Feeling All the Feels

Well that was not exactly what I expected...

I was feeling really emotional today and texted Whiskers to ask if I could stop by for a hug. He was enthusiastic in his response and, on my walk back to my car, I suddenly was just feeling so overwhelmed by my feelings that I decided I wasn’t really going to be able to hold them back any more. I decided to tell him I loved him — no other plan in mind, I just felt like that was the one message I was sure I was confident about.

So I went over there and got my hug and sat down on his couch and started babbling about what an emotional person I am. And then he said, “I like people with big emotions.” And that surprised me because I had thought string emotions made him uncomfortable — so I asked “Really?” And he said he did and I felt this overwhelming sense of relief and “Oh good because I love you,” just spilled out.

His reaction was really sweet — he looked surprised and touched at the same time and he took me in his arms and held me. Then I kept babbling about how relieved I was to have just said it — that I knew it wasn’t exactly what he had been looking for but that I was so relieved that I didn’t have to hide it from him because my big emotions weren’t something that freaked him out. I realized and said aloud that I think my 7 months of “first date jitters” were the result of me feeling like I had to mirror his level of emotion/enthusiasm and so, as a result, I was holding a lot back and that was the feeling of anxiety that I was feeling....that I wasn’t being myself. I said that it felt so good to just be able to love him and not worry about whether it was okay to feel this way even if it wasn’t reciprocated.

He asked me a few questions about just exactly how much I had been holding back — “Do you feel like you have been showing up as the real you? Are you the same person I have seen for the last 7 months?” I wasn’t exactly sure how to answer this but I said that I thought I was...and he said he was just wanting to make sure because he wanted to make sure he had seen the real me. He then reminded me that he isn’t a “big feelings” person but that hearing me say that I loved him had an impact on him and that he wanted to reciprocate. He said that he knows that saying those words can have a big impact on people and that he wasn’t sure he would say it in the way that so uld have the big effect... etc and that he loved me too.

He followed it up with all kinds of caveats as to what love means to him in this context. He seemed surprised when I said that I felt like we were on the same page with how we were using the word. But his definition of love was spot on with mine....I don’t know why he framed it as a caveat.

Anyway. So yeah, that was a bit of an unexpected twist.
 
So glad that actually worked out!

Sounds like even though he was saying that he didn't think he was capable of the feelings that you wanted, it turns out that it really is just that he doesn't really express his feelings the same way. Honestly, sometimes understanding that difference and then being able to articulate it is REALLY hard, especially for those who are more emotionally reserved.

Any time you are feeling anxiety about emotions with your partners, the theme seems to always be that having some open and honest, albeit vulnerable, dialogue about that seems to be a huge help and provide clarity! Just remember that for the future. And also, yay, very happy for you!
 
And baby makes 5....well 5+

Last weekend Whiskers and I had our last official “date” (as in a night out) before the baby arrives. We have one more stay-in date planned for the week before the baby is due, with the assumption that it might get cancelled if the baby comes early — or Curleycue isn’t up for having people in the house while she is nesting. (That last part wasn’t a caveat that either of them posited....just my assumption that I don’t want to invade her space nor take her husband away from her if she needs him.)

I’m so excited for them, but today I realized that I am terrified too.

As of a few weeks ago, I was still feeling anxiety and first date jitters every time I would get together with Whiskers. So, honestly, the fact that we would only see each other every couple weeks or so was a bit of a relief....I would feel a ton of build up before our date, then some anxiety, then the date would happen and it would be awesome, and I would be so exhausted by my emotions I would be grateful to not see him at all for a little while. But now? Well, I am no longer feeling anxiety about him anymore. On our last date he asked me if I was still feeling jittery or anxious and I said that I wasn’t. So why is that terrifying? Well, that anxiety has been replaced by straight-up desire. I no longer feel a sense of relief when a date is over because I no longer feel self-conscious. Now I just want to see him again soon. It’s like I have finally begun to feel actual NRE because I am now feeling more secure.

So the trouble with all that is that I don’t know how to handle this new life step that they are taking. I want to be all up in their business — I want to do crazy nesting shit like baking and cleaning their house. (I don’t even like to clean my OWN house!) I want to make red raspberry leaf tea for Curleycue and if she wanted me to I would totally massage her feet.(!?!?!?)

