LizziE Learning as She Goes

We sadly rent and our very front door key is one of those super-fancy ones that you can't copy without paying like $50 and having a special card authorizing you to make copies.

It's technically possible, and we inquired about it (our landlord's attitude was along the lines of "unless you're filing a police report about this person, I don't want you doing it"), but it seems like a huge, expensive, PITA that shouldn't be necessary.

Jon is going to let me know when he gets the keys back tomorrow. I am very much looking forward to that.

Having her stuff out is heaven. Letting go is so much easier when there aren't physical reminders there, scratching through the eyes into the brain.
 
keys obtained.

Jon and I also had a really good (slightly aided by drinking a bit of alcohol) talk last night. Jon mentioned that Lora had a good interview as an executive assistant, and it looked like she'd be starting her new job on Monday - which is great news for her. I said "that's great, I'm glad to hear that things are looking up for her" and he said something along the lines of "Is it weird when I talk about her?"

I said no, not weird. But...I told him that I wanted to block Lora on Facebook once we had the keys back, which he was surprised about. I said that blocking her would ensure that I can't Facebook stalk her, and she can't Facebook stalk me. I need a period of my life with very little Lora in it. I told him that I didn't want to know minutia or little details about her life at the moment. I DO want to know if there are any major changes in her life (like if she lost her job again, or if she moved back with her mom). And I wanted to know if there were any major changes in the way that he felt about Lora (or if she communicated any major changes to him about how she felt about him, like deciding not to be friends with him anymore).

On that note...I confessed that I had no idea how he felt about Lora at the moment, and asked if he'd be willing to talk about that. Jon said that he had extremely strong and contradictory feelings about Lora. Part of him wants her completely out of his life. Part of him wants to help her continue to get better with her therapy and be a part of her life and see if they would be able to have a future together as partners in some years. He had absolutely no idea yet how those feelings will settle out; part of it is that it's too new. Part of it is that how things change between Jon and Lora depends on Lora too; how much she changes and takes responsibility for herself. And (or course) if she remains interested in having a relationship with him.

One of the things that Jon told me that meant a lot to him was that there were ways in which Lora attempted to be abusive towards him that did truly, utterly roll off of his back (there were also ways that didn't, and he is going to therapy to work on those). However, even though they didn't bother them or hurt him, he would still admit that yes, they were abusive behaviors. They were unacceptable behaviors. He kept telling her, every time they happened, that the way she was acting and the things she was demanding of him were wrong. Sometimes she would express contrition over those things and say she knew they were wrong, but she just got so scared/insecure/angry. Surely he knows she didn't mean it? But more often, she would insist that the things she was asking for were "just the way relationships were supposed to be", so they would be at a stalemate with those things.

In the case of some of those things though, he realized that by us living together, having me witness this abusive dynamic, even if it really wasn't hurting him, helped drive home to him that it really was unacceptable behavior. At the least, it was something that was uncomfortable to be around. At the worst, it was a sort of "abuse by proxy" or could lead the person observing the behaviors to worry that getting close to the person behaving abusively would open them up to also be treated with the same abusive behaviors. That was one of my big fears with Lora - and it turned out to be true. The closer she felt we got, the more comfortable she felt policing my relationship with Jon FOR ME or making assumptions about how I would feel about something to do with Jon, based entirely upon how SHE would feel, instead of basing them upon my previous behaviors that she'd observed.

That may be somewhat confusing, so let me give some "for instances".

For instance, Jon and Lora had repeated fights over Lora expecting Jon to read her mind. One day Lora came home from the gym and said to Jon "I'm going to grab a shower. Do you need a shower?" Jon said "No, I'm clean, I'm good". The fight that ensued was over the fact that Lora's "I'm going to grab a shower. Do you need a shower?" actually meant "I would love it if we showered together now and had intimate time together". Love believes that people should pick up on subtexts like those and act accordingly. Jon (and I, for that matter) completely disagree, and believe that people need to say what they mean, and mean what they say.

As Lora got closer with me, she increasingly did not say what she meant or mean what she said, and would ask me questions/make requests that I knew (from having plenty of past history dealing with that kind of behavior) weren't ACTUALLY exactly what she wanted. We would have really awkward, slightly contentious conversations, because I would say "are you actually asking me X, or are you really asking me Y?" and she would say "Well, I mean, really, I'm asking you Y, and you KNOW that, so I don't know why you're making such a big deal out of it". And I would respond with something like "I'm not always going to infer correctly what you want, so you need to actually ask me for what you want, so that there are no misunderstandings that turn into big problems". She would roll her eyes and comply in a semi-snarky voice. To me, that behavior is NOT something I want to deal with with a life partner.

Another for instance is she started policing my behavior towards Jon, or policing his towards mine. If I said I decided to give up sweets for a week, Lora would yell at Jon for eating a cupcake in front of me, and try to take it away from him. That is beyond not-necessary - it's also insulting to both me and Jon and human beings who can work thing out for themselves (and I had no problem with Jon eating a cupcake in front of me). Other times, she would caution me not to yell at Jon because he didn't do something that she expected that I expected him to do. One day, when I came home, he wasn't in the living room when I got in; I knew he was home, but I didn't think anything of not seeing him right away. While I was getting a drink in the kitchen, Lora came out to tell me that Jon had a migraine, and ask me to not get angry at him because he didn't come out and greet him. I told her that I would NEVER get angry at Jon not coming out to greet me. I don't need her to police my behavior or make assumptions (based on her behavior, which I had personally witnessed that she WOULD get angry at him for not coming out to greet her when she got home) about my behavior, based on hers.

To get back on topic, with us living together, and Jon seeing Lora start to have these behaviors towards me, a person who finds it much more burdensome to have to keep pushing back hard to maintain my boundaries and seeing it stress me out as I didn't know at what point Lora would feel "close enough" to me for these things to go from contentious conversations to actual fights, it helped reinforce to him that her behavior really wasn't acceptable or healthy for her or for the people she was trying to have a relationship.

And now, due to writing too much and hitting the limit on post size, I'm going to continue this in the next blog in a few minutes.
 
What I get out of knowing this now is two-fold (and with an added bonus). One thing I get out of it is feeling relieved that he actually noticed such things, and that he cared about them in a way that I didn't know at the time. That his decision to break-up with Lora was in part because of realizing how toxic her behaviors were towards other people.

