Conflict

“One thing you who had secure or happy childhoods should understand about those of us who did not. We who control our feelings, who avoid conflicts at all costs, or seem to seek them. Who are hypersensitive, self-critical, compulsive, workaholic, and above all survivors. We are not that way from perversity, and we cannot just relax and let it go. We’ve learned to cope in ways you never had to.”
― Piers Anthony

I hate conflict.  But I also sometimes create it or add to it.  Sometimes my feelings bubble up and I can’t hold them back and they come spilling out in a mess.  And I spend a LOT of time apologizing for that when it happens.  I know how much it sucks, and for someone who hates conflict it is the literal worst.  It feels like I betray myself.

Otherwise, I avoid conflict with anyone I care about. Even if it has nothing to do with me.  Even if I have a legitimate beef with you… Even if I caught you lying.. if you were mean or unfair or cruel.. even if you were the one that treated me badly, my tendency is to want to take the hit if it will just end this gnashing of teeth.  The FIRST thing I think when anyone I care about is upset is, “what did I do?”  I apologize for my feelings.  I apologize for wanting.  I apologize for being a mess and for needing.  I apologize for having felt hurt.  

Goldilocks

Goldilocks painting by Jasmine Beckett-Griffith

I’ve said many times I wish I were the ever-graceful and unaffected Grace Kelly.  I’m not particularly emotional at the moment, but it’s a thing with me that I get embarrassed of my emotion.  Wait, no.  I get embarrassed of my *messy* emotions.

I’m perfectly happy that I feel boundless love.  I am tickled that a great number of things delight me. I’m passionate.  I love deeply.  I’m fiercely loyal.  I’m tenacious and determined and empathetic.  I can go there with a friend.  I can take a lover there.  All of these emotions I adore.

But it’s the messy stuff.  I’m ashamed I have insecurities.  I’m embarrassed when I cry.  I can’t stand being irrational or out of sorts or brooding.  I despise that I burn over offenses and that I have to address and let go of things when others seem perfectly capable of stuffing them down forever.  I hate my messy emotions.

I was talking about this with Quinky Girl.  She is a human who gets twinges, but by and large she is unaffected by some things that make me rail.  I deeply envy that.  I would be the same way if I could and I can’t.  I HATE to talk about the little things that bother me.  But if I don’t they become big things and come out sideways.  I hate that too.  Other polys say “Oh I didn’t need to talk about that.  I just let it go”.  And I feel much much worse.  It’s like they are jabbing me right in my eye with that.  I’d prefer not to have awkward moments but I can’t be any other way.  I don’t wanna make shit weird.  I don’t wanna have a little chat.  I hate confrontation and awkwardness.  I wanna just flip my hand, brush my hair off my shoulder and say “I never did mind the little things”.  But I simply don’t work that way.

Fuzzy Landmines and Invisible Fences. Damn. Thanks Aggie and Minx.

Sometimes things are really uncomfortable to read or to hear because I really need to read or hear them.  The truth about a thing I’m not proud of makes me cringe.  This happened this week.  I’ve been doing some work on some insecurities and jealousies and judgements of my own and I came across Aggie’s post on Solopoly.net, titled “Entering an Existing Relationship.  What’s the Problem?”.  You can find that here.  It’s pretty fucking brilliant and I recommend it to any non-monogamous person. Then I heard Minx’s podcast about it at PolyamoryWeekly.net, Episode 401 “Fuzzy Landmines”.  You can find that here.

Dammit.

cute felt bombs found at http://www.kotaku.jp.

This first example.. yeah.. it hits really close to home.

EXAMPLE: Joe requires his wife Sarah to spend every weekend with him (and no other partner) as a symbol of his primary rank in her life. Joe and Sarah realize that admitting this to anyone, including potential partners, would highlight Joe’s insecurity, which would embarrass both Sarah and Joe.

So Sarah claims to be flexible about her time, but then avoids makings weekend dates with her boyfriend Sam. Rather than explain the true reason, Sarah always has an excuse ready when Sam asks or complains about this pattern. Or she tries to dismiss each instance as isolated and “not a big deal.” Such diversion cuts off opportunities for the three of them to explore options to collaboratively resolve the underlying issue of Joe’s insecurity and possessiveness.

Since Sam has a demanding weekday job, this time restriction significantly limits how his relationship with Sarah can develop. Eventually he breaks up with Sarah in angry, bitter frustration.

