intense and more unpredictable emotions force him to walk on eggshells. I keep trying to force this friendship at a time when I don't even have friends of my own in my life and it's becoming really unhealthy for me. I'm also unable to create good stable boundaries for us because I want to connect over shared interest but that invovles bdsm which means I'm talking about their sex life or bdsm dynamic which is just full of hurt and jealousy for me. Oddly, I often feel compersion when she talks about it because I'm happy for her when she's happy. But this person is a stranger to me and it feels like rubbing my nose in all she and I can't seem to make happen between us.  While I'm sure he brings up me doing things with them as a way of making me feel included, it doesn't. It makes me feel like the only way I could have this with the person I live with,  Co-parent with,  who calls me wife,  is with him. It makes me feel like he or they think I'm something to be used for their games,  like he or they think I'll agree because I like sex and I like bdsm, so of course i would. It might not be their intent, so it's unjustified to be angry or punish them. But it's the result so I need to change things.

I had really wanted to be able to do this for her. I wanted anything with her so desperately that I agreed to anything. Even as it hurt me more and more, I still said I would. Now it's these months later and I'm sure it feels to them like a 180. I am sorry for that and for not speaking up sooner but I couldn't feel like that any more. It's not their fault. I just need to change it. Even if we ever did those things,  I'd have to come to it on my terms, by my own desires, not like this.

I realized I need to write more. I haven't been blogging both because of a lack of time and a fear of what I'd write. I had plenty to say and I did want to allow the racing thoughts somewhere to go but I didn't want to put them where anyone can see them. Everyone has things that feel are too dark or crazy or extreme to share. I need to start writing it down somewhere, even if it's just in a journal for just me. And i need to work on my fiction. I'd love to be able to make enough writing to support my family and stay home. Even if I never make it there, I would like to try to turn all those racing thoughts into something else. (Have you read Gone Girl? Do you wonder what the author's husband thought when he read it? Lol.)

I will still probably publish this and cry. Maybe next year I'll be better at this time. Presents bought and wrapped. Crazy under control. Family more family-ish. "It's been a long December and there's reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last...." Sadly, I still feel like this year was a bit of a fail.

The Problem With Encouraging Your Metamours to be Friends

They talk.

If your freedom trumps my desire for security, then my desire for honesty trumps your discomfort. 

Honesty does not include omission or you easing me into things.

We lie to floozies. We don't lie to people we love.

So why am i still so depressed?

I'm right again with her. Or as right as we're gonna be. It feels good though. It's a work in progress in a good way. And i want to support her in all the new and exciting things she's doing.

I'm still right with him. More in love and devoted than ever. Excited about things we can do.

I'll get right with her other him soon-ish. Once i can trust myself not to fuck it up.

And we got news today that is awesome. I'm so excited.

Why did i still go to bed and cry? Why am i still plagued by all the dark thoughts. Why do i still feel like they'd be better without me? Why do i still feel like i won't do anything right? I'm so happy and things are so right. But as soon as there's nothing filling me up, I'm so depressed again.

Doubling Down

I think that anytime you're in any type of recovery it is easy to just know that you can't do it how you used to do it than it is to know how to actually do it properly. It's hard enough to unlearn bad habits, now you are adding on learning new effective habits.

For me, this is especially true when it comes to relationship issues. I just know that I shouldn't do what I did before. I have very little idea of how to do it right. And the secret sauce that smothers it all? That I am not in anything close to a traditional relationship. 

Back story time: So Ginger has this new boyfriend. Well, not exactly new, as they've been online friends and online sexytime buddies for over half their lives, since they were teenagers, but new as a boyfriend. When I was pregnant and she needed someone to talk to, she turned to him and their relationship developed new dimensions and feelings. Before we moved to the new place, so I'm guessing back in May, she brought up to me having him visit. At the time, she didn't know if their online chemistry would transfer to real life. 

As the months went on, we could tell she was deep in the NRE. While I was on maternity leave, I confronted her one night because it felt like she was always texted with him and never really interacting with us and I was worried about her being present, especially as I was going to be going back to work soon. She assured the Professor and I that she was just taking a little vaccation from the world until things really hit, until I was really back at work, that she wasn't going to leave us, etc. 

Right before I went back to work, she met him halfway for a visit in person. It went really well. In addition to the visit going well, she felt reenergized to take on our relationships back home and make them what she wanted. The trouble was that the Professor and I weren't quite there. The Professor was still overwhelmed with new baby stuff and trying to take some of the load off of me as I healed. I was still dealing with getting back on my medications and I felt really insecure and scared about the visit. I had a total meltdown when she came back. It was not how she foresaw it going. 

My way of coping with things that scare me is to pick up the thing, look at it from every angle, think about what might happen with it in the future. Feeling like I can handle the possibilities is what makes me feel secure again. So as I started to try to get on board, I wanted to ask more questions about the future that Ginger was thinking of. When this guy started getting brought up in the spring, he was an internet sexy escape friend. Then it was a visit here to see about chemistry. Then it was a sooner short visit in the middle to see about chemistry and then a visit out here, but he would be her long-distance, vacation sexy-escape friend if things went well. After her visit, it was her long-distance sexy-escape friend for now then maybe someday, years and years down the line, maybe he'd live here. But the more I tried to ask about what it might look like if he was here, the more upset she got because she doesn't work that way. To her, it would break her heart if she planned things and it didn't go through, so all that is sort of hazy and vague. 