The other thing I got was...well, at least all the pain and stress of dealing with that weren't in vain. They contributed to his understanding. They helped end the abuse, in a roundabout way.

The added bonus, in the larger context of abuse in relationships is about the intersectionality between policing a relationship in a negative way, versus calling someone out when they are being abusive to another person in front of you. I feel like this might be a hard one to explain, but I'm going to try.

There are a lot of different relationship styles out there. One person's "healthy" might be another persons's "abuse". I could never have a relationship where the way we worked out our differences were through having screaming fights. I know a person or two who has that kind of relationship, and swears that both they and their partner love the passionate cycle, and love the semi-angry make-up sex, and love coming together after the dust is settled to have a calmer, more reasonable talk to figure out how to fix a problem.

Is not not abusive if both parties are truly OK with it? Is a screaming fight only OK if both parties are OK with it AND it doesn't use abusive language?

Is it ever OK for a friend (or metamour) to express concerns that a certain relationship style may be unhealthy or abusive?

Because when we talk about having a community response to abuse, we talk about the community being involved when they see abuse. If one person's abuse is another person's "way of doing relationships", at what point do we make the call that "it's OK to get involved and call them on their shit. Especially if the person we're trying to call on "their shit" believes that "their shit" is how they "do" relationships.

I don't have any answers here, but I'm intrigued by the questions.

But to get back to Jon and me, the talk we had was really wonderful. I feel better and better. He encouraged me to ask how he's feeling about Lora as I feel the need, because it doesn't always occur to him to really pause for a moment, take stock of how he's feeling, and share it with me.

During this talk, we realized also that *I* hadn't caught *him* up on my relationship developments with Issi and her husband Jared. We're not going to do threesomes or have a triad-ish relationship for the time-being. My relationship with Jared has transitioned into a friendship that has a little more kissing than the usual friendship, but it solidly a friendship and not a romantic or sexual relationship.

My relationship with Issi is that we're still girlfriends, and we're still wanting to go out and make out together and see where things go, once we both have some time (Issi is an artist and also has an amazing, travel-filled adventure of a life, so she’s not often around for serious dating and making a serious, regular time-commitment to, even if *I* were able to make that kind of commitment, which I’m not).

I realized that I hadn't shared that with Jon, because there was just so much going on, it was hard to remember all the details - so many balls in the air, especially when I add work and my physical health problems to the mix. And also, I realized that I'm much more likely to remember to share/inform on a relationship change that ADDs intimacy or increases how much I see someone, than I am when a relationship change lowers the intimacy level or the amount of time that I spend with a person. That is something that I need to work on in terms of communicating both to Jon.

Lastly, even though this is Jon and Lora's break-up, and even though I think breaking up was the right thing for them to do, it still has affected me and hurt me and put me in a break-up-ish place. I spent the past year+ trying to figure out ways to make this work together, and buying into us having relationships together, ideally one that was more like a triad – not a sexual triad necessarily, but a triad in terms of emotional commitment, mutual three-way partnership, and desire to be in each other’s lives. I (and Jon too, he agreed) feel like I don't entirely know myself anymore. All the time and energy that went into managing Lora and trying to get to know Lora and trying to find a way for the three of us to live happily together created certain dynamics and expectations of what we'd be doing with our time and energy that no longer exist.

Jon and I both feel like we need time to refigure out who we are, now that we have this change in our lives. I feel like, for me, it might be similar to having a falling out with a good friend that you used to spend time with and do certain things with. These is a sense of loss, and a questioning of how you'll rebuild those parts of you and where that time and energy will go, now that it's not going towards that friend. We both feel like we’re not in a place to look for other serious relationships – for me my health problems still preclude that. But even if I was physically all better tomorrow, I feel enough heartbreak over how the situation ended that I’m definitely still not in the right place emotionally to try to add a serious relationship in my life.

Those are where things stand between the two of us now. I think we’re having (and will to continue to have) some great communication as we do therapy and think and learn about ourselves and each other and give one another time to see the people we transition into now, as the break-up recedes further into the past. I’m really glad that we’re going on vacation at this time, as I think that our vacation location is going to be ideal for getting a lot of feelings out and being somewhere where anything goes.

I hadn’t revealed the location of that vacation previously. I think I was feeling shy about it. We’re heading to Burning Man. Now, before anybody bombs with me “OMG, it could tank your relationship, you don’t know what you’re getting into!” messages, let me lay some worries to rest. Jon and I are both long-time burners. We’ve been to Burning Man separately and together. We are good Burners, both in terms of holding up the ten principals, and also in terms of enjoying the playa together and also going off and having separate adventures. Our relationship has thus far survived two Burns (and used to be a haven for me, because it was the one time of the year I didn’t have to worry about Lora trying to call/text constantly control things/demand attention). I have a feeling we’ll both be visiting the Temple this year, not just to offer comfort to those grieving, but to grieve ourselves for what has ended and hurt and been terribly hard. Damn, I tear up just writing that down.

We’re also visiting the Temple at another time to exchange rings. That has been a plan since this February past. We designed rings together and are having a very small ceremony (I think between two and four other people will be in attendance). Neither of us agrees with getting married until polyamorous marriage is possible. But both of us wanted to do something for ourselves, an outward ritual that embodies the depth of our feeling and our desire to be committed towards each other for life.

That about sums up my life right now. I think I’m going to end with the poem that I plan to read to Jon before we exchange rings. It’s always been a favorite of mine, and meeting and falling in love with Jon feels like an embodiment of some of it:

“Extinguish my eyes, I'll go on seeing you.
Seal my ears, I'll go on hearing you.
And without feet I can make my way to you,
without a mouth I can swear your name.
Break off my arms, I'll take hold of you
with my heart as with a hand.
Stop my heart, and my brain will start to beat.
And if you consume my brain with fire,
I'll feel you burn in every drop of my blood.”
 
Jon and I are leaving for Burning Man tomorrow morning. I'm wrapping up things with work now.

Last night, when I got home, Jon was upset with Lora. She was text-bombing him again and rehashing what went wrong/pushing to try again/basically texting about everything that they are specifically NOT supposed to be texting about.

