The Best Life Yet

Not sure if this is helpful, but here's how I approach overnights in my home that I share with Hubby. I tell the person coming over that my schedule is open and Hubby plans to be out or that he has agreed to sleep over in little girl's room so that guest and I can have the master bedroom. I then clarify that if hubby's plans change, mine will too since it is his home as well so his comfort trumps company's welcome. . .

No matter what, even if it's a choice on hubby's part, it is his home and his choice to have someone there. Same for me with his overnight guests. If I'm not comfortable, they don't come over. So, long story short, overnight plans are always conditional if it includes my home.

It is helpful, thanks. I do think that part of what upset me about the situation was that it felt like he was kind of cavalierly saying "well you have somewhere else you could sleep other than home, so why don't you go do that rather than disrupt my plans?" It made me feel kinda rejected from my own home.

If the situation were reversed, I would not have done that to him. Like, if he'd wanted to come home a day early on one of the weekends he'd been out of town and I'd had Dustin over, I'd not have asked that he find somewhere else to sleep so that Dustin and I could still have the place to ourselves.

I do get that his situation is different in that with Annie having a live-in partner and kids, switching to her place isn't really an option like switching to Dustin's place is for me. But that's not my fault. I am not the one choosing to date someone with kids while at the same time hating kids.
 
It is helpful, thanks. I do think that part of what upset me about the situation was that it felt like he was kind of cavalierly saying "well you have somewhere else you could sleep other than home, so why don't you go do that rather than disrupt my plans?" It made me feel kinda rejected from my own home.

If the situation were reversed, I would not have done that to him. Like, if he'd wanted to come home a day early on one of the weekends he'd been out of town and I'd had Dustin over, I'd not have asked that he find somewhere else to sleep so that Dustin and I could still have the place to ourselves.

I do get that his situation is different in that with Annie having a live-in partner and kids, switching to her place isn't really an option like switching to Dustin's place is for me. But that's not my fault. I am not the one choosing to date someone with kids while at the same time hating kids.

I think a little of this is just the problem with real estate in an expensive place. I mean, I don't think I could make poly work if we didn't have enough space in the house that our plans didn't have to be dependent on each other - I can always sleep in my house whether it's in "my" bed or the "guest" bed. (Our standing policy is that whoever has a guest actually gets the master bedroom, because you can make a little more noise there without waking up the kid.) We *do* try and stay out of the house on dates until my son is asleep, unless it's a long-term (more than 6-12 months) partner. So.... I don't know about Annie's house/arrangements but having a kid is not necessarily the problem here.

(Oh, and unlike AlwaysGrowing, Knight does *not* get to change my plans short of emergency and vice versa; I _really_ dislike having plans changed on me so that's an agreement we've made.)
 
The past couple of days have been relatively uneventful, which I think I needed. Tuesday, I was still tired from travel and having bodily time-zone confusion. I worked rather late, chatted with Oona on my bike ride home, and then had a taco date with Rider. We went to the only place around here that (in our opinion) has decent fast food. I was a bottomless pit and ate way more than usual. Thanks, PMS!

Then Rider and I just had a very lazy night at home. Rider bought me as an early Christmas present a plant-walk class that's going to happen in February. Then he played a bit of guitar and watched some wrestling while I read one of the plant books that Dustin's dad had lent me and then napped a bit since I was so tired. After my nap, Rider gave me a foot rub, and I gave him a very sleepy handjob. And then we went to sleep.

Yesterday, I also had to work a little late, and then I biked to Dustin's. When I got there, he'd already started cooking dinner. He'd made brussels sprouts with tempeh bacon and German potato salad with a mustard-dill-anchovy dressing. That man can cook! He'd saved the spinach and salmon for me to cook. He'd also stocked the fridge with an ample supply of beverages he knows I like.

When I came in on my bike, he looked sooooo happy to see me. Honestly, it seemed to me like he was acting like he loved me more than ever before. I can't put my finger on what was different, though. Maybe it was just a vibe thing. But it felt goooood! When I asked him about it, he said nothing was different and laughed at me. And then he said maybe it's because his family loves me.

I was having crazy heightened senses for some reason. I could smell the vinegar and the dill in the potato salad when I came through the door, and I called out the anchovy flavor even though he only used a little, too, asking, "Did you already put fish in this?" confused because the salmon pouches weren't open yet. I also thought he smelled different when I hugged him, though he swore he did nothing different.

We ate dinner as he showed me Elvis songs on Spotify. I've never really gotten into Elvis—barely know his catalog at all—but it was pretty good. For some reason, I especially liked the Christmas songs, which surprised me because I'm generally not much for Christmas music.

His dining set is a tall, bar-style set, with square, padded chairs, and we usually push them together so we can make a cuddle-bench. We'd done that this time and ended up making out when we finished eating. It started to get kind of hot and heavy, so we rushed cleanup and practically danced to the bedroom.

The sex was amazing. He made me come from missionary again, and then he came that way too. Then we took five minutes of downtime and started kissing again and then he was ready again, so we decided just to go for it. This time I got off on top. I think I am generally good for one on top and one on my back (whether from missionary or oral). No clue why that's how my body works, but it is. He got really close to coming but had to stop to pee, and we thought we were done when he got back, so we made the bed, but he suddenly changed his mind and went for it from behind and got off that way, on top of the comforter and everything. Afterward, we collapsed in a heap, giggling and still kissing.

"Go again?" he asked, playfully, but shaking his head no at the same time. He's definitely the only guy I've ever been with who can, uh, spring to action again so quickly. I think his refractory period is less than five minutes. I've heard it's supposed to get longer with age, but he's 40, which is the second oldest person I've ever been with (next to Rider), and it's the shortest for him. He says I just bring it out in him and that he's not like this with other people—that he indeed can rarely even get off with other people. I guess I'm flattered. He similarly does things for me that no one's ever really been able to do before, so it's mutual.

After sex, he put deodorant on, and I told him he smelled normal again. He thought it was super weird—he had two sticks of what was ostensibly the same brand and fragrance, and one smelled normal to me and the other smelled weird. Somehow I could smell the difference between two manufacturing batches! I'm turning into a bloodhound. :p

"Guess I'd better never try to sneak another woman by you," he joked.

Right about then, we heard Derek come home, and Dustin wanted to let him know there was leftover dinner for him if he wanted it, so we wandered out into the common area. Derek was putting on a documentary series about Rolling Stone magazine, so we cuddled on the loveseat and watched a couple episodes, sipping some nice cider.

There was this one part where the topic of Jerry Lee Lewis came up, and for some reason it prompted me to pull him up on Wikipedia, where I learned he's been married seven times and exclaimed about it, saying that's a lot.

