Yeah, I was just overreacting about Sam. I'll be seeing him next week. I don't know why I get all worked up about such things, it's not as though I'm looking for a regular commitment, really. I just hate the idea that sleeping with a man changes the dynamic of the relationship. I mean, I get that it can shift things a little, but it has always seemed to me that there are a lot of men out there who kind of change after you have sex with them. Like it gives them power over you? Why doesn't it give the woman power? Maybe it does for others, maybe I just need to stop being weak or paranoid or anxious. Or stop all of these things!

Mostly I am having a hard time with knowing who to talk to about things going on in my life. Like, I feel like I can talk to my main partners, but that I kind of hold back because I don't want to cause jealousy. Mostly because I wouldn't want to hear about all these things from them. And then there are my friends. I don't have many very close girlfriends, and the ones I do have it's kind of a weird situation to talk to them about things. They either are just completely bored by my complicated love life and don't want to hear me whine anymore - I get a lot of "don't you have enough already?" or they are kind of weirded out and uncomfortable by our lifestyle and aren't super supportive.Now, I'm not saying my friends aren't supportive, I can just tell that the ones that I'm closest to don't *really* want to hear about it. So I've been keeping a lot of things to myself. I suppose that is what most people do, but I've always been kind of an open book with everyone.

I did get to talk a lot about this with our therapist a few weeks ago, which was nice. And while she understood, she also explained where my friends might be coming from. It's asking a lot of them to hear about this stuff when they aren't necessarily comfortable with it. So what I really need to do is try and make more connections with other poly people. I have a few poly friends, but no one I'm really close to. I'm going to make an effort to try and spend more time with these people.

Tonight husband and I are attending a poly meetup at someone's house. I'm nervous because ACK STRANGERS, but I think it'll be nice to meet people in the "scene" and maybe make a few friends. We'll see.

Well hello

It's been a while. Over 2 months. I've been busy living life rather than posting about it I guess. Back at the end of October I went on a two week trip to Europe for the first time in my life. It was pretty fantastic. I even made a connection with someone at the very end and it was just lovely. A little sad, though, to think I'll most likely never see him again.

Things have been pretty good. My husband seems to have much less jealousy issues with my boyfriend lately. I even went a way a few weeks ago for a night at the boyfriend's cabin, which was very lovely and I think really brought us closer together.

I have been having some of my own personal issues lately, though with everything that's been going on. After my trip, things were great. I really missed my husband during that time, kind of desperately. I missed my boyfriend a lot as well, though it wasn't quite the same as missing the person you live with. Being away from my husband was just so much harder than I had anticipated. Then, when I got back, I started being more active on OK Cupid again (where I met my boyfriend). I'm not sure why. I think maybe because my husband was starting to go out on new dates and my boyfriend had some interest, I was feeling like I needed to do something to distract myself from some jealousy. Probably not the best motivation.

I connected with someone, Greg, had some back and for like you do, and went out. I didn't expect much, honestly. But I did like him and he seemed to like me. He put the moves on, we made out. He said nice things like "let's get together again soon" and talked about how he really wanted to go out again. And then came the radio silence. I most likely should have just taken that hint and gone on my merry way, but I was so confused. So I texted and he waited a while to get back to me, but he did. He said that yes, let's get together soon. Then nothing again for a week. I had written him off. And then he texted again saying how about next week? I suggested a Wednesday I had free, and he confirmed.  Then, again, absolutely nothing for a week. In the meantime I had met another person online (Sam) the Sunday before this date that I thought I had with Greg. I wasn't expecting much with the new guy. Sam seemed new to poly and more in need of a person to chat with about things than an actual date with someone. But then, to my complete surprise, I totally hit it off with him too. And Sam just seems like a total romantic, someone I can really enjoy spending quality time with. We could talk for hours, it was really nice. But I had this busy full week and even though I wanted to see Sam again, there just wasn't any time. Especially because of my scheduled date with Greg. But I hadn't even heard from him. Everyone told me to just leave it alone and expect that I had been blown off, but I had to at least say something. So on Tuesday, I texted and asked if we were still on for Wednesday and he basically said, no, too busy. Well, then, fine. I'm done. Deleted from my phone. If he's not interested, there's plenty who are. And instead, invited Sam out for drinks and it was absolutely a lovely time.