I had a few friends (Rachel and her friend Alicia) come over, so I don't know what happened, but by the time Jon joined us about half an hour later, he seemed mostly fine, and by the end of the night, he was in high spirits.

During the time that Jon was not with us, I mentioned to Rachel and Alicia the weird facebook stuff with Lora. I wrote about it here: https://learningmanyloves.wordpress.com/2015/08/20/the-facebooks/ Both of them are still friends on FB with her. While we were talking, Rachel looked up Lora's Facebook profile on her tablet and said "I don't want to be weird or anything, but I think...something is weird here...Liz, look at this".

So I look at Lora's wall, and quickly realize that she basically erased any mention of the time we all lived together and any mention of us being metamours from her profile. A bunch of photos were gone that showed the three of us together or her and I together. The comments and messages back and forth that made any mention of us living together or could have been read-between-the-lines that we were both in relationships with Jon were gone.

And here's the thing. I know this isn't all about me. And if having anything that had anything to do with me (or Jon) at all on her wall was too painful to her, I could totally understand her deleting everything. But she didn't. There's still a bunch of stuff that I made comments on, or shared on her wall. It's just anything that showed the three of us together, or photos of her and I together (like some ones that Jon took at a wedding) that are gone. The photos of her and Jon are still up. All of the things between her and Jon are still up. It looks like the only stuff that's gone is the stuff that shows we were all poly together and living together. Any photos us all at home where it is obvious that it's all us at home.

To me, it looks like maybe I was right about her not being poly at all and not wanting her family to know about being poly.

Does it really matter or is it something I'm going to carry around? I'm not going to carry it around, no. But it troubles me, in that, if she's still pushing to get back together with Jon, but erased all mention of our poly life together, what does that mean? Is it something I should ever bring up to Jon?

Probably not, in part because I do think she's going to push and badger him until she's pushed and badgered him right out of her life.

It mainly feels really weird. But it also feels a bit closure-y, which is good, since after looking at Lora's profile with Rachel's account, I went to my account, and I blocked Lora.

No more Facebook stalking for me. I learned what I needed to learn. I'm done.

Now it's time to focus on me and Jon's vacation and both of us getting back to ourselves.
 
a few more updates:

https://learningmanyloves.wordpress.com/2015/09/11/post-burn-wrap-up/

https://learningmanyloves.wordpress...ibility-when-you-can-just-blame-someone-else/

Long story short: Burning Man was great. Being somewhere for two weeks where Lora couldn't call, text, email really went a long way in defusing my feelings towards her.

I definitely don't want her in my life. She is still in Jon's life, and seems to cycle between acting like a friend and freaking out/blaming him for everything/threatening to do things like change her phone number and never call him again (I had a good internal laugh at that one. The idea that she'd really go through with a "I'm never going to call you again threat" is amusing to me).

When I notice her name/photo on his phone a lot, and he looks stressed, I ask him about it. He tells me the general story (and more if I ask for details), but my feelings about it are pretty much "oh, that sucks", and then I move on. If he wants/needs to have pointless fights with her for whatever reason...it's his life.

One thing I really appreciate is that when he's sort of on "his time", he'll do whatever. Text back and forth with her a million times. But if we're planning on doing something special (we went our for a romantic dinner over the weekend), then he puts his phone on silent and ignores it for the rest of the evening/looks at it no more than he usually would, when we're doing something together where we expect each other to be present. There had been times in the past where Lora having a freak-out hijacked our plans (when they were together). Not every time, but some of the time. That hasn't happened at all since their break-up, which feels great to me.

Jon also met a woman one night at Burning Man, who actually lives in our area! Well, a town or two away, but pretty close. They didn't exchange contact info, but he thinks he could find her on Facebook. He's debating doing that. Given that he's brought her up a few times in the past week, I hope he does. He seems to be really into her.

For me, I'm slowly getting back into my groove. I'm honestly not sure when I'll consider dating again. Or maybe I should say dating someone new. Issi and I are still dating; that relationship is in a very stable, casual, loving place, and has been for years. I saw Aaron (a sort of FWB/make out buddy/good friend) at Burning Man, and we had some lovely snogging. But between Lora and the implosion of my polycule about...hmmm...a year/year and a half ago, I'm feel really, deeply bruised in terms of letting new people into my life. Also tired. So tired! I got the OK to start doing certain weight-bearing exercises again by my PT. She feels like, at this point, I need to start doing serious exercising again (starting way low and slow, of course), and then see what happens as a build my muscles and endurance up again. I think that's kind of relevant, because I think as I work out again, I'll both have more energy and feel more like myself. I've always been a pretty physically fit person, and not working out for so long, and feeling so weak for so long feel really alien to me. And I still feel really in flux, because if I were to be dating (and filling out a profile/dusting off my old OKC one) it should in theory say "I like to do a lot of physical things and believe personal fitness is really important". Which is still true, but feels false as long as I can't really do physical things. The being-in-flux part is really hard.

So that's how things stand right now. Overall, I think Jon and I are both feeling really good and more ourselves. I do need more time to get back to myself, but it's coming. I keep telling myself that. It's coming. :)
 
I think my mind is finally ready to start dating, even if my body isn't.

Or at least, something in my subconscious really wants me to get out there and meet people.

For the last three nights running, I've been having dreams about dating someone new. A different person each night. A different series of dates. Getting to know someone. Having those awkward "I like you. Do you like me? Do you like me as much as I like you?" moments. Snuzzling and getting to know a new person's mind and body and likes and interest.

If I haven't mentioned it before, my subconscious frequently goes the dream route to show me things that feels I'm ignoring. I used to have a lot of nightmares about Jon dying, or just fading away. Right after he broke up with Lora, I had a similar nightmare off and on where we'd come home one night, and she'd have moved back in and was acting like the break-up never happened. I've had dreams about partner's in the past, when my subconscious thought it was well past time to break up with them.

And the work dreams. Ugh. If I'm working too much, having a dream where I spend the entire dream working is just - yuck!

Anyways, my subconscious wants me to go exploring new people. I admit, I do feel way more excited about it than I've felt since...well, honestly, probably since Rachel and I transitioned our relationship down from a non-sexual partnership to a close (but more "normal" (in other words, no planning our lives together)) friendship. And that was...a year and a half ago? I think something like that.

