Sailing Solo

Day 1 at new job went very well. Lots of flexibility till kids go back to school.

I had quite the chat with Mr Dom on the way home. I told him that I didn't understand why he said I wasn't treating him fairly, why he felt I didn't invite him to things and that part of my reluctance to calendar was based on his unwanted comments on my relationship with Prof that occurred anytime I put anything Prof related on the calendar.

He backed way off and agreed that he got a lot of time, 4 nights this week alone , got the best deal with vacation time, I ask him to do things with me and the kids, he went to the concert with me when I kind of wanted to ask my best friend, and admitted that he was making comments even when I asked him to stop. He also agreed to stop trying to insert himself into every "free" moment that I have.

And then he went out with Ms Wine for sushi and ...wine. I did not complain, whine or demand goodnight texts, I did not ask him for an end time. I did not make comments on their relationship ( all 3 dates of it ). And I pointed out to him that I was not doing these things and, while I had done it on occasion, it was on occasion, and certainly not every time he calendared something.

I think I got my points across in a straight forward way.
 
I lost a couple of posts to the time-out monster and by the time I thought to re-write them things had moved on.

Work is intensely busy. I am trying not to work too much at home but it is difficult. I am so busy during the day that the emails have to wait till after the kids have gone to bed. But I enjoy what I do and I am getting good feedback from random quarters.

Mr Dom: I am not sure if I wrote about kind of breaking up with Mr Dom. I couldn't take the pressure any longer, stage 5 clinger, wouldn't listen to my requests to stop hounding me about spending time with my kids, Prof and time. I drove to see him, it took 2.5 hours due to traffic and stuff I had to do on the way. We were chatting on the phone. I told him I would need some decompression time, enough for a cup of tea and to unwind, it was Friday night and I was exhausted. I told him a number of times, I walked in the door and it was sex, sex, sex demand, demand. I told him I couldn't take it any longer and left.
We later worked something out. He has backed way off with the demands and complaints and recognizes that he wasn't listening to me and would regularly ignore my requests to stop the verbal barrage.
Things seem fairly good. I invite him round more because he has stopped complaining about time. He was seeing me 4 nights a week! Like, really! I invite him round more because he has stopped complaining about me going to bed "early." My day starts at 5:45 am and I relax at about 8:30pm ( check emails ) for an hour before sleep. I do take Weds night off after 7pm. I eat standing up or walking between meetings most of the time. It is very hard to hear complaints about time and energy from a person who works 2 days on 4 days off.
 
The situation with Prof seems slightly improved. I had a number of solo therapy sessions which were helpful. Some themes we discussed were accepting Prof as he was or moving on as he is unlikely to change. he is giving me what and how he wants to give.
There was an interesting comment by NYCIndie on a thread about love languages. It is not enough to know simply what they are, but also what to do with that knowledge. Prof likes to give gifts, come by and be a whirlwind for a short time then whizz of to do something else. Gifts and intense periods of time. Ok. Gifts are ok. Gifts of travel are great. Gifts of stuff are not so appealing. He has been loading me up on the gifts recently; at least they are practical and/or consumable. The whirlwind time is okayish. He has made the effort to put 2 activities with the kids on the calendar spread out over a few weeks but isn't that what he does? Whirlwind in and then whirlwind out. I see that he is trying in the ways that he know how. I am trying to see them as effort even if they are not my top 2.
My love languages to give and recieve are quality time and acts of service. I can kind of fit gifts into acts of service and kind of fit the intense time into quality time.
Prof likes to receive physical touch and acts of service. I am not that into giving physical touch, I am not touchy-feely by any stretch of the imagination but I am trying to do that more for him. Acts of service we agree on but Prof rarely asks for any so I find it hard to express my caring in ways that work for him.
I am working on accepting him as he is and not wishing for different, I loathed it when Mr Dom seemed to be wanting a different me. I kept thinking to myself, I am not the person you are looking for, you are asking me to be someone I am not. ( very hard to resist a star wars joke )
I am not making any decisions. things have been coasting along mostly fine for a wee while.
 
