Can a leopard change her spots?

Holden and I have a policy between us that whenever either of us has an important conversation with someone either of use sees as a potential lover, we share it with each other.  In the case of online chats, with permission from the other person involved, we let each other read the logs of the conversations.  This has worked really well in combating my tendency to let my imagination run away with me when issues of jealousy come up, and it also brings us closer to each other because we’re sharing the experience rather than just having him tell me about it later. 

This works great except when I have a ton of things to do and don’t get around to keeping up on the logs he has for me.  This week has been one of those weeks and a few days had gone by with some conversations Holden wanted to share with me, but my schedule didn’t allow me the time to read through them.

When I finally did, though, I was surprised.  I guess I’d been so caught up in my excitement over the feelings that were developing between Alex and me that I didn’t notice that Holden and Alex were into each other too.  Things started out pretty casually in the chat logs, but after a couple of days they both started getting more and more sexually flirtatious and clearly they were very good at pushing each other’s buttons.  It was clear that they were much closer in terms of how their minds worked in attraction to someone and they seemed equally matched in how quickly they wanted to deepen their relationship. Holden was really excited about this new development and I could tell Alex was really into it too.  But what worried me was that it seemed that none of us had talked to Kyle about how he was feeling about Alex having such a flirtatious friendship with Holden and me. 

A couple of times, Holden had asked Alex how Kyle was feeling about our friendship being so flirtatious and she had indicated that he was fine with it.  It has never been unusual for her to be flirty with friends, much like Holden, and Kyle never felt threatened as long as things only went so far.  This seemed ok, but some of the chat logs did start to push that line of what I guessed would be considered acceptable to Kyle.  I asked Holden if he would have said some of those things to Alex in Kyle’s presence and he admitted that he probably would not have. 

We talked about how as new as this all felt to Holden, it was even newer and more challenging to Alex and Kyle.  Even with the limited experience we have, it’s our responsibility to make sure that we’re helping Alex and Kyle adopt some of the standards of communication and consideration that we’ve developed for ourselves.  Alex had said a few times that she was struggling with boundaries, trying to figure out where to set them, thinking about existing boundaries and how those were being challenged, and so on.  Naturally with such a strong emotional reaction she was feeling a pull to test those boundaries pretty quickly.  Holden, finally seeing the opportunity to develop the kind of relationship he’s wanted for so long, was almost going too fast with things too. 

Despite Kyle’s previous understanding with Alex regarding her flirtation, I sensed this was starting to go beyond that and I encouraged Holden to ask Alex to talk to Kyle again and ask him if he was comfortable with things happening as they were. 

I was pretty freaked out when I saw how quickly things had gotten to the level of intimacy they had with Alex and Holden.  By the end of this week, though, I felt much better knowing that even if boundaries had been crossed a bit already, and that was a mistake, that with good communication and support all around, we could work this out to be a healthy relationship for everyone. 

-Grace

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.

Holden speaks… again:

So first off I want to apologize for not having contributed much here thus far. I hope to remedy that in the coming weeks and months.

Also, apologies for the long silence here. Grace and I have been rather busy lately with several other aspects of life and have not had the time more recently to discuss as much as we’d like nor the time to post about what we have discussed.

So tonight, a positive update. Better understanding each other:

A few weeks back we were discussing attraction. I wanted to know what Grace might be looking for in potential partners, what she would be looking for in partners for me, and Grace wanted to know what specifically I found attractive about people I had expressed interest in. I started to relate how I was attracted to the drive of one, and the similarities in my childhood and how we both feel about society with another, and various other character traits that I found attractive in them. Grace asked again what I found attractive about them, and I looked at her questioningly. I responded saying that the things I had already mentioned attracted me to them. Grace asked more directly then: “But what do you find physically or sexually attractive about them?”

Understanding better now, though still somewhat confused I mentioned a few of the physical aspects that I liked about them but concluded with: “…though, I find most people sexually attractive in one way or another. Granted some more than others, but for me nearly everyone is physically desirable in some way. So it really does come down to the other aspects on if I find myself attracted to them.”

Now it was Grace’s turn to look bewildered.

Through our discussion we found ourselves to be nearly complete opposites in the way of sexual attraction and through that how we could find ourselves in potential relationships. I would say that I personally find about 80% or more of the people I meet sexually attractive, while grace only finds herself attracted to 20% or less of those we meet.

