Still learning to ride the wave

struggling with guilt and anxiety today. I find it hard to accept that Joe and P really don't want to be with anyone else (for now) and sometimes feel like I don't have enough time in the day to be a good partner to both of them. I've definitely become a better hinge as time goes on. I'm still one person though, and one person who frequently feels inadequate. That's not even taking into account future things, like having a family and even what will happen once we leave here/I graduate.

i return to these thoughts a lot on this blog lol. I don't really want to express this doubt to either Joe or P (at least not too often) because it's just worrying about future shit that could potentially never materialize. I just like, want to be enough? Both of them think I am, but like i dont fucking know. P hasn't even been in that many relationships; am I keeping him from experiencing something? Could Joe be a lot happier in a monogamous marriage? Things would be so simple for both of them if they didn't love the same person. Maybe they still do think it's simple. idk. I guess it's their responsibility to let me know if they need a change.

It's when everything is going well that I am most anxious haha. I have reached out to another therapist (someone who has a background in poly stuff + trauma) in the hopes to get more of a handle on the anxiety. I'm pretty high functioning, but I would like to not have anxiety spirals once a week. I don't really have anything to be anxious about, which makes me more anxious? I can see that it's more so me and how my brain works, not the situation. The situation is good, and life is good. All is well. Just wish i could convince myself that that is the case. It's like I'm so worried about things/situations/people being taken away that I'm unable to just enjoy them. URG it's frustrating to say the least
 
Was talking with Joe today and he said a couple things:
1. That he has had to change the mindset he had from when me and Pea first started dating; that it was just he (Joe) and I, and that whatever was going on with Pea didn't really have to do with us. Joe said now he sees that all three of us have been together for much longer than me and Joe were alone, and that both his and my relationship with Pea has been a huge part of Joe and I's story. He didn't seem super sad about it. I think it took him a long time to realize that while the time he and I had alone was awesome and amazing and like the honeymoon of both of ours lives, it's not a permanent state we're returning back to any time soon. I don't mean that Joe and I won't have our own private dates and trips and more honeymoon moments and we're both very happy together, but that a life without Pea is kind of... impossible? Obviously if Pea wanted to leave, or Joe, or me, that's fine. But barring someone wanting to leave... we're all going to be together. We all want to be together, and we have made the decision to live together more than once, and we're all happy, so...

This conversation was spurred by Joe going to Italy for a week -- I'm meeting him the second week in Greece. While he's gone, it's Pea's birthday (actually, both of their birthdays are 2.5 weeks apart. Scorpios! I am perpetually broke in the fall for this reason lol). I was planning something (not 100% sure what yet, because Pea has to get off) for Pea and I to do together. We've never gone on vacation just the two of us. I told Joe that I was planning something and he was like "Why did you tell me" and it seems that, going forward, he really doesn't care to know what Pea and I are doing as long as it doesn't affect his schedule/he's not around. Easy enough.

We also had a conversation recently where I was just like, frankly "It's not my fault that the women you (and Pea for that matter) would prefer are not ALSO the women that would be okay with dating you while knowing you're in a committed relationship." This isn't to say that there is a certain 'type' of woman that is poly, just that since Joe isn't willing to really dive into the poly pool (dating apps, meetups, etc. with intention), he hasn't met anyone else that's accepting of me being his wife. And he hasn't expressed wanting to be with someone else. So I also am saying "It's not my fault your mono and I'm poly." I know this can change, and I have used this forum at times to prepare myself for that day! But it hasn't happened yet, and I'm not sure it will. So in accepting that that's where we're at NOW, which is what matters most, I've been trying to adjust to it. I'm happy that Joe feels he has accepted what that comes with, without feeling he has to just be with someone to make things "even", which is a sentiment he had for the first year or so that Pea and I dated.

2. That he sometimes feels like a cuck, but that he stops just short of actually seeing Pea and I being intimate. Pea and I are never romantic in front of Joe. It's just like an unspoken rule that allows us to just be friends when we're all together like old times. I told Joe that I never think of him in this way. I know there are people on this forum that are into cuckholding! so there's no judgement there. It's just that as a straight male who doesn't consider himself poly, and is really truly tolerating this lifestyle because he knows it's what I want and genuinely enjoys the companionship of my partner (also his best friend), he has moments where he looks at himself how other people potentially would (his friends, family, society-- i dont think his family or friends would look at him this way if he told them, but i could see him thinking that in dark moments) and in the most negative way.

Again, from my perspective, it's like, if you're happy living like this, then just be happy. And don't look at yourself from other people's perspective. THAT I can understand tho. The whole judging yourself for living your life in a way other people would judge. So for that reason I don't really think there is such thing as a mono-poly dynamic.... aren't you just inherently poly if your partner is poly? Because you are experiencing a lot of the judgement and identity stuff that your partner is experiencing as a 'mono' person, you just aren't actually dating/sleeping with others? And that judgement feeling, it hasn't really gone away for me. So I didn't have great advice for Joe in getting over it completely, 100% of the time.

Anyway. Just some thoughts.
 
That concept of feeling like a cuckold, "unmanly," stems from patriarchal thinking. Modern polyamory is a feminist concept and goes against about 3000 years of patriarchal rule and enforcement, even by violence. The idea is that a man owns "his" woman outright. She is no more nor less than a cow, a donkey, a slave or even a table.

The concept was invented and enforced in order to preserve patrilineality, passing down goods through the male line, which is unnatural, when you think about it. Before the ability to detect DNA, it was a woman's word who the father of her baby was. So she had to be kept in line, indoors, covered up, chaperoned (by a eunuch if necessary), in order to make sure she didn't have sex with any other man than her husband. There is no mention in the Bible of what she could get up to sexually with other women in the harem, because other women couldn't make her pregnant, so it didn't matter.

So, Joe's feelings run deep, but they are a form of brainwashing by the customs of our culture, which modern polyamory turns on its head. He can take heart in that his wife is a free person, not his possession, not his chattel (cattle/cow), and therefore has a right with whom to share her body and soul. Men have had this right. They have been allowed traditionally to have multiple wives and concubines (sex slaves). Solomon, known as the wisest man on earth, had hundreds of wives and concubines, according to the Bible.
 
@Magdlyn This all makes sense. And yeah I've never really thought about the tradition of passing possessions thru the male line and how that kinda doesnt make sense lol
I can't speak for other poly configurations, but I have found that this one (MFM) goes especially strong against the patriarchal ideals/framework that most modern cultures pull from

Like... I have felt like a dirty whore and that I'm not "enough" for either of my partners because I can't be completely 'theirs'
and Joe has communicated feeling emasculated.

Pea stays mostly silent on this. We've talked about jealousy a couple times, but he definitely has just accepted that his conservative family will never be cool with it. Perhaps he's avoided some of those internalized judgements because our relationship is mostly under wraps. idk.
 
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ A couple cool dreams that have to do with poly! *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

the stone fell out of my marriage ring (i say marriage ring because Joe and I didn't have a wedding lol) and joe found it and put it back. it was teardrop shaped and much larger than it is irl, with gold and diamonds wrapped all around it. i also had all these other rings on my fingers.

Also, had a dream that i was half naked in front of joe, and Pea, and .. Joe's mom lol. she walked in when i was just getting ready to go to sleep. i felt like a huge whore and that i had to explain myself, and she just like, didn't care. she was like "it's fine" and smiled and started talking about something else.
 
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