The Best Life Yet

(. . . continued from previous)

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.

I definitely think that no matter what happens with Rider, moving on directly to nest up with Dustin is not the solution. Firstly, I haven't known him all that long yet. I have a personal policy against moving in with partners till I feel that I know them pretty well—definitely at least a year—which dates back to my mid-20s. I don't think it's saved me any specific heartaches, personally, but I've seen enough friends decide to move in with people they've known for only a few months, and it has often gone poorly. If Rider and I decided to break up tomorrow, I'd finish out my lease with him and then get myself into a roommate situation for a while, to keep my space and clear my head.

Dustin did (way too early, like months ago already) offer that I could come live with him for free whenever I wanted, if I wanted out of my situation or if I just wanted to decrease my bills, and, as tempting as that is in such a high-rent area and with such staggering debt, allowing those worldly concerns to sway my decision would be a mistake.

If Rider and I do break up over something, and I do eventually nest up with Dustin, it wouldn't be till we've known each other for quite a bit longer and I am satisfied that he's actually a potentially long-term compatible partner for me. It may be that he's not, and I end up not being with either of them. Not that I'm excited about getting back into dating, but at least since I believe that poly's not my ideal anymore, my pool would be larger.

And now to expound at length on the topic of straying . . .

So, I've actually talked to Dustin about this at length on multiple occasions. What he tells me is this: up until a couple years ago, he spent pretty much the last 20 years of his life having sex with an uncountable number of women—women of all shapes, sizes, races, ages, experience levels, etc., everyone from naïve teenage groupie virgins to prostitutes. He was, in his own words, "a total dog" and, at one point, had four girlfriends all in different cities who didn't know about each other, and would regularly cheat on all of them even beyond that.

And, much like the Weezer song lyrics, he started to just get tired of it. Tired of sex. Grossed out by it, to some degree, even. "It's messy, and it smells, and it swaps whatever germs and DNA back and forth, and, just, ugh, when it is someone you don't know or someone you don't care about."

His last girlfriend had left him (this was 2014) because she wanted to escalate to marriage and babies, but he wasn't ready and wasn't sure she was the one he wanted to be with for that stuff. ("She has a baby now, with the guy who came right after me," he said, "and she seems really happy.") Also, he had cheated on her, which I'm not sure whether she knew about. He nosedived into a drug problem in 2015 and ended up wanting to clean up his act, so he went home to his family for the summer. He spent the whole summer around family, helping his sister with her new baby and helping his mom's next-door neighbor train a puppy. He did a lot of reading and thinking and distancing himself from toxic situations and toxic friends.

He suddenly felt like the life he'd been living was stupid and hollow and fucked up compared to the beauty of family and the purity and ease of loving that baby and that puppy. He started to think that he might want that for himself after all, but his last girlfriend definitely hadn't been the right choice. (He listed some personality traits he hadn't liked.) So he'd be single, and occasionally pursue interests and hook up (he downloaded Tinder but told me he never actually messaged anyone) until he found what he was looking for—someone he could really love, as purely and easily as what he'd felt that summer.

It was lonely sometimes, but it gave him greater self-satisfaction than constantly trying to fuck anything that moved. "That," he said, "started to seem to me like a young man's game. And I'm not that young anymore."

He said he was determined not to make the mistake he'd made in previous relationships, where he did feel some kind of spark but had to sort of talk himself into falling in love with the person just because he felt like he wanted to be in a relationship at that time. His friends saw him pursuing things with people and then ending them quickly as just an extension of his previous casual, dog-like behavior.

But this time there was a method to the madness. He was interviewing, in a way. And people kept flunking out quickly because he didn't want to waste his time and was comfortable being alone. "I just knew something was not right," he said. To paraphrase, he said something like, "I probably hurt a lot of people. But I wasn't going to settle this time. I'd be alone forever if I had to be. I was over chicks in general—chasing them, how they could be, etc. I was pretty resigned to it, actually, not entirely sure what I was looking for even existed. And if it didn't, I'd be alone."

But he said that when he met me, it was love at first sight. (Which I don't technically believe in, but that's what he says he felt.) He was daunted, that first night, when I told him I was married and open to FWB, but he was curious. He already didn't think we could just be "F"WB, but when I told him we didn't have a rule against falling in love, he wanted to see if maybe this was the thing he'd been looking for. And the rest of the timeline is chronicled in detail in this blog.

But he keeps saying—keeps insisting—that he's super ready to focus on just one person. That he's bored and exhausted by the idea of cheating and casual sex. That loving me is the easiest and purest thing he's ever done. That the depth of that love makes the sex so amazing that he doesn't have any kind of desire for anyone else—the one time he tried to go down that road, he was disgusted with her and with himself and stopped at manual penetration even though he technically had "permission."

And when I asked him what if that changes? What if one of us (because it could also be me . . .) gets a wild hair and decides to fuck up and cheat? He shrugged and said that if I cheated on him, as long as I was honest about it right away, and it was a one-off fuck-up rather than an ongoing emotional affair, and I promised to try not to let it happen again, he'd be pissed for probably a while, but he'd get over it. It wouldn't be a big deal in the scheme of things.

