Seeking advice on identity and grief

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pulliman

Member
Hi all,

A relationship I've been in has fully fallen apart, and I'm still grieving. My wife (Willa) and LDR (Ella) are being incredibly supportive, but I'm still struggling with the question of "why bother being me." It's a dull thud in my head. I tasted something I really want (a deep relationship intertwined with my marriage, the joy of my wife happily in love with my lover, and more) and it couldn't happen for various reasons not worth exploring here. I now know there's something I want, inside myself, in that way that you know there's a life you'd like to lead differently, but I have this feeling that I'll never actually have it. Okay, fine, I live in a small-ish town, there's not much to find here (though you never know what happens behind the scenes). The problem I'm having is that I feel I might as well not be me. It's pointless, hopeless, I'll never have it, wish I'd never tasted the fruit, and now I will spend the rest of my days lamenting that I can't find what I want to find - boo hoo. (Yes, I'm making fun of myself, even as the emotions are really painful and deep and self-damaging.)

Any help on this?
 
I can't give you any advice, but I will say that I empathize. I recently experienced something similar with Wendigo. We are struggling to transition our relationship back to friendship after experiencing something that we both really want with each other. I won't get into the reasons why we couldn't continue our relationship, but I will say that being *his* and my role in the D/s part of our relationship became a deep part of my identity. I'm grieving our relationship and I'm grieving the loss of that part of myself. We both love each other and always will and it's sooo damn hard to accept that our relationship has to end for reasons outside my control.
 
No help, just empathy. I'm trying so hard right now to process how to fill all these gaps that the (mostly)absence of HipsterBoy has left in my life, gaps I either didn't know were there or maybe just spaces that he made for himself, or something like that, and it's ridiculous how many of them there are.
 
I'm sorry you struggle. :(

Not sure what to say. Help with what? You are not specific. Like... help riding it out? Help changing your thoughts? Figuring out self care/self comfort? How to ask for comfort? Understanding stages of emotional change? Grief process? Something else? :confused:

How long ago was this? You sound like you hurt so much you want to not be you/make it go numb, NOT feel, etc. So pretty fresh.

http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/Images/fut1.gif

Like just at the starting gate there.

You are still all the things you are and have been in your core identity. Even if a certain role no longer applies right now like so and so's partner, lover, etc. The masthead of your internal newspaper is still "PULLIMAN" even if the articles and front page stuff changes every day. Processing grief, loss, sadness, disappointment, etc is a lot.

I'm not sure that making fun of yourself is helpful here -- you could treat yourself with more dignity/self respect than that. I know sometimes people do that like a defense to distance themselves a bit from feeling something UGH so I get that. But better to make fun of the situation than YOU. "This situation stinks" thoughts is better to me than "I stink" thoughts.

In the end feelings are something that have to be felt and worked THROUGH and EXPRESSED, not avoided. Nobody likes being clogged up and carrying burden around. But you don't have to process it all in one go. It can be installments.

BREATHE. It will be ok in the end with time and healing. It just stinks that it is so raw right now. Take it one thing at a time. Do your best. Your sad best doesn't have to be the same as your happy best. Just do you best at this point in time at whatever level that happens to be -- it's enough. :eek:

Galagirl
 
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Pulliman, as you know, I've been following your blog from the beginning. You've always been a bit vague about what prevented Amy from having a happy triad with you and Willa, but your latest post says:

...this is getting ridiculous. Ups, downs, goods, and bads. After the good space Amy, Willa, and I inhabited existed just long enough to tempt us all, things blew up again. Last night, Amy said she couldn't balance the pain of not being closer to me with the magic of wanting to be near me. The pain is bigger than the magic, it's time to end it. For the, what, 15th time? Smirk.

A big part of that space comes from Amy's assumptions about Willa. And Willa has changed incredibly in the past year. What she can imagine now, like living in adjacent houses and really wanting that, is something she couldn't IMAGINE doing only 8 months ago. But Amy has stayed with the Willa of the beginning, in her head, and the constraints of "the slowest member of the group" were so bad that she was hopeless about ever seeing more of me. How can she find TIME when Willa doesn't want to give it, and I don't want to blow up my marriage by moving faster than Willa can manage?
Click to expand...