For Grace, sexual attraction is immediate. Meaning that if she doesn’t find herself physically attracted to someone at the moment she meets them, it’s never going to happen. It doesn’t matter how cool the person is, or how close of a friendship she might develop with that person, it will never be able to be any more than that for her. With me the opposite is the case. I can swing in and out of interest with someone based on how I relate to that person. Additionally as I find myself physically attracted to the vast majority of people, you had better have some other trait that causes you to stand out, for me to feel any genuine interest. Physical beauty has very little to do with it for me because of that.

And this had been an unknown hangup of ours for some time. Grace later told me that she always thought I was keeping the details of what I found physically attractive in others from her in order to spare her feelings, but she genuinely wanted to know. And she felt like I was keeping something from her by not telling her (and feeling like your partner is keeping something from you is a guarantee that things won’t be progressing happily). Where as in truth, I wasn’t mentioning those aspects because to my mind they were nearly entirely unimportant. I honestly didn’t realize that she was asking me for those specific details when she would ask me what I found attractive in someone.

With our new understanding we’ve been discussing more and giving each other more details than we have in the past. Specifically I’ve begun to mention what I find physically attractive in others to Grace as it helps her to understand where I am. Alternatively as there is such a lower percentage of possible partners out there for Grace, I have asked her to tell me whenever we pass or see someone that she finds sexually attractive so I have the best idea of that she desires in a potential partner.

Coming soon: recent trips, past errors, and new interests (for Grace this time).

Don’t you just hate it when something frustrating happens and when you sit down to think about it you realize it was all your own fault to begin with? ARGH it makes me so mad!

Last night after a moderately good day, Holden and I stayed up to chat with some friends online. The conversation shifted somewhere I wasn’t terribly interested in (probably computer geek stuff - I love my geeks, but I don’t yet speak their language) so I left to take a shower. It was only 10:30 so I took extra care to make myself soft and smooth and nice smelling. There’s something sensual about that for me, spending time and energy on making myself especially appealing for Holden definitely gets me in the mood to share with him all my little extra efforts. Even just coming out of the shower with newly shaved legs gets me excited to find an excuse to sit close to him with my legs where he can feel and appreciate them. So last night, not only did I shave my legs, but I also used this rose scented lotion that Holden loves to smell on my shoulders, and I left my hair a little damp and tousled because he always tells me how cute that looks. I put on a cute tiny pair of pajama shorts and my over sized men’s style pajama shirt, you know the kind, it buttons down the front and is made of a nice cool cotton blend that hangs just to the hips on a woman if she’s wearing a men’s size. Naturally I only fastened the buttons necessary to keep the shirt from blowing completely open as I walked. Holden loves seeing me either in one of his button down shirts or in a shirt of my own that’s a little too big for me but still manages to show off a shoulder or flash the curve of a breast in the neckline.

All soft and cute and feeling confident in myself, I returned to the living room where Holden was still chatting. I leaned over the back of the recliner to nuzzle his ear and slide my hands from his shoulders down his chest. The conversation in the chat room filled with our old friends from college was pretty lively and Holden didn’t look up from the screen when he said to me, “Hey, you’ve gotta hear about this,” and started recounting some shocking story that everybody was buzzing about in the chat room. Meanwhile, not giving up that I could still capture his attention, I walked in front of him and went across the room to close the windows. There’s a shelf in front of one pair of windows, so I had to lean way over to reach the winch that swings them shut. I leaned a little further than I had to, lingered there pretending to have trouble with the latch, and then shifted position and leaned some more for the second window. Holden went on filling me in on the chat. They were all talking in the excited tones of political discourse, but the story was not only politically shocking but also deeply sad. As I sat down cross legged on the couch I could tell that Holden hadn’t even noticed me and I felt my sexy mood fade away to be replaced by bitter frustration. Why do my moods always have to come up right when Holden is most lonesome for his friends? I can’t tear him away from this conversation now, it’s making him too happy. He misses them terribly and it helps make it easier when he gets to laugh and share the jokes even from a few hundred miles away.

I went to my own computer and joined in the chat room. If I couldn’t communicate to Holden face to face, maybe I could reach him by computer. I had lost the mood entirely by now but I still felt like I wanted to get his attention somehow. I typed a snarky but joking line or two in the chat room along the lines of, “Great, guys. I come out of the shower all soft and cute and you have to go and ruin the mood with some sob story. :-P” We joke each other around like that all the time, but this time I was actually a bit passive aggressive and Holden noticed that was displeased. “It’s not like it was planned that way,” he said to me over his shoulder, and went on chatting. “I’m just frustrated, is all,” I said weakly. I stayed in the chat room for a little bit, but it wasn’t holding my attention and I was getting concerned that Holden would stay up too late and make himself tired for work the next day. It was nearing midnight.

