It's a Texlahoma Story

I feel for you with those truths. They suck. It's hard to say anything meaningful though.

Now... I am trying to navigate a world where it's ok if a girl suddenly decided she wants to share my guy. Where the expectation is that I'll embrace her, welcome her, and offer up half my dude's time and energy because love. Or at the very least, view her as a person whose desire to have a relationship with my guy is valid and deserving of respect and consideration. It makes me fear other women. Avoid them. It sucks and I miss female friendship, but there it is.
Maybe here, I can offer a little shift of expectations. Poly or not, if someone is my friend, I still expect her to ask my consent/get my stance if she has some interest in my guy. Not that I have the decisive power, but I expect her to show basic consideration by finding out where I stand and taking that into account when contemplating a relationship. (Meta was an acquitance of mine, so I did just that in the beginnig - at that time, I wouldn't proceed if I wasn't invited.) If she's not capable of that? I can judge her unworthy of my friendship and support, poly or not.
If she isn't my friend, they meet somewhere else? I expect him to reaffirm how I feel about a starting relationship.
You may want to offer her respect and consideration, but you be able to have respect and consideration back.
 
I do not feel that I have 100% to my marriage while I was seeing dag. I do feel like the effort and energy I have to the Dag relationship was subtracted from the Andy relationship.

I think this is an uncomfortable truth about poly for many. I'll be honest that I usually felt like I had less of Blue when he was with another partner than when we were functionally monogamous. He said he felt the same with my kids, my work, my family, etc. And while I understand that there is some truth to that, I still maintain that it's different when it's another partner. My children, work, etc may drain some of my emotional and physical energy and focus but it does not drain my romantic or sexual energy and focus like an additional partner can. This is why I ultimately gave up on trying to date while I was with Blue....because it took energy that I didn't want to give. I do agree that love is not a finite supply...it expands and grows. I think this can be true of sexual energy, too. But I do not think it is true of other resources: time, financial, physical energy. They are finite and giving to one will subtract the amount available to give to others or to expend on one's self. I felt less connected to Blue when he maintained separate relationships.

On the flip side, I have absolutely felt the addition of energy that can happen in poly. When Blue & I were with Snow, that's exactly how it felt...like love and focus and sexual energy multiplied. I think it really depends on the people involved...all of the people...and the dynamics of the relationship(s). I would love to have a functional, long-term dynamic like I had with Blue & Snow, or even a dynamic like Bluebird has with PunkRock & DarkKnight. And, I think I could be happy being either the hinge or a leg in that dynamic if the people were right. But, that's the thing. It's difficult enough to find one person you mesh well enough with to live together peacefully and happily for years, let alone find two who also mesh well together.

This is why I won't seek out another poly relationship.

Honestly, Clare. I don't think your confessions are unique, toxic, or anything to feel uncomfortable or shameful about. I think they (or at least parts of them) resonate with many of us. I'm glad you feel peace, having shared them :)
 
On the flip side, I have absolutely felt the addition of energy that can happen in poly. When Blue & I were with Snow, that's exactly how it felt...like love and focus and sexual energy multiplied. I think it really depends on the people involved...all of the people...and the dynamics of the relationship(s).
That's a good point - I want to add that there was so much depression and doubt with Dag, that was also taking away from the cheerful and focused Claire. I'm not saying yous and Andys relationship isn't worse off when the sexual energy is focused on another partner, but maybe it needn't be as substantial as you've experienced it.

I also think it's an uncomfortable truth about polyamory, and it would be true for me. My focus would be devided - less energy for one partner. However, I may also be somewhat less needy with two good relationships and place less demands on one person in difficult time, so that's the good side.
 
That's a good point - I want to add that there was so much depression and doubt with Dag, that was also taking away from the cheerful and focused Claire. I'm not saying yous and Andys relationship isn't worse off when the sexual energy is focused on another partner, but maybe it needn't be as substantial as you've experienced it.

I actually don't feel like the diversion of sexual energy hurt us - it was helpful, honestly. It was having to divide other kinds of energy - nurturing, social, intellectual, on and on. And time. And focus. A lot of things I would have done with Andy - a movie, a conversation about work, a cuddle, a boozy evening of being silly - I did with Dag, and then I didn't really have the desire to do it with Andy right away. Andy and I spent a lot more of our time together just sort of coexisting, reading in different rooms, not interacting as much. I was ... Not tapped out exactly, but my interaction needs had been met, so I wasn't seeking it from my husband.

