Lovingradiance.com Blog The Way Our Polyamorous Family Lives

When I first heard the word Polyamorous I was talking on a random online forum. The word intriqued me and I started researching it. I found quite a bit of information. I also found www.polyamory.com .

I started posting almost immediately, asking questions, answering other people’s questions and making online friends. I was so thrilled to have found OTHER people like me! Staggering thought for  me, I wasn’t a complete anomoly. There were in fact other people struggling through life with the same emotional needs as I have! How relieving.

More recently I’ve found myself struggling with a desire to talk to specified people more often-and spend less time digressing into debates that border quite often on the brink of hostile arguments. This seems to eat up my emotional strength. I long for more positive experiences, talking about how to make things work instead of focusing on all of the little things that are going wrong.

I wonder if this is selfish? I force myself to log in, to welcome new posters and to reply to sincere posts of fear, concern, pleas for help as well as posts expressing thanks for the help already recieved.

But I keep encountering so much negativity that I feel less and less inclined to actually talk about anything pertinent to my life-as it seems too much effort to dredge through the b.s. to get to the pertinent replies…

Today was one of those days.

On a side note I got to talk to a long-distance friend (online haven’t met YET) on the phone two days in a row which was TOTALLY COOL. That made me very happy. I can’t wait to meet her in person, give her a big hug and a sincere face-to-face thank you for all of her kindness, support, great suggestions and just general friendliness!!!

I also read a post (by her boyfriend actually). The last line was so touching I wanted to repeat it here,

"...being given the opportunity to communicate with her

as a Lover is an honor and gift; a privelege,

not a right, not her obligation. It is precious"

I love that, I hope my men feel that way for me!!

We’ve been working a lot around here on digging deeper into our true selves, finding our weaknesses, finding our faults, finding our TRUEST needs and desires as well in the hopes that we can create a more REAL relationship between each of us. Today was a breakthrough. As frustrating as the process can be we’ve kept at it.

Today GG finally released some of his biggest fears and expressed them to me. Now he has to do the next really hard step and share them with Maca. That won’t be easy for him, it took 5+ hours to get to the TRUTH behind his “public facade” with me, and without being cocky-I daresay he trusts me more than anyone. But for our family to bond the way we want it to-this step with GG and Maca is a very deeply important step. Nothing more can be done between us until they can be TRUE with one another.

I find myself nervous, frightened even that GG will bail. That somehow he will decide he can’t do it, can’t bring himself to believe in himself enough to share himself honestly and openly with Maca. If that happens, ultimately it will mean the demise of our family….. that’s a lot of pressure.

Having brought myself to tell Maca that I needed his acceptance of my love for GG in order to stay married…

Having seen Maca face his childhood pains and sorrows, abuses and neglects in order to deal with his emotional issues so that he could find that place of security where he COULD give me his acceptance….

I am suddenly sick to my stomach knowing i have to wait at least 2 days to see if GG will do for this family what we’ve each done already… (grimace). He’s working late tonight-so he won’t see Maca until at least late tomorrow night. That will be a long, emotional wait for me. One of his defense mechanisms is to procrastinate until it’s too late for something, so if it doesn’t happen tomorrow night-my fear is-that it won’t happen.

On a happy note, Maca and I have been continuing to talk about our thoughts/feelings/beliefs/desires and finding more and more that we actually agree, even where we thought we were at odds. That’s a wonderful feeling and exciting too.

Spicy Pea passed her CNA state certification test! Very proud of her for working so hard on that. Can’t say it EVER occurred to me that she would do anything in the medical/science/human services career path, but she’s kicking butt and I’m very impressed.

Sweet Pea had testing today and did great. He came home in a very good mood. I personally am looking forward to celebrating his 10th bday. He’s amazing.

I walked 4.5 miles again this Saturday-in 1 hour 14 minutes and 40 seconds. Then on Monday I walked on the treadmill 2.09 miles in 30 minutes. VERY happy with that. Going to try to walk again tomorrow!!

Today I got my butt up and walked on the treadmill. It should be noted, I HATE the treadmill. HATE it. I enjoy walking outside, but the treadmill SUCKS.

