The journey to myself

We might be having a breakthrough!

I'm pretty shaky right now. Todays therapy session went extremely well - and although I don't want to rush, it seems we might have arrived at a consensus.

We've been trying to set a vision for our relationship but totally running in circles, the main point being whether it's possible to live together or not, closely followed by travel and children.

I want a partner to live with. I want to travel for my postdocs, preferably with a partner. I most likely do want family.

Idealist was insisting that he has the same goals but doesn't want two households. Shared space with Meta. No way for me. Also, he was not really willing to give up the flat he's grown up in.

We've been able to relax our conditions and agree on aiming for two flats in the same house in some distant future.

I can imagine having a child in that arrangement. He said that if I do, Meta is likely to adopt it, and her biggest fear is that I'd use family to steal him away from her (which is hardly an unfounded fear). Well, if we do live across the corridor and if she really wanna act like an aunt, I think I can respect her as a family member. She can't be trusted to keep a schedule, but she can be trusted with children. She won't be a friend, but if I feel really equal and she can respect privacy I can (hopefully) cooperate.
I could actually prove to be a way forward in managing family and science (and not rely on my mom helping out heavily, which I'd probably have to do in monogamy).

But first of all I'm continuing with my plan to find a place for myself, where I can be without any intrusions from my parents (and not entwined with Idealist either). When I mentioned that I thought of it, the therapist was adamant that it's a good idea and a step that probably can't be skipped. So, fuck the money, I'm doing this for my growth.

The point of travel is still a shaky one. Idealist is very probably not able to uproot himself and move with me to another country for a year or more, although he's expressed a wish to, so it's totally unclear how to do it. But that's probably the least important one. A LDR can probably be managed for a year, if it's across Europe.
Another shaky point is Idealist's country house which I find is only needing work with little benefits while he'd very much like support in rebuilding it. Oh well.

We obviously have to speak with Meta, so maybe it all crashes. But I feel able to have this conversation, unlike many others. If I do have a future goal I can totally talk about a future goal.
It could also show unrealistic finances-wise. But maybe not.
We're speaking about years ahead, a lot of things could happen.

I'm in a state of a certain disbelieve - did we reach an agreement? am I really committing to this relationship? could we keep up polyamory and still reach the things I need, like, really?
But also relief.
I fear. I tremble. I'll try to get in touch with the vision and see if I can truly adopt it for my life or if it's still off. Maybe there's nothing left of it tomorrow. But I'm hopeful.

5 counselling sessions. We've done good work.
 
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I went to see a studio.

The market with "cheap" flats to rent is incredibly fast, so I saw the announcement in the morning, called the lady, went to see it in the evening (and so did at least a dozen other people) and have to decide overnight because they'll be choosing whom to offer the flat tomorrow evening.

It's nice and clean and in a good place and really tiny and has yet to be equipped with a refrigerator and washing machine (not to mention all other stuff).

So this is another test - how badly do I want to exercise my independence?
 
I could use some support answering questions like "why do you want to move anyway?", especially to my mom, even if well meant.

What's the answer anyway?

Frankly, avoiding disapproval and confrontation is a huge one. Not the big fights, just the small things.
Privacy. Feeling independent. Feeling like less of a child. Deliberately choosing to deal with less comfort just to learn stuff by experience and be more of a partner to ... pretty much everyone around. Proving myself that I can do it and that I have the control, even.
Good reasons? Bad reasons? Rhetorical question.

I've got so much trouble in decision making. I'm extremely easily influenced, especially by those close to me. I've got trouble taking action to follow my desires, because hey, I'm not even sure what they are; and if I am sure for a while, I can still be persuaded otherwise. No wonder I can't stand my ground in conflict. One insensitive remark can send me for a whole spiral of self-doubt.
I'm not sure what skill I'm missing there, but I wanna develop it.
Also, I wanna discover my own lifestyle and my own opinions of life. I have some of these, but refining them and implementing them and even making big changes to them while I live in the same basement for the last 15 years is challenging at best. Wasn't youth supposed to be dynamic?

Most of this could probably happen even if I don't move. Some of it won't even if I do move. There are probably a number of different approaches I could choose ... and here I go again.

Btw I didn't get the studio - which is kind of a relief because I was tempted to drop it. Telling myself perfectly logical excuses like 'why don't you wait, you'll be out of the city for a big part of the summer'. But these are fear - driven. Hopefully stepping past that is worth it.
 
