Update On a Naked Neck

It's not really naked today.  I'm wearing my own pearls, not the pearls of my old day collar.

I would very much like to just curl up in front of never ending bad tv but I can't. I have children and obligations and I can't get lost in my own sorrow.

I'm sad and I'm scared. But most of the time I don't feel like it's as bad as I did feel like it was.

Friday night he and I talked. We still have so much love for each other but know that nothing is working like this. His biggest push was just that I can't live with them anymore. We need to work out child custody and the wheres of living arrangements the three of us, with flexibility for our lives, but I will always be welcome in their home to be with the kids, presumably even if it's not my night, as long as we make the arrangements. He and i have hopes to go back to the secondary relationship that we think was working pretty well for us before I became pregnant.

I'm trying very hard not to give in to despair. It would be easy to do. It would be what I usually do. But everyone still needs me. Even if the ultimate goal is us living apart and having some sort of shared custody that works well for us, that doesn't mean that we don't still need each other in the arrangement we have right now, and won't need each other in the arrangement to come. And we're paving a new way here. Or at least we hope so.

One of his big points is that he wants us to do this before we hate each other. While we can still amicably work this out and be around each other. It will be a different sort of getting over him that happens if then with other couples who just break up. And it is something that I had to do with her as well when it came down that we were never going to be romantic partners. It is messier and weirder. It especially will be for him and I if we keep some of the sex and play but not the expectations of a primary relationship. But if we are actually invested in creating a larger extended family that can still be around each other and workout then it's what needs to happen.

Because child Arrangements have to be worked out with the three of us, those ideas are a little less defined in my mind. But I do have hopes for my own romantic life going forward, that I will one day find a primary who fits the things that I want and need and I fit the things that he wants and needs. A part of what I will be looking for is him fitting in with my family. Since I came along, he has talked about the fact that we need to add a husband to the family next. In his mind this person might not even  be sexually or romantically involved in our family, but is someone who wants to add their family to ours. Of course in my mind, this person would be a husband of mine who is sexually and romantically involved with me but who is invested as much as we are in having this larger extended non-traditional poly family.

Of course I know that this is going to be very very hard to find. Any of that will come secondary to taking care of the kids and sometimes to taking care of the larger family, since I don't think that we not living with them or having him as my primary means that I do not have any obligation to them, it just means that we have different obligations to each other. I also know that it is going to be hard to find all of the things that I want in a single person. Obviously there will be things I have to compromise on. And I know that it's a little intimidating to have someone like me in general but someone who's looking for the things I am, someone who wants so much.

I don't really know how to end this. Just that things are taking a shape. I'm mostly ok, though sad & scared. I'm hopeful that it will better though.

No collar

I feel naked without the collar. It's going to take some time to get used to. I have felt its weight for the better part of year, no I guess a little over a year now, and I hadn't expected it to come off so soon. And I still feel like if i could have it back, i would, though with the expectations that it entails to both sides.

It's hard to write because I don't want to say something that will sound bad against anyone. I still have so much love for everyone, especially him. On the other hand I have to write. That's who I am. I feel like I have lost so much of who I am in these last years, given it away to make room so that I could earn my place, that I have to keep some of it.

Really hard when in your heart you feel like you would have done anything for some one and still feel like you would do anything for them, but you also feel like the both of you are left with no real choice. At least without completely breaking everything you are and believe in. I have to keep reminding myself that they feel just as strongly as i do about these things on their side as I do. It's hard when both sides feel like they've given so much only to have what they gave be seen as unimportant to the other person and, in the end, not save it.

She seems happy though. Happy to be rid of me. He doesn't seem happy yet but he will be. I'll be just another crazy ex-girlfriend, but one who left him with an obligation, one he still has to deal with. I hope maybe some day he can be happy to be my friend and I his, maybe be able to have the great sex without things getting too muddled. He can be in the floozy box he should have been in all along. I hope that they can get back what they once had, long before me, long before a lot if things. Maybe she can be with one with two livein loves now and it can be even better.

I want so badly to be wanted and have someone else that worries about me. Not in a Negative way, but someone who cares enough to wonder about what I'm doing or to worry if I'm not somewhere on time. but I'm feeling like right now I'm someone that everyone wants to just get rid of. I know that seems backwards because i brought up leaving first. But that's what i always do when it feels like someone wants me out or it's at that impasse.  Because it's too hard for others to sat it, so I'll say it & do it. I don't know how this works for regular people .In the end, I know I need to make myself someone that I worry about. Maybe that I'll find someone who worries about me, who I won't feel that way about.

I Feel Something So Wrong By Doing the Right Thing

I switched jobs. It was supposed to be the right choice but it hasn't turned out that way so far.

I was working 50-58 hour weeks, only one day off half the time. I was exhausted. I was a complete bitch. When I did get to hang out with the kids in the morning before work, I was falling asleep. He said I needed to find a new job months ago.