But I also know that they need space. I am not a coparent of this baby and I will have only been dating Whiskers for 8 months. I have a good meta relationship with Curleycue, but I am probably one of the last people she wants to be hovering around her before, during, or after labor.

I feel like this is such a sensitive time and I am so scared I am going to fuck it up. I feel like my likelihood of unwittingly intruding or stepping on boundaries is high. So I am back to where I was before — worrying about coming on too strong...worrying about my big emotions being too big.....looking for signs or clues as to what I should do in order to be the “just right” amount of helpful and kind without being a busybody.

Ugh....

So I am trying to channel all the good advice I got from here before...what would the polyamory.com folks say? (WWTPFS?)

I think the lesson I learned last time is that my big emotions aren’t as much of a “problem” for other people as I imagine them to be. Maybe my best bet is to acknowledge that Whiskers and Curleycue are different than I am, but that that they also often appreciate me for being the partner/meta that I am and so me being me isn’t necessarily an issue. Perhaps the best thing to do is to ask them how I can best support them. If they say they don’t need anything, I can tell them some ideas of things that I would love to do (maybe I will leave out the foot massage...) and see if any of those are things they would appreciate or if any of them would feel like “too much.”
 
Uh oh....should’ve planned ahead

Ponytail cut his hair. It actually happened a few weeks ago but I just realized today that his nickname feels less appropriate now. Ironically, Whiskers is growing his hair out and it is almost long enough to wear it in a ponytail.:rolleyes:

What if Ponytail grows a beard, Whiskers starts wearing a ponytail, Glasses gets lasik, Whiskers shaves his beard, Ponytail switches from contacts to glasses....

I’m so royally fucked. Why did I name my partners after such superficial characteristics?
 
Lol. Chops hasn't had mutton chops in a while now, and Dancegirl hasn't taken dance classes in a few years. If anything, maybe it offers more anonymity. ;)
 
Owning my feelings

I spent some time in therapy today crying. We were talking about how I am so anxious about Whiskers’ baby’s impending birth. How my fears about pregnancy and infant loss as well as my own experience with postpartum depression are manifesting themselves as an intense desire to provide caretsking for Whiskers and his family. We talked about why that is problematic — how I need to give them space and not let my own fears turn into anxious behaviors and hovering.

It is so hard. I’m so scared. End of pregnancy angst is super intense for me and it is particularly hard right now because I just found out that a friend of mine who is having twins has received the news that one of them has a condition that is “incompatible with life” and will continue to develop until full term but will die shortly after birth. Fuck. That is fucking heartbreaking.

So here I am freaking the shit out about what is going to happen when Curleycue goes into labor. Will they tell me when it happens? What if Whiskers just disappears for 24-48 hours? Everyone says, “Well, if he doesn’t respond, then you know she is in labor, so what is the point in wanting him to tell you? Just wait!” But heck, even before Curleycue was full term, sometimes Whiskers wouldn’t answer a text from me for “longer than usual” (6-10 hours) and I would start freaking out and worrying that something is going on with the baby. One time I was positive that something horrible had happened and it turned out he had just been doing an all-day filming project.

So the next few weeks are going to be filled with lots of false alarms — maybe not in terms of Braxton Hicks contractions, but in terms of Whiskers being slow to respond and me assuming the meaning behind that.

I just hope it’s a good labor. Like a 6-10 hour labor where things progress normally. Not crazy long and slow like her first labor, not angsty like my first labor, and not crazy fast and scary like my second labor. Just a nice, regular labor that ends with a healthy baby. If he disappears on me for 10 hours and then sends me a message saying that the baby is here, I will be okay. The problem is that I have no idea if that’s how it is going to happen.
It’s all the other scenarios that I am stressed about.
 
Try to cut Whiskers some slack. Remember that these are your issues, and yours to deal with, not his. I'm sure the two of them are very busy doing their nesting and getting ready for the impending changes, and they need their time together without interruption. I don't think a 6-10 hour delay to get a response to a text, unless it's urgent, is that big a deal.

I hear that you have lots of reasons to feel the way you do, but I don't think that you need to push them onto Whiskers. It's good that you have support to deal with those feelings.

