Mya's search for balance

For reference, this is what I posted on the Poly Relationships Corner:

Me and my two partners have lived together for a year and a half now. I’ve been with rory for 4.5 years and with Hank for 2.5 years. About a year ago rory developed romantic feelings for Hank, but at the time Hank didn’t feel the same way. They continued as friends. Yesterday Hank told me that he’s started to develop feelings for rory too. I freaked out about this a year ago, and even though I did a lot of processing back then, I guess there was a limit how much I was able to process when the situation didn’t go anywhere because Hank didn’t return rory’s feelings. But now he does and I’m freaking out again. Please help.

My initial feeling is that I don’t want to be in a triad. They’ve said that they don’t want to do anything about their feelings at this point, or at least they want to take it very slow. They both understand it’s a delicate situation. They are not “in a relationship”. Yet. (<- This addition is my brain telling me that it’s only a matter of time, but neither of them has said that.) In the last 5 weeks or so rory has been on sick leave from work, so he’s been home a lot more. This has led to rory and Hank spending more time together and the three of us also spending more time together as a group. I enjoy those times, but at the same time I often crave the kind of intimacy you can only get from one-on-one time. For our entire relationship me and Hank have struggled with our different needs when it comes to the amount of time spent together. As you can see from my signature, I’m dating quite a few people, but even now in this situation, I still want more one-on-one time with Hank than he wants with me. Me and rory have almost always spent enough time together, regardless of our situations. Since our desire to spend time with each other matches well, we’ve been able to arrange that in most situations.

I’m not jealous of rory. I get what I want from him, mostly. I am however jealous of Hank in this situation since I’m already not getting what I want from him: enough time. I’m afraid he’ll start spending a lot of time with rory one-on-one, leaving me on my own in a different room when I don’t want to be left alone. And if that happens, I’m afraid I’ll start treating rory differently because he’s “taking Hank away from me” when I’m already not having enough of his time. I hope I can be more rational than that, but I’m scared. I fully understand that I’d have to face this same challenge if Hank started spending a lot of time with someone new who isn’t my partner, but what makes this worse is the above fear – how this can influence me and rory too.

Triads are unstable with so many moving parts. I’m so scared that this development will ruin our family now that there are more emotionally close relationships on the line affecting the outcome. :(

But of course I want Hank and rory to be happy. If being with each other makes them happy, that is what they’ll have to do. I just need help getting over my fears so that I can be more supportive of them and whatever happens between them. Right now I just need a lot of reassurance from rory and Hank that they're not running into the sunset together and leaving me behind. They're giving me that and telling me it'll all be fine. But if there is someone out there who has experienced something similar, I would really like to hear from you! And even if you don't have similar experiences, advice is still welcome.
 
I've gotten some good advice on the other thread. Some food for thought. Some perspective.

I'm going to be away from home for the next 10 days. I've had a trip planned for months, so it's not like I'm running away from this situation or anything. But now that I am going while all of this is happening, I'm kinda relieved. I have other things to think about, other people to talk to. I still haven't talked about this new development with anyone outside rory and Hank in person, my only outlet has been this forum. I'm quite cautious about talking about it though, because it makes me feel like a bad poly person. I have all these other relationships, why can't I just be happy that they're happy. What a hypocrite. Argh. At the same time I kinda don't want to go away now because I feel like there's so much to talk about, so much to deal with, and me going away will delay that. But maybe distance will do us good. And me being away gives rory and Hank the opportunity to be with each other without worrying about me for a change. I hope they do that. I hope they explore this new thing, whatever it is, and get some clarity on what it is that they want to do about it.
 
I've felt so many emotions in the last week that I've become somewhat numb. I've had a feeling overload and I just don't care anymore. Rory and Hank can do whatever they want, I don't have it in me to care about what they do together. I hope this lasts because I quite enjoy not caring. It's not that I don't care about them as people, as my partners, but it's just not in my hands what happens between them, so I might as well not worry about it like I don't worry about the weather. If they end up being more involved with each other and if I just cannot cope with it, I can always leave. Those are my options. Either to deal with whatever happens between them or leave. I will not start making ultimatums or demanding to put any indefinite rules in place. I can ask for things that will help me to deal with it in the short term, but they are just training wheels, they have to come off at some point. In the end I want them to do whatever they want that makes them happy, and I will then react to that depending how I feel about it in the long run.