Since getting back from Burning Man, I feel a lot better about Jon and Lora, and whatever relationship they're continuing to have. Jon is still processing on that, and he's still talking to Lora, occasionally going out to dinner with her (remarkably short dinners. I haven't asked, but I assume he's deliberately really limiting the time he's spending with her). He mentions that to me, and he mentions when she's being an asshole, but the number of times that I hear about Lora is down to...maybe once a week? Sometimes less than that.

I do still think about her more than once a week, but that's also ramping down, and thinking about her doesn't evoke the rage/near-hatred that it used to. I had some interesting realizations, looking at post-Burning Man photos. One was when I looked at a photo of Jon and me, and my first reaction was "Lora would hate that photo". Because Lora could look at a photo of Jon and me and say something like "You never smile that like that WE take a photo" or "You never stand that close to ME in a photo" to Jon.

When a thought like that pops into my head, I acknowledged it, I take a moment to be really happy that I don't have to hear that anymore, and then I move on.

I think it's going to take a bit more time for my brain to stop looking at certain things as "How will this upset Lora in ways that I will have to deal with/suffer blowback from?" because that was a part of my life for so long. But it's definitely ramping down.

And that ramping down gives me the emotional space and energy to think about new relationships.

So does work. I finished my craziest time of the year at work just before I left for Burning Man. The next few months will be about 75% the level of the last few months, and then the next half year or so after that will be about 50%. So in terms of work not eating my life, this is also prime dating time for me. It's the start of the best time to get to know someone new, and have months before work would become enough of a timesuck to interfere with being able to put the energy needed into a new relationship, while keeping my pre-existing relationships healthy and nourished.

Even my body is in better shape. Physical therapy has helped enormously. I'm about 80% of where I used to be, in a way. I'm vastly weaker than I used to be, but in terms of functionality, I'm about 80% functional. The main thing needed for me to get better (and stronger) is to start hitting the gym again. And I've been both given the blessing of my physical therapist to do that (if by "blessing", I mean she said "Get to the gym! Keep doing the exercises I gave you and hit the gym until new problems crop up. Then get your butt back here for us to work on them!"), and I have the time to hit the gym because work is quieter.

So next week, I hit the gym. I hope it doesn't hit back too hard. :D

All that said, I'm not sure if I'm ready to make the plunge. I kinda want to...and I'm kinda really freaked out by the idea. Just...nerves. And...I'm not sure what I want. Do I want a new romantic partner? Do I want a friendship partnership? Do I really WANT more people in my life? I think I kind of do. In that way that meeting new people is exciting and making connections with a new soul is delightful and inspiring and creates a lot of excitement and beauty and fun and learning.

I think I need to think about this a bit more before I go dusting off my OKC profile.

I wonder if thinking about this is enough to convince my subconscious to give me a break at night, or if I'm still going to be treated to "meeting someone new" dreams. I guess I'll see... :)
 
Here's an interesting thing that happened this weekend.

Jon and Lora had exchanged jewelry...I'm not sure when. Sometime after Jon and I started dating, well before Jon and I exchanged jewelry.

After the break-up, he continued to wear the jewelry that she'd given him (I have no idea if she continued to wear hers, as I haven't seen her since). I was surprised by that. I wondered what it meant. Did it mean there was a chance of them getting back together? Was it a sign of his commitment to still maintaining some level of relationship to her? Was he just not ready?

I know, I know. I could just straight-out ask him.

I hesitated to, because even though I know he's perfectly comfortable saying "I don't want to talk about that" or "I'm not ready to share that yet", I just worry about being...too up in his business. And it felt like a loaded subject, because it bothered me that he kept wearing it. It didn't bother me hugely, and I didn't say anything to him about it bothering me, because (to me) that falls firmly in the "shit I need to deal with myself" category of things.

Anyways, this weekend, he finally took off the jewelry. It happened after a day when...I think, but I'm not sure...there appeared to be some of the "same old, same old" in terms of Lora being a controlling asshole. I'd noticed him texting a lot from the afternoon to early evening, and looking unhappy, though he didn't say anything. Then, when we took the bus to go out drinking and were sitting next to each other, playing a game on his phone, a text message popped up from her that (from what I saw before it faded out) said something like "Ok, well I'm telling you that the way you're acting is really unfair and shitty to me and I...". After our game was over, he answered the text, but then only pulled out his phone the rest of the night for us to play on it.

I'm debating asking him about him taking it off, and if something happened. It's one of those things (and this is a way that I feel like shows me how much better I'm doing in terms of thinking about Lora) where I am curious - much as I'd be about a change like this about anybody* - but it's not eating me up, and if I never learn the answer, it's not going to bug me. I think the main reason for my curiosity is that I wonder if it's a sign of how fed up Jon is getting with Lora, or if it happened for other reasons, like it just felt like it was time.

Either way, I have to admit, I will be a tiny smidge happier to not see it on him all the time anymore. It was a small reminder of her that I'm just as happy to not see in my life anymore.



*There are two other pieces of jewelry that Jon wears and are from exes of his, people who he still has really great relationships with. If he stopped wearing either of them, I'd also be curious to ask him about that, since they are both still friends of his who he still loves dearly, and I'd wonder if something happened.
 
Not a whole lot going on, on the poly-front.

I decided that I'm definitely NOT going to date anytime soon - I am burned out on people, and just need all that newfound energy to go to me. I wrote about it more in-depth in my blog: https://learningmanyloves.wordpress.com/2015/10/13/im-definitely-not-dating-for-awhile/

long story short: I just really need a lot of my time and energy to go to me now. So I'm focusing on that, and what I need to do for me.

A thing that's developed recently, which has caused me to raise an internal eyebrow. Lora and Jon were supposed to go to the movies on Tuesday. Jon went, but he was feeling under the weather, and realized that he really didn't have the energy to sit through a movie and make it home. So they hung out for an hour or two, and he came home. They made make-up plans to see the movie yesterday. Totally makes sense. Last night, after Jon came home, he said that Lora was finally going through her stuff in the storage unit (all the stuff of hers that we'd packed up for her, since she never came back to do it herself), and she wanted Jon's help, because she's found a bunch of stuff that was kind of theirs, and she knows she wants to get rid of a lot of it, and since it was theirs, she wants to give him first dibs. So he's going to go do that Saturday morning.