I agree it would be nice if they told you when she's in labour, but it might not happen. I'm sure you know how hectic things can get at the time! Just keep in mind that it's not a personal slight or a deliberate exclusion. It's not about you at all, but them.

Hugs if they're welcome.
 
Vicki82 said:
Try to cut Whiskers some slack. Remember that these are your issues, and yours to deal with, not his. I'm sure the two of them are very busy doing their nesting and getting ready for the impending changes, and they need their time together without interruption. I don't think a 6-10 hour delay to get a response to a text, unless it's urgent, is that big a deal.

I hear that you have lots of reasons to feel the way you do, but I don't think that you need to push them onto Whiskers. It's good that you have support to deal with those feelings.

I agree it would be nice if they told you when she's in labour, but it might not happen. I'm sure you know how hectic things can get at the time! Just keep in mind that it's not a personal slight or a deliberate exclusion. It's not about you at all, but them.

Hugs if they're welcome.
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Just to clarify, if my previous post was unclear:

I don’t think any of this is Whiskers’s or Curleycue’s responsibility. All of this is my internal anxiety. What my therapist is talking about as far as not letting it impact them is just being aware of my feelings and how they manifest themselves. So when I ask her if I should bring Curleycue tea and flowers, she encourages me to think about whether I am doing that because of my anxiety.

ETA: 6-10 hours isn’t a long time to wait. It’s not like I am mad or upset at the length of time. I just mean that if the length of time for him to respond to a text is 2-3 times longer than usual, I jump to anxious conclusions that things aren’t going well with the baby.
 
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So the next few weeks are going to be filled with lots of false alarms — maybe not in terms of Braxton Hicks contractions, but in terms of Whiskers being slow to respond and me assuming the meaning behind that.
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Can you work on not assuming or change the conclusion you jump to based on past experience?

I can imagine you cannot just "turn off" the anxiety.

But if past experience went like this:


One time I was positive that something horrible had happened and it turned out he had just been doing an all-day filming project
Click to expand...

Could you talk back to the anxiety?

1st thought: OMG! He's not answer the text! Doom! (<-- jumping to conclusion)"

2nd thought: Ok, last time it was just a film project. It is probably something like that. (<-- adjust the conclusion you jump to).

I'm going to give him extra time to check in. (something YOU can do now). And if I don't hear by X, then I'm going to call/email. (Something you can do later.)


Galagirl
 
GalaGirl said:
Can you work on not assuming or change the conclusion you jump to based on past experience?

I can imagine you cannot just "turn off" the anxiety.

But if past experience went like this:




Could you talk back to the anxiety?

1st thought: OMG! He's not answer the text! Doom! (<-- jumping to conclusion)"

2nd thought: Ok, last time it was just a film project. It is probably something like that. (<-- adjust the conclusion you jump to).

I'm going to give him extra time to check in. (something YOU can do now). And if I don't hear by X, then I'm going to call/email. (Something you can do later.)


Galagirl
Click to expand...

Yeah, that’s what I try to do now. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.
 
Bittersweet

Yesterday I saw Whiskers for the last time before the baby is born. And I feel so ....emotional. Not so much anxiety now as much as....bittersweetnsss. I’m just very aware of the fact that very soon his life is going to change so dramatically. It isn’t his first baby, but (in my experience) going from a toddler to a toddler and a newborn was harder than going from no kids to a baby.

I don’t know when I will see him again. And our last “date” yesterday was just an hour around lunchtime. Basically just sex (without kissing because we are both sick) and then he had to get back to work. Don’t get me wrong — I loved the sex — but I just feel like things aren’t “wrapped up.” I am sad that our last date was rushed....that there wasn’t time for me to express all my feelings and give him a chance to reassure me that this is temporary, that I will eventually be invited over to spend time with his family again, and he isn’t going to drop me like a hot potato now that he has another baby.

In other news, Ginger and Glasses are going through a rough time. I don’t know all the details, but I know that Glasses is sad. And Ponytail is feeling frustrated by trying to date. Basically everything feels kinda sad and emotional right now and I am overwhelmed by everyone’s feelings. It doesn’t help that we are all feeling sick and stressed.

I just want everyone to be happy.
 
