Poly: Year One Analysis Part Two

I've already posted a retrospective of our first year experience.  Here I will discuss what I learned from what we did right.

We Approached It With Enthusiasm for Ourselves and Each Other
Truly, we had the best intentions for each other from the beginning.  I didn't want him held back from life experiences because of me.  We both wanted freedom and each other.  We both wanted to make sure the other one was comfortable with things before moving forward.  We were excited, maybe a little too excited, by the new possibilities that lay before us.  We had fun discussing things before we ventured forth.  The sex we had was always great, but the new level of openness between us allowed a new excitement and new experiences between each other.

Telling Our Friends and Some Family Created a Support Network
We weren't alone.  Having our closest friends and select family members in on the secret meant we could go to them when we needed to air things.  I love sharing stories.  If I had to keep all the NRE to myself at the beginning of things between me and NMB, I would have exploded!  At least sharing it with my friends kept my poor husband from bearing the full load of things.  When things went sour, people who knew about the open relationship also knew that we had gotten good experiences out of it. I could discuss the problems we were having without having to disclose the open relationship and having people immediately blame everything on poly.  "No, wait!  It's really what we both want, it's just gotten away from us!"

We Started With Rules, But We Renegotiated Many of Them Quickly and Easily
We started out discussing things like "No sex with others in our bed" and "No anal sex with others".  When these things became impractical, we renegotiated quickly and easily.  We kept communication open instead of holding fast to our rules.  Rules are a sensitive subject and one of those things experienced poly folk often criticize new poly folk for, but this is one area where we handled things the right way, I think.  Rules can be a tool to create comfort and build trust in the lifestyle.  Poly Man Whore had a post a while back stating that rules were proof that you didn't trust your partner.  Maybe so, but it also takes time to build trust in the poly lifestyle and learn the skills to make it work.  Rules can help protect you while you get there if you don't cling to them too desperately.

Initially, Our Communication Improved
As I previously touched on, we were all about sharing in the beginning.  We talked about a lot of what-ifs.  We shared sexual fantasies that we hadn't been completely open about.  We had always been fairly open about who we found attractive, but now we could be really honest without fear of hurting each other's feelings.  I could say to my husband, "I'd like to fuck that guy."  I'm ashamed to admit that I used to have some jealousy issues with him looking at porn.  Not that I had ever told him he couldn't, but it was something I didn't like to think about due to insecurity on my part.  This was quickly resolved when we started exploring being open.  A year later, we watch porn together and I'm mostly unfazed when he sleeps with someone new.  I found my compersion and I want him to have good experiences.

Meeting the Local Poly Group
This was one of the first things I did before we actually opened.  I looked up locals in nearby Big City and I went to a small social event at someone's house.  Meeting some people in the real world that make this happen gave me the confidence to move forward and give it all a try.  Without having had that experience, I would have been much slower to make moves.  After getting a good sample size of poly people who were nerdy, intelligent, interesting, well-educated, grounded and stable, I started to feel like it was possible to make it work in a way that I could live with.  (Side note: I'm glad I found the one poly group that I did first.  I went to one meeting of another group and the best way I can describe it is that it felt "cultish".  I may have walked away with a different opinion.  That group and it's vibe might work for other people, but it did not work for me.)

The Internet Was a Fantastic Resource
I read a lot.  When I was having a particularly difficult time with jealousy in the beginning, I did some Google searching and found More Than Two.  I can't recommend it enough as a free and comprehensive resource.  It's full of helpful tools.  The Internet lead me to the aforementioned local poly group.  The Internet gave us OkCupid and my boyfriend.  I continue to listen to the Savage Lovecast and learn more about other people's monogomish lifestyles.  I posted on r/polyamory when things got bad and reached out for the support of experienced poly people who like to write about it.  I used it to find the local poly group.  The books we read, The Ethical Slut and Opening Up were great, but the Internet gave us a searchable limitless database of other's experiences and lessons-learned.  Many people have noted that widespread access to the Internet has likely contributed to the growth of polyamory.  If I had not been exposed to the idea, I never would have come to it on my own.

Poly: Year One Analysis

These are some things I've learned over the last year.  They might not apply to everyone, but they are things that caught us by surprise.  Think of this as a list of where we went wrong and what I learned.

