Long term BF not really OK with me being poly curious

Ticia

New member
Good morning everyone!

I've been reading this board as a guest for quite a while now and I believe now the time has come to share my thoughts and ask for some much needed ideas and maybe advice. (Please excuse my english, non native speaker here)

Boyfriend (37) and me (F, 31) have been together for 10 years now. He's only my second boyfriend and the second man I've ever been intimate with. Before him I've had a 5-6 year relationship with my first boyfriend who also was the first man I had ever kissed. So obviously I don't have a lot of experience with different partners and for a long time I wasn't interested in that at all or mildly curious at most.
Boyfriend on the other hand is quite experienced and has done a lot of dating and ONSs years before we met.

Both of my relationships have been strictly monogamous with the exception of me having sex with other women or us having threesomes which was just fine.

At the end of last year boyfriend and me were in a crisis (which felt much more severe for me than it did for him and I was actually planning to end the relationship if nothing changed). Communication was bad or didn't happen at all, as did sex and other kinds of good stuff. We were focused on our problems but didn't manage to solve them. At that time I started focusing on myself and what my life and my relationships should look like. I went to counseling and found a lot of new energy which seems to have affected him as well. We had a counseling session together and things improved dramatically, suddenly we could talk, spent quality time together, had lots of good sex. His sex drive still is somewhat less than mine but not dramatically so.

I felt like waking from a long sleep on many levels, sex being the most prominent. Sex with boyfriend was great and satisfying but I still started phantasizing about other men, wanting to have sex with them too. I kept this inside for a while, partially blaming it on me no longer taking the pill since last autumn which can do a lot of queer things to you, but the phantasies didn't go away and I even developed a mild crush on a friend's friend (who is poly himself and also would be interested). Two months ago I started talking to my boyfriend about my curiosity. I told him that our relationship had first priority for me but I'd like to date others and maybe finally have some of the "adventure" I've never had. He didn't even take it seriously at first but then did a lot of thinking, the result of which being that:
- he'd be happy for me if I could do what I wanted and wouldn't want to hinder me
- he found it very hard to predict what it would feel like for him if I actually dated another man
- he himself had zero interest in dating other women
- in short, he'd try to live with it but it as far as he could see he couldn't detect anything good in the idea.

Well, it didn't sound like he'd be truly OK with it so I decided to give up on the idea as I didn't want to hurt him but also felt I wouldn't be able to go on a date and truly have fun while having to fear for my relationship all the time. He signaled that his views might change over time since we'd only just had recovered from the recent crisis and he wouldn't want to risk what we had just now.

What I hadn't imagined was how increasingly unhappy I would feel over the next few weeks, being annoyed by trifles, unhappy with the amount of sex we're having, phantasizing about things I know I "mustn't" do. In short it's harder than I thought and I'm asking myself how to go on from here. Should I revert my decision, go on some dates and just see how things play out? (While keeping in touch with boyfriend's feelings of course) Or would it be my responsibility to end the relationship as it's pretty likely he will get hurt and it wouldn't be fair?
A friend of mine says I can't ignore my needs and I'm too eager to protect boyfriend's comfort zone but I'm not sure if she's right. He didn't ask for this, isn't it my responsibility to make sure he's OK?

I'm grateful for any opinions and ideas he might have.

TL;DR: I've told my boyfriend I'd like to try nonmonogamy. He wouldn't want to stand in my way but doesn't seem happy at all. I've told him I wouldn't do it then but now feel increasingly unhappy with that decision.
 
Welcome Ticia,

I absolutely understand your dilemma. I think it's perfectly natural to want to explore other people given your lack of dating experience and the problems you faced in your relationship.

There are many different approaches you could take to this.

Adding new relationships to an already-cracked one can lead to huge problems. Of course, it's when we see cracks in our relationship (crisis last year, mismatched libidos, etc.) that we tend to want to get those needs met elsewhere. The issue is that poly can either highlight existing problems, or bring you closer together through communication, placing less pressure on each other to meet each other's needs, overall happiness, etc.

My recommendation with switching from mono to poly is always to have some preparation time first. Some people feel it's better to just get stuck in and attempt trial and error. I can see the benefit of both arguments, but since the latter involves trial and error with actual human beings who will enter your orbit, I always prefer the first option.