I shut my computer down and went back over to the recliner where I ran my fingers through Holden’s hair a little and asked, “Are you coming to bed soon?” “Yeah, probably,” he replied, and I went to the bedroom.

I hoped he would wrap up his conversation within a half hour or so and come to bed. I thought I could recapture the sexy mood I’d lost by reading, so I plopped down on the bed with a good book and waited up for Holden. I got through twenty… thirty… fourty… fifty pages of the book and when I looked up at the clock it was 2:15 am. I put down my book and shuffled back out to the living room where Holden was still talking with friends back home. He filled me in on who he was talking to and why the conversation had been going so long. Boyfriend trouble. I curled back up on the couch. I was too pissed to feel sleepy, so I picked up my laptop and hit the power button. As it was going through its boot up process, Holden actually finished his conversation, closed the lid on his laptop and came over to sit next to me on the floor. “Oh,” he lamented, “you were just signing on?” “No.” I closed the laptop quickly and decisively, not quite slamming it, because I know better than to slam a laptop, but finally physically showing that I was upset. Holden looked bewildered and concerned. “What’s wrong?” Oh NOW he wants to know what’s wrong? Now that it’s 2:30am and he’s facing a four hour night of sleep he wants to talk to me? What, so I can keep him up until 4 and he can go to work with burning eyes and an aching head? No way, I’m not going to be responsible for that.

“Forget it. It’s not that important. You need to get some sleep. Let’s go to bed.” He really felt guilty now (though I could see in his face that he was trying to work out why I was so upset), and even though I knew it was wrong, that it was bad communication, it felt good to see him squirm, to see the concern in his eyes. I finally had his attention. But I was on the verge of tears by now and I did not want to talk about it because I would have broken down entirely and by God I did not want to be responsible for him staying up any later and ruining his whole work day. He accepted that I wasn’t ready to talk, so he said, “Well, if we go to bed now, can we talk about it tomorrow?” I shrugged it off a bit and pulled myself together. “It’s really not that big a deal, it’s just in my own head, so you shouldn’t worry about it too much. It doesn’t even have to do with you, it’s to do with me, so… whatever.”

We silently crawled into bed and I fumed at myself. What is wrong with me?! I wanted sex tonight. I knew I wanted sex tonight. I even had specific KINDS of sex in mind that I wanted. Why couldn’t I just TELL him? Why couldn’t I come on stronger? What was stopping me from boldly walking up to him, looking him straight in the eyes, closing the laptop and putting it aside while I climbed into his lap in its place? Why can’t I TAKE what I want, why do I feel like I have to lure him into giving it to me? I’m so fucking passive! Even when I’m aggressive, I’m PASSIVE aggressive. Why am I always waiting for him to come to me? Why can’t I go to him and tell him what I want? Holden would never turn me down. He loves it when I initiate sex. He wants to feel wanted too. And I do want him. GOD do I want him. So why can’t I show it? What am I so afraid of? And if I am afraid, why can’t I just suck it up and do it anyway? That’s what I do with everything else. If something scares me, I can always take a deep breath and just… jump. Why don’t I know how to do this? What’s wrong with me?

Eventually I drifted off to sleep, still mad at myself. I woke up this morning with a headache, my eyes burning with spent tears, my body aching from a restless night. And I still don’t know what to do to make it better.

-Grace

Myth #4: Jealousy is inevitable and impossible to overcome.

I think the fallacy in this one is not in the statement itself, but rather in how we deal with it. Let’s break the myth down into its two parts.

I actually do think that jealousy in some form is inevitable in any relationship. First of all, jealousy is a huge umbrella word that can encompass everything from envy to insecurity to possessiveness. Somewhere along the spectrum of everything that counts as jealousy, it’s almost guaranteed to show up in a relationship one way or another.