I found one. I didn't think I'd like it but it would get me experience closer to what I'd like in a different job. It was day-ish hours. It was only 40 hours a week. It paid less money. A lot less money. But I used to be able to get by on that kind of money. I had done some quick math that said I could get by on it. I asked them for their opinions. They were supportive of whatever I did and I should do what would make me the happiest.

I agonized for a really long time, going back and forth, especially since there was another position at the employer I was at that I had applied for which at the time said it would be less hours, though still 2nd shift hours, and more money. (Turned out that the hours probably weren't going to be any less so I didn't get the job when they finally did hire people, since I made clear that I didn't want to work 10 hour days.) What I really wanted was someone to have a real opinion as if it was there life too, as if it was also their happiness and financial well being that was attached to what job I took. You know, because to them it was OURS, not just mine. I wish someone had expressed their own opinions on how they thought they would feel when the childcare burden shifted or when I was home at a different time. I tried to ask and I felt blown off every time. It only mattered what would make me happy. But when you have kids and a family, it isn't always about that. Sometimes it's about setting yourself up best for the future. Sometimes it's about just sticking out shitty situations. It's about so many other things than that. And having a partner or partners were we could be completely transparent and honest about things from exact finances to how we felt about household burdens and everything else is what I want and what I don't know how to have.

And as things sit right now, I made the wrong choice. I don't like the job and very shortly I won't be able to completely make my bills. I'll be a little short every month, if I'm ONLY paying my bills. That doesn't count extravagances like flat tires and doctor's visits. I'm going to go back to looking for jobs, though I'm not sure how it will look that I'm looking again when I've only been with this company for a month. I've been lazy as well. I was going to use the time I now have after the kids go to bed to work on a novel or two. I have ideas for cheesy erotic bdsm novels that I could self-publish on amazon but I'm often really tired after cuddling mini-me to sleep and I often just want to hang out in the same room as the Professor and watch tv or read the internet. It's also been difficult to get down to writing. I can't find the headspace at work because they listen to crappy pop music all day long and I can't listen to my headphones and listen to podcasts or other audiobooks or my own music to let my ideas percolate through all that new knowledge and experience.

But I haven't even been blogging. I know it was a choice that I made but .... well, everything I wanted to say felt like airing dirty laundry. Some of it was stuff that I hadn't said to either partner yet, sometimes things I felt like I couldn't tell them. While it was my own decision though, it has made me feel so small and boxed in. I used to write often speciifically so others could read it, because I felt like I could explain things on the page much better than I could vocally. But the Professor stopped really reading what I wrote long ago. I was too wordy and he just wished I would get to the point. If he ever reads this, that's what he'll say too. There stopped being any point to writing for him to understand me better or better understand how I was feeling or how I thought about things. So then writing about us just became airing our dirty laundry. When you're in a relationship that you know others already criticize or in a group where people are going to blame anything that goes wrong on that ("well, of course it's not going right. you're poly/kinky/etc"), you can start to feel like you can't show the weaknesses there because it will get blamed on that. Or at least I do. I don't want to show my partners as bad people just vent about how things are, that things aren't perfect, figure out how I might fix them, just like anyone would in any relationship, gay or straight, kinky or vanilla, poly or mono. I've let the criticisms from both sides get in my head so much that I just shut down, pulled myself inwards.

But I'm done with that now. While I'll still try not to hurt people, I'll write what I want and when I want. When I know someone could do something to help a situation, I will tell them, even if I know they won't do it because I am just enough of a bitch that I want them to have to say that they don't want to help me or themselves enough to do that simple thing. I will take responsibility for when I'm acting like a bitch or when I start a fight or when I had a bit of an attitude, but I won't let other people blame me for every fight, for their attitude, for their bitchiness. I tried not saying things, sparing other people's feelings and make excuses whenever I could, but I'm done now. Especially because I'm done with others sparing my feelings. That always gets thrown back in my face, like I asked to be spared. I didn't. Others just didn't want to deal with me being emotional or upset, even if maybe I wouldn't have been or maybe that was what I needed because I didn't know I was doing that thing that upset/angered you. Maybe I should give you the same chance that I want. Though these seem to be my famous last words, I'm not sure it could feel any worse that what I"m already doing.

So Far Away

I had just been thinking about you when I heard her stirring in the other room, waking from a bad dream.

I had been thinking about walking out onto the coblestone street at 2am (SO late to 12 yr/o me) in your little college town as rain started to drop onto the dusty street. We had been up all night painting your little apartment as well as the stairway up to it, part of whatever deal you made for a cut in deposit or rent. You were always doing things like that, trading work for reduced price.

Then i had thought about how far away everything with you feels now. That night was over 20 years ago. You've been gone five years? Has it been five years now? My life is so different than it was, than any life we'd have known. I wonder how you'd feel about it. I imagine trying to talk to you about it, like when i was 18 and you'd call me and drink, getting more honest with each beer. Maybe i could be honest with you too. I wonder if you could understand the things that mean so much to me now and help me sort through the things that confuse me so much, tie me up in knots. You taught me how to try to cut through those knots for other people. Maybe you could do it for me. Maybe i already know and just don't want to do it.