The Baby Is Here

The baby was born this morning. I am super happy and excited. So happy and excited, in fact, that I talked about it in vague terms at work. I was teaching a workshop and many of the people I was interacting with today were not people I knew at all and so I kept things relatively neutral by describing Whiskers as a “friend whose wife had a baby.” This phrasing prompted some additional questions and so I explained that the baby was biologically the child of the wife’s other partner, but that all three of them coparent together.

Nobody was mean. Nobody said that their family was “wrong.” But they didn’t feel shy about describing their set-up as “weird” and saying things like, “She’s gotta be crazy! Who wants two husbands? I can hardly handle one!” Oddly enough, my colleagues (as opposed to the workshop participants) were the ones who made the most comments.

I tried to just be neutral and answer their questions. But most of all I felt disappointed. I had hoped that these colleagues would be people that I would feel safe coming out too. Now I am feeling very unsure about that.
 
New and Shiny

I had a date with someone new last night. She is adorable. We talked and ate
for about 4 hours — transitioning from one location for dinner to another for dessert. I wanted to kiss her at the end of the evening and she declined, saying that she wanted me to be more sure of my intentions because she had learned that she will fall in love quickly and she wanted us to be on the same page.

I went home feeling dejected and confused — like I was a douche for asking. I had felt a real connection to her, but not having ever had a romantic relationship with a woman before, not knowing if being intimate with her would feel natural and good, and not knowing how much space I have in my life for another relationship, I was confused.

This morning we texted and she clarified that she didn’t expect me to know if it would “work out” but just that she wanted to make sure I was emotionally available before she got physical with me because she was worried about falling for me fast and me not being able to reciprocate. But as long as I was open to the possibility, she really wanted to keep dating and see where things go.

So I guess we are dating? I know I am excited and feeling happy and that all of this feels awesome and also terrifying.. I know I feel absolutely drenched in affection for all of my other partners right now too — I literally wanted to hold Glasses’s face in my hands and just stare at him all night after I got home — and I also feel overwhelmed.

Whiskers seems happy for me. Glasses seems happy for me but a little nervous. Ponytail is anxious. Kippah (as I shall call her henceforth) lives a few hours away and so I won’t see her again for a couple weeks at least....she keeps reassuring me that she won’t take up very much space in my life and that she will just kind of squeeze in....she doesn’t need a lot of time, just an emotional connection.

I hope next time I get to kiss her....
 
Smitten

I am feeling smitten....and polysaturated.

Smitten because all my partners are awesome....and my new potential makes me giddy.

Polysaturated because I am SO tired. Four sweeties — even if I don’t see them often — really is a lot more than three. I feel like I barely texted any of my partners today....and yet I also feel like I spent my whole day texting them.

And Kippah really is feeling like a partner pretty fast. Sure, we have only had one date....and we haven’t even kissed, but it is clear that we both think about each other a lot. She told me today that she has been having dreams about me. Dreams that she described as “intense.” That is so sexy and awesome.

I am in such awe of the fact that she “like-likes” me. It’s funny, she expressed that she has trouble getting used to the fact that a woman as cute as I am would find her attractive — and I feel exactly the same way about her! Just goes to show that “cute” is in the eye of the beholder. She is cute in all the ways that I am not — she is petite, wiry, with a pixi cut hairstyle. She’s fucking adorable. AND she loves that I have boobs and a full figure and flowy hair.

What!? Is this why same-sex relationships are so hot? Because you naturally feel attractive for who you are and not who you think you are supposed to be?
 
MsEmotional said:
What!? Is this why same-sex relationships are so hot? Because you naturally feel attractive for who you are and not who you think you are supposed to be?
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I guess I don't really get what you're trying to say, but I don't really see a difference in how I feel or conduct my relationships based on gender. I'm attracted to people, not their bodies. So I don't see why a same sex relationship feels different than an opposite sex one, unless it's just novelty for you?
 
Vicki82 said:
I guess I don't really get what you're trying to say, but I don't really see a difference in how I feel or conduct my relationships based on gender. I'm attracted to people, not their bodies. So I don't see why a same sex relationship feels different than an opposite sex one, unless it's just novelty for you?
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I think I am attracted to both — I am attracted to people on an emotional and intellectual level, but I am also attracted to their bodies on a physical level.