The same approach applies to my time issue with Hank. I have decided to stop complaining about it, especially directly to him. It's not doing either of us any good. I'm just so used to expressing my feelings. But as of now, I will try my hardest not to complain about it or try to change him / the situation. I have tried that and it didn't work. So now I will either learn to deal with it or end our relationship. Complaining about it will not change the situation, it will only create more tension between us and make the time we have together less enjoyable. It would be different if I had never spoken to him about it, but he does know it bothers me. It's just not useful bringing it up again and again. So I'm trying not to.

I've now talked to Ash about this situation and he was super understanding. He's such a sweetheart. :) I felt really vulnerable talking to him about it but it was worth it. I feel much better after our conversation. Right now I think I will be ok in the end with Hank and rory's new-found feelings and their potential relationship, but at the same time it feels good to still feel like I have the choice to leave as well, if it becomes too much. I will be ok, not matter what happens.
 
I just wanted to comment on you feeling like a hypocrite and a bad poly person. I think you're an awesome poly person! You take everyone's needs into account and consider them along with your own. It's ok to not be the happiest about the change in dynamics. It has the potential to affect multiple areas of your life! I think you're doing really, really well. I'm glad you have some time away and you're feeling a little numbness about the situation. You're right, no matter what happens, you'll be ok :)
 
Aaw, thanks PinkPig, you made my day! :)

Now I'm feeling sad for Hank. I called both rory and Hank yesterday. Rory seems to be doing fine and doesn't seem very worried about the situation. Hank on the other hand... he says he kinda regrets saying anything about his feelings for rory before he has figured out what he actually wants to do about them. He thinks he's put himself in a situation where he will end up hurting either me or rory and he will have to decide which one to hurt. Since rory has had feelings for Hank for over a year now, I can see what Hank is thinking in that regard. If Hank says that he actually doesn't want anything more than what they have now, rory might be quite disappointed after just hearing that the person he has liked for a long time likes him back. And if Hank does decide that he wants a relatioship with rory, I will be upset. This is what's going on in Hank's head. Now that I've calmed down a bit and after speaking to rory about this situation, I think these things probably weigh more in Hank's head than they do in mine and rory's. But I guess in some way what he's thinking is true. It might not have as big consequences as he fears, but his decision will have some kind of consequence either way. I don't envy his position right now. The worst part is that it's actually hard for him to see what he wants to do when he only sees those consequences in front of him. He can't seem to take them out of the equation to purely ponder what he would want to have with rory. That is the question that needs answering, not "whose heart do you want to break?".
 
I came back home yesterday. It was really good to get some space to process. I thought about my situation a lot and talked about it to a couple of people. I feel better about it now. After digging a bit deeper, I realised that my jealousy is partly rooted in entitlement. It's not easy to admit this, but there you go. Ever since my ex-husband JJ agreed to not get involved with my best friends back when we were together and just opening up our relationship, I've apparently associated not getting involved with "my people" with caring. I've felt entitled to keep my partners as mine. That sounds contradictory since we're poly and I definitely don't mind if they're with someone else entirely. But mine as in "this person is an important person in MY life and if I talk about them to other people, everyone understands that it's me who has a special place in this person's life". I didn't want to lose the ability to talk to rory about Hank and vice versa. I have now lost it to some degree, but that's okay. Things change. I still have some friends that are completely "mine" who I can talk to about them.

I've also felt entitled to Hank's time to some degree. I've thought that it would feel bad if he'd give time to rory instead of me. This might still be true, but I need to get over that and truly realise that I don't own his time. Also, I need to cultivate relationships and hobbies outside of my home/family, especially now when it's more merged together. I need to have things to do and people to see that have nothing to do with Hank or rory. It's important to me and it always has been. So now that two aspects of my life are getting closer to each other, I need to find other things that are more separate. I think that was the biggest problem of them all. I NEED things that are just mine, that I'm not sharing with a partner. If I have to share Hank with rory and rory with Hank, I need to have other things I'm not sharing with either of them, or I'll lose my sense of independence and autonomy. I don't want to lose myself in this three-way thing.
 
