Can a leopard change her spots?

A couple of months ago I met a woman, Cindy, and we hit it off pretty well as friends. We had a lot in common and enjoyed doing a lot of the same things, so I invited her to a weekly gathering Holden and I attend. She said she was looking for some new friends in the area and this was a great opportunity for me to introduce her around to some of my other friends. She started coming to our weekly get togethers and seemed to hit it off with several other members of the group. I felt pretty good about bringing a new friend into my life.

As Holden and I spent more time talking with Cindy, she expressed to us how liberal and open minded she was about all kinds of things.  At one point, Holden decided it would be ok to talk to her about the general idea that he and I are considering practicing polyamory, and specifically polyfidelity.  He wasn’t interested in her, specifically, but she seemed like the kind of person he could discuss the concept with.  I wasn’t present when the conversation started, but by the time I arrived, Cindy was already asking questions and listening in an engaged way to what Holden was explaining.  It was all very general and sort of “just scraping the surface” but it was kind of refreshing to be talking with someone in person fairly openly about how we feel about faithfulness, commitment, and relationships.  At some point she had to leave, but the conversation ended on a good note and Holden thought of a few things she had asked about that he wanted to give her more clarification on later.  He sent her an email later explaining some more details about some questions she had, and also a clarification that this is a rather sensitive subject and that we’d appreciate it if she’d sort of keep it between us, since we’re not comfortable about everyone knowing just yet.  Her response was terse and dismissive.  Something along the lines of, “How dare you tell me all this stuff and then tell me I have to keep secrets for you.  I’m not interested anyway.”  Holden replied that he was sorry he’d made her uncomfortable and that in the future we could refrain from talking about that subject if it would help.  He further clarified that it wasn’t that we were asking her to keep a secret, just to show some discretion in how he handled the topic, should it come up.  He apologized again, and said he hoped we could all have drinks together at the next get together.  She then promptly blocked our email and Facebook contacts and has since stopped coming to anything we go to. 

Now, I was actually a little bothered that Holden took it upon himself to talk to Cindy about poly in the first place.  I wasn’t comfortable with her at that level yet and I didn’t feel like we knew her well enough to have that discussion.  Holden has since agreed with me that it was a mistake to bring it up to her, especially without talking to me about the idea first.  But regardless of whether or not Holden was right in talking about it with her, Cindy’s reaction is really puzzling to both of us. 

For one thing, she seemed genuinely interested in learning more about the topic.  She asked some really intuitive questions and seemed at the time to be receiving our answers positively, or at the very least neutrally.  Maybe Holden’s request for discretion was misinterpreted, or maybe he worded it wrong, but I’m having a hard time seeing why it prompted such a strong response from her.  I guess it’s a sensitive request for her. 

 And lastly, I didn’t see Holden give Cindy any indication that he was talking to her about poly because he wanted to have a relationship with HER.  When she said, “I’m not interested” I wanted to tell her, “don’t flatter yourself! He’s not interested in you either!” 

It’s not really all that big a deal in the grand scheme of things.  Cindy hasn’t been in contact with any of our other friends either.  I do feel kind of bad that this encounter has seemed to soured her on our whole group of friends (who meet around a topic completely unrelated to sexuality or poly.)  Ultimately, Holden and I haven’t taken it too hard.  I mean, we tried to reach out to her when she got uncomfortable, but she clearly didn’t want that, so I guess that was her choice. 

I knew there would be some people in life that would simply reject us outright for our feelings about relationships, but I didn’t expect it to be someone who touts herself as an open minded liberal person with a strong drive to question authority and the status quo, as Cindy claimed and seemed to be. 

On the bright side, Holden and I (especially Holden) have learned a valuable lesson about when it’s ok to bring up poly and how to go about preparing for the discussion. 

I had a really nice talk with Josie today. If you’ll remember, Josie is a friend of both Holden and me. She’s one of the people Holden has kind of hoped for a relationship with, but he’s also perfectly happy just keeping things the way they are with her. What’s unique about our friendship with Josie is that she is one of the few girls I really feel comfortable bringing into our relationship as a more romantic partner for Holden.

After I wrote my last blog post, in which I expressed that I’m ready to have the conversation about asking Josie to join our relationship should the subject come up, I realized how passive that attitude was. I decided it wasn’t right to expect Holden to initiate everything. I talked with Holden about the idea that I’d like to talk to Josie and just let her know that if she felt attracted to Holden and wanted to have a deeper relationship with him, that I would support that and welcome her into our relationship. Holden was surprised that I wanted to take the lead in this, but naturally he was excited that I felt so comfortable and positive about it.