Unrealistic Expectations
When we were monogamous, we fell into this trap of believing that our commitment to each other was the only thing holding us back from relationships with others.  My husband had his crushes.  I had feelings toward male friends that I just knew would be reciprocated if things were different.  I had it in my head that me and my choice to be married was the only thing keeping me from exploring other relationships and my sexuality.  This was a silly fallacy that was quickly disproven.  My husband was shot down by crush after crush.  I was gently let down by my friend.  We had to remember that there are other factors outside of our relationship that we cannot control and that, as obvious as it should have been, there was not an army of potential lovers just waiting for permission to fuck us or love us.  Surely every new open couple goes into this with some level of unrealistic expectations, at least the ones that, like us, have been in a monogamous microcosm with strict guards against the outside world and a stunted emotional maturity when it comes to dating.  We had a lot to learn and one of them was the following bullet point.


Preparation for Outside Influences
Opening your relationship means more than sex and acceptance of emotions for others, it means opening yourself up to rejection.  Your relationship may be damaged by the unpredictable actions of others.  We were unprepared to weather this storm.  For my poly experiences, my emotions were not very negatively affected.  I have had mostly positive experiences.  My husband, however, has experienced a fair amount of rejection and one devastating break up that eventually resolved into a not-dramatic FWB relationship.  Again, being in a monogamous microcosm of two, you forget that other people can have a devastating effect on your confidence.  Just being emotionally available puts you at risk for rejection and you will get rejected in some form or another.  Other people are wildcards and they may turn out to be well adjusted, kind and not-crazy.  They may also turn out to be uncontrollable forces of destruction and ping about your life causing damage you never knew you were vulnerable to. Sometimes you can pick these people out right away and avoid a lot of drama.  If your partner lets them in, you have to weather the storm and be there for the one you love.  You also have to accept that you can't fix everything for your partner when something goes wrong.  This is going to sound really depressing, but your love might not be enough any more.  Or, as my boyfriend approximately said on this subject, it can be hard to accept that you are no longer the emotional center of your partner's life.

Coping with the Initial Excitement
We are warned about the potential consequences of NRE.  We are not necessarily warned about the NPE: New Poly Energy.  We both went a little crazy with our new freedom and excitement over a new lifestyle.  We told a lot of people.  We didn't always tell them the right way.  We told a lot of coworkers and we were lucky that this didn't backfire.

Becoming poly opened up the world for me in a new way, but I moved faster than my skills developed.  I felt like a teenager again and, at times, acted like one.  I made selfish moves.  I got swept up in the excitement of a new venture.  I was overconfident in some ways, and especially vulnerable in others.  I was emotionally immature and I've learned a lot about myself, other people, relationships (new and old) and dating.

Outside Sharing
This is an issue specific to our relationship.  I'm an open book.  I'm probably too open at times, as evidenced by this blog.  I'm certain that behind my back, I have been described as an over-sharer.  My husband keeps his cards close to his chest.  Busting open our Monogamous Microcosm (I'm coining that.  It's a phrase now.  I capitalized it, see?) made us feel vulnerable to outside criticism in a way that we hadn't dealt with before.  We both felt a certain amount of pressure to be a part of a fringe community that is critical of newcomers.  Yes, you are, Poly Community.  There's a lot of criticism of new poly people and how we handle things out there in the blog-o-sphere and the literature.  There's a lot of "you're doing it wrong" and we didn't want to be labeled as volatile new people and risky dates.  This is still a thing we're working on.  In fact, as I typed this paragraph, he walked in the door, noticed I was blogging and commented that he prefers to pretend this blog doesn't exist.

On the Subject of the Poly Community...
Additional note about the "your doing it wrong" vibe often directed at new poly people:  If you are a new poly person reading this, screw that.  Do what is right for your relationship.  I made some definite mistakes because I felt like I had to strive for this ideal put forth in poly circles.  That's crazy.  As my favorite nursing instructor used to say, "There are many roads to China."  Find one that works for you, don't feel pressured to follow the one that everyone says is right.  If something is making your partner uncomfortable, pull back and focus on that until they are comfortable again.  If you need a hierarchy to organize your relationships and make them function, then use a hierarchy.  If you need rules to feel safe, then use rules, just don't use rules to shut down communication.  If your partner tells you they need something and the new-poly-pressure tells you they shouldn't need that...  what the hell are you doing?  Give your partner what they need.  Don't get sucked into this idea that people are poly or they aren't.  Do what needs to be done to make it work for you.  I was skeptical of new-poly criticisms in the beginning and I still allowed for their influence to sneak into my psyche and I made mistakes that hurt my partner.  Don't get caught up in the idealism.  Find what works for you.  And it's okay to admit that things aren't perfect.  Guess what?  All relationships have problems.  Poly or not.  This is okay.

