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So, just to be clear, when we started dating she was unemployed and literally spent all day binge-watching Netflix. And she still didn't care about my music or any of my other projects. I don't need her to be my number one fan. I would settle for her WANTING to be supportive, but not having...

Thanks for the empathy. I don't really think I need to work that much on my communication. I think what I need to work on is how I paraphrase my communication on this message board. Admittedly, I perhaps could have put more energy and thought into how the late-night fb chat that precipitated...

Thanks for clarifying these concepts. This complements what I have been learning from Ask A Monk and Mooji, in a way that is very illuminating. It's about not mistaking myself for the feelings that arise, and not being fooled by the ideas attached to those feelings, which are created by my own...

I did ask for those, so thank you! I presently don't have money for food, so I can't buy books. But I will check the local library, see if there are .pdfs online, and maybe add some to my birthday list.

Thanks for weighing in, LunaBunny. Your "pretzels" phrase gives me food for thought. However, I want to become more Zen so that I can stop being emotionally manipulative in my reactions. This issue is MOST noticeable when she chooses to do things with others that she chooses not to do with me...

It's hard for me to know what constitutes doing her fair share right now. But I think she HAS been working really hard to speak my love language, ie. She touches me when I'm upset because she knows this helps. She has been extra patient and compassionate lately. And the thing is that I have all...

This is so, so helpful. Thank you. I'm pretty decent at self-compassion. I SUCK at humour. I take myself way too seriously all the time and I don't know how to stop. I'm not sure why I'm like this. My earliest memories are of myself as a deeply introverted and very serious 4 or 5 year-old...

Thanks, River. I've been watching a lot of videos by Mooji and Ask A Monk on non-attachment in sexual + romantic relationships. The videos are very helpful, and I'm hoping some tweaks to my daily meditation practice will allow me to not need love, warmth, kindness, etc, from others so much...

Whoops. Thanks for the correction!

I think reading Gala's basic poly resources is a great starting place. One question I have is - why do you feel that you need to be with your husband ALL THE TIME? That's actually a great way to suffocate a relationship. Intimacy tends to thrive when couples have projects going on outside of...

I have a very close friend who worked for a couple years as a sex worker. She left the job completely alienated from her body to the point where she was unable to achieve orgasm. Now, there are other contributing factors to this, so I'm not saying it was just the intimacy thing. She was beaten...

This was amazing, River. Thank you for sharing. I read this and reflected and realize that I absolutely DO abandon myself, and that the self-abandonment is so much worse than anybody else abandoning me or not providing me with the compassion I need, etc. This gives me another useful thing to...

Karen - I appreciate you offering me your definition of validation, which is quite different from the one I was operating with. I mostly ignored River's question because of that misinterpretation of her meaning. So the person, the answer to River's question, is my alcoholic, borderline mother...

Kevin, I truly appreciate what you wrote and shared. The sentence I quoted really brought it home for me. I often don't think of the ways in which her history of sexual trauma might be influencing her choices and the way she relates to me. I just forget. It should have occurred to me, but...

Over the past week, I've come to realize that a major issue at the heart of this recent conflict with my partner is the fact that I tend to get very emotional about how and with whom my partner chooses to share her body, and to perceive certain of her choices as a personal attack. My expression...

I want to thank you all for helping me through this. I believe every participant in this conversation gave me something good to chew on, and I've grown a lot through this dialogue. It's been an emotionally intense few days, and I'm physically exhausted. I don't even have capacity to catch up on...

Four more things: 1. I posted earlier without having read Gala's second message. Wanted to say that actually my penis curve COULD be part of the issue in question (although it was actually just one example of many many times she has done a thing with someone that I wanted to do), so that was...

"Maybe it is a female thing? Women, throughout history, have had to use their body as a commodity - trading sex for protection, social standing, a family, financial independence, etc." This is actually a really really useful thought. For sure there's some gender stuff at play here. As a man...

"You can make the argument that I chose to be in the profession that I am (I did), but they also chose to be in a relationship with someone in that profession, and they benefit in that they have absolutely NO responsibilities other than supporting me emotionally and mentally, while I support...

The most useful thing I got from GalaGirl's message is the notion that underlying all my pain, and buried in my expression of that pain, is an implicit idea about what my partner "should" be doing with her body, and how she "should" be sharing it. I realized that this is true, and that it's...