poly problems – Page 2

Hi tumblr.

This is your hostess apologizing for being pretty quiet for the past while. I know I’m behind on 365 photos. I know I’m behind on updating you all about my life.

Facts are, my life has been the most hectic it has ever been, for good and bad reasons. I finished up my Master’s, I have a job in the city where I completed it that I’ll be beginning soon after I return from this trip to be with Sir. Things are crazy and exciting. I’m starting to get situated in my field, and so tumblr has fallen a bit by the wayside.

However, this inactivity has also been for some crummy reasons. Basically, I’ve been putting off writing about two things that are kind of sucky. The first is the relationship Pup and I had with Saltine. The second is a rather rough spot, kind of an ultimate low, with Sir. Both have resolved themselves in different ways: Pup and I are no longer seeing Saltine, Sir and I kind of had to hit rock bottom to rebuild back to what we had.

Neither of these are particularly appealing to write about. The first feels so strange in the sense that I know this thing is over, and it colors all the stories I have to tell you. The second is buried beneath a lot of shame: I hate to admit where I’ve messed up, I hate to portray my relationship with Sir in a negative light.

So bear with me, tumblr. The stories are coming. They’re just going to take a lot out of me.

<3,

Ivy

passivites:

Ed Hodgkinson

Gearing up for the last, longest leg of my trip to see Sir.

This has always been one of my poly feelings songs – “How do I know I can come and give to you/love with no warning and find you alone?” – and it feels all the more appropriate and applicable for what’s ahead of me.

Facts are that I haven’t seen Sir in four months now. We’ve been contending with time zones, with both being extremely busy, with other relationships and obligations. And for as sure as I am that this is just the anxiety that comes with hopping on a plane to fly around the world and see someone, with all the expectation and stakes involved, it’s hard not to worry of all that could go wrong.

That lyric’s always stuck with me because it’s impossible: there’s absolutely no way to know. There’s absolutely no guarantee, and it’s as unreasonable as most of the great love proclamations people say so readily they’ve lost their absurdity under idiom – never let me go, don’t ever leave my side, etc. And so I know arriving will probably be a little awkward, things may not go as seamlessly at first as you want to expect.

But I know I love the crap out of this person. Despite being exhausted and having a massive flight still ahead of me, I’m excited to see him.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Poly problems, brought to you by SG and I.

mysharona1987:

This teen dystopia spoof account continues to be amazing.

Me.

Unfortunately, I’ve got family coming for the next five days (why?) and so napping will be sporadic slash probably not a thing. And it sucks because it’s the side of the family I like less and that requires a fuckton more work.

Even more unfortunately, it’s the side of the family that isn’t poly-aware, so I can’t hang out with Pup at all now that I actually have free time.

Send help.

The fact is that while I’m mostly comfortable posting about the times I’ve been fucked over or been wronged by partners on here – after all, this blog is mostly an exercise in catharsis and processing – I struggle when it comes to admitting the times I’ve messed up.

I realized that I skipped it in proper order, though I’m not sure if it was conscious. I knew it was either before I went to see Sir for Thanksgiving or before the holidays. Part of it may have just been that it was a long time ago, part of it that I’m a little ashamed and anxious to put this here.

So, before Thanksgiving I was hanging out with Pup in his bed. It was a lazy weekend morning, and the sun was pouring in softly through the window. We were naked. Pup rolled me onto my stomach and climbed on top of me. He started teasing his cock over my slit.

In early October, I started the pill. In late October, Pup and I started having sex. Before that, Sir and I used condoms and so, when Pup and I started having sex, so did we. I’d never been on any other birth control before, and so I had never had vaginal sex without a condom.

So Pup was teasing me by pushing his cock between my legs and running it along my slit. I was really aroused, I could feel myself practically dripping onto him, could feel his thrusts become more liquid and easy.

“Do you want it?” he asked. “Just a little bit?”

I buried my face in the pillow. There’s a version of me that very clearly said that this was highly irresponsible and not something I had talked out with Sir, had even done with Sir. And I wish I could say that was how this went. But I got carried away. “Yeah,” I said, “I want it.”