All this said, the individuals that I've met in my local poly community do not inflict this kind of pressured idealism.  This is more of a general feel on the Internet that we both became sensitive to.  In fact, the people I've spent time with in the local community have been nothing but warm and welcoming and supportive.  However, that's something I think we can all do a little better with.

Handling Jealousy: Your Mileage May Vary
Jealousy and insecurity are big ugly monsters when you are new to this lifestyle.  They are usually easily banished from the Monogamous Microcosm by following a few simple rules.  When you open your defenses and let them in, you have to cope.  We assumed that I would be the one to have a more difficult time with jealousy as I was the one of the two of us that had jealous upsets in the realm of monogamy.  My husband never felt jealous, but perhaps this is because he was never challenged to feel jealous.  Both of us were completely emotionally unprepared for how destructive this would be for us.  Poly literature acknowledges this difficulty, and gives you tools to deal with it, but nothing can really prepare you to be open to a new and terrifying emotion you probably haven't felt for years, if you've ever felt it at all.  From my first nuclear meltdown, I realized I could not predict how I would react.  Not only was I dealing with jealousy when my husband was sleeping with others, I had so quickly gotten involved in another relationship, I was also dealing with jealousy and insecurity in the new relationship.  This was new territory and it took time to navigate.  For the most part, my experiences with jealousy have become less intense over time.  I still have a weird little hang up about new sexual partners of my partners that I haven't completely unpacked, but as my security has grown and I've experienced this over and over, my negative responses have become easier to cope with.

Another important lesson that I've mentioned in a previous post is that jealousy cannot be banished with compersion.  You can feel compersion and jealousy at the the same time.  Compersion does become stronger as jealousy fades, but the two emotions can coexist.  You can feel happy for your partner and still hurt and feel insecure.  Don't expect to handle jealousy by making yourself feel more compersive.  It didn't work for me.

Know Your Resources
Know your resources.  Things are likely to get tough at times, as they will be in any relationship.  Don't wait for them to get bad.  Seek out your resources for emotional help.  Know your friends that will be accepting.  Know how you can obtain counseling and don't be afraid to use it.  We could have saved ourselves a lot of fighting and broken household objects if we had sought out counseling sooner.  We happen to have a limited number of free sessions available through our employers.  So far, counseling has cost us nothing monetarily.  If you have a similar program available to you, be aware of it and don't be afraid to use it.  If your family is a source of strength in your life, use them when you need to.  As I mentioned in my previous post, my dad's myriad of bad relationships lead to him giving me solid advice to fix mine.

Be Honest About the Flaws in Your Relationship
We started out thinking we were so very awesome.  I mean, we had a great marriage.  We talked things out, we rarely fought and when we did we worked it out.  We enjoy spending time together.  When I think back to our wedding, I get nothing but happy feelings.  When I look at the pictures of our wedding, I see how much we love each other and how excited we were to show that to the world.  We knew we could do this.  We could weather any storm.  We had easily survived things that makes other couples crumble.  We went into it with the right attitude, we wanted the other to have a richer and fuller life and the freedom to explore other people, emotionally and physically.

Instead of patting ourselves on the back for how awesome we were, we should have sat down and seriously analyzed what wasn't perfect about our marriage.  Becoming poly opened up a whole new emotional minefield that blew up some hidden and ugly truths that we were unprepared to deal with.  I didn't exactly realize this until we started seeing the marriage counselor.  We were happy, but we were not the epitome of perfect marriage and conflict resolution that we thought we were.  It turns out that our Monogamous Microcosm was protecting us from a lot of emotional work that we needed to be successfully poly.  Going forward, I will be more aware of this and focus on fixing things inside first.

This Message Makes Me Want to Commit Immature and Hurtful Acts

I have previously mentioned Gathering, my former friend of 10 years who divorced us when he couldn't wrap his head around poly.  Not only could he not wrap his head around it, but he took it as a great moral insult to himself and the institution of marriage.  When I casually dated Hulk, a mutual friend, a few times, he decided that he could no longer be our friend.  Well, my friend anyway.  He's never really stopped talking to Hulk.  I guess his behavior is forgivable.  I'm a foul temptress who attempted to seduce him.  He's the hapless man following his penis.  Grrr...

