AutumnLeaves
New member
It's probably just hormones, unless you've felt this way consistently for a month or three. I always start seriously questioning about three of those five things at least two days a month. 
The Best Life Yet
- Thread starter Reverie
- Start date
Reverie
Active member
Aaaaand I'm sitting at the testing office because Rider's post-Florida test results came in and he has contracted anal gonorrhea, presumably from Allie, since he JUST got tested a few weeks ago after Viv and was fine. It's not in his penis, only in his butt, so presumably it just dripped down there while she was on top or something? And he used a condom so his dick was protected but his butt was not? I dunno.
I suppose it's possible that Dustin was naughty in the past three weeks and didn't tell me about it, and I caught it from him and Rider got it from me, but that seems highly unlikely given the amount we've hung out in that time period. And the fact that Rider doesn't have it in his dick suggests to me that it likely came from someone he was using a condom with. But I guess we'll see if I have it, which might scuttle that last hypothesis.
I am really, really, really not looking forward to discussing this with Dustin, mainly because I know he hates imagining Rider and me having sex, and this will necessarily put that picture in his mind. Also because I've been so adamant about Dustin being safe/honest with me, and he's pretty inexperienced with all of this, and I could see him easily assuming that I haven't made the same demand of Rider, or, if I have, that Rider has violated the agreements somehow. It's just a shitty situation all around.
Plus I have a ton of work to do for my job today, and I was looking forward to doing it on my couch with a nice cup of coffee, and here I am tapping away at a sure-to-eventually-die laptop in a freezing cold clinic waiting room.
My life right now, I swear.
At least I started bleeding this morning, so some of the moroseness and inability to cope has subsided.
I suppose it's possible that Dustin was naughty in the past three weeks and didn't tell me about it, and I caught it from him and Rider got it from me, but that seems highly unlikely given the amount we've hung out in that time period. And the fact that Rider doesn't have it in his dick suggests to me that it likely came from someone he was using a condom with. But I guess we'll see if I have it, which might scuttle that last hypothesis.
I am really, really, really not looking forward to discussing this with Dustin, mainly because I know he hates imagining Rider and me having sex, and this will necessarily put that picture in his mind. Also because I've been so adamant about Dustin being safe/honest with me, and he's pretty inexperienced with all of this, and I could see him easily assuming that I haven't made the same demand of Rider, or, if I have, that Rider has violated the agreements somehow. It's just a shitty situation all around.
Plus I have a ton of work to do for my job today, and I was looking forward to doing it on my couch with a nice cup of coffee, and here I am tapping away at a sure-to-eventually-die laptop in a freezing cold clinic waiting room.
My life right now, I swear.
At least I started bleeding this morning, so some of the moroseness and inability to cope has subsided.
Reverie
Active member
"Just in case," they gave me a shot IN MY ASS MUSCLE and two horse pills that I had to take with food. These medications disallow me from drinking alcohol for a week, and I'm also not allowed to have any sex with Rider till a week after he takes his, or with Dustin until either (a) I test negative which means he doesn't have it or (b) I test positive, then he tests and takes his and we wait a week. Ugh!
Rider told me that Allie was indeed playing with his butt, so that's probably how it happened. He called Allie, and she was freaked out about not being able to test immediately because of the impending hurricane. He called Viv, too, just in case, because the medical literature we found online said the incubation period could be up to 10 days, and he'd tested only 8 days after being with her. Viv was super nice about it and thanked him for "being an adult." But all signs at the moment point to Allie. I guess we'll know after the hurricane.
Dustin was SO SUPER COOL about the whole thing. All my nervousness was unfounded. I actually woke him up (even though it was after noon) with the phone call. When he ascertained what I was about to discuss, he laughed and said, "Oh, boy. One of THOSE conversations. All right, whatcha got?"
When I told him how bad I felt about it all, he told me to seriously not worry about it—shit happens and it's always a potential consequence. It was the PERFECT opportunity for him to whip out more of his disdain for “my ‘lifestyle’” like he does every once in a while, but he didn’t. He was very compassionate.
He wasn’t happy that I can’t have sex OR drink for a week, but he dealt with it like a champ. He’s going to wait till after I get my results to go get tested himself. If I’m positive, then he’ll have to go in. But he hates doctors, so he’s putting it off till it’s absolutely necessary.
When I thanked him for being so cool about it, he just said, "That's how it's gotta be with these things. What other option is there?"
So . . . I guess things are going as well as they possibly COULD? I told Rider, though, that after this, if he's going to be sleeping around and doing butt stuff with other people, I will probably resume using condoms with him. I have zero desire to more than once go through loss-of-Saturday, butt-needle, and a week of abstinence from fun. If it were just me to worry about, that'd be a different story, but Dustin is not sleeping with anyone else, so it's also forcing him to abstain from sex for a week at no fault of his own, and that's kind of unfair.
Rider told me that Allie was indeed playing with his butt, so that's probably how it happened. He called Allie, and she was freaked out about not being able to test immediately because of the impending hurricane. He called Viv, too, just in case, because the medical literature we found online said the incubation period could be up to 10 days, and he'd tested only 8 days after being with her. Viv was super nice about it and thanked him for "being an adult." But all signs at the moment point to Allie. I guess we'll know after the hurricane.
Dustin was SO SUPER COOL about the whole thing. All my nervousness was unfounded. I actually woke him up (even though it was after noon) with the phone call. When he ascertained what I was about to discuss, he laughed and said, "Oh, boy. One of THOSE conversations. All right, whatcha got?"
When I told him how bad I felt about it all, he told me to seriously not worry about it—shit happens and it's always a potential consequence. It was the PERFECT opportunity for him to whip out more of his disdain for “my ‘lifestyle’” like he does every once in a while, but he didn’t. He was very compassionate.
He wasn’t happy that I can’t have sex OR drink for a week, but he dealt with it like a champ. He’s going to wait till after I get my results to go get tested himself. If I’m positive, then he’ll have to go in. But he hates doctors, so he’s putting it off till it’s absolutely necessary.
When I thanked him for being so cool about it, he just said, "That's how it's gotta be with these things. What other option is there?"
So . . . I guess things are going as well as they possibly COULD? I told Rider, though, that after this, if he's going to be sleeping around and doing butt stuff with other people, I will probably resume using condoms with him. I have zero desire to more than once go through loss-of-Saturday, butt-needle, and a week of abstinence from fun. If it were just me to worry about, that'd be a different story, but Dustin is not sleeping with anyone else, so it's also forcing him to abstain from sex for a week at no fault of his own, and that's kind of unfair.
Reverie
Active member
In thinking of all that has happened in the past 48 hours, and of how little time I have to record it all here, I am reminded that there is so much stuff/nuance that happens that we don't see in these blogs—no one can ever know the whole story or have a full picture from reading here.
With that in mind, here is a short, numbered list of things that have happened:
1. The out-of-town trip with the band was a clusterfuck. This time, thankfully, it was not Dustin fighting with me. It was the venue being utterly terrible and driving everyone (except me) to drink, resulting a hammered, argumentative band, fighting with each other and near-physically fighting with outsiders. I did a lot of playing peacekeeper.
2. Some combination of being in the van + substances apparently reliably removes Dustin's filter, as he ended up openly discussing the STI situation in front of everyone. Luckily for him, IDGAF what people think of me, nor am I a particularly private person, and it was, after all, the truth. So I didn't get mad about it. Actually, I suspected before even having the phone convo that that was what was going to happen, and I still chose to tell him in advance of the trip.
3. I (being the only sober one) ended up driving the van home, thus completely winning over Dustin's bestie. He posted a pic of me on IG with the caption "unflappable." And I guess it's true, as I managed to pilot a giant van down winding mountain roads with a cliff on one side and no guard rail, with five all-but-brawling drunk people as passengers, in pitch darkness, with jackrabbits darting in front of me every few feet and my partner saying things that would incite most people to embarrassment . . . after being awake for almost 24 hours. I have no desire to become default Band Mom, so I am not doing this again for a long time.
4. Once home, a still-drunk Dustin admitted that he was more bothered about stuff than he'd let on in our original conversation (ya think?), completely not remembering his ranting in the van. He said it was really hard for him because he'd done everything I'd asked of him, and he'd trusted me, and it turned out I'd put his health at risk. He is not wrong. It was my own ignorance in not knowing that things could be transmitted that way to a male partner—even using condoms—and if I'd known better, I would have been using condoms with Rider all along. Rider told me that the clinic had told him that LAST TIME he'd gone, and he hadn't passed the info on to me. It is obviously my responsibility to protect myself (and therefore Dustin), if Rider is going to be with other women (and Dustin is not). Live and learn. I still feel guilty, but it will pass.
5. It came up in conversation with Rider last night that he'd been IMing with Viv and she'd been super apologetic, basically implying that it was probably her. I don't know whether or not it truly was—if she's gotten test results then I don't know about it—but obviously she believes it's possible, which suggests risky behaviors on her part. I'd already, before all of this, kind of scolded Rider for not even ASKING about her testing and BC status before having sex with her, so I did not re-scold him. But I'm worried because, if it was her, that's a longer window of exposure for me. I won't know till Wednesday or Thursday, so I'm still trying not to obsess.
6. When I told Dustin of all his shenanigans Saturday night, he was again very apologetic and thanked me for putting up with him. I asked him if I was "going to have to 'June Carter' his ass," referring to the part in the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line where she rather forcibly cleans him up. The fact of the matter is that I do not have the resources (time, emotional, or otherwise) to do such a thing, but I thought that a friendly threat might get through to him that his behavior, while not that time damaging to me in particular, was still unacceptable. I had tried that night (at Dustin's own request) to slow his pace, but one particularly happiness-undermining bar patron had kept bringing him shots, even after I'd told the fellow he didn't want any more. In the end, it's a decision he has to make for himself, and it's not one he's going to make favorably when he's already drunk—I, myself, know all too well how that goes. I am often guilty of the same exact shit.