And then she cried in the other room. The little girl who bears your name. I could have let her dad, who graciously didn't argue when i wanted to name our child after my dead relative who he'd never met, get her. But i was right here and still awake. I wish i could ask your mom, my grandma, questions about kids and about how i was. I wish i could see you laugh about the ways she's like me and marvel at the ways she's not.

I miss you so much and wonder what you'd think about all this. Could you understand the man i love and how we love each other? The complicated relationship i have with my female partner and co-parent? How the knot of them and the children leave me paralyzed and ambivalent and bouncing back and forth all the time? I hope you could. I wish i could know if you could.

Killing Us

And there's the crux of it, again and again and again. We give to the other what we can, what we thought was best, what we thought would help them. We feel like we gave a great deal and suffered for it in the end. Then we find out that wasn't "enough." They wanted something different and felt unloved and unimportant when they didn't get it. All that we gave means nothing. But what they say would have made them feel loved or important are things we couldn't give at the time or maybe ever. They are things we don't have within ourselves. So we feel like we are told we didn't give enough when we gave all we could. All those fights last fall and I felt like she does now. She feels like I did then.

I'm so tired. I'm so sad. In my more rational moments, i am aware that it's not anyone's fault, or maybe it's both our faults. I don't think he can have what he wants. I think this is killing us. I know it's killing me. We need a different way. Maybe that's giving him back to her all the time. Maybe it's just complete avoidance of each other. Maybe....

He'll be mad. He wanted us to work on this together, work on this ourselves, but i think that's not really an option. We can't get past this cycle right now. Feeling like this I'm not sure how we can like each other, much less love each other. In the past year, she had to deal with what was possible not being what she had hoped for. I think he and I need to too.

Starved for Touch / My Stupid Mouth

(Written last week)
Today while at work I listen to a cracked podcast that was about how humans today, especially Americans, are starved for touch. I remember a conversation a few months ago where Ginger was talking about how she was feeling. I remember her specifically saying that she was starved for touch. I understood what she meant, and I have to admit that in the end I did nothing to help. Ginger and the Professor had been going through a weird time have been going through a weird time with their physical relationship. I guess with their whole relationship. I tried to help but I think that most of what I did made things worse. I did try hard to give them time alone, what time I could find. I will do the same once we find a better equilibrium with the kids. At the time she was telling me things that she had asked the Professor for in particular and that was one of them. Obviously her long-distance partner can't help with her being starved for touch at the moment since he is, well, long distance.

I was and am full of ambivalence about situations like these. When she vents to me and I see how sad and upset she is, my first instinct is to help her. I want to solve her problem. I wants to give her what she wants. Part of the problem is that she does not want it from me. I could do all of these things and it would still not solve the problem because it would not be from the right person.

With this instance in particular however there was and is currently another issue. I don't really know how I feel about her and I don't know how she feels about me. I have become increasingly stingy with my body. It used to be much easier for me to give it much more freely. But now in some weird way by giving it to the Professor, it makes it easier to then pick and choose who else gets it. It is not freely given. I cannot give it freely. That makes me think more about who I give it to. And I don't want to give it when I don't feel comfortable.

I remember when I was pregnant petting them. I can only think of one time that anyone ever rub my feet. Granted I was lucky. Even though I was on my feet at work all day, I did not have a lot of the swelling that many pregnant women face. I'm quite sure that I rubbed the Professor's feet more times than anyone rubbed mine. I remember petting Ginger while I was pregnant. I probably should have asked for touch, but I feel like that's not something that I can have. At the time all of that was dialed up to a ten, but no matter what I've always felt like I don't get the things that others might assume they would get from their partners, because I didn't come first and so I don't come first. Part of it is the role of chosen to take. And I have chosen to take it. I'm not acting like this is something that was done to me. It's been my choice, but I've always felt like the options that were both open to me in the relationship are ones where I gave more and talk less. Sometimes I have felt like it's twisting arms just to get what I get. I remember sometime in the last year talking to Ginger and telling her that there was a point near the end of my pregnancy where I realized I have not gotten anything in the relationship that I had not begged for. I didn't just mean things from the Professor, but I think that may have been lost on her at the time.

The fact that I chose not to ask for touch during my pregnancy does not mean she should not have gotten touched during her pregnancy. It also doesn't mean that was the reason I did not give her touch during her pregnancy. It was that I didn't know how to give her touch when I felt so closed off from her, when I felt like each of us had chosen to close ourselves off to the other one to protect ourselves. While, I do feel bad about the end result, I also feel stingy about what I give when I have so little to give, especially if I feel like I'm not going to get anything back. Get enough back. It isn't to say that I did not do things for her during her pregnancy. This was just one of the things that I could not get myself to do.