So... I would say that a set period (2/3/6 months) of 'research time' can be very good. This could be the perfect time to continue honest communication between you, strengthen your bond, do some poly reading (MoreThanTwo.com, Opening Up, Ethical Slut, Poly Roadmaps), and set some guidelines.

It could also be good for your boyfriend to come here and ask questions if he wants to. It should be both of you thinking about it - if your BF just says "I would tolerate it, but I'm not really on board", you're stuck in limbo. If he's willing to attempt to tolerate it, I'd say that it's his responsibility to make things easier for himself by being proactive on the thinking and reading too. He either agrees or doesn't, and if he does, he has to become engaged in dealing with it too.

If that goes well and you feel you have both agreed to certain (best if they're written) guidelines, then you could look at putting theory into practice.

This could mean going on some dates, or could even mean trying it out online to begin with, through Second Life, Utherverse, etc. (the latter is how my GF began to explore poly with her hubby, who was also only going along for her sake).

Of course, the other option is to break away from your BF now... but that doesn't give him any chance to become ok with it. You could always agree to something like giving yourselves a year to explore poly and seeing where you stand at the end of that year.

So, overall, I'd do the following:
- Boyfriend takes responsibility for his own choice: yes or no
- You take responsibility for your own choice: be poly, be mono, or break up
- Research period of 2+ months
- Set guidelines
- Start dating and see what happens
 
Hey sparklepop,

Thanks for your reply! All of your points sound logical to me. I also agree with you concerning "putting additional stress on a relationship that also has problems". Actually discussing my curiosity in nonmonogamy (I guess it's not really polamory (yet) as I'm more interested in dating and casual sex with others than building another long term relationship) has led to a lot more understanding between us and the discovery that we can actually talk about a lot of things. But still noone can say how it plays out in the future.

A set period of time... I've read that a lot but somehow it never sounded like it could be helpful for us. Maybe I was wrong there. I don't have a lot of patience and waiting for him to make up his mind would be easier if I knew there was a "deadline".

I think I'll have to accept that I can't set the topic aside as I intended, at least not easily and for any amount of time. Boyfriend also tells me he - of course - notices that I'm not happy, he feels like he's not "enough" for me and he doesn't like that. So at the moment I feel like I'm giving up poly to keep him happy but still I'm the bad guy. Sometimes I think: I might as well be the bad guy for something that makes me happy!

He's already done a bit of reading on the internet which according to him has been discouraging. He says there have been a lot of stories about mono/poly couples starting out hopefully, then breaking up a few months later. Doing some reading myself I can't say that I have come across those stories very much, but well...

How are your girlfriend and her husband coping now?

SecondLife... That's an interesting suggestion because there was a time some years ago when my boyfriend explored SL, especially the erotic areas, and had some cybersex/a virtual relationship as well. He had three short cyber affaires and he lied/kept silent about each of them. When I found out I felt deeply betrayed and hurt. We have talked about this again lately. I told him he can do that if he likes but that he can't keep it from me like that.
Maybe that's something we could talk about some more since it seems to be something nonmonogamous he'd be enjoying and which could also lead to RL dates.
 
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Hi Ticia,

Maybe if you could set a deadline for him to decide, like say October 1 (about two months from now), and while he's thinking about that, see if you can get him to read the book "Opening Up" (by Tristan Taormino) with you.

You can find all kinds of poly failure stories if that's what you're looking for. You can also find poly success stories (such as our Poly Vignettes: Sharing Success & Happiness thread).

For a more balanced picture, you'd want to explore our Life stories and blogs board, and read quite a few people's stories. My blog can be found there, and is one of the success stories.

Re: SL ... perhaps you and your boyfriend could explore that together? Something to think about.

I hope the two of you can come to a satisfactory agreement.
Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
Hi Ticia,

You're very welcome!

I was about to suggest everything that Kevin has suggested, so I think his post is definitely the right way forward. The relationships board of a forum is naturally going to be full of poly problems, because that's the purpose of the board :) The success stories might be a good place to go, and the blogs show you what day to day poly life looks like for some people.

In terms of poly/non-mono people starting out well and then breaking up... Well... I'd say this is the case for monogamous couples too, no? ;) Relationship compatibility is what it is.

