Finally, there is clarity? Then and now with OnceAndFuture

[OnceAndFuture]

Ugh.

I try to keep a happy face on these days. There are a few things going well in my life. I'm making some good friends, and the weather is nice. Everything else, though...

I've already talked about work. There are a few good stretches, but my boss usually snuffs those out quickly.

My health isn't great. I've been diagnosed with low T, so I'm sure that's contributing to feeling down, and my desire to eat everything in sight. But at least that can easily be rectified. My migraines are out of control. I saw the neurologist Thursday and she was concerned. She injected me with 16 shots of lidocaine in my face, neck, and head. Next step is that I get an MRI and possibly 16 more shots, this time with Botox. I don't like needles, but I don't mind if the meds help.

After what seemed like a very good last few weeks with The Signal, we had a vicious and troubling argument. I came home one night this week in a better mood than usual, because I'd had a successful meeting at work, and I'd met up with friends later to play boardgames and had had a good time. I was feeling a bit like I had turned a corner at work, because one of the issues is that I have to be more proactive and outgoing there, which is hard with the migraines and feeling down.

We talked for a little before we went to bed. We discussed the ongoing issue of whether I was going to get a place to sublet closer to work for a short period. With work not going well, and my health problems, it would let me work longer hours and not have to commute as much (the constant driving is affecting my migraines, the neurologist thinks). The conversation seemed friendly. Then we went to bed.

When we woke up in the morning, The Signal started arguing with me almost immediately. She started in on my identifying as poly as a huge issue for her, saying, "There's no way I can ever have self-esteem when I know you want to be with other women." She talked again about not feeling like enough, and said, "Now I'll never feel like I can be enough."

She threatened to leave me again. She said that we wouldn't be able to stay together because we weren't compatible, that she, "Either had to accept that I was going to be with other women or she had to leave." The implication was that she was never going to accept that I could be with someone else. She blamed me for her depression. She said that she was upset most of the time, but "usually" she was able to hide it.

I was really caught out by all this. I asked her where this was coming from, because I had been honest about not being ready to be with anyone else and I hadn't implied that I was. (In any event, even if I wanted to, I realize with the work situation and my health problems I don't have the time or energy to go out dating.) She said that she was upset that "the first thing I wanted to do" after moving back here was find somewhere else to live. I said that wasn't right: she had been the one suggesting I find a place to stay over the week for the last 10 months, and I had been resisting that suggestion from her, my dad, and my co-workers all that time because I wanted to spend more time with her, even though it meant a lot more commuting time. She said that I seemed "too happy" about the idea, even though I'd said I only felt like I had to now because of needing to work longer hours and my migraines.

We've had a lot of terrible fights in the last few months, but this one has actually bothered me more than any of the others. First of all, if I take her at her word, she picked a fight with me because I wasn't upset enough about agreeing to something she'd been pushing me to do for months. It seems like whenever I'm happy about something she gets suspicious. She says she wants me to be happy. So then why is it, whenever I am happy, she picks fights or starts asking pointed questions?

Her comment about me ruining her self-esteem troubles me a lot. The implication is that I can do nothing to build her self-esteem by supporting her and loving her, but if I do something she thinks hurts her, that tears down her self-esteem. It hurts me that I can only be the bad guy.

She said that "Just now, as I was trying to start to feel better about myself," I had to identify as poly and ruin everything. No, at the end of last year she was just as low as she is now. I know I had nothing to do with that. I'm starting to feel like I'm now the scapegoat for the bad feelings she has about herself, which have always been under the surface.

Over the past few weeks, as I said in my last blog post, The Signal had been talking more about poly, had seemingly been more comfortable about it, was even making jokes about having relationships of her own. So now, during this argument, she claims that she's really not OK with polyamory-- in fact, she's never going to be OK with it, and that people who are OK are "just hurting their partners and legitimizing cheating and affairs."

Then yesterday, after our argument was patched up, she initiated a conversation about how I might financially handle a relationship with someone else, and she was as calm and rational about that as if she were discussing what we should have for dinner tonight. The same day she was making lighthearted conversation about The Star and even joking about my favorite sexual position with her! Remember, our relationship with The Star allegedly "scarred her for life" and still hurts her five years later.

So which is it? Is she really not OK with poly and just pretending to be comfortable 95% of the time, only letting her guard down when she's upset? Or is she being emotionally manipulative during fights because she knows she can hurt me by saying that my identification as poly is ruining her life? Honestly, I'm not sure which scenario I would prefer.

I'd like to see a way forward here. As I say, normally The Signal and I are friendly and loving towards each other. But even during the good times it's clear that she has some serious issues with her self-image. We all do at times, including me, but she's doing nothing to help herself because she doesn't think it's her problem. (In fact, she's said more than once that it's actually my problem.) She says she wants me to feel happy, but when I do, a fight usually ensues.

And when we argue she dismisses my words by saying, "You don't understand," like it's a conversation capper. No, I don't understand. I don't understand why she has to hate herself so much. I don't understand how she can be OK with poly to the point of initiating conversations about it, reading everything she can about the subject, and even making jokes about it, then turn around during an argument and claim that me identifying as poly is the worst thing that ever happened to her and is ruining her life and self-esteem forever.

I don't understand why she can't ever feel deserving of anything. I don't understand how she can say she's not enough for me, but also say that I'm not good for her because of who I am. But most of all, I don't understand why I'm not allowed to understand. My lack of understanding shouldn't be the end-- it should be the beginning.

So... yeah.

Also, happy birthday to my mom. I wish she were here to talk tom because, to be honest, I don't know who to talk to now.

 

[Reverie]

Dude, I'm sorry she's putting you through the wringer so hard. It kind of sounds to me from what you've written that she's so uncomfortable about you being poly that she's being terrible on purpose so that it drives you away, and then bringing up the poly stuff during arguments so that she can feel like the victim if you leave as a result of the driving you away she's done. A lot of people do that: make themselves intolerable so that you break up with them because the victimhood of being the dumpee is more comfortable for them than taking the action.

It sounds to me like she's gaslighting you with the thing about the idea of getting a place closer to work. It also sounds like she's incredibly immature. Acting like she's fine with the idea, and then blowing up at you suggests that she's far too emotionally immature to even know what she feels, to tell you about it calmly, and act on it consistently.

And, lastly, if I ever had a partner who told me I was "too happy" about something (never mind whether or not it had originally been their suggestion), I would consider breaking up with them simply for the reason that they want to police my feelings, even my positive ones.