I know we can't live together how we have. Or maybe we can but it's not how I want to live. I took off time to take care of her and the new baby and the household after she gave birth, but I didn't get to do that to the extent that I wanted to when I planned it. I could do very little with the baby because I can't feed him and I did not want to risk waking him up since when he slept was the only time Ginger could get any sleep. I could take care of her and practical matters, but once our older child went to bed, I did not want to hangout with everyone. I have expressed to her how uncomfortable I've been and that I would like to work on changing that especially now that she's not pregnant and hopefully she is in a little more level place. But first I need to figure out what it is I want and what it will take for me to feel the way that I would like to. I know that it will be a negotiation, but I need to at least know where I'm starting from.

*********
(Written just before posting)
"My stupid mouth has got me in trouble. I said too much again..."

Finally a moment that felt good, that didn't feel like sand under my skin, and it's open mouth,  insert foot covered in shit from the big pile of crap I stepped in.

I was trying to tease and it pushed on a whole mess of sore spots and shitty life experiences we don't often talk about.  I hear much more about all the fun social life you had later, being way cooler and extroverted than i ever was and much less often about the social hell of your childhood. It sucks. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I carelessly poked it. I'm sorry that was your life. I thought my childhood sucked but it sucked in what seem now like tame stereotypical depressed bipolar kid from a broken home ways compared to the two of you. And I'm done trying to compete in the "my life sucked worse" olympics. Or the "my life currently sucks worse" olympics, for that matter. Yes, it sucked. Yes, it sucks. I was at a loss for what to do so I retreated rather than making it worse but there is no part of this that you need to apologize for, which may be how it has made you feel. You shouldn't apologize for your truth or your past or how you feel about it and I'm not asking for that.

Outside of what happened though, I'm tired. This situation and the fact that I cannot be home without being surrounded by it saps me of my patience, my energy, my goodwill, and my love. It is a scratchy wool suit that is 2 sizes too small and way too warm. It is never having privacy. It is always feeling watched and judged. It does not help a situation where I don't believe how you feel about me, know how I feel about you, what kind of relationship I would like us to have or if we can even have one, while trying to be friendly and cheerful and co-operative everyday. Some of it is just how life is right now and not anyone's fault. I'm hoping some of this will change soon but I'm tapped out until it does.

What i wish you understood

I never thought we'd be all you needed. I never thought you didn't need things elsewhere. I was not upset that you found these things in him. For the most part I was really happy and I tried to be quiet about how it hurt to know that I had wanted to have many of those things with you, had tried and failed. It wasn't your fault you didn't feel the same and you didn't owe it to me to do that.

I was upset that you weren't honest about where the relationship was when talking us. I was upset that the two of you had all these plans that moved him into our relationship and home without is having met him. I was upset that he was always present but you wouldn't try things to let is interact with him early on, like speakphone or sharing the text conversation. I was upset that you disappeared into him when i needed help, that I was more alone than I needed to be during my pregnancy and maternity leave because you refused to come back. I was upset that you told me things i didn't realize you weren't telling our partner, only to have him get mad at me. i am upset that i get punished for having any response except the exact one you want to everything but everyone also gets to get angry at me for having emotions and that is also considered ok. I am upset that "i dont particularly like him or want to hang out with him" has translated into "everything must be a secret", since I had tried to listen to you and be supportive of things and tried to recognize and verbalize and correct them when it was me having issues, especially since things being secret only add to my anxiety and detract from the reasons I had an open relationship to begin with.

I am disappointed for everyone's sake that because of personalities and how everything happened we do not particularly like each other in a way that would foster adding him to the family because I do see what he gives to you and I do want you to have that. And if it didn't mean leaving our child, soon to be children, I'd even leave, just see our partner when we had free time, so you could do that. Gods know he could keep your house as well as I. (Except for maybe the laundry, but you could teach him to do that.) I just can't find a way to keep our shared partner's family together without being here.

Disappearing

So i wrote what is below on talk to text on my way to work today. Then i read something she wrote. And i just can't anymore. So tired of being a problem. So tired of being caught in the middle of people who won't deal with each other or themselves, much less me. So tired of feeling like every emotion and word and action outside of robotic everyday is wrong. So tired of having to be self-sacrificing to feel like i deserve anything from people who are so incredibly selfish. So tired of doing so much only to keep being told that I'm a problem. So tired of being stuck between a rock and a hard place. So tired of feeling like disappearing is what would make everyone's lives so much better. So tired of only being able to hold on because of my own selfish desire for what he gives me that i cant get anywhere else, that ability he has to know me in ways no one else does and to feed that. But tonight I'm alone and so fucking done with being what they want me to be.

******

I tried to open up a little. I've been holding back for so long, in the name of keeping the peace. Or maybe really in the name of protecting myself.

So i opened up just a little, I thought that sharing feelings that knew she had felt or maybe even did feel currently how I felt would be a way for us to find a way back in. But really shortly I saw that look on her face, that look that tells me she just can't wait for me to stop talking, can't wait for this conversation to be over.