7. Despite his being upset over the STI stuff, and probably in part because of my handling of Saturday night, Dustin has doubled down on his love for me. He was telling me all Sunday how he loves me more every day. We couldn't have any kind of penetrative sex, but we did some manual stimulation (plus careful hand-washing) and he managed to get me off that way—a first for us.
We have also planned a double-date overnight road trip with his brother and his girlfriend for next month. Having grown up in a large, close (back then) family, I really like doing family-ish things with partners. And we're doing homemade sushi with them on Thursday—apparently Dustin knows how.
My schedule for the coming week is this:
Tonight - hanging with Rider while I get some work done
Tomorrow - hanging with Rider while I get some work done
Wednesday - hike/beach/frozen treats with Dustin
Thursday - make sushi with Dustin & fam, then hang with him while I get work done
Friday - rehearsal with the band, then hang with Rider
Saturday - work and hang with Rider in the day; play show from 7–9; hang with Dustin afterward
Sunday - hang with Dustin early; go to Elena's going away party with Rider later; possibly work from home late-night
Soooo . . . it's a busy week for me! As usual. I would say that my existential crises have not fully passed, but my thinking about them has become less weighty-feeling and urgent. I feel much more "take things day by day and see what happens" rather than "OMG, what have I done with my life? Dooooo something!!!"
I just hope my test results come out favorably. All my wishing is being poured into that right now.
With that in mind, here is a short, numbered list of things that have happened:
1. The out-of-town trip with the band was a clusterfuck. This time, thankfully, it was not Dustin fighting with me. It was the venue being utterly terrible and driving everyone (except me) to drink, resulting a hammered, argumentative band, fighting with each other and near-physically fighting with outsiders. I did a lot of playing peacekeeper.
2. Some combination of being in the van + substances apparently reliably removes Dustin's filter, as he ended up openly discussing the STI situation in front of everyone. Luckily for him, IDGAF what people think of me, nor am I a particularly private person, and it was, after all, the truth. So I didn't get mad about it. Actually, I suspected before even having the phone convo that that was what was going to happen, and I still chose to tell him in advance of the trip.
3. I (being the only sober one) ended up driving the van home, thus completely winning over Dustin's bestie. He posted a pic of me on IG with the caption "unflappable." And I guess it's true, as I managed to pilot a giant van down winding mountain roads with a cliff on one side and no guard rail, with five all-but-brawling drunk people as passengers, in pitch darkness, with jackrabbits darting in front of me every few feet and my partner saying things that would incite most people to embarrassment . . . after being awake for almost 24 hours. I have no desire to become default Band Mom, so I am not doing this again for a long time.
4. Once home, a still-drunk Dustin admitted that he was more bothered about stuff than he'd let on in our original conversation (ya think?), completely not remembering his ranting in the van. He said it was really hard for him because he'd done everything I'd asked of him, and he'd trusted me, and it turned out I'd put his health at risk. He is not wrong. It was my own ignorance in not knowing that things could be transmitted that way to a male partner—even using condoms—and if I'd known better, I would have been using condoms with Rider all along. Rider told me that the clinic had told him that LAST TIME he'd gone, and he hadn't passed the info on to me. It is obviously my responsibility to protect myself (and therefore Dustin), if Rider is going to be with other women (and Dustin is not). Live and learn. I still feel guilty, but it will pass.
5. It came up in conversation with Rider last night that he'd been IMing with Viv and she'd been super apologetic, basically implying that it was probably her. I don't know whether or not it truly was—if she's gotten test results then I don't know about it—but obviously she believes it's possible, which suggests risky behaviors on her part. I'd already, before all of this, kind of scolded Rider for not even ASKING about her testing and BC status before having sex with her, so I did not re-scold him. But I'm worried because, if it was her, that's a longer window of exposure for me. I won't know till Wednesday or Thursday, so I'm still trying not to obsess.
6. When I told Dustin of all his shenanigans Saturday night, he was again very apologetic and thanked me for putting up with him. I asked him if I was "going to have to 'June Carter' his ass," referring to the part in the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line where she rather forcibly cleans him up. The fact of the matter is that I do not have the resources (time, emotional, or otherwise) to do such a thing, but I thought that a friendly threat might get through to him that his behavior, while not that time damaging to me in particular, was still unacceptable. I had tried that night (at Dustin's own request) to slow his pace, but one particularly happiness-undermining bar patron had kept bringing him shots, even after I'd told the fellow he didn't want any more. In the end, it's a decision he has to make for himself, and it's not one he's going to make favorably when he's already drunk—I, myself, know all too well how that goes. I am often guilty of the same exact shit.
7. Despite his being upset over the STI stuff, and probably in part because of my handling of Saturday night, Dustin has doubled down on his love for me. He was telling me all Sunday how he loves me more every day. We couldn't have any kind of penetrative sex, but we did some manual stimulation (plus careful hand-washing) and he managed to get me off that way—a first for us.
We have also planned a double-date overnight road trip with his brother and his girlfriend for next month. Having grown up in a large, close (back then) family, I really like doing family-ish things with partners. And we're doing homemade sushi with them on Thursday—apparently Dustin knows how.
My schedule for the coming week is this:
Tonight - hanging with Rider while I get some work done
Tomorrow - hanging with Rider while I get some work done
Wednesday - hike/beach/frozen treats with Dustin
Thursday - make sushi with Dustin & fam, then hang with him while I get work done
Friday - rehearsal with the band, then hang with Rider
Saturday - work and hang with Rider in the day; play show from 7–9; hang with Dustin afterward
Sunday - hang with Dustin early; go to Elena's going away party with Rider later; possibly work from home late-night
Soooo . . . it's a busy week for me! As usual. I would say that my existential crises have not fully passed, but my thinking about them has become less weighty-feeling and urgent. I feel much more "take things day by day and see what happens" rather than "OMG, what have I done with my life? Dooooo something!!!"
I just hope my test results come out favorably. All my wishing is being poured into that right now.
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Reverie
Active member
This morning, I woke up from a (rare) dream of my sister to find that she'd texted me. I'm going to be an auntie again in May! I'm very happy for her, her husband, and my little nephew who gets to be a big brother.
It's good to have some happy news!
Last night was relatively uneventful. I did some chores, including laundry (because the kitten had peed on the bed yesterday morning, and because the sheets from when Dustin was over had still been bundled up in the corner) and fixing Rider's lunch salads for the week. And then I worked on my laptop on the couch while Rider rubbed my feet.
Dustin and I texted for a while, planning an adventure for next month. There's a famous old ship that now has a hotel in it, and they do a month-long Halloween event during October. Dustin's grandmother came over on that ship, so he's always wanted to stay in a room there, and he's excited to have someone to do it with. The Halloween thing is a fun bonus.
We're both so busy, though, that it was impossible for us to find a weekend night when we're both free! So I checked with my boss, and I am going to take one day off without pay toward the end of the month. It shouldn't be too painful, as my next paycheck after that is my "extra" paycheck in the month of November. Usually, I use that to fund my trip back east, but one missing day won't cut into that too much.
I eventually got to a stopping point with my work, had a brief phone convo with Dustin just to hear his voice, and then headed to bed.
Rider was very pleased to get a handjob—our first sexual contact since the bad news came to light. I washed my hands thoroughly and used hand sanitizer just in case.
One thing that is inconvenient with this whole not knowing my testing status thing is not being able to use my Diva Cup! I had to switch back to tampons this cycle for the first time in . . . I don't even know. Early 2014? 2013, even? I hate tampons! But it seemed safer than repeatedly re-inserting a device while my antibiotics were still working.
Another thing that happened yesterday was that I found out that the chick friend of the band who is often along on those road trips—the one who is a total agent of chaos and seems just batshit insane to me—is a therapist! The mind boggles. I have seen and heard this chick do and say some really, really crazy shit, so the idea that other people come to her for their mental health blows my mind. It was a serious WTF moment for me.
Anyway, back to the grind for me. Hopefully I will have some more good news tomorrow . . .
It's good to have some happy news!
Last night was relatively uneventful. I did some chores, including laundry (because the kitten had peed on the bed yesterday morning, and because the sheets from when Dustin was over had still been bundled up in the corner) and fixing Rider's lunch salads for the week. And then I worked on my laptop on the couch while Rider rubbed my feet.
Dustin and I texted for a while, planning an adventure for next month. There's a famous old ship that now has a hotel in it, and they do a month-long Halloween event during October. Dustin's grandmother came over on that ship, so he's always wanted to stay in a room there, and he's excited to have someone to do it with. The Halloween thing is a fun bonus.
We're both so busy, though, that it was impossible for us to find a weekend night when we're both free! So I checked with my boss, and I am going to take one day off without pay toward the end of the month. It shouldn't be too painful, as my next paycheck after that is my "extra" paycheck in the month of November. Usually, I use that to fund my trip back east, but one missing day won't cut into that too much.
I eventually got to a stopping point with my work, had a brief phone convo with Dustin just to hear his voice, and then headed to bed.
Rider was very pleased to get a handjob—our first sexual contact since the bad news came to light. I washed my hands thoroughly and used hand sanitizer just in case.
One thing that is inconvenient with this whole not knowing my testing status thing is not being able to use my Diva Cup! I had to switch back to tampons this cycle for the first time in . . . I don't even know. Early 2014? 2013, even? I hate tampons! But it seemed safer than repeatedly re-inserting a device while my antibiotics were still working.