Very different now, I feel once again the joy of Andy and marriage and us.
 
I'm getting tired of writing about all the ways poly made my life miserable... But I have one or two more things to say, and I just want to knock them out and end this exercise with the train wreck that was 2016 :cool:

Yet Another Thing I Have Been Afraid To Say (i forget what number I'm on)

Every time someone talks about non hierarchical poly, I think of the line from Animal Farm... Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others ;)

It is such a lovely utopian ideal, all relationships being equally important, but I can't get my head around it. Yes, you can divide your time equally, your money, your sexual energy. Or you can divide them not exactly equally, but apportioned to different partners' needs. It sounds fucking exhausting, but ok, it's doable. But do you really value the two (or more) relationships the same? I see people saying it all the time, oh, it's like having two kids, you don't value one more than another. Deep down dark truth? I don't believe adult relationships are the same as parent child relationships in that way. At least for me they're not.

And Part Two

I would invest anything in a relationship with someone who believed in the whole "all my relationships are equal" thing. I don't dispute anyone's right to feel that way. I'm simply not going to put any significant effort into a relationship where I will not be first priority. If Andy told me that he saw Stephanie and I as being at the same level on his priority list, I'd leave. Maybe we could be friends. Casually date.

I'm not going to make rules - what good would that do? I'm simply saying, if you find another relationship has become as important as ours, be honest about it and let me go. Because I need a true primary life Partner who is all mine.

Really, it's just that I am not up for partnering unless our relationship is first priority, and everything else is a waaaay distant second. I don't want to have to negotiate and compromise and schedule to get my needs met. If I am going to consider someone a partner, I need to know that his priorities are 1) his own well being 2) my well being 3) everybody and everything else. I'm not a super needy partner, there is PLENTY of time and energy left over for friends/hobbies/family/dating after my needs have been met. But if those needs of mine have to get in line and be shuffled with everyone else's? We are not partners, the way I see it.
 
There's nothing wrong with wanting to be your life partner's primary focus and top priority. Some would call that hierarchical, but there isn't anything wrong with hierarchical poly if it's what everyone agrees to.

It's also okay to not be okay with being another partner's secondary, and to not want to get involved with someone who *isn't* your life partner who puts other partners ahead of you.

As for whether people can genuinely value more than one relationship the same... I don't speak for everyone, but that's how it is with me. My relationship with my boyfriend carries the same weight and holds the same place with me as my marriage to Hubby. Both guys are equally important to me, though not entirely for the same reasons...because they're different people.

It was the same when I was involved with S2; I weighted that relationship the same as my marriage. Which I think might have been one of the issues; I think S2 actually *wanted* to be a secondary, but he never said so, even when I told him I considered our relationship equal to my marriage (in terms of feelings, that is).
 
I had typed out a ridiculously long reply to KC's post and my stupid tablet are it grrr. But the main point...

Maybe it's my anxiety, or my unease with poly, but I always flash to the worst case scenario ... What if one (or both) of my partners is miserable and can't handle the existing poly set up? What would I do? I don't think I could ever just say to Andy, well, this is how it is, if you aren't happy, bye.

In other words, I would choose Andy's happiness over another person's. Except - I'm incapable of being happy if Andy is unhappy. So really I'm choosing my own best chance for happiness. Or something.

And yeah, that's unfair, I guess, it's just reality, and it's why I won't call any other relationships "committed" or " boyfriend\girlfriend ".
 
. . . I always flash to the worst case scenario ... What if one (or both) of my partners is miserable and can't handle the existing poly set up? What would I do?
Why do you think a partner's misery or happiness is YOUR responsibility? Miserable people won't be happy in any relationship. And happy people don't need a relationship to make them happy. We can't make others happy, nor end their misery; that is an inside job.
 
Why do you think a partner's misery or happiness is YOUR responsibility? Miserable people won't be happy in any relationship. And happy people don't need a relationship to make them happy. We can't make others happy, nor end their misery; that is an inside job.

I am either completely misunderstanding this, or I simply flat out disagree.