We had some hard talks and cried and butted heads but then we really thought we were getting to a better place after a really great Saturday night with the three of us. But then I fucked stuff up. I was at work and I started worrying about hearing them on his visit here. I'm having some serious jealousy issues with all of this. But jealousy is always rooted in deeper things. Mine is too. At the most basic level, I thought if she was going to be with someone else, be in love with someone else, be fucking and topping someone else, that it would be me before it was someone else. It broke my heart when she told me last year that we might not ever be sexual, that it might not matter how much time she had. It poked that wound that was mostly healed when, after starting to talk to this man about topping him, about pegging him, she brought up experimenting with my strapon on me. All the things she brought up using me to do so that she could do with him when they got their brief visits. And I was game because I just really wanted us to be there. When she came back, she was all interested in making our relationship more physical and intimate, but I didn't feel special. I kinda just felt like she realized she wanted more touch and romance that the Professor doesn't really do as much and I was a good place to start. After that crazy Saturday, I did feel more like she wanted me, but that made the crazy worry kick in. I wanted to feel more secure. 

I knew that it would be really hard on me to hear them together sexually while he's visiting. I have heard her and the Professor but that's a little different. Sometimes, depending on what's going on, that is even difficult but I at least feel like that's what I signed up for. I didn't really sign up to hear them in our house with someone else. I would feel weird having sex with someone else here, especially if I thought they could hear, even though I am the only one who know one really cares if they fuck someone else. It's kinda a rule that the Professor can't fuck floozies with us here, but that we'll work to make time for him to be alone or for him to go see them at their place. What I attempted to do was let her know that I was feeling really insecure about this thing but offer ways to help this not be a thing, like get them a hotel room for a day of play, work on making a more soundproof area downstairs, or could they even just wait til we were upstairs and there was a floor between us? Honestly, she's kinda shy about sex stuff, for someone in our lifestyle, so I figured she wouldn't want to be heard either. 

Yeah, that didn't go over well. She tried to be nice about it, but in the end I think it felt like two things to her: that I didn't trust her not to purposefully hurt us and that I was trying to control her relationship with him. At the end of the email though, she said that what she wanted was for us all to live together, that him living somewhere near but in a different place was a poor second choice. Over the course of an afternoon, we exchanged emails and things went downhill from there. Some of the highlights were that she hadn't gotten to think about her needs or wants because from the time she got back she was awash in the needs of the three other people in our home and that when she'd gotten with the Professor he'd agreed that she could pick up and leave to visit anyone whenever she wanted. In the end, I threw my hands up. I wouldn't ask her for anything and we'd go back to the relationship we were good at - running the house. 

I've spent the week since doing really poorly. She and I have barely communicated. The Professor has struggled because he wants things just to be calm and work but we can't go any amount of time without drama. Her boyfriend, who I was developing a friendship with based on our shared love of tv shows, has stopped messaging me and I haven't reached out to him either. My assumption is that he's upset with me for the hurt I've caused Ginger, which is his right, and he's probably got some not nice opinions about me as a person right now, but he could just be trying to avoid the drama and being in the middle of things. And I've been in the darkest hole I've been in in a long time. I finally talked about it with the Professor last night a bit. A good bit of it was the depression twisting everything. The fact that she didn't want me running the show on her relationship, which is what it felt like from her side, was turned into that I didn't warrant any consideration, that my feelings didn't matter to her, that her complete freedom was more important to her than making me feel secure in the thing she and I were trying to do. All of this also turned into that I will never warrant being put ahead of anything else for anyone else. I had thought I would at least come in second for both of them, in the romantic relationship, but all this made me feel like I would never even come in that for her, or anywhere. The only one I am higher than is the cat. I was gripped by the fear that, when the Professor was no longer here, I would lose my co-parent and any child she bore shortly thereafter, and that our kids would each lose a father, a mother, and a sibling, all within months. I felt like not only did I need too much but I needed all the wrong things, which made me fundamentally wrong. I carried all this around for a week by myself. Honestly, I'm pretty proud of myself. I still went to work, still ate mostly healthy, didn't cut. I did cry a whole lot though and I largely did not give two fucks if it bothered anyone else in my house. 

I realized last night that a big part of my problem was that I was just being willfull. I wasn't ready yet to give up being angry or being sad or being fearful, which made it really hard to want to look for solutions or to implement those solutions. But I hadn't really talked to anyone about things because I knew that they'd all just be on my side and "oh she should change what she's doing," which I already knew wasn't a solution at all. I always knew that the bottom line was she wasn't going to change and I wasn't going to leave her. That left me with significantly less options, all of which I was really to angry still to implement. 

This morning, I was reminded of two conversations I had had with Moneypenny years ago. The first was when we were still dating. We had one of those kitchen sink arguments. At one point in the argument, he told me about how there were plenty of things that he didn't like about me and our relationship but he only brought up the worst 10% because he didn't think the other 90% were worth it. But I really wanted the opportunity to work on at least some of the other 90%, so I've tried to be open to hearing those things, to finding out what someone I'm with does want that isn't part of the 10% they're going to argue over or outright ask for. 