...discussing my curiosity in nonmonogamy (I guess it's not really polamory (yet) as I'm more interested in dating and casual sex with others than building another long term relationship) has led to a lot more understanding between us... But still noone can say how it plays out in the future.

It's really wonderful that you've discovered you can talk about a lot of things. That is such a positive step forward.

If you and your BF do go into this with an open mind that love could happen, that's great. If, however, you (or more likely, he) is going into it reassured that it's just about sex, this could lead to heartache later on. It's very common to start out as polysexual/monogamish, fall in love unexpectedly, and everything becomes very different. If you are relatively open-minded about this, just ensure that you aren't lulling BF into a false sense of security that you only want casual sex. Make sure that he knows you're open-minded too.

I don't have a lot of patience and waiting for him to make up his mind would be easier if I knew there was a "deadline".

Firstly, I agree with you - reasonable deadlines are a good thing. 2 months might be reasonable.

The other thought is about patience. ~grins~ Patience is going to come into the situation a massive amount if you two decide to open your relationship. Many of the problems on this board are related to one partner lacking patience and wanting to steam ahead. If you feel that giving BF 2 months to decide would also give *you* a good exercise in patience, that is a great thing.... You will need lots of it!

I think I'll have to accept that I can't set the topic aside... Boyfriend ... feels like he's not "enough" for me and he doesn't like that... Sometimes I think: I might as well be the bad guy for something that makes me happy!

Haha, well, yes! You might as well! It's very difficult to accept that we cannot be enough for a partner. Most of us are trained from birth to believe that The One exists. It's difficult to unpick that construct. I entirely agree with you that there is no point in setting this topic aside. If you want poly, then you need to explore it with or without him. What you are doing is inviting him to join you on this journey - you are not forcing him to be poly. He has a choice to take the new path with you, or he can take another path.

How are your girlfriend and her husband coping now?
It's a good question. I'll try to paint a frank and honest picture.

GF believes that poly saved their marriage. They were on the brink of divorce when I met them (3+ years ago), and are no longer there. Hubby is basically mono and still goes along with poly for GF's sake. He now deals with poly very well most of the time, and GF would never go back to monogamy as she loves being poly.

However, I'm not about to say "Be poly! It's amazing!" It has its issues, just like anything else. Life and relationships are full of curveballs and game-changers. Poly is certainly this way. In poly, it is best to expect the unexpected... then roll with those punches when they happen.


SecondLife... boyfriend... had three short cyber affaires... I told him he can do that if he likes but that he can't keep it from me like that.
I'm very sorry to hear that he lied to you about his cyber affairs. Perhaps you can use that case to illustrate to him that it was impossible for you to be everything *he* needed in that moment. It might help him relate to your feelings that he can't be everything you need at all moments.
 
Good suggestions already here, I won't bother restating.

But what the hell? He's resistant to you being poly, but he had 3 cyber affairs himself??? I call that cheating. So, somehow it's ok for him to cheat, but not OK for you, a woman who has only had 2 lovers at age 31, to be honest and say you want to explore more sides of your sexuality and emotions?

Talk about hypocrisy.

Of course, in our fucked up, sex negative culture, it's somehow "OK" to cheat, but not OK to be ethically non-mono. Which is BULLSHIT.

I say, yes, both of you, do your research, read, you keep talking here. I doubt he'd come and read and ask questions here himself.

If bf really cares about keeping you, he'll do you the service of at least considering being ETHICAL about sex with others. Cheating is BAD! Lying, hiding, covering up is COWARDLY. Aren't you mad at him for cheating on you?

You don't have to leave him over this. If he prefers cheating to being ethical, and can't take your honesty and sincerity, he can walk at any time. But if you want to dump him, you can and should.

Man. *banghead*
 
My (ex) partner and I just went through this. Though we started as poly secondaries, both ended up without our spouses and became primaries...and I don't want t obe poly. We banged our heads against this for months. it got worse and worse until only the sex was enjoyable and everything else was colored by the nagging question of when he'd date and what I do.

We realize he had no choice but to take break...what we agreed, through lots of tears, was to talk in 4 months and see where we are both at. Maybe he'll except mono then...or in your case, maybe BF would accept poly then or you'd accept mono. It seems the only fair thing, just speaking from experience.

BF also wants to explore because of limited sexual partners.

