poly newbie angst
Apr. 23rd, 2012 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tuneinturnonI'm just gonna start by saying that this is extremely edited, because while I'm angsty, I actually would like advice from people, and I don't want to go off on unimportant tangents that will make reading the whole thing a chore and undermine my purpose. So if it feels like I've left someting out, it's probably a bad edit, feel free to ask me for clarification.
I started Saturday by having some awesome sex with my fiancee!! He had a promising date scheduled for later in the afternoon, and it went very well. I ended the day with the rare but welcome treat of him getting me off (a) without the use of any battery-operated devices, which is such a much more wonderful and different kind of orgasm, and (b) without getting off himself - I got to be the only one! 99% of the time if only one of us gets off it's him, so that was really excellent. :)
We tried that last night too - he wasn't feeling sexy, but he was willing to get me off (yay!) - but it was just too damn late after a long day, and he was making a valiant effort but falling asleep, so I told him to just go to sleep and I used a toy.* Then a little while later, before I'd even tried to go to sleep, he was getting all sexy with me, that fabulously creative and uninhibited sex that we have when he's been asleep and may not even be fully awake when he starts. *wicked little grin* So you'd think I had a AWESOME weekend. And in the sex department, it was way more awesome than most! I did work Saturday but it was easy duty, and I took a nap Sunday and that was really welcome also.
So back to that wonderful date J had with someone he'd like to spend a lot more time with. I'll call her the New Girl or E. I am thrilled for him! I'm truly happy for him. She seems like a perfect fit for him (in different ways from how I am), and she's a really nice person as far as I know. He says she's a combination of him, me and her own special brand of herself. She sounds like a really cool person to get to know, and I really really hope I can climb out of my anxiety long enough to actually get to know her.
She's very experienced in poly, and he's a lot more experienced at it than I am. I'm a newbie, though. This is the first time that someone I've been with has a shot at having a successful relationship with someone else, and I'm pretty terrified that I'll do something to screw everything up - screw up their shot at a relationship, screw up my relationship that I have with him... putting way too much pressure on myself in the process, making my anxiety and angst worse.
I know that if I keep acting this way, I very well may bring about the thing I'm trying to prevent - she might feel like he's not worth the trouble if she/they have to deal with me being all angsty, and I don't want that. I don't want to be trouble. I want him to be happy! I want to work through my shit so this can be successful. I told him it's not "so much trouble" for him to date her, but I have to talk about my uncertainties and insecurities and ask my newbie questions, and he's the one I talk to.
Now, so is she, which so far has been really helpful. Her reaction when I was being all angsty and stuff was to be worried on my behalf. That is really sweet. :)
I'm not good with process. I want to be able to realize what the problem is and decide on a solution and implement it and get on with my life. I know that's not how it works (damn it). So I've begged their patience while I sort through all this emotional crap.
Sunday, we invited her over (at my suggestion) and hung out. Apparently I don't know how to do that. I'm out of practice. :/ I'm also really awkward getting to know new people, and she admitted she has trouble making friendships with women too, even though we both sleep with them, so we're both afraid of missteps. She thinks I'm always like this, which I'm not, and I feel bad about that too. I don't want to be a problem that everyone needs to solve, but I feel like I am being one.
We got together just to hang out last night, and I got really bothered by a couple things and was pretty miserable all evening because I couldn't figure out necessarily even what was going on in my head, let alone how to talk about it, plus I didn't want to interrupt group "friend time" by taking him off to the side for a Relationship conversation.
Apparently I looked totally miserable the whole time, but neither of them said "what's going on?" J said he tried, but like Is aid, I didn't want to go start a big complicated conversation that wouldn't include our guest, so I just tried to keep away from things that were triggering my bad feelings. So it was the elephant in the room, I found out after the fact.
She feels, rightly so (though I had to come around to this), that he and I are a 'package deal' - that he is involved with her, I'm involved too, to a degree at least. I don't want to butt in or try to insert myself where I don't belong, but it makes me feel respected. J's ex didn't deal well when he dated someone that she wasn't also dating or sleeping with; first time she met me, she got drunk and propositioned me, and I felt like I had to comply because I'd risk pissing her off and making things worse for me/us if I did, but it wasn't a smart thing to do.