At any rate I did it. It was moderately depressing. I managed 1 mile in 14 minutes 48 seconds. That with 2 minutes of jogging.   It’s sad considering how hard I worked to get to jogging 1 mile in 11 minutes 47 seconds before the surgery. Feels like I am running backwards. After I finished the treadmill I did a LIGHT weight workout (5lb limit still) on my arms. They definitely need a LOT of work. but it felt good to lift the weights, feel the muscles engaged again. Did the weights last night, going to do them again tomorrow. Only small steps for now.  

I know in my mind it’s only a temporary  setback. I’m not REALLY going backwards, just had to stop, back up a bit and start over to get around a log in the road so to speak. But it still hurts somewhere in my heart.

Tomorrow I will do my 4.5 miles around the “block” with Maca. I was doing that (just walking) in an hour and a half easy-if I pushed it, in an hour and fifteen minutes. So my goal for tomorrow is to do 1 hour 15 minutes. Hopefully it’s not too cold. It warmed up today, 34 degrees. If we can get similar tomorrow it will be comfortable, instead of FREEZING like last time!

GG and I talked a bit this week. It’s been rough. It’s hard to explain that you don’t want someone to change WHO THEY ARE, but there is something about them that needs to change.

I finally decided the word is mature. I need him to mature in his self-discipline, self-motivation and to improve at thinking things all the way through-before he talks or acts on the thoughts. Of course he needs him to do this too-he just didn’t realize it was even POSSIBLE. Too caught up in feeling like he just wasn’t good at these things and there wasn’t any point in trying.

He tends to say whatever is on his mind. While this is convenient in that it’s really hard for him to lie-it’s a ROYAL pain in the butt when he says things that he wouldn’t MEAN if he knew what the words that just slopped out of his mouth MEANT. That can be painful. Also-when he reacts to something on faulty assumptions, because he didn’t take time to figure out what was true.

This came up in regards to the D/s. He freaked out thinking that what I wanted was him to “give orders”, “punish” me and generally treat me like crap. Ironically, that wasn’t it at all AND he’s known me long enough, and deeply enough to know  better. 

When he finally calmed down, sat down with Maca and went over my “negotiation list” for him, he felt a bit… silly probably is a good word. Because there wasn’t anything on there that hasn’t existed in our relationship in some manner or another already.
The biggest difference FOR ME was establishing my NEED for it and establishing that it was his PLACE to be able to freely do/give these things for/to me. But in the meantime, his freaking out-hurt me.

His freaking out  made it quite clear that somewhere in that heart of his-he doesn’t trust me. He says he doesn’t trust himself. I can’t argue-but it still hurts. We talked about how that not trusting himself isn’t healthy either and needs to be dealt with. How it relates to the other issues and how he can get help with that, deal with it, stop letting his childhood nightmares in school continue to control his life and hurt him-and the rest of us.

In the midst of this (I know a lot of drama), my 18 year old informed me that she wants a one-way plane ticket to Oklahoma for graduation. She’s never been there in her life-hell she’s never LIVED anywhere but here before-and here is pretty damn sheltered and remote.

That’s 4120 miles away. Fucking long ways and this mom’s got doubts if her arms are long enough.. if something goes wrong (and they always do) that’s a long way to try to pick your baby up, wipe off the dirt and kiss them better…..

Don’t get me wrong-these are my emotions, and no I didn’t freak out on her. I know she’s gotta “jump out of the nest”. I think she’s pretty well prepared, but she’ll always be my baby-and this is a new thing to deal with. I feel unprepared, even though I’ve always been letting her go-from the day she came and I’ve always done well with it. It sounds scary anyway. Almost wish she told me in May-instead of now. OF course it was more RESPONSIBLE for her to say something now, but that leaves me with 3 1/2 months to consider the possibilities!

Maca is trying to patiently wait GG and I out while we deal with our shit, and now he’s got an emotional mom trying to accept REALLY letting her first baby go. Lot to carry on two shoulders.

Thinking about it makes me teary and guilty.