One of the biggest problems I ever solved with Rider was getting him to realize that it's not right for him to tell me how I "should" feel. And that was about negative feelings; at least I understand the sentiment of wishing that someone didn't feel sad, or angry, or jealous. But if your partner wishes you were less happy, to the point where she will pick a raging fight over it and scold you for it, that just suggests to me that there is a really unhealthy "misery loves company" dynamic happening there, and that she's trying to punish you for telling her something that is your truth, but which also made her uncomfortable, by trying to ensure that you're also perpetually uncomfortable, as well.

No wonder you're having headaches all the time. I think that being in that kind of toxic situation with my nesting partner would put me under a stress that would induce a constant headache in me too.

Having followed your blog pretty closely, sometimes I've felt sorry for The Signal, despite thinking she's in need of help. But what you have described here sounds like emotional abuse to me.

 

[OnceAndFuture]

My wife and I had another long argument last night. She told me that she would never accept me dating someone else and gave me a choice between being mono or leaving her. I have chosen to stay with her and will live my life monogamously.

I don't expect anyone here to understand my decision and I don't think most people here will, given what's happened. I thought that she was coming to terms with me being poly. Just yesterday she talked about how she was on another poly forum and had had many private conversations with other people, both poly and mono. I didn't even realize she was doing that-- honestly I'm not even sure where she found the time to do so-- but it seemed that, although she was still nervous about a number of things, she was still making up her mind on whether she was OK. Last night she made up her mind, and her decision was that she was not ever going to be OK. I had always told her that I would accept any decision that she made. I can't go back on that promise now.

I don't think I should talk about her reasons for making this decision. I understand why she did so. I was a bit taken aback that it happened now. Last night I made it pretty clear that not only wasn't I wanting to be in another relationship, but because of my work issues and my health I wasn't able to be in one. And it seemed that the most recent conversations we'd had about poly were about issues that didn't seem insurmountable, and for which it seemed like we had workable solutions. I guess in my heart maybe I did feel this day would come. I just didn't think it would be today.

I suppose after everything that happened over the last four months I should explain why I decided to stay. The honest truth is that I love her and I just want to stay. I realize that after everything I've talked about, people here might think it's the wrong decision. I admit that life will not be easy for us. She talked last night about how me being poly "reinforced (her) low self-esteem" and how she felt undeserved and unloved. But there is no guarantee if I give that up she will feel any differently. I know she'll never really trust me. I feel this is my fault. I guess I still want to try.

I know that the concern anyone reading this will have is that I am giving up part of my identity. I could say that I lived a long time not recognizing myself as poly, so, having lived without it before I can live without it again. It's also true, I guess, that I haven't really been living much of a poly life anyway these last four months, so I'm not actually giving up a whole lot.

I've told my wife I'm going to be OK with going back. And I want to be. I can't guarantee that, though. I also can't guarantee that my wife will believe me if and when I am OK. Unfortunately, that's the cross I have to bear now. I've made this decision and promise and I'm determined to stick with it.

My mentor John (how I miss him. I miss him so much-- I just need his words of wisdom now so much) used to say to me, "If you can't make it through the day, make it through the next hour. If you can't make it through the next hour, make in through the next five minutes." There's going to be a lot of times in the short term that I'm going to have to concentrate on making it through the next five minutes.

As I alluded to in my last blog post, there is a lot going wrong in my life and it's not going to be easy to fix it all. Honestly, I don't know if I can. I'm going to work with the people I need to, but I can't guarantee success. I can't guarantee I'm going to be OK in the short-term or the medium-term. I'm hoping for the long-term.

My wife and I have agreed not to talk about polyamory or The Star anymore. Given the circumstances, I think that's the best course of action. I think that it would also be wise if I stopped posting here too. I promise, I promise I will come back from time to time just to say I'm OK, that life has gone on.

I didn't want to leave though, without saying a few words to the group of people who I know are out there who are reading this, but might be too scared to post, or struggling with the same issues I did. Part of the reason my wife wanted me to come back here, and part of the reason I started this blog in the first place, was that there aren't that many resources for poly men who are married to mono wives. I want to say you're not alone. Things may not work out the way you planned, but you're not alone. As my wife has found out, there also aren't many resources for mono people who find that in the end they cannot come to terms with their life partner identifying as poly. And lastly, there don't seem to be many resources for those who identify as poly who feel they have to renounce their identity. Maybe that is my next step.

I'm going to miss everyone here. There is a vibrancy and real sense of community here. I was only here four months, but I feel like I really knew the people here, and I made friends.

I wish you all happiness in what ever relationship and adventure you decide to pursue. I will miss you all.

 

[Leetah]

You will be missed here. Good luck. May you both find happiness!

Leetah

 

[WhatHappened]

I don't expect anyone here to understand my decision and I don't think most people here will, given what's happened.

I understand it and think you have made the right decision. It has seemed pretty clear from the start that the Signal has been trying to find a way to accept and live with this, and can't. I think she's been treated very harshly for that, here, and unjustly accused of a number of character flaws. She tried, and ought to be given credit for that.

It sounds like life is complicated enough, and even for your own sake, adding in more relationships would only make things more stressful.

 

[OnceAndFuture]

I understand it and think you have made the right decision. It has seemed pretty clear from the start that the Signal has been trying to find a way to accept and live with this, and can't. I think she's been treated very harshly for that, here, and unjustly accused of a number of character flaws. She tried, and ought to be given credit for that.

I should really address this before I say anything else. I agree with a lot of what you say. Yes, The Signal has tried her best to find a way to live with me being poly, and hasn't been able to. I did think that was a possibility all along, although I was a bit more optimistic than I might otherwise have been, considering we'd been down that road before and she has often said she was OK with it then, or at least wanted to be OK with it. And I do think she's been treated harshly at times here. I think a lot of mono women would have just picked up the phone and called a divorce attorney. I know my ex would have. The Signal deserves a lot of credit for even considering it.

Having said that, I don't think this is the end of the story. The Signal actually asked me if I wanted to come back to blog here, and encouraged me to do so when I said I wasn't comfortable with it. It feels strange to be encouraged to post on "polyamory.com" by someone who says she's never going to be comfortable with me embracing polyamory. But on the other hand, I suppose I still have a lot to say on the subject and not many places to say it.

So I guess I'm back, for now.