All of the reasons you listed are good, valid reasons. I think wanting to be independent is a good enough reason, tbh. It's just the natural order of life. We humans have a way of complicating it. You don't see mother geese asking their goslings why they want to leave the nest...they just teach them to fly ;)

I think you're doing ok, Tinwen. It may not always feel like it to you...especially when you're stressed out over school or major life decisions. But, from my perspective, you totally are :)
 
PinkPig said:
I think you're doing ok, Tinwen. It may not always feel like it to you...especially when you're stressed out over school or major life decisions. But, from my perspective, you totally are :)
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Thanks :)
Actually, these days (most of the time) I even feel I'm doing ok. Even great. I'm a little overwhelmed by stuff which needs to get out of the system, thus a lot of writing, but I seem to be going forward rather than staying stuck ... so yes.

Really the biggest success is finding some common ground with Idealist on our future. Hopefully that will last. I'm not sure - I asked today how he feels about it and I got a very reluctant answer. He tends to remember conversations differently than I do :eek: But if we can work upon that image, then that's huge.
It feels like a lot of stiffness is melting away with just that one plan, in loosely connected areas, like maybe I won't have to keep a taboo topic with my mom, and suddenly the thought of having other partners myself seems more feasible as I know what I'm offering.

By the way, the breakthrough seemingly happened in counselling, but I am sure the introductory workshop into bioenergetics we went to on Monday helped a lot too. We did just two or three little exercises, but they were useful enough to provoke a slightly different approach.
 
NRE as a guide?

Remnant's thread brought about many emotions and flashbacks for me in the past week.
Brief summary: He's a guy in a two decade long relationship with four kids who fell for a younger woman (no surprises so far). She's poly, they came out to his wife dropping the bomb after a short emotional affair. The wife said she'll 'try' to do poly. So far just the usual mess. The added trouble is twofold:
- he is willing to give up gf, in fact after three months of a relationship he's choosing gf over wife, he told her so and offered her to leave;
- his wife is totally dependent on him (financially and emotionally), so that her agreement to stay in the relationship under these circumstances doesn't feel like any kind of real consent.
He's gotten scolded on that thread pretty extensively. He's being told over and over that "it's just NRE, you're intoxicated, you need to save the marriage", and how choosing gf makes no sense. While I'm not defending his (seeming?) lack of concern for his wife's well-being, I have issues with this narrative, or questions at least.

My story with Idealist was kind of similar, hence the flashbacks. I fell in love. I asked about polyamory. I told my ex. He said he'll try and needs time but really was hurt and angry and wasn't able to process it at all. We pushed back and forth. I did the limited contact agreement. My ex's standpoint was 'ok, you can meet, but no touch'. I broke the agreement, as touch was what I wanted most anyways. My ex wanted time. I wanted to ride the waves of passion which I had not encountered before, and what I could offer in terms of time was by far not enough. He wanted me to pick a different person to poly with, I was not willing to pick a different person.

Yet about 3-4 months into this mess, when Idealist said something disrespectful about my ex, I tried to break up with him. I swear these were the worst two weeks of my life. I've had nasty long-term depressions before, but this time I was in excruciating pain and going crazy with the questions unanswered turning round and round in my head, unable to do any work of course. On day 13 I realized that either I end the break and get answers, or I'm gonna have to visit a psychiatrist right now to numb me with additional medication. So I contacted Idealist, and finally broke up with my ex (after another round of pushy 'negotiations') a month later. That was a relief, since all the pain has been already lived through before.

I think what happened there is, that Idealist (in at most 10-20 hours we've spend together over the course of a year, counting time before I fell in love) touched deeply hidden facets of my psyche, avenues I wasn't aware of, and validated secret wishes. He asked me to do some bdsm, and yes, this played a huge role. I got a glimpse of his independent and active life, and I wanted to take part in that. I was seeking how to find spirituality in my life, and he explained to me the issue I had with my first time of meditation so that I was deeply impressed by his insight. He wasn't repelled by my depression, in fact he seemed really interested, the only person wanting to explore my pain with me. He took my hand once and it made me cry.