I don't want the New Girl to look at my anxiety & say "fuck this, it's not worth the angst" and then he loses because of me. I want to be okay with everything, but I know I can't make myself okay just by force of will (God damn it). Xanax, on the other hand... :) So also did tell her that and say that trust me, he is worth it!
The sex part of his new relationship is no big deal. I have another lover, we've had threesomes and moresomes. Seeing him kiss someone I know he doesn't care for was absolutely fine with me. Sometimes it's hot!
But seeing him hold hands with, cuddle with and kiss someone who I know is more than just a hottie to him gave me a funny unpleasant feeling. I wasn't sure how to deal with it. Next time I think I'll try channeling the happiness and just trying to be happy because they are happy. Advice for how to handle this is welcome here.
I was even more bothered when he wanted to be physically affectionate with both of us simultaneously. I don't know if that sort of behavior is "normal" for poly people or not, if they'd expect it to be no big deal and I'm the freak (of course given how low I feel about myself right now I suspect that I must be the freak). I can see where he'd think it's perfectly normal. He loves me, he really likes her, he's been intimate with us both, why not stroke one's hair while cuddling with the other?
But I've never done that with him where I'm not involved somehow (even just physically) with the other girl. New Girl and I aren't involved that way and had no plans to be so (and given my experience the first time meeting J's ex, I wanted to stay as far away as possible from making her feel pressured into having sex with us) so I was terrified of overstepping boundaries. I resisted getting all cozy with them both. Even when we did all cozy up to watch a movie, I was trying to be super careful not to touch her in any way. I imagined that there was a wall drawn down the center of him and I was forcing myself to stay on my side, which wasn't easy. I felt like saying "I'm cool with you having more than one girlfriend, sometimes even in the same geographic space, no problem, but not SIMULTANEOUSLY." Is that normal? Is it unheard of? Is that the dumbest question ever?
Plus, he was doing what I call "petting" me, stroking and touching me, rather like you'd pet a cat - I'm not talking about sexual behavior. But we don't sit around and do that. We spoon in bed, but that's very different. And when he has done it, I've made it a point to say how much I like it and wish we'd do it more. So it was really turning me on. New Girl is really hot and really bi and might've been really interested in acting on that, but when I put it on the table, they were both saying basically "whatever you want is fine with me" and I decided if they were going to be that indecisive, I wasn't going to be the pushy one and start something. Also, it hurt my feelings a bit when we were in that situation and J said "we should do this more" and I said "that's what I've been saying to you for months!" Obviously he wasn't getting the message from what I was saying.
But I guarantee you that if she hadn't been there last night, we wouldn't have been hanging out in bed cuddling like that. I don't think we've ever done that because life is too busy - although I have a memory like Swiss cheese so maybe we have and I just forget. He would have been on his computer or playing a video game, and I would've found something to occupy my time. Anyway, I've been craving that interaction so badly. So for him to say we should do it more often, when I was already worked up, made me cry. I didn't want to start a fight with him in that particular social situation, but I did at least say that I'd been trying to tell him that and he said he hadn't realized and I said now he knows so hopefully we can do something about it because I do love it so. And I had a flash of thinking maybe this is one of those things that I want that he's going to do with her and not me and I'm not going to be able to fix that because I'm the one he lives with, I'm the workday wife as it were and not the guest star. When we were dating, I don't think he ever turned down sex, but now that we're together every day instead of a couple times a week,
I can tell you what I DON'T worry about. I don't worry about her "stealing" him from me. Nobody can be stolen if they don't want to be. If he were to someday ditch me for another woman, I'd rather that than stay in a relationship he didn't want to be in. He's not looking for another primary, he's only thinking of her as a secondary. Then again, I was a secondary when we started dating, and that all changed VERY rapidly. He'd proposed to me 3 months after we started dating, while he was still living with his purported primary. Relationships will be what they are. I have to accept the possibility that it may not end up being what he thinks right now, since they've just seen each other twice, once with me around being all Anxiety Girl.