Another thing that happened yesterday was that I found out that the chick friend of the band who is often along on those road trips—the one who is a total agent of chaos and seems just batshit insane to me—is a therapist! The mind boggles. I have seen and heard this chick do and say some really, really crazy shit, so the idea that other people come to her for their mental health blows my mind. It was a serious WTF moment for me.
Anyway, back to the grind for me. Hopefully I will have some more good news tomorrow . . .
Reverie
Active member
Ah! Another piece of good news: I sneaked a peek at the royalty statements for the check that should be coming to me in a few weeks, and it's more than double what I expected! FINALLY a bit of financial reprieve!
I’m not going to be extravagant with it, though. What I’m probably going to do is get my plane tickets for Thanksgiving, the new bass amp I was planning to get that Dustin's brother is getting me a sweet discount on, some much-needed clothes (cheap ones: thrift and Target), a pair of sneakers since mine are ratty, and get my phone battery fixed, then throw the rest at debt.
Well, and take Rider and Dustin each out once and spend some money on them for a change. They both treat me so well when I'm flat broke.
I’m not going to be extravagant with it, though. What I’m probably going to do is get my plane tickets for Thanksgiving, the new bass amp I was planning to get that Dustin's brother is getting me a sweet discount on, some much-needed clothes (cheap ones: thrift and Target), a pair of sneakers since mine are ratty, and get my phone battery fixed, then throw the rest at debt.
Well, and take Rider and Dustin each out once and spend some money on them for a change. They both treat me so well when I'm flat broke.
Reverie
Active member
Aaaand now I'm sitting at a Starbucks waiting for a ride because I was biking home and my tire was being weird and thumpy, and I looked down, and it looked like this. FML. After I already lost my water bottle out of the cage on my way TO work. If it ain't one thing, it's another!
Spork
Active member
I actually think that having mental health issues, or dealing with family members over long periods of time who do, is probably a big cause of people becoming therapists. You spend so much time armchair-psychoanalyzing yourself and/or others, that you figure...what the hell, might as well be getting paid for this shit.
Though I gotta say, as someone who is actually considering becoming a sex/relationship sort of therapist person, I would not have considered it like 5 years ago, or back when I was "in the crazy" with my ex and it was my normal. I was already dealing with more than I wanted to on a daily basis, and did not have the spare mojo for "clients." Only now that I've come a long way, and learned and grown a lot, and I think I could probably do such a thing.
Reverie
Active member
The stuff that this chick does is often kind of beyond the pale.
Like pouring a glass of water over her own head next to me and Dustin while we were arguing a couple weekends ago. Or lying to Rider about her age for no reason. Or "spying" on Rider's conversation with Tina about me and Dustin, then telling Toby and Dustin about it. Or bragging to Oona that "everyone would be dancing if SHE'D made the playlist." Or purposely trying to seduce and then bail on the chip-toothed, B.O.-ridden co-proprietor/bartender of the shittiest mountain bar I've ever seen. Or ripping her own shirt open on the dance floor in said bar, ending up going home in one of said bartender's B.O.-scented shirts. Or passing out in the very back of the van on top of the drummer (who is monogamously partnered) after having flirted with every other male all night long. Or (what seems to me to be) purposely trying to make me jealous by sauntering up to Dustin and taking drags off his cigarette while he plays bass. Or discussing, in the van, in explicit detail, the oddities of her last gynecological visit.
Everything she does seems to be calculated for some combination of chaos, shock value, and attention. Oona said that upon meeting her, she immediately got a "this chick is psycho—run!" vibe.
I tolerate her, because these guys have known her for 20 years and seem to like having her around. But she is definitely in the top 5 of craziest people I've met since I've been back in CA. I've maybe never even encountered her particular brand of crazy before.
I feel like in a professional setting, she'd be more likely to try to get people to ruin their lives, just to see what would happen, than she would to help anyone on purpose. Seriously, she reminds me of a cat that lazily smacks a large beetle over and over again to see what happens if she never outright kills it.
Reverie
Active member
Still crazy busy at work. Not enough time for a play-by-play. A few things of note:
1. I have come to realize that the likeliest thing to break Dustin and me up is going to be his substance issues. It's not that I care that he parties—I party too—but he does seem to occasionally achieve a level of intoxication that reliably tips him into "totally different person" mode. This ONLY happens around his bestie, and it is not pretty.
The first time it happened, I was fucked up too, and we almost broke up. The second and third times, I have been sober and have been able to gingerly defuse things, but I'll be damned if this is something I want to put up with regularly in my life. My parents split up when I was 9, but for the 5 years I was a conscious human out of that time, I watched my mom have to do that with my dad—totally sweet fellow 90% of the time, unpredictable asshole 10% of the time—and I am not going to do that to myself on purpose. I'd rather learn from other people's mistakes than have to put myself through it to learn.
I outright told him yesterday afternoon that if he cannot get his shit together with this, whether it be find some way to control himself better when he's really fucked up, or not get that fucked up to begin with, that is what will spell the end of things. He seems to think that if, in the moment, I just tell him he's being an idiot and put him in time out, then that will be enough to knock him back to reality. I have my doubts. I kind of suspect that if I try that, it will merely escalate the drama and he'll get defensive and more hostile. But I guess I won't know until I try.
It's a damned shame, because over 95% of the time, he really is just about perfect. I have never met anyone so thoughtful, who paid such close attention to my wants and needs, and who I was so in tune with in so many ways. He’s sweet, intelligent, kind-hearted, talented, funny, playful, sexy, well read, optimistic, fun to be around, competent, generous, passionate, and loving. He’s a fantastic boyfriend, always surprising me and doing me favors without my even asking. The sex is fantastic. I watch him with other people, and he’s a compassionate, helpful stranger; a doting uncle; a loyal, generous friend; and a self-sacrificing, devoted brother. And he very obviously loves the shit out of me.
And I love the shit out of him too, to the point where even things that would have seemed flaws in other people are adorable in him. I even giggle at his spelling errors and think they are cute: “sneek” for “sneak” and “if-ee” for “iffy,” and somehow “peddle” for “pedal” but “pedal” for “petal.”
But those few small hours out of every week when he stays out too late and parties too long with his bestie—he becomes combative, sarcastic, drama-seeking, pessimistic, nihilistic, and even a little cruel. The kind light that normally radiates from his eyes vanishes, replaced by a glazed, flat stoniness that is close to impossible to reason with. And I kind of feel like there is no percentage of time when that is acceptable.
I told him I am not out to change anyone. I want him to live his life how he wants to live it. But I have now seen enough evidence that this is a pattern, and it’s not one that I can change for him. I can try to raise his awareness and nudge him back on the path from time to time for a little while longer, if he wants me to and needs the help, but that’s not a long-term strategy, and it’s not my burden to carry for him.
The really crazy part is that he truly does not even seem to know that he does this. I asked him if it’s always been this way—have other people mentioned it to him over the years? Because generally one way that we get a sense of our own flaws is when we hear the same complaints about ourselves from multiple people over time. He said no, that this is the first he’s heard of it. He underestimates how much of a jerk he can be at those times. When I’ve told him specifics, he’s been like “I SAID THAT?!”
So maybe my raising his awareness will be the push he needs to figure out how to change it if he wants to. Or maybe not, and we’ll have to part ways eventually. He says “we’ll figure it out” and, so far, we have figured everything else out. So we’ll see.
Despite all of this ranting, the shitty part was only a small portion of Wednesday. Everything since then has been great and fine as usual. The sushi thing with his brother and girlfriend last night was especially nice.
2. Rider went to a poly meetup Wednesday night and met a girl he likes. Apparently she also has brightly colored hair, plays bass and sings, has as her favorite band one of my favorite bands, and has similar taste in entertainment to me (he’d mentioned a show that she likes which is a show that he and I used to watch a lot together). He said that she expressed interest in coming over to jam sometime, and she texted him before he was even home to say that it was nice meeting him and that she’s looking forward to jamming. I’m glad that he’s met someone he likes, but I feel a little weird that she sounds outwardly so similar to me. I don’t know why that makes me feel weird, but it does.
Rider is already crushing super hard: binging on that band (and posting videos by them to his Facebook page); sending me memes of the show he mentioned that she and I have in common liking; and being like “she’s soooooo pretty!” I haven’t seen him this crushy over someone in a while. He never got like this with Viv or Hannah. I think I’d have to go back to spring of 2016 when he was conducting that long-distance flirtation with Rita, which couldn’t really go anywhere because it was long-distance and she is a single mother with not a lot of time or funds to travel. This would be the first time he’s super into someone local since we moved here.
He said he’s “trying to not get too excited in case nothing happens because you never know how these things are going to go” but he messaged her this morning. I feel generally positive about the whole thing so far, except for the slight weirdness about the similarities. I did, however, have a bad dream about him ignoring me in favor of some mystery girl. But waking me is not very perturbed.
So who knows what will happen. I suppose it’s possible that in a few weeks or months, if things with Dustin need to end and if things with Rider’s new interest take off, I will be back to being functionally mono and Rider will be the one regularly dating someone. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
3. Things between me and Rider are slightly weird right now. He had somewhat of a freakout Tuesday evening when I mentioned wanting to go back to condoms with him, even though we had actually talked about it before and he’d seemed OK with it then. But I’m not sure what part freaked him out because when it came up I was driving, and I asked to pause the conversation because I did not have the mental bandwidth to process and drive in rush hour traffic at the same time, and then he did not want to pick the conversation back up later because he didn’t feel well due to the STI meds. And then I’ve been at Dustin’s place since then. So there is an up-in-the-air thing that we won’t get a chance to discuss till tomorrow evening.