This...smells like bullshit dressed up as a reasonable request to me. Obviously, I'm biased. I'm also the person who packed up 99% of her stuff. The VAST majority of it is either her clothing, her make-up, her jewelry, or her school books. The only thing I really didn't personally pack up at all was her sex toys. Jon packed those up, after going through and pulling out the ones that were actually his.

I honestly can't think of anything that would really require Jon's help, or can imagine there are a number of things that couldn't be taken care of by, say, texting him some photos and being like "Hey, do you want this? Because I can pass it to you the next time I see you, if you do. Otherwise, I'm tossing it".

If this were a cleanly stated "Lora and I want to spend more time together, maybe a couple of times a week" thing, then it would feel more out in the open, and I'd start a conversation with Jon about if his feelings for her have started to solidify. But it was presented as a "I'm going to help Lora with this, because she said she's really going to be in a jam if I'm not there to help her out, and it'll be much easier if she can either toss or give the stuff to me that she wants to get rid of, right then and there".

This feels like a lot of the same old situation, with Jon taking Lora's words/reasoning/intent at face value, and me taking a lot of it as a front for something else.

The main thing I'm wondering, the place where my mind goes, is "Is Lora angling to see Jon a couple of times a week and then planning to leverage the amount of time they're spending together into getting back into dating again?". Because they saw each other once a week for probably the last month. Now this week, Saturday will be the third time they see each other. Is this just a fluke, because Jon was sick the one day, and Lora genuinely needs help another day, or is this going to turn into a habit that's a prelude for Lora saying "look at all the time we spend together, we're practically dating again"?

A couple of important things before I go on:

1) Were this not Lora, I wouldn't be even slightly worried by him going out so much. He has his own life, with his own friends, just like me, and we should both go out with them as much as we want/need, so long as we're taking time to care for and nurture the relationship between us. Jon regularly goes out once or twice a week to see other friends too. Sometimes I go. Sometimes I don't. Lately, him going out has been really helpful, as I get more time alone to do things by myself, so I really welcome him going out and seeing other people more than I usually would.

2) Even with this being Lora, I still appreciate the extra time at home alone, to just do my own thing, and enjoy my own company.

3) I think my main concern is that if this IS a sneaky back-end way for Lora to try to get Jon to start dating her again, I wonder if it's going to finally wake him up to the idea that she can be a manipulative little boundary-stomper. He's always taken most (if not all) of what she's said/done with positive intent, and as if she has no ulterior motive. I've seen and heard her do too many things that I view as manipulative to feel the same way. And I think she's being manipulative here.

I feel pretty secure, from the talks that Jon and I have had, that he has no interest in being romantically involved with her anytime soon. As of the last time we talked (a few weeks ago), he said he was still working on deciding if he wanted to be friends with her. He specifically said that he was still worried that she actually doesn't want to be his friend and that all this "friendship time" is an act on her part, to reel him back in to dating. He said he's really afraid that her true feelings are "If I can't date him, I don't want anything to do with him". If this (or any future action on her part) reveals that she really has no interest in his friendship, and only wants to have a relationship with him if it's a romantic one, he's going to be really hurt and upset.

I'm not currently worried about the ultimate worst scenario, which for me right now, would be him and Lora dating again. I simultaneously feel bad that, if I'm right, and all Lora's been doing since the break-up is trying to engineer a way for them to get back together, that Jon is going to be really hurt by that. At the same time, if it helped him to see that she can be an extremely manipulative person, then that would ultimately be a good thing.

Either way, I'm going to enjoy having the house to myself on Saturday morning and I'll probably hear how things with the storage unit went when I meet Jon for lunch afterwards (we're doing lunch and an afternoon matinee at a local theater). I'll probably ask him again sometime soon (if not Saturday) if his feelings about her are still up in the air, or if he's at least decided that he really does want to stay friends with her, and see her regularly, for the long term. It would feel good to know that he and I are both aware of what is going on there.

Otherwise, all is quiet and well. This Lora thing is currently no more than an annoyance. I have a couple of much larger things on my mind, but none of them are poly-related, so I'm not sure how much to post about them here.
 
Everybody got sick this weekend, so Jon and Lora didn't meet up to deal with her storage unit.

As I mulled over that, I thought about what it is that I really care about, in terms of why it bothers me. I want to check in on my own emotions, and make sure that I'm directing my energies in the right place, and I also want to make sure that I know exactly what I'm upset about and why.

This is what I realized. When Jon and Lora first broke up, he laid down some boundaries. There were some that she walked all over, at first, and some she had to respect. For instance, he told her that he didn't want to see her at all for at least a few weeks. She more or less HAD to respect that one (this is one place where her social anxiety can...I don't want to say "be useful", but I don't know of another way to put it. basically, because of her social anxiety, she's not going to show up somewhere and try to harass Jon into seeing her - that would be too embarrassing for her. So she had to abide by that). She didn't always respect his boundary that - if they are to remain friends - there shouldn't be any rehashing of the relationship ending to him or pushing him to get back together with her. Eventually she started respecting those boundaries, because he would stop speaking/texting with her when she didn't.

From what Jon has said, in the last few weeks, she's gotten a lot better at respecting boundaries. When he comes home from seeing her, he's generally been more relaxed and at ease afterwards, which is great, in theory. But what I'm worried about is that she's lulling him into a false belief that she's actually improved, and is going to try to leverage that into seeing Jon several times a week again, then dating, then going right back to the same shitty way of treating him, once he's "on the hook" again.

And that's where I need to take a big ol' step back, remind myself that Jon is an adult, give him credit for being a smart guy who'd see through that, and let go and see what happens.

So I'm continuing to work on that.

In the meantime, we had an interesting conversation last night, Jon and I.

I have a really close friend who is having a really hard time in life. I don't want to get too into detail, but I've told him in the past that he's always welcome to vent to me. I'm not necessarily going to respond a lot, but if he'd feel good just shooting off a bunch of texts or an email and knowing that *someone* is reading it, I can do that, at least. And if I feel like I can say something worthwhile back, then I will.