You really really want a certain SHAPE of relationship. An equal triad. You know those are extremely hard to create. You've had tastes of awesomeness and balance with Amy and Willa, but more tastes of ugliness and emotional shit. Face it. Being stuck on a certain shape of relationship and trying to force it to be that shape with the wrong people is a thankless task and impossible goal.

You may or may not find this SHAPE with another woman. But I think respecting PEOPLE and their needs over the shape of relationship you want is something to think about.
 
Thanks, everyone, for the replies. Yes, Galagirl, I'm still in the self-negating stage of grief. It sucks. I'm breathing my way through it, but it's obviously slow going. This relationship has been crazy for the longest time, but that doesn't change that it's going to take time to feel good, again.

Magdlyn, you make good points. Thanks. To clarify, I feel that it's Amy who wants a shape of a relationship so badly that she can't be with me as I am, and needs to go away from me, instead. If it's not equal, it's not good enough. For me, I've seen something I liked, AND it's not likely to happen, and I'm mostly okay with that. What I'm hurt by is Amy leaving because she can't have what she wants with me. We could have so much else!

In answering you, I'm realizing that I write from others' perspectives, sometimes, and not my own. I talk from Amy's voice, what she wants, and not what I want. That's no good! I should watch out for that. Thanks for letting me see that. I need to do a better job of speaking for what I want. That doesn't have to be an equal triad. But I do really wish it could include Amy. It won't, and that really hurts, still.
 
Re (from OP):
"The problem I'm having is that I feel I might as well not be me."
Click to expand...

You mean you the polyamorist? or ...

Re:
"I'll never have it, wish I'd never tasted the fruit, and now I will spend the rest of my days lamenting that I can't find what I want to find ..."
Click to expand...

You know a death is a lot like that. A lost loved one can't be replaced by anything, so then that is fruit that you've tasted that you'll never be able to taste again. Even if it's just the taste of a certain close friendship or parental relationship or whatever.

What can we do when a loved one dies? We must grieve, and the wound will never fully heal, but someday we'll be able to smile at the memories of the good times we had with that person. Similarly, a relationship with any particular person is irreplaceable. What can we do when we lose that relationship? Well, we have to grieve over it. We have to feel the pain. And someday, we'll be able to smile because it was a great relationship while it lasted.

I lost a friend back in like 2003, just a platonic friend but someone I'd been tight friends with since the early 1970's. It was a sudden, unexpected loss. He sent me a short note making it plain that he was *majorly* pissed at me, but not explaining why and simply declaring that it was over. I tried a few times to write him back, apologizing and pleading for at least a dialog, only to be met with silence. I finally realized that I needed to honor his obvious wishes to not hear from me anymore.

Well it sucked rhino nuts to lose that friendship. To this day I feel pangs over it from time to time. It's almost like losing a limb. But, you know, life goes on just the same, and I can't help but remember all the good times we had. I take consolation from that. It's not closure, but it's good memories and I won't try to shut those down.

Now in your case, I take it you're not just mourning the loss of a certain relationship, but also the loss of hope for a certain kind of poly relationship, and maybe in the small-ish town you live in there's not much cause for such hope. Still, you can be glad you tasted that fruit because it was good fruit, and it's good to know that we live in a world in which such fruit can exist. That's not a whole lot of consolation, but it's something, and it may be a starting place.

Beyond that, we can't know the future, so let's not give up all hope. You never know what circumstances might bring to your door, someday. Let's just let the future be whatever it will be, and focus on being present in the here and now. Sufficient unto the day are the evils thereof; no need to borrow additional trouble from tomorrow.

I'm sorry you've experienced this loss. I hope you do have some gradual healing in the months ahead.
Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
I'm sorry. I understand your grief. No way to magically forego the process, which just sucks. One thing to watch out for is feeling that when something bad happens to us that must mean we did something to deserve it, that we did something or wrong, or that we are bad. The thing of it is, a person can do everything just as he should have and still lose.
 
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