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

After this whole process of exploring the poly world are you a firm believer that you are really happier in this lifestyle or are you simply doing it because you love Holden?

Even though I’ve come to some basic philosophical conclusions, my explorations are nowhere near finished. Holden and I have not even actually HAD a poly relationship yet. We’ve simply become a couple who is currently monogamous but open to the idea of adding additonal partners should the opportunity come up.

As for the idea of doing it because I love Holden, there is some truth to that. Here’s the distinction though: I agreed to try to understand and explore poly because I love Holden. I agreed to do the hard work that goes in to re-examining every assumption about relationships, love, trust, and fidelity because I love Holden. But my decision to actually become open to having a poly relationship with Holden came about through my own independent observations about my own needs and desires, and about how relationships work (or don’t!) in general. Holden has been very careful not to exert too much pressure on me, and believe me when I tell you, that was probably the hardest part of all this for him. Well, maybe. I don’t know, you’d have to ask him about that. But he made it a point to get me to talk about everything as if he was an objective person. His biggest concern was not that I come around to his way of thinking, but that I honestly examine my own feelings in light of new information. While he initiated the process, I carried it in the direction that was most beneficial to me. You’ll notice as this blog continues how Holden and I have come to different conclusions about certain aspects of poly, especially as it relates to the nature vs. nurture argument. It is through these little differences of opinion that you can see that I’ve actually thought this stuff through for myself, and haven’t just accepted Holden’s take on everything.

This wraps up my little series summarizing my current status as a potential polyamorist.

Coming up soon: A discussion on the idea of “coming out,” and hopefully the beginning of a series of reviews of movies dealing with polyamory.

Do you guys think that you are making the choice to be a poly couple because it is what you think will work for “you guys,” or are you confident that if you were longer together you would still search for a poly lifestyle?

I think Holden for sure would be poly regardless of whether we were together. I don’t know. I don’t think I would actively seek multiple partners, but rather if multiple people came my way that I wanted a deep relationship with, I wouldn’t rule it out. It’s like that with anything though. I don’t think we go through life “seeking” a relationship, we just learn how to be open to one.

Short answer today. But tomorrow there will be more. Check back for “Chapter 1 and a Half,” part 5

Do you think that the people who meet and marry one person and spend their lives together are really content?

I think some people have the capacity for that. However, I think they’re much more rare than people who would be more content having multiple partners at some time in their lives.  As I talked about in part 2, there are complications to any relationship, and if a monogamous couple decides that they want to remain monogamous while dealing with all of these complications, that can leave them both feeling happy and fulfilled if it’s what they both truly want.  Now, I don’t think that’s as common or as easy as we’ve been led to believe.  It’s certainly not the norm. 

By “complications” I mean anything that challenges the monogamous feelings of either person in the relationship.  Developing feelings for someone other than one’s partner, lusting after a movie star, finding emotional fulfillment in an Internet relationship that isn’t being found in the real life monogamous relationship are all examples of possible complications.  People in our mainstream society are more likely to deny the complications, sweep them under the rug, or act on their impulses and desires in secret, none of which are healthy.  Open communication is the first requirement in dealing with any complication.  I could go on for pages about what constitutes open communication and strategies to start doing it, but that would be a pretty far digression. 

In short, I think that if a monogamous couple face challenges together openly and honestly and still find they are happiest being monogamous, then they can be content in that.  What most people see as contentment, however, is more often actually resignation. 

Don’t forget to check out the next installment of “Chapter 1 and a Half,” part 4!

-Grace

Fair warning. I’m writing this while still somewhat angry about it.

Waiting for my lunch to warm up today I made the mistake of picking up the local newspaper. I read a lot of news but I tend to stay away from the mainstream US media as I find most of it fairly worthless. Unfortunately a free paper on a table was a little too enticing to pass up while waiting 5 minutes for my food to finish. After reading a few local stories I came across a small section and my eyes caught the words: “love, husband, and another”. Curious, it took a few more moments before I realized I’d been drawn to a question in “Dear Abby:”

Dear Abby: I have been married six years and have recently fallen in love with another man. But I still love my husband. Is it possible to be in love with two people at the same time?

