Morphing emotions May 21, 2008

Well, the anger is still close to the surface, but the gut-wrenching feeling of betrayal has mellowed into sadness and disappointment.

I “let in” (emotionally, I mean) a person who has some fundamental perspectives on the world that clash not only with my own views, but my very situation in life.  Basically, he hates kids.  (oh, wouldn’t he flop and flail at that silly short hand description!)  I have kids. 

Oh sure, he says my kids are fine.  Though in the context of the e-mail he sent around to the entire inner circle of the community group we both belong to it sound more like “I’m not a racist, some of my best friends are Black, but Blacks are dirty.”  In this case it is kids.  He likes mine, but kids make too much noise, they are rude, and they might want something from him.  Yep, he is afraid of being imposed upon or having to restrict his behavior in some way because there are small people around. Pretty hard to imagine that he would make such blatant arguments about other groups.  Let’s try a few on…

“Some of us don’t want to camp with women because then we will have to put clothes on and walk out into the woods to pee.”

“We can’t have old people come because they won’t be able to help carry the stuff.”

“No one without a college degree should come because they won’t get my self-important references to Foucault.”

“No poor people should come because they won’t be able to buy good enough beer for the gathering.”

He wears his privilege and selfishness with pride, a sort of “I don’t need any help, so no one should require help of me.”  Ah but he does like to help.  But on his terms.  So he can swoop in and be the extra-super-nice-guy.  He styles himself “generous” for helping others rather than seeing any sort of commitment to the larger society/community/humanity around him.  See, if we expected help from him, then he wouldn’t get to be the hero.

I’m sick of it and I’m an idiot for having ignored it for so long.  Oh yeah, and I’m still pissed.  How mad am I?  I’d say it is still turned up to 11.

New People May 7, 2008

For reasons I cannot fully explain, I have recently met some new potential superfriends.  I decided on this go-around to look for friendly folk, but not build the deep, intimate relationship I have with Eric and Drew.  Since one-time sex doesn’t do it for me, I’m only interested in people that might be around for awhile, but I am not looking to introduce them to my friends, my kids, etc.  My first superfriends were of this ilk… we were friendly but it was all very casual.

So I met a couple.  She is cute.  She has a cool job that overlaps with a big interest/hobby of mine.  He is… well, I’m not sure.  He seems to be the motivating force here.  He seems to be the dom.   But I am dom enough that it gives me pause.  I feel like I need to know him a bit better.  They are a good fit in a lot of ways, but I’ve stalled on actually getting together with them in a private setting.  Drew is a part of this… he is ready.  But then there always seem to be other things to do…  Am I stalling?  Am I just not attracted to them enough? 

Then last week Drew and I met a local woman.  She is very poly, married and bi.  All cool.  We had a fun beer-y evening.  She is physically not quite our type, but also not horribly not our type.  She is older than me.  She has sub tendencies.  That is what makes me fairly curious about her.  Drew and I both have dom leanings and while we have learned to work around those (mostly) in our own relationship, it would fun to team up on that front with a willing sub.  But here, again, I don’t seem to be setting any land-speed records in making it happen.  Hmmm…. what is it I want?

Focus, Please May 7, 2008

I feel that I am very much bumbling along these days.  My hubby continues to cycle through angst and uncertainity over his sexuality, his superfriends, and our marriage.  He doesn’t really want to process any of this with me, though he does keep me updated on the latest developments, so that is something.  More of my own feelings of flopping around like a dying fish have to do with work impotency.  I just can’t seem to stay focused: read for more than a few pages, do more than just look something up, make hard choices about topics for the first part of the book.  I have money to travel, but I haven’t been able to plan the trips it is to be spent on….  It is frustrating.

Many of my recent sense of accomplishment has come from work in the community.  Doing that kind of service has been wonderfully social and we just did a big event that came off rather well.  It will be hard to scale back when I go to full time work in the fall.  So maybe I should fuss less over not getting much research done and enjoy the time I have to do so many activities.  But I can’t seem to do it.

There are deadlines looming in my professional world.  I can’t help but feeling that there are deadlines looming in my personal life as well.  Do I cut my losses with hubby now?  He isn’t sure he wants men, or which men he wants, but he seems sure enough that he doesn’t want me — at least not as an emotional or sexual intimate.  The history will keep things going and kids need both of us (in their lives, not necessarily together) so that makes it easy to stay, but who is getting cheated.  Probably we all are.