I found therapy a little frustrating this week. I was highly stressed and Prof wanted to talk about kid birthday prep. The original plan was for me to do it all and he would supply the space and parking. I must admit I was thinking about simply moving it back to a park. I am dropping the bbq idea, his not mine, we agreed to an end time, he was fine for people to hang all day/evening. I was not. blah blah blah. Two interesting things popped over the course of the evening. Maybe I have said them before. He feels that whatever time he gives me will never be enough. Wednesdays are back on as a regular thing but he is refusing to plan anything else.
Well, Wednesdays are fine but I have booked my birthday Wednesday with Mr Dom as when I asked Prof he was too busy and fine to not book weekend time because I have booked most of my weekend time for the next month.
 
Time; so little and so jam packed. What I have that is free I want to do the same things, travel, experiences, really great sex. And now sleep is a far greater priority, and it was always high on the list. I will not be at coasting level with my new job for about a year and the stress level is high. I am looking at Prof with different eyes. "What can you offer in the time I am giving you?" He did a round about admission of the E.D. getting worse and it having somewhat of a medical and life style cause. The sex is good but not of a long duration and positions are limited. He doesn't want to plan or travel.

He is making an effort to spend time with the kids, one activity per fortnight, and they are very good fun experience type activities. He is helping me with house things, expressing caring through giving me stuff. I find the random purchasing of gifts to be a little odd but working on paying more attention to the intent of the giving. Example; he bought me some fun patterned duck tape and will replace the batteries in the remote control and use the fun duck tape to seal the backs. It is not really necessary as we don't watch tv much and the kids use tablets so don't ever really steal batteries, but I get that his kids did steal batteries back in the day and he thinks this is very helpful. Batteries and duck tape. However, I do much prefer practical gifts, He recently organized the delivery of his "old" fridge for me recently and plumbed it in. I have an ice-maker! He went to Costco and bought me some groceries and alcohol. I was touched by not only the value of the fridge but he did get the kit to plumb it in and got some fun things to put in it.

This is what he wants to offer for our not-in-a-relationship. Mr Dom is offering a variety of activities, energetic and kinky sex, time, communication and hanging around. He has agreed to back off on the excessive time demands and the practically living here thing. He is also working on the verbal steam rolling.

I am working on not offering asking Prof for much and asking once not twice. Example; I offered thanksgiving dinner, my parents cancelled. I told Prof. He has not expressed an interest in doing anything else. I will not ask.

I asked Mr Dom is there any behavior I do that he struggles with. He is said things are going well for him right now.

I am getting over my neighbor ignoring me thing. It is hurtful but I am not a bad neighbor by any stretch and I have 2 lovers not 200.
 
I am in a fairly good place. Struggling a little with work. I do a whole lot of listening to people complaining about other people. It is a little odd hearing people's desire for colleagues to be different, it is the same as lovers hoping for change in their lover. This is an area I am working on personally. Letting Prof be Prof and examining whether or not I can be happy with how he does things. He was talking about his Christmas gift for kid#2. He has more plans for him and kid #2 than he does with me!

I am very much looking forward to the weekend away with Mr Dom. I anticipate there will be much kinky sex, BD play, and not much opportunity for me to do anything but relax.
 
The boat weekend was very fun, enforced relaxation by the fact there was nowhere to dock. So we floated around for 2 days, read, ate, drank a little and had a lot of sex.
Prof and I did a little scheduling last night. He is surprised he has missed my birthday night and is doing a little back-pedaling on what he said about being unavailable in October. I think he was very clear about not wanting to plan birthdays and he did a vague push out of the celebrations into November. Yeah, no. So we now have a nice dinner planned for both our birthdays and a few other dates scheduled. I did not push him or ask for these, they are coming from him.
Prof also put in some significant time and effort for kid#2 birthday and they have planned an activity together.
 
Relationships are mostly going well. Prof says I don't tell him I love him very often. My perception is he doesn't want me to. His perception is I don't want him to. Mr Dom says I don't say it very often either. I don't. I make an effort and then slide. It doesn't feel natural to me. My family doesn't say it to each other. I have talked about this before.
I had a stressed out breakfast with Prof. I build up the things that I want to say over such a long time then by the time I do pysch up to say them I am all twisted inside. I couldn't eat my lovely eggs benedict, what a waste. I gave it to the chickens, they loved it.
I had an amazing amount of sex this weekend. One of the major beenfits of having multiple partners.
 
