(Re)opening up is hard - and that's okay, right?

[Magdlyn]

I don't know why you again feel the need to ask us if you're in the wrong to want Jess to leave you alone and go to a hotel. We've all been saying that for days now.

Alicia is in the wrong. She's not honoring your boundaries, and she's trying to get Jess to do her dirty work.

 

[Espoir]

Sorry for being insistent, I was in a bit of a crisis mode and needed external validation, which I also got from friends (poly and mono) whom I spoke with, as well as my therapist. But I am 100% confident now in my perspective of the situation, and I hope to be able to stick to my guns in the future if similar situations arise - from the get go I believed in myself and that I was being reasonable, but the situation made me doubt myself.

Alicia and I are going to speak about this properly again on Friday. We tried to talk during the weekend but it was still very fresh and Alicia was going through a lot of emotions, so I agreed to give her some time and space to get her ideas in order. But tomorrow I'm just going to explain my position again. I will not take responsibility for things that are not my problem. Like a friend of mine says, not my circus, not my monkey...

I am glad though that they didn't break up in the end, but if I do reply to Jess' message, it will to be say that I believe it is the hinge's responsibility to communicate and establish boundaries with each partner, and that I don't need to communicate with my meta directly about this topic because we are not in a relationship. Although I'm happy for us to get to know each other better and talk if it happens organically.

 

[Bobbi]

Alicia is obviously struggling with trying to balance everything and keeping everyone happy, and that it's a huge strain on her,

That's the job of the hinge: to manage her two relationships. If she cannot do this then she shouldn't be poly.

Alicia and I spoke this morning, and she feels that I've been super inflexible with all this, that I've only focused on my well-being, that telling her that I didn't want to have Jess at home for a week because it would "break my routine."

You are not controlling HER relationship, you are controlling YOUR space, your home. She could go stay with her in the hotel without any impact on their relationship whatsoever.

I will suggest in the future, don't give an excuse ("break my routine"), because then there almost is a possible solution which results in an argument. Just say no. It's your home and you don't want that. Much harder to find a work around. People need blunt truth in situations. "No" is the answer and you won't change your mind.

doesn't seem out of line or excessive to say that Jess could be home for 3-4 days instead of a week

I think that's generous with a new relationship.

"In order for our relationship to work, you and I need to start communicating directly, so we can communicate our boundaries to each other."

Um... no. This is bad hinging. Your relationship is with Alicia. You talk about your relationship WITH Alicia, not Jess. Your relationship with Alicia is none of Jess's business. And your boundaries are:
- I don't discuss my relationship with Alicia with her other partners.
- I do not want my home invaded by other partners more than 3 days per week. (This is not unreasonable. Many couples don't allow partners over at all, or no overnights, or only when nesting partner is away.)

If Alicia is unhappy that you want to be comfortable in your home, without a free-for-all, where she brings partners over whenever she wants, then she should have a place of her own. Even with roommates, there are rules to keep it a safe living environment, and usually that means no overnight guests.

How is it MY responsibility to tell Jess about my boundaries when I'm not in a relationship with her?

Exactly.

It's cool if you want to get to know her, but your relationships, and boundaries in them, are none of her business.

I'm genuinely baffled at how Jess would think this is a normal thing to say, when in theory she's the one who has been practicing poly for years, whereas Alicia and I are newbies.

Just because someone is poly doesn't mean they are healthy and practicing healthy dynamics in poly.

I can understand that Jess wants KTP.

KTP does not mean metas are therapists to manage all of the relationships. It just means you have more of a friendship or contact and share time with your common partner. You may, over time, become friends with her, and develop that type of dynamic, but it cannot be forced. Good for you for standing your ground on that. I think moving to KTP too fast can result in coercion and unhealthy dynamics.

 

[Evie]

I do not want my home invaded by other partners more than 3 days per week. (This is not unreasonable. Many couples don't allow partners over at all, or no overnights, or only when nesting partner is away.)

I really, really want to lift this up.

Adam and I don't have other partners over when the other is home, and we've been doing poly for 7 years. Puck and Renée have the same deal, and that's after nigh on 30 years being poly. We can host each other in said respective homes, but our nesting partners are not there are the time. Renée goes to her other partner's place and Adam goes away to see family or friends.

You are, to my mind, extremely generous with offering 3 days of sharing your home.

 

[Magdlyn]

Pixi and I have settled on a modified KTP. She used to be very open to meeting my new partners, and hanging out, and we even tried group sex a few times. But it definitely did not work out. Quite the opposite.