I’m not super happy about how the schedule has shaken out this week. By necessity, I had three nights without getting to sleep next to Dustin (Sun, Mon, Tue) and now three nights without getting to sleep next to Rider (Wed, Thu, tonight) and then it’ll be four nights with no Dustin again (Sat, Sun, Mon, Tue). I like it MUCH better when I don’t go more than two nights without seeing one or the other of them, like when the days are more evenly spaced out.
I was originally supposed to go home with Rider after rehearsal tonight and do tomorrow night with Dustin, but Dustin’s schedule changed last-minute, and it was fine with Rider to swap, so we did. But I hate how much I miss each of them when I’m away for so long. And I hate being away from my PETS for so long when I’m with Dustin—both in terms of bonding with the pets and in terms of leaving Rider to care for them on his own. It’s just all-around not an ideal situation for me.
The time apart from Rider, coinciding with the up-in-the-air discussion thing and his having a new interest taking up brain-space and us not being able to have sex till next Tuesday . . . all of it is just making things feel . . . weird. At least I’ll be seeing him briefly at rehearsal tonight.
But overall, with everything, I feel pretty emotionally all over the place today. Like not 100% connected to Rider because of the above, and not 100% connected to Dustin because of my aforementioned worries—mostly just kind of bopping along, focusing on my work and whichever dude/issue is immediately at hand, but if I pause too long to think about any one thing for too long, I start to feel weird and unbalanced. I think maybe I haven’t had enough alone time lately. Maybe I’ll take a few hours of introvert time Sunday morning to just quietly work in my room.
1. I have come to realize that the likeliest thing to break Dustin and me up is going to be his substance issues. It's not that I care that he parties—I party too—but he does seem to occasionally achieve a level of intoxication that reliably tips him into "totally different person" mode. This ONLY happens around his bestie, and it is not pretty.
The first time it happened, I was fucked up too, and we almost broke up. The second and third times, I have been sober and have been able to gingerly defuse things, but I'll be damned if this is something I want to put up with regularly in my life. My parents split up when I was 9, but for the 5 years I was a conscious human out of that time, I watched my mom have to do that with my dad—totally sweet fellow 90% of the time, unpredictable asshole 10% of the time—and I am not going to do that to myself on purpose. I'd rather learn from other people's mistakes than have to put myself through it to learn.
I outright told him yesterday afternoon that if he cannot get his shit together with this, whether it be find some way to control himself better when he's really fucked up, or not get that fucked up to begin with, that is what will spell the end of things. He seems to think that if, in the moment, I just tell him he's being an idiot and put him in time out, then that will be enough to knock him back to reality. I have my doubts. I kind of suspect that if I try that, it will merely escalate the drama and he'll get defensive and more hostile. But I guess I won't know until I try.
It's a damned shame, because over 95% of the time, he really is just about perfect. I have never met anyone so thoughtful, who paid such close attention to my wants and needs, and who I was so in tune with in so many ways. He’s sweet, intelligent, kind-hearted, talented, funny, playful, sexy, well read, optimistic, fun to be around, competent, generous, passionate, and loving. He’s a fantastic boyfriend, always surprising me and doing me favors without my even asking. The sex is fantastic. I watch him with other people, and he’s a compassionate, helpful stranger; a doting uncle; a loyal, generous friend; and a self-sacrificing, devoted brother. And he very obviously loves the shit out of me.
And I love the shit out of him too, to the point where even things that would have seemed flaws in other people are adorable in him. I even giggle at his spelling errors and think they are cute: “sneek” for “sneak” and “if-ee” for “iffy,” and somehow “peddle” for “pedal” but “pedal” for “petal.”
But those few small hours out of every week when he stays out too late and parties too long with his bestie—he becomes combative, sarcastic, drama-seeking, pessimistic, nihilistic, and even a little cruel. The kind light that normally radiates from his eyes vanishes, replaced by a glazed, flat stoniness that is close to impossible to reason with. And I kind of feel like there is no percentage of time when that is acceptable.
I told him I am not out to change anyone. I want him to live his life how he wants to live it. But I have now seen enough evidence that this is a pattern, and it’s not one that I can change for him. I can try to raise his awareness and nudge him back on the path from time to time for a little while longer, if he wants me to and needs the help, but that’s not a long-term strategy, and it’s not my burden to carry for him.
The really crazy part is that he truly does not even seem to know that he does this. I asked him if it’s always been this way—have other people mentioned it to him over the years? Because generally one way that we get a sense of our own flaws is when we hear the same complaints about ourselves from multiple people over time. He said no, that this is the first he’s heard of it. He underestimates how much of a jerk he can be at those times. When I’ve told him specifics, he’s been like “I SAID THAT?!”
So maybe my raising his awareness will be the push he needs to figure out how to change it if he wants to. Or maybe not, and we’ll have to part ways eventually. He says “we’ll figure it out” and, so far, we have figured everything else out. So we’ll see.
Despite all of this ranting, the shitty part was only a small portion of Wednesday. Everything since then has been great and fine as usual. The sushi thing with his brother and girlfriend last night was especially nice.
2. Rider went to a poly meetup Wednesday night and met a girl he likes. Apparently she also has brightly colored hair, plays bass and sings, has as her favorite band one of my favorite bands, and has similar taste in entertainment to me (he’d mentioned a show that she likes which is a show that he and I used to watch a lot together). He said that she expressed interest in coming over to jam sometime, and she texted him before he was even home to say that it was nice meeting him and that she’s looking forward to jamming. I’m glad that he’s met someone he likes, but I feel a little weird that she sounds outwardly so similar to me. I don’t know why that makes me feel weird, but it does.
Rider is already crushing super hard: binging on that band (and posting videos by them to his Facebook page); sending me memes of the show he mentioned that she and I have in common liking; and being like “she’s soooooo pretty!” I haven’t seen him this crushy over someone in a while. He never got like this with Viv or Hannah. I think I’d have to go back to spring of 2016 when he was conducting that long-distance flirtation with Rita, which couldn’t really go anywhere because it was long-distance and she is a single mother with not a lot of time or funds to travel. This would be the first time he’s super into someone local since we moved here.
He said he’s “trying to not get too excited in case nothing happens because you never know how these things are going to go” but he messaged her this morning. I feel generally positive about the whole thing so far, except for the slight weirdness about the similarities. I did, however, have a bad dream about him ignoring me in favor of some mystery girl. But waking me is not very perturbed.
So who knows what will happen. I suppose it’s possible that in a few weeks or months, if things with Dustin need to end and if things with Rider’s new interest take off, I will be back to being functionally mono and Rider will be the one regularly dating someone. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
3. Things between me and Rider are slightly weird right now. He had somewhat of a freakout Tuesday evening when I mentioned wanting to go back to condoms with him, even though we had actually talked about it before and he’d seemed OK with it then. But I’m not sure what part freaked him out because when it came up I was driving, and I asked to pause the conversation because I did not have the mental bandwidth to process and drive in rush hour traffic at the same time, and then he did not want to pick the conversation back up later because he didn’t feel well due to the STI meds. And then I’ve been at Dustin’s place since then. So there is an up-in-the-air thing that we won’t get a chance to discuss till tomorrow evening.
I’m not super happy about how the schedule has shaken out this week. By necessity, I had three nights without getting to sleep next to Dustin (Sun, Mon, Tue) and now three nights without getting to sleep next to Rider (Wed, Thu, tonight) and then it’ll be four nights with no Dustin again (Sat, Sun, Mon, Tue). I like it MUCH better when I don’t go more than two nights without seeing one or the other of them, like when the days are more evenly spaced out.
I was originally supposed to go home with Rider after rehearsal tonight and do tomorrow night with Dustin, but Dustin’s schedule changed last-minute, and it was fine with Rider to swap, so we did. But I hate how much I miss each of them when I’m away for so long. And I hate being away from my PETS for so long when I’m with Dustin—both in terms of bonding with the pets and in terms of leaving Rider to care for them on his own. It’s just all-around not an ideal situation for me.
The time apart from Rider, coinciding with the up-in-the-air discussion thing and his having a new interest taking up brain-space and us not being able to have sex till next Tuesday . . . all of it is just making things feel . . . weird. At least I’ll be seeing him briefly at rehearsal tonight.
But overall, with everything, I feel pretty emotionally all over the place today. Like not 100% connected to Rider because of the above, and not 100% connected to Dustin because of my aforementioned worries—mostly just kind of bopping along, focusing on my work and whichever dude/issue is immediately at hand, but if I pause too long to think about any one thing for too long, I start to feel weird and unbalanced. I think maybe I haven’t had enough alone time lately. Maybe I’ll take a few hours of introvert time Sunday morning to just quietly work in my room.
Reverie
Active member
Processing, processing, processing . . .
When we got home last night, I finally worked up the courage (thanks to copious champagne available at a friend's birthday party) to tell Rider about all the weird existential life stuff I've been thinking about—how I'm kind of bored with my job, and how I'm trying to formulate a weird plan to try to get out of debt, and how I'm suddenly feeling uncertain about whether I'm going to regret it if I don't have kids, etc.
I just felt like it was wrong that I had all that stuff floating around in my head and wasn't telling him—like it was putting a distance between us—and I needed to share it with him because, after all, he is my best friend. He was 100% OK with and supportive about all of it except for the kid stuff.