"Well, you're almost halfway there," Dustin quipped. "And he's more than twice your age."

Instantly, I was stung and started to cry a little. He was super sorry and super sad, and said he didn't mean anything bad by it. He just thought it sounded like I was judging the fellow, when I seemed not to be walking such a different track myself, so he turned it back on me. That made matters worse, so he just held me and reassured me he hadn't been trying to be mean, just to make me think.

And looking at just the words he'd said, it was true. But I'd read into it that he thought I was doomed to have a string of failed marriages till I'm 80, which he had not at all said—it was in my head. I was just hypersensitive, I guess, from the conversation I'd had with Rider about how my relationships always peter out after NRE, and also from PMS. Sometimes in the days leading up to my period, I will take things extra personally and cry at the drop of a feather.

He apologized for saying something that upset me, and I apologized for being hair-trigger-y, and within about fifteen minutes, we were back to being happy again.

(continued . . . )
 
( . . . continued from previous)

After the show was over, we went back into his room and lay sideways on the bed, fully clothed, just talking about music and writing and literature. He asked why, if I write so much every day, I don't try to write a novel. He thinks I'm super talented. I told him it's because I feel like I don't have a good sense of plot—plot always seems to me to be most realistically driven by the motivations of the characters, and I feel like I don't intrinsically understand humans well enough to assign them believable motivations. I expressed a bit of glumness at this.

"People are pretty easy to understand most of the time," he said. "You can tell a lot about what their preconceptions will be if you can figure out what culture they were raised in—their race, their accent, their class. It's not a perfect measure, and I'm not saying be prejudiced, but you if you can kind of figure out where they came from, you have some idea of what they learned growing up, and at least what they've had to overcome (or not).

"Look at their clothes to tell their class. Look at their attitude and the way they carry themselves to see how much adversity they've faced. So many working-class guys have a chip on their shoulder, for example, and are eager for a fight because that's how they grew up. Look for that stuff, and it'll tell you a lot. And then interact with the person and draw them out, and find out how much of what you've guessed is actually true. If you listen and just let people talk, they'll tell you a lot about themselves, often without even realizing they're doing it.

"And just be nice to them, and considerate of them based on what you learn, and they'll love you for it. After I learned how to do this, I also had to learn how to be a bit of an asshole sometimes because I was making too many friends—not being an active dick, but just placing a distance. I spent a lot of time around con men on purpose, learning from them," he said. "Not wanting to become one, myself, but wanting to know how they could get inside people's heads and take them in so easily. Not to mention that if you know how the villain's mind works, you're no longer a target."

"Hmm," I said. "I don't think I'd even know where to start with any of this. Sure, I can hear accents and determine a culture. But I'm mostly not knowledgeable enough about various cultures to infer the rest. And I must say I don't have much of an eye for how fancy clothes are just by looking at them. The strategies you've described are just as much a mystery to me as anything. Will you teach me?"

He laughed and said he would, but said that he could only do it by telling me what he saw—that trying to actually explain it, to really teach, is useless in a way, because it will all depend on my learning, by myself, how to perceive.

So this is why he seems like a wizard, I thought. He has some kind of level up on perception compared to a lot of people I've known. Or maybe other people have had it, too, but they've not been willing to talk about it, or eloquent enough to describe it properly. At least he's willing to show me his wizarding ways.

"So . . . what did you think of me, then, at first?" I asked, it suddenly occurring to me that he must have sized me up in this way as well.

"Hmm," he said, "I thought you looked a little punk rock, a little rough around the edges. Like someone who didn't come from money. But I couldn't figure you out otherwise. And I couldn't figure out why I was so attracted to you that I got tunnel vision when I first saw you. This is L.A.; there are tons of pretty girls here. But you I needed to talk to. And I guess now I understand why, but I didn't then."

"I remember what I first thought of you," I said. "Guy with a hat, seems nice, not smooth at all because you said the weirdest opening line of all time to me—'I think maybe you look like my first girlfriend,' you'd said, and turned your phone to me to show me a picture as I was scrambling to get my gear together to play. But then you actually were super smooth after that, so . . . what was that, haha?"

"I didn't realize you were about to play, and when you walked toward the door, I thought you were leaving. I'd been trying really hard all night since I noticed you to figure out who or what you reminded me of, and you walked by, and I thought you were leaving, and I panicked and had to say something, so I said the first thing that came to mind. I just had to talk to you," he said.

"And then you listened to me, when I told you that I'm bad with names, and you reminded me of yours like three or four additional times over the course of the night, till I actually remembered," I said. "And that stood out so much because no one's ever done that before. That's what you're talking about, huh? Listen to people and be considerate to them based on what you learn?"

"See, you're learning already!" he said, and squeezed me. And we cuddled in silence for a while. Then he suggested we read for a while and go to sleep, since it was getting late.

He'd lent me On the Road to re-read, saying it's worth revisiting as an adult. He's making his way through Dubliners, which I also haven't read in forever. I love that I get to revisit these things with him, with fresh eyes. I read two chapters while we lay side by side, our legs entangled, and then I curled up on his chest and slept. I think he went to sleep not long after.

Tonight, I am getting my other early Christmas present from Rider: he got us tickets to my favorite musical comedian. I've seen him once before but it's been about five or six years. I'm pretty excited! I think we're going to pre-game at the house, since I'm flat broke, and then get Japanese curry before the show.

Rider had a good night last night too. He had a double-date night, with the "double" being that Annie had both him and her live-in partner there. They were actually hanging out less than a mile from where I was; I guess maybe they live near Dustin? I am not sure. He says they are eager to meet me and want to do a double date some night.

Maybe there will be a chance for that while Dustin is in the Caribbean, although Rider and I have said that we're going to spend most of that week working intensively on our album. I also need to fit my routine testing in—it's been three months already next week!—and was hoping to get a laser session in, even if I have to put it on credit. The tenacity of my body hair, surviving seven laser sessions already, is annoying AF.
 
I think a little of this is just the problem with real estate in an expensive place. I mean, I don't think I could make poly work if we didn't have enough space in the house that our plans didn't have to be dependent on each other - I can always sleep in my house whether it's in "my" bed or the "guest" bed. (Our standing policy is that whoever has a guest actually gets the master bedroom, because you can make a little more noise there without waking up the kid.) We *do* try and stay out of the house on dates until my son is asleep, unless it's a long-term (more than 6-12 months) partner. So.... I don't know about Annie's house/arrangements but having a kid is not necessarily the problem here.

(Oh, and unlike AlwaysGrowing, Knight does *not* get to change my plans short of emergency and vice versa; I _really_ dislike having plans changed on me so that's an agreement we've made.)