 

[OnceAndFuture]

An update written with the help of Gord Downie (part 1)

”No dress rehearsal—this is our life.” -- The Tragically Hip, “Ahead by a Century”

Somehow, although I’ve posted lyrics by a ton of Canadian bands (Sloan, The Super Friendz, The Heavy Blinkers, The Joel Plaskett Emergency, and The Weakerthans are the ones I can think of) I haven’t prefaced anything by The Tragically Hip. The Hip occupy a unique space: they’re pretty much Canada’s rock band, but they’re almost unknown outside of Canada. OK, maybe they’re known in border towns like mine, where you can listen to radio stations which play a Tragically Hip song every couple of hours. Otherwise…I think they were on Saturday Night Live once about 20 years ago and that’s about it.

Recently, The Tragically Hip’s singer, songwriter, and leader Gord Downie was diagnosed with incurable brain cancer, at the young age of 52. Downie and his band reacted to this in just the way you’d expect, if you know anything about them: they announced their next tour. Gord Downie is literally dying, and his response was to just keep on doing what he’s been doing for the last 30 years.

This news really put my migraines in perspective. I’m not dying of migraine. They’re painful, but eventually, after a couple days, I’m somewhat back to normal. The migraines have been a quality of life issue, not an end of life issue.

For a while after the nerve block I was OK, then about two weeks later came a three-day migraine. The MRI couldn’t come soon enough. I had three more days of migraines that week, and it slowed me down a lot. Then I had a particularly horrific one yesterday, though I was still able to drag myself to work and back.

But the MRI didn’t find anything wrong, and neither did the pituitary test I had. The only thing the blood test pulled up was that I had low testosterone and that it needed to be fixed. So I will get to have an implant that should last six months. I’m hoping for results, not only with the migraine but also... uh, other issues.

The same week I should be able to get the Botox injections. I am curious to see how these two treatments change my personality. The Botox will change the way I express emotions through facial expressions, and the testosterone will change a lot of other things.

Honestly, my fear is that nothing will work, and I'll go back to having disabling migraines four or five times a week. The pain I can take. It’s the inability to think clearly or to be able to do anything fun that I can’t take. So I’m crossing my fingers now. I just would like to feel all right most days. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.

”Then the dream ends, when the phone rings.
‘You doing all right?’
He said, ‘It’s out there, most days and nights
But only a fool would complain.’” -- The Tragically Hip, “Nautical Disaster”

She was tall and her blonde hair hung in loose curls almost to her shoulders. I met her at my boardgame group, when we were the last two players in a typically chaotic game. I uncharacteristically bought her a drink and we talked for about an hour.

I thought she had a Pittsburgh accent, and I told her that. She laughed and said she was from one of the northern suburbs, and she was impressed when I named some of them.

I don’t know how we got to talking about polyamory. I wasn’t planning on ever talking about it again. But she described herself as “married but looking” and I said I was “married but not looking” and she smiled “…but you went ahead and bought me that drink anyway.” She pulled my buried identity out by its roots.

I told her everything. She told me she wanted to go on a date with me, and let me know where and when I could meet her. I warned her that my wife probably wasn’t going to be OK with that. She put both hands on my shoulders and looked in my blue eyes with hers. “Well really, I don’t care,” she countered, and she kissed me so hard that I felt overwhelmed and fortunate and shaken and guilty.

Of course that didn’t actually happen. It was only a dream, though the sort of dream which is so realistic that you remember it for months. It struck me at first that I was so determined to follow the boundaries that I felt guilty when I broke them, even just in a dream. But then I thought to myself, “What boundaries?” I’m not even supposed to be poly any more. My boundary is supposed to be that I’m mono, end of story.

Then a few days later I had another dream. This one about The Star, and how I got in trouble for buying her a very expensive pair of boots. In my defense, in the dream those boots made her tall enough to be able to kiss me without straining her neck, not that that helped my cause any with The Signal.

Again, I felt very guilty, and I couldn’t even joke about that dream (because she actually did own a pair of boots like that) with The Signal, because we weren’t supposed to be talking about The Star.

The Signal has been a little guilty of it too. We were talking about a store that one of the people I met in the poly group owned, and she had a question “that you could ask him when you see him again.” But…I’m not going to see him again. I’m not going back to that group, ever. Wasn’t that what we agreed on?

So my early attempts at believing myself to be mono haven’t started smoothly. I realized early on that I wasn’t going to be able to bury what I’d spent five years digging up and then be able to pretend it wasn’t there. My counselor asked me, “What would happen if The Signal left you tomorrow?” and I honestly had to say I’d be identifying as poly.

I had to start asking myself, do I even want to start thinking of myself as mono? I mean how could I do that, when The Signal had told me only a few weeks ago, “I know you’re always going to be poly and this isn’t some phase,” and I’d agreed to that? This wasn’t like taking off my infinity heart necklace and putting it in the drawer. The Signal could tell me to not wear it, and did, but that necklace was just the outward sign of what I felt inwardly, which is not as easy to unclasp.

Forever is a long time, the counselor mused. I’m not taking that to mean he thinks The Signal will someday change her mind. Maybe she will, but I am not living as if she will do so. Maybe, instead, I can someday unlearn identifying as poly. After all, I unlearned identifying as a UK citizen, after having to move back. My English accent disappeared. I slowly forgot about all the cultural touchstones that made my life there so interesting, and I became an American again, after telling myself it would never be home.

Except, I didn’t unlearn. Even after 15 years away, when The Signal and I went back recently, it felt like I’d never left. The Signal even said, “It seems like you’re finally home.” It only took a couple of hours there to feel that way. 15 years melted away, like the last snow of the winter, just that quickly. I did feel like I was home again.

How easy, I wonder, would it be for me to go back on unlearning being poly? I don’t think it would take some blue-eyed blonde from the boardgame group, curling a lock of hair around her finger as she listened to my silly stories, giving me a silly smile because I knew where Gibsonia and Cranberry were, batting her lashes my way over the rim of her glass as she sipped the drink I bought her. I wouldn’t call myself fearful of being tempted. I have resisted before. Perhaps the fear is that one day I will not want to resist.

I guess this is my long-winded way of saying I’m not sure I can do what I’ve promised to do.

 

[OnceAndFuture]

An update written with the help of Gord Downie (part 2)

”…I saw the constellations
Reveal themselves one star at a time.” -- The Tragically Hip, “Bobcaygeon”

“Bobcaygeon” tells the story of how the narrator leaves his lover, and the small town she lives in, to find work and what he thinks might be a better life somewhere else. But as he drives away and watches the sky go dark, he remembers what he is giving up, and he thinks about quitting… But is he quitting his job or her? Clarity comes to him while he’s at a concert, and the end of the story sees him returning to the small town, arriving at her house the next morning.