He was (understandably) upset about that part and said that if it ever goes past the point of "uncertain about whether I will have regrets" and moves on to "this is something I actually have to do," then he will probably have to nope out of the situation, because (and I knew this) he hates kids and can't have as His Person someone who has them around all the time. I told him that's totally fair, and I don't currently see that on the horizon, but if it gets to that point, then I'll tell him immediately.
He asked me if that was "a Dustin thing," and I told him not exactly. It may have been some things that Dustin has said that got me thinking about it, but I honestly right now have serious misgivings about whether Dustin himself would even be suitable for a thing like that, and it's more of a "me thing" than a "Dustin thing." Like, I feel like if Dustin were no longer on the scene tomorrow, it'd still be a thought kicking around in my head now that the idea is awakened.
So, yeah, that's where that whole thing sits at this point.
And then this morning, we started to handle the whole condom thing that I mentioned in my earlier post I didn't know why he was upset about it.
Our stances were as follows . . .
Mine:
Now that I know that it's easier for him to catch stuff than I previously knew, since he's going to be sleeping around and dating, then I would like to use condoms with him to protect myself. This was never a problem early in our relationship—in fact, he was more adamant about insisting on them than I was—and he doesn't have any physical problem using them, so I didn't think it was going to be an issue at all.
Even though he isn't currently sleeping with someone locally, he's meeting people and going on dates and to meetups, and it'd be easier for me to just blanket instate condom use with him as a matter of course and habit then it would be to revisit and re-process every time he has sex with someone new. It becomes our "new normal" and then I don't have to feel jarred at changes as new people come and go.
Use of condoms for me is never about intimacy, but only about safety, and now that I realize that there is more risk in our openness than I originally thought I knew, I would like to close myself down to that risk as much as possible.
His:
He's not currently sleeping with anyone else regularly, and therefore is zero risk. Even though he's setting up dates with and talking to some other girls, he'd rather process condom use between him and me on a case-by-case basis, based on risk factors with his outside partners, testing status, etc. He's fine with the idea of my insisting on condoms with him while he goes through the testing and coming to trust new partners stages, but before and after that, he'd prefer to be condom-free with me.
He views condom-free sex as an intimacy booster, and if we were to go back to condoms, he feels like I am removing a level of intimacy from our sex life. When challenged as to why it's OK to remove that level of perceived intimacy on HIS terms but not on MINE, he did not have much of an answer. Additionally, he views condom-free sex as a privilege that connotes "specialness" and that he would be losing ground to Dustin if Dustin gets that "special privilege" and Rider, as my husband, does not.
The main points of his argument:
- I'm "punishing" him for contracting an STI.
- He's getting "left behind" if I have "more intimacy" with Dustin in this way than I do with him.
- If he doesn't have a current partner or if he acquires one and everyone tests, then if I insist on condoms it means I don't trust him.
My counterpoints:
- Punishment is about purposely making people feel additional consequences for their action—with intent of clear negative effects—and I have no interest in punishing him, only in protecting myself.
- This has nothing at all to do with Dustin—they are completely independent situations. I am not requiring condoms with Dustin currently because he is currently uninterested in sex with others. Rider is actively seeking sex with others. The two are unrelated. This is not a competition.
- And, anyway, I do not equate condom sex with lack of intimacy and condom-free sex as extra intimacy. When I was having sex with Rider for the first year and a half or so of our relationship, and we were using condoms, that sex was still super, super intimate and super, super amazing
- I'm not interested in re-processing this with every new partner he might have, and I also have no interest in trying to game out the risk level of the (poly) people he's dating so that we can go back to condom free some amount of time after he's been with them, and then do it all over again every time he adds a person. I prefer to just protect myself and be done with it.
I also explained how much easier it was for me if we just started doing it now (or, rather, once he tests negative to make sure the antibiotics worked) rather than bundling it with when he starts sleeping with someone new. If I have time to get used to it (because I also don't PREFER condom sex), then it becomes disentangled from also processing him having a new partner. It becomes "this is the new thing that we do, let's get used to it" instead of "this is a thing that we must now do while we're also processing this other stuff." It's basically dealing with one step at a time, rather than all at once. And it's doing it on my own terms, rather than reactionarily to a situation change.
We argued this stuff to tears.
At one point, Rider got very disturbingly like . . . entitled? Like instead of seeing sex (with a condom) as a thing that I was wanting to do with him and giving to him as a gift of my body, he was viewing condom-free sex as something that he was entitled to as my husband. It creeped me the fuck out because a) no one is entitled to my body, b) especially not under safety terms I'm not comfortable with, and c) do not pull the "I'm your husband" card as a reason for trying to get me to do some shit I don't want to do—that, to me, sullies the idea of being married. I married him because he's a joy to be with and because I want to build a life together, not to give him a way to strong-arm me into coerced consent.
That whole approach just seemed super toxic to me, and I tearfully told him so. It was very hard for me to explain how it was not going to be good for our sex life if he argued me into doing sex stuff I wasn't comfortable with. It was also hard for me to set and defend my boundaries there, but I really had to. This whole gonorrhea thing has been super traumatic for me.
Not only was there the (already explained in earlier posts) losing my Saturday, dealing with a painful injection, having to abstain from sex and alcohol, and having to explain to my other partner the risk he'd been put at, but, additionally, being pumped full of antibiotics has predictably messed up my chemical balance. My vagina is acting weird and I think I might be verging on a yeast infection or BV or both. Heavy antibiotics have done that to me before. I've been self-treating with boric acid and FemDophilus, but goddamn those good probiotics are expensive AF. I'm taking the next few days off of sex to try to remedy the situation.
So, yeah, I do not, under any circumstances, want a repeat scare. I want to at least be confident enough in the future that there have been two layers of protection between me and exposure: the Rider+whoever layer, and the me+Rider layer, so that if he tests positive for something, I can test, sure, but I can also delay "just in case" treatment till my results come back.
I just could not believe that he couldn't see that from my point of view. I couldn't believe that he was turning it into a thing pitting him and Dustin against each other. I couldn't believe that he couldn't understand why I'd want to simplify it by making it a cut-and-dried blanket thing. And I couldn't believe that he was acting so entitled to basically doing whatever he wanted with my body, to the point where he would rather argue me to tears than accept my decisions of bodily autonomy.
As we argued, more and more stuff started to come out of him. He made a remark about how little sex we have lately anyway, and I had to pause him and be like, "Are you currently dissatisfied with our sex life?" and he basically said yes, that the frequency of sexual activity was too low for him and he didn't like that I turned him down so often for receiving oral. This was the first I'd heard of any of it.
(continued . . . )
When we got home last night, I finally worked up the courage (thanks to copious champagne available at a friend's birthday party) to tell Rider about all the weird existential life stuff I've been thinking about—how I'm kind of bored with my job, and how I'm trying to formulate a weird plan to try to get out of debt, and how I'm suddenly feeling uncertain about whether I'm going to regret it if I don't have kids, etc.
I just felt like it was wrong that I had all that stuff floating around in my head and wasn't telling him—like it was putting a distance between us—and I needed to share it with him because, after all, he is my best friend. He was 100% OK with and supportive about all of it except for the kid stuff.
He was (understandably) upset about that part and said that if it ever goes past the point of "uncertain about whether I will have regrets" and moves on to "this is something I actually have to do," then he will probably have to nope out of the situation, because (and I knew this) he hates kids and can't have as His Person someone who has them around all the time. I told him that's totally fair, and I don't currently see that on the horizon, but if it gets to that point, then I'll tell him immediately.
He asked me if that was "a Dustin thing," and I told him not exactly. It may have been some things that Dustin has said that got me thinking about it, but I honestly right now have serious misgivings about whether Dustin himself would even be suitable for a thing like that, and it's more of a "me thing" than a "Dustin thing." Like, I feel like if Dustin were no longer on the scene tomorrow, it'd still be a thought kicking around in my head now that the idea is awakened.
So, yeah, that's where that whole thing sits at this point.
And then this morning, we started to handle the whole condom thing that I mentioned in my earlier post I didn't know why he was upset about it.
Our stances were as follows . . .
Mine:
Now that I know that it's easier for him to catch stuff than I previously knew, since he's going to be sleeping around and dating, then I would like to use condoms with him to protect myself. This was never a problem early in our relationship—in fact, he was more adamant about insisting on them than I was—and he doesn't have any physical problem using them, so I didn't think it was going to be an issue at all.
Even though he isn't currently sleeping with someone locally, he's meeting people and going on dates and to meetups, and it'd be easier for me to just blanket instate condom use with him as a matter of course and habit then it would be to revisit and re-process every time he has sex with someone new. It becomes our "new normal" and then I don't have to feel jarred at changes as new people come and go.
Use of condoms for me is never about intimacy, but only about safety, and now that I realize that there is more risk in our openness than I originally thought I knew, I would like to close myself down to that risk as much as possible.
His:
He's not currently sleeping with anyone else regularly, and therefore is zero risk. Even though he's setting up dates with and talking to some other girls, he'd rather process condom use between him and me on a case-by-case basis, based on risk factors with his outside partners, testing status, etc. He's fine with the idea of my insisting on condoms with him while he goes through the testing and coming to trust new partners stages, but before and after that, he'd prefer to be condom-free with me.
He views condom-free sex as an intimacy booster, and if we were to go back to condoms, he feels like I am removing a level of intimacy from our sex life. When challenged as to why it's OK to remove that level of perceived intimacy on HIS terms but not on MINE, he did not have much of an answer. Additionally, he views condom-free sex as a privilege that connotes "specialness" and that he would be losing ground to Dustin if Dustin gets that "special privilege" and Rider, as my husband, does not.
The main points of his argument:
- I'm "punishing" him for contracting an STI.