Language of Love April 22, 2008

So I can’t decide if I want to embrace the whole “primary” and “secondary” designations or dump them in the trash can.  Hubby is supposed to be my primary, and in many ways he is — we have kids together, we have a mortgage, we share finances, and there is public and legal recognition of our relationship.  In other ways though, he has not been fulfilling that role.  He has been so hung up on his own angst over how to define himself and what he wants out of life that he is rarely where I get any physical intimacy.  We don’t have many whispered conversations in the dark over our hopes and dreams, we don’t even play together that often.  Those roles have been taken up by others, and, particularly, by my secondary Drew.

Drew makes for a great secondary.  He is available and energetic but doesn’t seem to have a jealousy setting.  He is happy to have what he can of me, sometimes he wants a bit more, but that “more” is a small thing (like wanted me to spend the night when I can’t) rather than a large thing (like he wants a different kind of relationship with me).  We work really, really well together, largely because we see each other a lot, but we don’t carry the stresses of financing, housing, and parenting.    Right now niether of us has much of job even, so we have lots of play time.  If we had to face the stresses of jobs and life more, the bits of our personalities that rile the other up or clash would no doubt come to the surface.  As we laid in the sunshine on a grassy hill yesterday, I blithely said we would probably kill each other.  He laughed.  He knows it.

Seeing these relationships for what they are… the one with hubby is strained, no doubt, but strong enough to carry the weight that the fun and playful relationship with Drew cannot.  This is important to keep in mind, I think.  It would be easy, certainly some of my friends have suggested it, to think I should trade one in for the other, but I’m fairly clear-eyed on this one.  I don’t think it could work.  There is more to primariness than who you sleep wiith most often.

I think Drew knows this too.  He is stepping out with a woman who says that polyamory is not for her.  She has said that if a relationship (I think that is code for sex) is going to develop between them, he will have to end the sex and emotional intimacy with me.  Apparently we could still see each other, but there would have to be a huge step back (I don’t think this could happen… I doubt she would be able to still tolerate Drew and I being friends, and I think Drew and I would have a hard time settling in at a less intimate level…).  Anyway, he is still seeing her — she is inviting him over for dinner and he is going — but he says he isn’t going to ditch me.  He likes what I have done for his life, how he has changed as he has gotten to know me, how we relate, and, yes, how we fuck.

What I think is interesting, and a real challenge to some of the precepts of open relationships where one has a primary, is that his trading away a potential primary to keep me as his secondary, doesn’t change the fact that I am his secondary.  By doing this, he isn’t trying to change my status in his life.  He is actually trying to keep it.  And I am happy.  I want to be kept.

Like April 11, 2008

There has been plenty of pondering of love on my part over the last many months but now I am stuck on like.  I don’t feel even liked.  There is hardly a conversation I don’t orginate, my thoughts are rushed out of me when we do talk, he critiques me in front of the kids.  I don’t think he is intentionally trying to be mean, but there is not generosity in his approach to me.  He is unwilling to stretch a bit to try to hear what I am saying.  He doesn’t really care where I go, he just wants to know what time I will be back.  If I stay in the basement too long, he will go find somewhere else to hang out.  He doesn’t want to hear about my work — not even the tiniest little bit.  He doesn’t understand why I belong to community groups or do any volunteer work.  He thinks I am nuts that I like to ride my bike.

I truly think he is unhappy.  And I think he is externalizing some of that with me.  He knows better, but he is thinking that I am holding him back from whatever it is that will make him happy.  So he can’t/won’t muster the energy to even be nice to me. 

Well, I don’t like that.  It is leaving me uncomfortable in my own house whenever he is around.  He thinks I am nuts because I am so often trying to tentatively feel him out on his mood and not piss him off.  He just does not know what it is like to live with being so uncertain if the other person can even be bothered to to know what you did with your day.

I need to stop avoiding this reality.  It is taking its toll on me.

Things to be discussed March 29, 2008

Hostility…. or what was the word he used?  Animosity, resentment… he has externalized much of his angst so that he believes that I am holding him back from being happy.

Jealousy… seeing me happy with others hurts him because he realizes he is not making me happy.

Agreements… are there any left between us? 

Nature of the relationship… if we are not each other’s primaries, what are we?  What happens if we form other primary relationships?  Can/should we still live together?