My BFF says I don't put the same amount of effort into taking note of Mr Dom's feelings as I do of Prof's. This is probably true to some degree. I thought I divided my birthday time equally between Mr Dom and Prof. Apparently not! Mr Dom feels short changed. I planned Weds after work through Thursday at some undiscussed time with Mr Dom, then the plan was to meet Prof for dinner on Thursday. When talking to Prof the idea of lunch on Thursday came up so we tentatively agreed. Then I told Mr Dom. He was upset that I didn't firm up the end of Thursday's activities with him first before agreeing to lunch with Prof.
I didn't seem like much of a mistake but BFF and Mr Dom seem aligned with the idea that I am being a bit insensitive. I then compounded my god-awful behavior by enthusiastically suggesting a weekend activity on a day I KNEW Mr Dom was working. um, no. I checked my kid schedule and made the phone call. I should have cranked up my laptop and logged in icloud and checked Mr Dom's schedule before making the phone call, and doing homework, making dinner and prepping lunches. I thought it would make up for yesterday's faux pas.
I feel like a bit of a scheduling failure. Mr Dom says I am too sensitive and it is not a big deal. But yet he does seem to go on about it.
Today having 2 partners makes me feel... I am working on feeling words again, it is hard. I feel unappreciated for my efforts. HA!
 
Mr Dom admits does get a bit worked up over perceived slights and said he will continue to work on it.
We ended up spending the whole day together anyway. Prof wanted an early lunch and I didn't want anything to happen with the word in "early" in it, so I said no to lunch with Prof and had an incredibly lazy day with Mr Dom right up to the minute he left for a date and I left to meet Prof.
Mr Dom is dating up a storm, I am kind of losing track of who is who. He seems to be meeting many women who want instant relationships. They decide he is "the one," and then the demands start. Desire for exclusivity after the first meeting is common, exclusivity after the second meeting is almost 100%. He is mostly not admitting to his poly ways as the women melt down of their own accord after 1-3 dates and he doesn't need to bring up the topic. We do talk about it a lot, I find it fascinating. in the beginning I thought it was unfair that he wasn't saying anything but I now agree that he doesn't need to. Most of the women he meets implode of their own accord.

I think Prof's dating experiences are somewhat similar but we haven't talked about what he does in so long.

I haven't been online dating in almost a year. Mr Dom was the last person I met through online, OKC. Sometimes I think it would be interesting to go and meet someone new, but if I really think about it, I realize there are so many reasons that I don't want to. I might have a look later. I have piqued my own curiosity now!

Prof has opened up to asking me to do things. I am straight up asking too and he can straight up say yes, no, or ask to think about it, then I will give him a deadline to respond. I do think he was shocked by me moving ahead with birthday plans. He thinks he was clear that he was waiting to hear about out-of-town work. I am clear that he waved his hands, said the whole of October is up in the air and we could think about doing it in November instead.
He has put in considerable time for his kid #2 activity tomorrow. I thought he would have let it drop, but no, he has kept at it and finally sorted it out. He fills me in on the research and various conversations that he has had with people.
We agreed to spend Thanksgiving together, he wants to cook. I can't stand the thought of cooking a big meal for just me and 2 kids, so that works out. I think we are doing Halloween with the kids. I do need to confirm that. We also have a November camping trip on the cards. It will be bloody cold but I am game. He is spending a lot of money getting repairs done to the campervan to make it happen. There was a vague mumbling about me getting a key to the new house once all the upgrades are done and he rekeys the whole place. He also said I should leave a toothbrush at his new house and wondered why I hadn't. :rolleyes:
I feel different about my relationship with him. I am taking what he does less personally. I would take so many of his actions and see them as me not being good enough. I see that he is very disorganized, is a workaholic, and a terrible procrastinator. In my head he was highly planned, organized and had everything all worked out. I accept him more for who he is and see him more as flawed human with feelings and less as the perfectly in control smarty pants that he presents to the world.
 
He has a room mate at one house, she was a GF at one point, I have no idea when, but at least a few years ago. The other house is being renovated. I hear you on giving up keeping track!
Mr Dom had an overnight last night.
I watched Westworld.
 