I didn’t go into the conversation expecting her to actually want to start a relationship with Holden, and I know that’s not what Holden’s going for right now either, but my goal was just to get across to Josie that I think of her as a special kind of friend; one that I’d welcome as an extended part of our committed relationship.

Maybe from the outside this seems like a silly sort of statement of the obvious or that it shouldn’t be such a big deal to talk about this kind of thing with a friend, but it is for me. This is the first time I’ve ever approached a friend and told her that I’d in essence be willing to share my husband with her in a romantic way. There is a potential for this to be a huge risk. I mean, what if Josie totally freaked out about it and decided not to be friends with either of us anymore? That’s a pretty big risk since she’s such a close friend to both of us. Fortunately, both Holden and I have talked with Josie about poly before, in general terms. She has expressed to both of us that she can appreciate how it works for some people. She’s really open about talking about poly in general terms and has been interested in understanding our thoughts and feelings about it. Because of her attitude about poly and her openness in talking about other important aspects of life, I felt pretty confident that she would not freak out so badly as to end the friendship or anything. I figured at the worst she might change how she interacts with Holden and me. I worried a little that she might be less comfortable for a while, that she might withdraw a bit or just feel some awkwardness knowing we’d thought about her in that way.

I got a chance to talk to Josie online today.  Everything went beautifully!  We were talking about poly in general terms and then I took the opportunity to tell her that she is someone I’d be comfortable with Holden having a poly relationship with.  I let her know that I don’t expect anything and I know that things aren’t there right now, but that if they were, I’d be ok with it.

Her response was to tell me she was honored that I think of her that way.  She let me know that I needn’t have worried about her getting scared and running away from our friendship, that she’s not going anywhere.

It was a really nice, affirming conversation.  And as far as I can tell, nothing has changed about our friendship or her friendship with Holden, except that we all know how much we value each other’s friendship and love.

This was probably the best possible outcome for the conversation and I’m feeling really good about things.  I told Holden about my conversation with Josie and he was surprised by my candor and super happy that I felt comfortable enough with Josie to have the conversation.

It was a baby step in some ways, but when I think of it in terms of this being the first person I’ve approached about the idea of sharing a poly relationship, it feels kind of big.

It was, in fact, a VERY nice weekend! I am feeling a renewed sense of strength in my relationship with Holden, in Holden’s commitment to do this right, and in my own ability to navigate my emotions. I guess I’ll dive right in to the post.

First of all, remember how I talked earlier about the sort of two levels of friendship in my life? Well, Josie is one of those who’s in the closer set, the ones I trust most and would most likely feel most comfortable inviting into our relationship. The two of them had always had a flirtatious relationship and unlike with other girls, it never bothered me as much with Josie because of what good friends she and I were. She showed me through her actions and in her willingness to be open in discussions that she was genuinely a good friend and also that she wasn’t interested in coming between me and Holden, but rather wanted both of us as parts of her life. If she was sexually attracted to Holden, she never turned that into jealousy of me or acted like I was some kind of threat. Because of her already positive temperament, it didn’t bother me as much that Holden was attracted to her and enjoyed flirting with her.

Before Josie arrived, I talked with Holden about what he hoped for in his relationship with her. He told me that as much as he likes her and as fun and rewarding as it could be to start something more romantic from their friendship, it’s probably not possible due to the current circumstances and he was perfectly fine with that. He didn’t want to pursue anything he knew she wouldn’t be able to commit to. On the other hand, he was looking forward to being able to flirt with her openly.

As good as I felt about Josie and as hopeful I was that this time the communication between me and Holden beforehand would result in a better experience with this visit, I was still a little anxious about things. Even though I knew Holden wasn’t planning to pursue anything more than a flirtatious friendship, I also knew that he could be impulsive and I worried that he might get carried away once they were “in the moment” so to speak. It sounds silly looking back on it now, but I really feared the idea that things would heat up between them while I wasn’t around and I’d be the last to know. Putting my faith in open communication again, I talked with Holden about this. Specifically, I wanted to be with him when he went to pick her up. Some little part of my insecurity drilled away in my brain about things like, “It’s been a long time since they’ve seen each other. They’ll be so happy to see each other that they’ll hug a little longer than usual and maybe that moment will spark some deeper emotion in them and he’ll have her in his arms anyway so he might just lean down and kiss her impulsively! Then there’s the long drive back to our house during which they’d have time to talk about their longing for each other and they’d even have time to square up their story to me to keep me from knowing that they’d gone too far!”

Did I mention that my insecure inner voice is straight out of a Victorian novel? For some reason my insecurity always wants to use words like “betrayal” and “forsaken” and “impropriety.” Completely annoying.