The last week or so, my friend has gotten...it's at a point where I don't know if the venting is healthy anymore. It's gotten kind of vicious. And not vicious at me, as in, he's not attacking me. But it's a lot of viciousness happening in my direction and also...there are things that have happened to him that absolutely aren't his fault, or his making. But there are other things that happened because he made some really bad decisions. In the last few days, a fair amount of his venting has been this sort of viciously entitled "woe is me, the world always shits upon me, and there is nothing I can do, poor innocent victim me" thing that I don't feel 100% comfortable with. I'm struggling on how to tell him that while he can still absolutely vent to me, there are some things that he needs to either vent to someone else, or just...I don't know, I don't want to hear it, because I REALLY don't agree with it.

At the end of yesterday, when Jon got home from work, we were sort of comparing notes about our days, and it turns out that he had a similar day with Lora. Because she is perpetually broke and in a really bad place in a lot of things, and she's really upset about it. So she spent much of the day venting about how hard everything is, and how unfair it is. Jon said he's really close to tell her that he thinks she needs to move back to her old hometown. Even if she doesn't move back in with her mom, and has to get her own place, she'll probably pay somewhere between half to a third of the rent that she's paying here. And her hometown also has a pretty good bus system - she could get around fine not driving (which is important, since she can't drive). AND she still has (in addition to the office job she got) the pay-by-part data-entry job that she got. So even if she didn't get a job right away in her hometown, she would have some income coming in, and WAY less rent. And (this was a thing that Jon mentioned a previous day) her mom has promised Lora a certain amount of monetary help each month. If Lora moved back to her hometown, her mom also agreed that she could take in a certain amount of the stuff that Lora has in a storage unit right now. So basically, if she moved back home, the money that her mom is giving her for the storage unit could go to her directly.

But Jon knows that if he says that to Lora, her initial reaction is going to be that he just wants to get rid of her, and he doesn't want to deal with emotional shitstorm that will kick up. But he's really frustrated, much like I was with my friend, because Lora refuses to see how staying in our (much more expensive) area is really shooting herself in the foot. So she's venting about things that are absolutely within her power to control, but acting as though she absolutely cannot control them, and painting herself as a victim of things that she's never going to be able to improve, when she could improve them right now by moving back to her hometown.

In that regard, I simultaneously feel for her, feel frustrated by her, and wonder if we haven't yet seen the biggest meltdown from her. She's wasted a lot of money staying in our area. I think she's done it because she's still convinced that she and Jon are going to get back together sooner rather than later. I wonder if there's going to be a point where she finally comes to terms with the idea that they are NOT getting back together for years (if ever) and then lashes out and attempts to blame Jon for more of her problems.

I don't know. I guess we'll find out. Jon still feels ambivalent about them having any kind of relationship. I am writing my feelings out here, on my other blog (and journaling some) and trying to get on with my life. I'm relieved to say that this is the most I've written about this in a while. Generally, I think it is slowly leaching out. I really do. Putting it all in writing helps get it to a place where I feel like I can let it go. So I do that, and work on caring for me some more, and see how it all goes.

I guess we'll all see how it goes.
 
Glad to hear that it's slowly leaching out. Sounds like you're going about things in the healthiest way possible. :)
 
Hi LizziE,
I see nothing wrong with saying to Jon that you're a bit concerned about her intentions because you packed her stuff and know there is nothing he needs to sort for her. Tell him you are wary and wonder if she is trying to get him back as a boyfriend, slowly but surely. You can then say that you won't bring it up anymore, but that you ask for his reassurance that he will keep his eyes open for any kind of manipulation that might be attempted. Then leave it alone.
 
nycindie said:
Hi LizziE,
I see nothing wrong with saying to Jon that you're a bit concerned about her intentions because you packed her stuff and know there is nothing he needs to sort for her. Tell him you are wary and wonder if she is trying to get him back as a boyfriend, slowly but surely. You can then say that you won't bring it up anymore, but that you ask for his reassurance that he will keep his eyes open for any kind of manipulation that might be attempted. Then leave it alone.
Click to expand...

That's a really good point. I think (because of previous people in my life) I get really hung up on "Am I sure? I shouldn't say anything unless I'm absolutely SURE", which he and I have talked about before. And even though Jon has said that he's comfortable with me saying "I'm not 100% sure about this thing, but I think maybe XXX is happening", I still worry that I'm...honestly, that I'm being shitty and paranoid towards her. Or that bringing it up will sound like I'm trying to control him.

On one hand, I'm pretty sure I'm not, but OTOH...that little voice keeps saying "Are you SURE?".

But I am going to mull that one over, and maybe mention it to him.

Thank you for the feedback, nycindie.

And thank you, reflections, for the good wishes. It feels really good to feel less internal pressure over this. :)
 
You ain't paranoid if someone is actually out to get you. Just sayin'.

I think you have every reason to be wary of her. And that it's a good idea to keep things in perspective as best you can and not get all wrapped around an axle over her. Both things can be true!
 
opalescent said:
Both things can be true!
Click to expand...

Yes! I try to remind myself that more than one thing can be true at a time, and this is definitely a case where that applies.

I know myself well enough to know that if Lora really were to change, while it would definitely take more than just a couple of instances of changed behavior to really sell me on that, I would absolutely keep an open mind and alter my feelings/behavior towards her as it became more and more clear that she really had changed for the better. So I should trust that too and keep on being cautious, but receptive to change unless something(s) happen that make it clear that it would be safe to feel otherwise.
 
Jon and I had a great long weekend in NYC for Halloween with Issi (my girlfriend) and their hubby Jared. It was really fun, but also hard. Hard because right before the trip, my health problems had a MASSIVE flare-up and I needed a series of injections that I've had before. Long story short, I'm still doing poorly (and had to do much less around NYC than I wanted, due to pain/exhaustion/limited mobility) and it really messed with the trip, with my energy levels, with our ability to have fun. We DID have fun, and got to go to the West Village to see costumes and the parade (well, sort of at a distance, I wasn't up to the craziest crowds) as well as do some shopping, but I had to throw in the towel pretty early every day and Issi and I only got one afternoon together, because I just wasn't up to more. My doctor has started talking about experimental treatments, because the traditional ones keep *almost* getting me healthy enough to start exercising and getting healthier, but then I crash.

It really fucking sucks.

In other news, right before we left, Jon first told me that Lora had decided to move back in with her mom, because she wasn't making enough money for the last few months. She always needed to hit her mom up for an extra $100 or so, and her mom said she couldn't do it anymore. I had mixed feelings about it (wrote more about it in my other blog), but otherwise...didn't care too much.