Which, honestly, is about how I feel about the matter, too. If I were ever in a monogamous relationship again . . . occasionally slipping up and messing around with someone is not the end of the world, as long as it isn't followed by subterfuge and ongoing lies. I still don't believe that strict monogamy is the natural state of the human condition. As Dan Savage says, monogamy is, for some reason, like the one thing that people try to do where, if they make one mistake, they're considered a total failure. I don't expect to hold anyone to 100% perfect score on the monogamy report card. I know as well as anyone how easy it is to get carried away in a perfect storm of a weirdly hot moment.

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.

This is definitely something that I already consider, and another part of why I have no designs, no matter what happens with Rider, to immediately escalate with Dustin. If Rider and I break up, and I decide to try monogamy with Dustin, I would want to see demonstrated proof that at least most of his emotional volatility was due to the situation and not to just being a volatile person. I wouldn't want to spend more days over his place than I currently do for the first long while. I'm not trying to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire, if YKWIM.

(continued . . .)
 
Last edited:
( . . . continued from previous)

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.

This is all very true. I'm desperately casting around for a way to, at the very least, save my best-friendship with Rider if the marriage part goes south. I know it's possible in a general sense because I did it with Moss. But I don't know if it's possible in a Rider-specific situation. Due to my low desire issues, and the fact that we're both dating others now, I kind of feel like we are already just best friends—just best friends who argue sometimes about sex and relationship issues. It's a weird spot to be in, and I'm waiting patiently to see if it turns around.

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.

Yeah. This whole thing was literally the reason I wanted to try poly. With my NRE/libido issues, it seemed the only way to keep spark in my life. But. It kinda didn't really work that way for me. The variety didn't help. The falling super hard for a new person really didn't help. The constant struggle has been . . . wow, it's been something. I've learned a lot.

I really felt like finding Dustin was my last-ditch effort to make that work for me. Hey, I finally, finally, finally like a person who likes me back. I'm finally, finally, finally not all jealous and control-freaky. I finally, finally, finally can comfortably set Rider free in the way he wants to be free. I CAN NOW DO ALL THE POLYING—MY TROUBLES ARE OVER! Except, they're not.

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.

Yeah, I'm working on this. I think that, honestly, BOTH cultures have some ideas that are good and right for me, and some ideas that are either flawed or less right for me. I do know that I hated being the arm of a V. I often felt put-aside and jealous. And now I hate being a hinge with two people I care for very deeply. I often feel torn and suppressed.

I am coming to understand that it is in my nature to really want to give everything to someone. But in order to do that, a) there has to be enough overlap in our interests to make that possible, and b) I have to have everything available to give.

Viewing the ends of past relationships through this lens and with hindsight, this morning I realized something: my cheating at the ends of previous relationships? It wasn't because I wanted both my monogamous partner and my cheating partner. It wasn't even because I was craving sexual variety. It was because my monogamous partner had done something(s)—maybe recently, or maybe cumulatively, that had worn away my care for them and my desire to do give them that everything.

In reverse chronological order, with The Ex (who I never physically cheated on, but I did fall in love with Rider), it was compulsive lying and making me feel inferior to him. With Moss, it was being hyper-critical and cruel to me. With my much-older ex before that, it was coercing me into sexual situations I wasn't comfortable with (I didn't cheat on him, either, but I did fall for a co-worker he was "letting" me date). With the ex before that, it was a meth problem and subsequent lying, which he eventually overcame but not before it poisoned our relationship. And with the ex before that, it was a violent temperament and domestic violence.

There was very much a feeling in all of those situations of "fuck you, you used up your chance, and now I'm biding my time until I have an exit strategy." And so I'd cheat or get too close to other people because I didn't really care that much anymore. I never wanted to "be poly" with these exes and the next person, when I cheated. I just wanted out and didn't know how to exit cleanly and gracefully.

This situation is different. I do still love Rider very much. But it has pained me that, as much "everything" as I've always tried to give him, for him, ideally, there would still be more. My January attempt at seeing if monogamishamy could work for us was, I think, almost a way of making him prove to me that my everything could be enough. But still, when asked, he'd say things to me like, "I'd love it if we could get back to full poly," and I knew I had to try to give it to him again.

And, somehow, the only way I was capable of doing that was to find someone else, someone who, coincidentally or not, did want my everything, if I ever found I had it to give—in fact, who was so satisfied with the not-quite-half of time and energy I did have to give that he is willing to live in mild torment just to get it. Kind of like how I did for Rider.

My running joke is that, since I've been poly, I find one new person I like each year. Rider was Mr. 2013. Sam was Mr. 2014. Beckett was Mr. 2015. Jasper was Mr. 2016. And now Dustin has been Mr. 2017.

And, like, they've all, to a one, after Rider, not worked out because they're mono and can't hack it. It's not like I haven't tried to date other poly men than just Rider. My list of OKC dates is long and abysmal with rarely a click and . . . I don't think I even made it to second base with any of those people. Even Jake was longtime poly when we started dating in the summer, but by wintertime was barking up the "do you think you could be mono with me, I'm getting sick of poly?" tree, and has now been mono with his girlfriend for a couple years and they are adorably, blissfully happy.