I mean, I agree that each of us is ultimately responsible for our own happpiness. But I very much believe that we can do things that make the people in our lives unhappy. Andy absolutely has the power to make me happy, or unhappy, so do my dad and my closest friends. If they do, and we can't find a solution that changes my unhappiness ... Then my choice is stay in the situation, unhappy, or leave it, and be unhappy because I no longer have that person in my life.

Say Andy started dating someone who felt that having keys to each other's houses and being able to come and go whenever was a necessary part of a fulfilling relationship. Say he was fine with it. I'd understand, because I feel that way, too. But it would make me MISERABLE knowing that this girl could invade my space any time she wanted. I need control over who is in my safe home space, I have near constant panic attacks otherwise.

There's just no good solution. He can give her the key, and I'm unhappy. He can tell me that he and I need to live apart, so it's no longer my space she's entering, but then I'm unhappy because I don't live with Andy. Or he can tell her no key, denying her something fundamental to her sense of a relationship, and she's (presumably, at least for a while) unhappy.

I can't see that as anything other than one person's actions affecting other's happiness :confused:

Andy and I have talked this scenario to death, and countless similar ones. Luckily (I guess) we both see things the same way. If one of us would even briefly consider jeopardizing the other's happiness to sustain another relationship, we're over. We'd both take the horrible but temporary pain of a divorce over the never ending pain of knowing our partner didn't put us first.

Which is why I can't call us poly. It isn't fair to potential fwbs, boyfriends, whatever, to say I'm up for a full blown relationship when there is like a 99.9% chance I'll never put their needs on par with my husband's. (The 0.1% is allowing for me falling so hard for someone that I'd leave Andy for them. It's probably not that high honestly.)

There is lots of room in my life (and Andy's) for sex, friendship, love, companionship, etc with others. I feel very comfortable saying we can do fwbs and friend-girls. We have both had incredibly fulfilling outside relationships, and not once in over five years of being open have we actually hit a point where a situation hit the "someone is going to be unhappy" point. But. If we did. If the shit hit the fan, so to speak...We'd choose each other or split.
 
Sure, we can irritate the shit out of someone, or treat them like crap, but we can't make people feel anything. The same action could provoke elation in one person and depression in someone else, you never know. It's like a dirty joke - some people will be offended and horrified and some will laugh their asses off. Their responses are their own, and we have no control over it. I mean, there are millions of examples in the world of people who are bending over backwards in relationships to try and make their partner happy and nothing they do is ever going to be good enough or the right thing to do, because the person they are trying to please and make happy is just a person whose default is to be miserable and unhappy. The self-help book publishing industry makes a mint on this all-too-common dynamic.

If you're in a relationship with someone who is miserable for whatever reason, it's their responsibility to do something about it, whether that means taking a look and recognizing they are in misery, speaking up, asking for something, moving on, whatever. Somehow it's like you feel you need to pre-empt any sort of bad feelings someone has, and since you don't want anyone feeling bad, then you back away. So, what if the guy is unhappy? If someone is miserable, they have choices about what to do about it, and while you can do things that create the kind of environment that person finds harmonious and pleasant, their inner well-being and happiness is not on your shoulders. And conversely, your happiness comes from inside, too. A person who is happy with themselves and their life brings their happiness to their relationships; it's not the relationships that make them happy.
 
Last edited:
If you're in a relationship with someone who is miserable for whatever reason, it's their responsibility to do something about it, whether that means taking a look and recognizing they are in misery, speaking up, asking for something, moving on, whatever. Somehow it's like you feel you need to pre-empt any sort of bad feelings someone has, and since you don't want anyone feeling bad, then you back away. So, what if the guy is unhappy? If someone is miserable, they have choices about what to do about it, and while you can do things that create the kind of environment that person finds harmonious and pleasant, their inner well-being and happiness is not on your shoulders.

Yes... But... Hmmm. I get what you're saying. It is how I see things with potential fwbs. I am who I am, I offer what I offer, I feel how I feel, I'll try to be kind and considerate, but in the end, it's on them to figure out if spending time with me is something they want.

With Andy, though... I feel differently. I honestly believe part of the commitment we made to each other is to create joy for each other and take on some share of responsibility for each other's well being. Not shoulder all of it, but keep it in mind always, do things to encourage it, avoid if at all possible doing anything that would detract from it. I know that's not a popular sentiment these days. We're all supposed to be autonomous individuals, taking responsibility for our own happiness. Whatever. I think part of being a good partner is keeping the other person's happiness and well being in your thoughts at all times and making it your priority.