Hang in there
 
Thanks for your replies! For some reason I didn't receive any notifications about them so I thought there weren't any and only just found out otherwise. :D

sparklepop, I hear you concerning patience! Originally I had planned to date my crush in the middle of June but refrained from it because my boyfriend was struggling. Since then I've been exercising my patience and I feel I'm starting to run out of it. Doesn't mean I won't be able to wait any longer but I no longer feel ready to wait for "whenever he thinks the time is right".
The feeling that I've spent the last years waiting for him to be in the mood for sex probably plays a role in that too.

I was thinking, burying a dream means you have to mourn it but I really don't feel like mourning at this point in my life. In the years to come I'm sure I'll have my share of grief for various reasons, I'm really not in the mood of adding some more just yet, at least not without giving the thing a try.

I've talked to boyfriend about the possibility of falling in love and we agree that there is no way on preventing that (even without having sex with a person). I can become quite emotional at times and I told him that if someone is nice and the sex is good there is no reason for me not to like them which doesn't mean they're "better" than himself or that I'm going to leave him for them.

I'm not sure if two months is enough for him but I will talk to him about a set time frame .

Thank you for sharing your girlfriend's experiences! Seems like things have been working out OK (not perfect, but what in life is?) for quite a while now, that's good to hear.

When we talked about this cybersex thing a while ago he told me (like some times before) "It didn't mean anything, it was just something I did to relieve the stress I was having at work". I get that this is intended to somehow make me feel better but I still don't really "get" the argument. After the first "affair" and me finding out about it latest he should've noticed that it does indeed "mean" something to me.

@Magdlyn: Yes, sometimes I'm still mad about the cybersex stuff though this has happened several years ago. What's more I can't fully seem to rebuild my trust. Before those incidents, when he stated something doubtful, I was thinking "well, if he says so." Now there's doubts. "Maybe he's lying." I really don't like that.

He hasn't told me he wouldn't be OK with me being poly, I think he's just struggling with the topic and thus sending conflicting signals: "Yes, I want you to get what you need, want you to be happy" vs "I'm afraid our relationship might change for the worse, I'm not sure how I feel about it". I told him that it probably can't be expected for anyone to feel absolutely good about the topic at any time in the process and that feelings of jealousy are normal (to an extent).

Still I think we will talk about this cyber thing of his some more since there obviously some things he'd enjoy doing with others and finding a cybersex partner apparently is super easy too (if you don't care about whether the "young blonde" truly is young, blonde or even female which would definitely bother me but doesn't seem to matter to him).

gorgeouskitten, thanks for adding your experiences from the "other side" as well. I hope everything turns out well for you and your boyfriend.
 
Hi Ticia,

Ooh. The plot thickens.

Doesn't mean I won't be able to wait any longer but I no longer feel ready to wait for "whenever he thinks the time is right".
The feeling that I've spent the last years waiting for him to be in the mood for sex probably plays a role in that too.

I love a good bit of resentment. Haha.

On a serious note - I hear you. Don't even get me started on mismatched libidos/interest. Vicious cycle of pressure and rejection. I should know, I'm smack bang in the middle of that very cycle myself ;)

I think that setting a time frame is fair enough. I understand now too that there's a specific person you want to date. I know that makes it EVEN harder to be patient. I would always advise that if the person you're with means the world to you, go as slowly as you think is reasonable. I've been known to chase irresistible tails in the past and when those relationships inevitably go to shit, I've always regretted going against my GF's comfort level in the early stages.

Of course, your crush may not be around or wait around forever, but if they are a person that's likely to be around for a while yet, nothing wrong with waiting a couple of months if that's what you decide to do.

There's also no reason to bury a dream. In my opinion, compatible partners help each other to chase dreams. Mutual dreams are better yet.

I understand your confusion and residual anger/upset about the whole cyber situation. I can't say that I understand what causes someone to lie repeatedly about things like that - and it's such a common thing to lie about, too. In fact, I had a boyfriend for 5 years who used to cyber with women on MSN (retro.. ha). Couuuuuntless times, I found (scoured his hard drive for) the clumsily-left chat logs. He said it was force of habit, boredom, stress relief. Some people think of cybering as interactive porn and don't see the harm. My betting is that this is what your BF considered it to be.