And so I shut myself down again. I went upstairs and cried by myself as I got ready but you can't cry after you put your makeup on. You can't cry when you're at work. So I had to shut that off too.

I know she's working really hard on allowing herself to feel her emotions again, especially after my childhood and teenage years where she was told she didn't feel those things end an adult relationship in which her feelings were used against her. I realized that what I'm feeling is only a fraction of what she felt and any of those times.

I had hoped that when we'd transition from what i thought was someday going to be a romance into a friendship. Most of my bestfriends are exes. But it's hard to get over a breakup when you no one sees it that way. When you can't really tell people outside because of how it reflects on all of you and they don't acknowledge that it is a breakup, that it does hurt you, that it is something you can or should feel sad about.

Then again,  maybe she is treating me like a friend. How many of my friends have i distanced myself from when I needed to work on myself and/or focus on my life and my family? Almost all of them, at one point or another. Maybe it's just harder when you live with that person.

But I am starting to feel myself disappearing. So that they aren't angry with me, or at best cooly distant, when i have feelings or desires, I turn in on myself, pull back. I wonder if they feel it too. I wonder if one day they will look up and wonder where I went. They will wonder when it was exactly that I left. The answer will be little by little by little.

Then someone I hadn't seen in a long time came back to me today. That part of me that has all the good qualities. That part of me that is stronger and wiser. And as I said in the bottom of the tub and cried, she came to me, petted my hair caress my cheek and told me it was going to be ok. We had been here before. Many times. And we knew we could do this together.

In many of the poly forums recently I have seen people say that they consider themselves to be their own primary. While I can understand that I also felt that it denigrated any large especially entangled relationship they may have. But when she came to me today, I told myself that I was going to work on that again. Right now he is my primary. But I don't know how long that will last. I don't know if we'll be able to continue to be this close. And I know he will leave my life much sooner than I would wish. I have to work on reestablishing that relationship I had with that other me. I don't want to disappear on myself, even if they want me, the real me, to disappear from them.

When All Else Fails, Clean

What do you do when you feel like you can't do anything?

It's the beginning of my work week. My weekend was pretty exhausting, with little to build me back up. I'm tired and already sleep deprived one day in. I'm training in a new area at work which makes me anxious and frustrated. The baby won't nap and won't stop pulling my hair. All these things make it easy for the depression and hopelessness that are already right under the surface to take hold.

Then this morning she found out some not great health news with the pregnancy. Since it is not something I dealt with, I do not know how serious it will be for her. She is feeling overwhelmed and upset and a million other things that she probably doesn't even know. I tried to validate her, and then, when it seemed like what she wanted was some help not being overwhelmed, I tried to be reasonable about it. But it did not work. Whenever we get to something like this, I do not know how to help her. If we were in person, there are many things I could do to help her. But like this everything I do just seems to make her more upset or wants to isolate herself more. I am grateful that she tells me things, but I do not know what to do. When you add it on top of everything else I am already feeling, I just feel so sad and hopeless and frustrated.

I took a few minutes to have my own little pity party, and then I did something anything at all. First I took my own advice and texted my therapist so at least she knew what was going on. Before I ever even heard back from her though, I started doing the only thing I could do or could think to do to help. I guess that tonight she will want his help, so I tried to take his money and part of it away as I could. Resolved not to latest on him, and then I started cleaning. Everyone in my life kind of thinks I'm crazy but sometimes that is all I know to do. To create a clean space for everyone. To take some impediments out of the way. So I cleaned the bottles and washed the dishes. I vacuumed the floor so they could set the fence out for the baby to crawl around in. I took the trash out. I gave the baby a bath. If I had had more time I would have finished all the laundry. I offered to take the baby with me when I went to my doctor's appointment today so that he could get a little bit of a break.

I feel a little better. I feel like I did something useful, like I am useful. I wish I knew how to help more. Maybe someday I will. Maybe this will be enough.

Only Time I Don't Like Being The Holder of the Secets

I can feel myself becoming a much different person than who I was when this started. I can feel myself becoming someone I don't exactly want to be.

I don't like secrets. I came into non-monogamy because I didn't want to feel like I had to keep secrets or that anyone else had to keep secrets. I didn't want to feel like I had to lie, and I didn't want my partners to have a reason to lie to me. Maybe that's why I feel so strange to be stuck in this situation. Let me preface this by saying that I don't have a good distinction in my head between privacy and secrecy. While I was never much of a liar, or at least not any good at it, when I started trying to get better I realized that the things I held back or the things I lied about where a part of my illness. We are only as sick as our secrets, as they say in AA. That was exactly where I was. I realize that the only reason I didn't want to tell someone something was because I felt ashamed, and the only reason I felt ashamed was because I was doing something wrong.