I’ve been here so many times this past year.  Cleveland I have been working out some of our stuff, which mostly stems from my frustration at the limits of our relationship.  We’ve talked about it now a few times, and he’s been a LOT more accessible and I’ve been pretty happy about that overall.  We’ve had more time for relating.. more dates with things like trivia and trips to Ikea and watching a show.  We’ve had time to do more than fuck and that’s really been pretty awesome.  I hated bringing up at all with him that I’d been so unhappy with our once a week dinner and a fuck.  And I didn’t want to be a pain in the ass and I wanted to be very sensitive to his situation.  I don’t want to be too demanding.  

I Asked Him

Things have been going tremendously with Cleveland but I’ve had a small concern lately, and I asked him about it.

I felt lately like he was a little hard to schedule with and he’s been busy every weekend except the weekend we went to Portland.  I still saw him, so it wasn’t really an issue, but it was a noticeable departure that weekend dates seemed pretty much off the table.  And the overnights died too.  I didn’t think much of it the first few weeks it happened.  People get busy and work was insane for him.  It started to seem that overnights were just off the table.  Then the communication between dates lessened. Again, not a BIG deal because he’s been busy at work and busy with side projects and I know he tries to have time with his wife, as he should.

Hell.. I told him that all the time when we got together to kiss her extra and sex her up and tell her how amazing she is and how much he loves her.  I told him to get quality time with her. You gotta be sure you shower your existing connections with time, love and attention as you add new ones.  When Hubby added his girl that was it for me.  The days he wasn’t with her he was mooning for her, moodily snapping at me from the computer.  He talked to her hours a day when they weren’t together.  They talked first thing in the morning till last thing at night.  I never stood a chance because I never got his time.  How could we get romantic or snuggle or connect?  He hated telling her when we had dates because she would support his time with me and not talk to him.  He eventually just didn’t make any dates with me.  They went away a few times and he was never able to go to Portland with me.  We booked a hotel 3 times and cancelled each one because it was a bad time for him.  I stopped booking the hotel, and planned-weekend after planned-weekend lapsed. We never went to Portland.

I could never be part of that with another woman.  I could never be happy knowing a man I was falling for was mistreating his existing loves.  She’s been there with him through thick and thin for 18 years!  That shit is precious and needs to be honored and cherished and cared for.  

Maybe I'd Like It If My Boyfriend Fucked Her…

I met PolyV, Great Date’s new gal, yesterday.  She’s lovely.  He was right too, she’s prettier than her OKC pics.  She seems lovely inside and out actually.  Go Great Date!

She told Great Date she’d like to talk to me, when he told her a teensy bit of how I was struggling a bit, and that he’d like to temporarily limit their dating time to two days a week or less, including coffees dinners and working together from home.  This is a temporary thing he did to help me have a little time to adjust and to have them go just a little slower for a little while.  

Nice Guys and Good Girls

I’m just gonna start by saying this.  I’ve been sitting on this post for a bit, trying to find a way to say this without ruffling anyone.  Well.. I can’t.  So, I’m just gonna call myself out and say it.  I am lambasting ForensicGuy as an example of a trend.  I am saying not-nice things.  I accept the consequences of this because this shit needs to be said.

I would like to talk about “nice guys”.  I should talk about “good girls” too, but I’m not gonna or this’d be a novel.  So I’m just talking about the nice guys for now.

First, they aren’t very nice.   They pretend to want to listen and be happy with what you are offering.  You tell them clearly that you want friendship and they bide time.  They try anyway to seal the deal, and when they are rejected they play the “nice guy”.  Or hell they never take a shot!  They play the nice guy to chip you away to a nub, figuring they can then pounce on your grateful vagina.   They then lecture about how they can “hold a space”, or some other woo-woo bullshit, and how everyone uses them.  They are so upset that the girl doesn’t fuck them even though they were sooooooo nice.

Ups and Downs

Welp.. it’s been a tough couple of days in polyland with a few very exciting and wonderful times.  I think people get the impression that poly is all about the sex.  It’s at least somewhat about the sex, and I’ll be honest about that, but I think poly is also all about the communication, connection and growth.

I gotta tell ya, that ain’t always fun and easy, but it sometimes is.
Poly is talking and talking and then a little more talking.  Poly is examining myself and my motives and my contribution to things.  It’s figuring out what I want and need and learning to express it.  It’s listening to my partners and their wants and needs.  It’s negotiations.  It’s making boundaries and letting go and opening up.  It’s exposing things that I’m not comfortable exposing all the time.  It’s being honest and trying to be gentle with those I love.  It’s work.