Abby says: It is possible to love more than one person because you love them for different reasons. However, when someone is in love he or she is usually completely focused on that one love object. So, the answer is no.

…right, because we only love one child or one parent/sibling/relative… at a time because we can only focus on “one love object”. That makes perfect sense. Not to mention the “different reasons” bit. Sorry little johnny, but you’re too much like your older brother for mommy to love you. If only you’d been a little more different she’d have other reasons to love you, but she can’t possibly love the same thing about two of her kids… that’s ridiculous!

I honestly wanted to scream. Here is an advise columnist who is touted as a “relationship expert” but apparently she’s never heard of polyamory.

And worse. Here is a woman, probably hurting over what she perceives to be a fault in herself (Cinderella only needed one prince charming after all… at least that’s all the story Disney gave us), asking a hard question, looking for advise and guidance, fed the fairytale line. And unfortunately she’ll probably take it to heart, instead of examining the issues of honesty, trust, communication and commitment that are already apparently involved.

In the end I think what upset me the most was the probability that Abby HAS heard of poly but instead of taking time and professional attitude of setting aside her own prejudices and examining it, she simply pretends it doesn’t exist and advises people from inside her projected world bubble. …and the fact that she’s getting paid to do it.

-Holden

The last three or four months have been really hard for me and Holden, despite there being some really exciting things going on for us. We’ve both started new jobs in a new city. We’ve adjusted to living in my mom’s house while waiting for everything to come through on a house of our own. We’ve gone house hunting, come up with a budget for fixing up a run down house, and found what seems to be the house of our dreams. All of that has been exciting but also challenging, taxing us mentally and emotionally. It all involves quite a bit of risk and I think most people would agree that when taking a risk, it’s good to have a strong foundation in your relationship with your spouse so you can help each other through the scary parts. In the midst of all this excitement and necessary turmoil, however, there has been additional turmoil accompanying what some might call a potential polyamorous relationship that went sour and took everyone down with it.

I may have written here previously about a friend of Holden’s who reminded me eerily of a girl who had brought about much damage to our relationship in the past. I think I expressed my trepidation about her and Holden’s deepening affection for her. I’m not in a frame of mind to write about all the details right now, but to sum up: Holden told her he liked her and might possibly be interested in seeing if something more could develop between them in the future. She and I never really hit it off very well, but I tried to get to know her better, hoping to see what Holden saw in her. I did not, though he kept insisting there was more good to her than I was seeing. I saw mostly bad. But I gave the friendship a chance. We took a weekend trip to visit her and some of our other friends. I knew Holden had wanted to see her very badly because he’d been helping her deal with a lot of family, social, and financial issues. I also knew that there would probably be a level of affection between them that had not been manifest before, and I talked to Holden about how I feared this might make me uncomfortable and he promised to do his best to check in with me and make sure I was doing ok. We saw most of the other friends we traveled there to see, but we spent the lion’s share of our time with her. Because of a misunderstanding and a failure to communicate while out at a club dancing, she became infuriated with Holden and myself and has been giving Holden the silent treatment off and on for two months since. I’d say she was giving me the silent treatment too, except she never really talked to me that much to begin with. But I suppose her not responding to my email asking her to talk to me about what she was upset about was signal enough that she specifically intended NOT to talk to me.

For two months and some change, Holden and I have battled over this. I felt that because of her previous risky sexual behavior, her love of acting impulsively, and the way she completely blew off the amount of sacrifice and patience Holden had offered her during our trip she was not a good person for him to start a relationship with. Not to mention the fact that she would barely carry on a conversation with me, and often threw up defensive behavior whenever I was around. With Holden and my understanding of how a poly relationship in our lives would work (open communication among ALL those involved, not just between dedicated partners), this was a big hurdle to be overcome. He agreed with me on all these points, and repeatedly insisted that as things were with her at that time he could not start a more serious relationship with her.

But his analysis of her behavior was very open-ended. He wanted to allow room for a friendship and for his ability to help her grow into a person capable of handling the level of communication and responsibility a truly poly relationship would require. I saw this as him wanting to “fix” what was wrong with her so she would be an acceptable partner, and I flipped out over it.