Whether anything is impossible to overcome is hard to know. The people I’ve talked to who’ve dealt extensively with jealousy issues have told me that jealousy can definitely be mastered. It takes a lot of difficult personal searching and may take years, but it can be overcome to the point that you’re comfortable embarking on a poly adventure. However, in even the most experienced, self-aware people, it’s always possible for something to unexpectedly trigger those old jealous feelings. Usually when they reappear, they’re not as strong as the first time around, but they do stop you in your tracks. Usually if you’ve gone through the hard work to mitigate jealousy in the first place, you’ll have some tried and trusted methods for dealing with it when it does show up again.

I think in a way that developing these coping methods and using them effectively are a way of overcoming jealousy. What I’ve heard from others is that it is actually impossible to eliminate jealousy completely. But it is possible to manage it, contain it, understand it, and deal with its effects on your life.

There will be a whole chapter dedicated to jealousy later on in The Ethical Slut. I haven’t gotten to it yet, but when I do, you’ll get a full report.

-Grace

Come back next time when I’ll discuss Myth #5: Outside involvements reduce intimacy in the primary relationship and impede problem-solving

Myth #3: Loving someone makes it okay to control his/her behavior.

This just screams jealousy and insecurity. People seek to control a partner’s behavior often because they think that if the behavior is eliminated, the feelings that drive the behavior will go away too. By punishing your partner for showing interest in another person, you’re not going to change the fact that your partner finds that person attractive. As the authors wrote in relation to one of the first two myths: “a ring around the finger does not cause a nerve block to the genitals.”

I learned in catechism (yes, there were some good things I learned there) that God gave humans free will because forced worship has no meaning. It’s worthless because it’s not sincere. It’s the same with relationships. Forced fidelity is meaningless and leads to resentment and deceit. The only way a commitment will last is if both partners truly feel committed. If one partner doesn’t feel the same way, there is no way to force those feelings into existence.

This is not to say that partners need not show restraint in how they behave. Boundaries are very important. They need to be discussed and agreed upon by all partners. Sometimes this is tricky and requires some compromise. If an established boundary is no longer working for you, you need to bring that up and discuss it before actually doing anything to push that boundary. You helped make them, you can work together to change them. But simply mandating or forbidding things for the sake of feeling secure is not going to actually create security or safeguard the relationship.

-Grace

Stay tuned for next time when I’ll discuss Myth #4: Jealousy is inevitable and impossible to overcome.

Myth #2: Sexual desire is a destructive force.

The authors of The Ethical Slut give the most common example of this idea appearing in literature, Adam and Eve’s fall from grace in the Garden of Eden. The portrayal of sexual desire as a destructive force - most notably women’s sexual desire - is a common thread through main stream literature and media, from Guinevere and Lancelot to Madame Bovary to Sex and the City. We’re also told that the worst threat to a marriage is an affair. The worst thing a partner can do is cheat on you. Even people who show sexual desire within a committed relationship are sometimes chastised for it.

If sexual desire is ever actually destructive it is because it is acted upon in a deceitful or unsanctioned way. In these cases it is actually the deception that is destructive, not the desire itself. Desire gets the rap for a host of bad behavior: jealousy, possessiveness, deceit, obsession. If we could only accept desire as a positive feeling and learn how to manage it properly, we’d solve one half of the problem. The other half requires that we examine these other things we’re using desire as a scapegoat for and figure out why we’re so caught up on them.

-Grace

Stay tuned for my reflections on Myth #3: Loving someone makes it okay to control his/her behavior

So, after our discussion last night about how my imagination often causes me more problems than anything he actually does, we came up with some strategies we can use to help alleviate my imaginary demons.

Today Holden sent me an email at work that basically said that he needs to call a friend of ours (one of the girls we’re both friends with that he finds attractive) and spend some time on the phone with her. She’s having a hard time with her boyfriend right now and really needs to talk. He gave me some details about the state of their relationship and what specifically he wants to talk to her about. Mind you, this was totally unbidden from me. He just volunteered this information so that I wouldn’t freak out when he’s on the phone with her all evening. Now I can be calm all evening and not be pre-occupied about the conversation going on in the next room. Can you believe this guy?! Talk about picking up the ball and running with it.

*sigh* This is why I love him so much.

-Grace

Holden and I had a really good talk today. It was nice out so we went for a walk around the neighborhood and talked about my jealousy and insecurity issues. Since I’ve been doing a lot of solo thinking and writing about jealousy and insecurity, I felt a lot better equipped to talk with Holden about it without getting quite so overly emotional.