One final suggestion is that it probably couldn't hurt to re-attend a few couples therapy sessions if you can afford to do so, particularly with regards to building trust, because you're going to need to trust each other deeply if you do open up to poly. :)
 
Short on time-but regarding timeframes;

When I came out poly to my husband; I told him I would like him to take 6 months to consider it before he made a decision (divorce or accept). He agreed unhappily.
But honestly at the end of 6 months he decided that learning to deal with poly was less upsetting than being apart. So at the end of that 6 months he began working on figuring out how to manage his emotions and work through his prior beliefs so that he could manage to be happy with me in a poly dynamic.

It's taken a lot of work. But I definitely found that timelimits are a necessary component of compromise. Without an identifiable endpoint; he's less likely to do his part of the work and I get anxious, frustrated and impatient.
 
Without an identifiable endpoint; he's less likely to do his part of the work and I get anxious, frustrated and impatient.

That's exactly the way I feel about it too and since his intention seems to be "let's strengthen our bond before plunging into something new and challenging" this is totally counterproductive. I think I'll bring this up later this evening and see how it plays out.

It's good to hear you and your husband were able to work something out in the end. How is your situation now if I may ask?

sparklepop, sad to hear you too are struggling with this mismatched libido thing (again?). It's really annoying because I for one feel that at some points it overshadows a lot of the good things happening between us. For us the differences mainly originate in one point: he likes sex but only feels inclined to it if we're in a really good place emotionally. For me, sex also is a means to create intimacy and feel good about each other (not the only means of course but still a valid one). If this relationship were perfect we probably wouldn't be mismatched at all but since neither of us is likely to ever achieve perfection... well.

The good thing is that my crush is polyamourous himself and had his share of experiencing its difficulties. He was very understanding about me cancelling the date and basically says to let him know if anything changes on my end.
Another good thing is lives about one hour away. It's easy to avoid contact which is what I'm doing at the moment because it's hard to see him and not be able to act on my desires. I'm definitely willing to compromise and be patient for the sake of my relationship. I've had visions of infinite freedom and independence at first but I've realized for a while now that's not going to work with my partner, not if he's that important to me anyway.
So I'm willing to allow some time but no more than 6 months if I can help it.

It's very well possible that my boyfriend has the same opinion as your ex about the cybersex thing. It also explains why he wouldn't be interested in whether he's really talking to a woman - who would be interested in the background of a random porn star? How did you deal with it when you found out about your ex's cyber activities?
On the other hand we first met in an erotic chatroom too - that's probably why it made me anxious.

Wish me luck. ;)
 
Our situation is awesome now. But it was a lot of work-on the blogs page there is a 60 page run through of the dramatic steps to this stage. "Just LR".

One thing I found helpful (VERY helpful actually) was also taking conceptual ideas like "strengthen our relationship" and identify measurable, concrete steps.

For example: if you want to strengthen your relationship; what are the ACTIONS that show you that has happened? What is measurable?

We agreed that something we needed was a "more regular" date night. But "more regular is still TOO VAGUE. It's conceptual and everyone can have a different concept of "more" and of "regular". So we agreed to one date night a week together AT LEAST. That doesn't mean we can't have more if the opportunity arises, but it means we won't do less barring a serious emergency that lasts a week or more.

Also, we agreed that we needed to "be able to reconnect" after spending time with other partners. But that is vague because what allows for "reconnecting". It can be different for each person. In fact, it is different for US. What I need for reconnect after he has a date with someone else is COMPETELY different than what he needs from me if I have a date!
We learned that talking about what reconnect means and we agreed that when I go on a date, he gets what makes HIM feel reconnected afterward and when he goes on a date I get what I need.

Also; I have anxiety and sleep issues. The medication I take for sleep used to cause me anxiety for the first hour. It was a very frightening time (the hour after I took it before I fell asleep). So we agreed that he wouldn't have dates that couldn't be arranged around that UNLESS my other partner was available to sit with me through it. After a year of taking that medication, I quit having that problem. So now that agreement is obsolete and no longer in place as it is unnecessary.

Which is also a VERY important concept. Understanding that what is *needed* at any specific time isn't necessarily permanent-even if it SEEMS like it may be. Things change.