After our big fight, my counselor laid out the choices I had. Either I could bag everything—marriage, job, family, everything—or I could try to make everything work. I admitted that it could be possible that I could be happy someday if I left everything behind. And, if I stayed I wasn’t certain that I’d be happy in the short term. Maybe not even in the medium term. Maybe in the long term.

He asked me if I’d felt I had done everything I could to make things work. I didn’t think I had. Then, he thought, I’d probably not be able to forgive myself if I walked away now. He was right. I agreed then that I would do everything I could to stay, and that I would put everything I could into making things work between The Signal and me. The choice was between all-in or all-out, and it didn’t feel like a difficult decision. We would spend the evenings talking to each other and putting things right.

And, for a while, things were very good between us. I supported her through her race and her injuries around it, and she was genuinely grateful. She said she felt loved again.

Things at my job have not gone well. That’s putting it mildly, really. The travel and my health haven’t helped, but truthfully I don’t think I have done a good job. My boss and her boss thought so too, unfortunately. They told me that they either wanted me to accept a demotion, or work significantly more hours to get things done— on the order of 60-70 hours a week.

That obviously put me in a tough spot. I don’t want the demotion, and I couldn’t keep commuting 15 hours a week on top of 60-70 hours working. So now, getting a place to live closer to work became a necessity, rather than something desirable.

I tried staying up near work two nights during the short week, which then became three after yet another project was thrown my way. I felt desperately lonely when I was sitting in the cheap motel room three nights in a row. It was a freedom I didn’t want, but more importantly, it meant my wife and I weren’t having the conversations, spoken and unspoken, we needed to have.

A couple of weeks ago my counselor asked me about ways I could make my life happier. And I thought to myself that, difficult a time as my wife and I had had, maybe rebuilding our marriage could be something that would make me happy. Most of the other things in my life, especially my job, weren’t cutting it. In January, when I admitted to my wife that I was poly, I was unhappy with my job, had no friends, and wasn’t doing anything I enjoyed. And now... I’m still unhappy with my job, and I'm not doing much I enjoy right now, and I’m back in the closet about being poly. That doesn’t feel like progress.

On the other hand, The Signal and I still have each other. I realize that could have turned out so differently. In the two weeks since I talked to my counselor, she and I have done quite well together. We’ve gotten out of the house more, and we’ve honestly enjoyed our time with each other.

I’ve made friends, and that has been an honest joy in my life. I wouldn’t say I have a lot of close friends at boardgame group, but there are a lot of people who I look forward to seeing, and who look forward to seeing me. And I have a friend here, and we’ve supported each other through a lot. It means a lot.

I still have the tricky decision on what to do about my job. Increasingly I’m getting pissed off that when I’m here late, I’m the only one here, and that’s caused me for now to not want to get an apartment after all.

On the other hand, I’m realizing that I’m reaching the “Do not give a fuck” stage of things rather early in my career here. When things were bad at my last job, I would tell myself “Every day is closer to your last day here,” as I searched for ways to do nothing all day. I’m not near there at this job. But like “Bobcaygeon”’s narrator, I think about quitting and how good that might feel. It would be good to be in a place where I didn’t have to make the decision between work and my life.

”…An epic too small to be tragic.” – The Tragically Hip, “So Hard Done By”

Sometimes I feel guilty that I think my life is any more important than anyone else’s. I realize my life has taken some interesting turns, but I wonder why others might even want to read what I write. I do ramble when I write here. “Saga” and “epic”, as my ex-wife would remind me, aren’t supposed to be synonyms for “long-winded.”

Identifying as poly seemed to make sense to my life-- as unsubstantial as my life seemed to be, recognizing that I could be in love with more than one person, and that was all right to feel that, explained so much to me. Perhaps through polyamory I could have affected someone else’s life through my love. Or perhaps someone else’s love could have affected my life. For the last two months of that, I didn’t have any real intention of even trying to find anyone else to love, maybe ever. But knowing that if it happened again in my life, that this time I would be ready, and that I could handle it—somehow that was comforting.

My inability to identify as poly anymore is not a tragedy, as tragedies go. Nobody died, no relationships (crossing fingers) were irrevocably broken. And if I’m to believe The Signal, nobody truly got hurt.

Really, all I lost was my identity, but that too is important. When I talked to her about being poly, she often said that “a weight was off of my shoulders.” Now I feel like it’s back. And she knows that, too. Part of me knows that, deep down, I’m just not going to be totally able to shake off identifying as poly. I wonder whether it is fair to me, or The Signal, to go around pretending otherwise.

The Signal and I had agreed that we weren’t going to talk about polyamory or The Star anymore. That agreement totally fell apart from the beginning. It feels like both of them are like the weather— conversation fillers that come up when we can’t find anything else to talk about. With The Signal it’s a lot more pervasive: she is talking about The Star on a regular basis now. Perhaps I should ask her why. I’ve tried to keep quiet about both of them. But The Signal keeps coming back to talking about them, really, without thinking about it. And I have to admit that I haven’t been good about steering the conversation away, as I probably should for the time being. Sometimes it feels that her distaste about polyamory has strengthened, as I would have expected. But at other times it feels like she’s almost forgotten that she’s told me that she never wants me to be poly again, and that she didn’t want to talk about it.

I guess there’s something else that’s been bothering me lately. A few months ago, when I was identifying as poly and things seemed good between us, The Signal and I were having… well, really awesome sex. For most of our marriage that has been good, but it was really spectacular then. The Signal said that “out of the ten best times she could think of” between the two of us, six or seven of them were during that period. And, when we were dating The Star, sex life between the two of us was equally great. Yes, both times there were very strong emotional ups and downs, but the fact is that it was great then, and simply not nearly as good now.

The Signal has tried to pin this on me, saying I’m more aroused when I’m thinking about sex with someone else, or when I’m more comfortable with myself. The latter part of that is definitely true, the former part— well, somewhat less true. But truthfully, I think she’s the one who’s more aroused by thinking about me with someone else. She’s often stated that her biggest turn-on ever was watching me with The Star.