But now I am with people who have a different version of privacy. I am also in a situation where it feels like we can't talk openly about anything without fighting. We are really trying to keep a calm household for a while so that we can all heal, but that means that we mostly can't talk about anything. What I want to talk about something or ask about something, lately the question I ask myself is will this cause a fight or with the Professor be upset if I brought this up with him or Ginger. If I don't get the right answer than I don't bring it up. But I know a few things that I'm not allowed to say to one or the other, and I feel like the same is probably true for them. I hate that feeling. I hate feeling like the household is just surrounded in secrecy so that we can survive each other. 

"But maybe she's different when it is just you and her."

Sometimes I don't even know that I'm saying something secret. For the longest time, I would say things that I assumed the other knew, particularly that I thought Ginger had told the Professor, only for him to get mad at me. I was stirring the pot. I was causing trouble. 

I can't say how I feel either. The trouble is that I'm worse at hiding when something is wrong. 

Before the break, she had told me that she dreaded coming home when I'd be there. That was a big part of why I left, in fact. Not that she told me, but that she should feel that way. Now it is me who dreads. I am starting to not want anyone to tell me their truths, which is what I would like in the relationship, because they won't tell the other person and being the one holding the secrets from the other has made me a person that I don't like. They'd never tell me I couldn't tell the other something, but I know that my saying them would cause trouble doubly, first in the thing and then in that I told it, not the person they should have heard it from. 

I don't like who I'm becoming.

Of Daddy Doms

This last week or so I've had these pictures in my head, these little clips of life. The kind but stern Daddy Dom, who spoils but is not above disciplining when need be. He knows when to be strict, but he also knows when to let things slide. Maybe he doesn't revel in a sadistic side, but is a Service Top for those with a masochistic side. Someone who rules the kitchen, making food for everyone who enter his house the way that a Jewish grandmother does. Someone who knows when to push you to do better but who also knows went to make you slow down. He is the head of the household and the ultimate decision-maker, though he is always striving to make the best possible decisions for everyone in the household.

I have a hard day and I'm just exhausted when I come home. It isn't like he doesn't have a hard day at work either, but he's found a way to balance having me take care of him with taking care of me as well. When I get home he makes me my favorite meal. He tells me to let the dishes wait. Maybe he'll even do them this one night, give me a little break from one of my regular chores. He sets my sitting /kneeling pillow down next to the couch, so I can sit at his feet, but he also puts my favorite blankets down there, so I can cuddle up and be warm. He has me dress up in something that I find sexy, because he knows that looking sexy makes me feel good. If I was some other girl in this situation, he would have me put on my flannel pajama pants and a tank top, because that would be what would make her feel good.

We have sex how I would like it. He would take me roughly and fuck me thoroughly. Then I pet him until he fell asleep. He is not bothered by my snoring. He thinks it is funny and cute. He sleeps with me all through the night. But maybe I can't get to sleep that night. Something at work is bothering me, or something in my family life, or maybe I just have a touch of insomnia at that point. I get up to wander the house for a bit, maybe watch a little more TV or read a book in the living room. Maybe my crazy is bothering me. As I sit alone in the living room all of my fears and doubts and insecurities start to play upon me. But I know that I can crawl into bed, wake him up, and ask him to comfort me. Even if I have done this a million times to him, even if he needs to get up early in the morning, he will still comfort me, hear my fears, and talk me down.

When I first met the Professor and Ginger I had not really heard of Daddy Dom and babygirl relationships. I didn't really understand it either. I knew about Dom/sub relationships and I knew a little about Master/slave relationships. But this was something a little bit new. I think that in my mind I associated it with the adult age play, the people who like to completely revert to infants, complete with diapers. And some do. But there were all these things I didn't quite understand.

I had come from a time in my life where I was in control of how my life went, but my life itself was not in control. I had a lot of laziness, a lot of depression, a lot of not engaging in my own life because I was too much in my head. For me, when I submitted, I was forced to get out of my head and to act, to do what the other person wanted me to do to please them. That is what I wanted. But I could understand intellectually how comforting it would be for someone to be in the babygirl side of the relationship, especially someone who worked as hard as Ginger did. I could also understand it from a point of how she grew up, wanting to be able to be young and play again, to enter a time before anything sucked or was crazy. The spring before I became pregnant I even talked to a more Daddy Dom type, though that was more for the 'holding me accountable' side of things than the 'pamper me' side. Maybe this has sprung up more because he is the latest in a string of exes and people I'd tried to date who have popped up in the last few months.

The last couple of days I have just been exhausted. We are all spread so thin both physically and emotionally. It is difficult to even do anything that doesn't have to be done immediately, much less do things that aren't absolutely essential. This is not any one person, this is all of us. Since the baby has been born especially, I have felt like I am always taking care of something. It is not that the other people don't do things, just that I do so much more even than I used to. I am spending so much time taking care of so much and trying to find time for others to take care of themselves, with varying degrees of success. I never or hardly ever find or make time to take care of myself. My self care has been completely lost in the shuffle. So Monday night and Tuesday night when I wanted to cry because I was so exhausted and I just wanted someone to take care of me and comfort me, all of these images of being subsumed in a Daddy Dom /babygirl relationship became very enticing.