That was a few weeks ago. Last week I was overbooked and had lots of scheduling conflicts so I only went out with boyfriend and spent quality time with husband. Then, last Thursday, both of them were out on dates at the same time and I ended up hanging out at home on my own. Well, turns out, that's a whole pile of jealousy waiting to happen. Then, later that night and the next day, found out both of them slept with their dates. Now, this wasn't a huge surprise or anything, it's all part of it. It's just, both of them sleeping with new people for the first time on the same night while I sat at home stewing, well, it hit me harder than I expected it to. I could barely keep it together the next day, then went to a party and self medicated by overindulging in wine. I was so sick on Saturday. Yuck.

Anyways, I ended up having a really lovely date with Sam on Sunday and went ended up having sex. I'll be honest, this had been part of the plan. I flirted not so subtly about it leading up to the date via text. And it was really lovely. Not even very awkward like first time sex usually is. I enjoyed myself and felt like he did too. Received some nice text messages to make sure I got home ok after, letting me know he had a lovely time and everything. When we were out on Sunday, we had kind of talked about a few different things going on the following weekend and whether or not he would want to come to a Christmas party I'm going to. There were some scheduling conflicts and I wanted to check in with my husband, so last night I texted my end of what was going on. And then, nothing. No response like I had been used to getting when I texted. Not this morning either. Just...silence. Now, I know I'm impatient, but usually he texts back right away. And because of all the bullshit that happened with Greg, I'm ultra paranoid. Because I'm pretty sure Sam was into it, and into seeing me again, and had a great time. Mostly because he said it. But Greg said things like that too. And I'm starting to think that maybe I just don't understand how guys work, or just people in the world lie. And then I feel sad and slightly panicky, mostly because I was excited about the prospect of spending some more time with Sam. I just like him, you know? He's a very interesting man who I enjoy spending time with. I realize it's not the end of the world, that I have plenty of love in my life, but it just feels weird to think that perhaps something is amiss.

Or, you know, he just hasn't had a minute to figure out his schedule this weekend and will respond later. Who knows. I tend to make a bigger deal out of things than I need to.

Moral of the story: I have a lot of feelings. Heh.

Polyamory: Married and Dating

Currently marathoning this show. My husband can't stand it, so I'm watching it on my own. It kind of irritates me as well. Lots of "pretty people" who want to be in the spotlight. Like, OF COURSE, Lindsay is a singer with a recording contract that fell through. That's why she wants to be on tv!

I could write many paragraphs all about weird things on this show, but I'll spare you and just share a few of my observations/irritations. I'm being extraordinarily judgmental, I know.

 - With "The Triad", I think it's obviously more about how Vanessa and Anthony are into Lindsay and not each other at all. It's like it revolves around her.

 - Vanessa irritates the crap out of me. She's SUPER controlling and possessive. Doesn't seem like she's really poly at all, she really just wants to be with Lindsay and to have her all to herself.

- As for the other couples, Jen is obviously super uncomfortable with just about everything that is happening. I feel kind of bad for her, actually. Especially because the rest of them creep me out. I'd hate to be surrounded by them.

- The creepiest? Michael. Ew. SKEEVY. I don't want to look at him anymore.

- This foursome seems to boil down to Kamala and Tahl wanting to be together and the rest of them just kind of hover around for attention.

- Why did they have to make this just a soft core porn show? I don't give a fuck about seeing these people have sex. Oh wait, it's on Showtime. I forgot. Blech.

Now, I'm not saying that MY TYPE of poly is the only type, but watching this makes me realize I don't think I'd really want to do things the way the people on the show do, dating other people as a couple. I like having individual relationship that just happen to be concurrent with my other relationships. Maybe I'll feel differently later, but I like being able to keep things a little separate, even though I do wish we could all be friends and spend more time together socially.

When I got married I thought I had everything figured out. Now I feel like I know nothing, and I can't even tell what I want.