What if . . . there's just something about that mono-strength focus that is what I need in order to feel attracted to new people? And what if that mono-strength willingness to give everything myself is what I need in order to stay that way?

Thoughts I'm pondering of the "what is truly in my soul" variety. Shit, with as short as life is, how does anyone figure any of this stuff out before they're straight dead?

If I hadn't done four years in poly—long enough to detect these patterns and raise these questions—how would I ever have noticed?
 
Last edited:
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.

Yeah, it still rankles. Especially how he remained so blasé and cavalier about it the next day. If I stop to think about it too long, my blood starts to boil again, so I'm trying just to be more thankful that we reached a solution for the future than I am livid about what has happened in the unchangeable past.
 
I don't have time to write very much more, but I do want to say that I had a long talk with Rider about the stuff in yesterday's post. I pretty much read him the entire thing out loud, not without tears. We're just chilling for now, not fighting or making any active changes.

I also emailed a couple of pretty heavily redacted excerpts (of stuff that wouldn't be oversharing Rider's stuff) to Dustin, who had been texting me all day even though he was on vacation. I thought it might be good for him to see where my head is at too—trying to keep both of them in the loop as much as I can.

Well, that went poorly.

He said he's happy that I feel comfortable enough with him to share my inner emotions, but that he "could really give two shits" and he didn't realize "how lost I was as a person" and how I "need to figure my shit out" and that he doesn't wanna deal with it. I was pretty shocked by all of that, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that that meant there was something in there that had made him jealous. I just couldn't figure out which part.

I responded to him, expressing my shock and hurt that that is how he responded to my sharing, and he expressed in turn that he's just really frustrated by it all. And then we both went to bed.

I woke up to a flurry of texts from him, the first set was saying how he couldn't sleep and had gone walking on the beach at night, and it was the most beautiful and peaceful setting he's ever been in, but all he could think about was me. He sent me a bunch of photos of the moon over the water. He said that this all was not what he really wanted to sign up for, but he does love me. He told me not to worry myself.

The second set, from a few hours later, said he'd finally gotten some sleep, and showed pics of his family as well as a request for less information going forward. He said he loves me no matter what, and he does understand how I feel, but he selfishly does not want to hear about it.

Now awake, I responded, saying that if what he wants is less information, then I can definitely give that to him. I have no problem with that boundary.

And then he said he would like to be spared any details of what's going on unless I'm either mad at him for something, need something from him, or my situation is changing entirely. If I'm feeling conflicted, then it is something that I have done to myself, and he can't be the one to help me through it. He said that if that upsets me, then I can "f-off" with my "trying to justify my double love life."

At this point, I was puzzled again. I'd just told him that I was willing to stick to the less-information boundary. Why was he lashing out further? I asked him whether I'd said something to upset him just then—why was he suddenly sounding so mean and pissed off?

He said no, nothing I'd only just said. It's just the same old issue—all he got out of what I sent the day before is that I love someone else as much as I love him, which stings. (Ah, there is the source of the jealousy.) Then he thanked me with a winky face for ruining his vacation and said he needs to stop talking for now or he will throw his phone out the window.

I said OK, and that hopefully we can FaceTime later like he'd told me Saturday, in case we were miscommunicating via text. I wasn't sure how much of that last part was joking and tongue in cheek and how much was serious. It's so hard to tell over text. He went away for a little while and, when he came back, he said that miscommunication is probably a lot of it, but it's also that he just hates the situation, and sent me another winky face.

So.

I'm not particularly happy with him right now, but I'm also trying to reserve a full decision about that until I talk to him in some kind of a non-text format.

The thing is, I get wanting a less-information boundary. I had to shut Rider down yesterday because he'd totally overshared a sex thing about Annie that made me go "WTF, why would you tell me that? That is way too much information, and I've told you that before." And, indeed, I had some time ago told him that very thing. I guess he'd just forgotten.

So if that's all he wants done differently, I wish he could have gone about it calmly and respectfully, without all the profanity and weird savage statements accompanied by mysterious winky faces.

But the thing about that is, I remember having moments of completely irrational rage during The Kelly Sagas where I cursed up a storm and tearfully whomped over in the bed to face away from Rider and histrionically wished aloud to throw myself in a river and be out of my misery. Once I even poked my finger into Rider's chest, which was totally over the line.

And that was over a year into my own poly journey. So if Dustin has a curse-filled meltdown because I crossed a boundary he didn't know that he had until I tripped over it, beyond my unhappiness at it, I'm mostly inclined to be empathetic and be supportive, while reassuring him that I'm fine with that boundary and will not knowingly cross it again.
 
Well, I'm glad I decided to withhold a decision about how I feel about Dustin's meltdown this morning. He FaceTimed me at the earliest opportunity and seemed . . . normal . . . and fine. Happy, even. Super happy to see my face online.

He passed me around to his whole family, and once he was alone in his room of the suite, he said, "Listen, about last night and this morning—I'm sorry. Don't pay any of that any mind. I was not in a good way."

"You were kinda mean," I said.

