He tangata

Evie

Kaitiaki
Staff member
Hi all

He aha te mea nui o te ao?
He tangata! He tangata! He tangata!

(what is the most important thing in the world? It is people! it is people! it is people! - Maori Proverb).

I'm a cis female predominantly hetero married childfree 37y/o. Currently LDR and DADT. Any lovers I spend time with have been such for many years and I met my husband 3 years ago. As we were getting to know each other, I explained to him about these friends, whom I love emotionally and, at times, physically, so the DADT is about specifics. Everyone lives in different cities these days so visits are infrequent. Most of these friends-lovers also have their own relationships. Some are no longer fully sexual relationships, but to me, my ident as poly is about love.

I am also in the process of learning about the energetic body and how to actually consciously harness that energy for pleasure and connection (think Chakras, Kundalini and Tantra, but not quite because I'm not using Eastern teachings, but those are the words that most people know.)

So, as I said to my now husband as I was getting to know him, I don't have hobbies, I have people.

kia kaha
Evie
 
Greetings Evie,
Welcome to our forum. Please feel free to lurk, browse, etc.

Sounds like you've got some interesting things going on in your life. I hope to hear more of your story as time goes on.

Glad you could join us!
Sincerely,
Kevin T., "official greeter" :)

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Welcome aboard!
 
A bit more info

Thanks Kevin, and everyone who's had a peep at this intro or engaged with other posts.

I had such a lovely text conversations today with two of my friends (C and M). One is a very old friendship (C), the other is the newest (M). Two very different dynamics. Both perfect.

The newer friendship (with M) is developing very slowly as I have said I will not be spending any in-person time with him within two weeks either side of my husband's visit (he's gonna be here on Friday, whoohooo, I miss his physical presence so much). That's just my personal preference for keeping my and Hubby's time sacred. But man it makes for some intense anticipation of spending intimate time with M, lol. M's work and life schedules, and that he lives 2 hours away, also make for near misses - we've had at least 2 broken dates, but it doesn't matter. Very fun to draw out the "courtship" hehe.

I met M a while ago when he was in a fb (err, not facebook) thing with a girl friend of mine who I had also been intimate with, so she asked me along one night. M and I had a lovely connection and I never forgot him. Turns out he never forgot me either, and destiny threw us together again about a month ago. So now we're turning that 6 hours into who knows how long, getting to know each other a bit more. The connection is really strong. Once our NRE has run it's course, I hope a strong friendship will remain. I'd love Hubby to meet him like my other friends, possibly even have that mmf that Hubby is getting more open to... I'd love Hubby to learn a particular technique that M can do hahaha. (p.s. The old friend mentioned above (C) was the MC at our wedding). I love my love life. Work life needs some help, sigh.

Evie

Hubby
M
Assorted old friends of Evie's in no particualar order lol: C, R, N, D
 
Kia ora Evie,

I love that proverb you opened with.

Not sure if you've thought about it, but you might like to start a blog on here as a way to continue to share your story on this forum. See Life stories and blogs.

I understand what you mean about needing space from lovers sometimes to keep the energy right for each connection.

Best wishes for your journey.

Aroha nui :)
 
I am also in the process of learning about the energetic body and how to actually consciously harness that energy for pleasure and connection (think Chakras, Kundalini and Tantra, but not quite because I'm not using Eastern teachings, but those are the words that most people know.)

Welcome Evie!

I'm very interested in the topic of "the energetic body," and would love to converse with you about that topic. I'm a serious student of somatics in the most broadly conceived frame, and a lot of my thinking about "the energetic body" is influenced by that field of inquiry. For this reason, I tend to conceive of 'body energies' as deeply intertwined with, if not identical with, sensation -- at least experientially. That is, if we make contact with such energy as experience, we do so as sensation.

I have found the various books by the meditation teacher Will Johnson of particular usefulness in what he calls the practice of "kindling sensation" in the body. http://www.embodiment.net/ .... While Will's teachings are grounded in the Buddhist tradition of embodied meditation, I think of what he offers as being very universal --, neither "Eastern" nor "Western;" neither "modern" nor "premodern," civilized or indigenous.... Just human. .... Will is also steeped in the perspective of the contemporary somatics field, and is a bodyworker (Rolfer).
 
Hey Evie,

Just letting you know I'm still following this thread; enjoyed hearing the additional info you posted.
 
Thanks Kevin :)

I don't think I have enough to say to start a whole blog thread, so I'll pop another post here for now.