So, I don't like dismissing love. Advice like 'just do 40 days of no contact, the NRE drug intoxication will go away'? Maybe it's true, but I'm not sure it's always even possible to manage a break (up) in the midst of nre without a severe break down. Having lived through my own attempt I have understanding for people who can't manage.
Also, I'm not sure it is good to let fade the ... limerance. What if it's a good pointer towards the kind of person we want to become? What if it points to the person that can really help us? How much of our joy and love do we shut down if we cut that particular person out of our lives? How important is NRE really for our lives?

So no, after having lived through NRE of this intensity I'm not judging people who can't just 'let go of a crush' or go no contact with their affair partner. The world is not easy and maybe the potential relationship is just so right for them, in some very important ways. It may be a 'drug high', but why exactly does our brain release these drugs? Isn't it because it needs something in particular?

I know this is long, yet if you feel like it drop me a note, I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts :)
 
Hi Tinwen,

The Remnant saga seemed to draw comments from those who most identified with him, and from those who had felt hurt most recently. I feel many of our negative comments to him were projections onto either ourselves or our partners. We see shades of our old selves going through the things he's going through.

I feel NRE, limerence or the giddy high of falling in love is a biological emotion to keep the couple together during the early difficult years of child rearing, after which the couple can break apart because the child is less dependent on requiring 2 parents. Perhaps 1 parent after NRE wears off is sufficient for the child. Dunno. Just a thought.

My wife really struggled with no contact. I couldn't understand her struggle, still don't if I'm honest. It's 100 days of no contact for her now and she's happy, but the first 20 were truly difficult and tore both of us up. My difficulty was in trying to understand how she could pick this man she barely knew over 10 years of relationship with me. It made me feel unloved.

Sorry, your blog. Back to you and your living situation, living independantly fosters self growth for sure. I think being able to live independantly is a requirement before entering poly - have to be able to take care of yourself. I feel poly is more about being able to love yourself and to be self-reliant than it is about loving lots of people. In the end, others might desert you, or veto you out, or just be unavailable for you even if you are at the lowest point in your life due to their other commitments - you really have to be able to depend on yourself in polyamory.
 
Doing great

Life is going really fast now.

I had a presentation today at a students conference of my university. Went pretty well. My supervisor hasn't been there, but loved the slides, and my former classmate said it was really good.

I kind of unexpectedly went to a 'shamanic' event this weekend (it was a funny mixture of hikers and people who take spirituality just a little too seriously). There was one real shaman from Peru who said I have nice aura - I think he was hitting on me :D And, I did firewalking. Wow. I didn't think I would join in, but I did. I do think the event was transformative, great to deal with fear.

I found a therapist. Had a second session with her today. She's great I think, it helps me sort through feelings.

Did I mention that I persuaded my psychiatrist to let me try go off the mood-stabilizers I take? I still have anxiety, but I don't have depression, so I want to try without the medication. Well, I was going to take it for another month and then try cutting down on it after the exam period, but I forgot to take it with me for the weekend. There are no massive withdrawal effects so far, so I'm going with halving the dose now. (Hope this all isn't hypomania ;))

And most importantly, I'll be moving. I was offered a studio that I went to see last week, and I took it on the spot. I still can't really believe that I made the decision.
(Hopefully great) changes ahead! :)
 
Tinwen said:
And most importantly, I'll be moving. I was offered a studio that I went to see last week, and I took it on the spot. I still can't really believe that I made the decision.
(Hopefully great) changes ahead! :)
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Yay, congratulations!! That's so exciting! :)
 
Thanks, Jenny :)
I've got the keys already. Ua, so many things to do.

I'm totally overwhelmed. I had a full weekend with pre-agreed upon plans, I've got a move ahead, I've got exams, and it's only a week since I did firewalking. I haven't learned a thing today. Feelings to process. Wednesday's exam is probably so easy that it doesn't matter, but still. Weird state of mind Going off meds could be also contributing, although I'm not sure of that.

I may be kind of transitioning from 'girl' to 'woman'. Anyway, this is still a great time of my life.
 
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There were two posts lately which I wrote and wanted to save.

This is a very brief summary of the methods I know for working with emotions. Writing this out was a good reminder for me as to what I can apply in case I need to process. I hope it helped the OP just a little and could be helpful to someone else too.

This is another post of mine on the topic of NRE. It has gotten slightly long - the topic seems touchy for me, and I kind of disagree with the mainstream.