Then last night as I was sitting there in my bra and jeans, as I am supposed to do when it is just the Professor and I, he turned to me and smiles, saying, "I love that you're such a hardcore chick but you also like cute things, like pink coats and pink bras with black polka dots on them." Even if I had not realized before that moment, it would have cemented it for me, that as enticing as that fantasy may be, if given a day to play I would still rather pick my sadistic Dom, who sometimes will make me eggs in a basket, over a full-time Daddy Dom who isn't him. I'd still rather him slap my ass or my mouth when I'm smart than to get a stern look and a warning. I appreciate the times he takes care of me, like when he make sure to set aside food for me from dinner and reminds me to eat when I get home from work, or like today where he sacrificed his sleep to let me sleep in. But I chose my collar and I spent months, maybe a full two years actually, working to get to where I earned this collar, and where he earned the slave girl I had become. I'd rather be his hardcore, masochistic, 'run the household for my Master' little slave girl every day. 

Emotions =/= Weakness

I refuse to accept that being emotional necessarily means I am weak and can't handle things.

I am working hard not to expect people to have the same emotions as I do or the same intensity of emotions as I do, nor to judge them for it. Not having the same emotions, the same amount of emotions,  the same intensity of emotions does not make them weak. They are just different. I may feel that difference is too much to be able to have certain kinds of relationships with them. I may love TyRoy on many levels and we have a wide and deep friendship but that difference is too great for a romance. I might choose to not have someone in my life who I had less in common with and less of a history with, not because they are bad or weak or how they experience emotion and react to it is bad or weak. Just an amount of difference I am not willing to work to bridge right now, which might be best for all involved.

But I also refuse to believe that having lots of emotions and intense emotions makes me weak. Yes, i would like to not be as emotionally reactive and I keep working on that. But i am still doing better than I was. My worst day recently is still better than my mid-grade days ten  or fifteen years ago. Even after my worst nights, i still sleep, still get up, still go to work, still take care of my kid. Most of the time, I still take care of my house, still wash dishes and pick up.

Some of this may always be here because it is my personality at this point. I will always probably just feel more intensely and be more emotionally reactive than other people in my life. On the other hand, they will always feel less intensely and be less emotionally reactive than I may like. Neither side is necessarily weaker or worse for those things.

Wanting What He Wants

We are at a stalemate.

Our needs are incompatible and non-negotiable.

I want security and she wants freedom.

I want joint decisions and she doesn't want anyone to tell her what to do.

I want honest discussions where I can have reactions and she needs to know how what she says will b taken before she says it.

I want my house to be my safe harbor, where I can exclude the world, and she wants it to be a place where she can share her world and have those people welcomed unconditionally.

Her crazy is driving me crazy and mine is driving her crazy.

"No one has asked what I want!" he yelled at me in my bedroom. And he was right.

The next weekend: "You're going to leave. Even if you didn't, we couldn't live on our own together because we'd kill each other. So you're going to leave. Then she's going to move him in and I won't last with them, so I'll leave. So just shut up and let me pretend like nothing is wrong so I can enjoy my family being together while I can."

I didn't think my heart could break more but it did.

Later, I knelt by his chair, with tears in my eyes. "I don't want you to not have your family. So I'll just try to do what you want. What you decide, I will try my best to live with."

I'm trying.

Night swimming

Crying, listening to REM's Nightswimming over and over,  thinking of my uncle. So much emotion, so many feelings,  so many memories. Realizing how much of what i mourn is the life i thought I'd have, the life that was like his, the life I'd already blown past having long before he died, the life I'd realized by then he didn't even like all that much.

I realize this is something you could probably understand more than him. Your loss was of someone like that. While his loss was a loved one, probably one of the few people he felt loved him without conditions,  and there is regret there, the person he lost was much older, someone who'd lived a long life,  someone he knew would pass long before him. Our losses were lives cut short and people who very much shaped who we wanted to be, the lives we thought we'd live.

But there is this huge gap i can't find my way across. The gap between you saying you are having a hard time with emotions and allowing me to see it. The gap between that and me wearing my heart on my sleeve. The gap between how holding your emotions back unless you know they'll be met with the reaction you want makes you feel secure and how being able to express them and hash it out, come argument or empathy, makes me feel secure. The gap between how I want to know when and how you aren't fine when you don't want others to know and how I want you to know but you don't. The gap between how you resent that people assume you are fine because you seem fine and how I resent having to pretend I'm fine because no one can deal with me not being fine.

We both want to find ways to make this work and have everyone as happy as possible. I think that despite what we might reactively negatively feel about the other, reasonably we realize the other does want this too. But we are aliens to each other. 

Falling off the pedestal

One of the wonderful things that happen for most borderlines re:relationships are cycles of elevation and devaluation. Basically, just like your emotions are always dialed up higher than most people's and your thoughts are very black or white,  how you feel about a person is at one extreme or another. This is especially true in romantic and/or very close relationships. When you first get together you put them on a pedestal and they are the best thing since sliced bread. Then at some point they become the most horrible person ever.