On a good note-I got the artwork for the tattoo I’ve wanted for over a year, and tomorrow I’m going to go talk to the tattoo artist about starting the work. It’s exciting (and yes I’m nervous too). When it’s all done (hopefully) I will have figured out how to get a picture on here, and I’ll post a picture of the work.

Yes-I am old enough to know the song, no we don’t need to recount it here.

I got up and checked my email today. There was a prayer request about the daughter (my age) of one of my mom’s co-workers. She’s going in for emergency brain surgery. I forwarded it out and started working my way through the rest of my emails while  my mind wandered through my own situation and concerns.

I got a reply from one of the people I forwarded the prayer request to, asking to add her close friend whose dad died suddenly last night. I forwarded that out and asked her to let me know when the funeral is-as I know the friend and he lives in the same town as I.

GG found time to talk with me today. It’s been 4 days. I brought up D/s and he didn’t take to the concept well. Actually-he didn’t even know what the concept WAS to me, he just freaked out about what it MIGHT be. That was roughly 2 months ago. He was going to take time to think about it and consider the information I sent him. But after 2 months I brought it up again last week.

He admitted to me that he hadn’t come back to me about it because he “hadn’t thought about it”. I don’t know what word describes how I felt. I can describe my reaction. He was curled up in my arms between my legs (which were wrapped around his waist), I was running my hands over his head (no hair). I just kept doing the same. I didn’t change ANYTHING.

But how I felt was… crushed AGAIN.

It’s not a concept that would make sense to some people. I’m not a simple or easy person. I’ve very complicated, multi-faceted in ways most people are apparently not. I function as a Dom in my life all the damn time. It drives me absolutely fucking nuts. I LONG to be a cared for protected sub. But the choices I made early on in life required me to step up and take responsiblity, in order to minimize the “fallout”. So I did.

I’ve always done what needed to be done. I’ve always done what I saw needed done around me, because that’s what I was taught “you” are supposed to do. It really didn’t occur to me that everyone wasn’t doing the same thing for years. Only recently has it started coming clear to me that damn near no one I know does that. At least not to the extent I do.

I’m not saying I’m a saint or something, hell no. But I have prioritized doing the right thing, over my own personal desires my whole life. What I’m seeing now is that other people don’t generally do that. They might prioritize different things over their needs or wants some of the time, but not most of the time. I don’t know why this matters except it leaves me feeling lonely, lost and out of sync with the rest of the people I know.

In this moment, in this day what it means for me is that I’m hurting. I love GG. I love him more than I have words to describe. But I have no choice right now but to back up some from him. He has some growing up to do in himself.

He’s spent 17 years following me. Many people have said like a puppy dog. That’s all good and well, but it’s time to “be a man” and decide what he wants for his life, and start leading the train so to speak. He needs to figure out what his goals are, what he wants to be and do. Figure out who he wants to be. He doesn’t do that-because I’ve always been there to follow, and he blindly follows me along my path.

Well-I’ve reached a point in my path where I need to “clean out my world”. I’ve noted that there are a lot of people who just follow me around blithely letting me take charge and set the pace for life. But what I need in my life is partners who can take turns being in the lead so I can take some time to work on my own stuff (like going back to school and training for the ironman). I need to stop being “the leader of the pack”.

I don’t know yet if GG is willing to be a true partner in this sense. He’s willing to follow me anywhere, but will he choose to grow up, learn how to lead? I just don’t know and my heart is therefore crushed.

Does it change my love? Hell no.

Does it change my plans? No.

Does it change my goals? No.

Does it change what I have to do? No.

Does it change the family dynamic? No.

But it does change how I function in the dynamic, because somehow I have to give  my own heart a safe sanctuary to break in. Because even if he does decide to do the work to learn how to be the kind of partner I need, that takes time and that time is time I can’t be where my heart longs to be with him. So each day it breaks and there is simply no way to assauge the pain. So I have to give my own heart a safe place to crawl away into and suffer silently.

Functionally that means, less talking, less romance, less making love. Because my broken heart needs to lick its wounds and unfortunately I am aware that their are more wounds coming, because tomorrow when the sun comes back up, the situation will not have changed and my heart will break all over again.