What I was saying above is that I don’t have the type of body that I am personally attracted to....my body is soft and lumpy. My whole life, I have been trying to make my body muscular and trim because that is the body type I am attracted to...and failing. I always thought I would fail at dating women because I didn’t have the body type that I find sexy. And now, here is this woman, who is herself trim and muscular...and she thinks *I* am hot? That’s what I mean — as a woman dating men, I always assumed that they found me attractive because my body was different from theirs....and that if I tried to date women, they would expect my body to match what I thought was a universal ideal— at least if they themselves had achieved that ideal.

I don’t know if that makes any sense. I guess it has just really opened my eyes to the fact that it is possible to have a preference for a body type that you yourself do not possess, even if you yourself possess the “ideal”...it never occurred to me that there could be a woman out there who specifically finds ME attractive....and *doesn’t* wish I could be more muscular and fit like her.
 
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Well, I can tell you for sure there are people like me out there who don’t even really notice the packaging if they like the contents.

I guess I don’t really understand your perspective, either. I certainly don’t think there is one ideal body type at all. But I also don’t date people based on their physical attractiveness, like I said.

It would be awfully horrible if there was only one attractive kind of body. I mean, wouldn’t that imply that everyone who is not that body type is unattractive?
 
Vicki82 said:
Well, I can tell you for sure there are people like me out there who don’t even really notice the packaging if they like the contents.

I guess I don’t really understand your perspective, either. I certainly don’t think there is one ideal body type at all. But I also don’t date people based on their physical attractiveness, like I said.

It would be awfully horrible if there was only one attractive kind of body. I mean, wouldn’t that imply that everyone who is not that body type is unattractive?
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There are gradations of attraction, of course.....I never believed that people found me actively unattractive....just that they would *prefer* me if I were thinner....

This mindset is probably all stemming from a comment that my mom made to me a long time ago: “you’d be absolutely beautiful if you lost weight.”

I have grown up with the belief that, if I were thinner, I would be more attractive. Not that I am unattractive as I am, but that I could be *better.* And here, there is a woman who is, herself, fit and trim....and she is saying that she finds my body type sexy and beautiful — that, given no other information about personality or whatnot, she is most immediately attracted to women who look like *me.*

I’m just happy to be wrong, I guess.
 
So many updates...

It’s been so long since I have posted here. Here are some updates:

Kippah
Things ended with Kippah a couple weeks after my last blog post. Her messages had been getting more intense, longer, more emotional. It became clear that she was feeling far more attached than I was and my attempts to explain my boundaries did not go over well. Eventually she was able to accept that I just needed to not pursue that relationship further and we parted ways. I went off OKC and haven’t looked back.

Glasses
Glasses and I have been doing fairly well. Glasses and Ginger broke up though, which has been a hard adjustment for everyone. He is tentatively seeing the ex that he had previously been seeing for a little while. I don’t recall what nickname I had given her...maybe MsPolitical?

Ponytail
Ponytail has developed two relationships in the last few weeks — both of them started as friendships and recently they became more than that. One of them is now mostly a physical friendship and the other a romantic friendship.

I am struggling more than I expected. I feel comfortable when Ponytail goes on dates — even when I know that sex is happening — but what makes me uncomfortable is the fact that Ponytail *doesn’t* share very much with me and I find that frustrating. Actually, it feels like that’s the case with all these guys...they are all so reserved about talking about their other relationships/ potentials. It makes me feel weird — like they are afraid to tell me what’s going on because they think I will be jealous....which then makes me bizarrely angry at them, like, “why don’t you trust me enough to tell me this stuff?” I think a lot of it is because *I* love to talk about my shiny new person with my current relationships. And so when my partners hold back on telling me about their other relationships it makes me feel like they must not love/respect me enough to share these things with me. I know that everybody is different — it isn’t a conscious thought...I think that’s just how my subconscious perceives it. It’s just a feeling of “icky” that I have when I am around a partner who is dancing around talking about their other partners.

Whiskers
Things are good with Whiskers. I had a depressive period a couple weeks ago because of some insecurities that were triggered by his insensitivity. But I acknowledged it and talked to him about it and things are great now.
 
My experience with the men I've dated is similar... they share very few details (not referring to sexual details because I prefer those not be shared anyway.) After awhile I got use to "it was a nice date" or "I enjoyed the weekend." Just differences in communication styles I think.
 
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