"I was upset and frustrated, but I was also in a way where I was easily upset, so it's not your fault."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I was tired last night from traveling, and you know I've been sick [he was coming down with a cold when I last saw him], and I hadn't eaten enough, and then this morning, I'd barely gotten any sleep. So I just wasn't in a good state of mind. And then it was a lot to deal with."

"Like I told you over text, I have no problem not telling you as much information," I said.

"I don't even know if that's necessary. It was just really bad timing. But I spent all day on the beach with the kids, swimming and playing, and then I came back and took a nap (missed dinner, actually, and am waiting on chicken soup from room service) and I already feel a lot better. I know the soup will fix me the rest of the way up. I'm really sorry. Please don't stress out about earlier."

And then the rest of the conversation was just normal, with him talking about stuff he'd seen and done, and asking me about work, and telling me how beautiful I look and how much he misses me and wishes I was there with him.

I think, though, that I'm going to keep his less-information boundary, whether he thinks he needs it or not. At least for the time being.
 
Just asking: How much is drinking and using involved here? Dustin's communication style is consistent with that of a substance abuser, which makes intimacy super challenging and confusing for the partner. If there are mind-altering substances at play here, it would explain a lot - and not just about when his mind is altered, but about how he navigates relationships in general.
 
There is one more big-ish concept I want to throw down, regarding Rider and the pets. I don't think it was about the pets at all. I don't think he thought it through but I believe it was more of a snit over you not being where he wanted you to be when he wanted you to be there, or a buildup of "she's not present" feelings towards you. A culmination of the distance when you ARE together and the actual physical time apart. Sometimes without consciously thinking things through, a person might "punish" another in a petty way for an emotional state. The words that come, in his explanations or defenses, don't make any sense given the man you know him to be, because he hasn't admitted to himself that it actually doesn't have jack to do with the animals, or how he feels towards them. They were collateral damage here. It's...emotional manipulation meant to make you feel guilty. He feels neglected so he's making you feel guilty for the neglect of the pets, or trying to, but his thinking brain did not orchestrate this.

At least I suspect that. Again, I don't know y'all, just a guess, etc.

Situations like that with people I have known (almost always male people) have to be handled carefully. Gently. Because confrontations over it usually trigger defensiveness on their part. The thing is done because they aren't comfortable looking at their own emotions in the bright light of day, so shining a spotlight on them may freak them out.

EDIT: The other thing about working through the Rider issue there, is that it's possible/likely that he CAN'T process his emotions because his thinking mind sees that they aren't fair. Like expecting you to be more present in his home and a reliable part of his home life, when he likes to go out and party, it's like his heart says "I love being poly, but I wish my wife would just wait at home for me and not be poly" which his brain knows is bullshit right? So then you get this wonky-ass smokescreen of "well if you're not home, the pets might not always get cared for"... We all know feelings don't always adhere to our logic and values. This feels like that sort of internal conflict to me.

Now. About Dustin. This is the thing that worries me about him. Whether due to substances or sleep deprivation or poor health, he isn't very good at saying "I really cannot do this now, I need to throw down a boundary until I feel better and let's talk another time." Instead he engages in a mean way. What you said about him being a good longterm partner for anyone comes into play here. He needs to learn how to manage himself (and his boundaries) in ways that aren't hurtful to others, even in his sub-optimal states, so that he does not wind up being an ABUSIVE partner to whatever woman he eventually tries to nest with (whether that's you or somebody else.) It's part of maturing and developing healthy relationship skills, to be able to recognize that impulse to lash out, and put yourself in check before you hurt people when your state of being is in no way their fault. A cycle of being cruel and then apologizing and being lovey, won't work in the long run for pretty much anybody. It would be good for him to learn this somehow before he tries to be a family man. Sobriety helps, I know, that would eliminate a large percentage of the opportunities for that to occur, but he's also got to learn some Dustin-wrangling skills.

Nothing wrong with him asking you for less information or whatever, but being mean and nasty to you just because he's not feeling well is no bueno.
 
Last edited:
I think, though, that I'm going to keep his less-information boundary, whether he thinks he needs it or not. At least for the time being.
Sound sound. Might protect both of you from upset, because you don't want to be lashed out at for sharing your innermost conflicts.
Don't do it silently though, tell him that you will. He might not like it when he hears it, but that way he knows that what he says has consequences even if he sais it while feeling badly and tries to take it back later. He'll also know you respect this other, more emotional part of him, even if it's not quite in line with his thoughts right in the moment.
 
I've got nothing useful to add. Just that you are in tough situations and it's clearly really hard. Internet hugs if you want them...
 
Reverie, you are one smart cookie, but I do have a question. Doesn't it kind of make you a little hesitant that Dustin is SO MUCH into you? This "love at first sight," and how you are the only woman he has ever truly loved, and that the other women were just "auditions." Yes, we are all unique snowflakes, but haven't you felt even a little bit concerned about the fact that this man has treated a number of women pretty badly? Don't you ever wonder you could wind up to be one of them? Who is to say he hasn't said those exact things to THEM?

I have just experienced a number of failed relationships in the past. It's always the ones who proclaim that I am the ONLY woman for them and they just feel so much for me who turn ice cold in the blink of the eye at best, or cruel at worst.
 