I know not all relationships are the same. But I know from previous experience that if if my primary and his secondary have a relationship component that I really want but don't get from him (that he knows I want - not expecting mind reading), I will be envious of that. The example from before is that my ex was very flirty in his conversations with his secondary, and he never flirted with me. I wanted to be flirted with! I didn't want to feel like "I see you all the time, so I don't have to do that work to woo you." I couldn't figure out how to FIX it, how to get him to be flirty with me too, so I felt like it was my fault that I couldn't make my ex engage in that behavior with me. I have better meds now and I'm really hoping I can manage that. I've been really burned by my last two major relationships - both resulted in marriages then divorces.
J reminds me that he's not my ex, which is quite true - this is a very different relationship, much better. Also, it's made very clear to me that there are elements in my relationship with J that he will probably never have with anyone else because of the way he loves me and is committed to me. I just have to grow to accept that the way we love others will have those sorts of special things as well and that this is not anything I'm doing wrong or him taking me for granted.
One thing that came up during the development of my relationship with J is that we broke the rules of his relationship with his primary and then lied to her about it. In our relationship, when one of us has gone out of bounds (and we have both had our moments of going out of bounds), we've owned up to it immediately and we've been able to have reasonable adult discussions about it.
Also, I think I've just decided to offer to help change linens from now on if I'm with someone who has an SO. Common courtesy & all. I wished the sheets had been changed before I got home Saturday. All the covers were off the bed, but I think that was just from the play.
I don't want to be an impediment or a worrywart or uptight or intimidated or intimidating. I just want this to be easy. I don't want to fuck things up for him/them though so I can't help worrying I'll do something wrong. I so often do, after all, even when it's not something this important. Sigh.
* My ego gets so fragile when related to matters of me getting off - I like that he embraces using toys and that me getting off is important to him, and I understand that arthritis prevents him from being able to devote the time and energy required to get me off manually, but manual orgasms by hand or tongue or a combination of them are so so much better! Those are my screaming-at-the-top-of-my-lungs writhing orgasms. The others feel like pale imitations much of the time, but better a pale imitation than nothing.
I started Saturday by having some awesome sex with my fiancee!! He had a promising date scheduled for later in the afternoon, and it went very well. I ended the day with the rare but welcome treat of him getting me off (a) without the use of any battery-operated devices, which is such a much more wonderful and different kind of orgasm, and (b) without getting off himself - I got to be the only one! 99% of the time if only one of us gets off it's him, so that was really excellent. :)
We tried that last night too - he wasn't feeling sexy, but he was willing to get me off (yay!) - but it was just too damn late after a long day, and he was making a valiant effort but falling asleep, so I told him to just go to sleep and I used a toy.* Then a little while later, before I'd even tried to go to sleep, he was getting all sexy with me, that fabulously creative and uninhibited sex that we have when he's been asleep and may not even be fully awake when he starts. *wicked little grin* So you'd think I had a AWESOME weekend. And in the sex department, it was way more awesome than most! I did work Saturday but it was easy duty, and I took a nap Sunday and that was really welcome also.
So back to that wonderful date J had with someone he'd like to spend a lot more time with. I'll call her the New Girl or E. I am thrilled for him! I'm truly happy for him. She seems like a perfect fit for him (in different ways from how I am), and she's a really nice person as far as I know. He says she's a combination of him, me and her own special brand of herself. She sounds like a really cool person to get to know, and I really really hope I can climb out of my anxiety long enough to actually get to know her.
She's very experienced in poly, and he's a lot more experienced at it than I am. I'm a newbie, though. This is the first time that someone I've been with has a shot at having a successful relationship with someone else, and I'm pretty terrified that I'll do something to screw everything up - screw up their shot at a relationship, screw up my relationship that I have with him... putting way too much pressure on myself in the process, making my anxiety and angst worse.