Yeah, if we could afford a bigger place than just a one-bedroom apartment, that would certainly make things different. Although . . . it'd be a totally new experience for both of us to learn "in the same house" overnights. I'm sure that's its own set of challenges. Neither of us has ever had to overhear anything thus far, nor, like, pass a sex-rumpled person on the way to the bathroom, lol.
 
I was having crazy heightened senses for some reason. I could smell the vinegar and the dill in the potato salad when I came through the door, and I called out the anchovy flavor even though he only used a little, too, asking, "Did you already put fish in this?" confused because the salmon pouches weren't open yet. I also thought he smelled different when I hugged him, though he swore he did nothing different.

Not be alarmist, but are you sure you're not pregnant? This was one of my very early signs - extreme sensitivity to aromas.
 
Ha, yeah, that would be a dilly of a pickle, for sure. But I'm pretty sure the event in question was about a week too late for that. I have noticed, though, another weird "energy" thing that I don't think I've mentioned here yet. It's a new phenomenon to me, happening only in the past month or so, and it doesn't happen every time.

This is probably going to sound really weird, and I'm not sure whether I will be able to explain it well enough, but I will try.

OK, so I've been with lots of guys who have a "tell" shortly before they come, where I know it's inevitable. Dustin doesn't always have that. Sometimes he does, but sometimes it seems to happen super sudden with no warning, after a very long time of fucking. But lately, on occasion there is a different kind of "tell"—I feel what feels like a single blast of energy come through him and into me, and it heightens my pleasure incredibly, like a temporary hyper-electric sensation.

When I feel that, I know his orgasm is close, but the electric wears off shortly before he actually has it. It's the weirdest thing, because it's not a visible thing, or a motion thing, or an . . . anything. He doesn't do anything different, change the rhythm, change position, or anything. But I feel it, whatever it is, and, without fail, the times that's happened, he's gotten off just a few moments later.



I actually have that book in my (until recently misplaced) Kindle and have been meaning to get around to finishing it. Someone(s) here, maybe you, recommended it back in the early part of the year. I can't remember if it was in response to my own libido issues, which started back in August of last year, or if I read it in a different thread and got curious. Now that I've found my Kindle again, I'll definitely give it a whirl.



This is . . . complicated. Rider is super, super kinky, and he introduced me to a ton of stuff I'd either never even heard of, or that I'd heard of and never been inspired to try. He's into so many kinky things that it'd be easier to list the things he's NOT into, lol.

I had a lot of fun in the early days, with the novelty of learning how to do it all. I learned how to top somewhat, because Rider is naturally super subby. I learned how to tie Rider tightly to the bedposts and make him squirm and shudder. I learned about chastity. I had a lot of fun figuring out how to generalize my always-present love of boys in makeup to expand to encompass his cross-dressing stuff. I'd never done more butt stuff on boys than a tongue and a finger, so the world of butt plugs and toys and strap-on was totally new to me. We even delved into cutting because it's something I'd played around with as a teenager and I'd been interested in revisiting it as an adult.

And a couple of times he switched for me and tied me up, but I didn't so much like being restrained, so after the first couple of times, when he'd offer to do it again, I turned him down.

Rider loves being a pet, being a toy, being dominated and used. And I . . . thought it was cute, mostly, for a long time. It's cute when the person you're in NRE with makes puppy eyes at you. But I'm kind of naturally subby myself, and when the novelty of learning the new things wore off, I found myself kind of getting lazy and dreading having to do the thing, and it was a two-fold issue: having to pick the thing, and having to do the thing.

At first, I just got lazy about and dreaded being the one to pick, but I was perfectly happy doing the thing if he picked, or if I let my "randomized sexual activities spreadsheet" pick (yes, I created a spreadsheet of all the stuff he liked to do and would randomize it so that it would pick for me—I'm a nerd). That went on for a while, and worked for a while.

But after a while, I started to kind of even dread doing the things that were picked for me. "Elaborate" sex started to bore me more than "regular" sex, because at least during "regular" sex, I could focus more on deriving pleasure from the shared sensation. So we started doing less and less of the stuff we used to do. It's like the opposite of a couple that starts out vanilla and wants to "spice things up" . . . I got burnt out on spice and kind of felt like I'd killed my spice receptors. So like 90% of the time, lately, when we do anything, it's just the basics.

And I know Rider would like to do more kinky stuff. He lights up if I offer to tie his hands while doing something otherwise "regular." So sometimes I do. He would be over the moon with ecstasy if I planned a long, drawn-out kink session with him. And once in a while, I do. But I feel to some degree like I was accidentally a faker by being into doing that stuff at the beginning. I was doing it all to try it out for him, because he liked it, and very rarely because I had my own burning desire to explore. But I didn't feel "fake" at the time. I felt . . . "exploratory" . . . trying on hats, seeing what fit. It's just that I ultimately didn't really end up loving any of the hats, though they weren't hideous on me.

It's not that I don't have kinks—I do—but so far they are like . . . very specific unrealistic-and-outside-of-the-mainstream things that can only be accessed through written erotica. If I need to access them for sex, I do what Dan Savage calls "running a tape in your head." Or sometimes Rider will have me read things while he goes down on me.

But the vast majority of things that people think of as "the kink world," don't really do anything for me other than giving me a way to make someone else happy. They're like . . . an ACTIVITY rather than a SEX ACT to me.

To be completely honest (and I know I've written about it here), the only time I think I've really understood any kind of BDSM dynamic from the inside was when I first started hooking up with Dustin and got super, super turned on by how he is naturally pretty dominant.

Not in like a "wanting to tie me up" kind of way, but in how he tells me how to get (position-wise) and arranges me and sometimes holds me down . . . how he talks dirty to me and commands me to say things sometimes, even when I'm generally pretty non-verbal during sex . . . how his body language is always strong and commanding and almost proprietary. It makes something inside me go "purrrrrrrrrr" and it feels deliciously freeing to not have to be in control.

From some of what I've read, that's what some people like about BDSM, so I feel like maybe I truly understand it a little bit for the first time.

But I'm not sure I could have that same dynamic with Rider, even if he put on the act for me, because I see him so clearly in the other way, the way he naturally is and has always been, peering coquettishly up at me through mascara and squirming on a leash.

I'm not sure if any of that makes sense, and, truly, I am still mostly a novice in the world of kink, so maybe it doesn't. I'm open to hearing thoughts, though.

I apparently missed a bunch of entries so I just read this section last night and wanted to respond as someone who does all the BDSM stuff but also went through a "try all the things!" phase, and in fact am still sorta doing that.