I've just had a "date week" with Hubby, which was lovely, busy, and sad when we said goodbye at the airport. OK, so we were video chatting about 12 hours later on Skype, but there is just something so vital about us when we have each other's physical presence that everyone in a LDR will probably identify with. I cried with joy when I picked him up last week and I cried with sadness when he had to go through security.

So then I went to visit N (very old dear friend) at work since I was in the city, shared the latest news from our lives, had a kiss and a cuddle, and I felt a lot better afterwards. How could I perhaps explain this... um... it was a more peaceful feeling to walk away from N, as we have been walking away from each other for nearly 20 years by now :)

Then I went to have a coffee with M (newer guy) and had a simple conversation including a little more about his current relationships, his family dynamic, and his home decorating choices haha. I know before I said we wouldn't have any in-person time either side of Hubby's visit, so to clarify, M and I didn't share any affection today as both of us knew it wasn't the time. We have no real idea of when that time will be. It's not urgent.

Ka kite anō
Evie
 
It just hit me that you and your husband are long-distance to each other. That must be harsh. :(
 
It was initially just going to be for the winter (end of April until beginning of September), but now I'm back in the North Island, we're realising that I really don't want to go back to live there at all. I don't cope well in the constant cold and grey (looks like we'll never live in most parts of England huh? <s>). So I'm hard core looking for work and considering building my own business.

We'd like to make the gap between visits shorter when we have more income, but domestic air travel around NZ is pretty expensive.

We're hoping to be living together in the North Island again come about Easter, after he's finished/met a number of commitments down south.

The notion of Hubby and me being in a circumstantial LDR is a little challenging for my mum, god help her if I told her I was also seeing someone else, who was seeing 4 other people lololol.
 
So you're husband's on the South Island? and there's a significant climate difference between the North and South Islands? (I did not realize that)

And your mum's on the North Island too? Sorry about all the questions, I'm just curious.
 
Yep, he's getting snow and I'm not. I get far more sunshine hours than he does (like today, wheee, it's 'wall to wall blue'). I'm healthier up here, physically, mentally and emotionally.

There are places further north of me that are colder, but it's because they're higher (i.e. Taupo). Think of NZ as a whole bunch of meso-climates (bigger than micro, smaller than macro). It's really sunny in Nelson at the top of the North Island, yet across the Cook Strait, Wellington gets quite a lot of cloud, wind and rain in both summer and winter. Dunedin is like Wellington, but way further south, so add snow a few times a winter. Both say you can't beat them on a good day, which is true, but you can count the good days a month on one hand. I was raised in Wellington (parents still there) where a cold day is around 10 Celcius (before windchill) and a hot one around 25C. The hot ones are comparatively rare. Dunedin you can generally subtract 5 degrees from both of those. Christchurch is often so still it has bad pollution problems, but has a lot of fine days above the smog/smoke (it's cold and there are a lot of fireplaces). It can snow quite regularly in Winter. Alexandra is just a freak of a town, in the bottom middle of the South Island its in a basin and gets the highest temps of the country in summer and the lowest in winter. In Auckland, they say if you don't like the weather, wait 10 mins. Up there, on the very rare occasion it snows, everyone rushes to the windows to watch.

I'm currently in a country town near Palmerston North. It doesn't snow here although we've just had a 10 (well, 11 technically) year flood last month. We really are in the depths of winter at the moment, and trust me, if I had the funds, I wouldn't just be in the North Island, I'd be in the Northern Hemisphere hehe.
 
You might enjoy it in Miami. ;)
 
A peek at google images of Miami and it all looks so big and busy! But then I suspect most of the rest of the world will look that way to me :eek: NZ really is small. And I'm currently hanging out in a 5000 population town.

Still don't actually want to move to a real blog, but just want to share and perhaps get a little support on my current perceptions.

In many of my communications with M we seem to uncover more and more similarities of worldview as pertaining to interpersonal relationships. We also connect energetically and literally telepathically - not words, but reactions. Yet I'm finding myself having trouble trusting this, trusting him. I've watched/read/absorbed one (hundred, thousand, million) too many messages that "men don't think like us, they only say x to get into your pants, he'll just use you then you won't see him again, if it seems too good to be true then it probably is" and all that other stuff that gets fed to young women under the guise of protecting them from emotional, and possibly physical, hurt. And I am now in this internal battle of this programmed talk vs. trust.