Oh, Shaya, I forgot to answer your post. This part:
My wife really struggled with no contact. I couldn't understand her struggle, still don't if I'm honest. It's 100 days of no contact for her now and she's happy, but the first 20 were truly difficult and tore both of us up. My difficulty was in trying to understand how she could pick this man she barely knew over 10 years of relationship with me. It made me feel unloved.
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I only can try to explain from my own experience. It's never just the other person. IMHO when we fall in love, we are looking for something - and the other person in our eyes possesses the key.
Also, there's an effect of having something suddenly at reach. It's like if you love ice cream, but can't have any for a few years. When you get ice cream after all this time? It can be hard to give it up, especially if you think that this might be the last ice cream you'll ever eat. It's not like you're choosing ice cream over everything else - if you eat it for a month in a row, it becomes the most mundane thing in the world again - but if you're having the rare opportunity to taste ice cream, you really don't want to wait to let it melt away.
 
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My wife described it similarly, Tinwen. A month in the analogy may be too short. Maybe 6 months to 3 years.
 
Tinwen said:
I only can try to explain from my own experience. It's never just the other person. IMHO when we fall in love, we are looking for something - and the other person in our eyes possesses the key.
Also, there's an effect of having something suddenly at reach. It's like if you love ice cream, but can't have any for a few years. When you get ice cream after all this time? It can be hard to give it up, especially if you think that this might be the last ice cream you'll ever eat. It's not like you're choosing ice cream over everything else - if you eat it for a month in a row, it becomes the most mundane thing in the world again - but if you're having the rare opportunity to taste ice cream, you really don't want to wait to let it melt away.
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This was why I let things in the HipsterBoy days get so very bad without ending it for myself, honestly. I *knew* it (like ice cream!) was bad for me, but when it was good it was very very good and unique - and since I had had a lot of sexual relationships and yet this was only the second person in my life I had ever fallen in love with? That's one every fifteen years. (Ignore the fact that for much of that time I wasn't *looking* for an actual relationship, as I ignored it too!). That's a *hard* thing to say no to, regardless of the circumstances.
 
It seems the ice-cream analogy resonates surprisingly, I thought it was very crude.
Luckily relationships are not icecream, so they hopefully don't become the most mundane thing in the world (so soon, or at all :)), and they usually don't cause obesity ;)
icesong said:
This was why I let things in the HipsterBoy days get so very bad without ending it for myself, honestly. I *knew* it (like ice cream!) was bad for me, but when it was good it was very very good and unique - and since I had had a lot of sexual relationships and yet this was only the second person in my life I had ever fallen in love with? That's one every fifteen years. (Ignore the fact that for much of that time I wasn't *looking* for an actual relationship, as I ignored it too!). That's a *hard* thing to say no to, regardless of the circumstances.
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I am not familiar with the HipsterBoy story, so I don't know what was so bad for you there. But I feel you on the bold parts - it must be a common experience.
Tell me, do you regret the experience with HipsterBoy? Or perhaps going on for so long?

I'm still not sure if my relationship with Idealist is "good for me" or not, but I'm pretty much inclined to say that it is and it was worth changing my life for. (I may change my mind if we don't resolve issues and I find myself without a partner and without kids a few years down the road, but ... in other areas I am much less stuck then I would have been otherwise.) For me, the relationship still is unique, and I don't see that changing even should I eventually choose a different path. I don't think I could have had this experience with anyone else.

Following your own limerence or not will probably always be a very individual case-by-case decision.
So the question is, what do we tell people who come here in that state of mind. What do you think are the really good questions to help them self-reflect?
 
Sorry, I used to talk about him a lot - the tl;dr is first poly love affair, part of a quad with his wife and Knight - wife was pretty toxic as a metamour and as a partner for Knight (not a bad person _as a person_) and none of us knew what we were doing.

I don't regret it though - it was beautiful while it lasted and horrifically painful when it ended, but I grew up through it ending and I think that was a really good thing for me.

I don't know that there IS an ability to reflect when you're early in something like that - I know you disagree with the common wisdom there, but I can't imagine having been able to see the toxicity early in, even though I can look back at specifics and it was there all along.
 
My opinion on limerence is that it is a fantasy. A projection of our desires onto a romantic other. Whether there is something real behind that fantasy may be hard to tell whilst caught up in it. Not to dismiss limerence. It often leads to something worthwhile in the long term. It is the basis on which most of western relationships are based on, including the long term ones.