Since we stopped talking openly about poly, or fantasizing about other people, she just has not been as aroused as she used to be. The other night when we were struggling again I casually mentioned one of her older fantasies of seeing me at a swingers’ club, and she was aroused again immediately. I’ve been with her long enough to know that it’s her and not me. The truth is, I can be aroused with her just by thinking about her. I don’t think she can be aroused just by thinking about me.

When I’ve talked to her about this she’s been quick to say, “Well, there’s a difference between fantasizing about something and actually doing it,” and that as much as she’s enjoyed thinking about me with other partners outside of bed, she can’t come to terms with it the rest of the time. I understand how she could feel that way, but at the same time, I feel things are unbalanced. She can’t stop thinking or talking about The Star or poly or swinging, but at the same time, I’m not supposed to be doing the same, because that might lead me to want something she feels uncomfortable with me wanting. It feels like I’m constantly being reminded of what I’m trying to block out of my existence.

So while things are comfortable between The Signal and me, it feels like the comfortability of a peaceful stalemate. There are times when she seems ready to start an argument, then pulls back. It feels like our ship is sailing in suspiciously calm waters. I don’t know what the next days will bring, but it does feel like our story is about to change.

 

[Atlantis]

but I wonder why others might even want to read what I write.

Because you write from the heart.

I get migraines too, the ones that last for days, and my brother gets them badly too. I think there is a hereditary factor. I may try the Botox, but am about to change to a crappy health plan. I am interested to see if it is successful for you.

 

[OnceAndFuture]

Because you write from the heart.

My wife often says I should carry a sign reading "Warning: carries his heart on his sleeve." It feels like a blessing and a curse at the same time. I do get hurt more easily, I think.

I get migraines too, the ones that last for days, and my brother gets them badly too. I think there is a hereditary factor. I may try the Botox, but am about to change to a crappy health plan. I am interested to see if it is successful for you.

I think they are hereditary too. My mother got them. I've had four in the last five days. I can only describe today's migraine as "horrific." These ones are a little beyond what I have experienced before.

My health plan took months to approve the Botox. I guess that's how healthcare is here now. I'm looking forward to Monday a lot. Honestly, if that and the testosterone don't work, I'm at a loss to figure out what will. So, fingers and everything else crossed.

 

[OnceAndFuture]

”Lazy man who can’t find his words all caught up inside his head
He is there with you…” – Olivia Tremor Control, “Jumping Fences”

So The Actress decided some time ago that she was going to spend her summer vacation in the Caribbean. Well, don’t we all want to do that? But her vacation is going to consist of accompanying her grandfather while he sails around on his fishing boat. For six weeks. That was the plan anyway. Now there is a “problem with the boat” and the six-week vacation might be a three-week vacation, unless the boat can be fixed. Don’t they have duct tape in the Caribbean?

Either way, this is going to be the longest time The Signal and I have been alone since we first met. We’re both excited, but there’s also a little bit of apprehension. Sometimes in the past, when the kids have been away, we’ve put pressure on ourselves to have fun, and that’s led to arguments and fighting. We’re conscious of this, and we’ve been trying to not force ourselves to have fun, especially as we know it’s been a difficult time for both of us lately.

On the other hand, life has been slowly getting better for us. The Signal has been talking more about how she feels loved by me. It is very nice to hear. I’ve started to see other changes in her, as well. She got a picture back from one of her races, and made a remark about how good she looked in it. I don’t think I’ve heard her say anything like that in 12 years. And she’s agreed to be in a local TV commercial. She will only be in the background with a bunch of friends, but I know that in the past she wouldn’t have wanted to be seen in anything like that.

She’s said that she’s feeling better about herself, and about us. In a way, I guess I am a little surprised that she has been positively affected by my choice to be with her. I don’t know if her positive attitude will last, or whether she is making an effort to be positive to reinforce my choice. Right now, I’m just happy that she is feeling this way.

At the same time, she has offered a little bit of concern about me and where I am. When she asked me about how I felt about my decision, I said I was fine. But she said she was “worried.” She feels that she’s gotten what she’s wanted, but I’ve gotten nothing out of it. I say to her that what I’ve gotten is our relationship, which I wanted to keep, and that she is happy, which I also wanted. At the same time, she is concerned that it took me so long to come to a conclusion that I was poly, and now I have been asked to abandon that.

My counselor had the same concerns. I asked him during our last session how I could unlearn to identify as poly, and he said that he didn’t really think I could. He felt there wasn’t really a script for how one could change one’s identity, especially when someone had come to that identity after a long period of reflection. He also felt that the language I was using to describe how I was feeling after my decision didn’t reflect that I was doing well: that I was answering “How do you feel about what you’ve decided to do?” with, “Well, The Signal is doing really well and I’m happy for her.” The counselor wondered whether it would be possible for me to retain my identity of being poly, but to not be with anyone else. I said that The Signal hadn’t wanted that, but it was something I could talk to her about.

For a while, the words were caught up inside my head. Last night I was able to finally talk to The Signal about it. She agreed that it might take a while for me not to think of myself as poly (I didn’t want to say that I might never be able to not think that but I let that go), and that over the last month she’d seen that I was devoted to her and had demonstrated a lot of love. If I’d still been thinking that I was poly over that time, but had felt that way about her… perhaps, she said, I could continue to do so. We left the conversation at that. Even if we only have three weeks to ourselves, we’ll still have a lot of time to talk. Just like not forcing ourselves to have fun, we’re aware that there’s no point in trying to force ourselves to talk things out. We can let the conversation happen.

Maybe things have reached a state of calm, for now, after so many months of fighting. I’d like to be able to enjoy that calm, for now, and I’m sure The Signal does too. But… I still feel the weight on me. I’m not sure that being able to “identify as poly, but to not actually be poly” really means anything.

I think I will leave it at that. For now.

 

[Leetah]

At least it could mean you would not have to pretend or lie about this aspect of yourself, at least not to The Signal and yourself, as I don't see her being ok with you talking about it generally, or hanging out with members of the poly community.

Leetah

 

[OnceAndFuture]

It's now been almost two weeks since the Botox treatment and-- mirable dilictu-- no migraines at all during that time period. Obviously I am grateful and relieved. But being able to wake up and for the first time in a while know that I'm not going to be in pain for the entire day has brought up other emotions. First and foremost, I feel like I want to start standing up for myself more, because I just couldn't do that when I was in so much pain. And secondly, I want to start feeling like I can have a meaningful, enjoyable life. I haven't had a lot of that recently.