- He's getting "left behind" if I have "more intimacy" with Dustin in this way than I do with him.
- If he doesn't have a current partner or if he acquires one and everyone tests, then if I insist on condoms it means I don't trust him.
My counterpoints:
- Punishment is about purposely making people feel additional consequences for their action—with intent of clear negative effects—and I have no interest in punishing him, only in protecting myself.
- This has nothing at all to do with Dustin—they are completely independent situations. I am not requiring condoms with Dustin currently because he is currently uninterested in sex with others. Rider is actively seeking sex with others. The two are unrelated. This is not a competition.
- And, anyway, I do not equate condom sex with lack of intimacy and condom-free sex as extra intimacy. When I was having sex with Rider for the first year and a half or so of our relationship, and we were using condoms, that sex was still super, super intimate and super, super amazing
- I'm not interested in re-processing this with every new partner he might have, and I also have no interest in trying to game out the risk level of the (poly) people he's dating so that we can go back to condom free some amount of time after he's been with them, and then do it all over again every time he adds a person. I prefer to just protect myself and be done with it.
I also explained how much easier it was for me if we just started doing it now (or, rather, once he tests negative to make sure the antibiotics worked) rather than bundling it with when he starts sleeping with someone new. If I have time to get used to it (because I also don't PREFER condom sex), then it becomes disentangled from also processing him having a new partner. It becomes "this is the new thing that we do, let's get used to it" instead of "this is a thing that we must now do while we're also processing this other stuff." It's basically dealing with one step at a time, rather than all at once. And it's doing it on my own terms, rather than reactionarily to a situation change.
We argued this stuff to tears.
At one point, Rider got very disturbingly like . . . entitled? Like instead of seeing sex (with a condom) as a thing that I was wanting to do with him and giving to him as a gift of my body, he was viewing condom-free sex as something that he was entitled to as my husband. It creeped me the fuck out because a) no one is entitled to my body, b) especially not under safety terms I'm not comfortable with, and c) do not pull the "I'm your husband" card as a reason for trying to get me to do some shit I don't want to do—that, to me, sullies the idea of being married. I married him because he's a joy to be with and because I want to build a life together, not to give him a way to strong-arm me into coerced consent.
That whole approach just seemed super toxic to me, and I tearfully told him so. It was very hard for me to explain how it was not going to be good for our sex life if he argued me into doing sex stuff I wasn't comfortable with. It was also hard for me to set and defend my boundaries there, but I really had to. This whole gonorrhea thing has been super traumatic for me.
Not only was there the (already explained in earlier posts) losing my Saturday, dealing with a painful injection, having to abstain from sex and alcohol, and having to explain to my other partner the risk he'd been put at, but, additionally, being pumped full of antibiotics has predictably messed up my chemical balance. My vagina is acting weird and I think I might be verging on a yeast infection or BV or both. Heavy antibiotics have done that to me before. I've been self-treating with boric acid and FemDophilus, but goddamn those good probiotics are expensive AF. I'm taking the next few days off of sex to try to remedy the situation.
So, yeah, I do not, under any circumstances, want a repeat scare. I want to at least be confident enough in the future that there have been two layers of protection between me and exposure: the Rider+whoever layer, and the me+Rider layer, so that if he tests positive for something, I can test, sure, but I can also delay "just in case" treatment till my results come back.
I just could not believe that he couldn't see that from my point of view. I couldn't believe that he was turning it into a thing pitting him and Dustin against each other. I couldn't believe that he couldn't understand why I'd want to simplify it by making it a cut-and-dried blanket thing. And I couldn't believe that he was acting so entitled to basically doing whatever he wanted with my body, to the point where he would rather argue me to tears than accept my decisions of bodily autonomy.
As we argued, more and more stuff started to come out of him. He made a remark about how little sex we have lately anyway, and I had to pause him and be like, "Are you currently dissatisfied with our sex life?" and he basically said yes, that the frequency of sexual activity was too low for him and he didn't like that I turned him down so often for receiving oral. This was the first I'd heard of any of it.
(continued . . . )
Reverie
Active member
( . . . continued from previous)
I told him that I'd be happy to receive oral if it's something that he wants to do, but the way he asks me is if *I* would like it, and I have to get into a particular headspace for it to be fun for my benefit, but if he just wants to do it, then that's cool. I also told him that if he wants more sex, I'm happy to work on that with him, but he should let me know instead of just hoping I'll read his mind. If he wants me to initiate more, even, he can give me some amount of frequency of that that will make him happy, and I'm happy to aim for it.
He expressed that basically he misses when I would just spontaneously be passionate and want to jump his bones all the time, and, man, I do too, but that's not how my body works. I had explained to him at the beginning of our relationship that after NRE ends, I'm happy with sex maybe once per week, though I am also happy to acquiesce to my partner's needs more often than not, and I do actually get into it once it's happening. And I had re-explained all of that once that actually started to happen early last year. He was fine with it at the time, or at least he said he was. I guess now that the reality is setting in, he's not as fine with it as he thought.
It's even more fucked up for me than it is for my partners, really, because it means that I'm a perfect sexual match for basically no one. The people who skew low drive are too low for me at the beginning, so it never flies in the first place. But the people who skew high keep up with me at the beginning, then they end up frustrated once my drive for them nose-dives. I have TRIED to be open and honest and ethical about this by explicitly explaining it to him (and others) from the outset, and by being poly so he (and hypothetically others) can get needs met elsewhere. But still there is contention.
And I am really good about enthusiastically going for it anyway even though I might not have been in the mood at the outset. I really am. I end up getting into it, and it's really good, most of the time. It's not like I'm sighing and eye-rolling and phoning it in. And I'll even initiate if I know how often someone wants me to—I might schedule it, because otherwise it wouldn't occur to me, but I'll do it.
I deeply, deeply envy those people who have a free-standing sex drive that just wants sex for its own reasons. I don't. I have a couple of top-secret, rarely discussed, unrealizable kinks that I read erotica about and masturbate to once in a while when I get a wild hair in between having NRE for someone. And I want to do it all day every day with my NRE object when I'm in heavy NRE. But I don't want sex without connection, so casual sex is out, and I'll happily have sex but will never crave it with long-established partners. It's fucked, but it is how my body works and always has.
Cue my recurrent thoughts about whether I should just go be a hermit and spare my fellow humans the misery of getting involved with me, forgoing sexual connection altogether. I have historically figured that as long as I'm 100% up-front and honest with people about what they're getting into with me sexually, then I'm in the clear. But maybe that's not enough.
And, yes, it SUCKS for me that I know that every partner I ever have will probably go on to have a more satisfying and long-term sex life with someone else, whether or not they also remain with me. But, to my knowledge, there is nothing I can do about it. I'm wired how I'm wired.
After I cried about all of that for a while, Rider did concede that I'd told him that from square one, and that he accepts me for who I am and how I'm wired, and that he'll try to fill in the spaces by dating. He said he's happy to have the freedom, and that he'll think about what his needs are in the meantime and try to communicate them to me rather than expecting me to read his mind and step up on my own. So that was that, at least.
There were a couple of other things that had come up. One was that Rider felt like I was spending my time with him "just waiting for it to be time to go back to Dustin's," which could not be further from the truth. I do MISS Dustin when I'm not with him, but I'm not champing at the bit to flee Rider's presence and run to Dustin—not even with all the NRE. I love hanging out with Rider. The only evidence he could come up with for that is that I started keeping my phone ringer on most of the time. But not wanting to miss a communication from Dustin during a rare window of availability is not the same as wishing I were elsewhere.
So then we were just back to the condom issue again. We had to take a break to go to breakfast with a couple of friends of his, which was fine and fun. We'd gotten to a good stopping place and felt happy with each other. We'd even made out for a while.
When we got back from the restaurant, he suddenly said out of nowhere that he'd thought about all my points on the condom thing and he does understand. He's not happy that that's how I feel, but he respects me and my decisions, and he's happy that I do want to have sex with him, however it happens.
I was so relieved. I had been so terribly worried about what was going to happen if he kept on insisting on a lower level of safety with him than what I was comfortable with. I wasn't sure how we could even resolve that without resentment on both sides. I couldn't imagine giving him a begrudging "oh, OK" and doing sex things I didn't really want to do. For him to suddenly re-think it and understand was the best news.
Things seem to be 100% back to normal now. We're about to leave for Elena's going-away party in a bit. I feel great except for a bit of missing Dustin. All the air is clear and I think everything is off of both of our chests.
I really hope that, in the future, Rider will bring his concerns about stuff directly to me, rather than have it all come piling out when we're arguing about some other stuff. He told me that he'd been "just trying to wait it out," but that's a terrible strategy, and I'm not sure what he'd been waiting for. If he has needs that aren't being met, he needs to tell me. If he has concerns about how something in our relationship is going, he needs to tell me. If he has some heavy shit weighing on his mind, sooner or later he needs to bring it to me without my having to pry it out of him. Y'know, like I did with my heavy shit last night.
I try to be VERY clear and VERY direct about the shit that's going on with me, as soon as I figure it out and can articulate it. I really hope he can learn how to do the same thing, because it's a lot harder to process stuff when processing one or two things turns into processing three or four things because there's been shit lurking unsaid.
I told him that I'd be happy to receive oral if it's something that he wants to do, but the way he asks me is if *I* would like it, and I have to get into a particular headspace for it to be fun for my benefit, but if he just wants to do it, then that's cool. I also told him that if he wants more sex, I'm happy to work on that with him, but he should let me know instead of just hoping I'll read his mind. If he wants me to initiate more, even, he can give me some amount of frequency of that that will make him happy, and I'm happy to aim for it.
