So an update. Things are much better with Artist. We eventually had a long conversation about where he saw me in his life and how to be more consistent in seeing each other and how to make ArtistWife take me a bit more seriously (I think that last point may still need a bit of work but that's ok). He's still so ridiculously amazing - and amusingly had the best timing ever yesterday. (Nothing like being about to use the perk of working at home to take a porn break to reset your brain with a few endorphins, and having your lover show up on your doorstep instead as a surprise for a lunch quickie / to work in your house instead of his own for the afternoon. :: without any planning or coordination at all!!
Knight and I are still... up and down and back and forth. I spent last evening reading Love Worth Making which seemed about as revolutionary in it's own way as Come as You Are or Mating in Captivity, both of which I think have been discussed here a lot. It feels very much like sex therapy in a book, and some chapters actually literally described Knight and I's issues pretty explicitly and dead on so I am definitely going to talk to him about it tonight.
For some reason I'm more hopeful today than usual about maybe finding that connection with him again. Maybe.
But back to poly. I was actually thinking about the "what is different and why are things with Artist so fundamentally good" this morning while driving (it's the best thinking time!), and I realized that for me, one of the ... foundational differences in what I had with HipsterBoy and what I have with Artist - or even when I was still with DinoActivist, there were good things despite our eventual incompatibility - was that the relationship with HipsterBoy always felt like "getting away with something". It was emotionally an affair even though it was out in the open. We downplayed our feelings for our spouses' benefits, he was closeted to the majority of his friends, there was a constant Damocles' sword of "this could end at any moment and not by our choice" - and it did a couple times!! So it always felt like every moment was stolen and unstable.
With Artist, on the other hand, he and I are both openly poly, fundamentally poly in a way that neither of us could or would let other people in our life end our relationship. (Yes, he's had a few wobbles in terms of time spent with me now and again, but they were always temporary and when they happened, they were very much presented as "I have fucked this up, and I'm working on fixing it right now", not "this is just how it is". ) We're not stealing anything, we're not having our cake and eating it too, this isn't forbidden, it's just *how things are*. And I think that's a mindset that if I could give to anyone considering poly I would.
Vicki mentioned being unsure about poly as an identity in her first foray, and that *definitely* resonated - in fact HipsterBoy told me at the end that he was non monogamous but not poly (I'd argue with that, even if it is his identity - the love, the relationship happened and can't just be rewritten in the way he tried) so that he could more easily justify (to himself and future partners I think) the extreme hierarchy he chose to live in. Perhaps that's not a fair way to look at it but ...
Knight and I are still... up and down and back and forth. I spent last evening reading Love Worth Making which seemed about as revolutionary in it's own way as Come as You Are or Mating in Captivity, both of which I think have been discussed here a lot. It feels very much like sex therapy in a book, and some chapters actually literally described Knight and I's issues pretty explicitly and dead on so I am definitely going to talk to him about it tonight.
For some reason I'm more hopeful today than usual about maybe finding that connection with him again. Maybe.
But back to poly. I was actually thinking about the "what is different and why are things with Artist so fundamentally good" this morning while driving (it's the best thinking time!), and I realized that for me, one of the ... foundational differences in what I had with HipsterBoy and what I have with Artist - or even when I was still with DinoActivist, there were good things despite our eventual incompatibility - was that the relationship with HipsterBoy always felt like "getting away with something". It was emotionally an affair even though it was out in the open. We downplayed our feelings for our spouses' benefits, he was closeted to the majority of his friends, there was a constant Damocles' sword of "this could end at any moment and not by our choice" - and it did a couple times!! So it always felt like every moment was stolen and unstable.
With Artist, on the other hand, he and I are both openly poly, fundamentally poly in a way that neither of us could or would let other people in our life end our relationship. (Yes, he's had a few wobbles in terms of time spent with me now and again, but they were always temporary and when they happened, they were very much presented as "I have fucked this up, and I'm working on fixing it right now", not "this is just how it is". ) We're not stealing anything, we're not having our cake and eating it too, this isn't forbidden, it's just *how things are*. And I think that's a mindset that if I could give to anyone considering poly I would.
Vicki mentioned being unsure about poly as an identity in her first foray, and that *definitely* resonated - in fact HipsterBoy told me at the end that he was non monogamous but not poly (I'd argue with that, even if it is his identity - the love, the relationship happened and can't just be rewritten in the way he tried) so that he could more easily justify (to himself and future partners I think) the extreme hierarchy he chose to live in. Perhaps that's not a fair way to look at it but ...