Living space and psychic space… how do we get space but still stay connected.

I felt the hostility.  For months.  So that he finally admitted to me/himself that he was blaming me was a relief.  He wants to remove the “don’t fall in love with others” part of our agreement and, by extension, the we are each other’s “primary” partner.  I don’t know what that leaves for us.  We spend so little time to together, the scheduling is hard.  Babysitters cost money.  And then who knows what sort of mood either of us will be in when the time comes.  We have fallen out of the habit of being friends.  He thinks that is an indication of us not wanting to do it, I think there is more going on…  a lot of it is habit.

I don’t know if I’m numb with pain, but my world feels that it is shrinking lately and there are major problems in all my major relationships — kind of like it is coming at me from all sides.  I should probably get proactive, but there are so many questions, so many options and all of them hurt.

 I don’t want to fuck up my kids — and I feel like years of experimenting and stumbling toward this or that might do that.  So, in typical fashion, I want to rush to have it all figured out.  I hate ambiguity.  I am impatient.

Sex at 39 March 18, 2008

A good friend is turning 40 on Saturday.  When his birthday rolls around, I always take it as a cue to start trying on the age I will soon be… Yep, some months down the line, I will be 40.  It just invites taking a moment to take stock, doesn’t it?

 So… my 30s were big, BIG years.  I had both my kids (one at 30, the other at 33), I took a new job and moved back to the midwest, I published a book and got tenure, I went to the brink of dissolving my marriage and came back from it, I came to terms with a bi husband and am now in the process of coming to terms with a gay one, I met some sexual partners, I found a newish body in both chronic pain but also chronic (in a positive way) gym going.

So if those are a few of big milestones of life, what about my sexuality and sex over those ten years?

 Well, sex was not a huge part of my life — having two kids will do that, but it was more than that.  Hubby was less and less willing or able to deal with his own anxieties related to sex and I obviously freaked him out, so I stepped back.  I don’t think he had any inkling until frank conversations two years ago the extent of my sexual appetites.  I basically did what I could to turn my libido off.  What did I need it for anyway?  I had babies, I had a huge career…

Yes, well, libidos are nice and when I’m willing to admit it, I have a large one.  Until I started acting on our open marriage, I could not admit how large it really is.  I turn on easily, I jump in the passionate, I get really wet, really loud, and I’ve finally been able to let more of it go.  Not entirely, I don’t have enough partners or enough freedom in my schedule to do that, but certainly the sex I have now is hugely different than what I had at 30 or 35. 

 Now I have sex a couple of times a week.  Then, it was maybe once every six months.  But it is more than frequency.  I’ve come to learn that I love to be loud, I like anal, I can squirt…  all new, all gooooooooood.  But, hubby remains the only one I can/could consistently come with through penile-vaginal penetration.  Really?  Yep.  My superfriends bring me to orgasm through manual or manual/oral stimulation — and I come lots, long, hard, etc.  but only rarely through penetration with Eric and never with Drew unless my hand was rubbing my clit.  Why?  After a year and half with these other men, I know their bodies well, I know their minds.  I trust them.  I am attracted… Is it just geometry?  Why not with Drew?  Well, he is the biggest of the bunch (overall and penis-wise) and maybe the body geometry is just not right…. I don’t know, but I wonder.

 My goal to introduce more fantasy in my sex life has not gone that far.  I seem rather fantasy impaired — which is maybe why my drive for partnered sex is so high, I can’t invent a decent enough substitution in my mind!  My other goal — to come in other positions than stretched out and tensed up on my back — has also not been met.  I don’t get it because I feel sexier and more sexual than at any other time in my life, but it just doesn’t happen.

 But did you catch that statement?  I feel sexier and more sexual than at any other time in my life.  Not bad.  It is good sex, too.  Loving, sweaty, intense, loud, rewarding.  I am sorry that hubby has decided to drop out of the mix.  It is like a I had a taste of “enough sex” for the first time in my life last winter (when I had three men to have sex with) but it turned out to be only a blip on the radar… not something that could be on-going.

 Ah well, I’ve felt the ache for touch that comes from a profound loneliness and I feel so fortunate to be many miles from that.  Grab me and kiss me.  I love it. 

