False positives revealed?

As I’ve been thinking back about my feelings over the past year, and the so called achievements I made in personal growth, I’ve had to confront the fact that many of the signs that I was learning to overcome my jealousy were not really there at all.

It’s been hard to admit to myself but the times I thought I was feeling compersion or at the very least feeling happy that things were working out for Holden and his girlfriend were really based on my own insecurities being placated, not out of a mature sense of relationship freedom.  For a long time Holden’s girlfriend said or implied that she wanted some form of relationship with me as well as Holden; that she wanted more than friendship with me, whatever shape we decided that would take.  I was very confused about my feelings and admittedly made it difficult for anything to be done about that, but the feeling of being wanted and desired was there. Looking back, I realize now that the times I thought I was feeling compersion were actually times when I felt wanted and desired by both Holden and his girlfriend. The situation had to involve her showing something for me in order for me to feel secure. Even if it was just that she wanted me there as a friend and wanted me involved in whatever they were doing socially, that made a difference. Though, those weren’t quite as powerful as the times when she showed me how much she desired me sexually.  Holden, meanwhile, has always made me feel desired and wanted, and he was very keen on the idea of having me fully involved in the relationship with his girlfriend, to whatever level we wanted to take that.  He frequently said that even when he and his girlfriend were sharing something special, he had a feeling of wanting me there too. He didn’t want to be with her to the exclusion of me. He wanted us both there and involved at the same time. That’s impossible now, because she decided she doesn’t want to pursue anything beyond a basic platonic friendship with me, which makes it very hard to think of being around the two of them. Holden would be able to be affectionate and flirtatious with her, or with me, but not both, and she and I would have to keep things on a strictly platonic non-sexual level. Talk about awkward. I want no part of a situation in which I have to be around people being playfully sexual and flirtatious but not be allowed to participate in that.

Anyway, now that the door is closed on that possibility, I’ve been very discouraged about how difficult it is for me to feel happy for Holden. The sense that he is desired and happy and has positive experiences with her should make me happy, but instead I end up feeling left out, left behind, and inadequate, all of which stir up the self doubt that grips me.

There are many complex issues involved here, but the simplified version is that before, I thought this extra relationship was something for me as well as for Holden.  Now that it’s just for Holden I can’t seem to bring myself to be happy with it, or sometimes even tolerate it.

Right now I’m at a loss for how to become happy about it.  I’m feeling so far away from compersion that it doesn’t even feel possible right now.  I keep looking at the situation and trying to see how I can rationalize it to myself that I should be happy for Holden and that this whole setup has benefits for everyone, not just those directly involved.

The ideal I’m trying to reach is this: to feel genuine compersion for Holden, to feel selfless joy at seeing him happy, without requiring the situation to directly benefit me.

That’s feeling somewhat unattainable at the moment, so the mid-range goal I have in the meantime is just to feel okay with Holden’s relationship and not feel slighted or robbed of time and intimacy with him. I want to get my insecurities under control so I don’t feel threatened and panicky every time they spend time together.

There’s a lot that goes into the background of all of that. But realizing that I was wrong when I thought I was doing so well at accepting everything has shown me just how much further I have to go in my personal development to be able to have a successful and satisfying relationship with my husband.

It’s going to be a long hard slog. I’ll do my best to write about it all here.

-Grace

Idea for reclaiming erotica for myself

I could try to re-attach the erotic stories and other gifts I got from someone who hurt me to someone I know I can trust, someone who loves me as much as I love them.

There’s a book called Written on the Body (by Jeanette Winterson) that was given to me by Holden’s girlfriend. She gave it to me in what I enterpreted to be the spirit of enjoying turning me on and hoping to entice me to do more with her. I thoroughly enjoyed the book in that spirit and if her intention was to get me to imagine her and me in the characters in that book, then mischief managed. It really fueled the fantasy fire I was building about her.

Since she closed the door on having a relationship with me I haven’t been able to bring myself to open the book again. I’m reluctant to lose the pleasure I got from the book on account of its attachment to her, however.

Holden, meanwhile, loves me to read erotica aloud to him. Perhaps if I start the book over and read it aloud to Holden I’ll be able to overwrite the images of his girlfriend with new images of him and me. This book might be uniquely suited for this because the narrator is purposely ambiguous in gender.

This will be an interesting experiment in psychology. Can a leopard change her spots AND her mental response to specific stimuli?

I’ll report on the results.