Mr Dom is having to walk a mile in my poly/open shoes and admits that it is not as easy as he thought he was and is surprised by how many mistakes he is making that he had meltdowns with me over.
He double booked me and Ms February ( I think that when he last saw her ). He cancelled MS February but realized how easy it is to say yes to something without thinking it all the way through. I wouldn't have minded if he went, my big plan for the night was to go to bed very early.
The second one I was a bit miffed about. I was going down to him for Friday night and hang out Saturday. Turns out he and Ms Red ( the recent overnight) had made plans for Saturday day time and Saturday night. He was worried because he said he was expecting her any time after 11 am and needed me to leave after breakfast. This is the man who had a not minor meltdown with me only 8 days previously in regards to me planning a lunch based on the idea that Mr Dom would leave late morning.
He does realize that he is being quite the hypocrite, so that something and did and is doing a lot of apologizing and saying that he is working on it. The man is very emotional and is very out there with his feelings, it is one of the things I adore about him. However, with this passion and enthusiasm comes at the price of feeling pain deeply and letting me know about it in these verbal ...not sure of the word...not as aggressive as tirade or rant...it's not loud in volume, or abusive in language, verbal vomits? maybe of words.
I have told him that it not what he does with Ms Red or the time but how he melted down when I did similar and now is doing exactly the same but lucky for him for that I am not much of a meltdown person.
So I am giving him space for making mistakes and enjoying the NRE. My guess is it won't last long because he is not mentioning the poly/open part or me!
Things with Prof are going well, I feel like it is a slow build and I don't want to be rebuild of what we did before.
We had an interesting discussion during therapy about telling each other that we love each other. So funny how we both have stories in our head about what we think the other feels when we say "I love you." He thinks I don't like it and worries about my reaction. I think he sees it as a burden and would rather I didn't say it. Turns out we are both wrong.
 
Mr Dom is throwing himself into the new relationship with much gusto. He has moved in with Ms Red for a 4 day stretch after his accommodations for a current out of town job fell through. He is making a huge amount of money so paying for any type of hotel room, from 1 star through 5 star is not a problem. He has met her 3 times and is staying with her for 4 days/nights in a row. The man has a self-admitted problem with throwing himself into relationships too quickly and here it is. It was the same of Ms Recent. Same pattern of behavior. He says he cannot call or text when he is there as she doesn't know I exist, this from the man who has meltdowns when he doesn't get prompt text replies form me. I hold his hand through his ongoing passionate and emotional responses to rather small things. I did tell him a couple of days ago that I think he is taking advantage of my fairly tolerant nature. He said he doesn't mean to, but does appreciate that I don't overact in the same manner he does :rolleyes:. Maybe he will break up with me to go monogamous and 100% all in with new person.
 
Tinwen said:
Did he say so?
Click to expand...
No. Much as he is finding the dating to be a bit tedious right now, he enjoys the freedom.

I told him I felt like his mistress and he is cheating on Ms Red with me after another day of being told he couldn't/wouldn't be in contact with me because he didn't want Ms Red to find out.
He said he thought I was expressing annoyance with the lack of communication because he was spending time with a new person. My response was to say I hadn't been upset with anyone else before and he had gone away for trips with other people and I had been supportive or not involved. "Ah, yes," says he, "fair point." He is sneaking around behind her back and I don't want to want to play the part of knowing mistress.
He asked me to give him time to finish the work rotation and get some rest before he has to make any decisions or plans. I think that is reasonable as he is functioning on very little sleep right now. I have also been struggling to find the right words to describe my upset. There do not have to be details shared but all involved need to know that there are others involved and make informed decisions as to whether or not they want to participate and right now I am being asked to do all the flexing and understanding to keep one leg of the V happy.
 
Mr Dom and I are somewhat in the middle of things right now. I told him I wasn't prepared to cheat with him. I was awake quite a lot last night thinking about things. I am conflicted about poly/open as it is, but at least I know I am not cheating.
If Ms Red knew he was in a relationship then his ass would be out the door, I asked him straight up if she was likely to agree to an open relationship and he said he is sure she won't.
He is asking for more time to process the whole idea of cheating. He said if he was pushed for an answer then he would ask me for a 2 week break so he could think about it.
I see this pattern recurring in polyamory.com fairly regularly. Partners go gaga for the new person and neglect the old relationship. Sometimes the new person knows about the existing relationship, sometimes they don't.
I mostly think he would be better off going with Ms Red. He is often unhappy about perceived slights and inequalities. I don't want to be monogamous with him. Much as he has many wonderful qualities, I just can't do the virtual live-in relationship. I thought it was something that I wanted, but the reality of it is too smothering. He did say he had thought about the idea of going monogamous with her over the past few days. Talk about living in a dream. she has had days off work that coincide with her kids being with their father. I see him doing the same thing that he did with me. All in very quickly.
I feel like fighting and working it out mostly to prove that I can, however, it is probably the right time to let the whole thing go.
 
