IS she doing her fair share on her side?
Well, what behavior is she doing that shows she doesn't care?
What behavior is she doing that shows she does care?
When you put those two lists together, which one is longer?
It's hard for me to know what constitutes doing her fair share right now. But I think she HAS been working really hard to speak my love language, ie. She touches me when I'm upset because she knows this helps. She has been extra patient and compassionate lately. And the thing is that I have all kinds of time to work on myself, whereas she has a really draining full-time job that places strict limits on her capacity to be an empathetic human being. So I don't think it's fair to ask her to put the same amount of work in as I do.
Behaviours that show she doesn't care:
1. Showing little to no interest in who I am or what I do. I'm a musician, but she never comes out to any of my shows or even listens to my music. I've been writing songs in a band for a year and a half now, and she probably couldn't tell you the name of one of our songs. I put out an EP in 2014, and I don't think she ever listened to it all the way through.
She's also a musician. I know all her songs off by heart, I come out to all her shows, and I even delivered a copy of her EP to the local radio station because I thought they should spin it. Basically, I'm her number one fan - which is how I generally act when I care about someone.
It's like this with all our important projects. I care deeply about hers, but she expresses zero interest in mine.
Behaviour that shows she cares:
1. Frequently telling me she loves me.
2. Asking how my day was, or asking personal questions. She never used to do this, but I pointed out that it was a relationship issue for me, and she has started to make more of an effort.
3. Sending messages. We're in contact pretty much daily, and it's reciprocally initiated. If I back off, she's the one to reach out.
4. Making attempts to speak my love language - touching me when she sees I'm upset, ie.
5. Inviting me over to hang out or snuggle, making plans to see me.
6. Little gifts. I felt really touched when she sent me a picture a couple weeks ago that she knew would delight me.
7. Continuing to invest in the relationship, even when it's hard, and to make time for difficult conversations.
...I'm struggling to fill out the first half (things that show she DOESN'T care) in this moment, but maybe that's work I can do on my own time.
In the end? Whether you understand her things or not? You still have to measure her against your personal standard for dating partners. She either makes the cut or not.
Rather than spend all this energy trying to understand her views as if "by force" when you already say you don't really get it? The energy seems better spent on articulating what YOU want in a dating partner. And then moving on to the evaluation -- does she still make the cut or not any more?
I think articulating what I want in a dating partner is a good exercise.
Although if I'm TOO specific, I end up not being compatible with anybody ever.
I know y'all think love is abundant, but when you live in a medium-sized city and you're a disabled polyamorous relationship anarchist who needs your partners to have certain political beliefs, and then you start adding in things like sexual chemistry, personality traits, etc, the dating pool can pretty quickly drop to zero. She checks off enough boxes for me and I love her enough that I'm dedicated to trying to make this work until I absolutely know for sure that it won't; I'm not just chucking her out when it gets hard.
I would not to "solve it." I would see if I could
accept that we are different people and have different values and believe different things about sex/intimacy. And I would decide if I want to participate in a relationship with a person with such a different outlook in life or not. I would assess deep compatibility.
I cannot date a big party person or traveler who is super extroverted. I'm an introverted homebody. Nothing against them, but what they find "fun and energizing" I find really really DRAINING.
I'm also pretty independent. I don't like "super" togetherness.
Is that some of what you have going on here? You want more "togetherness" and she wants more "space?" That's a compatibility issue sometimes people fail to think about.
To me it sounds like you now find the relationship more draining than joyous.
I wonder if maybe you are grieving that but not really at final acceptance about it yet? Like "bargaining stage" in the stages of grief? Could that be some of it? Is any of that going on here?
Her and I are both introverts who enjoy roughly the same level of independence. If we weren't, I wouldn't have started dating her. Extroverts send me screaming for the hills, and people who need significantly more or less independence than I do don't make it through the first few weeks.
If I honestly found the relationship more draining than joyous, I would leave. Most of the time, I am fine. Periodically, I get deeply upset by an unresolved issue that rears its ugly head. This isn't our whole relationship. Though I do admit, that the relationship is challenging. You listed some (actually not even all) of the challenges we face as a couple, and it's a daunting list. But I look at that list and decide to accept the challenge every day.
We've stopped living together, and I'm actually really excited about what our relationship might look like moving forward. Except that in the process of moving out, things got rough and I triggered a bunch of her abandonment issues and now she's not sure if she wants to be sexually intimate with me anymore. So we're hanging in the balance. But if we can get to a good place again, I think our relationship could be super rewarding and fulfilling.
Why would you choose to be in a relationship that has you perpetually freaking out or perpetually warding off freaking out?
Um... Isn't that what polyamory is? Having a bunch of relationships that scare the crap out of you every day until you die? j/k - sort of.
Look. Being poly isn't a "lifestyle choice" for me. I have no option. My core value is freedom, so I can't oppress another person by binding them up in a monogamous relationship because of my fears. And I definitely don't want to be constrained either. I was NEVER good at monogamy. So I'm IN this, no matter how hard it gets.
I basically have one thing that really upsets me at this point: when my partners do things with others that they won't do with me. I'm trying to work on it. And I'm making progress.
I'd like it a lot if my partner magically started showing in love in the ways that I look for it, but I doubt that is going to happen with her. So my plan is to have a conversation where I ask her questions about how she DOES show love, so I can start looking for those things instead of the things I usually look for. I think this will help me love her better too.
I know that it's ANOTHER layer of incompatibility - different love languages, opposite ideas about sex and intimacy, etc.
But I'm still in.
So. Perhaps instead of wasting lots of energy thinking about whether or not she's worth it, I'll just use that energy to make this relationship the best it can be, unless and until I get a clear signal from my body and brain that it's time to move on.