-Grace

Reclaiming Fantasies

I have experienced something sad and frustrating in the past few months.  Let me try and describe what happened and then you’ll see my problem.

A couple of years ago, Holden encouraged me to start sharing my fantasies with him.  It took a lot of hard work for me, mentally, to learn how to bring this very private part of my psyche to the forefront and put my secret desires to words for him, or even myself.  I hadn’t even really brought myself to write about them in my journal, so saying them out loud was a huge challenge, and still is sometimes.

As part of that successful and fruitful work, I also started exploring aspects of my sexuality more deeply.  This included reading erotica, viewing porn movies and clips, and developing visualizations with Holden about what images I was thinking of that turned me on.  I found I enjoyed a lot of those things associated with women, lesbian sex, and bisexuality with threesomes and foursomes.  I embraced those aspects of my fantasy life and found that I most enjoyed the ones that had to do with women and Holden was supportive and eager to have that aspect of my sexuality enhance our experiences together.

Fast forward to the beginning of last year when Holden started a relationship with someone I was already attracted to.  The three of us entertained various ideas of there being something more physical between her and me, or including her in my lovemaking with Holden somehow.  As things progressed, she even wove detailed erotic fantasies with me, blowing open my erotic imagination and giving me a face to put on the fantasies I’d enjoyed so well. She took hold of my already budding fantasy life and made it blossom into something even more satisfying and exciting, gave me new erotica to read (specifically involving women making love), and pointed me toward movies that involved erotic scenes between women. We even began discussions about what it would take to make my fantasies about making love with a woman a reality, and were talking about specific things we’d like to do with each other.

But then things went sour. She withdrew her offer of physical exploration with me and closed the door on ever having a sexual relationship.  She and Holden would keep their fully sexual relationship going, however.  Amongst all the hurt and confusion I’ve dealt with since her decision, I’ve discovered this new problem: I can’t untether the most satisfying area of my sexual fantasies from this person I was terribly hurt by.  The fantasies and erotica I enjoyed the most even before this person entered my life were to do with women.  And now every time I read something about two women making love, I see her.

I’ve desperately tried to erase any sexual feeling about her from my mind because I don’t want to torture myself while Holden gets to have the sexual relationship I wanted with her.  But now I’m finding that the most satisfying erotica brings images and thoughts of her right to the forefront of my mind again.  It’s driving me crazy and it’s making me sad and angry that the hard-won full fantasy life that I was discovering for myself was hijacked by this person who I’m not allowed to feel things for anymore.

I’m trying to expand the scope of my fantasies to focus on other aspects of erotica that have excited me that don’t necessarily involve woman-on-woman aspects. My hope is that with time, those residual feelings for her will fade and I’ll be able to enjoy the fantasies for their own sake again, and not associate them with her.

Have any of you dealt with this before?  Do you have any strategies I can use to reclaim the rich fantasy life I built for myself and then foolishly lost by attaching it to someone else?

I’d love to hear from you. Leave me a comment below or email me at monopolyblog@gmail.com.

-Grace

Feeling Abundance

Something I’ve learned about myself is that I need to feel like my life with Holden is abundant and full and happy in order to feel okay about his secondary relationship. There have been times in the past couple of months when I felt like sharing him was taking something away from me or our marriage. Those times felt like something was scarce and valuable and I was reluctant to share him with anyone else fot fear I’d be getting less of what I need or desire. But when I feel like our marriage is strong and that I have everything I need and more, I feel like I have it to spare to give them an evening together.  I feel like there’s no way this secondary relationship would be a threat because look how good Holden’s primary relationship is with me.

I realize in saying that that it’s actually a rather insecure attitude to have.  It smacks of a need to be propped up and I should be secure enough and confident enough to not need to feel like our relationship is superior.  Or rather, that I shouldn’t need to be reminded of it all the time.

But I’m not that evolved, it seems.  Maybe I’ll get there someday.

What is positive about this, though, is that I can ask Holden to help remind me of how important our marriage is and why ours is the primary relationship.  It’s not just a matter of years, though that’s a simple way of putting it.  When I’m feeling down and insecure it does help to hear it from him that I’m his wife and his primary partner not just because we’ve been together so long, but because we’re the best fit for each other in those ways.  I like to be able to give him concrete things he can do to help me feel secure, and that’s a good one.

Meanwhile, look forward to a post about fantasies and erotica; specifically, how to reclaim your fantasy life when the person who sparked your strongest fantasies walks away.

Not that I have any answers about that. I’m actually hoping you will, faithful readers!

-Grace