As it worked out I was able to be there to pick her up and we had a really nice happy car ride back home. Then we had a really nice happy dinner together. Then I realized that this trip was unlikely to become anything but really nice and happy! Josie was here to see ME after all too, so it wasn’t like the two of them would want to be sneaking off alone anywhere to “pick up where they’d left off.” There wasn’t anything left off to pick up! If anything was going to happen, I was going to be involved from the start, and that felt great.

There was even a moment that might have been my first glimpse of what compersion might feel like. I’m still not sure I’d call what I felt compersion exactly, but it was more a certain level of comfort and trust that surprised me at the time and sort of left me in a daze afterward, but a nice daze.

Holden and Josie and I had come back from some excursion somewhere, probably out to eat, and we had lit the fireplace. The three of us are all ticklish and of course, as always happens at one point or another with us, someone started a tickle fight. In the past, my feelings had been hurt when Holden would have tickle fights with other girls, but not include me. Later I found out that it wasn’t him that was excluding me, but the other girl. This time, though, Josie and I teamed up against Holden and he didn’t have a chance!

When none of us could breathe, we all collapsed onto the couch, Holden in the middle, and Josie and I on either side of him. I didn’t even notice it at first, but both Josie and I had our heads on Holden’s shoulders and he had a hand on each of our shoulders. When I noticed, I glanced up to Holden’s face and he smiled at me, kissed me on the forehead, and squeezed my shoulder. I turned my eyes down toward Josie, who was dreamily watching the fireplace. I was most surprised by the absense of certain emotions, not necessarily the presence of anything new. I always knew that Josie and Holden had affectionate feelings for each other, both as really good friends, and also with some attraction between them. But when I expected to feel jealous and threatened and panicky, I looked to those parts of my psyche, and they were empty! Just… nothing there. The lack of fear was actually really disorienting! I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the void at first. I looked around, took it all in, and started creating new thoughts and feelings to go there. I didn’t worry too much at the time about thinking it through and defining things. I didn’t really have words to describe what I was feeling (and still don’t) but it was more or less just a feeling of “This is ok. This is not scary like I thought it would be. There she is and here I am. I feel love from Holden and I feel friendly affection and sisterhood from Josie. I feel respect from Josie. I don’t feel competition. I feel joy in a shared moment.” The rush of new feelings really knocked me off balance in a way I never expected. It was like the rush of a roller coaster leaving you breathless and wobbly legged as you step out of the seat.

I will admit there was one moment of paranoia that crept in sometime during the weekend. It turned out to be absolutely silly and that’s how I dispelled it for myself, but I’ll describe it for you anyway. At the very least you’ll probably get a laugh out of it.

I went into the bathroom to take a shower and I could hear Holden and Josie laughing and talking through the door. I took a 20 minute shower and when I was done, I couldn’t hear them through the door anymore. I wondered, “What could they be doing that’s so quiet?” Immediately, that stupid jealous voice that knots my stomach up chimed in with, “What if they’re kissing?! What if they’re spread out on the bed touching each other?!” I was embarrassed for myself over even HAVING these thoughts, much less acting on them, but there I was, my ear to the inside of the bathroom door, certain I was going to hear little moans of pleasure or the soft smack of a surreptitious kiss. Then I mentally whacked myself for going all “Victorian” again, took a deep breath while donning my bathrobe, and stepped out into the hallway to see Josie in the bedroom by herself, reading a newspaper online. Holden wasn’t even in the room! In fact, he was in the kitchen making lunch or something for all of us! Another mental whack upside the head, and I was back to feeling fine.

So the whole visit was really warm and fuzzy. Holden and I went to bed each night super happy to be alone with each other and just revel in the closeness we felt with each other at how well everything was going. We were both really sad to see Josie go back home.

A few days later Holden brought up an idea to me. He asked how I would feel about having a poly relationship that didn’t include sex. He described it as having greater affection between partners, showing love with cuddles and kisses and perhaps touching and fondling and pleasure, but not going as far as actually going to bed together. Of course, that was what I had in mind as perhaps the second stage of a poly relationship as I’d see it anyway, so I told him that would probably be cool, as long as all our other requirements come with it: open communication, concern for all people’s feelings, a commitment to go only as far as everyone’s comfortable with, etc. He didn’t say specifically whether he meant that to be about Josie, but from what we both know about her and about other particular restrictions that would have to be considered, it was more or less understood that it probably applied to her. We didn’t have time to go into it further at that time, but I can honestly say that at this moment, I would be ready to have that discussion with Josie.

I’m not sure where all this is going to go, but I’m ready for the discussion if it comes up, and that feels like a huge tiny step.