All this battling went on during the period of silence imposed by this girl. When she did finally step up to communicate with Holden, her tone was full of venom, both at me for what she had perceived as my rude behavior toward her (even though I had made an effort to get closer to her that weekend), and at him for not having put me in my place for said behavior. What makes this all the more ironic is that Holden and I had both felt like she had taken our visit for granted and had treated US rudely, though we’d held our tongues about it, he out of sympathy for her stressful situation (and also out of affection for her), and I in an effort to keep the peace and not spoil the time she was spending with her mother, who had recently been diagnosed with cancer.

Her attack took me by surprise. She used words like “beast” and “rabid” and “rude” to describe me to Holden, while admonishing him for being weak and encouraging him to “grow a pair.” And apparently this all stemmed from the fact that Holden and I had danced as a couple in the nightclub. The way she lashed out felt almost bizarre in its flailing attempt to wound Holden over what she had perceived as his lack of attention toward her feelings. Nevermind the fact that he’d spent two and a half hours talking with her the night before, had breakfast with her that morning, went shoe shopping with her that afternoon, and waited for her for three hours to show up at the night club.

I thought that this surely would have to be the last straw. Surely this is not the way a friend treats another friend, much less a (potential) lover. Holden set to work responding to her accusations. He spent the better part of a day composing his thoughts and drafting a response that exhibited self control, but was still biting in all the right ways.

He ended it by telling her he was in serious doubt over whether or not they could still be friends. But again, it was open-ended, nothing final, nothing closed. It still left that possibility for her to win her way back into his good graces.

I was satisfied with how he defended me in the email, and I was pleased at how he had stuck up for himself in light of her accusations meant to emasculate him. But his unwillingness to write her off as a friend after how she had treated him irked me. I couldn’t understand how he could open himself up to be kicked around by her yet again, for this had not been the first time they had had a falling out over her self-centered way of being inconsiderate.

Unfortunately, all this was in the midst of my stress associated with securing a mortgage, interviewing contractors, haggling with insurance agents, and dealing with settling into our new jobs. That kind of hectic life is so draining that we never really got a chance to come to our own closure over the whole thing with this girl. I was just kind of hoping to put that on the back burner until a few of these high stress things had been settled and I could have that segment of my brain back to process this kind of discussion.

Because we hadn’t had a chance to talk about that or about other poly and relationship type things, it came as a complete shock to me when this evening I came home from working a 10 hour day to the news that Holden had been speaking with another female friend of ours (this one I like much better) and had told her that he liked her a lot and would like to see if something more could develop from their friendship. Now, under normal circumstances, sans house, jobs, contractors, and overtime, I would have been perfectly fine with the idea of exploring what could come of a relationship with this person. I genuinely like her a lot and while we’re not as close as I’d like us to be, she definitely holds a lot more respect in my book. However, I was NOT READY for Holden to embark on a journey of exploration which I was supposed to be a part of (at his insistence) in the midst of dealing with all this other stuff AND so soon after things had gotten so ugly with the other girl. Because we hadn’t really gotten to talk about things between managing chaos, he didn’t realize that I had been more wounded by the attack on my character than I had let on. He had mentioned this new girl to me months ago before things really got rolling with the other girl, and so he assumed since I was cool with it then I would be cool with it now. But what he didn’t take into account was how much this experience of being chewed up and spit out by a potential partner of his had shaken me up. My confidence in him had been damaged, my confidence in myself had been severely dented, and with all the crazy things going on in our lives, I had not been able to slow down long enough to deal with any of it.

So tonight we had it out. I’d like to say that after discussing everything we’re both on the same page and ready to get back to tackling our mutually hectic life, but we’re not. I think we’re closer to it than we were before we talked, and tomorrow’s daylight will surely give things a more comprehensible perspective. But right now, as I sit across the room from him, I am hurting. I am frustrated, worn out, desperate for a break in the madness so I can just get my head together and think. My self confidence over how well I can spring back from a blow is waning. I feel weak and defeated for allowing the mean things that girl said about me to affect how I feel about myself, even though I know I didn’t act the way she says I did. I was hoping for a rest from relationship challenges at least for the time it takes to close on the house and sign the paperwork (which would have been just under a week at the most.) But no. The gods of chaos dictate that I am to deal with this at THEIR whim, and what fun would it be for them if I only had to deal with one crisis, one challenge, one test of faith at a time?