I know that if I keep acting this way, I very well may bring about the thing I'm trying to prevent - she might feel like he's not worth the trouble if she/they have to deal with me being all angsty, and I don't want that. I don't want to be trouble. I want him to be happy! I want to work through my shit so this can be successful. I told him it's not "so much trouble" for him to date her, but I have to talk about my uncertainties and insecurities and ask my newbie questions, and he's the one I talk to.
Now, so is she, which so far has been really helpful. Her reaction when I was being all angsty and stuff was to be worried on my behalf. That is really sweet. :)
I'm not good with process. I want to be able to realize what the problem is and decide on a solution and implement it and get on with my life. I know that's not how it works (damn it). So I've begged their patience while I sort through all this emotional crap.
Sunday, we invited her over (at my suggestion) and hung out. Apparently I don't know how to do that. I'm out of practice. :/ I'm also really awkward getting to know new people, and she admitted she has trouble making friendships with women too, even though we both sleep with them, so we're both afraid of missteps. She thinks I'm always like this, which I'm not, and I feel bad about that too. I don't want to be a problem that everyone needs to solve, but I feel like I am being one.
We got together just to hang out last night, and I got really bothered by a couple things and was pretty miserable all evening because I couldn't figure out necessarily even what was going on in my head, let alone how to talk about it, plus I didn't want to interrupt group "friend time" by taking him off to the side for a Relationship conversation.
Apparently I looked totally miserable the whole time, but neither of them said "what's going on?" J said he tried, but like Is aid, I didn't want to go start a big complicated conversation that wouldn't include our guest, so I just tried to keep away from things that were triggering my bad feelings. So it was the elephant in the room, I found out after the fact.
She feels, rightly so (though I had to come around to this), that he and I are a 'package deal' - that he is involved with her, I'm involved too, to a degree at least. I don't want to butt in or try to insert myself where I don't belong, but it makes me feel respected. J's ex didn't deal well when he dated someone that she wasn't also dating or sleeping with; first time she met me, she got drunk and propositioned me, and I felt like I had to comply because I'd risk pissing her off and making things worse for me/us if I did, but it wasn't a smart thing to do.
I don't want the New Girl to look at my anxiety & say "fuck this, it's not worth the angst" and then he loses because of me. I want to be okay with everything, but I know I can't make myself okay just by force of will (God damn it). Xanax, on the other hand... :) So also did tell her that and say that trust me, he is worth it!
The sex part of his new relationship is no big deal. I have another lover, we've had threesomes and moresomes. Seeing him kiss someone I know he doesn't care for was absolutely fine with me. Sometimes it's hot!
But seeing him hold hands with, cuddle with and kiss someone who I know is more than just a hottie to him gave me a funny unpleasant feeling. I wasn't sure how to deal with it. Next time I think I'll try channeling the happiness and just trying to be happy because they are happy. Advice for how to handle this is welcome here.
I was even more bothered when he wanted to be physically affectionate with both of us simultaneously. I don't know if that sort of behavior is "normal" for poly people or not, if they'd expect it to be no big deal and I'm the freak (of course given how low I feel about myself right now I suspect that I must be the freak). I can see where he'd think it's perfectly normal. He loves me, he really likes her, he's been intimate with us both, why not stroke one's hair while cuddling with the other?
But I've never done that with him where I'm not involved somehow (even just physically) with the other girl. New Girl and I aren't involved that way and had no plans to be so (and given my experience the first time meeting J's ex, I wanted to stay as far away as possible from making her feel pressured into having sex with us) so I was terrified of overstepping boundaries. I resisted getting all cozy with them both. Even when we did all cozy up to watch a movie, I was trying to be super careful not to touch her in any way. I imagined that there was a wall drawn down the center of him and I was forcing myself to stay on my side, which wasn't easy. I felt like saying "I'm cool with you having more than one girlfriend, sometimes even in the same geographic space, no problem, but not SIMULTANEOUSLY." Is that normal? Is it unheard of? Is that the dumbest question ever?
