Phase 2 - Dave Continues

Sorry to hear that Dave.
Did Susan decide to go mono with the new guy?

Theoretically.

Her sex drive took a nose dive in the last 18 months. If it is age and physical related, she could probably be sexually monogamous. If it is emotional related, there's no chance long term. She's going to be happy and turned on again, and he won't be able to satisfy her.

Emotionally, she's really making no changes. We are still going to be very close friends. We will still say "I love you." She's made sure the new guy knows we're best friends and that I'm very important to her. We're just not going to have sex any more which I assume means we aren't going to visit any more after the trip next week.

I'm still processing. I need to get through the trip and then figure things out. I have hotel reservations for her to visit in December, but I can't imagine she will come for that. I don't think I can handle not being physically intimate with her. It would be just emotionally devastating.

This sucks. I already feel lonely.
 
She got upset yesterday over nothing.

I asked her if she was still in love with me and her reply was, "Why are you doing this? I need a life," which of course is a non-sequiter answer. I'm not stopping her from doing anything and have actively encouraged her to see this new guy.

We talked it out, and she WANTS both me and a primary partner. She just doesn't think it's possible. She refuses to believe there is anyone that would share. In her defense, of the 5 guys she's been involved with since I've known her, I'm the only one that would voluntarily. One grudgingly accepted, but it's unlikely he would accept if he were primary.

I leave this afternoon. I'm pretty sure it will be nice. I hope we can have one last week with the intimacy we've had.

Worst case is I exercise A LOT and play a lot of poker. I can think of worse ways to spend a week.
 
Good grief, Charlie Brown.

I don't even know where to start.

The trip was nice. I love spending time with Susan. There were lots of awkward moments too. She blamed feeling 'old' which depressed her. This meant a serious sexy time deficit. She said after the fact, that she's feeling guilty and doesn't want to lie to the new boyfriend about us having sex. She canceled our meeting in December, which surprised me not at all. This is doubly painful because we were supposed to go to an event with my brother and his wife which would have been really fun to be able to share my family with her.

We have talked about the future and she still wants to see me without sex but with affection and kissing. That confuses me. I don't even know if I want that. I certainly would love to see her, but it seems unsatisfying to take vacation and fly halfway across the US for a glorified friendship which will just remind me of what we've lost. Perhaps if it's a special event. Certainly if I find a new relationship, I'll need my vacation time for that.

My favorite part was yesterday. She was having trouble finding a flight to see new guy, so she asked me for help. Of course I found what she was looking for but am I wrong for thinking that's tacky to ask your ex lover to help you see your new new lover?

And here's me being petty. She was lamenting that she was afraid he'd want her to pay for half the hotel (after she's paying for all of the flight). He's also not picking her up at the airport, nor making sure he's available as soon as she arrives. At the same time she was telling me this, I was cancelling the hotel rooms for the December trip that I had already paid for and not only do I pick her up at the airport, I meet her right outside of security. Of course, I do that for anyone that is going to fly to visit me, so maybe I'm weird. Turns out he's paying for the hotel, and was just waiting to find out if they wanted one room or two, which really is considerate in not assuming.

I'm really on an emotional roller coaster. At times I feel fine. Other times I'm a mess. I know I'm lonely.
 
We just had our first fight since this started. I'm still trying to process it.

It went just like this:
Background - I've been laid up with food poisoning since Monday, so we haven't gotten to talk much.
Susan - "I love you. I am sorry this is hard on you. Is there anything more I can do?"
Me - "Sweetheart. You've tried to tell me for years you can't give me what I need. I never listened. I just have to deal with it. I'm fine, really."
Susan - "That just really hurt my feelings. I would like to go now."
Me - "Ok. Good night."

That hurt her feelings.

Even though she has been telling me that for years. Even though she's put our relationship at risk three times. Even though she put a pall over our vacation. Even though we cancelled a trip that we were taking with my family. All for a guy she's never met before and won't even pick her up at the goddammed airport.

It's really not the new guy. There's always been other guys and I've always known she was going to go be monogamous with someone local. It's the betrayal that she would damage our relationship prior to having that real real relationship.