I also have a nesting partner who is subby/bottomy, but my more natural tendency is to want to be the subby bottom as well. So I deal with these same challenges. One of the biggest things that I have come to realize is that if it's going to work for me, I have to find a way for that kink to bring ME pleasure as well. Sure, I can enjoy topping in the sense that I enjoy seeing my partner squirm and sigh and gasp and have those sorts of reactions. But I just enjoy it. It's not necessarily getting me all hot and bothered to do those things. And I agree that it can be exhausting to have to plan out the scene, do all the things, deal with all the implements and toys, etc. But at least for SOME things, I've found a way to do things to him, while being able to do things to myself as well. So for example, we started doing strap-on play, and in my head at the time my brain was all "well I'm glad you're having a good time but I'm not actually getting any physical stimulation here, so it feels very 1-sided!" So more recently I started using a remote control vibe on myself that I could wear under the strap-on during play, and now I can actually get myself off from using a strap-on with him. It has made it so that strap-on play is actually a win-win for us both and not just something that I'm doing to someone else.

I've taken a similar approach with other things where I've tried to do a better job of re-framing the acts and think "how can I execute this in a way that gives him the play that he wants, but also gives me the stimulation that I want so that it balances the pleasure of the actions for us both?"

Of course, some of this is just recognizing that my partner wants to bottom more often than I want to top, and so he's just going to have to deal with not getting those things from me as often as he wants. And so yay poly, he can date other people who also like to top. And it sounds like that would definitely be the case for you and Rider. Anyway, you may have already gone through all of this. Just thought I'd throw my own experiences out there to see if it might be useful!
 
Not be alarmist, but are you sure you're not pregnant? This was one of my very early signs - extreme sensitivity to aromas.

I suppose it's technically possible, and I won't know till I bleed, but I have a copper IUD, and I'm already feeling crampy inklings of the period that is due to arrive sometime in the next day or four. I've never had a very regular cycle, and it's normally anywhere from 27–34ish days long, with rare outliers being over 40 days long. It's currently day 30.

That said, I did have one of Spork's "boobs feel weird" moments in the shower this morning—when I soaped one up and let it go it felt oddly . . . sharply jouncy? Like it whomped down instead of just jiggling down like it usually would, lol. Like there was more density to it or something.

But since I'm cramping, alllll of this stuff is 99.9% likely just premenstrual symptoms. My hormones can be a real bitch this time of the month and give me all kinds of weird perturbations of the body, mind, and spirit. No weird stuff happening to my body would really surprise me during this week. If I get to day 34 and still am not bleeding, maybe I'll take a test.
 
But at least for SOME things, I've found a way to do things to him, while being able to do things to myself as well. So for example, we started doing strap-on play, and in my head at the time my brain was all "well I'm glad you're having a good time but I'm not actually getting any physical stimulation here, so it feels very 1-sided!" So more recently I started using a remote control vibe on myself that I could wear under the strap-on during play, and now I can actually get myself off from using a strap-on with him. It has made it so that strap-on play is actually a win-win for us both and not just something that I'm doing to someone else.

I did try something like this, but I've actually never found a vibe that works for me. I'm sooooo sensitive that vibration is pretty much across-the-board too intense for me, even at the lowest level, and it burns out my nerve endings to the point where the entire area just gets numb. I've only managed to get off with a vibrator like twice in my life, and those times I was alone and playing around with other kinds of pressure to the area while the vibe itself was pretty far away from my actual clit.

I've taken a similar approach with other things where I've tried to do a better job of re-framing the acts and think "how can I execute this in a way that gives him the play that he wants, but also gives me the stimulation that I want so that it balances the pleasure of the actions for us both?"

There are a couple of ways I've figured out to do this. Like, I can get on top of him while his hands are tied up, if I'm feeling into PIV that day (though I rarely am lately). Or I can read erotica and sit on him while he's in the smotherbox, which is what we did last night. So, yeah, there are a few things. I'm doing what I can. I definitely try to space them out, though, because I don't want to burn out on or get bored of the few things that work for us both.

Of course, some of this is just recognizing that my partner wants to bottom more often than I want to top, and so he's just going to have to deal with not getting those things from me as often as he wants. And so yay poly, he can date other people who also like to top. And it sounds like that would definitely be the case for you and Rider.

Yes, this is what I'm hopeful for—that he finds someone else who can meet a lot of his sexual needs that I'm just not really up to the task for anymore. I used to be terrified of this, and now it sounds like it'd be a wonderful relief, lol. I used to feel like "if he finds someone that meshes better with him sexually, he'll want to leave me to go have the total package with them that he can't have with me" and I was frightened of it. And now I just feel very positive about him having whatever he wants with someone else, like he'd be a happier person and more pleasant to be around if he was more satisfied sexually, and like it'd take pressure off of me to be the one responsible for making that happen.
 
Rider has promised me that we can get counseling after the new year—that he'll set money and time aside for it. I think we really need it. Our communication tonight was so weird and toxic, and I'm feeling rather at a loss.

I'd love to tell the story of my past few days, but I'm just stuck on this right now, so I'm skipping forward to this. Maybe I'll revisit the other stuff later.

Tonight, Rider was out on a date with Annie, and I was with Dustin for most of the night. I dropped Dustin off at the airport and biked home, close to an hour. I poured myself a drink and picked up my book and waited for Rider to get back.

While waiting, I texted him playfully about some household stuff, and he said, "Oh, I never made it home after work last night, so I don't know. My friend and I got way too fucked up and crashed on my buddy's couch."

And suddenly, I was alarmed. This wasn't a poly thing—he was hanging with a work friend and got drunk and then they both went to one of his buddy's house and got too stoned and crashed—but it was a responsibility thing.

You see, we have four pets: two cats and two rabbits. The cats get a little bit of wet food in the morning and snack on kibble all day. They depend on more wet food and a refill of kibble in the evening. The bunnies are supposed to always have hay in their hay rack and get a scoop of kibble in the evening. Rider usually feeds them in the evening each day because he usually gets home before me, but I feed them in the mornings and when he's not around in the evenings.

So if he never made it home till likely close to noon today, that means the cats went at least 24 hours without eating and for the bunnies (since they were out of hay when I got home) it might have been closer to 36 hours. WTF?

When he got home, he was admittedly drunk. I asked him how he was doing and that's what he said. It wasn't the best time for me to initiate a grievance conversation, but I was hoping it would go OK nevertheless, since we usually have good communication. I was livid, but I was also calm.

I explained to him what I was upset about:
1) That these animals depend on us for food and survival.
2) That he could have let me know at any time that he wouldn't make it home, and since they are technically more my pets than his, I could have made it back myself to feed them. Dustin doesn't mind driving me around, or I could have biked back, even if it was a long ride.
3) That another option would have been for them to Lyft back for the pets, and I'd have been happy to Venmo him for it rather than let them starve.