The other conversation was a little bit later. I had had the first major blowup fight of my shortlived marriage and Moneypenny pulled out a Dr-Phil-ism: Do you want to be happy or do you want to be right? Especially in these arguments with Ginger, that can be such a big factor. In many ways, the Professor and I can think enough alike that we can see where the other is and get closer to it, though our barrier is usually just that we don't even want to fight each other. For Ginger and I, it often feels like we are on completely different planets. We both want to be right and to have the other person admit that we are right and do what we want. Especially when it is something big enough to us for us to fight about, since we don't really like fighting either. But the thing I knew even as we were arguing was that we were both right. I just have no way to translate that into getting us both what we want or need to be happy. 

{So all of this is alot of writing and I'm not near finished, which is probably going to make my partners cringe when they try to read this. (The Professor has already thrown in the towel by now, I'm sure.) But I needed to try to write it out and see it all together. }

I think sometimes you have to mix a bit of your new skills in with your old tendencies in, but with a new spin on them. I tend to double down on things. I never met an argument that I could not make worse. That's what I did last week too. 'Oh, you're upset and just said this thing that hurt me? Well, fine. I'll tell you all about how upset I am and hurt you back.' But I think that doubling down isn't always a bad thing. Last Sunday, I had told Ginger that we should find time during this long holiday weekend to talk about what she needed so we could see what we could do about that. I meant it then and I still do. This is that 10% shit, so it really needs addressed. If she can be happier and be getting her needs met, maybe it won't be as bad when some of my need spills over. Either way, it provides me with a definite place to start, definite thing I can do instead of wallowing in how shitty I feel. 

As for some new skills, let's just call it a tell the truth, nothing but the truth, reality check. I'll list what I know is true without the depression bullshit. Even if I don't have anything I can do about them right now, I'll at least know what I know. 

The first day I met Ginger, we talked about how poly might be a better way because more hands to help out with children, with each other, with tasks. When we first got together, I really liked having a larger family than just me and one partner and I wanted to add children to that for an even larger family. It's unfair to dismiss this man she loves from being part of our family out of hand. Maybe I'm fighting this because I'm jealous or insecure in my relationship, particularly with her. I do really wish I felt like we were all involved in the idea of bringing this person into our family, especially as things progressed. So I guess I have issue with how she has handled this, even while I understand that it feels like the best way for her to handle it for her, but I don't want that to cast a bad shadow on whether or not he is a part of our family. 

There are serious trust issues in the relationship. Namely, I don't really trust anyone. I'm better than I used to be, don't get me wrong. But I only trust people to be who they are, who I feel they are based on their past. Now, I feel like this makes it not so much their fault and they aren't trying to hurt me when they do something that does hurt me. For me, it shifts some responsibility to me, that I should have seen they might do something like this and worked to deal with how I would feel beforehand. But, no I don't trust that people will act on their best natures or even what they said they would do and sincerely wanted to do. Quite often, I have regretted ever telling Ginger this because, when I tell her I am not capable of other kinds of trust, she only hears that i don't trust her. So when I try to exercise some control of a situation because of my own insecurities and as a way to cope ahead, all she sees is me controlling things because I don't trust her specifically. In reality, these are two sides of the same coin, but in my head it is not personal. 

In the same vein, when I am feeling insecure about a situation, I try to think through the situation and shape them in way that I can handle as a way of coping ahead. I do try to shape them in a way that is beneficial to all, so that no one will mind my controlling or changing some things. At least in this, she only sees this as me controlling things because I don't trust that she will not purposefully hurt me. I do not know right now how to ask for anything regarding this situation, to try to mitigate my own harm, without it coming off like I am controlling her. And I would have negotiated differently about the freedom thing if it was ever a thing we had negotiated. Especially when we are raising kids, yes, I would have issues with any of us just leaving on a trip without any preparation or concern. (The Professor assures me that how I read what she wrote is not how she meant it.) 

I am just not polyamorous in the way that many people claim to be. I fell into a relationship with them and we were together. I loved both of them, so it was polyamorous by definition. But I am more on the open relationship side of things. I want to be able to fuck or play with other people. I might have feelings for these people but it is probably not love like I have for my current partners. Honestly, while this relationship should give me the more freedom for other sexual, dating, or love relationships, I've found myself progressively more annoyed by most attempts I've made at any of the three. Hell, right now, I'm annoyed with most relationships with other people. I have a hard time relating to people right now, with finding people I can actually be all of myself with, with finding people I like hanging out with. My crushes usually last a few weeks and then I want them to find better situations with people who can actually devote time and love to them. I just don't have it in me right now. But I'm realizing more and more that my truth right now is that I love the people I'm living with and I don't really want to love anyone else. I do want to be in love with Ginger again and develop that but I'm not sure we can bridge that gap. But I am seriously and deeply in love with the Professor and, other than Ginger, I do not want to be in love with anyone else. This may change. I may meet someone and just fall, but I don't have all that love to give people like Ginger has. I barely have enough love for the people in my life right now. I've tried and tried and tried to have feelings for other people that were love or love-like but I just don't have it in me. Maybe if I did, I could feel more secure in Ginger loving all of us and staying with all of us, because I could empathize with it. But it is a foreign language to me. No, it's telling a blind person what "red" is. I can see the concept but I can't experience it. I will keep trying to sympathize and support her in this, but I will probably never empathize. I don't expect either of them not to love or be in love with others. I just can't empathize with it myself. Maybe I'm more polysexual and monoamorous (they've always been kinda a package deal, "together they barely make one good boyfriend")? Honestly, even now that I feel better about the situation and more willing to work on changing things, I still feel very cold, cut-off, and detached from almost everyone and everything in my life. Other than the baby and the Professor, I haven't felt a continued connection to anyone for months and months. What's probably even more sad is that, other than this thing with Ginger and a few people I have met in the bdsm community, I don't have a real desire to change that.