I sent an apology for hurting her feelings, but offered no more explanation. I'm going to see ironically named Farmgirl on Sunday and get advice. Unfortunately, my therapy session has to be skipped Monday. I was hoping to write a long letter and have it reviewed, but I won't be able to wait that long.

At least I'm feeling better and getting exercise.
 
I wrote this today:

The days are shorter,
They grow colder,
They grow dimmer,
A breeze from the north.

Green fades to gray,
Not steady each day,
But slowly, inexorably,
The summer will fade.

I feel it in my bones.
I feel it in my head.
I feel it in my soul.
Nothing to feed my heart.

The fields are more sparse,
No leaves on the trees,
The sun hides behind clouds.
The chill seeps in.

Winter is coming.
I need you to huddle close.
Before the heat fades.


Susan has tried to say I am important to her with words, but her actions aren't backing it up. Always pay attention to actions.

On the plus side, I have a tentative lunch date with someone which which I've already had good conversation. I'm pretty sure she's single, but I doubt she's poly. Still, having more friends is always a benefit.
 
Seems like Susan's boundaries are pretty blurred. She wants you to help her get flights to her new lover? I see that as tacky. Sometimes it takes a little while to let go and move on. Is that what you want to do? Move on or try the friends thing? Maybe you need a little NC to get things straight in your head.
 
Seems like Susan's boundaries are pretty blurred. She wants you to help her get flights to her new lover? I see that as tacky. Sometimes it takes a little while to let go and move on. Is that what you want to do? Move on or try the friends thing? Maybe you need a little NC to get things straight in your head.

Susan's boundaries are crazy blurred, but I don't think it's without merit.

When we started she had a long term boyfriend. We were both secondaries to each other. As time went on, I made her a higher and higher priority. I make life decisions based on her, but even then I have responsibilities that I cannot abandon. I don't think she's ever made life decisions based on my best interest, but I've never asked her to and she's never said she would. I cannot give her the sole focus of my affection that she craves, even if she craves it temporarily. We both know this.

Still, it's totally a situation where she wants the new boyfriend (I need a name, but I'll wait until late November) but she wants to keep seeing me too. She's told the new guy that I am very important to her, that she plans on seeing me as a friend, but didn't go into our romantic background.

She doesn't feel that anyone she would date would accept the poly lifestyle. That it would ruin her chance at that primary relationship she desires. To be fair, the kind of guy she is attracted to is one that has tons and tons of affection to give her. It is frustrating to not be able to do it. I know. That's me. If she was my primary, I don't know how happy I would be sharing either. Especially from a standstill.

For now, I've stopped making life decisions based on her. I'm not staying up late for her timezone. I've re-appropriated my vacation that was set aside for her. I'm pursuing other relationships. (I have a tentative lunch date! yay!)

But as far as the relationship, I don't have any logical reason we can't find a new level. We still love each other very much. She makes me happy. She is trying as hard as she ever has to make me feel desired and cared for.

I know it sounds weird for me to be helping her pick flights, but isn't that what you do for people you care for? Help them out when they need it? In the long term, I want her to know she can count on me. Kay has helped me with things regarding Susan a few times. Even with all this turmoil going on, she helped me find a little heart shaped jar that we are filling with Susan's favorite candy as a little Halloween gift. I think that took more effort than picking out a flight.
 
Tentative lunch date fell through.

I discussed with Kay about my three vacation days and we decided to take two of them for us, and offer one to Susan if she wanted me to fly out there. I figured that she would decline, but instead she accepted happily.

I think this means my role is secret boyfriend again. I'm still processing that.

As of yesterday I was in a really bad spot. I was feeling very overwhelmed by the situation. Should I leave Susan completely? Should I wait until she and new guy have more time together (there's lots of reasons to be skeptical of it working as a primary relationship)? What do I do in the mean time? Do I risk doing things to jeopardize Susan's and my relationship like seeing someone new? How long? etc.

I had a session with my therapist today. She gave me some good advice. Don't make any decisions you don't have to.

So I feel a lot better. Susan clearly loves me very much. She just needs to be someone's primary, and doesn't feel that anyone she meets for that role will accept me. So I have to be a secret.