Holden is walking around the house very carefully. Occasionally he tries to catch my eye. If he does, he offers me a weak smile. He feels bad, guilty, sorry for putting me through this, for not having seen what I couldn’t show him in the first place. At this very moment, and quite possibly for the rest of the night, I am not yet done feeling hurt and angry. I don’t think I feel up to sharing with him the too small bed we occupy while staying at my mother’s house. I don’t really feel like going to the trouble of finding a sheet and blanket to spread out on the couch tonight either. While my aching head is longing to rest on his shoulder and cry myself to sleep, my arms are twitching with my pent up desire to punch him repeatedly. I’m fighting the urge to punish him, but for what? For being himself? For expressing love for a friend? No, that’s not even the point. I just need a break, I need to breathe.

This morning after I finished writing about the awful night I’d had being all passive and depressed, I started doing laundry and cleaning up around the house. I was still thinking about what I could have done differently, how I could turn my passive behavior into aggressive behavior, step by step. I really wasn’t thinking about anything very sexual and I didn’t feel particularly randy or anything, but as I stood folding sheets in the bedroom, I could feel my crotch getting all wet and slippery. Mentally, I didn’t feel turned on at all, in fact, I was exhausted. But when I stuck my hand down my jeans, sure enough things were ready for action! What’s gotten into you, Grace? I thought as I shoved the half folded sheet aside and laid down on the bed. There’s something very nice and peaceful about mid-morning masturbation, with the bedroom window open, a nice spring breeze drifting in, and birds singing in the trees. I surprised myself at how revved up I seemed to be down there, despite not really having any reason to be. When I zipped up my jeans and glanced over at the clock, it was just after noon. Lunch time.

Holden works about 20 minutes away in the next town over. He sometimes comes home over his lunch break to have something hot to eat or to take care of some things around the house. Today he was going to have one thing to take care of around the house. I messaged him at work and asked if he’d eaten yet and whether he’d like to come home. I offered to make him a sandwich (irresistible bait!) and he told me he was running a little behind but would be home around 1:00. That gave me just enough time to fix both our sandwiches and stash them in the microwave (no room in the fridge and if I left them on the table they’d be pillaged by marauding cats), finish putting the sheets away, and select a condom to have ready on the bed.

When he pulled up in front of our house, he didn’t suspect a thing. I could tell he thought I looked cute today in my snug fit jeans and off the shoulders tee shirt. I said, “Oh good you’re here,” before pouncing to kiss him ravenously, removing his sunglasses and undoing his shirt buttons before he got two steps from the door. I led him into the bedroom by his shirt tail and finished undressing him and myself in seconds. His look of appreciative surprise made me smile as I pushed him onto his back on the bed and hovered over him, kissing little lines all over his chest and stomach that gave him shivers, and letting my breasts brush teasingly against his erection. I reached up next to his head and grabbed the condom. “Put this on.”

I watched him roll the condom on and without a word, but locking eye contact, I slid onto him. I was still plenty wet from before and I rode him to make myself cum four or five times before suggesting that we switch so he could really pound me like I knew he wanted to. As he entered me from behind the shock of the new sensation this angle gave me brought me to orgasm within a few moments and Holden wasn’t far behind with a shuddering, head splitting orgasm that threatened to rip him apart. Yeah, it was that good.

We curled up together in a panting heap. I wondered if Holden was making any connections between this and the way I’d acted last night. I glanced over at him. He hadn’t yet regained the power of speech, so I decided not to bring it up.

I got dressed and started setting lunch out on the kitchen table while Holden cleaned up and got dressed too. We ate our lunch sitting very close to each other on the bench that faces the table (rather than have two chairs, we have a single bench that faces the window.) Neither of us spoke, but it was the good kind of silence; calm, satisfied, simply enjoying being close to each other. As we both slowly regained our grasp on reality and neared the end of our sandwiches, I told him I’d written a blog post about how I was feeling last night. He asked if there was more to it than the fact that the mood was ruined, and I told him briefly about my frustration over being so passive and added, “But now I get to write a follow-up post to that. A happy one.”