(Hence my burning out when I try to have more than one, lol)

And conversely, your happiness comes from inside, too. A person who is happy with themselves and their life brings their happiness to their relationships; it's not the relationships that make them happy.

Really??? See, my relationships ARE my life. I can't separate the two. My work and my projects are enjoyable, rewarding, yes... But it is my friendships and my marriage that make me truly happy to be alive. The periods in my life without a partner or a close friend were very dark, I survived, but I didn't feel any true happiness without someone to share my life. It sounds cheesy, but relationships - romantic, platonic, familial - are what give meaning to my life.
 
Ok, everybody. Out with the old, in with the new (year) !!!!

I have spent way more than enough time moaning about how poly didn't work for me. And everything I have said was true. But - I learned a lot about myself. I learned how I see relationships and what love and commitment mean to me. I also learned that not everyone sees those things the same way, which is an incredibly valuable lesson.

Let's hope the lessons of 2017 are a little more fun :D

So, relationship goals for this year.

Appreciate my husband and my friends. So much of 2016 I spent focusing on what was wrong, relationship -wise. This year I'm going to try and appreciate all that is right. Both in my mind and in my actions, no more putting off Andy bonding and friend bonding in the hopes that some unpredictable dude will find time for me.

Get the fuck over my fear of being slutty. Not that I necessarily plan to sleep with a bunch of people, but no more making decisions based on a little voice that says omg people will call you a slut!!! Seriously, little voice, stfu. You once told me I had to keep dating a guy who was terrible in bed, because it was somehow super slutty to sleep with someone only once. I'm so done with you.

Assume good intentions, or at least neutral ones. Yeah, I grew up around people who were emotionally manipulative or downright cruel or completely irrational. But most people are not like my family, thank fuck. It is time for me to stop immediately jumping to the conclusion that people are doing things to hurt me. I do this sooooo much. Whenever someone gives me advice, my knee jerk assumption is that they are giving me bad advice on purpose to trick me. Yeah. It's messed up. If someone says something that bothers me or hurts me, I need to start by assuming they didn't realize it would, tell them it did, and go from there. Not just sit in wounded silence wondering why they are deliberately being cruel.

Have fun. Enjoy meeting people and boozy dates and steamy make-out sessions. Enjoy great sex, if I want. Enjoy cuddles and conversations and silly jokes. Don't let guilt over not being poly enough keep me from enjoying both my marriage and whatever else comes along.

Happy 2017, y'all :)
 
Happy New Year to you too!
Here's to the great sex of 2017 :D
 
I read Reverie's post about overnights and ... You guys, I'm just so weird. Sometimes it's like I'm backwards and upside down from everyone else.

The overnight thing has been on my mind a little lately because Andy hasn't been staying at Steph's much lately. His insomnia is back, it's a crapshoot if he'll sleep on a given night, and he hates being awake at Stephanie's all night. I get it, I would hate worrying about being quiet all night, too, but... Here comes the weird... I've always found Andy's overnights to be so much easier to deal with than his other dates.

If he spends the night with Steph, or anyone else, it's just ... A night he isn't here. No biggie. I get some me time. The times he has been away for more than a couple of nights in a row, I get bored and lonely, but that's true when he travels for work as well. "Husband away" is a situation that I know how to handle.

"Husband coming home from a date", otoh, still feels weird to me. I really hate the idea of kissing and cuddling him when he has been kissing and cuddling someone else only hours before. It just gives me the icks. But it hurts Andy when I avoid those things. He is a reconnect after being with others type. I am a give each other space to readjust type.

Our compromise is that we do the cuddles, kisses, talk about our evening thing after my dates - which doesn't feel icky to me, it's still weird to me that he wants that, but it's fine. After his dates, if he does come home, we do space. Sometimes he wants to try to hang out, and I make excuses about being tired, code for "hey remember our deal???" Mostly I try to go to sleep before he gets home, on the sofa or in the guest room between two dogs.

It's not perfect. But it works. I wish he'd go back to sleeping over more, though.
 
What has he done to deal with his insomnia? Sounds important to try and fix that if it's messing with your head, since you prefer him spending the night.
 
What has he done to deal with his insomnia? Sounds important to try and fix that if it's messing with your head, since you prefer him spending the night.