Just asking: How much is drinking and using involved here? Dustin's communication style is consistent with that of a substance abuser, which makes intimacy super challenging and confusing for the partner. If there are mind-altering substances at play here, it would explain a lot - and not just about when his mind is altered, but about how he navigates relationships in general.

Involved in this particular instance? I know there was no drug use, because he's on vacation with his family, and he really uses drugs only when he's out with a particular group of buddies. He's not the type to get high around the house alone, or be high around his mom, nurse sister and her doctor husband, and their young children. He probably had been drinking, though; I have no way of knowing from a distance how much.

If you mean in general, I would say that he drinks almost every day, though not every day to the point of drunkenness. Plenty of nights, we share a bottle of wine with/after dinner and then have a nightcap later on. It's usually when he's playing shows and the house is giving him a lot of free booze that he gets totally wasted. And, again, it depends on the friends he's with. Certain friends inspire more mellow nights, and certain friends inspire recklessness.

He does not use drugs every day. I'd say somewhere from twice a week to every two weeks, depending on the company he is keeping. He's been using them a lot less over the past couple of months than he had been the first couple of months I knew him.
 
There is one more big-ish concept I want to throw down, regarding Rider and the pets. I don't think it was about the pets at all. I don't think he thought it through but I believe it was more of a snit over you not being where he wanted you to be when he wanted you to be there, or a buildup of "she's not present" feelings towards you. A culmination of the distance when you ARE together and the actual physical time apart. Sometimes without consciously thinking things through, a person might "punish" another in a petty way for an emotional state. The words that come, in his explanations or defenses, don't make any sense given the man you know him to be, because he hasn't admitted to himself that it actually doesn't have jack to do with the animals, or how he feels towards them. They were collateral damage here. It's...emotional manipulation meant to make you feel guilty. He feels neglected so he's making you feel guilty for the neglect of the pets, or trying to, but his thinking brain did not orchestrate this.

At least I suspect that. Again, I don't know y'all, just a guess, etc.

Situations like that with people I have known (almost always male people) have to be handled carefully. Gently. Because confrontations over it usually trigger defensiveness on their part. The thing is done because they aren't comfortable looking at their own emotions in the bright light of day, so shining a spotlight on them may freak them out.

EDIT: The other thing about working through the Rider issue there, is that it's possible/likely that he CAN'T process his emotions because his thinking mind sees that they aren't fair. Like expecting you to be more present in his home and a reliable part of his home life, when he likes to go out and party, it's like his heart says "I love being poly, but I wish my wife would just wait at home for me and not be poly" which his brain knows is bullshit right? So then you get this wonky-ass smokescreen of "well if you're not home, the pets might not always get cared for"... We all know feelings don't always adhere to our logic and values. This feels like that sort of internal conflict to me.

I've been thinking about all of this, and, really, none of that is Rider's style. He doesn't have a single mean, "punishing," vengeful, or vindictive bone in his body. He's definitely not anti-me being poly, either, even if he does wish I were home more.

But what he does have is a tendency to be overly eager to please, especially new chicks, to the point where it can lead to him neglecting responsibilities. And he also has a bit of an overactive shame mechanism when he knows he's done something wrong (like neglecting responsibilities), which can lead him to try to spread blame around and minimize the seriousness of the thing that he did wrong.

I'm fairly certain that's what happened here. Chick wanted to crash where they were, and instead of speaking up for himself that he needed to attend to his responsibilities (and springing for or asking her to split with him a cab), he just went with it, leaving the pets to suffer and minimizing in his own mind how wrong that was.

And then when I called him out on it, he'd already rationalized/justified to himself that it was OK, so he got defensive, and when I kept pushing, he tried to shuttle some of the blame off onto me for also being gone.

It sucks that he's that way to the degree that he'd let the pets suffer though. He's definitely never been the most responsible person, and the fact that I occasionally have to "mom" him into understanding why certain things are important and helping him to figure out the best way to get them done does irritate me.

Now. About Dustin. This is the thing that worries me about him. Whether due to substances or sleep deprivation or poor health, he isn't very good at saying "I really cannot do this now, I need to throw down a boundary until I feel better and let's talk another time." Instead he engages in a mean way. What you said about him being a good longterm partner for anyone comes into play here. He needs to learn how to manage himself (and his boundaries) in ways that aren't hurtful to others, even in his sub-optimal states, so that he does not wind up being an ABUSIVE partner to whatever woman he eventually tries to nest with (whether that's you or somebody else.) It's part of maturing and developing healthy relationship skills, to be able to recognize that impulse to lash out, and put yourself in check before you hurt people when your state of being is in no way their fault. A cycle of being cruel and then apologizing and being lovey, won't work in the long run for pretty much anybody. It would be good for him to learn this somehow before he tries to be a family man. Sobriety helps, I know, that would eliminate a large percentage of the opportunities for that to occur, but he's also got to learn some Dustin-wrangling skills.

Nothing wrong with him asking you for less information or whatever, but being mean and nasty to you just because he's not feeling well is no bueno.