I feel like I was pretty measured and logical and cut-and-dried about this stuff—I never attacked him personally or called into question what he was doing or tried to shame him for staying out or for whom he was hanging out with. I just let him know what I was upset about and why, and I asked that, going forward, he please do #2 or #3 rather than making them suffer.

But he responded in what I believe to be a very unhealthy manner. First, he accused me of being drunk and emotional, when it was he who was actually drunk. Then, when he asked what was wrong with me and I told him I was just sad about it, he stormed off into the other room.

Then after some time had passed (I did not chase him), he came back out, finding me petting the cats, and asked "what we're doing here—what am I trying to get at?" and when I told him, again, that I just wanted to find a solution so that this didn't happen again, he scoffed and reminded me that he takes care of the pets nearly half the time while I'm gone to Dustin's house.

Well, OK, but be that as it may, someone has to be taking care of them at all times. If he can't or doesn't want to do it, he needs to tell me, not leave them to starve. It's not cool to decide mid-evening that he wants to shirk the responsibility, and not even notify me so that I can pick it up in his stead.

The conversation went so sideways. Here is an incomplete listing of fucked up things he said to me:

1) Well, we didn't drive drunk. This is better than getting a DUI or killing someone, so it was the rational choice.

2) We're both away from home a lot these days, so sometimes this is just going to happen. It's not the end of the world.

3) You're making me feel bad. All I wanted to do was come home and tell you stories about the good times I had, and instead we're talking about this.

4) I don't want to feel like this is my fault.

My answers to these?

1) I will agree that the choice you made was better than you or your friend driving drunk and killing someone. However, I think that the most rational choice would have been one that also took into account your responsibilities.

2) No, this is not true. I will not allow living creatures that I am responsible for to suffer because we are both partying. You need to at least give me a heads-up that you're not going to be free to be "tagged in" so that I can make other arrangements or take care of it myself. I refuse to accept this as a matter of course.

3 & 4) I am not making you feel anything. I'm telling you how I feel (sad, upset, angry, disappointed), and trying to suggest plans for the future that will prevent this from happening again. If you feel bad about this, it's a reaction that's coming from inside you, not something I'm "making." And I promise you I'm not being a dick just for the sake of being a dick. I would very much like to agree on a preventative measure for the future and just let this go and move on.

But he was twisting so many things. He said that when I said I cared about the pets, that I was insinuating that he did not. He assumed that just because I was passionate about this, then I must be drunk. He acted like I was punishing him or trying to distance myself from him because I was upset about this and wanted to talk about it immediately to get it out of the way, rather than brushing it under the rug so we could have connection time.

And I don't know what to do about any of that. Like, I feel like it's a pretty solid gripe, as a pet owner who shares pet duties with a partner, when the person who was supposed to feed the pets neglects them. And I was really, really placing far more emphasis on "what can we do moving forward to make sure this doesn't happen again" than I was on shaming him for the previous night's actions. But his stomping and eye-rolling and turning it around on me . . . and his straw men of "at least I didn't kill someone" and "well, you're only here half the time" . . . it just all seemed so unhealthy to me.

Eventually he just lay back on the couch and passed out. The kitten woke him, and he moved to the bed, where he still remains. I'm writing this for a bit and then going to sleep beside him.

But I miss being able to have a legitimate complaint and have it calmly considered and conferred upon as two people who care about a mutually beneficial outcome. I'm not sure when I became "the enemy" instead of a partner in problem-solving, which is what I feel like this situation normally would have been.

He did at least agree to either tell me when his night seemed to be taking a turn for the wild, so that I could stop home for the pets, or to Lyft back and hit me up for some of the cost. As I told him, as broke as I am, I'd rather pay $15–20 for his ride than have the pets suffer.

I dunno. I just feel like all of that is a no-brainer for anyone who loves animals or is a compassionate person. Both things which I have known Rider to be. But he suddenly sounds so callous with his "well sometimes this is just gonna happen." They're living beings with feelings and needs. Who is this person who can be so inconsiderate of kitties and bunnies, and then turn on me when I point it out? We need help.
 
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I think the timing was bad on this one. I don't usually discuss important topics with someone who is drunk or high. They aren't in their usual state of mind and they may not even remember the discussion the next day. If it's something they need to remember or something that may cause contention, I discuss it when they're sober.

If you can afford individual counseling, then I'd opt for that with the occasional joint therapy. My experience is if you make one person healthier, then the unit becomes healthier so if you're both working on yourselves independently, then you'll become healthier as a couple.

I'm sorry it was a rough night, Reverie.
 
I think the timing was bad on this one. I don't usually discuss important topics with someone who is drunk or high. They aren't in their usual state of mind and they may not even remember the discussion the next day. If it's something they need to remember or something that may cause contention, I discuss it when they're sober.

If you can afford individual counseling, then I'd opt for that with the occasional joint therapy. My experience is if you make one person healthier, then the unit becomes healthier so if you're both working on yourselves independently, then you'll become healthier as a couple.

I'm sorry it was a rough night, Reverie.

Yeah, maybe I should have just waited. Although this morning he still stuck by the same stuff he said, so maybe it wouldn't have made much of a difference. He did at least apologize for the childish stomping off and loudly shutting the door, though. I dunno—I guess he and I really do just see this issue that differently. I cannot think of how or why, but that is how it is, apparently.
 
I'm barely starting to bleed right now and boy am I one big puddle of unpleasant emotions. They're somehow both oppressive and heavy but also mellow and still—it really is more of a big puddle than a storm.

Rider is off at a poly meetup, and I'm just chilling at the house with the cats. I figured it would be a good time to get some writing done and try to sort through all these feels.

Rider took me out for breakfast this morning, which was nice of him. But at breakfast, he was telling me the story of his weekend and, man, I just dunno. On top of all the pet stuff, it turns out that he ended up holding hands with the co-worker he was out with Friday night. This despite his having told me over and over that a) at 26, she's too young for him, b) he doesn't date co-workers and thinks that it's a terrible idea when people do, and c) she's not someone he could ever see himself with. Now he's all like "never say never" about that stuff, and I'm just like . . . really confused. It also explains to some degree about the pet stuff, I guess. It is in part just him doing his regularly scheduled girls-make-him-weird thing.

He also told me that he had PIV sex yesterday for the first time with Annie, which is whatever. And he's into the girl who's hosting the meetup today and spent the rest of the morning baking her a vegan cornbread and texting people instead of hanging out with me. When we got back from breakfast, I'd been feeling weird, so I decided to just sit and observe him. I didn't take my phone out of my purse once we got home. I just sat and petted the cat and thought about shit, watching him and responding to him when he had stuff to say to me, even though I didn't have much to say, myself.