We started out talking about how I’m changing my approach to how I deal with my jealousy. I learned from one of Cunning Minx’s back episodes (don’t know which one, listened to about five of them today) that one way to think about jealousy is not as a flaw in itself, but as a spotlight on the flaws you perceive in yourself when you feel insecure. To put it another way, I shouldn’t be trying to eliminate my jealousy; I should be trying to alleviate my insecurities. I also learned from Minx that jealousy and insecurity will never go away altogether and it’s not realistic to expect that. Instead of trying to destroy it completely, I need to figure out specific methods to deal with it when it’s a problem. I explained all that to Holden and he got really excited about wanting to help.

We spent the rest of the walk coming up with specific ideas for dealing with bouts of jealousy. One thing I learned from him is that he’s not always very sure of what actions of his make me feel jealous. The particular solution I proposed for that was for me to send him a message at the moment I’m feeling jealous, rather than wait for the end of the night to unload all my pent up jealousies on him. For example, if we’re at a gathering of our friends and he does something that makes me jealous (like sits really close to a girl or says something in particular or whatever) I’ll somehow let him know discreetly that I’m feeling jealous. That way he knows what might trigger my jealousy. I told him it doesn’t necessarily mean “stop it right now.” But just so he’s aware of how I’m feeling, and maybe he can make an effort to include me in his affection at that moment too.

Another thing I heard about on Poly Weekly that hit home for me was the idea that my imagination is sometimes causing me more problems than anything Holden is actually doing or thinking. This is especially a problem where it comes to instant messaging with our friends. Holden’s job is such that he can have the instant messaging client open all day at work and he chats with our friends “back home” all day long. My job is not nearly so cool, so I’m largely cut off from all human contact until after 5pm (sucks to be a temp.) During that time he’s often talking about really important things with friends like sexuality, his coming to terms with his own desires, his hopes and dreams for our future together, and sometimes he flirts with the girls. Sometimes when I get home from work and I find he’s been carrying on a flirtatious conversation with a female friend of ours all day, I get jealous because I wasn’t included, and also because I don’t know how far their flirtation has gone. For all I know they’re getting all hot and bothered over each other and lusting after each other’s cyber bodies. While I have no problem with innocent flirtation, there’s definitely a line that can be crossed, and cyber lusting definitely crosses it. So far, Holden hasn’t really given me reason to believe he’s done anything over the line, but the fact that I don’t know anything at all just leaves me to imagine the worst.

Due to a beautiful development in messaging technology, the IM client we both use has the option to log every conversation and save it to a text file. Holden and I have agreed that I can read selections from the logs from his past conversations (only so long as they do not betray anything private that the other party would not want shared with me or anybody else.) We’ll read them together and chances are, everything will be cool. But if something does come up that makes me uncomfortable, we’ll have a chance to talk about it. Of course, the people he’s chatting with are all my friends too, so it’s not like I’m reading his chats with total strangers.

The next part we talked about was a little harder for me, but it’s something I’ve been working up to for a long time and I finally think I might be ready for it. We haven’t really talked about this possible action yet, so it was a surprise when I asked Holden about it. We have a very close-knit circle of friends, and there are certain girls in the group that Holden is attracted to. These are the girls he tends to flirt with and therefore, they are the girls that often make me feel jealous. In another effort to keep my imagination in check, I have proposed that when Holden and I are together at a gathering of our friends, and he is finding something about a particular girl attractive, he should discreetly whisper in my ear exactly what it is he likes about her. I want to get inside his head and understand how he thinks about women. I may not always like hearing what he has to say, and it may actually make me feel worse, but here’s how I choose to look at it (now that I feel equipped enough to handle this): Holden has always thought this way. He is always going to think this way. Nothing about how he thinks is going to change no matter how it makes me feel. I have tried for years to ignore it, which I now know was a mistake. So I am going to have to beat it into my head until it doesn’t bother me anymore. At least that’s the current plan. If this plan doesn’t work to help me deal with my insecurity over Holden’s appreciation of other women’s beauty, then I’ll have to come up with something else later. Short of learning how to do a Vulcan mind-meld on him, this is the best way I can think of to understand him.

