polyamory

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herdirtylittleheart:

I’m seeing now the things I missed the first time around. 

When I got home Thursday night from coffee with Cub my husband was quiet and half asleep. He asked how it went, I said it was really nice, he said he was going to bed, I said sweet dreams. 

I was worried for a moment, and then I flashed back to the confused and angry scene that followed my first date with Cub more than 3 years ago. “This is progress,” I said to myself, alone in a sleeping house. 

Of course he feels a bit down, it was a difficult step, and he did the right thing, he didn’t take it out on me or say anything he couldn’t take back, he took the space he needed. 

And I did the right thing too; I let him go.

In the past I would have followed him, crawled into bed with him and asked if he wanted to talk, fretted and pushed him because I needed reassurance that he still loved me even though he was upset. This time I recognized what he was really saying “It’s too tender, I need some time.”

I didn’t allow myself to feel guilty, I didn’t make myself responsible for his feelings. When I felt those nagging thoughts slinking in I reminded myself he has asked for very challenging things too, and I have given them to him. Every time. This is our arrangement. 

The next morning he was sweet and chipper, already looking forward to our movie night plans and snuggling my bum on the couch. 

When he finally asked me, later that night, for more details about my date I could tell he was in good space. He asked some fair questions, he listened with an open heart. I was grateful that I hadn’t pushed him, that I had trusted him to come to me when he was ready. 

He pulled me close and wrapped his arms around me in a tight squeeze. “Now that the tough stuff is out of the way I guess I should tell you about the dream I had last night…” He whispered in my ear that he woke up hard after dreaming that he and Cub had tied me up together and were teasing me. I blushed and hid my face. He pinned me against the mattress, biting and kissing the back of my neck, he made me admit that I missed Cub’s tongue before he would fuck me. 

Saturday night Cub took us out to a concert, the three of us ended up back at our place afterwards, drinking and smoking and laughing. There was no reason to push things further, everything will happen in it’s own time. I was just happy to have us sitting at the same table with smiles on our faces. 

Heart photo by seyed mostafa zamani on Flickr.
Text by Heart

I needed to read this today.

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You cannot love two people the exact same way. You love them for who they are, what they mean to you, and the special parts they bring out of you. You love them for their unique ways they challenge you to change and grow. Love is experienced differently every time it enters your life.

Boleyn (via myboleyn)
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herdirtylittleheart:

“I wish you were mine.”

Boys always say it wistfully but it makes my blood run cold. 

It tells me he doesn’t get it, it tells me he sees me as property, a prize to be won, a collectors item, an achievement. 

It tells me he doesn’t understand; I’m not a belonging.

“I’m mine,” I respond. 

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herdirtylittleheart:

1 (of 4)

For a few years now I’ve been vague when writing about the intimate details of my poly-arrangement with my husband. I make references to the details, allude to the underlying struggle, but I’ve stopped telling the story as it unfolded. I’ve been hiding behind quotes and vague reflections. 

In an effort to be more transparent I am going to write a few posts that summarize the steps and mis-steps that have gotten us to where we are right now.

I’ve readily shared the sexy stories, but I’ve been reluctant to share the challenges, partly because it’s been so intensely personal, but partly because in the thick of things it was hard to understand what direction we were headed in, where this would lead us.

Now that I feel like we’re coming out of the woods, and can suddenly see the forest and the trees, I’m feeling pretty fucking triumphant and I want to share that with you. 

For those of you who are new-ish around here; my husband and I have been together for 15 years (whaaaaaaaat? I know. As teens we were best friends who liked to fool around when nobody was looking. Actually, we still kinda are.) and have never been comfortable with compulsory monogamy. It never suited us. It never felt right.

Our non-monogamous arrangement has changed and evolved over time, our needs and desires have changed as we’ve grown and discovered new things about ourselves and our sexuality. We have always made a commitment to adjust and work together to make our own rules, rules that suited us and allowed us to grow as individuals, but stay connected as partners.

It’s varied over the years; It started when we were 19 with a few wild nights and casual threesomes with girls, and agreeing we could each flirt with and kiss whoever we liked as long as we were honest about it. We stumbled into a 3 person relationship with a girlfriend we shared, it was exciting and brave and crazy all at once. We spent a few years so overwhelmed with school and new jobs that we were monogamous by default because we hardly had enough time for each other, much less new partners. When we jumped back in we decided to start looking for a couple to play with, and after a few hilarious-in-retrospect experiences we found an incredible couple who became our boyfriend and girlfriend. We were in an unconventional and loving relationship with them for a few years, until a job opportunity moved them to the other side of the country.

Since then we have been looking for different things, which has led us on a lot of great adventures as we test new waters together and try new things. It also led us to try dating individually, outside of our marriage. After 6 months of roller-coaster efforts, we made the decision to return to our previous rules; we only play together. 

We pulled the plug on that experiment 2 years ago for a number of reasons:

  • We weren’t on the same page; I was interested in finding a secondary partner. I was armed with a ton of resources about ethical non-monogamy and a fantastic support system of like-minded individuals (hey what’s up tumblr!) here on my blog. He just kinda wanted to fuck this straight girl he was flirting with.
  • I found a partner immediately who I really connected with, which was hard for my husband. When we shared partners I was usually more connected and he was usually more casual, but he was always involved. Watching me become intimate with someone outside of our relationships wasn’t easy. We were novice level players entering the game at Expert Level Challenge.
  • We were stuck on this notion that things needed to be “fair”, it hadn’t occurred to us yet that because we wanted different things there was no such thing as “equal”. 
  • We were just starting to untangle some issues of co-dependency through relationship counselling. We were very young when we blended our lives and a lot of unhealthy patterns went unchecked for years. Learning to each be responsible for our own feelings took a lot of hard work on both of our parts. He needed to learn how to be accountable for his feelings and not default to anger, and I needed to learn how to stop rescuing him from that process. I needed time to get clear on the difference between my issues, his issues, and our issues together as a couple. Our poly-agony was clouding this work.
  • A few other small but mighty responsibilities in our personal lives that left us with not nearly enough time for ourselves. 

We knew that we had to focus on building a strong foundation for this kind of relationship before we could withstand the extra pressure. I wish someone had assured us both we didn’t have to get it right on the first try. 

Art: Water Heart (by Dragan*)

Thanks do much for sharing this, heart.