The Compound March 18, 2008

On thing we have talked about again and again is coming up with a different living arrangement that would allow us to have a close relationship with our children and — to an extent — each other but also enough space and freedom to pursue our individual lives.  Let’s face it, the reality right now is that both of us has to leave the house if we want to have sex and that makes getting some of the other lovely bits of intimacy (like falling asleep with your lover or just not having to drive home at 3:00am) hard to come by.  And it isn’t just about sex… he wants to stay up all night and sleep all day, but of course the rest of the house is up and making noise… sometimes that wakes him up grumpy and sometimes it leaves me grumpy that he sleeps through so much of our lives.  A bit more space, more people around, might help.  I also want a richer world for our children than they get with two tired parents and a neighborhood with few cool kids to play with.

He has lobbied for a duplex, but I don’t really want to do that.  One, and this may be a totally unfair assumption on my part, I assume that that means my side of the house will be the kids home base and he gets his own space.  Certainly the kids could/would venture over there, but the physical arrangement would somehow ensure that that laundry was all on my side, etc.  Also, we already differ over things related to home maintenance and his reluctance to do his share (yes, the gutters went uncleaned this fall because it was his turn and he didn’t do it!!!) — if I’m going to shift my living arrangement, why would I do so in a way that would mean that we spent less intimate time together but still had to decide together when/how to get a new roof?  Ick.

What I want, and I’ve been talking him into it, is a compound.  Some sort of living space that included private space for everyone and lots of shared space in terms of living rooms and kitchens.  I know this will be tricky to do on our own but I’m unwilling to step into established co-housing — I want to hand-pick people because these are people my kids need to be able to love and trust.  These are people that need to accept our unusual lifestyle.  These are people that need to understand my need for a living room with no TV!

But he has very positive of late.  It will be hard, it will cost money, but I think we need to do it now more than ever.  Hard to believe, but I think more people will actually bring us more privacy.

A list of four names… March 18, 2008

Hubby’s depression was better, he’d decided to transition his superfriends to friends, he re-evaluated his commitment to a band that was going nowhere, and he felt a bit like he was quitting everything, but also like he was moving forward in finding what he wanted.  Good.  And he told me about all this.  Very good. 

 But then out of nowhere the other night he was in full on crying jag… the kind that usually only shows up when he is in a deep multi-day or even week funk.  At one point he pulled it together enough to come downstairs and ask for help.  He asked me to get him four names of local therapists he might start seeing.  The actual calling, vetting, and setting up of appointments is still in his lap, but it was a start and I was thrilled to do it.

 His jag passed in a few hours (not the usual pattern!) and he has been steadier over the last few days.  I got him the list.  I still hope he will use it, but I don’t know that he will.  The reality is that when he most needs it, he is least able to make it happen.  I can help, but only to a point.  Ultimately, he has to take responsibility for himself.

So I wait — on yet another subject/issue.  Me waiting for things to settle down, play out, or be figured out by him seems to be a theme of this blog.  One theory, and hubby mentioned this the other day, is that my job is very loose at the moment and so I have the time to dwell (read: obsess) on things.  There is probably a good dose of truth to that.  But I then that should make me careful… better, perhaps, to figure this out now while I have the luxury of falling apart if I need to than waiting until the career comes back on line at full speed in the fall.  Then it would be too easy to be too busy to think the hard thoughts…

So what happened to hubby? February 26, 2008

I don’t actually know if anyone reads this blog, but if they do, they might be wondering why my hubby is showing up so infrequently.

Well, he is very withdrawn these days.  He did thank me for sticking by him recently — which I took to mean, “thanks for not ditching me even though I’ve been a pain in the ass for weeks/months/years.”  I actually was quite moved by this.  It is something he has rarely said and it was good to know that he appreciated that it hasn’t been particularly easy.

He is going through his own shit.  He is withdrawing from his superfriends, though he has not been able to fully explain why.  They are confused and looking to me for answers, but I will dodge and let hubby tell them when he is ready. 

As he goes through this, I realize how much happier he is when he goes out, only there is no where for him to go at the moment.  And he doesn’t want to go.

 Living with him through this has been challenging and, at times, infuriating.  He has so little to say to me and is so shut down emotionally he is hard to talk to about even the minorest of things.  The silence is outrageous.  The evenings at home are painful.  But I cannot ask. On that point he has been quite clear.  I am just supposed to wait.  So waiting I am… at least for the moment.