We found that if she hung out with my bfs, they wouldn't be able to help but get crushes on her (she's cute as a button and my guys are usually poly, and um, horny types), so over time we moved to her staying away from home when I had a guy over. With my latest bf Aries, she mostly stayed away when he was here, maybe just met him in the driveway as he was arriving and she was leaving. (He still got a crush on her. Oy! lol) Finally, after a year or so, after I'd explained how she was totally off limits, his crush abated and, while I never did tell her about the crush, she felt more comfortable staying and chatting a bit, or having him around for a holiday dinner, or going out on poly dates, her and me and both our bfs.

 

[Espoir]

As always, thank you all for your feedback and thoughts. It truly has been helpful and reassuring.

I am looking forward to talking about this properly (yet again!) with Alicia. We've spoken about the situation a couple of times, but she still doesn't seem to understand she's been a shitty hinge and that I haven't been unreasonable (both with the staying at home situation [I agree, Evie and Bobbi! I am def being generous putting her up at all when she has a paid-for hotel] and the discussing our boundaries with each other thing). It's not about convincing her or proving I'm "right," I'm just genuinely concerned and upset if she doesn't come around eventually, because I think she has been unfair towards me. I don't want to be in a relationship where my partner dumps her responsibilities on me. I'm confident we'll be able to sort it out, though, since she's had time to process it all, and from experience, once the emotional turmoil is over, it's easier for her to think clearly. (Same for me, tbh, it usually takes me a few days to finally come to a conclusion re: what I think about something, as illustrated on this thread. lol)

It seems to be a similar case with Jess. I did make the effort to speak to her eventually, telling her it was a one-off (in the sense that I don't mind getting to know her, but we are essentially strangers atm, and even if we weren't, it is not my job or my responsibility to do the hinge's work, etc., etc.). I also told her that I had no problem in saying I think putting someone up for a week is too much, regardless of what Alicia thinks, and that it's completely normal and common sense to think so. She agreed with the latter and said, "Regarding your point about just not wanting to host me for the whole week, I think that's a totally reasonable boundary and I have no problem in respecting that. I guess the thing that made me upset when Alicia said that it would be too much was that in that moment it felt like she didn't want me there, which kinda sucked, as opposed to you just imposing what is as I've said a perfectly reasonable boundary" (bold mine -so, none of my business after all!!! an issue between THEM and THEIR relationship !!)

She did however initially disagree about the not discussing boundaries with each other part, and said that it was actually her idea (not Alicia's) to discuss them, because of "transparency" blah blah. I stood my ground and said it wasn't my responsibility and that that is not how I understand that polyamory works, that it is Alicia who is in a relationship with her, not me, and just all the stuff that's been mentioned previously on this thread. I even paraphrased some of your comments. heh

I was annoyed by this, and told Alicia I don't want this to happen, that I'm not dating Jess so I shouldn't have to deal with this, and she agreed.

Thankfully, I just received this message !



I'm still annoyed that I had to have this conversation at all, although I chose to do so, but I'm glad this has been the conclusion.

 

[Espoir]

Also Mags, thanks for sharing about yours and Pixi's arrangement. I understand it must've made you uncomfortable at the time, but the idea of her being so irresistible that your bfs couldn't be in her presence cracked me up

It's difficult to foster a casual, organic friendly rapport with Jess atm, because she lives 7h away and I've only seen her three times in my life, including the day I (and Alicia) met her for the first time! But if we do get to know each other eventually, my ideal scenario would be garden party or very casual KTP, but basically whatever happens naturally, tbh. When I used to date several of my friends in my early twenties we often had group hangouts because it's just the way things worked out. It's not something you can force, I reckon.

 

[Espoir]

It's 2 am now (made those last posts around midnight) and I can't sleep because I'm suddenly so angry and upset with Alicia for all this shit I've had to deal with the past 2 weeks. BPD rage is not fun at all, but I'm trying to calm down so I can sleep soon, and hopefully we'll be able to talk about it when I am calmer. (Not 'til next week though. She's off tomorrow to visit Jess from Thurs through Sunday.) I'm just seething in bed atm. She woke up to get some water and asked if I was okay. I said it wasn't the moment to talk about it. But she asked "Did something happen?" and I was like "Yeah, Jess texted me, essentially saying I was right, and I'm feeling really angry because you've been super unfair with me, and I've had to deal with this shit for the last two weeks." and she said thanks for telling her, but obvs now she can't sleep either.

Just typing all this out to calm down. Ignore this post, I guess, I'm just venting.

 

[Espoir]

Long time no see!