I think it was a day later that he told me that she decided to tell her boss that she either needs a raise, or her last day would be Friday. This was kinda a big deal, as her anxiety usually leaves her too afraid to do something like that. And an extra $1-2 an hour would be enough for her to live on, in theory. I had more mixed feelings about that. On one hand, good on her for asking (and it's always good to make more money, ya know?). OTOH, if he does give her the raise, I'm curious as to whether or not she'll still be $100 or so short every month. The main reason I speculate is because when we were all living together, and she was making $2/hr more than she is now, and she was paying about 25% the rent she's paying now, plus barely paying for groceries, she still didn't save anything, and never had money left over at the end of the month. Supposedly, it was because she needed a few months to "live it up" before starting to save, but I kinda think she'll always have one BS excuse or another not to save her money and take responsibility for her future.

So if she did get the raise, it'll be interesting to see if that really helps. I hope it does, but I kinda doubt it.

Anyways (and I'm thinking about asking for asexual friends about this, because I worry that it's...rude to put things this way) being sick lately feels like I've been rendered close to asexual. It really sucks, because it isn't a natural state for me, and not a way that I WANT to be. But I realized today that Jon and I haven't had sex in forever, like actual sex. I give him blowjobs pretty regularly, because I actually really enjoy giving blowjobs, even when I have 0% sex drive. Jon in particular is a responsive person (maybe I should change that to "I love giving blowjobs to responsive people), and I love hearing him sigh or watching his body twitch involuntarily...it feels really good to evoke reactions in him like that.

But blowjobs aside, I've had no interest in sex. In addition to being fragile and in pain, I feel kind of gross from lack of physical activity and just...completely oblivious to most forms of sex as an activity that people enjoy and do together. I've felt similarly before, when super-stressed, but not as bad as now. Normally, if I'm stressed or have a lot of work, I feel like...my libido is hibernating. It's in there, but it's asleep. Right now, it feels totally gone. I really hate it. I feel like less of myself.

And on top of being in pain and tired and miserable that also makes me feel like less of myself.

I hope this shit gets better some day. Even though the experimental treatments aren't covered by insurance and are hella expensive, I'm going to try them, once we're sure that the other stuff just isn't quite doing it. I can't keep living like this. It's not enough of a life, especially as long as there IS a chance of getting better with different treatments. If I tried everything and this was it, then...well...I'd hate it, but I'd work on adjusting and seeing what kind of life I can have. But in theory, I should be able to get *somewhat* back to functional and I need that. I either need that or need to know that it actually ISN'T going to happen and adjust my expectations accordingly.

And that would be my life in a nutshell. Not so much poly, mostly kinda miserable. :(
 
Hope you get feeling better Liz.
 
I do hope the experimental treatments help. I can't even fathom how awful it must feel to not feel like yourself. :(
 
Wow has it been awhile! Hi guys! :)

The treatments did work, to an extent. I am back in PT/trying to strengthen myself mode. I found a chronic pain/health conditions support group. And I found a book club that "meets" by message board/group chat instead of in person, which has been awesome for having an activity where I can both connect with people AND stay at home.

Polywise, for me personally, I've been dating Jon and seeing Issi very very occasionally. Issi's life is also really hectic right now, so we're doing our best to maintain a loving buy distant relationship.

About Lora...sigh.

(there's a longer account of this on my blog, FTR)

So, a few weeks before TG, Lora told Jon that she wanted to see him more than once a week and that she wanted him to email/text her sometimes FIRST during the day. As in, she was always the one reaching out to him; he never texted/emailed her first. Jon said that he'd be OK with seeing her more than once a week, but as his work schedule was getting crazy, it would have to wait until mid-December, because once his work picked up, he probably wouldn't even be able to see her ever week. He also told her that he'd be happy to text/email her first, BUT as a reminder, she works from 8am-5pm. He works from 2pm-2am most days (or something around those hours). So as she's usually texting/emailing him right when she gets to work, obviously he's never going to communicate with her first unless she waits until he wakes up around noon to message her.

After they have this conversation (which Jon thought went reasonably - Lora wasn't exactly happy with his answers, but didn't seem really upset by them), he started texting her when he got up. He didn't hear back from her. After a few days, he sent a "I don't know why you've decided to ignore me, but I'm not texting you again until you stop and explain what's up" text. Then he left it alone and went about his business.

About a week after that (and a few days before TG) he gets a text from Lora. From a different phone #. Turns out, she'd actually been pissed that he couldn't change his life around to see her more NOW and figure out a way to text her earlier in the day, so she changed her phone number and blocked him on FB, to get back at him. This is something she'd threatened him with before. I believe her words were something along the lines of "If you don't stop treating me like X, I'm going to break up with you, and block you on FB and change my phone number and then you'll never know what happens to me or if I'm OK" (Lora is such a fucking asshole, goddamn, a future post I want to make going to sound stupid as fuck).

So she did that. Aaaaaaaaand, he thought she was pissed an ignoring him (something she's done before) and didn't notice her blocking him on FB, because he doesn't go on FB very often. So he wasn't even slightly worried about her. More, when he found out what she did, he was actually super-pissed off and told her so. They had a fight on TG morning about it, and how he really needed her to leave him alone for awhile, because he was really angry with her and didn't want to see/hear from her for awhile, so he could decide if he even wanted to be friends with her.

I think the most memorable part of that argument was the part where she told him that it was "totally unfair" that he didn't want to talk/see her for awhile, because the whole reason why she blocked him and changed her number was because he wasn't "paying enough attention to her" in the first place. Hearing him say something like "No Lora. This isn't about me not paying too much attention to you. There will never BE enough attention for you. You always want more. ALWAYS. You need to feel comfortable with yourself and the attention you give yourself and either be comfortable with the attention that I give you OR decide it's never going to be enough and walk away. I've always treated you really well, as well as I treat anybody else I love, and I am NOT going bend over backwards giving you MORE attention anymore because it is NEVER enough for you"

So they didn't talk for a week or two. When they did start talking again, she got into a fight with him because he told her that we were traveling to see his family for the holidays and it was "totally unfair" that when they were together, they barely traveled, but now that they were broken up Jon and I were traveling a lot.