I know, I know. That's a whole lot of words to say that I don't actually know how to make anything better. Fuck, I need some sleep. Well, anyway, there it is.

More thoughts about touch

I'm starting to realize a weird ambivalence I have around being touched. A few weeks ago someone told me that she felt like she was that she had a serious touch deficit, like she hungered to be touched. It was something she was only just realizing. She wanted that to change, to be touched more, not just sexually or romantically, but also platonically. I felt an instant revulsions. It got me thinking about how I feel about touch.  Ive written about this before, about how the dates that I had been on, the times that I've messed around with people in the past year or so,how I just didn't enjoy being touched. It all felt so fraught with weirdness and just felt wrong. I'm not even sure why. Well maybe I know. It's really been like this I think since I got with Professor. And maybe is one of those things where I feel like I belong to him so even in situations where it's okay it still feels not okay.

On the other hand there are in situations where it was to be slightly taboo or much more friendly and joking and those times do feel okay. I served at the high protocol dinner for the local Master/slave group. It was held at someone's house and it was a little cramped for all of us subs to be in the kitchen at one time getting the food to take out. We had to touch each other to get around each other. That felt fine. Even really refreshing and comforting. Us subs had to lead the Dom/me we were serving to their place at the table. I was serving the Sir of a woman I am friendly with, as she was guiding the dinner. It was hard to avoid touching the person you were serving at some point during the meal. Both the intentional and accidental touching of him were all fine. They were expected but controlled so it was okay.

The other kind of touch I've had recently has been at work. Sometimes we're in close quarters and you're trying to move around someone so you might touch their back so they don't run into you. There is also the matter of a little flirtatious touch that happens. It's under the guise of just making sure the person doesn't move into you, but there's always maybe that one or two people who do it a little more than others, a little more than is necessary. Or a lot more. There is one person at work, a man who is not my supervisor but definitely several steps above me in the hierarchy at work, who does this. When I was working there before my maternity leave it kind of squeaked  me out when he did this, but since I've been back... I don't know... It makes me feel a little different. I have started pushing the edge back a little. Maybe because I kind of like him. It is a bit taboo, could be completely out of bounds if one or the other of us said something to a superior, but the fact that we are both doing it shows the other that it's okay even though it's not within rules. There's this little bit of charge around it. That might all be in my head, but I enjoy it, enjoy this little game that at least I am playing. But other than the two kinds of situations above, i generally don't feel comfortable being touched.

The last few days have been really hard on me. Hell, a great deal of the last month or so have been hard. When i get overwhelmed or very sad or very angry, i go to my room alone, curl up under the covers. Alone. I've requested that the Professor largely just let me be. I just want to shrink into myself. It feels like that can't be good.

Being an adult

Part of being an adult is realizing that everything has a cost. Even the things thst bring a great deal to your life,  the things that make you happiest, those things still have a cost. Another part of being an adult is figuring out what you are willing to pay for something and trying not to bitch too much about that decision.

Isolated

Between my work hours and the baby and my unusual situation,  i feel more and more isolated. Laying here crying at 145am on a Wednesday night, Thursday morning, there's not a single person i can call. Even if i felt comfortable calling anyone i knew at this hour, i don't know anyone i would feel would "get it." Everyone in my relationship is dealing with their own bit of crazy and right now we're all upset with the others in our way so I can't talk to them.  (well, I'm not upset with the Professor but he's frustrated with me.)

and everytime it gets like this in the relationship,  i feel like who i am is not ok. Ginger just wants "three weeks where nothing happens." The Professor feels like it's always something, that there's always something wrong and he can't ever just relax.

In this particular instance, i feel like i do alot of work to set things up so they get things they need beforehand and, when i need help to facilitate it, that gets denied. I feel like i didn't ask for much. Now I'm upset and they're upset too. But it will be me who's creating the problem, me who creates drama, me who made this a big deal when it's not. i created a big deal out of trying to make things work for them, trying to do the one thing i could to help with a problem Ginger has and to try to keep things equal. Though I'm trying very hard, whether it's my crazy or my personality or both, things just are a bigger deal to me and i feel more emotional about things than most people but definitely more than my partners. But that isn't ok. I'm not ok. No matter how hard i try i probably always will have more times that feel like crisis to me. Even if i try, even if they only see a fraction of the times i actually feel crisis inside, that is not ok. I'm never gonna be ok.

To Be Resolved

For the last several weeks I have struggled with creating my new normal now that I am back at work, with the baby at home, while also maintaining my dynamic. I have found that I don't have many people to talk to who will understand what I am going through. There seems to be two strains of advice whenever I express frustration with anything to do with the housework. The one I get most often is "Just make your partners do more." I have grown up around families where this is what the person who wanted more done, more often, and more specifically attempted to do and it never ended well. The person who kept trying to get their partner to do more and do it their way ended up being a person they didn't want to be (a bitch, a nag, an asshole), their partner dreaded everything that came out of their mouth and felt less than and unaccepted, and they ended up doing all those things anyway because it doesn't work. Also, the people that I talk to don't take into account the M/s dynamic that I would like to maintain with the Professor. In fact, in the week before I went back to work, we already hit that and the Professor pointed it out to me. When I was nagging him about his sleep schedule, he peevishly responded, "I am a grown man. I do not need to be told when to go to bed. I will be up whenever I need to be to take care of our daughter, no matter how much sleep I don't get. That's all that matters. But I'm a grown man, not a kid, not your kid, not a sub, not a slave, not a babygirl. I don't need to be told when to go to bed." That's when I realized how insulting it was to him, and to the dynamic that I claim to want. 