Just thought I'd give a little update, I don't know if resurfacing old threads is frowned upon here (I'd say yes but maybe it's different since I am the OP here). It's been more than a year (!) since I last posted here, life has been a lot and the state of the world in general is quite overwhelming, but I wanted to say that I've finally (re)settled into polyamory properly.

Last summer I met someone and we dated for about 5-6 months, I fell for them quite hard but unfortunately they dumped me at the end of January (just as one of my elderly cats was hospitalised for epilepsy - awful combo of unfortunate events) because, despite their best efforts, they couldn't really do polyam and really wanted a monogamous relationship. It didn't completely blindside me because they had never done ENM before, although they were very open to giving it a go, but in hindsight it was never going to work out. Historically they are a serial monogamist, very couple-centric and a bit of a UHaul lesbian stereotype (despite being bi, but y'know what I mean!).
The breakup was amicable but still painful, and they had a bit of a shitty behaviour afterwards, so despite the fact that I'm still grieving the relationship, I also feel like I dodged a bullet in a way. And I've definitely learnt my lesson - never dating monogamous people again, or people who aren't explicitly and clearly polyamorous !

Alicia and Jess are still dating and it seems to be going okay, Alicia has got better at hinging and I don't know anything about their relationship issues which is great haha. There have been some similar issues to the ones we had last year re: Alicia not knowing how to split her free time between us but I haven't been dragged into any of it so that's good.

A couple of months ago I matched with a bi guy on Tinder (let's call him Nico) who is poly and has a partner (also poly) he's been dating for like 4 years. He's nice, we hang out every 1-2 weeks and although he seems a bit too entangled to his girlfriend imo (mentions her a lot, doesn't really have a circle of friends outside of hers) I've been able to communicate my boundaries clearly and they have been respected. For example, on like our 5th date we were having a coffee and he said his gf asked if she could pop by and say hi, and I was like Um I'd rather not, actually. I don't necessarily want parallel poly but, as I said to him, I have no need or interest in meeting metas/potential metas when I barely know him properly yet!

Anyway, that's it for now. Hope you're all doing well, when I have another free moment I'll have a little browse to see what I've missed all this time.

 

[Evie]

Hi and welcome back! This is your blog. You can add to it any time you like It's nice to read your update.

 

[Espoir]

Jess is here this weekend and I find it midly annoying, because she already stayed over less than a month ago (literally three weeks ago, the weekend of the 11th of July, so basically when I last posted here lol). Originally, Alicia was going to go visit her instead, but Alicia's band had a gig here this Saturday and she couldn't skip it. This weekend is the only weekend they can see each other in August, so Jess is staying at ours again.

It's not that big of a deal, but I just hate that she goes into my room to use the bathroom. My bedroom has an ensuite bathroom. The only other bathroom in the house is our flatmate's and he's usually always in it. But, I did ask Alicia to tell Jess to use his bathroom, if it's free, instead of mine (except for showering-- it's a long story, but showering in our flatmate's shower would be more complicated) because I don't like her going into my room when I'm there just chilling, unless I'm not home, in which case I obviously don't care).

Well, she keeps doing it anyway, even when the other bathroom is free. I don't know if this information hasn't been transmitted properly. or if Jess has "forgotten" or what, but I'm going to have to insist on it (via Alicia, ofc, it's her responsibility as the hinge) and it's just blehhh.

Today I got home after a long day and Jess was here. We were like Hey, hello, some small talk. Then I went into my room to chill. She went to the bathroom and then came up to me to continue chitchatting. I was just like please, I just want to be alone... I don't mind being cordial, but we are not friends. Get out of my room! lol. Or that's what I was thinking, anyway. haha I just did a bit more small talk, and then I said, "Well I'm gonna chill now. " She was like "Okay!" and went to Alicia's room.

It's been more than a year since they had this drama they dragged me into, but I can't help still being resentful, and that's why I'm so sensitive with this, I think.

Anyway, in other news, didn't see Nico last week, because I was feeling really down and had no social battery, and didn't see him this one because he's been really sick with asthma, and had to go to the ER twice, and be given oxygen and cortisone. But we've been chatting, and we're finally hanging out next Thursday, so that'll be nice. I am looking forward to it.

Also, I am feeling really sad and nostalgic about my ex who dumped me in January, because we first hooked up in the summer, and it's summer and everything reminds me of them, blah blah... So that sucks. I also really don't want to bump into them and their new (monogamous) partner they essentially dumped me for, but I know I probably will, as we have already coincided a couple of times in the past... Queer community problems. lol.