Things might still be in a flux, but at the moment it seems that Hank doesn't want to take things further with rory, regardless of his feelings. Weirdly, our home life has for the most part returned to what it was before Hank started developing feelings for rory. Well I've been back home less than a week, so I guess I'll have to see how things go in the long run. But for now, I've gotten a good amount of time with both of them (well, more with rory, but that's always been the case) and some group time as well, but not too much.

I think the new normal has a lot to do with rory's behaviour. He is quite good at listening and making changes. So when I've said that the three of us have hung out as a group too much recently and that I haven't gotten enough alone time with Hank, rory has started leaving my room earlier in the evening, giving me and Hank the opportunity to spend some time one on one, even if it's just 15-30 minutes before going to bed. Hank doesn't always take that opportunity, but he does quite often. So that alone makes a big difference.
 
Ash is incredibly busy. I haven't seen him in a month now. I mean, obviously some of it is because of my own things, like not being in the country for 10 days. :p But a lot of it is him as well. We were supposed to see each other last weekend, but he got ill, so he had to cancel. Now we're trying to reschedule and that seems to be quite challenging. I gave him 5 days that would work for me this week and none of them worked for him, he was only available on those 2 days that I had plans. Then he asked me if I'd like to join him on one of the events that he's doing on his busy days. That would mean me traveling to his city, going to this event with him where he wouldn't be focused on me, but also other people (that's the nature of the event), so I'd get to be alone with him for maybe a couple of hours before going to bed. I also offered to reschedule one of my two original plans for this week if that meant I'd get to see him properly. It's still up in the air though, we'll see how we're going to make this happen. It's quite frustrating because I can see that both of us have the motivation to see each other, but we have to work hard to actually make it happen.
 
After a lot of back and forth over schedules, I'm not seeing Ash this week, but next week instead. I hope that actually happens. I'm really looking forward to seeing him, but scheduling is super challenging between us. He has also been ill and stressed out often recently, which has led to him dropping out of events that I expected to see him in. Between our first actual date and now, there have been three events he said he'd be going to, but couldn't make it in the end. And he also had to cancel our date last week. So I've been expecting to see him much more than I have, and that makes me sad. I don't want to complain about it to him though, since it's mostly been about him not feeling well enough, so I don't want to add to his pile of stress and bad feelings. :(

Also between our first date and now, he has gotten back together with his ex. The last time they were together they went mono for a while and he scaled back his other relationships. So you can probably understand why I'm feeling worried about this development. I do want to talk about that to him when we see each other because I have no idea what them getting back together means in terms of me and him. My gut feeling is that these scheduling issues and their new-found relationship have something to do with each other, but we'll see.
 
Ash canceled our date again last week, but I managed to see him later in the same week at a party after which he came home with me, so we finally got some time to reconnect, talk and have sex. It had been too long and there had been quite a few disappointments from canceled dates, but I'm really happy that I finally had the opportunity to see him. And we now have plans for next week as well, which is good. We talked a bit about our approaches to poly and I talked about my egalitarian attitude. He doesn't really know yet how he wants to approach poly. Ash has been doing poly for a long time, but I guess he has been in a few different situations and he's not sure how he wants to go forward now that he's back together with his ex. He might want to become primaries with her at some point, but he's not sure yet. I have no idea how I'll fit in with all of this, but I guess I have no choice but to wait for him to figure out what he wants in general, and then what he wants with me.

Ben also came over last week. We have fun in the bedroom, but we really don't have much to talk about. After sex we just laid there in silence for quite a long time. Then we talked a bit about some things, but nothing very deep. I don't see this going in any particularly involved direction. Which is totally fine by me. He's probably the first person I'd call my fuckbuddy, because I'm not sure we have enough to talk about to even be good friends. Sexually we work really well though.
 