Ugh. I'm sorry about the drama with Mr. Dom :( I wouldn't want to be involved in a cheating relationship either. Blue is in a dadt of sorts with his new LDR. She's aware that he dates others...but she has no clue that he's in a serious, entangled, ltr. And she's unlikely to find out because she (her words) 'prefers to put them (Sage & I) out of her mind.' It's maddening because it makes coordination of schedules so much more difficult! Plus, where I am considerate in not calling/texting while they're together, she calls/texts whenever, however much she wants while Blue & I are together because she doesn't know and doesn't want to know when we're together. Since we spend so much time together, it's inevitable that he'll text some while we're together. For his part, he does limit his responses, but it just feels like I'm giving consideration and making concessions that she is not :/ I do it anyway because it feels more considerate and ethical.

On the subject of poly people neglecting existing partners while in the midst of NRE, I agree this is common. I think the very nature of poly lends itself to a certain extent of neglect in nesting or closely entangled relationships since time and energy are finite. I'm feeling a bit of it with Blue, at the moment. I am trying to just be patient and steady, not give into my fears and insecurities, and let things unfold as they will. Not that that's always easy.

At any rate, I'm sorry things are shaky with Mr. Dom. I'm glad that he at least can recognize his hypocrisy. Hopefully, he'll come to his senses. If not, then he's not a good partner for you. You deserve better! ((Hugs))
 
Thanks for the input Pink Pig. Dealing with relationships is tricky, dealing with relationships of relationships is even trickier!
Prof is out at a concert tonight. I only know because I am tired of the lack of transparency so I sent a text asking why he was going to the city. He didn't ask me to go with him. He doesn't often ask me to do stuff, I ask him and he rarely and I mean count on one hand the amount of times rarely, asks me to do things with his friends or family. I hear about the wine tastings at his house and the fabulous dinners he cooks for his friends. I have never once been invited to one of these dinners or wine tastings. I can't decide if he exaggerates this stuff or if he doesn't want me there for some reason or other. I intend to ask in therapy next week. It is so odd. I couldn't have gone to the concert anyway as I had a very late work event to attend, but the bottom line is he didn't ask. I wonder if someone else got the tickets as a birthday treat and invited him. When I think of what is tentatively on the calendar it appears that all the inviting comes from me and my kids. One of the many pluses of therapy is that I have a venue to ask these questions rather than speculate.

I went to see Mr Dom this morning. I drove down and met him and about 8:15and stayed for a little over an hour. We also were on the phone pretty much solidly from 6am to 10am. He doesn't know what he wants. He feels monogamy doesn't work and poly/open doesn't work either. I feel the same. I would not call either of my relationships terribly successful, although the sex is very good most of the time.
I don't want poly/open and I don't want monogamy, not much to work with within that statement.:rolleyes:
 
This weekend Prof has on out of town guest. My attempts at casual inquiry as to his weekend plans resulted in a few texts and a conversation that went way off track. He said I was pressuring him to put set time on the calendar and went on to say that he may never put set time on the calendar again. Um...I was asking about the possibility of Walking Dead on Sunday and when he texted that he would see me Wednesday, I needed to ask if the Halloween plans were off. I am amazed how it went so odd so quickly. Apparently, we are not at the stage of asking casually about weekend plans! I am at a bit of a loss about how quickly we fall back into previous patterns. I thought we were working towards a little more transparency. At any rate, I let that conversation go and he texted some general chit chat things today so I think it is fine.

Mr Dom is upstairs sleeping. He took on a number of extra shifts and it wiped him out.
We are in a strange place. He was to come up today and do some stuff with me and the kid but stopped off to see his ex landlord, after acting a little off, and stayed there for 2 hours :confused: before heading over and generally being a wet blanket.
 
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