Of course, the other answer is to just give up on it ever being clean again because I now had a child. There is a certain amount of this that is true. It isn't going to be as clean as I might have made it before. There will be weird things that are icky (favorite growing up - jelly in the vcr) and found in weird places. And I am learning to let some things go. But even when no one wants to do our dishes, bottles must be cleaned. Once she can crawl and grab stuff, we will have to clean stuff off the tables and vacuum more. Ginger and I must at least have clean work clothes, if nothing else. I am learning to prioritize much more and to let go of things that don't need to be done right now when I am not feeling up to it or when doing it will make me feel resentful. But I also know something these people don't- that I need to have my living space in some kind of order or I will go crazy. When I do my version of things that my partners find to be vacation, like I fall into non-stop tv and movies or reading books until I only get a few hours of sleep a night versus their rereading books they've read before or falling into video games, that is the first sign that I am falling into a depression. That is bad. Keeping my surroundings clean and orderly before I fall into things like that or as I do things like that (like watching tv while I do dishes) is me staying sane. So I can't just let everything go. 

I also really want to keep and expand upon the Master / slave dynamic that I want with the Professor. I know that many of the things that people who call themselves Master or Mistress do is just a lot of work and especially since he is expending so much energy taking care of our daughter that is just too much for him to do. But that doesn't mean that I can't do the things on my end that will make me a better 'slave' and that work to keep me in the right headspace when I am home. I know that he sees and will reward me for that, as he always has. This weekend we have looked at several day collars so I can always be reminded of my place. 

Over this weekend, another issue has presented itself. The Professor and Ginger need to work on their relationship. I cannot magically make it better, but there are a few things I can do. For the last year, everything has been about me, the pregnancy, and the baby. Just like anyone, the Professor only has enough emotional energy to expend at any time. To give more in one area you have to take from another area. I can work to be less work. I can work to deal with my own issues, to have less issues, and to find other places to vent those issues. I can't make him then put that emotional energy to his relationship with Ginger and his relationship with himself, but I can hope that he does.

SO TO BE RESOLVED

I will be a good and loving partner to my partners. I will strive to keep myself mentally healthy as much as I strive to keep myself financially healthy for this family. I will let things go that don't need to be done right now if doing them will make me angry or resentful because I know my partners don't care. I will strive to be a good slave, who doesn't require micromanagement to happily, respectfully, and unobtrusively perform my duties for my Master because I know he appreciates me and will reward me in due time. 

Finite Resources

This week, my first week back after three months off but only exactly 8 weeks off after my c-section, I worked 53 hours, all of them on my feet. I also took care of my daughter during the day, did chores around the house before and after work, spent hours on the phone trying to deal with medical insurance for my tiny human. I have gotten to see my tiny human about four hours a day. I haven't seen my girlfriend since I left for work on Sunday. I have gotten maybe 20 total minutes of sexual contact with my boyfriend. Because I had to go into work on one of my usual days off, the boyfriend and I didn't get to celebrate my iud becoming fully effective today. I had to cancel plans I had for Friday night to go see a movie and visit the local dungeon for the first time with someone I've dated. Instead of spending time with and talking to my significant others, my mom, and the few close friends I have, or just being by myself, I've had to spend 9 hours a day for five days, and 8 hours on a sixth day, in a room full of people I don't know very well or trust or feel comfortable with, being friendly and answering questions about how my tiny human is doing, which just reminds me that I've left her behind.  

A lot of people on the kinky social networking site talk about how they are polyamorous because they have an infinite amount of love. That is most definitely not true for me. The amount of love I have is finite. The amount of patience I have is finite. The amount of emotional energy I have is finite. I wanted an open or at least monogamish relationship. I am poly because I fell in love with him, he already had a her, and I fell in love with her too. But my love, my energy, my time, and my patience are all finite. I know this is not true for everyone but it is true for me. When I have to expend more emotional energy, more time, more love in one area, I have less to give elsewhere. This is exacerbated by being tired, lonely, and dealing with my own mental health issues. All this makes me empty and hollow and callous. 

Right now I might want more sex but there is a part of me that only wants it in the meanest possible way. I want to use someone and not give two shits. I want to find someone who I know can't get sex easily somewhere else and use them because I know they will work harder to keep the sex than anyone else and they will continue even though I don't care about them. I know that sounds horrible, but that's what I feel right now, which is why I try not to look for sex at moments like this no matter how much I want to have more sex and no matter how much that is perfectly alright with in the parameters of my relationship.