Yeah, I plan to have a talk with him about the being mean bit at some point after he gets back. It's just disrespectful in a way that is super disappointing to me, and maybe if I explain that to him, he'll get it. Maybe I can use some of the language you used here. I'll mull on it. I have a few days.
 
Cool, I am glad you've got a handle on Rider, and I hope you can talk to Dustin about stuffs...

I just felt like Rider wasn't uncaring in a real way, towards the creatures. It was...well, something else. A sort of transference. But you know him well, and what you say makes sense.

Yeah, Dustin needs to grow in the direction of respecting himself and others enough to do boundaries in a healthier way. Nothing wrong with "I can't deal with this right now" it's just the WAY he communicates it, with cruel language, that is unnecessary and not productive. And he should feel safe enough with you not to need it, that you'll respect if he needs you to not include him in your processing at that time, with no attack required.

LOL...is he a fire sign? Just curious. ;)
 
In other mild-so-far freakouts.

So, like, after all the talk of pregnancy on this thread lately, my period has decided to basically not fully arrive? I've just been spotting brown stuff for a few days—haven't even needed my diva cup, only a pantiliner, which is super weird because, in part due to the copper IUD I have that increases flow, I'm a gusher. And it's day 34, which is the day I said I'd take a test if I haven't started bleeding. Well, I kinda have, if brown spotting counts. But the recent conversations on here have made me paranoid now that the bleeding seems to not be taking full effect, and then I did some research on the internet and discovered the phenomenon known as "implantation bleeding" and I'm all like :eek: :eek: :eek:

So, I do believe that I'll be picking up a test after work, just to be on the safe side. Of course, my brain has already started tentacling and traveling all the possible paths on the spider web, like I do.

I am probably not pregnant. I have a copper IUD that has served me faithfully through many relationships in the past 9 years. It's supposed to work for 12 years and be over 99% effective. That would be some crazy act of god.

But what if I am?

I am pretty sure I felt myself ovulate the weekend when Dustin was over my place, and I've had like a million sex with him in the past month, especially that week, and it was always unprotected and to completion. There was one time even (the ovulation weekend though he didn't know I was feeling ovulation) when he said that was the best sex of his life and if I didn't have my device he bets I would have gotten pregnant. Scary, from today's perspective.

I had PIV sex with Rider once, and while it is technically possible that there could have been some kind of failure, he did not come inside of me. Still, there's a tiny statistical possibility that if I were pregnant, it could be his, so a test would still be in order.

The thing I still haven't gotten around to writing much about here is that, after my trip back east, I'm actually feeling like I do want a kid. But I'm still totally undecided on whether I am going to try to do it, because just because I might want something doesn't mean it's not a terrible idea. It still might be a terrible idea. I might want to quit my job and run off to be homeless on a tropical beach somewhere, but it's not going to happen because it's a terrible idea. Is having a kid? Dunno, jury's still out. But I do know that as I looked at my family photo and saw my cousin and siblings, all with their kids on their lap, and my proud mom, and my own empty lap, I felt like I wished it wasn't empty forever.

So, as a thought exercise, WTF would I actually even do?

Step one would definitely be paternity test—available as a blood test 8 weeks into a pregnancy and very expensive, but totally necessary in this case for guiding everyone involved, and, at the very least, determining who foots the bill for the procedures involved. If the paternity test pointed to Rider, I'd try to get the abortion pill if I got the results back on time. Oona's sister just did that and said it wasn't too terrible. Wanting a child or not, I promised Rider forever ago, and meant it, that since he is 100% certain he doesn't want a kid, I'd never make him a father. I feel very emotionally cut and dried about that—there is no ethical qualm in me.

If the paternity test pointed to Dustin, that would require much more in-depth consideration. After all, here is a person who definitely wants kids. Who believes that he would prefer to specifically have them with me. How would he feel about the whole thing? In favor of abortion at this time because we've been together only a short time and our situation is still confusing both of us? In favor of keeping it because it'd be some crazy coincidence that seems to confirm his desires?

Could I, having decided that I do want kids (setting aside whether it's a terrible idea), terminate a pregnancy I'd conceived with someone who loves me and wanted to keep it and help me raise it?

It's one thing to deal in hypotheticals about whether I could end my relationship with Rider to pursue motherhood eventually. It's a whole other thing to have to consider it with so heavy a thumb on the scale as a totally unlikely and unexpected existing pregnancy would be.

Also, considering this all, I'm having some odd thoughts bobbing up from my subconscious. Like, you know when you're having trouble making a decision about what's right for you, and people tell you to imagine one thing and see if it makes you feel disappointed?

Well, obviously, I am hoping for a negative result when I take a test tonight. But if I got a positive? I'm actually less upset by the idea of making the hard choice, the one that involves Dustin and possibly but possibly not upending my entire life, than I am about making the easy one, which involves Rider. I don't think that necessarily means I'd want to keep it, but rather that my subconscious knew that option is my only path to keeping things basically the same, well before my conscious mind did.

Rider + abortion = things stay the same with Rider, but I'm willing to bet that Dustin would be completely fucked up in the head if I miraculously (despite no coming inside and it only happening once) got pregnant by Rider. I'm not 100% sure my relationship with Dustin would survive that at this stage. He might go all "poly is way too fucking weird for me" and run off.