As this can be especially problematic in power exchange relationships, I really tried to guard against this with the Professor. Between the things that Ginger would warn me about and the fact that he didn't work very hard to hide his flaws, i had early and ample evidence of why he shouldn't be on any pedestal, no matter how hard I fell for him or how much I became devoted to him.

I didn't do the same thing with Ginger, however.  Sure, i saw flaws and idiosyncrasies. I saw ways we were different. But at the time many of those things were features, not bugs. But i thought she was amazing for being able to have put her shit back together by herself and that in the past she was able to keep employment while deep in her crazy. She provided for both of them on a regular basis. She was able to work really hard. I felt like she was so far ahead of me in her mental health journey. She was able to handle all sorts of situations in a calm and seemingly compassionate manner. I admired her ability to accept and trust people and to have faith that things would turn out well even when she didn't know how yet, both things i have a hard time doing. I hoped that someday I'd be as far along as she was.

Many of the issues we're facing right now are ones i couldn't have forseen until we were in them and they just didn't present themselves until now. In many ways, they are the flip side of many of those coins. She is able to handle things calmly because she isn't as aware of her feelings in the moment and thus doesn't have to deal with them. Because she can trust the way she does, she feels untrusted and unloved when I ask for the security and reassurances that I want because trust doesn't work that way for me. She tries to bring people you love in to the fold automatically,  before evaluating whether or not she likes them or wants to have contact with them and expects others to do the same. She ran many households with her authority and the money she made and hasn't had to compromise as much, or lived with people who didn't have different needs or wants or expectations, so it's now a much bigger deal when we hit an issue where we are diametrically opposed to what the other wants.

With all the things that happened this weekend, the Professor has said several times that he doesn't know why any of this bothers me if she and i aren't even together romantically. I think maybe the things bother me more because we aren't. Usually with exes, I take a period of time where I have little contact, where I can reorient to the new reality, and then it is often still difficult to meet their new significant others. I've had little of that and it hurts to be around, especially when this relationship in particular has made me feel like a tool and a prop, not like a person. Because it isn't as if I don't want to be with her like that. But I want someone who enthusiastically wants to be with me in those ways, who is receptive when I try to be romantic or sexual, and that's never been her and I's situation. All the ways I felt like I tried feel like they never mattered because I met her when her only real female ex died and I didn't live up to it, because I got knocked up at the wrong time so she retreated, because he can be dominant and he has a penis, because she can be romantic in public with him, because my crazy is hard to deal with in person 24:7 and she doesn't have to deal with his like that. And i realize that I'm not owed anything for anything I did or tried to do and I'm sure that there are other reasons as well, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't still hurt. I think if i felt like we had a strong loving relationship, it might not bother me as much because I wouldn't feel like a loss. Maybe I've been spoiled because I didn't have to learn to divide my time with a new person until now since I came into an established couple, so that divide always existed. But she disappeared when I had the baby. I just didn't notice because I was disappearing into the baby so it was too late when I saw it and she was gone. She's made more efforts to be here, especially in recent months but it has still been a loss, the grieving process of which is all the more complicated bybthe fact that we are still partners, are still living together, are still interacting on a daily basis.

But even as I'm stuck in all the negative things I feel, I am still sometimes hit by the ways she is amazing. I was listening to a podcast last night about Dorothy Parker and the Hollywood blacklist. It talked about how Parker's life and writing in the 1920s and 1930s really pushed how women were starting to be able to live on their own,  not have to follow a traditional marriage/motherhood path, could drink and work and have relationships like men, could navigate all of those complications on their own terms  and in their own ways. It made me think about how much of this issues in recent months between us has been about how much she wants to live her life on her own terms without answering to anyone while I want more security and more open discussion and open combined decision-making at an earlier point, especially when we're supposed to be running a household together and raising a family together. I am constantly amazed at how she's been able to live her life, taking chances and doing things that I never did, but that doesn't mean I have to feel like that works with what we're trying to do or with the wants of her partners.

Don't get me wrong here. I do not see her as an evil monster, even if I don't agree with things. Also, i realize that I do not deal with things in the best way either. Being more in touch with my emotions also means they are right there and can overtake me and the situation at a moments notice. I want more answers and more framework and feel very insecure without it. While I try to make it easier for people to go if they've changed their minds about being with me, I'm also constantly questioning whether they do which leaves them feeling like they can never prove it enough. Because I'm always looking for something new to keep me interested in life, even when it's in a positive way, it feels like I always have an issue, like I can't just sit back and relax. Because I want to solve problems to move on, it also means I can't just let something be for awhile and I escalate things. Yeah, I could go on all day with how much bullshit I do which has made this situation the clusterfuck it became this weekend. I am more than willing to take on a good bit of blame. I also realize that we are both right and both wrong and just stuck in a place that doesn't feel like it has a satisfactory solution.

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?