BUT sometimes discussion itself can create tension and disrupt life. So we agreed that we would limit "boundary change" discussions to once every three months. There isn't any reason someone needs to RUSH into a change in an agreement-barring an emergency-and a new lover is not an emergency.
We made an agreement... I don't know... January or February of 2011? Every three months we look it over to see if there is anything that isn't working well for EITHER of us. If there is, we renegotiate that thing. If it's all good, we leave it the same.

This allows us to KNOW that things will be addressed, but NOT spend every waking moment in negotiations, which actually slows down the progress because the person whose theoretically working on themselves-is ACTUALLY dealing with the hot topic "under fire" and getting nothing done.

If something comes up between negotiations-like a new partner who wants something different; we are point blank that we don't renegotiate except at these specified times. Very few of our agreements directly impact another person in terms of being able to build a relationship with their direct partner. But they do impact them in terms of being able to participate in family activities with the rest of us (which some don't want so they don't care-but others do want and do care).
For example; no new partners are allowed to be in our home until they have met all adults in the household and all adults living here are comfortable with them being in the home. Period. That has NOTHING to do with poly-that rule is the case for ANYONE. But it does IMPACT new partners. ESPECIALLY if they don't want to meet the rest of us-that is FINE-but they are NOT welcome in the home. Because it is a family home and every person living here deserves to feel safe and secure in their home-so no random people coming through. Period.

Anyway-hopefully that gives you some ideas. :)
 
I'm afraid the talk didn't go too well. He doesn't agree with the concept of setting a time frame and seems to fell pressurized. He also seems to hold it against me that I can't stick with the original plan of setting the idea of trying poly aside and focusing fully on the relationship. Instead of agreeing on a time frame we had a fight.

He says he can't tell me which amount of time would be suitable because "this is what you want". I'm back to square one, it seems he just doesn't want to get on board nor truly listen to what I tell him about my thoughts and feelings. I'm still totally alone in this. All he's perceiving is "you're discontent, impatient, resentful". Maybe I am? It doesn't feel that way but I can't be sure. I try to be as understanding as I can but I miss him being understanding of me as well.

As we can't seem to agree on a timeframe I think I'll set a timeframe of 6 months for myself, see if his attitude has changed by then and act accordingly.
 
Yeah, that's probably best, set the furthest due date you can (that you feel is reasonable) and make your own calls if he isn't cooperating.

Very sorry to hear that your talk with him didn't turn out so well. :(
 
Sounds like you wanted a time frame to "do/be poly".

The time frame needs to be a time frame for reassessing things to see how things are going between the two of you.

Right now you are in a mono dynamic. He feels a need to work on the relationship.

need to identify specific concrete actions that need to be done and a timeframe for reassessing to see if progress is being made in those areas and if there are other areas that need work.

Anyway-I don't have time. But you might read galagirls blog. It sounds like you are trying to rush him and that always comes with a lot of dramatic bs.
 
No LovingRadiance, I wasn't rushing or at least that wasn't my intention. I just feel unable to work & wait for an infinite amount of time until he may or may not feel ready to give me what I want. It feels like an unfair bargain to me.

I've started reading galagirl's posts though I can't say I'm finding them particularly helpful up to now. Seems like she's lucky with her partner or made a better choice about him/her which leads to everything being quite easy - which is great but sadly doesn't seem to be true for me. I'll read some more though, maybe there's something for me deeper in the thread.
 
She did make some great choices which simplify things. But-she posts a lot about how to word things, how to break things down.

Which words we choose, how we can consider a situation, has a great impact on whether or not a compromise can be created.
 
So Ticia, can you "be" completely monogamous for six months while your boyfriend (hopefully) considers polyamory? Can you focus 100% on your relationship with him during those six months if he agrees to read "Opening Up" during those six months?

It's just that I lost track of exactly was/wasn't acceptable to the two of you. :eek:
 
No LovingRadiance, I wasn't rushing or at least that wasn't my intention. I just feel unable to work & wait for an infinite amount of time until he may or may not feel ready to give me what I want. It feels like an unfair bargain to me.

I've started reading galagirl's posts though I can't say I'm finding them particularly helpful up to now. Seems like she's lucky with her partner or made a better choice about him/her which leads to everything being quite easy - which is great but sadly doesn't seem to be true for me. I'll read some more though, maybe there's something for me deeper in the thread.

I think LR meant just Gala Girl's posts around the board, not her blog. Or you could PM her to take a look at your thread here. She's very helpful!
 
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