Ginger is developing a romantic relationship with someone who's been her friend for over half of her life. As she talked about this relationship and just how she feels about romantic relationships in general, I realized how far apart we are in how we feel and how we look at the world. I would not describe her as naive. She has had a much harder life than I have, hung out with and been protected by some shady characters who loved her in ways even her family did not, and has worked very hard to get to where she is in all areas of her life. Given all this, I find her views on romantic relationships surprisingly ...romantic. She is poly so she can add more love to her life. She and the Professor both feel that they are as made for each other as two people can be. She wants and needs a romantic relationship in her life where she doesn't feel they will leave her.
I don't know how much of this is me just being willful, how much is just being super emotionally tired, but I don't share any of those feelings in my own life. I don't think there is anyone we are made to be with. I feel like my experience has taught me that people will always leave you, even if it is just through their own unavoidable death. It is exceedingly rare that I meet someone that can inspire enough lust in me for me to make time for them and I have serious doubts about meeting someone I'll want to pursue any kind of love relationship with. Even before the tiny human, I did not have extra romantic love to give anyone. I barely have enough for the two people I'm already with.
What sort of scares me is that I'm not even sure when this happened. I used to be much more idealistic. As I write this, all I can feel is the hardness around my heart.
Something he said last weekend has stuck in my head. We had the day alone to play. We've been playing with some new dirty talk stuff and it's been really exciting. He never says something that some part of him, however small, doesn't believe. After a particularly intense discussion about all the things he'd use to show to me how attractive I still am, not just to him but to other people, he looked at me and said, "But you're not hot when you're a bitch." To emphasize that he wasn't just being playful, he followed it up with "You can be vulnerable sometimes."
And maybe he's right. I know that I've had a particularly bad case of resting bitch face this week at work. But I don't have the time or emotional energy to sort through who I can trust here and who I may like, even if I had the time and emotional energy to have more people in my life, in any capacity. With all the complications any sort of relationship at work brings, I'm a bit glad that I'm not hot there. Already dodging one co-worker, who is older than my parents, and who definitely inspiring that emotional sadist in me. I just don't have the time or energy that she needs.  

The Calculus of Non-monogamous Relationships

A few nights ago, I wrote a long post about some realizations I'd had recently in my current relationship. When I woke up the next morning, I decided it might be too personal to publish, especially in the eyes of my partners, who are more private people, though I knew I still wanted to publish something that touched on those realizations, however obliquely, as well as address other general issues in poly. This is my attempt at that. Also, my current relationship is all 3- non-monogamous, open, and poly, so that is what I am speaking from. I tried not to use them interchangeably though because they are not the same thing. Non-monogamous covers all three, but not all poly relationships are open (as in an exclusive committed poly triad where those three people are only with each other) and not all open relationships are poly (as in people who have sexual contact outside of their main love relationship, but aren't looking for love relationships outside of their primary love relationship.) Every dynamic is different so your mileage may vary.

Lately, I've found myself in a weird position. That of being a grown-up, one that other people sometimes even look to for advice, as if I was some kind of expert. That is super weird to me because I've spent so much of my life looking at other people who seem to have it so much more together than I have. Half of the time, when someone does ask for advice, I don't feel like I have much of an answer to give them. This is especially true when it comes to issues of non-monogamy. Just because I'm doing it and it is working doesn't mean I feel like I have very good answers. Then again, sometimes I think they're just asking me the wrong questions, questions that I have no answer to, that largely no one has good answers to. That's probably because most people ask me how they can find a unicorn or how they can help their partner find other partners. My answer to that is "fuck if I know. I just kinda fell into this situation. None of us were looking for it but it just kinda happened." No, what I have more answers about is how we're still together, though that might also not be helpful for everyone. Just as with BDSM, I came to non-monogamy and openness and poly with a good deal of theoretical knowledge, only to have found that practice with real people in the real world is very different.

There's a meme I see pop up online from time to time about "Don't make someone a priority if they only make you an option." I've seen this cited by people who came into an open or poly situation that didn't work out for them as how they now view open or poly relationships, why they won't be involved with open or poly people, etc. In fact, I recently had someone close to our family, who is really supportive of our family and our relationship tell me that the whole reason she won't allow her and her husband to be open/poly is because she didn't feel like he would continue to treat her like a priority if he had other options.

Let's get one thing straight right off the bat: I am not the great poly proselytizer. There are a million ways in which it is a lot of work. No matter what version of non-monogamy you are practicing, it is more work and complication than monogamy. If having a relationship with one person means multiplying by 2, non-monogamy makes things more complicated exponentially. It's not calculating trajectories for two objects out in space. It's orbital mechanics for a whole solar system, with planets and moons for each planet. Even within my own little triad, we all have different reasons why it works better for us, but that doesn't mean that it is for anyone else. The people who didn't feel like they were made a priority in the non-monogamous, open, and/or poly relationships they were in are completely justified in not wanting to potentially repeat that by being in another one. 

On the other hand, I would also say that maybe it wasn't the non-mono/open/poly that was the problem. Maybe it was the people involved and/or differing expectations for the relationship. Most of you reading this probably know that The Professor, Ginger, and I had several months of "break" in our relationship at the end of last summer and during last fall. When I would tell people that I wasn't living with them anymore and that I was dating other people, most people responded with some variation of, "So you figured out that type of relationship doesn't work/wasn't for you, huh?" (Though there were a few people who hinted they thought it was over because "well, he didn't chose you," which I largely ignored.) Nope. There were lots of issues. I realize now that some of them were even with how I felt about the poly dynamics, but it was never poly itself. No, most all the issues were ones of differing expectations and unexpected limitations, which I think that every relationship goes through. New relationship energy makes you want to give the moon to your partner and even convinces you that you can. Then reality sets in and it's difficult to admit not only that your partner can't give you the moon they promised but that you can't do it either. Now imagine you have two partners that you can't give the moon to and who just told you that they can't give you the moon either because, well, you're all a bunch of fucked up people with lots of baggage and limitations. I'll admit, I went out looking for someone to give me the moon I thought I wanted. While I met some very nice people, I largely found that they didn't really have moons to give me either, even if I had wanted to take a moon from them. More than that, I realized that all the things my partners could give me, while not the unrealistic things we'd initially promised, were given in love and pretty fucking awesome. I'd already realized that when I then got a moon accidentally anyway. 

