I was going to blurb briefly about the woman I'm chatting with from OKC (chatting intermittently, I really like her but I'm having second thoughts about my ability to have a relationship, and I feel like I'm messaging her first all the time which isn't a good sign in my mind), but I'm going to go ahead and get side-tracked.
I think you have every reason to be upset with Guitarist. I don't think any adult is entitled to be fully supported--especially for years on end--to pursue their dream. He's had a year or more to work full time at it.
This is coming from someone who makes a living in the arts, largely independently. You absolutely CAN create income in less than a year from music and creating art. I know because I do it.
At this stage, I don't see where he has any incentive to actually make anything happen. Wanting to eat is a powerful motivator to creating income.
Thanks, I do get upset at him from time to time when it feels like he isn't pulling his end of our agreement. But like everything else, it was an agreement. I not only agreed but actively encouraged him to work on this, and as long as it feels like he's actually working on it (which he has been lately), and helping keep up with the housework, I'm pretty content with the situation.
He has incentives to make things happen. He's quite ambitious with his music, which is something that always attracted me to him, and I'm also not going to pay his student loans. Even he has said that pressure tends to push him to actually get things done, and he has been feeling pressure lately, and not from me. Just from the way the world is right now. So there are both personal and financial incentives. Since this is mostly a vent space, the positives of our relationship and arrangement might not come off as much as the negative, but they very much exist.
I won't even bring up how he financially and emotionally supported me when I was studying for the bar exam.
Anyway, he's not taking advantage of me. This was a decision we arrived at together, and occasionally re-negotiate together.
As to Pixie, I hope you'll consider things from her perspective. You go home to Guitarist. You have some form of someone always there, someone you feel you can rely on to always be there, for the long haul. She had Quiet and it sounded like it was a good thing for her and the monkeys, and if I understand correctly, it ended largely so she could remain poly and not disappoint or lose you or the couple.
Result: she's largely alone again, with two small children.
My XBF did a lot wrong, in the end. One thing he did right was always SAYING he recognized that he needed to let me go to find someone who would always be there for me as his wife is (supposedly--but that's a different story) always there for him. On the flip side, he discouraged me from pursuing everyone I dated, always finding fault with them, and I realized that despite saying the right things, he preferred to keep me otherwise alone so that I would always be there for him. This isn't true love. He was hindering what was best for me, for his own sake.
This kind of feels like ancient history at this point, but... you are mistaken regarding why their relationship initially ended. She didn't end it, he ended it because he supposedly couldn't deal with her polyamorous identity. The problems to me with them getting back together were two-fold. The first was that the way she did it felt deceptive and less than above-board, which did a number on my trust, but mostly the fact that she knew it would hurt me but did it anyway.
The second thing is that Purr is a floppy hinge, and always has been, but at that particular time I was not mentally well enough to handle the relationship bleed from what I knew would (again) be a tumultuous relationship. Everything about all of her other relationships spilled over into my relationship constantly, which was typically a struggle for me, but I could handle it, and she really did TRY to keep things contained. But her entire relationship with Quiet after the first month was negative after negative, and it pulled me way down. And then when he ended their relationship, she was disconsolate for months, and there was nothing I could do to help, which pulled me down further. It was one brick on the pile of things that were smothering me, but it was a pretty hefty brick. And at the point she decided to get back together with him, I was seriously struggling, and still am struggling, to get my own mental health back on track. I couldn't deal with her pulling me up and down with her.
So there you have it.
I feel like you are implying that I would not have been happy with her having any primary relationship, period. If that's your assumption, it's wrong. I did frequently consider things from her perspective in that way, and I did and do want her to be able to have a live-in primary if she wanted it. If you go back and read my blog, you'll see that even I initially thought Quiet was the person for that, until he proved he couldn't handle polyamory (according to him, not me, the first time he broke her heart).
If you love Pixie, then think of her needs. She is alone with two small children, and here's someone who wants to be there for her, who she seems to have great feeling for. I hope it works out well for her.
I hope it works out well for her too. I still love Purr, and she will always have a place in my heart. She is a very warm and giving person, a good mother, and selfless to a fault. But I also love myself enough to recognize when something is going to be unhealthy for me.