Nevermind the part where Lora was always either not working, or working but spending every penny she had on clothes and make-up and weed, and thus any vacation they went on (and they did go on vacation once a year) had to paid for ENTIRELY by Jon. Jon couldn't afford multiple vacations a year that he had to pay for. When he and I travel, with both pay about equally. But, none of that is important, because if Jon REALLY loved Lora, he'd have found a way to make it happen.

Jon told me about that fight...hmmm...I forget when. Sometime between TG and Thanksgiving. I mentioned Lora to him yesterday (because I hadn't seen that stressed-out "Lora is fighting with me" look on his face in a few weeks and I also realized I hadn't seen her name pop up on his phone lately and wondered what was up with that. About a week before Christmas, turns out that he basically insisted on a break from her. Total silence until the 15th of this month.

Which she has apparently stuck too. It makes me wonder if he told her that if she didn't, they would really be totally done.

So it's been quiet around here for the past few weeks, and now I know why. I asked Jon if his feelings had solidified about her and he said "not yet". A part of me thinks that he's crazy and/or secretly loves the drama. A larger part of me remembers the emotionally abusive ex that I had who finally exhausted my ability to deal with dramatic bullshit and cringes when I remember how long it took me to kick him to the curb.

The only other thing of note that happened was that I unblocked Lora on FB sometime in December (this was before I heard about the travel fight, I know that much). It had started bothering me that I had her blocked; the only other people I've ever blocked (and kept blocked) were that emotionally abusive ex and two creepers who I'd worked with and just wouldn't leave me alone on social media (I had to report both of them on LinkedIn too). So I unblocked her and then some time after Christmas, I finally decided to take a peek at what little I could see of her profile - I admit it, I was curious. Turns out, she blocked me. I wasn't even entirely sure how she'd have known that I unblocked her until I mentioned it to Jon. Turns out, one of the things that she was pissed about was that when I unblocked her, she could see things that I'd posted to FB that had Jon tagged. She was angry at him for 'allowing' that.

I have some feelings about how things have played out, which I want to write a question post about, but I'll also mention here, in a second post, because this one is getting long.
 
So here's my feelings:

I forgot exactly how the conversation went, but basically, when Jon and I were talking about Lora and the fight that caused Jon to want a break, it occurred to me to ask if she ever asked about me/he mentioned me to her. The answer was no. Not once.

OK, this is going to sound absolutely weird (and possibly pathetic and naive), but I did my best to believe her when she said that she was going to continue therapy and/or get help for her mental problems. I knew how much Jon loved her, and I knew that he really hoped that she'd get better, because he very much wanted her to be a part of his life. I prepared myself mentally and emotionally for the possibility that they'd start dating again and I've checked in with Jon (and with myself) every month or so, about how I feel about that/would handle it if it happened. One of the things that I kind of assumed was that - if Lora really did intend to get back together with Jon and eventually all of us would live together - she'd eventually either contact me or ask Jon how I would feel about that. There were repeatedly times when she told me, both to my face and in writing, that she really valued my friendship and that it meant a lot to her that I wanted to help her too. After the break up, in the single email exchange between us, she did thank me for being supportive and told me that it meant a lot to her. I was really furious with her after the break up, and I completely ignored her few attempts at sending me cat videos. I assumed (you know what they say about assuming) that she'd asked Jon what the deal was, and that he's said something along the lines of how I needed a break from her, but that I wanted to see how I'd feel in six months or so and if I was over it enough to contemplate a friendship (which was contingent upon her asshole behaviors continuing to improve). I basically told Jon that - when I came up - he should tell her that, because I did want her to understand that - while I didn't want a damn thing to do with her at the time, and in the near future - I knew that could change, as time went by. Especially if she was changing for the positive.

I don't know if I'm being narcissistic or judgmental or ridiculous, but to me, her never asking about me once in the past six months seems like more proof that she just wished I didn't exist and that she had Jon all to herself. And that's kind of what I want to ask people. Am I crazy to think that? The only remotely-similar experience I had was when a guy I was dating (and falling hard for, but we weren't yet in a serious relationship) point-blank told me that he'd decided to become primary partners with the other woman he was dating (but I hadn't known about) and would still like to be secondary partners with me, though not right then (they had to work on their relationship first). At the time, I was really hurt at what happened - he'd been the most compatible person I'd dated in about a year and a half. Anyways, we took a break from talking for a few months (which really helped me get over that hurt), then ended up exchanging some more emails for a month or so before things totally fizzled out. When we emailed, I asked after his partner (and genuinely wanted to know about his partner) because it was pretty present in my mind that she was his primary and getting along with/getting to know her was really important to him.

So the idea that Lora wasn't cognizant to the concept that my feelings about them getting back together would also eventually come into play (especially in terms of whether or not we'd ever live together again) sort of blows my mind.

This current situation is quite different from the one I'd gone through previously, so I suspect it's a really poor metric. When I was initially puzzling through all this, I eventually realized that part of what I was mulling over was if this was finally...permission to not give two shits about Lora. I don't know if that makes sense. I spent a lot of time trying to get to know her. I really, really, REALLY tried. I did a lot of things for her, not because I wanted recognition or because I wanted her to "owe" me or because Jon pressured me too, but because I believed Jon when he said she was really an extraordinary woman when you got to know her and I wanted to see (and help) the extraordinary woman that he saw. I am aware that I did more for her than I "needed" to do in order to be a good metamour. And FTR, I don't regret any of that, because the way I treated her was in line with my morals and my ethics.

But, what I've gotten out of this experience is that - for me - Lora is a controlling, manipulative, abusive person who never cared about me at all (no matter what she said) and has no redeeming qualities whatsoever (again, for ME. I know it's different for Jon, and maybe for other people too. This is just my experience with Lora). I'm honestly starting to think that believing that she ever cared about me or saw me as any other than an obstacle to getting what she wanted (Jon all to herself) is incredibly soft-hearted and naive on my part.

Or maybe she's still really raw from the break-up and not ready to deal with thinking about me yet, because I am still with Jon. I honestly don't know.

So that's where I am now. Besides writing it all out here, I haven't thought very much about it since I parsed out my feelings about it about a week ago. I think I'm just letting it sit and going on doing other things - more awesome things - in my life.

Speaking of which, I need to go read a book so I can post about one of those awesome things. :D
 
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