So why do it?

It’s also the excitement of the first kiss and of someone I really really really like.  It’s making out in the back of a car with “Great Date” and aching to do more, but tantalizing ourselves with just that for now because maybe there could be something there worth more than what sex too early might consign us to.  It’s laughter and talk and learning about someone really great. It’s chemistry and loving the way he smells and tastes and the succulent imaginings of possibility.

Polyamory is also exploring totally new parts of myself and of sex with “Kinky Boy”.  It’s finding out the beauty of endorphins and subspace.  It’s learning to ask for what I want and for the pure joy of letting go completely and submitting, turning it all over and learning to trust.  It’s aftercare and snuggling and an exciting mind and humor.  It’s slowly letting myself be more vulnerable than I am really comfortable being and of saying olive juice because I feel something pretty special for him, but I just can’t tell him that I love him yet.

Poly is also compersion, and watching my husband building a relationship with a girl who is beautiful and kind, and who I genuinely like on so many levels; as a friend, a sexy potential lover, a twisted humor, a confidant of sorts, and a person I respect.  I want to talk to her and cuddle her and kiss her and learn her body and her mind, but first I want to let my husband connect with her and to take joy in their connection and the sweetness and flush of new things.  It’s really and truly loving him so much that I feel like I’m falling in love with him falling in love.  It’s so beautiful to be part of giving him that joy and to have the security to know that it doesn’t take away from our love and connection.

Poly is also the excitement and trust, communication and love that are flowing between me and my hubby.  I feel scared and elated and overjoyed that he and I are doing this together.  It’s amazing to get to know these vast other parts of him and watch him explore and feel him backing me up and encouraging me when all of this is tough.  I’m a little self-conscious at times and dating has brought up some of my insecurities.  I’m dealing with them and I am not alone.  I am actually dealing with the heart of the heart of the thing now, and I feel closer and more connected to my man than ever before and I didn’t think that was possible.  We are connecting sexually in an exciting new way as the energy of dating is splashing back into our relationship and we are being more passionate and more creative.  I am having a hard time remembering why we got into our “more than perfectly fine but a little rote” way of connecting. I am remembering my own first flush of love with him and reliving those heady days.  There are ways I’ve taken him for granted and my eyes are open now.  My husband and I are courting each other too and talking so much we are hoarse.

It is difficult challenging work sometimes and it’s being ok with being uncomfortable, but it’s wonderful too.  I love the possibilities and promise of my new and fledgling connections and the strengthening of old ones.  I love the potential of love and more love.  I am in love with polyamory right now, even though it’s been a very rough couple of days in many ways.  I love the resolution.

Character Defects

Something tells me this will not be the last time I write to you dear blog about character defects and poly.  It’s obvious that relationships can really point out our rough edges and be places where the less lovely bits of us rear their ugly heads sometimes.  Anyone who has ever been in a relationship knows this.

Poly is the relationship Olympics and I am woefully ill-prepared.  Tonite I totally lost my shit and created BIG DRAMA.

My hubby went out on a platonic date thing with the girlfriend of a guy I’ve just begun to date.  I fought it, but kept placating and it just kinda happened anyway.  It’s not that I have some issue with my honey dating seemingly wonderful women (and she totally is), it’s that I can not stand to be in another clusterfuck tangle where I am dating someone that is in a relationship with someone my honey is dating.  I know lots of people must do this successfully, but it hasn’t been my experience and I’m just not a fan.

See, here’s the complicated back story.  Hubby is dating roller girl and Roller Girl lives with Kinky boy.  (Cute nicknames are best I feel).  Kinky boy and Roller girl are exes who live together and raise a daughter together.  At the time we began seeing them they were very amicable, and in fact seemed to be in a relationship regardless of what they claimed.  They still slept together nightly, had sex, co-parented and even went on dates together.  Fast forward about a month and there’s some snags both between them and with the situation of dating them.  They rock, don’t get me wrong, but in “tangles”- hereafter coined to mean two couples where members are both dating members of the other couple- the game of telephone is astounding.