I kissed him goodbye and he drove back to work. It’s times like this when I think back to that movie, Dead Poets Society. Remember that movie? With Robert Sean Leonard looking so hot in his high school uniform and so sexy playing Puck? My best friend and I saw that movie in high school and immediately adopted the motto “Carpe diem!” And we really lived by it. It helped me find the courage to do a lot of really great things I would have otherwise shied away from. I think over the years I’ve forgotten to keep that motto in mind and I’ve let that attitude slip away from me. Today, I remembered to seize the day, and I think I may remember to do that more often from now on.

-Grace

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 #6: “Swept away by love”

The authors of The Ethical Slut explain this as the feeling that “if you’re really in love with someone, you never have to argue… or do any other kind of work.” I couldn’t believe people really thought that way at first.  It just seemed so silly.  But then I thought about friends of mine who have gone through a frequent pattern of breaking up and getting back together and breaking up and getting back together.   When I’d ask one partner why she broke up with him, it was always over something that Holden and I surely would have fought over, or at the very least discussed, but that would not have been grounds for breaking up.  But for these couples it was easier, or rather more comfortable to break up, spend some time apart, and then come back together.  Except nothing ever got resolved.  If whoever had been in the wrong (or had been perceived to be) came back and begged forgiveness, they’d get back together and in the joy of being a couple again would forget to actually resolve what caused the breakup in the first place.   They’d say “this time things are going to be different,” every time.  I have friends who have been going through this cycle for almost 10 years.  It’s clear that they do love each other.  But they’re not willing to accept that love actually does mean “for better or worse,” to some degree.

Another side of this “swept away” idea is that each partner is supposed to “be enough” for the other; that they won’t ever need anything or want anything but the love of their own partner to feel turned on and satisfied. To this end, everything that isn’t strictly traditional sex between two partners must be a sign that one parter is not feeling satisfied and wants to commit adultery (even if it’s in his or her mind.)  This is something I’ve fallen prey to many times and through my work exploring fantasies, I’m learning how to reassure myself that this isn’t true.  The first time Holden asked me to act out or dress up for a fantasy of his, I felt hurt, like he was wishing I was someone else.  I felt like he wanted to use me so I refused.  We see on TV all the time how the idea that one’s partner would be thinking about someone else while having sex is just about the worst insult.  It’s always worthy of a withering glare, a quick gathering of one’s belongings, and angrily storming out.  Granted, most of the time the revelation of the partner’s fantasy is a surprise (most commonly via a spontaneous screaming of another person’s name during climax) and that’s no way to broach the subject.

The idea of using vibrators and other pleasure devices, including porn, is often looked down on as if a partner has to use a device to make up for something the other partner is lacking.  It’s not really realistic to expect anybody to remain absolutely riveted by the limited variation offered by traditional couple sex forever and ever.  Eventually everyone wants to spice things up one way or another.

The point is that love does not mean a wholesale abandonment of human nature. Two people getting married are still two people and much of what we’re taught by society is trying to make us forget that.

-Grace

Myth #5: Outside involvements reduce intimacy in the primary relationship and impede problem solving.

I need to quote extensively from the book on this one because the authors describe exactly what happened to me. They say:

“Most marriage counselors are taught that when a member of an otherwise happily married couple has an ‘affair,’ this must be a symptom of unresolved conflict or unfulfilled needs that should be dealt with in the primary relationship.”

That is exactly what I went through when Holden cheated on me. We weren’t married yet, but we’d been living together for over a year and were as committed to each other as though we were married. There was nothing wrong with our relationship. We were as happy as could be. Looking back on it, Holden agrees with me. We didn’t fight, we shared all our feelings openly, and the sex was hot. Oh boy the sex was hot. We couldn’t get enough of each other. That’s why it puzzled me so badly when Holden confessed that his flirtation with an old girlfriend had gone too far and they’d had sex while I was at a night class. Immediately in my mind, questions of why flooded over me. I asked Holden a million times why. And why now? I could have understood if he and I were having problems. But we weren’t. In fact, for the first time our lives seemed to be bearing the fruits of our labors. He told me all the time how exciting a lover I was and how much he looked forward to seeing me each day. So what was the problem this was all a symptom of? I couldn’t find anything so I turned my search for flaws inward. The authors of The Ethical Slut go on to say:

“It is cruel and insensitive to interpret an affair as a symptom of sickness in the relationship, as it leaves the ‘cheated-on’ partner - who may already be feeling insecure - to wonder what is wrong with [her].”