I had a talk with The Signal about being able to identify as poly, without acting out on that identification. At first she was amicable to that, even if she wasn't sure what difference that would make to me. Then, when we were on our way back from our short vacation, she got into another dark mood and stopped talking to me.

She admitted after a few hours that she was feeling nervous that I would leave her for someone else, and eventually also admitted that she was feeling that way because of my poly identification-- even though I'd said I wouldn't be acting on it, she wasn't able to wrap her head around the idea of me identifying with something I didn't want to actively do. She realized, she said, this was unfair to me, but that there wasn't anything she could do about it.

So once again we agreed not to talk about poly, not to talk about The Star.

Of course, that agreement barely lasted until the next morning.

The counselor thought that, as bad a step backwards as that was for me, this was in some respects a step forward for The Signal, who was at least able to now admit exactly what it was that scared her about me being, acting, or identifying as poly. We had a long chat about that, and it was good to unburden, but we both realized that without The Signal being involved in our conversation we weren't going to get very far. It seemed, he thought, she wanted to talk, and that she was starting to understand that she was asking a lot of me to not even be able to identify as poly.

That is more important than I thought. It seems ironic now, that for a long time I didn't think of polyamory as a kind of orientation, but the last few weeks have changed my mind. It seems perfectly understandable to me that I could love someone else, yet still love The Signal in the same way. But to The Signal this concept is impossible to understand. If I could say to The Signal, "Well, we just have to agree to disagree on that concept," that could solve a lot. But she doesn't want me to disagree on it. The fact that I believe that I could love her and someone else is uncomfortable and dangerous to her.

Last weekend, The Signal and I tried out some of the gin I'd bought on a distillery tour, and got quite hammered. At some point she said to me, "I'm too drunk to remember anything you tell me, so go ahead and tell me anything you want." I decided to turn that around on her and asked her if there was anything she wanted to tell me. She said, after some hemming and hawing, "I'm OK with you having friends with benefits, as long as you tell me in advance, and if you don't fall in love with her."

Now, she's always said she was OK with me having sex with other women, just as long as I didn't have any kind of relationship with them. However, when I ask for details of how that could be done, she usually changes her mind quickly. So, saying FWBs were is OK was a big change. Knowing that she'd been drinking, I kind of laughed it off. But the next day, after she'd sobered up, she came back with the same comments. I asked her what had changed her mind and she claimed she'd always felt that way. I knew that wasn't true, but I didn't feel like challenging her.

After nearly six months of arguing over things like this, I realize that she doesn't actually believe she'd be OK with me having an FWB. I asked her point blank, "So, if I met someone at, say, board game group, and I said to you afterwards, 'I've met so-and-so and we've hit it off and we'd like to know whether it would be OK for us to go back to my hotel room sometime,' you'd really be OK with that?" Her answer bounced wildly between "yes" and "no."

The counselor and the friend I have here felt exactly the same way. They both pointed out that she'd been "OK" with me being poly, writing to Evie, etc., and then gone back on those things. I guess the bigger question is why she'd offer something to me that she wasn't actually OK with (and that I wasn't asking for in the first place). The counselor felt I shouldn't be worrying about that-- that she'd eventually be able to come out with an answer to why she'd offered it, just as she'd eventually been able to explain why she wasn't OK with me identifying as poly. On the other hand, the counselor felt maybe this was her attempt at offering a compromise, after she'd felt unable to compromise in any other way. Maybe The Signal is trying to feel out what she's OK with offering, and what compromise I might actually want to have.

To be honest, I'm not sure what I want at this point. I'll admit that the idea of having an FWB sounds tempting, if nothing else, from a hedonistic point of view. I've never had a relationship that quite fell into that category--although, I think our lexicon for relationships isn't very good in general, and that no phrase would adequately describe any of the non-escalator relationships I've been in. It would be hard for me, given who I am, to not fall for a future friend-with-benefits. Then again, I've rather fallen for a couple of my previous friends-without-benefits and we negotiated those issues when they came up. I mean, that's what we do with life-- we negotiate things when they come up. Maybe then I'd be OK with it, if I knew The Signal were OK with it. Which, of course, I wouldn't.

And so... that leaves The Signal and me back at square one. We know some of the things we want and need, that we're both OK with, but there's a large middle ground of, "Things we may want, may need, may be OK with, but we're still working through."

I was asked, "As long as you're both happy with that situation, why not just accept where you are and move on?" But I'm not convinced she's happy with where we are, and I feel unless I agree to re-closet myself about poly, and spend most of my time emotionally supporting her, she'll stop putting up her facade of being happy.

It seems we have come a long way, but still have a long way to go.

 

[GirlFromTexlahoma]

The counselor and the friend I have here felt exactly the same way. They both pointed out that she'd been "OK" with me being poly, writing to Evie, etc., and then gone back on those things. I guess the bigger question is why she'd offer something to me that she wasn't actually OK with (and that I wasn't asking for in the first place).

I'm in a cynical mood today, so take this with a grain of salt...

I think The Signal offers stuff you aren't asking for BECAUSE you aren't asking for it. As in, she thinks she can agree to something, and get "credit" for compromising, without any worries that it will actually happen. And then when you DO take her up on it, she freaks out and backtracks and admits she was never really okay with it.

When you first started talking about poly again, she thought it was purely theoretical, and then when you joined here and really got excited, she panicked. When you talked to Evie, she probably thought it wouldn't go anywhere, but when it did, another freak out. And now she's offering an "FWB, but no falling in love," because she assumes you have no interest in that. If you find a woman who's up for that, I predict yet another meltdown.

I know I'm raining on your parade here, But I REALLY don't want to see you hurt again, or see you further damage your marriage while you're still committed to it. The Signal still seems miles and miles from being okay with the reality of poly, or even some other kind of non-monogamy.

Oh and-- YAY about the Botox!!! Did they do the shots in your forehead, so you get to be pain-free and wrinkle-free in one step?

 

[Evie]

She admitted after a few hours that she was feeling nervous that I would leave her for someone else...

Here's a perspective.

Some of us (women who date married men) don't want you to leave your (married men in general) wives. In fact, some of us would rather fall of the face of the earth rather than bust up a marriage to live "happily ever after" with said husband.

Those women, such as me and I'm sure quite a few others, are quite content to have loving, potentially sexual, relationships with men who are already married/in primary relationships AND conduct that relationship *without* wanting to share finances, daily chores, child-rearing or life plans.

