(...continued from previous)
On the one hand, we love each other so much and we have ALL THE FUN together, and our sex is still fantastic, and I really never thought a relationship could be so good.
On the other hand, dude, I still struggle so hard sometimes with Poly Things. I still crawl with WORMs and feel resentment when I see Rider change before my eyes—and not always in what I think is a good way—as an effect of exposure to new people.
I can say with 100% conviction that if the past year of our lives were to be representative of the rest of our lives, I could live with him happily ever after. Together, we work well. But the thing is, for the past year, we have been mostly functionally monogamous. And I really don't know what the coming year brings.
I'm more than a little terrified that if he keeps seeing Hannah, our wedding will fall right at the 4ish-month mark of their relationship, when NRE is usually off the charts. I blanch at the thought of prepping for our wedding, or being on our honeymoon, and him being distracted with NRE-strength missing her, or having that much of his energy diverted away from me during what is supposed to be one of the most important times of our life together. Historically, he has not been very good about reining in the chaos caused by his NRE. He gets it bad. He's asked me to try to give him the benefit of the doubt that he'll be able to keep it under control, and I'm trying. But it's really hard when history has suggested otherwise. And it's just really inconvenient timing. We'll see.
I am trying not to be ruled by fear. But it seems like just when I have been able to allay one of my own fears, another one pops up, like a whack-a-mole.
Like, I was very scared of the concept of imbalance: Rider being super into someone else and suddenly wanting to divide up our time a whole lot while I didn't have anyone and had no "poly benefits." But now that I like someone else, too, I worry instead about what happens if we're BOTH super distracted with other people and I get disabled by NRE, too, so there's no longer my little voice of reason piping up and reminding him that it's important for us to put effort into each other—what then?
Why does it sometimes feel like, even after three years, poly is basically just my playing with fire over and over until I get burned badly enough to get some sense and put it away—till I see enough destruction wrought and cry enough tears that I decide that the adrenaline rush isn't worth the risk of the jump? Sorry for the mixed metaphors.
There's also the issue of his going out and spending money on expensive dates (sushi, arcade night, fancy breweries with $6 pints) and then when I ask him when he's going to replace my fancy $10 body wash that he used most of, as he promised to do, he says, "Oh, not this week, I'm flat broke." Can you AFFORD a second girlfriend if you can't afford to keep your financial promises to your first partner? I know that most couples argue about money, but we mostly don't—until it becomes clear that there is literally something that I can't have that I was promised, and the reason why is because he has been going out and running up bar tabs that are multiple times what the thing he owes me cost.
It's not like he doesn't take me out, too—he does!—but the last time I tried to get sushi with him, he found out they weren't doing weekend happy hour anymore, and he said it'd be too expensive at full price. I don't want someone else to get all the fun, splurge-y dates just because it's important to be flexible and put your best face forward early on, y'know? It's the old poly saw that love might be infinite, but time, energy, and money are not. I *hate* being aware of resource competition, but it's hard not to be when stuff like that happens. It's hard not to feel competed with if my partner is willing to forgo having the same exact experience with me because a newer person is somehow "worth" spending more, or he wants to impress them and get them hooked. Makes me feel like "old hat" who will just always be there.
I really want a partner who, if they are willing to "build a life" with me, they are willing to make goals with me and work just as hard toward those goals as I am. I want to be able to sit down after the new year and make a budget and say, "OK, with our salaries, if we throw THIS percentage of our income at debt, and this percentage into savings, then we can afford a house in X years, and we can have THIS percentage left over for fun." And then know that a) they'll actually partner with me in this way, and b) that I'll still get some of the shared fun!
I've asked Rider if he'd be willing to budget with me in this way, and he has said that planning for the future freaks him out, but he's willing to give me all his numbers and let me crunch them and come at him with possible plans for him to sign off on. So that's good. But I'm a little afraid right now to talk to him about the my feelings about how he's been choosing to spend recently. Because a) really it's his decision to make, b) I'm exhausted from processing already, c) I worry that it will trigger one of those things where he thinks I'm trying to manipulate him, and d) I'm honestly not 100% sure that I'm not just being kind of an entitled brat.
Because, when I try to think about it from the other side, we've HAD our extravagant sushi dates early on. We've had our bar-hopping nights and "fuck-it, we're having so much fun, let's splurge" times. If he's starting something with someone new, don't they, in a way "deserve" a chance to do that too? Even if it takes away from my being able to do it? I really don't know.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (I'll get around to talking to him about it eventually. I just have to figure out how...)
Lately sometimes when Rider and I have been talking, neither of us are sure if we're hashing out the last important issues before getting married, or if we're on the verge of breaking up. After talking, we always feel closer and more in love, so I guess that's a good sign. I really do feel committed to making things work with him, and he feels the same way, so that's also a good sign.
Sometimes I wonder, though. What if, in the course of our continuing to date others and "interview" them for partnership, he meets someone who struggles less than I do, and this whole poly thing comes more easily to them? What if I meet someone who skews, like I seem to do, somewhere BETWEEN poly and mono, and is a better fit for me in that way? What if Rider and I COULD have made this work if we focused on each other, but what if continuing to interview others distracts us so that when I struggle, it doesn't seem as worth it to either of us as it would have been if we'd been together just us and hit some other kind of rough patch?
As an aside, it came out in conversation recently that Rider does not believe that honesty is possible in monogamy! Which is utter bullshit. I know plenty of enlightened people on these boards who are living monogamously and don't believe that that means they have to hide their attractions or thoughts from their partners! I tried to tell him of this, but he remained unconvinced.
OF COURSE he thinks monogamy is a shit plan if he believes that dishonesty is part and parcel of it. He and I agree that our relationship is the healthiest either of us has ever had. But he pins that credit on poly and to the honesty it allows, whereas I believe that, now that I have grown to a certain degree emotionally, I am capable of being honest in any relationship: poly, mono, friendship, etc. He believes that monogamy creates power struggles and resentments based on boredom and frustration. I have seen power struggles and resentments in poly and mono relationships.
Anyway, yeah, we've been talking a lot. And we still always decide to stay together—never even get really close to breaking up. We're still getting closer by the day to our wedding. I guess I'm kind of getting to the point where I know it sounds insane to be still so uncertain of how the future will shake out with a person and be willing to marry them anyway—BUT I feel like nothing in life is ever actually certain, so at a point, I just have to take that leap of blind faith that we'll work it out no matter what. I'm willing to try my absolute hardest and, if it turns out that still isn't enough, at least I will know that I tried.