Bingo! How accurate a description this is of how I began dealing with the aftermath of Holden’s confession. All my insecurities flashed up at me and I began to catalog my imperfections all over again, but this time with a new template: Rebbecca. Holden had dated Rebbecca before he and I started dating. After they’d broken up they patched things up to be friends again. I had gotten to know her by now too and so it was easy to compare myself to her. I began asking myself, what does she have that I don’t and how did she use it to attract Holden? What did Holden see in her that he didn’t see in me?

No matter how many different ways I asked myself and Holden these questions I still couldn’t figure out the answer. All our discussions ended up at the same point. Holden would tell me he didn’t love her, that he didn’t even really like her all that much, and that he didn’t know why he’d done it. This reflects the third part of what the authors say about this myth: that “the ‘cheating’ partner gets told that [he] is only ‘acting out’ to get back at [his] primary partner, and [he] really doesn’t want, need or even like [his] lover.” Holden is a product of the same psychological climate as I am and he was fulfilling his part in the myth, just as I was.

The problem this all caused for us, though, is that it didn’t actually get us anywhere. The question of why was never satisfactorily answered. I was able to insert a dozen of my own speculations about the answer, but they all focused on the insecurities I already had and in some cases even confused me over what I was even insecure about in the first place.

What would have been different if Holden had known what polyamory was and had been able to more honestly examine his feelings and identify himself as polyamorous by nature? I know it’s not really fair to speculate on the actual events of the past, but I have to go back and read the experience again through this new filter of understanding I have. For example, I knew Holden was attracted to her well before the actual cheating occurred. I often asked Holden about it for two reasons: one, to make him aware that I knew he was attracted to her, and two, to let him know what types of behavior between them made me uncomfortable. Whenever I brought it up, his answer was the same: “I was attracted to her once, but now we’re just friends and I don’t like her like that anymore.” I accepted his answer, but I never really believed it. I could see the exchange of feelings between their eyes. I saw how he reacted to her flirtations. I knew there was more there than Holden was willing to admit, but I also liked letting myself take comfort in his socially acceptable explanations.

I wonder how Holden’s answers would be different now if I asked him to go back over the story with me, each of us with our new understanding of ourselves. I wonder if he would be able to answer honestly what he found attractive about her, knowing that he doesn’t have to protect me from that pain anymore. It’s been six years since the initial questions were raised and for the first time in six years I may be starting to see how those questions of why that have stayed stuck in the back of my mind could possibly be answered.

It’s unfortunate that the authors’ explanation didn’t really fit entirely with the original myth statement, but I sure got a lot out of it, so I’ll briefly discuss the original myth because I do think it’s important.

One of my biggest concerns when Holden started talking to me in a practical way about polyamory was that he would spend all his time and energy on other relationships and have nothing left, or not enough left for me. I still don’t have any experience with this, but everyone I’ve talked to who does says that love grows the more it’s shared. They assure me that once Holden truly feels free to be the person in love that he needs to be, that he’ll love me all the more for it and that the excitement that charges his new relationships will transfer to ours too. People in poly relationships have told me that primary partners end up having more sex, not less. There’s just that much more sexual energy going around to fuel everybody’s fires. This is one of those concerns that still bothers me just a little because I have yet to experience it for myself. But it’s not going to hold me back from trying polyamory.

As for the idea that outside involvements impede problem-solving, it’s obvious to me that that’s hogwash. If a couple goes about entering a poly relationship with all the care and responsibility they should take with each other, it should only open things up for more communication, more honesty, and more opportunities for bringing up problems. That should aid problem-solving, not impede it.

Right?

-Grace

Stay tuned for the next post, Myth #6: “Swept away by love”