One of the other things I think about with the above meme is if the person posting also made the other person's other relationships a priority. When talking to that above person who knows my family personally, I told her that it could be difficult, especially when one of us gets the new relationship energy with a new person, but we really try hard to communicate about our needs, so that no one feels like they are left behind. Some people feel like they are bad at poly when they don't feel compersion (the opposite of jealousy, when you can feel joy seeing your loved one love someone else.) I think it's more in how you deal with the jealousy and/or envy that you will feel at some time. We regularly schedule time where it is just two of us together, in all pairings. Not just "yeah, we sat around and watched tv just the two of us" kinda nights, but nights were you are actively participating with that partner. When I first came into the relationship, I knew the nights that Ginger had off work and respected those as time they had together. Even when I lived with them, I'd often plan weekends out of town or stay at my parents and do laundry on nights that were reserved just for them. As my schedule was much more flexible, the Professor and I largely didn't have to schedule things as tightly, though Ginger and I often had to because our schedules and sleeping hours would clash. The times that I attempting dating other people, I made sure to give undivided attention to them as well. 

Even with all this fairly good communication and compromise skills, sometimes you still feel this tug of "ugh, this thing really bothers me, even though it's unreasonable and there isn't a way to change it." A few days ago, I wrote a long post about an issue I had like that. While I decided the long version was too private to post, I am going to try to summarize my part of it here. For much of the relationship, I was bothered by what I thought was unequal sleeping arrangements. For me, the difference between a casual sexual relationship and a romantic relationship was if I felt comfortable sleeping with someone and did on a regular basis. At Ginger and the Professor's old place, there was a master bedroom with a queen, later king, size bed and a guest room with a double bed. Even once they got a king, it wasn't comfortable for all three of us to share a bed. I didn't usually sleep at the same time as Ginger, so we rarely shared a bed. Sometimes the Professor slept with me in the double bed, but more often than not, he'd sleep in "their room." Now there are many reasons why this was not an unreasonable situation. First of all, because of differing sleep schedules, it wasn't actually like he slept more with Ginger than with me. More often than not, he was sleeping alone. Even more than this though, he had very justified reasons for not wanting to sleep with me. We are both big people and the double bed just isn't big enough for us. Even when we could sleep in the bigger bed in the master bedroom, I snore and talk in my sleep, both of which prevent him from getting much sleep at all. Even knowing all of this, there was this thing that nagged at my brain and said "you aren't equal because you sleep alone." 

When I wrote the post a few nights ago, after we had all gone to bed at our new place together, me in my double bed in my room, them in the king size bed in the master bedroom, I realized that them sharing the same bedroom was actually much better in many ways. For a few months after I got pregnant, the Professor slept in the bed with me every time I was over. (Must be a male "must protect the pregnant lady" urge, combined with the fact that I wasn't snoring as much anymore.) It was really sweet for the first week or so. Then the annoying started to creep in. "Fuck he keeps stealing my pillows." "How did I end up with only 6 inches of the bed?" "Damn, I was really planning on watching some dirty porn and masturbating tonight, but he had to be all sweet and want to cuddle and now he's asleep! When will I start snoring again so he won't want to sleep with me!?!" Then there's that I love having my own space. I got used to having something that was just mine in the apartment that I had for the last year or so. There was no argument over bedrooms when it came to this place. Master bedroom would mean sharing and I didn't want to share. Yes, my bedroom isn't large but it's my sanctuary and I also have the "family" room downstairs for most of my books and such. Finally, just like I need the space to myself, I have realized how it makes their relationship, a relationship I was welcomed into but that already existed, stronger and more secure. We are going through some growing pains right now. While we are welcoming a child into the relationship, it is not how we planned it originally, which puts unique strains on all of our bonds. Ginger is also growing an existing friendship into a romantic relationship, which is unique both in that she hasn't had more than a few dates with anyone outside the relationship but also that there is hopes of it being a long-term addition to the family, not just a passing thing, which is what the Professor and I tend to go for. This is a time that could be especially precarious for their relationship and I want to do everything in my power to help ease that, even if that is just making more space for them to be together, no matter what they choose to do with it or not do with it. I've learned the hard way that I can't "fix" things between them, any more than Ginger can fix things between the Professor and I or the Professor can fix things between Ginger and I. The best we can do is make space and time. 