Plus, he was doing what I call "petting" me, stroking and touching me, rather like you'd pet a cat - I'm not talking about sexual behavior. But we don't sit around and do that. We spoon in bed, but that's very different. And when he has done it, I've made it a point to say how much I like it and wish we'd do it more. So it was really turning me on. New Girl is really hot and really bi and might've been really interested in acting on that, but when I put it on the table, they were both saying basically "whatever you want is fine with me" and I decided if they were going to be that indecisive, I wasn't going to be the pushy one and start something. Also, it hurt my feelings a bit when we were in that situation and J said "we should do this more" and I said "that's what I've been saying to you for months!" Obviously he wasn't getting the message from what I was saying.
But I guarantee you that if she hadn't been there last night, we wouldn't have been hanging out in bed cuddling like that. I don't think we've ever done that because life is too busy - although I have a memory like Swiss cheese so maybe we have and I just forget. He would have been on his computer or playing a video game, and I would've found something to occupy my time. Anyway, I've been craving that interaction so badly. So for him to say we should do it more often, when I was already worked up, made me cry. I didn't want to start a fight with him in that particular social situation, but I did at least say that I'd been trying to tell him that and he said he hadn't realized and I said now he knows so hopefully we can do something about it because I do love it so. And I had a flash of thinking maybe this is one of those things that I want that he's going to do with her and not me and I'm not going to be able to fix that because I'm the one he lives with, I'm the workday wife as it were and not the guest star. When we were dating, I don't think he ever turned down sex, but now that we're together every day instead of a couple times a week,
I can tell you what I DON'T worry about. I don't worry about her "stealing" him from me. Nobody can be stolen if they don't want to be. If he were to someday ditch me for another woman, I'd rather that than stay in a relationship he didn't want to be in. He's not looking for another primary, he's only thinking of her as a secondary. Then again, I was a secondary when we started dating, and that all changed VERY rapidly. He'd proposed to me 3 months after we started dating, while he was still living with his purported primary. Relationships will be what they are. I have to accept the possibility that it may not end up being what he thinks right now, since they've just seen each other twice, once with me around being all Anxiety Girl.
I know not all relationships are the same. But I know from previous experience that if if my primary and his secondary have a relationship component that I really want but don't get from him (that he knows I want - not expecting mind reading), I will be envious of that. The example from before is that my ex was very flirty in his conversations with his secondary, and he never flirted with me. I wanted to be flirted with! I didn't want to feel like "I see you all the time, so I don't have to do that work to woo you." I couldn't figure out how to FIX it, how to get him to be flirty with me too, so I felt like it was my fault that I couldn't make my ex engage in that behavior with me. I have better meds now and I'm really hoping I can manage that. I've been really burned by my last two major relationships - both resulted in marriages then divorces.
J reminds me that he's not my ex, which is quite true - this is a very different relationship, much better. Also, it's made very clear to me that there are elements in my relationship with J that he will probably never have with anyone else because of the way he loves me and is committed to me. I just have to grow to accept that the way we love others will have those sorts of special things as well and that this is not anything I'm doing wrong or him taking me for granted.
One thing that came up during the development of my relationship with J is that we broke the rules of his relationship with his primary and then lied to her about it. In our relationship, when one of us has gone out of bounds (and we have both had our moments of going out of bounds), we've owned up to it immediately and we've been able to have reasonable adult discussions about it.
Also, I think I've just decided to offer to help change linens from now on if I'm with someone who has an SO. Common courtesy & all. I wished the sheets had been changed before I got home Saturday. All the covers were off the bed, but I think that was just from the play.
I don't want to be an impediment or a worrywart or uptight or intimidated or intimidating. I just want this to be easy. I don't want to fuck things up for him/them though so I can't help worrying I'll do something wrong. I so often do, after all, even when it's not something this important. Sigh.
* My ego gets so fragile when related to matters of me getting off - I like that he embraces using toys and that me getting off is important to him, and I understand that arthritis prevents him from being able to devote the time and energy required to get me off manually, but manual orgasms by hand or tongue or a combination of them are so so much better! Those are my screaming-at-the-top-of-my-lungs writhing orgasms. The others feel like pale imitations much of the time, but better a pale imitation than nothing.