I went to Ash's city yesterday and him and I finally talked about our relationship a bit more. We decided to scale things back to friendship, for now at least. It started with me saying that I feel like him seeing me is adding to his stress and general unwellness. He said that's a valid concern and concluded that with everything going on in his life at the moment, he's really struggling to find time and energy for me, especially when we live in different cities. His work situation is changing in a couple of months for the better (hopefully), and that should make a difference to his energy levels, but of course he can't know how it affects before he is in the new situation. So this is another case of "it's not you, it's the circumstances" kind of a break-up. At least this time I was also struggling with the amount of time he was able to give me and how he kept canceling dates. I'm mostly sad, but I guess I'm also a bit relieved. I wanted to keep trying for the sake of the connection I felt with him, but I was getting quite frustrated with the situation. He said that he would like to keep the door open for us resuming things later if he's feeling better and has more time. We are still going to be friends and we will be seeing each other at parties and events anyway, so if at a later time we have a better shot at this, I'm happy to take it.
 
I've seen Ash twice after my last post, both times at a party. First one was a party at our place. He had agreed to come to that one before we stopped dating, and he did ask me if I still wanted him there. I said I did, so he came. He stayed over, and so did Ben. That was quite interesting. We also had another guest staying over, staying in Hank's room, so the house was already pretty full. Me, Ash and Ben were trying to figure our who sleeps on a mattress on my floor and who sleeps in bed with me. In the end Ben suggested that we all sleep in the same bed. Ash was fine with this, and I was too, so that's what we did. I didn't sleep very well because of the lack of space, but in some ways it was kinda nice to sleep between two people I've been sexual with. Nothing sexual happened that night though, which is line with what me and Ash have agreed for now. He doesn't want to be friends with benefits or anything similar. But we did agree that we would like to be cuddly with each other, so sleeping next to each other was in line with that. I liked the feeling of warmth and skin contact from both sides of me.

So I think I'm fairly OK with how things are with Ash at the moment. But I'm considering ending things with Ben. There were some things in his behaviour at the party that really got me thinking, combined with the fact that I don't see us being all that compatible anyway. So far I've thought that we don't need to be that compatible if we're just fuckbuddies, but what I'm realising now is that I can't keep our thing in a bubble where we only have sex and he doesn't affect my surroundings in any other way. I also have some communication issues with him. No matter how good the sex is, there's just too much missing for this to be any kind of a thing.
 
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Things are not great with rory at the moment. :( He continues to feel depressed and unable to work. All three of us are worried about money. I feel like me and rory are spending too much time together now that he’s not working and doesn't have other partners, and I feel like I’m forming a too large part of his support network. We are considering getting a fourth person to move into rory’s room in which case rory would spend most of his time in the other rooms of the house, including my room. When we first started talking about that, I got super anxious. I just…don’t want to spend that much time with rory and not have my own space. We are still considering that, but I hope we can find another way to make up for the money rory isn’t earning at the moment. I feel like I’ve given a lot to rory and held him up, both emotionally and financially, for a long time. His mental health issues have started to affect me more and more with time. I’m not sure how long I can keep doing this.

Then again, we talked about the time spending thing and agreed to spend less time together. I think it’s already helping to some degree, but it is quite difficult to do when you live together and have this basic instinct to always be with your loved ones when they are around. So basically it’s good for me to not spend huge amounts of time with any one partner, but I find that hard to do if they are home and available.

I’ve also noticed recently that I feel like kissing rory much less often than I used to. I think it’s possible that all these difficulties are slowly affecting my romantic feelings towards him.

At the same time I still care about him deeply and consider him family. I don't want to make him move out when he doesn't have any money and is in no condition to work. That would be horrible of me, wouldn't it?

I have no idea what to do.
 
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So me and rory had a conversation yesterday. I said that I think my feelings towards him have shifted a bit. They are less romantic now than they used to be. But not like completely gone or anything. It was a strange conversation that felt a bit like breaking up, but mostly just...taking a step back on the relationship escalator. We have now defined our relationship as a queerplatonic partnership (http://aromantic.wikia.com/wiki/Queerplatonic). Since this term is not something that most people recognize, with the general public we will stick with partner for now. It's definitely something between friends and partners, but now it's just a matter of which direction we're rounding it up to. Maybe we'll come to a point where it feels more like a friendship than a partnership and then we'll start calling it that. Regardless of that, the three of us consider each other family anyway, and that's the most important thing. We're trying to find a solution to this financial and living situation that hopefully won't mean rory moving out.