For all the asking me to be present that he does, he clearly was about 17 different places mentally other than in the room with me. Which is also whatever, you do you, dude, but it was noticeable, so I filed it away with the other things I have been thinking about.

It just really feels like even when we are together, like we are living two separate lives. He has more new friends than I can even keep track of, and I know he'd be perfectly happy if I came along with him and made friends with them too, but I don't really want more friends. I barely have time for my own existing friends.

I could go to the poly meetups, but I don't have time for new friends or partners, and I am not particularly keen on watching Rider flirt in front of me, and also I kinda feel like that's "his domain" now. Not to mention that he gets super popular wherever he goes, and so people would be intensely curious about me, and I am almost certain I'd come off as standoffish just because I have really low social energy right now.

He's building this rich, extremely complicated life that is taking a lot of his focus and energy, and it's so "him," and I'm happy he's happy, but it's not at all "me," this new life of his. I'm not mad at him for any of it, and I'm not even sure that I'm complaining. It's just a really weird feeling. I kinda don't even want to be part of this complicated new side of his life. I don't want to meet his poly friends, and I don't want to have to process four new interests of his every week, and I don't want to have to try to find the energy to make new friends or politely decline advances. I just want . . . peace.

So is it me making us have these two very separate lives? I guess it must be. But I really can't force myself to get more involved in that whole scene. I'm sure everyone is lovely and all, but I just don't wanna. I totally do want him to do and have all the things that make him happy (although if he ends up dating his young co-worker, I worry that's going to blow up in his face). I just want not to be involved in it.

Perhaps fucked-up-edly, coupled with my already existing libido issues, that also kinda extends to sex stuff. Like, I want him to have a sex life, obviously, but I feel weird about the idea of him potentially having sex with so many other people and then also having sex with me. And maybe if I had higher desire for him as a baseline, I'd feel differently, but with things as they are, and especially considering our recent STI situation, I'm just kinda . . . not feeling the whole risk/benefit thing. Which is not to say that I won't still do it. I probably will.

I'm not a sex-negative person in general, but after that, and also just knowing how many people in that circle seem to be kind of cycling through each other and how Annie already has genital herpes . . . I just feel weird. Not "I'll try to stop him" weird. But kinda like I want to distance myself from alllllll of it for some reason. Maybe it's temporary. Again, I'm sure they're all lovely people and I'd probably like them in person, if I wanted to make friends.

I'd also probably feel differently if sex was a huge, free-standing drive for me. Maybe I'd be super into the idea of going out and meeting new people to hook up with. As anyone who's followed this blog knows, I spent a long time trying to find people to date, but even when I wasn't polysaturated like I am now, there was never that easy click or thirst for sex. But I know there are people like that. I'm just not one of them.

Rider's on cloud nine because he feels he's finally found his tribe, and he's bubbling with excitement at all the potential people to date. He loves all the attention he gets and he loves having dozens and dozens of new friends. He has a seemingly unlimited capacity for friend-making and crushing on people. He's always been that way, and I am happy for him that he's finally got a way to express that here and now, nearly two years after moving.

It's just.

I feel myself going the opposite direction. Reading books on the couch with a partner, and then cooking a family dinner for four while we watch documentaries and all discuss books—basically the kind of stuff I do at Dustin's—that kind of thing has always been more my speed. I always struggled to keep up with Rider and his hyper-sociability, and now that it's poly groups, I'm certain that I'd struggle extra because everyone is looking to date each other and I feel like I'd always be trying to read so much into every person's interactions with Rider. I feel like I'd never be able to really relax in that setting.

I feel myself yearning for simplicity instead of complexity, but the situation just gets more and more complex as Rider meets more people. And I don't begrudge him any of it—after all, I have a HUGE thing going on with Dustin, and if he needs 3 or 4 small things to feel like he balances that out, that's his right to do that. But, my god, is it complicated.

(continued . . .)
 
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( . . . continued from previous)

As I sat there this morning and just observed Rider, I had a feeling like . . . I used to feel possessive of Rider. I used to feel like he was on some level mine. Even though I tried not to let those feelings intrude on his autonomy (though I often failed), they were still there. Watching him make that cornbread and then sit there in his desk chair texting away, not noticing that I was sitting quietly on the couch with no phone in my hand, just observing him, I didn't feel that way anymore. I feel like Rider belongs to the world—to anyone who will give him some attention. And sometimes that is me, and sometimes it is not. But my feelings were misplaced when I felt like he was mine. He might be "my" husband and "my" dear friend, but he was only ever his own and the world's.

The feeling I had was like one of melancholy release. Like I'd held on too tightly for too long to something that needed to be free to be happy, and in finding that he'd submit to that for me—break his own spirit for me—I have very slowly realized that I'd done something wrong.

He's not currently happy in his relationship with me because of all the struggles we're dealing with. But he's sooooo happy in his poly groups and getting attention from flocks of people. He's soooo happy having met a girl who likes to paint his nails and take him to that goth club that is too crowded for me. He's sooooo happy dating the same chicks that his other new friends are dating, and showing them all around downtown, and showing off his cornbread at potlucks and inviting "possibilities" over to cuddle and see if more unfolds.

And I feel like . . . if I didn't have Dustin to focus my romantic energy on, the entire thing would be driving me mad. I'd be constantly jealous and paranoid about which of these chicks he'd be sleeping with next, or not knowing what was going to happen when he said someone was just a friend but it transitioned to more. It'd be eating me up that he'd be doing all this cool new stuff with cool new people, and, because I wouldn't want to be left out, I'd be pushing myself to be more social than I actually am, and meeting and befriending these people because if they're my friends then they won't hurt me, right? Rider would be tickled and elated and happy, just as he is now, but I'd be miserable. And I'd slowly combust into a fiery heap of processing and eventually make him miserable too.

But now I have Dustin. Who, as he repeatedly assures me, is "mine." Which, of course, he is not really. I don't own him. But he loves me with a focus and a ferocity and a single-minded doggedness that is new to me. He jokes about how my tagging him in so many photos on Facebook is like me writing "Reverie wazzz here" on his page . . . but he says that he loves that. He says that he wants to focus on only me, even though I tell him he is of course free to be with others. And, honestly, as much as it feels hypocritical to admit it, that feels amazing.

And because Dustin is "mine" and he loves it when I get a little possessive—loves it! thinks it's adorable!—it feels . . . freeing to me. Because the way that I feel, the actual way that I feel, is what he wants from me. I don't have to try to process and tamp down inconvenient emotions. I don't have to fight against limiting someone else's autonomy, because I've said to him "you are free to do what you want" and he naturally says "but I am, and what I want is you." His autonomous wish is to stay put for as long as he can bear it and just keep on loving me with laser-focus.