So is he too good to be true? Hmm, what is 'good'? 'Good' for me right now is matching my wants. I want to develop a solid, lasting friendship with him. Well, only time will tell that one. I want to spend intimate time with him exploring the connections as well as having really boundary challenging sex. Again, time will tell. Hmm, those two pretty much sum it up right now. And neither of them are happening in the present (as I type this).

So even as I type, I reinforce my prior learning (I used to teach at teacher's college hence that phrasing) that we can really only live in the now.

But I digress.

Has he ever done anything to lose my trust? No. He's always shown me respect and kindness. All he's done is use words to express very similar perceptions to mine. Indicate compatibility. And yet this is what I've been taught not to trust. Is that paradoxical irony? Especially as the notion of "he's just doing it to get into your pants" is ludicrous considering he's already been there before (admittedly some time ago and just the once).

I guess it's because as I practice poly, my Hubby is my centre, and I will always return to him, and I aim to only be with people who will do their very best to return me hale :) And M offers exactly this as far as I can tell right now.

So why am I experiencing this questioning of trust? It's a type of projection, but I trust myself to return myself to my husband not worse for having this friendship, so that's not it. It's more a projection of all those times my mother told me (as I was, er, dating the NZ way in my teens and 20s), "just be careful" with a mildy disapproving frown. Of course, she generally meant "don't get pregnant or AIDS". But emotional hurt is inevitable as we make more and more deep connections and it is my responsibility to 'be careful' that I don't get hurt in a way that will affect my marriage, and right now M is potential hurt just as much as he is potential joy. Will there be hurt? Only time will tell.

So, this has been a slightly cathartic rambling of thoughts that has taken me much longer to write than it's taken you to read. But thanks to those who have.


ka kite

Evie
 
Well, you trust your husband, right? So, you must not completely believe all the sayings about how base men are. Maybe you can start with that knowledge and view M in a somewhat more trusting light?

Like you were kind of saying, every relationship is a risk. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I try to start every relationship with a base of trust, even if I'm somewhat cautious. If I get hurt, so be it. It's worth it because in most cases, I find out that the other person can be trusted and very often turns out to be an excellent friend.
 
I started out with trust, well as much as you'd give anyone you only knew a little bit. I partly suspect my jitters are because we've lost a little momentum and I'm not as wound up in NRE at the moment either. I have a sneaking suspicion it will all become completely irrelevant once M and I are face to face and body to body. ;)
 
And M has nearly gone from my life as quickly as he reentered.

He told me today that his most frequent dating partner will be moving to new town with him, and moving in with him, and working on his new business with him. She will officially be The Girlfriend. I asked him to consider having the ethical non-monogamy conversation with her. Because I know they haven't done that. And if she's being upgraded, I don't want to abet cheating.

I'd be completely happy with to meeting her with a view to help her understanding I'm not out to 'steal her man' so she doesn't have conniptions whenever (on those rare occasions as it's turning out to be) he and I actually get the chance to spend time together in whatever capacity.

But from what he's already said, that's unlikely to be the outcome. I just don't see how they can be compatible when on this rather fundamental capacity they aren't. But then her expectations are his to manage.

We've already considerably cooled on the sexy texting, and I haven't seen him since the coffee in the city. I don't run high on NRE anymore. Still, I would be a little sad if I didn't get the chance to see him more frequently when he's in new town as it's only 1/2 an hour away. He'd originally indicated that he was expecting that new GF would drop out of his life when he moved, and I'd had fantasies about enjoying a summer romance, and now I'm having to discard those quite quickly (because even if she, by some miracle, actually goes with the ethical non-monogamy, I'm pretty sure from previous conversations that she'd put a boundaries around time/frequency and place that would be lower than my ideals).

But then I'm hopefully going to be rather busy in the not too distant future. I had a job interview today.

Ka kite
Evie

Cast:

me, 37, married to Hubby, LDR,
Hubby, 46, lives in colder climes than me for the next 6 months or so
M, 45, new friend - still building connection. Wanting to settle down for the first time in his life. Just as I reappear on the scene.
GF, M's new Girl Friend, she's going to be moving in with him in new town
N, R, C, D, T my older friends (who I deeply love and are occasionally intimate with).
 
Hey Evie, thanks for your update ... sorry to hear M's kind of stepped away, I mean I know it's not the end of the world but. Grrrrr, right?
 
I'm happy to know that you also say "conniptions" down there in New Zealand. :)

hahaha, I'm pretty sure I must've heard it from my mum, directed at me, during my childhood, as in "you don't need to have a conniption fit." The older I get the more I realise my mother has a rather spectacular vocabulary. It was a privilege to grow up exposed to it.
 
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