I'm hardly the expert though. I would be interested in seeing what you guys thought.
 
Great suspension workshop this weekend, and great practice today :) Shibari rocks my world, that is, unless I'm trying to learn to adult and organize my move.

Shaya said:
My opinion on limerence is that it is a fantasy. A projection of our desires onto a romantic other. ...
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Yes I think it's mostly fed by fantasy and projection, hopefully with some real core.
But the projections ... There must be a reason behind projecting this strongly on that particular person.

icesong said:
I don't know that there IS an ability to reflect when you're early in something like that - I know you disagree with the common wisdom there, but I can't imagine having been able to see the toxicity early in, even though I can look back at specifics and it was there all along.
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Maybe in your case... the toxicity was more subtle? Like it required to get to know your metamour?
I'm sure there's always ability to reflect - although it's harder. People do know if they are hurting their partners and likely to break their original relationships through what they are doing. They could even notice that they are projecting, even if the extend remains unclear.. I remember being mostly aware of both at some point.

I'm sure someone else pointing out both the problems and possibilities can help immensely with decision making. The questions are maybe twofold ... First, if there are problems, do we speak harshly to counterweight the rosy glasses, or do we speak gently to avoid reflexive refusal. And second, does NRE point at (real) possibilities?
 
If there are problems, do we speak harshly to counteract the rosy glasses or softly to prevent the reflex refusal?

I don't have enough life experiences to know. But maybe with empathy? Acknowledge they got some things correct despite the NRE rose coloured glasses they wear but then firmly present an alternate valid opinion to show that you don't necessarily agree. No need to argue. In my experience, that doesnt lead anywhere helpful.

Does NRE point at real possibilities?

I think the question is can NRE point at real possibilities. I'd say yes. In large studies of the western countries, the average person today has 8 sexual relationships in their life. At least 1 presumably works. Therefore, at least 1 points to real possibilities.
QED, as the physicist will say. ;)
 
Shaya said:
But maybe with empathy?
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You know that's what I want to promote here, right? :D Because I've seen some one-sided judgement on this forum. But I guess it's present in all discussions, I'm just very sensitive about this topic because of my own life decisions.
Shaya said:
Acknowledge they got some things correct despite the NRE rose coloured glasses they wear but then firmly present an alternate valid opinion to show that you don't necessarily agree. No need to argue. In my experience, that doesnt lead anywhere helpful.
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I'm all for making the alternative options clearly visible, although I'm generally suspicious of the word opinion.

When I think back to my own period of decision-making, a bit of tough love from one of my friends did do me well. He said "hey, you can't tell your partner after two years that you wanna be nonmonogamous, and expect it to be just fine". That was ... a humbling moment. (Like, I wasn't expecting it to be just fine, but I was grasping to 'making it work' as people do.) So yai for correcting expectations.
But otherwise? Being surrounded by the narrative that I have to choose and that what I want is just stupid (or irresponsible), I would have needed someone to affirm that what I was feeling was valid and help me lay out the options realistically. I would have needed someone to ask "what is so important to you about Idealist? what is it about him that speaks so much to you?" and "do you realize you're choosing the hard way?" and listen and help me see which stuff of mine this affair was illuminating... and that Idealist may or may not be part of the solution, depending on my own choice.
Unfortunately, there was no such person. Not even my therapist, who was on vacation at the point of the worst crisis, and then proved kind of... traditional. So the only one who was both listening and informed about how relationship work ... was Idealist. Bias obvious.

Sorry for being long. I didn't expect to write so much personal stuff. I can't believe it's still so alive.

Shaya said:
I think the question is can NRE point at real possibilities. I'd say yes. In large studies of the western countries, the average person today has 8 sexual relationships in their life. At least 1 presumably works. Therefore, at least 1 points to real possibilities.
QED, as the physicist will say. ;)
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What I'm advocating, and obviously I can be wrong, is that those other 7 occasions of NRE* all had their very important meaning to that person - and while I'm not advocating to start a relationship from every NRE you experience, respecting and examining each of them mindfully and without neglecting them as "just chemistry" or anything like that is worth it. But maybe for some people crushes come and go all the time without pointing at anything more significant than a remote memory? I wonder.

*yes I know that sexual relationship isn't equal to NRE, but for the sake of the argument...
 
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