The fact of the matter is that I love her. We will be in each others' lives for a long time. The degree of sexual intimacy may vary, but not the emotional. The likelihood is that I will be around long after new guy has gotten bored and moved on. I can have as many relationship at whatever level I can handle. I will re-prioritize her based on what is going on in my life, but I only have to when I have to. I don't have to plan this in advance.

Now, I do have some tricky stuff. I need to ask her for more time. I am getting hardly anything other than some chatting during work, and we've both been much busier than usual. The other issue is more complicated. I will never, ever, ever criticize her partners. I never have (one caveat that I may talk about later) and I never will. However, it is really, really hard to hear how wonderful he is while at the same time criticize me for things she overlooks for him. They are small and not that big of a deal, but it rankles something fierce. I am not sure how to address this with her.

One positive thing before I end. With all my workouts and lifestyle changes, I am now lighter (and stronger) than I can ever remember being as an adult. Yay me.
 
... With all my workouts and lifestyle changes, I am now lighter (and stronger) than I can ever remember being as an adult. Yay me.

Go you! Congratulations on taking care of yourself! (Just starting on that journey myself.)
 
A week later and I'm doing a lot better. This weekend Susan will be visiting NewGuy. I have seen some signs that she's totally forcing the relationship. She mentioned that primary relationship are hard because her expectations are too high. I KNOW there's things he does (or doesn't do more specifically) that aggravate her. She's really nervous about the cold weather (and it's only November!).

I also know that in the grand scheme of things, it shouldn't bother me. It's not my relationship. I hate that I've been de-prioritized though.

On a positive note, she called me her boyfriend again which made me feel really good.

Nothing else really going on of note. I've been on OKC again for a little over a month with nothing to show for it. I did ok last year at this time. I really need to get some better pictures.

and screw you judgey plenty of fish. Don't tell me that if I'm married I can't have relationships.
 
Things seem much better. I am feeling good in general, and I am not anxious about the weekend. I'm excited for her. It takes me a while to adjust to new guys, but in my defense, she's been SUPER unclear about what this is going to mean for us. I've evaluated by actions, not words, and it's helped. I think :) I'm sure the downturn will come again.

I had a friend melt down on me last night. She admitted she was extremely jealous of the attention I give to Susan, and that Susan didn't deserve me at all. I'm not sure why now of all times it's coming out, but I was neutral on the whole thing. She and I have talked about a relationship in the past, but it would never work. She's way too clingy, and doesn't understand why I need so many women in my life. She's talked it down herself many times over the past couple years. Maybe it was Susan that scared her off and she got her hopes up.

Movies tonight with Kay, and watching UFC (go Ronda!) tomorrow night with my brother and his wife.

Oh, something fun. I got the idea from Petunia (THANKS!), but a thread on Reddit made it even better. For both Kay and Susan I bought a heart shaped keepsake box. Each is engraved with "100 Reasons Why I Love You". Into each box will go carefully folded heart shaped notes with each of the 100 reasons. I have them all recorded, but tomorrow I'm taking the time to hand write all the notes. I'm so excited :)

I've lost 2 more pounds since last Friday, and I'm off to get in 3 miles before lunch.
 
So, it goes sideways, and I need help.

Susan flew to meet NewGuy on Friday. At 3:30 Friday, her sister was freaking out because a reverse phone number lookup for NewGuy came back with a different name, and Susan asked for some investigative help. I didn't come up with anything irregular, but she was a little concerned anwyay making some nervous jokes.

She landed at 7pm.

At 6am the next morning, I sent an "Are you ok?" text.
at 8am she replied, "I am fine all is well"

I did her air check for the return flight at 6:20, emailing her boarding pass to her.
At 11:32pm, she sent a thank you for it.

I understand she's deep in NRE. I also know that every trip I've gone on, she gets nervous and upset if I don't contact her regularly, and have gone to great lengths (time and expense) to make her feel important and loved.

On Wednesday, she got upset because I hadn't texted her in 5 hours.

My take is that I am a believer in actions over words. What I'm getting is that I'm not important enough to get a "Hi. Things are good. Talk to you soon." She didn't even let me know she was safe until I asked.

There's no way she'd let me get away with the same in reverse.