Incidentally, when I explained this idea to him, his face lit up in a big grin! “You know what? That is such a turn on. I am really turned on that you want me to tell you what I find attractive in other women. And it’s not that it would heighten my attraction to the other women, it would heighten my attraction to you! The fact that I can be so honest to you means we have such a deep connection. It really turns me on that you are so open to me. ” Additionally, we talked about how it’s another way for him to become more self-aware, to figure out how to put to words exactly what he finds attractive about the women he thinks about, and also so he can apply that same technique to me, so he can tell me what he finds attractive about me. (Not that he doesn’t tell me all the time already! *blush*)

After dinner (while we were munching on some delectable Girl Scout cookies) we talked about some hypothetical situations in an effort to understand each other’s comfortable boundaries. We both reminded each other how this part of our conversation was about things way off in the future, but they were still very helpful and reassuring for me to hear from him.

One of the things we talked about was fluid bonding (something I only recently learned there was a word for.) I was happy to hear from him that firstly, fluid bonding would only be an option for him after a long time serious relationship had been established, and then only after talking with everybody involved (directly and indirectly) and having STD tests on a regular schedule. Even then, he would only want to fluid bond with somebody else via oral sex. Vaginal intercourse would still require full protection. Again, this is all speculation on what would probably be several years from now, but it reassured me to know that he had some boundaries where that’s concerned.

Part of why these talks are so important for me, and why I’m so glad they’re able to move forward without me completely melting down is that Holden talks a big talk when it comes to “loving without boundaries.” I’m all for opening up unnecessary barriers, but in my book boundaries equal safety, both emotional and biological. Sometimes I imagine and worry that Holden will want to challenge every limit, even the ones that are there to protect him and me from harm against our best interest. Of course when I stop panicking I know that he’s actually much more reasonable and responsible than that and that it’s not a genuine worry of mine. But it helps so much to hear him describe his boundaries in his own words.

So now we’re off to bed with full hearts and worry-free heads (for the moment.) We’re going to be ok because we’ve got a plan!

-Grace

In this episode, Minx is interviewing her lover, Graydancer and his wife, Genevieve about something called New Relationship Energy (NRE.) This is a term I only just learned about. I guess it means the excited, giddy feeling you have when you’ve just started a new relationship with someone. This can be hard for an existing partner to cope with when their partner takes a new lover. It can be a time of heightened jealousy and envy, as well as exposing previously unimportant insecurities, or unearthing old ones that may have been quelled in the past.

In a hypothetical imagining of mine, I can see how I would react if Holden had a new love interest that I wasn’t involved in. He would come home with that goofy grin on his face, eager to tell me everything, and I would listen. But all the while I would be mourning the NRE that we will never have again. “He used to grin about ME like that. I wonder if he talked this excitedly about me to his friends. I wonder what I can do to make him that excited to see me again. What would it take to get him to daydream about me like he does about her?”

I try to put myself in Genevieve’s shoes. She decided to try polyamory because her husband Graydancer wanted to be polyamorous. I suspect her insecurity and jealousy were strong like mine when the idea first came up but they were very devoted to each other and through lots of talking and I’m sure lots of negotiating and probably crying, they figured out what they could be comfortable with.

Genevieve talked about the time it took for her to become acclimatized to seeing Graydancer with his other lover, Minx. She said it was definitely a shock the first time she saw them kissing, and that it took several years for her to finally get to be so comfortable with seeing the two of them relating to each other lovingly that she could feel totally happy for Graydancer and not feel jealous first.

I worry deep down that I may never get to that point. I worry that it will always cause me pain to see or even think about Holden being so affectionate with another woman. Just like there’s still a little voice in the back of my head that scolds me for not living up to my grandparents’ standards (“What would Grandpa think of this?” “What would Grandma say if you told her you did this?”) I feel like there would always be a voice in the back of my head chastising me for betraying the “true” meaning of marriage, of practicing moral relativism, and of making up my own rules just to make myself feel good regardless of “what I know is right.” The cultural conditioning for monogamy is very strong and not only will I have to get my own personal problems under control, but I’ll also have to come to terms with how I feel about the cultural perspective. When I think of it that way, I can understand why I should expect it to take several years for me to feel comfortable.

One thing that Graydancer said was that “our society doesn’t leave any room for that idea. We’re not used to seeing the person we love kissing someone else… and expecting to be happy about it. That takes a lot of practice.”

He went on to say that there are two big things to remember to make a priority when you’re dealing with NRE: time and attention. It’s important for the partner who’s taking a new lover to spend time and more importantly attention on his/her established lover to make sure they know how much they’re still valued and adored. That’s something I can see Holden being fairly good at, though it may take a reminder from time to time.

-Grace