Personally, these days I have my own husband with whom to do those things (sans child rearing, thank god/good contraception/possibly infertility) and I don't want another one thank you very much. I actually find it rather insulting to my marriage that your wife thinks that my husband means so little to me that I want her husband full time. But this does seem to be a default setting with a lot of women, so it's not personal from my perspective. And I'm sure there's a sociological study in that...

And okay, so no-one can actually predict the future, and one day you might want to leave... But perhaps if you put it out there when you are 'dating' that *You Will Never Leave Your Wife* you will be much more likely to find compatibility from *Those Who Don't Want You To*.

......

On Trust

......

When I was an early teen and starting to make friendships outside of school or other environments where friends could easily be vetted by parents, my mum repeatedly said to me, "it's not you I don't trust, it's other people." And my constant retort was, "which is actually you not trusting me to pick good people to be around." Which considering she had raised me for 13 years and known how normal my existing friends were, was a bit ridiculous to me.

Yes, there could be a ton of further arguments added to this past mum-and-me dialogue, but the bottom line was I felt that she didn't trust *me* not them. And that caused resentment from me. It was a broken record argument. And I kept making new friends anyway. On the rare occasion I met people, then something felt awry, I stopped seeing those people and the friendship ended. You also have that choice without needing The Signal to do your vetting for you.

So, perhaps you could discuss with the Signal how you can be trusted to find "new friends" who aren't going to mess with your marriage by indulging or encouraging you in any "want to leave" conversations. And that you can also quickly step back from any friendships you make that don't sit well with You.

Finally, I'm not unique, there will be other women out there who don't want to steal you away from The Signal, but just enjoy your time but give you back hale and hearty and possibly with a new trick up your sleeve.

Kia kaha
Evie

 

[Reverie]

But perhaps if you put it out there when you are 'dating' that *You Will Never Leave Your Wife* you will be much more likely to find compatibility from *Those Who Don't Want You To*.

......

So, perhaps you could discuss with the Signal how you can be trusted to find "new friends" who aren't going to mess with your marriage by indulging or encouraging you in any "want to leave" conversations. And that you can also quickly step back from any friendships you make that don't sit well with You.

All this was actually the thing that I realized at the end of my most recent struggles, a couple of months back now: I didn't trust Rider to choose drama-free, truly poly-friendly people wisely, and I had reasons for this, based on the past. I shouldn't let the past rule the present, but he wasn't being as up-front with people he was meeting as he should have been, about being poly and having a fiancée that he didn't want to leave, which, as my best friend pointed out, was bait-and-switch behavior on his part.

After we had some conversations about what information he needed to disclose before things took a turn toward date-like, and what sorts of things might be red-flaggy behaviors in other people (since he doesn't seem to spot them well on his own), I felt like I could finally trust him to make good decisions in that arena—where "good" means "likely to elicit an outcome in line with what we have said that we both want." "Good" at picking good POLY partners, not just good at charming any person with whom he finds mutual attraction.

There is a big difference between "I trust you not to purposely hurt me," and, "I trust that you have the skills necessary to avoid hurting me." I didn't stop struggling until both were aligned.

 

[OnceAndFuture]

Part one of two

"Tell yourself: 'Nothing's happened'." -- Pernice Brothers, "All I Know"

For the purposes of this post I'll follow Joe Pernice's advice, and I'm going to answer Girl From Texlahoma's, Evie's, and Reverie's posts as if nothing happened between Sunday and today. I mean something obviously did, but for the moment I'm going to try to ignore that.

Before I say anything else: the Botox is still working fantastically. I didn't really lose many wrinkles, only a few at the corners of my eyes. Luckily I didn't have many to lose. I'm still confident of headache-free days, even though some of my follow-up medication was rejected by my insurance company (the bane of American medicine).

So, about The Signal offering a compromise I didn't ask for, I suppose it's possible that she was offering compromise for the sake of compromise. And I think you're absolutely right that if I'd immediately taken her up on the idea of having an FWB, she would have changed her mind pretty quickly. I still think she offered the idea of a FWB as a bit of a test. "Well,m you say you've devoted yourself to me now, so let's prove it by offering something close to what you said you wanted with regards to being with other women, and see whether you go for it, or not." I'm not sure at this point there's much more to read into it. (There is, but that's for the next post.)

I have a lot of understanding for The Signal's oft-stated view that "polyamorous women are out to steal husbands." Not because it's true (felt I had to bold that) but because that's, sadly, been her personal experience. The Star was trying to chisel away at our marriage, and after the three of us split she wrote a long, sorrowful message on another poly site admitting that she'd been trying to replace The Signal as my primary... and also that six months on, she still couldn't stop thinking about me, which was just as awkward as the cowgirling confession, to me.

The Signal really has had only one other real-life poly friend, and that friend quite matter-of-factly told The Signal that her intent in entering her first triad was to steal away her metamour's husband. So two poly women, two would-be husband thieves. The Signal is the sort of person that first (and second) impressions mean a lot to. It would be hard for me to say to her, "Well, here are several women on this message board who are not out to destroy their partners' marriages," and have it make any real impact. And as The Signal doesn't want to talk to other poly people in person (she may be still lurking on other boards, I don't know), I'm afraid her first impression won't be supplanted any time soon. And I'm afraid anybody telling her otherwise at this point would backfire.

I should also point out that The Signal has a pretty low opinion of the strength of primary relationships among poly partners of the other gender. I guess that this, again, was from first impressions. The Star and The Silent had a relationship as resilient as a wet paper towel. And again, I could point out that there are several poly women out there (like, I dunno, say, Girl From Texlahoma, Evie, or Reverie) who are in pretty strong primary relationships and who aren't planning to wreck them in the foreseeable future. But I don't know what good that would do either.

I agree that trust is a two-way street. It's clear to me that The Signal-- if she were willing to let me choose a partner-- would have a hard time trusting that I'd be able to pick a trustworthy partner (which, I should emphasize, should be defined by her ideas about trustworthiness, not mine). But I don't think she actually trusted me in the first place, anyway. She wouldn't have trusted me to pick someone to make the right choices, but she also didn't trust me to know what the right choices were. She didn't trust that I wasn't out to purposely hurt her, OR that I could prevent her from being hurt, even if I didn't want that. Not that she does now, either, but then, it was more a practical than a theoretical concern.

I don't want any of you to think your concerns aren't helpful. I mean, I'm understanding what's going on. I mean... I'll explain later.