He expressed that basically he misses when I would just spontaneously be passionate and want to jump his bones all the time, and, man, I do too, but that's not how my body works. I had explained to him at the beginning of our relationship that after NRE ends, I'm happy with sex maybe once per week, though I am also happy to acquiesce to my partner's needs more often than not, and I do actually get into it once it's happening. And I had re-explained all of that once that actually started to happen early last year. He was fine with it at the time, or at least he said he was. I guess now that the reality is setting in, he's not as fine with it as he thought.
It's even more fucked up for me than it is for my partners, really, because it means that I'm a perfect sexual match for basically no one. The people who skew low drive are too low for me at the beginning, so it never flies in the first place. But the people who skew high keep up with me at the beginning, then they end up frustrated once my drive for them nose-dives. I have TRIED to be open and honest and ethical about this by explicitly explaining it to him (and others) from the outset, and by being poly so he (and hypothetically others) can get needs met elsewhere. But still there is contention.
And I am really good about enthusiastically going for it anyway even though I might not have been in the mood at the outset. I really am. I end up getting into it, and it's really good, most of the time. It's not like I'm sighing and eye-rolling and phoning it in. And I'll even initiate if I know how often someone wants me to—I might schedule it, because otherwise it wouldn't occur to me, but I'll do it.
I deeply, deeply envy those people who have a free-standing sex drive that just wants sex for its own reasons. I don't. I have a couple of top-secret, rarely discussed, unrealizable kinks that I read erotica about and masturbate to once in a while when I get a wild hair in between having NRE for someone. And I want to do it all day every day with my NRE object when I'm in heavy NRE. But I don't want sex without connection, so casual sex is out, and I'll happily have sex but will never crave it with long-established partners. It's fucked, but it is how my body works and always has.
Cue my recurrent thoughts about whether I should just go be a hermit and spare my fellow humans the misery of getting involved with me, forgoing sexual connection altogether. I have historically figured that as long as I'm 100% up-front and honest with people about what they're getting into with me sexually, then I'm in the clear. But maybe that's not enough.
And, yes, it SUCKS for me that I know that every partner I ever have will probably go on to have a more satisfying and long-term sex life with someone else, whether or not they also remain with me. But, to my knowledge, there is nothing I can do about it. I'm wired how I'm wired.
After I cried about all of that for a while, Rider did concede that I'd told him that from square one, and that he accepts me for who I am and how I'm wired, and that he'll try to fill in the spaces by dating. He said he's happy to have the freedom, and that he'll think about what his needs are in the meantime and try to communicate them to me rather than expecting me to read his mind and step up on my own. So that was that, at least.
There were a couple of other things that had come up. One was that Rider felt like I was spending my time with him "just waiting for it to be time to go back to Dustin's," which could not be further from the truth. I do MISS Dustin when I'm not with him, but I'm not champing at the bit to flee Rider's presence and run to Dustin—not even with all the NRE. I love hanging out with Rider. The only evidence he could come up with for that is that I started keeping my phone ringer on most of the time. But not wanting to miss a communication from Dustin during a rare window of availability is not the same as wishing I were elsewhere.
So then we were just back to the condom issue again. We had to take a break to go to breakfast with a couple of friends of his, which was fine and fun. We'd gotten to a good stopping place and felt happy with each other. We'd even made out for a while.
When we got back from the restaurant, he suddenly said out of nowhere that he'd thought about all my points on the condom thing and he does understand. He's not happy that that's how I feel, but he respects me and my decisions, and he's happy that I do want to have sex with him, however it happens.
I was so relieved. I had been so terribly worried about what was going to happen if he kept on insisting on a lower level of safety with him than what I was comfortable with. I wasn't sure how we could even resolve that without resentment on both sides. I couldn't imagine giving him a begrudging "oh, OK" and doing sex things I didn't really want to do. For him to suddenly re-think it and understand was the best news.
Things seem to be 100% back to normal now. We're about to leave for Elena's going-away party in a bit. I feel great except for a bit of missing Dustin. All the air is clear and I think everything is off of both of our chests.
I really hope that, in the future, Rider will bring his concerns about stuff directly to me, rather than have it all come piling out when we're arguing about some other stuff. He told me that he'd been "just trying to wait it out," but that's a terrible strategy, and I'm not sure what he'd been waiting for. If he has needs that aren't being met, he needs to tell me. If he has concerns about how something in our relationship is going, he needs to tell me. If he has some heavy shit weighing on his mind, sooner or later he needs to bring it to me without my having to pry it out of him. Y'know, like I did with my heavy shit last night.
I try to be VERY clear and VERY direct about the shit that's going on with me, as soon as I figure it out and can articulate it. I really hope he can learn how to do the same thing, because it's a lot harder to process stuff when processing one or two things turns into processing three or four things because there's been shit lurking unsaid.
Spork
Active member
There is a thing you describe, that one of the "fetlebrities" (popular contributors on Fetlife, for anyone unfamiliar with it) has given a name to.
Mexican Dinner Consent.
He says that in general, Mexican food is ok but it's not his all time favorite, but his partner absolutely LOVES it. And sometimes she will arrange for them to go to Mexican Dinner, and while it doesn't sound like something he's "OMG YES" about at the time, he goes along to make her happy, because she wants to. And then he gets there, and the food is really good and he enjoys being out with her, and he has a good evening and a good meal, and he's glad they went. While he might not always be the one to initiate Mexican dinner, he'll go along and once he's having it, he'll enjoy it just fine.
And he then says that it can be problematic, this idea that one must always gain "enthusiastic consent" to sex. Especially in a long term relationship, sometimes life is life, and it's challenging to keep the enthusiasm high, but if you don't at least participate, you will often do damage to the relationship. So sometimes, you just give Mexican Dinner Consent. You go along mostly because your partner wants to, but once in the act, you really do enjoy yourself and it's pretty great. And that without that, and without accepting that it is ok, sooner or later, most long term relationships will fall apart.
Of course the book, "Come As You Are" is useful here, too. The part about spontaneous vs. reactive desire. I think that in NRE, most of us (at least you and I certainly have this in common) have a lot of spontaneous desire. After that NRE state mellows out, the desire is more reactive than spontaneous. And, I also think, once you share LIFE with someone, like you live together and worry about getting the dishes done and the bills paid and all that, it's easy for all of these little intrusions to put the brakes on our sexual appetites. There are 100 reasons NOT to have sex right now, as there are 100 other things we "need" to be doing at any time, life is all around us, unlike before you even live together when you schedule time to get together and expect that time will probably include sex.
Thing is though...none of this means that we no longer love or desire our partner. But nurturing resentments and not addressing it when needs are going unmet is bad, bad mojo. It feeds into negative self talk, diminishes intimacy, and builds distance and defenses. I'm glad that you and Rider had your talk. My thinking...maybe, whether you tell him you're doing so or not, schedule in your life a night each week where you see it as a date, as Rider time, where you initiate and do what you can to make it awesome for him. And do your best not to turn him down, even when you have reasons...unless those reasons are ironclad, like a health issue. It can be too easy in relationships to let those little things "hit the brakes" and we start saying no to sex, and those refusals feel like rejection...remember, you can always give Mexican Dinner Consent...you'll enjoy it once you're doing it.
Mexican Dinner Consent.
He says that in general, Mexican food is ok but it's not his all time favorite, but his partner absolutely LOVES it. And sometimes she will arrange for them to go to Mexican Dinner, and while it doesn't sound like something he's "OMG YES" about at the time, he goes along to make her happy, because she wants to. And then he gets there, and the food is really good and he enjoys being out with her, and he has a good evening and a good meal, and he's glad they went. While he might not always be the one to initiate Mexican dinner, he'll go along and once he's having it, he'll enjoy it just fine.
And he then says that it can be problematic, this idea that one must always gain "enthusiastic consent" to sex. Especially in a long term relationship, sometimes life is life, and it's challenging to keep the enthusiasm high, but if you don't at least participate, you will often do damage to the relationship. So sometimes, you just give Mexican Dinner Consent. You go along mostly because your partner wants to, but once in the act, you really do enjoy yourself and it's pretty great. And that without that, and without accepting that it is ok, sooner or later, most long term relationships will fall apart.
Of course the book, "Come As You Are" is useful here, too. The part about spontaneous vs. reactive desire. I think that in NRE, most of us (at least you and I certainly have this in common) have a lot of spontaneous desire. After that NRE state mellows out, the desire is more reactive than spontaneous. And, I also think, once you share LIFE with someone, like you live together and worry about getting the dishes done and the bills paid and all that, it's easy for all of these little intrusions to put the brakes on our sexual appetites. There are 100 reasons NOT to have sex right now, as there are 100 other things we "need" to be doing at any time, life is all around us, unlike before you even live together when you schedule time to get together and expect that time will probably include sex.
Thing is though...none of this means that we no longer love or desire our partner. But nurturing resentments and not addressing it when needs are going unmet is bad, bad mojo. It feeds into negative self talk, diminishes intimacy, and builds distance and defenses. I'm glad that you and Rider had your talk. My thinking...maybe, whether you tell him you're doing so or not, schedule in your life a night each week where you see it as a date, as Rider time, where you initiate and do what you can to make it awesome for him. And do your best not to turn him down, even when you have reasons...unless those reasons are ironclad, like a health issue. It can be too easy in relationships to let those little things "hit the brakes" and we start saying no to sex, and those refusals feel like rejection...remember, you can always give Mexican Dinner Consent...you'll enjoy it once you're doing it.