It's hard for me to explain how hard it always was for me when Rider would laser-focus on the flavor of the month, stopping at nothing to get the girl. He'd always love me, and always be steady, returning when he was done, but it killed me when he shifted away. And now he's pointing that laser all over the place, wide arcs of movement where anything is possible. And he loves it. It's not hard for me anymore, but I think it's only because I'm getting my laser quota met elsewhere, so I've released him.

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what that release entails. I want it to be a good thing, but I'm not sure that it actually is. Obviously, it is good for Rider in that he can do more or less whatever he wants without me spinning into a tizzy over it, and he's making the most of it. But it seems there was also a price. The more he has to do with other people, the less romantically invested in him I feel. It used to be the opposite. It used to make me jealous and want to chase and pursue and win. Now, it just makes me feel more detached, somehow.

At the same time, I'm soooo happy for him that he's getting to live his authentic life that it brings tears to my eyes. He's exploring his gender-queerness and new social circles and soon new kink clubs and other parts of the city . . . he's seeing and doing and living so much more than he would have if I'd stuck by our winter monogamish agreement. I feel over-brimming with love for him and happiness for him. But it's wistful in a few different ways.

For one, it shows me just how limiting the things I needed from him actually were, so I feel a bit guilty about the past. For another, it's so clear to me that most of those things that he's doing are not what I want, not at all, so it seems like in giving him that freedom by focusing my romantic energy mostly elsewhere, I'm allowing our paths to diverge. I'm not pushing for it. I'm not causing it. I'm allowing it, as in, no longer holding on tooth and nail to stop it from happening. He's doing him, and I'm doing me, and we're both mostly blissful except when we look at what's happening to "us."
 
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My last post sounds judgy. I didn't mean it to be....just you remind me a bit of myself. This last post especially. I didn't realize how much I was squashing my own desires by trying to fit into Blue's world. He's a free spirit, like Rider. I adore that about him. But it's not a healthy dynamic for me. In my case, I know it's my codependency that enabled me to stay so long in a relationship that wasn't sustainable. Therapy and following Buddhist practices has been the key to figuring out what I want from this life....and knowing that is enabling me to attract people with like values. I really lucked into my therapist. She's LGBT and poly friendly and has significant experience working with adult children of alcoholics.

That's where my suggestion for individual counseling stems from... I apologize for sounding judgy.
 
My last post sounds judgy. I didn't mean it to be....just you remind me a bit of myself. This last post especially. I didn't realize how much I was squashing my own desires by trying to fit into Blue's world. He's a free spirit, like Rider. I adore that about him. But it's not a healthy dynamic for me. In my case, I know it's my codependency that enabled me to stay so long in a relationship that wasn't sustainable. Therapy and following Buddhist practices has been the key to figuring out what I want from this life....and knowing that is enabling me to attract people with like values. I really lucked into my therapist. She's LGBT and poly friendly and has significant experience working with adult children of alcoholics.

That's where my suggestion for individual counseling stems from... I apologize for sounding judgy.

I didn't think you sounded judgy at all. I really would like to be able to afford both. My insurance actually just switched this month, and I'm not sure what my benefit is. I got a TON of goodness out of the last time I was in therapy, back in Florida. He was also LGBT and poly friendly. I know there are people like that out here, but I think they don't take insurance and charge more. I was actually just talking to Eve and Dustin last night about how much I'd like to get into personal therapy again, just because it was so useful.

Reading websites about adult children of alcoholics was actually the first time I learned about the concept of boundaries (back in 2010)—mind-blowing to me at the time! And reading a book about it that a therapist recommended to me in 2015 was likewise very illuminating to me in helping me to see that a lot of what I struggled with was control issues. Knowing is only half the battle, though, and it has taken a lot more internal work to get to a good place with those. Poly was definitely a huge struggle with that, to the point where I almost felt like I couldn't make progress with it while being poly because I was so immobilized by fear a lot of the time.

I think I've written here about how I've been doing a lot of work this year specifically on teaching myself to relax more and shed some of those. I haven't had a fit of temper or panic in response to someone else's behavior in about five months! True progress!

But I know I still have a ways to go. It was harder than it should have been for me to endure Dustin's requested period of no contact. I did it, though! I was sorely tempted a few times to reach out, but I self-soothed and it was great.

I, too, love Rider's free-spiritedness. He's a treasure, a true gem, and a wonderful companion. Everyone who meets him loves him.

Honestly, when it comes to "trying to fit into his world" . . . it was a perfect storm. I'd really wanted to try out poly in a serious way, since my first attempt was haphazard and short-lived. I was pretty sure I wasn't capable of monogamy since I'd often cheated or been tempted to cheat. And then, coincidentally, there he was, already doing a poly-ish thing, and being awesome, and instantly became my best friend, and it seemed like the only thing that made sense.

But I definitely have found that the level of structure that I prefer doesn't jibe with what is most natural for him. He's bad at even remembering that he's committed to things, be they plans, agreements, or "things we've talked about not doing again." He's not a jerk, just naturally kinda flighty and thoughtless.

I'm beginning to suspect that if poly is "relationships 2.0 for advanced students of social ability," I really just need to take a remedial course for a while and work on my own shit. But, given my situation, that's a conundrum.
 
I have a feeling that what you are fighting tooth and nail NOT to say, is that you and Dustin are essentially a better match, than you and Rider are. Ouch, right? But it's what I'm picking up here. Like as much as you love Rider, you see his authentic spirit thriving best in a world that is not really your world. Oh and Dustin, he really loves animals and wants to like live in a fairytale cottage with creatures...kinda contrasts with "sometimes the pets are gonna go hungry," don't it?

Like I think you don't want to consider this. But deep down, you might be feeling it, or fearing it. Along with the notion that you don't want to have a string of failed marriages (I mean who the hell does?) And so acknowledging that, and moving on to nest up with Dustin, though it seems wonderful, he's also got his dark side. His occasional drinking and substance abuse issues...and his history of questionable relationship habits. I'd be worried that if I tried to nest up with someone like him, that the mundane-ness of it all would kill the magic and he'd get restless, want to stray eventually. Like why change anything if it's perfect? What if you gave him what he wanted and it turned out...to not be actually so good? So it's by no means certain that would even work if you did it. And meanwhile...you truly do love Rider and don't want the pain of parting, there, either, even as you're realizing that both of you might be finding more genuine happiness outside of what you've got together.

All of this is my typical guesswork that might have merit or be utter bullshit, so...feel free to brush it off if it's nowhere near the mark.

This is some tough stuff. I don't blame you for wanting some counseling and I encourage you to seek that.