Do I let it go as an NRE thing? Is this just her true colors? She has a new toy and I'm not important any more?

I'm surprisingly numb about this.
 
Well, that solved that.

I let her know I wished she had sent me a text and she melted down. Long story short, I asked "How am I supposed to share my feelings about something you have done that makes me upset?"

She said, "Don't."

That's clearly not going to work, and it's amazing (or sad) that it's taken 4 and half years to figure it out.
 
I'm sorry this is happening. That is a very disheartening thing to have to take in. It has seemed at times that she wants her relationships, even the one with you, to be by her ideas and rules. She angrily tries to shove anything that gets out of line back into its allotted position so that she is not bothered by it. She seems to come back apologizing whenever she shows that is how she thinks.

Leetah
 
Hi Dave,
Sorry you are going through this. Be kind to yourself.
 
Thank you, Leetah and Atlantis.

I need to read this blog back from the beginning. Stakes, Rose (another close friend), and Kay are very worried about me in this relationship. I feel stress, but I don't feel abused. They are not so sure. However, part of the issue with friends in a relationship is they are MUCH more likely to hear the bad stuff than the good stuff.

I had a therapy session yesterday, and after talking through the situation, she just thinks we need to find a new level. She thinks Susan is just changing and wants different things than she did when we started dating. That's patently obvious, but dealing with the changes is a challenge when I can't talk to her. Maybe I can. Things were much more normal yesterday.

I'm still planning on seeing her in early December. It should be ok, and I can walk away if I need to.
 
Interesting. I went back and read over the blog and I clearly have insecurity issues when Susan gets a new interest. She doesn't do a good job of communicating during those times, but if I were to not make things harder, a lot of this would go away.

That was a very informative exercise.
 
Arise from the dead old blog!

So from where we last left our hero a few things have changed.

Stakes turned out to be really jealous and we no longer talk.
I found out I wasn't as much afraid of losing Susan as I was afraid of being alone.
Kay is still awesome.

On a related awesome note, I met the most amazing woman in the world and we've been dating for two years. I'm happier than I have ever been, hence my absence. I'd tell you more about her, but it's her story to tell other than to say I love her very much and want to be with her forever.
 
So, this is new territory and clearly more healthy. I'm posting when happy.

To get something out of the way, I never closed the Susan story. I went up that December and planned on staying Thursday - Sunday. By Friday night I was so uncomfortable I rescheduled by flight to Saturday morning and left. It's been two years since then, but I don't think I cried. I just knew it was time to be done. I had had enough of the selfishness. We've stayed friends with awkwardness, but even that I think has run it's course. I will think of her with both fondness and great admiration (despite her flaws, she's an amazing woman), but I have no interest in rekindling a friendship let alone a romance.

Ok, closure. Moving on...

I had a really amazing weekend. I went to see txgirl and we hung out with her best friend on Friday evening. Saturday, we went to txgirl's mom's birthday party and then to Fiesta Texas (Six Flags). The park was empty so I texted Kay to see if she'd like to join us Sunday. It's a 3 hour drive, but Kay brought the kids anyway and all six of us had a really great day.

Our daughters (9 and 13) were really interesting. The older one has anxiety issues and a fear of heights but really wanted to ride the big roller coasters. She got on some scary ones and we were really proud of her for getting out of her comfort zone. You could really see how proud txgirl was. The younger recently got to ride her first big coaster in "Aerosmith" at Hollywood Studios (Disney). She LOVED it. So we started with a small young adult coaster (Roadrunner) at Fiesta Texas. She loved that. My older boy wanted to ride the Iron Rattler. I encouraged her to join us which we had no problem getting her to agree to. That was a mistake. That is the most intense coaster I've ever been on and the girl was not happy after.

However, she also attempted to ride Superman. It's a moderate one and it still upset her. But she wasn't finished! She then rode Goliath (despite its name, it's pretty tame though it still has loops and corkscrews) and loved it. I was so proud of her for getting back on them despite being frightened.

Anyway, I love the family we have all put together. We continuously make plans together. I love the time we are all together and I love alone time with each of my partners.

I'm extremely lucky to have met these two amazing women.
 
Thanks for the update. I am glad you have been posting again.

Leetah
 
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