I recently attempted to reconnect with Gathering.  I know he's had some life changes including getting his own place for the first time.  I messaged him and offered some kitchen items that I was no longer needing.  He replied kindly.  I replied and suggested that we be friends again.  Holy shit that was apparently the wrong thing to do.  I got back a long long message detailing why he can't do that. 

Essentially, he states that he cannot be our friend.  He wouldn't go out of his way to avoid us if he saw us somewhere.  In fact, he knows that he is likely to run into us at a local gaming con next month.  Those encounters will have to be dealt with, but he cannot be our friend.  What follows is the meat of the message which reveals that apparently he had issues with our friendship before poly was a twinkle in our eyes. 

I cannot at this time find it in myself to go back to how things were. Everything is still too fresh and hurting. It is not only the issues I have (which we have went into ad nauseum) it is also a series of awkward and upsetting times I have seen you or Hubby over this year. They have made me too upset, too hurt, and reached meltdown point multiple times. And I cannot deal with a pursuit of another such scenario. I apologize for the melodrama, but I have spent too many days, nights, and weekends being so upset over our friendship that it isn't healthy for me to go forward and give it another shot. All of those things still happened. I still felt sick to my stomach due to our interactions, I still stressed myself out to point of breakdown over all of it, and I still got so upset that I completely lost it. I have had enough big changes in my life recently that I don't need to do anything hasty nor potentially self-damaging, and I'm afraid that our friendship (you, me, and Hubby) has become a damaging affair over this past year or so.

The fact that our friendship was causing him emotional turmoil long before poly broke it, is enlightening.  How the hell could I have fixed that?  There were numerous occasions where Gathering was obviously faking an illness and excused himself from our social affairs, but I had no idea that his anxiety was directed towards Hubby and I specifically and I have no idea why.  Still don't and I probably never will.  How can I, if he won't tell me?

He goes on to tell me that he knows it's hypocritical for him to continue to talk to Hulk.

I should also state now for sheer sake of information and sharing that I have talked to Hulk some recently over text, dealing almost exclusively in Magic the Gathering along with a little chit chat. Now while it could very understandably be seen as hypocritical of me that I am giving that friendship another try, and I don’t blame you if you do as there is some hypocrisy, it also stands that there has only been one awkward and weird situation with him, while there were many others with the two of you. It also helps that when I will see him this Friday night, it will be at a tournament. If things end up awkward there are another 20 – 40 people to talk to, XXXX will also be there, which always helps, and we can always default talk about Magic instead of anything serious. I just wanted to disclose that now. I really don’t wish to argue, I don’t wish to add emotional turmoil in your life, especially now that you are pregnant. I just had to let it be said, there is a double standard there, and even still it may fail amazingly so.

Wow.  These are some serious social anxiety issues we are talking about.  Yes.  This is hypocrisy for sure.  I also don't think it's fair to count up the awkward and weird situations with me and Hubby when we were not aware of them.  How many were there?  How many of Gathering's stomachaches were real and how many were because we made him feel weird and awkward?  Who knows?  Only him, I suppose.  Which makes this friendship and it's loss totally out of my control.

I had also hoped many times that interactions with you and Hubby would get better each time and they failed, even after very good, healthy and fun conversations through text or Facebook. So it will be the litmus test on Friday. Anyways I have rambled on WAY to much about this aside…

Whoa.  Hard to change my behavior to save a friendship when I didn't even know that I was doing something hurtful.  This is both the most hurtful part of the message, but also the most vindicating.  He was expecting things to get better by not talking about them and was disappointed when nothing changed when he never aired his feelings.  This friendship was doomed.  There was nothing I could do.  Choosing to become poly had little to do with it ending. 

What he doesn't know about this upcoming con, is that it's not only likely that Hubby and I will be there, but also that my boyfriend and his family will be there.  Right now, in my hurt and hormonal little brain, the thought of making out with NMB where Gathering can see is a very satisfying, but a very immature and inappropriate response.  I'm sure I'll be over it by then.  That said, this con is somewhere that we can potentially be more public with our affections and I don't intend to hold back to spare the feelings of someone who no longer wishes to have me in his life.  It's not like he'll say anything, anyway.  (Ouch)

That said, last year at this gaming con, Gathering was totally in his element. We borrowed games, learned them quickly and played.  He was our master of ceremonies, our leader of the gaming table.  We had much fun that afternoon.  I miss his company, truly, but he no longer sees me as an acceptable friend and I don't even know for sure why.  Therefore, I must move on.