It felt so good it took more longer than I’m proud to admit to ask him to stop. There was a point where I realized what I was doing and how I was wrong, a point remembering getting in an argument with Sir last spring where I said getting carried away wasn’t a real excuse. I didn’t tell him to stop right when I realized how damaging this was. But, eventually, I did.

We talked about it. We said the same things I’d once written off as bullshit. We got carried away. It felt too good to stop. We weren’t thinking.

I dreaded calling Sir. After all, I’d gotten so furious with him when he had come to me to admit to something similar. But I did. I thought that was just going to end it. And while he was upset, we talked about it. He forgave me just about right away, and we had a long conversation about both incidents. Our slip-ups, if you will, his and mine. Though I’m not proud of what I did, I’m proud to have a partner who was understanding and another who knew why what we did wasn’t okay and felt genuine remorse.

I’ve been scared to post this, but I feel part of good non-monogamy is accountability. So I’m being accountable here. I slipped up. He and I had negotiated condom use when it came to Pup, and I overstepped that. Luckily, some good came out of it in that we had this talk. But it’s also maybe important to know that people do fuck up, and a lot of a successful relationship like this isn’t just abiding by the rules (though you should do that, yo), but how you handle the fuck ups when they happen.

Me.

pulseonporn:

Now this is our kind of entertainment.

That thing where you genuinely don’t know who in the picture you want to be.

The other day I was hanging around with Pup when I got onto the subject of how okcupid has infinitely slim pickings where we are “It’s about 98% gross dudes,” I explained, “and then girls who aren’t interested in all my crap.” That crap being kink and poly.

I pulled up my account to demonstrate, when he pointed out a very cute girl with a high match percentage. “What about her?” he asked.

“Well, that’s new,” I said. “She’s probably not into poly girls or girls who aren’t just gay or into kink.” We opened her profile. She was. “Well, I’m not messaging her,” I said. “I’m shy.”

Pup patted my knee. “You’re going to message her right now.”

I kept insisting there would be some osort of a catch and went through another page of her questions. Eventually, Pup lost patience and said, “you’re messaging her in the next five seconds or I’m giving you a beating.”

I huffed. “Maybe I want a beating.”

“You’re getting a beating either way,” he said. “It’s up to you whether it’s one you enjoy or one that doesn’t stop until you start crying.”

I ended up sending her one of the most awkward, shy, stilted little messages. I even admitted in the message that it was awkward, shy and stilted. But, she responded really warmly and we exchanged phone numbers. Now, we’re getting coffee today.

Eek.

I wish I could say my trip to see Sir over Thanksgiving was start-to-finish splendid. At the beginning, the whole thing was a little strained. I arrived the night before Thanksgiving in a terribly delayed flight, and then the next afternoon we had to go our separate ways to see our respective families. I got home at about seven, he didn’t get home until much later and I was too tired to do much of anything.

We watched a movie and he made drinks, so I was then way too tired and tipsy to do anything in our dynamic or have sex. And though I wasn’t trying to then, I had been generally evasive about our dynamic since I had arrived, and Sir had clearly picked up on it. Lying in bed, we proceeded to have an argument about how there was something off, we weren’t falling into whatever natural thing we usually did, I was resisting something.

“It’s just that…” I stammered out, and I felt myself start to cry. “So, like, I feel like I’m developing feelings for Pup beyond like sort of just being like fuckbuddies or occasional play partners and so I feel like I’ve been carrying this around since I went on that trip and that I haven’t been able to tell you because I didn’t want you to feel like I was just trying to sub him out for you because that isn’t it.”

It’s weird how – in a relationship complicit in allowing us to date other people – I was ashamed to admit I actually liked those people. I felt like I had somehow betrayed him by letting myself actually care about Pup, and so I was tip-toeing around everything to avoid it.

"I told you to be careful,” Sir said, I realized he misunderstood. “This is what happens when you get vulnerable with people, you have to be careful.”

“No, stupid, he likes me back. I think.” I proceeded to explain the conversations Pup and I had been having. The fact that while I was away on that trip, I’d gotten drunk and went to text him saying I missed him, only to find that he had sent me a text like that, and wound up having this awkwardly frank conversation about liking each other. “You’re not mad, right?”

Sir cracked a smile, “so, sweetheart’s got a little crush, huh?”

I felt like something had been exorcised from the room.