Dustin + abortion = things stay the same with both of them unless he wanted to keep it and I didn't.

Dustin + baby = things change for everyone.

Also, I am having some unpleasant feelings that are kind of like . . . I almost regret having PIV sex with Rider that once, because it would be the thing that would necessitate that test in the first place, which skews the whole timeline out to 8 weeks. OK, I'm going to be done tentacling now.

God, nothing like one STI debacle and one misbehaving period in the span of three months to really drive home how complicated all of this stuff really is.
 
Last edited:
He's an Aquarius.

Oh, interesting.

My experience with them: Brilliant. Lucky. Don't manage stress well (tend to need to shut it out.) Prone to diving head-first into things that they are passionate about, and achieving things that most of us would never believe. I've met more people with "gifts" as their primary LL that were of that sign, than any other. Not that they are necessarily materialistic, just that giving and receiving thoughtful and appropriate gifts seems to kinda be their thing. I've watched Aquarians take risks that dropped my jaw to the floor, and not only come out alive, but come out on top. They do what they want, but they do not always finish what they start, and they are expert avoiders of whatever really upsets them. They can be damn prickly sometimes, too. Not above taking advantage of others if they can justify it to themselves. But if they decide that you are their person, they'll usually move heaven and earth for you.

Aquarius: "Hey, there is this thing I'm suddenly passionate about. I'm going to do it."
Me: "Huh. That's interesting." Me silently thinking: "Sounds insane. It'll never work."
Aquarius: Does the thing. Totally wins at it.
Me: "Well I'll be damned..."

LOL
 
!!

Just read the pregnancy post. Wowzas! Hopefully, if for no other reason than preserving your own freedom to choose without the thumb on the scale, the test is negative.

I wonder about how it works if one gets pregnant with an IUD in. Like if it creates mad risk of problems or what...well, I could Google that. But any method can fail. I do know one woman who got pregnant once with IUD and did carry to term and have a healthy baby.

Well, let us know how it goes! Also, remember that even if the results are positive, don't assume a viable pregnancy is afoot at this early stage. You'll want to see a doctor immediately and they'll figure out the IUD business and take your blood constantly to monitor your growth hormone levels. You know, I'm sure, that women often become initially pregnant but miscarry and never know it. Probably most conceptions go down like that. Your hormone levels can help illuminate if that's likely or not.

Also? They can say with some accuracy how many weeks along you are. If that date doesn't coincide with your activities with Rider...
 
Hopefully, if for no other reason than preserving your own freedom to choose without the thumb on the scale, the test is negative.

Yeah, for real, because fuck me, I just looked it up and it's like $900 for that paternity test! I read it was expensive but that's absurd! Who pays for the paternity test in a poly situation? Logic would dictate that unless it's a close poly network with a strong sense of family or brotherhood, it'd be the pregnant person with multiple partners.

Rider has already told me he'd only chip in for an abortion if he knew it was his. And I'm sure Dustin feels the same way. The abortion pill seems to be between $300–800.

If I don't really, really want to have a baby right now to the point where it's worth $900 to set that ball rolling, if the pregnancy test is positive, the best solution might be just to tell them both I'm paying for my own abortion pill and leave them out of it. But. I dunno. Can monetary value be assigned to stuff like that? Could I even afford it at the 8-week point?

Also? They can say with some accuracy how many weeks along you are. If that date doesn't coincide with your activities with Rider...

Thaaaat's the thing. I definitely had a real, full, serious period last month. And given when I believe that I ovulated, my little period-tracking app marks like a six-day fertile window. The one occurrence with Rider is like juuuuust there at the beginning of the window. The other eight occurrences of sex that week (including earlier that same day) were all Dustin. But Rider was definitely there at the beginning of the window. I looked back at my blog and counted with a terrible sinking feeling. If I'm off by a day or two, he's no longer on the hook. But unless it can be calculated down to the exact day somehow, there's still an infinitesimal chance it would be him.

Even if it does turn out to be negative (please-please-please), I hope to at least raise awareness to everyone reading this blog that the damned test is $900, so if you have a uterus and two (or more) partners who really only wanna pay for themselves if there's an oopsie, this is something to take into consideration for yourselves. Start a poly paternity fund or something.
 
At this point, I was puzzled again. I'd just told him that I was willing to stick to the less-information boundary. Why was he lashing out further? I asked him whether I'd said something to upset him just then—why was he suddenly sounding so mean and pissed off?