It can be fairly harmless.  Say Roller Girl wants to go home at 12.  Hubby tells me that he’ll be home at 1 after dropping off Roller Girl, and I tell Kinky boy that Hubby and Roller Girl will be done hanging out at 1 and Kinky boy calls Roller Girl upset that she will not be home to watch their child at 12 like she said she would.  Meanwhile, Roller Girl never had any intention of coming home late.  It’s a game of tangle telephone.

It can also be more sinister in both innocent and devious ways, I’m finding.  Let’s say Roller Girl and Kinky boy are a great couple with no real issues and total trust.  They NEVER talk bad about each other.  Well, let’s say Roller Girl mentions to Hubby how Kinky boy and Roller Girl went thru some bumps when they first became poly.  She’s sweet and she’s relating to Hubby.  Let’s say it took Kinky boy and Roller girl a while to figure out what they wanted from relationships and the first few were simply sexual, but that now Kinky boy is working on learning to pursue more of a relationship and Roller girl has been for a while.  Then Hubby tells Wifey that Kinky boy was more of a “hit it and quit it” kinda guy back in the day, and that he’s just learning about relationships now.  Now we have Wifey worrying whether pursuing Kinky boy is a good idea because he is a slut and he’s just now learning about relationships?!?  It double sucks because it’s not from something kinky boy said or did but from 3rd hand innocently put but totally misunderstood info.  This my dears is tangle telephone.

Sometimes it’s just annoying and sometimes it’s fundamentally dramatic.  Scheduling can be a nightmare requiring multiple calendars a timer and a conference call.  Sometimes it’s incredibly stressful, such as when Hubby hates kinky boy because he’s heard stuff from Wifey, talking about little disappointments and the occasional injured feeling and wifey doesn’t really go on and on about kinky boy’s great traits, attempting not to arouse hubby’s jealousy.  Now add to this that Kinky boy and Roller girl broke up, and had real problems because they are real people.  Now Hubby has heard much more than he would if it was just someone Wifey was dating.  Now Hubby hates Kinky boy and thinks he’s an asshole for every real and imagined thing Kinky boy did or didn’t do that may or may not have hurt either of the women in his life.

That pretty well describes my weekend.  So, imagine my lack of glee to have Hubby date my new potential Great Date’s gal.  Yeah.  Feel that lack of enthusiasm.  So I tried to say that I didn’t want it.  I did.  Hubby finally agreed to just hang out and have coffee with potential Great Date’s gal.  They had a great time and dammit.. now Hubby wants to date great date’s gal.  I try to say no and keep backing up and feelilng bad for disappointing hubby.  I try to make my case that it’s just too complicated and I’m shell shocked from this weekend.  Nobody really feels that.  Great date makes the case that they are in a totally different situation because they are a happy couple.  Hubby makes the case that he knows better now and well..Great Date and his gal do have a “no smack talk” rule.. so.. what can it hurt.
Fine.  Date Great Date’s gal.

Before they can even schedule a date however the tangle telephone game begins.  Hubby says “Hey, just a heads up.  Great date kind of has a history of being more into the hunt than the prize.  It was never phrased in a bad way to Hubby.  It was just background in the story of how Great Date and Great Date’s gal became poly or whatever.  Hubby doesn’t even mean anything by his “hit it and quit it” comment or question.  But I, well.. I freak the hell out.  Here we go!  Hubby spills all of his concerns and they are addressed easily because Great Date and I have talked at length and it’s easy to understand and explain the errors in communication.  I point out to Hubby and I point out to Great Date that the tangle telephone has begun, but I’m so freaked by the association that I phrase things even more strongly than they were already too strongly phrased by Hubby after Great Date gal’s innocent meaning comments.  Now actually I am the majority of the tangle telephone problem and it’s actually me creating the problem!   I end up spending about an hour clearing up the confusion and hoping to mend the rift of the mega drama.  I’m left feeling kind of raw and embarrassed, and Great Date’s gal and Hubby agree not to date just yet and to spend a little time getting to know each other and not talking about me and Great Date.  It gives me time to sort out my shit about tangles and my reaction to the recent explosion of our tangle with Kinky boy and Roller girl.. and this is good because it’s growth and it’s important.

Having said all that.. I honestly do desire to get rid of this fear and strong reaction, if for no other reason that my own peace, but damn if I’m just still not eager to be in another tangle.  I’m going to do good stuff.. eat well, exercise, some self care and some processing.  I’ll get better.  Dammit though.. I think I need a single poly to date.  Thank god for my date coming up on Friday.