I kind of promised myself I'd write part two tonight, but I'm physically, mentally, and emotionally drained. I think it would be better to wait until the morning. Between now and then, I am hoping for the longest sleep I've had since Sunday. Two hours would do it.

 

[OnceAndFuture]

Sleep is a pretty good thing. I always feel like I could sleep more.

So, Monday night, I decided to talk to The Signal about her FWB offer. We'd already decided to table it. I'd sensed that she didn't really want to offer it, and I didn't feel comfortable with it, either. I'd devoted myself to her, so why would I now be going off with someone else? That didn't seem fair to either of us. What I really wanted to know was why she was offering that now, since it seemed so out of character for her. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have asked about it, and just said that while I appreciated her offer, I simply didn't want it, and we should put it aside.

For some reason, my asking about it sparked something very angry inside her. She said that she'd been thinking about it more and decided that she didn't want to make the offer after all-- the reason being that she couldn't trust me to stay as a FWB with a partner. I agreed that was a valid concern.

But she then started tying it to more general lack-of-trust issues she had with me.

She thought I might still be trying to find a partner, and that if I did, I would fall for them immediately. (It's a moot point, because I'm not looking for a partner, and my only history of falling for someone immediately was with The Signal, which I've told her many times. But she doesn't want to hear this, mainly because she doesn't think anyone could fall for her.) She started getting aggressive about that point, saying that once I started talking about poly she said she "Couldn't trust me farther than she could throw me" anymore.

She started talking again about how I'd been "lying to her for five years" about being poly, and that if I'd had five years to think about it, then she should be allowed to have five years to come up with an answer... which was going to be that I turn away from all things poly, or leave anyway, so I wasn't to get my hopes up. She said a few strange things on that subject, including that I was "risking giving her an STD" by thinking about poly. I guess what she was getting at was if I thought about polyamory, I might be tempted to go off somewhere and have unprotected sex. I think it speaks again to the lack of trust she now has with me.

Finally, she said to me, "I don't know if you've had an affair. You might be having an affair right now, in fact, that I don't know about."

I really stood my ground against this last point. I have never cheated on her, in our 12 years together. In fact, I've never cheated on anyone. After my ex cheated on me, and left me for the man she was having an affair with, I vowed that I wouldn't do that to anyone else. I have had chances to do that, and I have turned them down without thinking twice.

She said that now that I'd identified as poly before, even though I had agreed not to now, that I had to be looking for someone else, and probably had already found someone. I asked her how that would be possible, considering I was spending nearly every hour I wasn't at work or traveling to and from work with her, to the point that we weren't even spending much time in separate rooms of our house. She said "Well, maybe you are having an online affair." She admitted she had zero proof of said affair, but "my identification" suggested I was having one.

I'm a bit lost now. Since that argument, she's admitted that she said some "mean things" to me, but still isn't backing down on the semi-accusation that I'm having an affair. She even used the argument that, "You could say I was having an affair you didn't know about." Of course, I've never accused her of anything like this, because I trust her. But she doesn't trust me now. She doesn't trust that I've chosen her over poly, and she doesn't trust polyamory in general. And I'm quickly running out of ways to earn her trust.

While this was going on, I had some setbacks at work. I don't want to go into that in detail, but between that, and what was going on at home, I had a bit of a nervous breakdown on Wednesday. I was able to call my counselor and got to see him on short notice yesterday. He recommended a leave of absence from work. The Signal agreed, and also suggested that I spend some time away from home too. (I think she's feeling a little responsible for it all.) I'm going to work this out over the next few days.

The idea for me to go away is that I try to figure out what my next steps in life are. Right now, I'm thinking my next move is to find work closer to home. That would hurt my career, and it would also take me away from the local board game group where I'm feeling so welcomed. But it would also cut 15 hours a week of commute time, and the fatigue and fear or accidents that come with it. Work isn’t going that great here anyway. Maybe I could spend some of those 15 hours on myself, which would be nice, as I don’t have time to myself much. But most of all, maybe being closer to home would demonstrate that I was putting The Signal ahead of anything I wanted for myself. Maybe that could regain her trust. If I don’t at least try, I won’t feel I’ve done everything I could.

But I suppose, too, maybe some time away would give me an opportunity to rebuild my spirit. There are times now when I feel like Job, railing against polyamory. Since I came here in January, it seems so much has gone wrong. Maybe the idea that I’d be able to pursue someone else was never on the cards. But now I feel like I can’t even be honest about who I am.

I’ve lost my wife’s trust. I could lose my job and my career in an effort to regain her trust— an effort which, as my counselor suggested, could well be in vain. There’s no guarantee that our marriage won’t end, not when her trust in me is so low. And what, I ask of polyamory, as Job asked of his sadistic Old Testament god, have you done for me?

I have found a great friend and some good advice in this place, so polyamory.com has helped, but from polyamory itself… I hoped that being honest about who I was and how I felt about love would strengthen the relationship between The Signal and me, that it meant I wouldn’t be hiding things from her anymore. Instead, it played upon her worst fears about not being enough for me, and that I was actually just sitting and waiting for a better offer to come along. Now we’re both miserable, untrusting of each other, and broken, without much of an end in sight.

I realize that others here have been going through difficult times. I haven’t been the best at supporting everyone else. And I guess I’m not even asking for support at this time. Perhaps what I am hoping for is some kind of direction forward, like when I am hiking, and feel lost, and the forest closes in on me, but then I see a trail marker ahead, and know the next step to take.

I wish I had that kind of relief.

 

[PinkPig]

I'm sorry, OnceAndFuture. It seems you're at a crossroads in multiple areas of your life. That can be painful and very scary. I say this gently, but it's not polyamory, not either your desire for other relationships, or your identification as poly, that's causing your wife's distress and mistrust of you. She had a static vision of you, and she's unwilling to accept anything other than that vision. Your wife is responsible for her own unhappiness, and if she's unwilling to do anything to change that, then there's no amount of giving of yourself that will bring her happiness and stability. She has to seek that for herself. All she's doing right now is dragging you under with her.

Sometimes loving someone really isn't enough.

Take care of yourself and be well. You deserve it!!

 

[opalescent]

This is a very difficult situation. I'm also sorry to tell you, you have not lost The Signal's trust, as that wasn't something you had to lose. It seems like she fundamentally trusts no one, most especially herself, and so does not trust you despite your honesty, sincerity and actual trustworthiness. I'm sorry she's caught in her own trap - it's not one you can help her out of.