So what I'm getting at is poly is hard. It can be really fulfilling and I think that everyone should at least know that non-monogamy, open relationships, and poly relationships are things that are out there, even if they decide that it is not for them. And I am completely useless at finding unicorns, as I can't even find an outside FB/FWB that I feel comfortable with at this time when that should theoretically be much easier. It takes people really communicating, even if all they can say is "I'm feeling sucky about x. It may be unreasonable. Let's find a reasonable way to deal with it." As Ginger and the Professor have often said, it takes you wanting the relationship more than you want to not be vulnerable. It takes people who are able to actively put the health of the other relationship(s) first sometimes, even when it doesn't look like it benefits them directly. It takes knowing that every dynamic is different, both those between individuals within the group and the groups themselves. It means that things won't always be equal, or at least won't always look equal, and that sometimes you won't be the priority. At the end of the day, it's about what works, for you as an individual and for you as a group. 

Choosing The Price You Pay

It's difficult for me to say if my uncle was an introvert or an extrovert. Sadly, I can't ask him now. He did like to spend his time alone, would spend days at the lake, just drifting along in his boat. He loved living out in the country where he could be alone with the stars. But he also had many friends. Not just acquaintances, but people who were close to him. The sister of a friend of his came from 10-12 hours away, so she could help us out while he was in hospice, cooking us food, just being a shoulder to cry on. In those last years of his life, he had a hard time keeping up with all the people he wanted to talk to, between treatments and just being sick and tired, but he tried. 

I am not my uncle, however. I sit solidly in the introvert camp. Being around groups of people drain me. Even being around just a few people can be draining after a while. As the Professor, Ginger, and I plan on moving in together before our first child comes, I know that I will have to lock myself away in my room from time to time, veg out for hours to recharge when I need to. I'm glad we found a place where I won't have to share my bedroom with anyone, even my child. 

I have a few close friends. Two female friends who live in the metro, who I talk to more on facebook chat than anything else. Moneypenny lives four hours away, who I text with a few times a week (maybe) and try to see once a month. TyRoy spends his weeks 2 hours away and his weekends in the metro with his new wife, who I don't get to see very often because of our schedules and who I really should email more often. Occasionally, I'll talk or text with MP, more since I've been pregnant and he's concerned about how I'm doing. That's about it. Here and there, I will text with acquaintance-type people, but that's about it. It isn't a very large group.

I've tried branching out. Last fall, I tried to get out in the bdsm community as well as date through online sites. While I met many nice and fun people, nothing serious came of it. I stopped dating altogether just before I found out I was pregnant and then I stopped going to bdsm community events when my work hours changed and I started dealing with being pregnant. I was very overwhelmed and really retreated from more casual acquaintances, rather than have to expend more emotional energy on anything else. 

In the last few months, once I started to get adapted to this new 2nd shift schedule, I tried once again to find people that I could connect with through online sources. I was really lonely when I got off work, since none of my current friends are usually awake when I get off work. I just wanted someone to talk to, like you would with any friend after a long, tiring day. But I wanted someone who I had things in common with, who it was easy for me to talk to, who I didn't feel like I was always justifying my life to. I wanted someone it was easy to chat with, just like how it feels when you strike up a friendship with someone in any other context. But just like when I was dating last fall, I don't really have the emotional energy or the time in my life to expend on people I don't feel are a good fit for what I'm looking for. I know that sounds incredibly dismissive of other people and maybe it is. On the other hand, during neither period of time did I think that the people I chose not to have relationships with were not worthy people, in and of themselves. Even the people I had the worst dates with or the worst correspondences with still have good qualities and should have friends and romantic/sexual partners who they connect with. Hell, if I had unlimited time, unlimited emotional energy, and wasn't an introvert, I may have had successful friendships or other relationships with them. But I don't and we didn't. And, as much as I don't want to rob others of their own ability to choose to be in my life, I do feel like it is better for them to spend time with and on people they have a chance of a friendship or relationship with, instead of someone who probably won't be able to give them what they are looking for, or at least not for very long before she had to disappear again.

The older I get, the more I see the prices you have to pay for things, the trade-offs that have to happen. One of the big things you learn in DBT is radical acceptance, which is acknowledging how things actually are in this moment, so you can stop struggling with how it shouldn't be like this and start dealing with how it actually is. That means realizing your limitations and the limitations of the situation you are in, so you can either work within that or change how you see the situation. It's where you start to make the trade offs that you have to make to be an effective, not crazy adult. 

Sometimes, it means being selfish, knowing how much you have to give and only giving that to the most important people and things in your life, even when there are other people or things that are just as worthy or deserving. Sometimes, it means hurting other people's feelings, because they want to be someone you take a chance on, just like they are ready to take a chance on you. Sometimes, it means passing up a lot of opportunities, especially ones that you don't think are sure things, for ones you do feel more confident of, only to have those blow up in your face. Sometimes, it means being picky. Sometimes, it means being seen as a bitch or stuck up or difficult. 

And sometimes it means realizing that you'd rather be lonely because the price you'd have to pay to not be lonely is higher than the price you pay being lonely. 

There's one of those cliched self-help sayings that says that a person won't change until the pain they feel to stay the same is greater than the fear they have of the change they'd have to make, or the pain of making that change. For myself, this has definitely been true. I didn't put in the hardwork to change my life until the pain of that life was greater than my fear or change and the pain I worried I'd experience if I changed. Right now, I have to acknowledge that I'm not there in dealing with this loneliness. And I accept that I am actively making this choice. I'm not acting like there are no good people out there, for friendship or romance or sex. I'm not acting like there are not awesome people who would take a chance on me. I'm not saying that none of this makes me come off as a kinda shitty or difficult person, or even that I'm not those things. Just that I'm not willing to make this trade off. At least not right now.