With this new definition I feel suddenly much freer from the anxiety and pressure I was feeling before. I guess it's because before I felt like I have to help rory no matter what, because we're romantic partners and that's what they do. Now that we're something a bit less than that, I feel like I can help him if I want to, which makes me want to do that more. Brains are weird. :p
 
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With this new definition I feel suddenly much freer from the anxiety and pressure I was feeling before. I guess it's because before I felt like I have to help rory no matter what, because we're romantic partners and that's what they do. Now that we're something a bit less than that, I feel like I can help him if I want to, which makes me want to do that more. Brains are weird. :p

For me, any kind of obligation (real or perceived) makes me feel antsy, trapped, and slightly rebellious. I tend to be a much kinder person if I feel like I'm doing it for love, rather than duty.

I like the term queerplatonic. I think a lot of my relationships end up that way - something more than friends, but not quite lovers or partners. For some reason the line "you can have more than one zucchini" absolutely gave me the giggles. I shall take great care in tending my little garden of zucchinis. :)
 
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For me, any kind of obligation (real or perceived) makes me feel antsy, trapped, and slightly rebellious. I tend to be a much kinder person if I feel like I'm doing it for love, rather than duty.

I like the term queerplatonic. I think a lot of my relationships end up that way - something more than friends, but not quite lovers or partners. For some reason the line "you can have more than one zucchini" absolutely gave me the giggles. I shall take great care in tending my little garden of zucchinis. :)

Thanks for your comment, RainyGrlJenny! Yeah, I think it's the same for me. Well, obviously, based on these recent feelings. It's not something I've really noticed before. And I really like that there is a term like queerplatonic for something in between friends and partners which is not FWB because that implies sex. Zucchini is a cute term as well. :)
 
So, things just took an interesting turn.

We've asked Will, rory's ex and mine and Hank's friend, to move in with us temporarily. Will and rory dated quite briefly about a year ago, and their relationship ended amicably. We knew that Will was moving out of his current place anyway, so that's why we knew that this was a good moment to ask him. Turns out he is interested in the idea! That would help us cover rory's portion of the rent, so he would get at least a couple more months not working and trying to get better. It's a huge relief. And it's also good timing because I will be away about 2.5 weeks during this time, so we'll have less space issues then. Me and rory will be spending more time in the same space, but that doesn't feel too bad right now, because of another thing that happened. More below:

Rory didn't come home last night after going out with a friend. I sent him a text in the morning asking if everything is okay. He texted back saying that he spent the night at his friend's place and will tell me more when he gets home. He got home and said that he and the friend, let's call her Carla, realised yesterday that they want to start dating each other. :) Carla is a trans woman that rory has known for a couple of years. They originally met when rory was still presenting as female and Carla as male and they started their transition processes around the same time. It's quite interesting that they've now started dating. Carla has never been in a poly relationship before, but I guess we'll see how that goes. She has met me several times and knows rory's situation well, so it's not like she can pretend I don't exist or anything. Anyway, it'll be an interesting adventure I'm sure. :)
 
I just broke up with rory. :( :(

I felt freer for a couple of days and then the anxiety and guilt came back. I just need more emotional distance than what queerplatonic partnership felt like. I need to be able to feel like I'm helping him because I want to, as a good friend, not because I need to as his partner. Also, I haven't been very happy with him in a while now. This new situation just brought all of it to the surface, so that I have to deal with it.

I came to this realisation after having a fight with Hank. The argument was originally about something completely different, but during it some things came up that gave me pause. I hadn't wanted to talk to Hank much about my recent feelings for rory because I didn't want to put him in the middle of the two of us. But tonight I talked to him about it, and he had some really good insight. After all, he probably has a better idea of mine and rory's relationship than anyone else (outside me and rory of course) since he lives with us.

I still want to try living together regardless. I want to see if we can make that work.

FML though. What a night.
 
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Thanks opalescent.

I read through this journal from the beginning. I started it when me and rory got back together and I named it "Mya's search for balance" because that's what I hoped to achieve with rory and others. Instead it's been a year full of disappointments, heartbreak, break-ups and rough patches. Of course it hasn't been all bad, but there's been more bad stuff than in most of the other years in my life. For Hank and me this has been a good year though. Everything else, not so much.
 
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