Reverie
Active member
I agree 100% here. I'd never heard the term "Mexican Dinner Consent" (nor "fetlebrities" for that matter), but I've consumed a lot of Dan Savage, and he offers similar advice, which I've followed for most of the past 10 years, at least. I never want my partner (who I love!) to feel rejected, so I say yes at least most of the time, whether I am "feeling it" or not. If I'm totally exhausted (which I often am during extreme workathons) I might say no because I desperately value the additional 20–30 minutes of sleep more than anything else in this world, but I really do say yes most of the time, and I have almost never regretted it.
YES! I have explained this to him. He's gotten into a bad habit lately of thinking it's never a good time. Even yesterday morning, when I started to finally crack the condom issue open, he had said to me "I just want to hang out and have fun with you, not fight and process," trying to get me to stand down. I had to explain to him that of course I wanted that too, but the fighting and processing is part of how we even get to the place where we can hang out and have fun.
If we're shying away from the hard stuff and clamming up about stuff that's bothering us, in favor of putting on a façade of "we're going to have fun, dammit!" then we're basically just faking with each other. I never, ever want that to happen with him. And I don't let it. I am one to always dig around and drag my dark stuff out into the light. I cannot sit on things and let them bother me for more time than it takes for me to figure out what's up and organize my thoughts well enough to express them.
But he, on the other hand, seems to have defaulted into kind of a conflict-avoidant state lately, where he doesn't want to muck up the time that we spend together with hard stuff. He's even scolded me for bringing stuff up at times that he deems inappropriate. Like, he thought it was inappropriate for me to bring the condom thing up on the way home from the clinic (his reasoning was because he was feeling shitty about not being able to have sex at all for a week), then didn't want to talk about it later because he was feeling low from the meds, then didn't want to talk about it when I tried to talk about it yesterday morning until I stood my ground about it . . . it's like, if it were up to him, the conversation just never would have happened.
And that's for stuff that *I* was trying to talk about. I guess if it's something that originates within him, then it is just never getting mentioned unless I pry about it. Not cool, dude!
I operate from a place of "things are cool unless someone tells me otherwise," and I believe that's totally reasonable—that's how it should be—and so I get super confused if I'm trying to talk about one thing and then a gazillion things that were pent up come tumbling out of the other person when a little corner of something pokes out and I pry a bit and pull on it. I don't believe I should have to poke around in someone else's head and pry and drag things out of them to discover that something's been eating at them.
So I've gone over all that with him, and I really hope he learns how to apply it!
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Reverie
Active member
Last night was nuts. Elena's "going-away party" turned out to be a surprise wedding! And I ended up being seated next to the frontman of Super-Famous Band that Elena's husband is in, who had been kind of an obsession for me as a teenager. It was surreal. And then . . . I promptly spilled wine all over the tablecloth. At least it was black. He was super nice about it and cracked a little joke, but still. I am so That Clumsy Girl. Welp. At least it's a story to tell. Rider was freaking out more than I was about meeting the dude. I don't get star-struck, really. I just feel like a freak for spilling wine everywhere.
After the wedding, Rider dropped me off at Starbucks near the bar where Dustin does his weekly residency. The plan was I'd hang out and get to see him for a little while since I don't get to spend any nights with him for four nights. I got us both a coffee and then headed over there. He was super appreciative of the coffee, and of my coming to see him. I got only about half an hour with him, but it was worth it.
Then I took a Lyft home to Rider and we ate popcorn and went to sleep.
I woke to a really, really sweet text from Dustin:
"Home now and all I can think about is you. Thank you so much for taking the effort to come and see me. You made my day! You are the most precious person I've ever met in my life. I love you more than you know, and this isn't just the Starbucks talking"
And then I saw he'd changed his Facebook profile picture to one I'd taken of him at the rose garden a couple weeks ago. D'awwwww! He isn't one of those people who changes their photo very often—I think the last time was like the weekend I met him—so it was super adorable to me that he'd picked that one. He must have been feeling extra lovey last night.
Tonight, Rider and I have a date night! We're going to an amphitheater to see a band we both really like. We're going to split a pot brownie and chill out (hopefully not too literally—the nights do get chilly here). I've never been to this venue before, nor seen this band, so it should be a fun experience.
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I have to work late to make up for taking off early on Friday. Tomorrow is a work-at-home night. Wednesday will be a Dustin night, but I think I will also have to work from my laptop. I think Thursday will also be a Dustin night, but I might have to do band rehearsal that night—it's still up in the air. Friday's my little birthday celebration out (actual birthday is next Tuesday) but then I also am planning to stop by a friend's 60th birthday party that night. Dustin can only come to my thing early and then he has to work, but I think I'm going to crash with him late-night. I feel really shitty about being so stuck with work. Between that and rehearsal, it means no real "date night" for Dustin this week.
I've been trying to make sure I get at least one no-alarm morning with Dustin each week, when it's possible. Because our schedules are so different, it feels really important to make sure that at least once per week we can wake up closer to his schedule rather than being on mine all the time. So at least we'll have that.
I am OVER being this busy. Stupid work deadlines.
At least it was black. He was super nice about it and cracked a little joke, but still. I am so That Clumsy Girl. Welp. At least it's a story to tell. Rider was freaking out more than I was about meeting the dude. I don't get star-struck, really. I just feel like a freak for spilling wine everywhere. After the wedding, Rider dropped me off at Starbucks near the bar where Dustin does his weekly residency. The plan was I'd hang out and get to see him for a little while since I don't get to spend any nights with him for four nights. I got us both a coffee and then headed over there. He was super appreciative of the coffee, and of my coming to see him. I got only about half an hour with him, but it was worth it.
Then I took a Lyft home to Rider and we ate popcorn and went to sleep.
I woke to a really, really sweet text from Dustin:
"Home now and all I can think about is you. Thank you so much for taking the effort to come and see me. You made my day! You are the most precious person I've ever met in my life. I love you more than you know, and this isn't just the Starbucks talking
"And then I saw he'd changed his Facebook profile picture to one I'd taken of him at the rose garden a couple weeks ago. D'awwwww! He isn't one of those people who changes their photo very often—I think the last time was like the weekend I met him—so it was super adorable to me that he'd picked that one. He must have been feeling extra lovey last night.
Tonight, Rider and I have a date night! We're going to an amphitheater to see a band we both really like. We're going to split a pot brownie and chill out (hopefully not too literally—the nights do get chilly here). I've never been to this venue before, nor seen this band, so it should be a fun experience.
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I have to work late to make up for taking off early on Friday. Tomorrow is a work-at-home night. Wednesday will be a Dustin night, but I think I will also have to work from my laptop. I think Thursday will also be a Dustin night, but I might have to do band rehearsal that night—it's still up in the air. Friday's my little birthday celebration out (actual birthday is next Tuesday) but then I also am planning to stop by a friend's 60th birthday party that night. Dustin can only come to my thing early and then he has to work, but I think I'm going to crash with him late-night. I feel really shitty about being so stuck with work. Between that and rehearsal, it means no real "date night" for Dustin this week.
I've been trying to make sure I get at least one no-alarm morning with Dustin each week, when it's possible. Because our schedules are so different, it feels really important to make sure that at least once per week we can wake up closer to his schedule rather than being on mine all the time. So at least we'll have that.
I am OVER being this busy. Stupid work deadlines.
Reverie
Active member
Dustin popped by my work for four minutes to give me affection! 
What a way to brighten my day!
And he texted me saying that he changed his profile pic because he was flipping through his phone and saw that photo I'd taken of him, and usually he doesn't like pictures of himself, but he likes that one because he can see how happy I make him feel, and he remembers how much fun we had that day.
I love that photo for the same reason. He looks so happy, and we had so very much fun. He's such a sweet, sweet, sweetie.
What a way to brighten my day!And he texted me saying that he changed his profile pic because he was flipping through his phone and saw that photo I'd taken of him, and usually he doesn't like pictures of himself, but he likes that one because he can see how happy I make him feel, and he remembers how much fun we had that day.
I love that photo for the same reason. He looks so happy, and we had so very much fun. He's such a sweet, sweet, sweetie.
I quote the dude that did Mexican Dinner consent pretty regularly too - it's the same guy that came up with "poly vacation villa" as a metaphor. http://www.theferrett.com/ferrettwo...consent-you-also-want-mexican-dinner-consent/
JaneQSmythe
Well-known member
The chick that Dude was last with before me (CrazyGirl in my Journey blog) was a Social Worker and one of the craziest functional people that I have ever met. After they broke up, she would randomly call him and say that she was pregnant, or had been raped, or both - and while that was certainly possible (as she was meeting up with various online-dating-site sketchy guys and basically felt she was "allergic to contraception") - it felt very much like a "Little Boy Who Cried Wolf" situation. She told me at one point that her goal in life was to be "barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen".
JaneQSmythe
Well-known member
From the "person-being-a-dickhead" perspective (apparently I get super-mean when I am black-out drunk/altered) - NO, we don't remember/realize what a SHIT we are being. A suggestion that may be useful (tread carefully) is to take a recording (audio +/- visual) on your cell phone (or an analog actually destroyable record if that is important to you/them) of their ranting and share it with them when they are in a sober state.
Not saying that this applies in your case!!, but Dude is notoriously poor at recalling conversations that I ACTUALLY REMEMBER - so it is hard to take as valid the conversations that he claims to remember that I do not. If MrS did not corroborate Dude's stories (to some extent) then I would be inclined to dismiss them.
I ran into this from the other side a few years ago - my Mom called me (for the first time ever) because Dad had stopped his psych meds and wigged out. This can be a scary place to be. I talked him down, gave him his meds, and told him that if he EVER did that again I would call the cops and have him fucking committed.