Sorry that you had to go through that shittiness, glad that things felt a little better after facetime however he's also very clearly demonstrating a pattern of communication with regards to you reaching out for emotional support during a tough situation- he's not getting what he wants out of the relationship and he feels justified in lashing out rather than saying "Hey, I'm tired and struggling too, can we talk about this a bit later…"

When I first read this, my first thought was "alcohol" though not necessarily that he'd been drinking- the way he communicated with you is very similar to how people with substance abuse issues communicate- the sudden meanness, the confusingly mixed messages, and then the next day's "I'm sorry about that, forget about what happened, etc." One other very telling thing is that it left you asking "WTF did I say/do…" If you could have stepped back for a minute you might have been able to say "I didn't do anything wrong, there's absolutely no reason for someone to treat me this way"

I understand that he's struggling with his feelings about your relationship however that's not a reason to lash out at someone, eventually telling them that unless the emotional support you need is regarding a situation he approves of, then you should look elsewhere for support and if you don't like that, then you can fuck off out of the relationship. Certainly we all have our bad days however it's not the first time he's been nasty because he's struggling with his feelings about the situation. At 6 months in, it's not even really a new situation for him anymore, he's just refusing to change how he deals with things when he has a big sad. New situation or not, both of you have a role in making your relationship an emotionally safe space and by doing this, he's dropping the ball on that. I understand people not necessarily wanting to hear details about other relationships but what you shared was about you, about what you're struggling with and his reaction to that was pretty hostile.

For contrast, look at how you're dealing with the same tough situation. You're using your words, your emotional intelligence, and non violent communication to navigate through it. Even as you struggled to understand why he behaved the way he did, you still had empathy for his struggles, for him. Even when you don't understand or agree with how he's acted, you can still put yourself in his shoes and be understanding. He may be new to poly however he's had 40 years to learn to use his listening ears to recognize when his partner needs support and that even it's a tough situation for him, he still needs to be kind in dealing with it. He basically told you that if he doesn't agree with a choice you make (ie remaining with rider and doing your best to work it all out maturely) he's not going to be emotionally supportive.

Right now, because of NRE, the good parts of the relationship, it's easy to view his actions contextually- he's only acting this way because of the situation. However I'd say he's very clearly demonstrating a part of who he is, how he handles himself in emotionally challenging situations. It's also easy to say "oh he was drunk or he's super tired from traveling" as a way of rationalizing the behavior. However alcohol and sleep deprivation don't make people feel things they don't feel otherwise, all it does is strip off successive layers of cognitive ability until you're dealing with someone that's operating on their inner scripts written in some deeper part of their consciousness. Even his facetime apology was sort of like "hey, it was bad timing, I'm not feeling well, etc" rather than taking accountability for his mean behavior.

If he were my partner, the pattern of communication that he's demonstrated is what I think of as a black flag. For me a red flag is a behavior or action that is clearly unhealthy, possibly dangerous, or a blazingly obvious incompatibility and also unlikely that the person is aware of it or wants to change it. A black flag though is something that doesn't rise to that level danger, the person is aware of it on some level and if left unchanged, it would lead to the death of the positive, loving feelings I have towards someone.

It's easy for him to say, and I'm paraphrasing here, "he's only this way because of the situation and if it met his ideal it would be a lot better" however he fell in love with who you are when he met you, which includes you being married. If you had met him as a single woman inclined toward monogamy, it's likely that your relationship with him would have been entirely different because you would have been a different person when you met him. For example, because there was a natural obstacle to jumping on the escalator with him, it likely took some of that pressure off the situation and allowed him to explore feelings he might not have felt as safe exploring. As others have said, being able to spend more time with each other can be great however it can also lead to a more rapid decline in NRE so having pre-existing limits on time together might have contributed it to feeling so special. For me being apart from someone and missing them helps enormously with keeping NRE and excitement alive. The other benefit of you being poly when he met you is that it meant you were actively developing your emotional intelligence and working on the communication skills necessary to have a healthy, safe relationship of any type. He's benefited from this because in addition to you being able to communicate what's going on, you've also been able to truly appreciate the ways he is in touch with his emotions and when possible, be there to support him in his struggles.

If you can, try to step back from looking at the particulars of the situation and try to take a more general view. Imagine if one of your friends told you this about a new partner "He's so wonderful in so many ways, we have so much in common the only problem is sometimes he struggles with his feelings, gets drunk/tired and lashes out at me." Obviously you've mentioned this behavior as problematic for you however it also seems like you see it as very context based. When we are struggling in a relationship with someone we really love it can be really tempting to say "our situation is less than ideal, that must be what's causing it" but when is life ever not a mix of complex competing factors? I don't think it's impossible to change however if he does want to change it will have to start with him saying "I'm not ok with treating somebody I love this way, this is not the person I want to be." Granted the love he feels for you may be the catalyst that pushes him down that track but in the end he'll have to do it for himself.

I wrote this in a hurry and as I proof it, I felt the need to add that I hope my directness isn't mistaken for being judgmental. Based on your descriptions of him, he reminds me of friends of mine and from the descriptions of your relationship with him, it does seem like a very special connection. Honestly, he seems like a cool dude. On the flip side though, I've had to deal with alcoholic style communication in my life as well as being there for friends dealing with it so when I see the pattern, it's hard not to say something. Honestly I have no idea if he's an alcoholic or struggles with substance abuse but that doesn't mean he's immune to exhibiting that type of communication. Plus, based on what you heard his father say when you were back there, it's not unreasonable to speculate that he may have been exposed to that type of communication as a child. Rather than judge what I'd say is, if you can, mentally step back from the situation so you can ask yourself how you feel about being treated the way you were? How would you feel if anyone other Dustin treated you this way? How would you feel if you witnessed one of your friends being treated this way by their partner?
 
Back
Top