My husband has started showing more interest in having kids. I'm telling you, a year ago, that was all I wanted. But now I feel like maybe he's only doing it because he knows it'll probably put an end to being poly, or at least put it on hold. And I do want to do this, but at the same time it's probably not necessarily a great idea when things are so up in the air and rocky. Having children is a huge life-altering decision. I shouldn't even be talking about it so lightly.

And of course I made the mistake of talking to the boyfriend about it, who, it seems, would run screaming in the other direction if I were to start trying to get pregnant or become pregnant. Which is totally understandable, this is not something he is interested in being involved in. But it still sort of stings. You think something is deep or important or something and then you realize, wow, I barely fucking know this person. It's not about being serious, it's about being light and having fun. Well, maybe I'm not capable of that. What the hell am I thinking?

I'm afraid to stop being selfish. I'm afraid of being an adult, and making serious adult choices. Most of the time I feel like I'm just being a childish baby who has a new toy she doesn't want to give up.

Dear Anonymous Commenters

I will no longer be accepting anonymous comments because if you want to tell me how I feel when you don't even know me or suggest things that aren't true, you should be required to provide your identity in some way.

Jealousy, Arguments, Therapy and a Light at the End of the Tunnel

Haven't written much here lately. It doesn't help that I know that both husband and boyfriend read this blog. In fact they probably read it more regularly than anyone else. I shot myself in the foot with telling them about it. But I guess otherwise I wouldn't really have any regular readership at all. But I have all these feelings I want to talk about! And I don't want to make anyone feel bad! So I'll reign it in, I suppose.

The past few weeks since I spent the night with my boyfriend have been a little rough. David experienced some pretty big jealousy issues, which is totally understandable. I went crazy the nights he spent with the woman he was seeing a while back. But see, I think he is struggling with whether or not non-monogamy is right for him. He sees the changes in me, how happy it makes me and how much our sex life has improved, and knows that being polyamorous might possibly just be a part of me. So he's come to a point where I think he feels like he either can't be with me because this is what works for me or he has to go along with something he doesn't want to do. Either way, it hurts my heart to think of it this way. I want to stay married. He is my very best friend on the planet and there either has to be a way to make it work, or I can try and go back to the way things were before and start trying to figure out another way to keep that spark alive.

I very seriously hope that it doesn't come down to him leaving or us closing up the marriage, though. But we've been talking so much and it always escalates and turns into an argument. So, with this, we decided that seeing a therapist as a couple might be a good option. I searched online for poly-friendly therapists who do couples counseling, found one that seemed like we might connect with and went to meet her and have an initial consultation yesterday. We both liked her, felt comfortable with her and made our appointment for a full session in a few weeks. I felt great after, like we're finally doing something right by seeking outside assistance. That maybe she'll help us figure out what works best for us, and help us deal with things and talk about things better.

Other than that, we did have a really nice long weekend together full of friends and dancing and karaoke singing. It reminded me why I love David so much to begin with. He is so much fun to spend time with. He dances like a beautiful crazy fool and doesn't care who is watching. He sings karaoke songs with reckless abandon, very rarely singing the same song twice, loving the challenge of something new. When we're out together, I always enjoy myself and I don't feel smothered by him or that I have to focus on him when we're in large groups. I just had such a great time, I didn't want it to end. To bookend the weekend with a positive therapy appointment and a nice dinner was just the perfect way to end such a beautiful weekend. I think we really need to focus on each other like this more often. We may just be able to make everything work.

When you're polyamorous...

Conversation between my husband David and I via text:

Me: I kinda want spaghetti.

David: I can pick some up.

Me: :)

David: Also: you would date a tranny?

Me: Um. I don't know? Like, male to female? Or what?

David: Well I assume you meant female to male, but maybe I was mistaken.

Me: (realizing I answered a question on OK Cupid saying I would) Oh, did I answer a question? I don't know, I'd consider it. Either way. I'm not completely closed off to the idea.

David: But dating a transsexual sounds more appealing than dating a straight up woman?

Me: Yes.

David: Interesting. Do we have any parmesan?

Me: Yes.