He's tried EVERYTHING :( - it's been an issue on and off his entire adult life. Every sleep aid, otc and rx, sleep studies, everything. The only thing that helps is antidepressants, but he can't handle how foggy they make him feel during the day.

It's not an untenable situation at all for me, him coming home. A minor frustration if I'm awake and he wants to tell me all about his night.

I just have this "ewwww cooties" knee jerk reaction when I know he has been intimate with someone else. Intellectually I'm fine with it, emotionally I'm fine with it, but there's this visceral lizard brain ick thing going on. I just get turned off - like, way turned off - by my partner having sex with someone else, and I need space between their intimacy and ours.

Andy and I have the exact opposite fears about non monogamy. His is being left out or left behind. Mine is being included, lol.

We work it out, and we do a good job, but our instinctive ways of handling things can be at odds. We have had to completely abandon the idea of treating each other as we would want to be treated, and learn to ask for super specific instructions ;)
 
Last edited:
There's other stuff I had planned to write about tonight, but I'm kind of having a whiny, self pity moment... And I'm hoping if I write it out I'll feel better.

Clark is such an awesome guy, I've really enjoyed hanging out with him, but I'm not feeling it as a long term thing :( He's so busy. We have been chatting all day about hanging out tonorrow, how much we've missed each other this week... Turns out he has exactly one hour free :cool: That's so frustrating for me. Yet typical for him. Job, wife, 3 kids, ok, I get it. But an hour or two here and there just isn't doing it for me. Not to mention he does the Dag thing of "i wish we could see each other more!!!!" and then not having any time.

I dunno. If I'm honest with myself... I'm down and frustrated that I haven't met anyone *right*, despite all the chatting and dating. I don't remember it being this hard before. A big part of it is that I am better now at sporting and avoiding situations that are bad news for me. Two years ago I'd just have rearranged my life to get those few hours with Clark. That's how I was with Dag in the beginning. So ok, I'm learning, making better choices... I guess.

But it sucks because I feel like a big loser failure who will never have sex again :mad:
 
If it isn't working out, it doesn't matter how awesome of a guy he otherwise is.

I'm glad you're doing better though. And I'm hoping you'll have lots of good sex in 2017!
 
Today is Andy's first day back at the office and... His car wouldn't start :rolleyes: Dead battery... Well, half dead, lights came on but engine wouldn't start. He took my car to work, figures this would happen on my day off, instead of carpooling to work, it's me home alone and bored. I dusted for hours and took down all the Christmas stuff. Washed all the dog beds. Did an hour long dance workout. Bored bored bored.

I also wrote to Clark to tell him I didn't see things working out between us :( He was nice about it, shocked but nice. I feel like I should be wearing a t shirt that says World's Most Shitty Human Being. I always feel so guilty ending things, even when they are short lived non-things. Why :confused:
 
Worm: being poly means you're not allowed to break up over anything related to poly

Most of my write-once-read-many scripts are hangovers from childhood, but this one came from researching and reading about polyamory over the past few years. It's basically a mistranslation of the standard newbie advice, but it has stuck. Wormed its little self into my brain.

Poly Advice : Prescriptive hierarchies are bad
Claire Brain: You have to stay in the relationship even if your partner's priorities shift and you are no longer getting your needs met

Poly Advice: it's unfair to force people into predetermined relationship shapes - let them unfold naturally
Claire Brain: once you start dating someone, you have to keep dating them, even if the relationship goes in a direction that makes you unhappy

Poly Advice: Security and happiness come from within
Claire Brain: you should be able to be equally happy in any relationship configuration, so there's no point in breaking up ever

Poly Advice: ultimatums are bad
Claire Brain: you can't ever tell your partner that you will leave if things don't change. Of course, sneaking out in the night with no forwarding address is kinda shitty, too. So I guess you just can't leave.

All of these sort of mashed together in my head to create this idea that once you agree to poly/non monogamy, you agree to any and all things that result from it, and promise to never object or leave because things changed.

And that's just DUMB. Seriously. No one is EVER required to continue a relationship that they don't want. That's like basic human rights. Yet... I still hear that, oh, you can't break up, you agreed to poly!!! voice in my head. Because the fear of being trapped in a relationship that I don't want is making me terrified of dating. I'm trying to silence that annoying worm but for some reason it is very hard.
 
Back
Top