I think a tricky thing about poly, is that in a way... (I'm struggling for words for these ideas) ...it legitimizes changes in our love lives that otherwise are judged harshly by the culture we've grown up in. Like if you're a monogamous person, having a second partner equals cheating, but even serial monogamy is seen as just this failure to do it right. Like a good and proper person finds their proper mate and settles in, in the early 20's, for LIFE and "works" to make the relationship good until death do us part. OK, well we can maybe accept a failure, or possibly even two, but gosh we mustn't have TOO MANY partners. Or spouses. In our lifetimes. Or there is like...something wrong with us. Right? In light of your NRE wearing off issue, that becomes pretty problematic. But poly should in theory relieve a lot of this! Radical new relationship structure, with plenty of support, that allows you to have a nesting partner to signify "success" while you have other partners to keep the joy in your love life.

But does it really work that way? Should it? And is it authentic to YOU?

At some point we have to be able to say that social judgments and expectations can go fuck themselves, and do what is right for our own souls as people. Adhering neither to greater society's idea of "doing this right," nor poly culture's idea of "doing this right," but only your own true inner self's idea of what is right, healthy, and workable. The heavy lifting, is figuring out WTF that even IS. I can say, I didn't have a clue until I was well into my 30's. Hell even now I'm not 100% sure what all I need in life.
 
I find a lot of merit in what Spork is saying. Although I am not convinced that Dustin would be an ideal nesting partner, you and Rider seem to be drifting further and further away from each other.

It is a testimony to your patience and understanding that you didn't lose your shit about the pet issue. I would have been very angry indeed. I wonder if Rider is just displaying some rather destructive passive/aggressive behavior and decided to "punish" you since you aren't around as much as he thinks you should in order to help take care of the animals.

You are in quite a pickle. Makes me value my very boring life much more.
 
I commend you too at your patience. I would have lost my shit if someone neglected the pets in my household. Heck I have lost my crap over smaller things regarding my pets. They cannot care for themselves. I have guinea pigs and they are like bunnies in that they have to have CONSTANT hay.

Luckily my kids are old enough now to do the pet care and Butch loves them as much as I do. Murf is a critter person too he just doesn't understand the guinea pigs or the parrot.

I too agree with Spork. She said everythibg oh so much more eloquently than I can.
 
I have a feeling that what you are fighting tooth and nail NOT to say, is that you and Dustin are essentially a better match, than you and Rider are.

Well, so, it's complicated. To be honest, all I can own at this time is that I don't actually know. Like, there are definitely areas where Dustin and I are a better match, with the biggies being activities, sex stuff, and the fact that since he doesn't want other partners, I don't have to do that kind of processing and emotional heavy lifting on that end of things. Plus he's incredibly thoughtful, perceptive, and hopelessly romantic in a way that constantly impresses me and pushes the right buttons for me.

But Rider and I have a long history of getting along super well, just in the sense of, like, we have similar opinions on most things, and we rarely argue (unless we're processing poly stuff), and we're both quite even-tempered and mellow creatures with very long fuses. Nine times out of ten, if one of us has an issue with something, we discuss it peacefully and respectfully, and he's willing to work together collaboratively to find a solution (this is why the pet thing seemed like such a bizarre outlier to me). Nine times out of ten, I know what to expect from him (except for when new chicks are involved somehow). He's mostly compassionate about whatever my position is, even if it's upsetting or inconvenient to him. Those are kickass partner skills, and I think they probably ramp up his compatibility with anyone, including me.

Whereas the other side of the passionate Dustin coin is that he definitely has a volatile and stubborn side when it comes to things he feels strongly about. He digs in and quickly writes off stuff he can't personally see merit in as being "stupid." I'm not always very good yet at predicting what these things will be that he'll suddenly start wanting to fight about, and I'm not sure whether it's because he's unpredictable or whether it's because I just haven't known him very long yet. I feel like these things probably ramp down his level of compatibility with anyone, including me. Will I be able to tolerate that long-term? Who knows. When I was a more conflict-avoidant person than I am now, I would have been the type to speak up rarely and back down easily. But I'm not that person anymore, and we've already had multiple ideological skirmishes with showers of sparks as we two opinionated people clashed and scraped together.

So on the "better match" question, if that is the question at hand, it would ultimately come down to what value (positive and negative) all of those things have to me. How much do I value passion for the same activities? How much sexual compatibility? How much willingness to collaborate vs. antagonize? How much ideological meshing? How much romance? And I'm kind of still figuring that out. I know a lot more about it than I did a few months ago, but I would not say that there are any kind of fixed values at this time.

Like as much as you love Rider, you see his authentic spirit thriving best in a world that is not really your world.

THIS PART is definitely true. It has nothing to do with Dustin and everything to do with a crushing sense that I have that, in asking for things that I have in the past, I was clipping the wings of this wild, free, beautiful creature who absolutely deserves to experience everything he wants to experience, and not to limit himself for my sake just because he wants to keep me. It's super depressing, actually, because I feel like no matter what I do, I'm taking away Rider's agency.

When I asked him whether he could do monogamishamy in January, and he agreed that he could, I regretted it by May, hearing him talk wistfully once we were already married and feeling like I was restricting him from what he really wanted. But the opposite thing—to have made an executive decision to just break up rather than giving him the choice to be with me on my terms—would have also taken away his agency, in not letting him choose for himself whether that restriction was a price he was willing to pay. What's the right answer there?

Oh and Dustin, he really loves animals and wants to like live in a fairytale cottage with creatures...kinda contrasts with "sometimes the pets are gonna go hungry," don't it?

Hmm. I actually hadn't thought of this as a dichotomy or contrast on this particular point. To be fair to Rider, he does also really love animals and wants a house with animals in it, so that part isn't a contrast. He takes on a disproportionate burden of the pet care just because he's home more than I am. He's more than once walked down to the store when we're out of cat food and I'm not home.

But, yeah, the "sometimes the pets are gonna go hungry [because I'm out partying]" thing, whether a Dustin-contrast or not, was a big problem for me. I still get pissed when I think about it. It's callous and irresponsible and shows poor judgment and lack of planning. He did accept my solution in the end, and we also decided at his suggestion to shift the bulk of their food intake to the morning, just in case it ends up being a few extra hours if he lets me know mid-evening he can't do it and I have to make a plan to get back over there, so there's that.

Historically, Rider has displayed great love and care for animals. I thought that this seemed out of character until he kept defending it over and over. I guess since I have been around, there haven't been many opportunities for stuff like this to happen because I'm such a meticulous planner. Maybe he neglected the bunny he had when I met him, and I'm none the wiser because I didn't know him yet. Maybe I'm just now finding out some ugly shit.

(continued . . . )
 
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